gonna do with that, officer?’ My partner looks over at me and says, ‘Ask that moron one more time what he did to the girl. If he tells you a lie, I’m going to hit him with a blast from this radar gun. This radiation ought to put him out of the baby-making business-for good.’”
“What happened? Did he talk?” Willy looked at Gerrit, then over at the MRI machine.
“Man, that guy low-crawled over to me, got down on his knees, covered his crotch, and began spilling his guts. Gave me enough information that I called a female officer to come check the girl for injuries. Sure enough, that piece of garbage had been hitting her in places where he knew we’d never see and couldn’t look without the girl’s cooperation. Before we arrived, he’d warned her that if she let the cops take a peek, he would kill her and then start in on her folks.”
Willy looked back at the MRI. “Getting back to my question…”
Redneck emerged from the plane, heavy steps causing the metal to groan as he lumbered down the stairway. “You guys miss me?” He acted as if it was a family reunion.
Joe came over to where Gerrit and Willy stood, followed by Alena. She gestured toward the MRI machine. “Well, Gerrit, ready to strip down?”
Joe looked at her. “What are you talking about? That machine’s headed for a rural hospital tomorrow.”
Willy and Alena looked at each other and began laughing. Willy pointed toward Gerrit. “He thinks we’re going to strip him naked and run him through the MRI for bugs and chips? I just played along like I was stupid or something.” He wiped a tear from his eye and pulled out a handheld scanner from his backpack. “Here you go. Mr. G. Park yourself over here and let ol’ Willy check you out.”
Joe stared back. He was not laughing. “Look, we picked up traffic that they planned on sending a team to the cabin in Idaho late last night. We passed it on, and Travis and Frank White Eagle caught a couple of them crossing the river early this morning. The others scattered, and the two they caught clammed up. Couldn’t make anything stick. Had to let them go.”
Gerrit looked from his uncle to Alena. “They’re looking for us.”
Joe said, “I think they were looking for you, Gerrit. You contact anyone up there since we left Seattle?”
Shaking his head, Gerrit looked at the others. “What about the rest of you?”
They shook their heads. Alena piped up, “We know better than that.”
“So who tipped them off?”
Joe scratched his chin. “Maybe no one. Maybe they found out about the connection between Travis and me and came snooping to see what they could dig up.”
Gerrit coughed before responding. “What do we do now?”
Silence filled the hangar. Finally Joe stepped forward, placing a hand on Gerrit’s shoulder. “It’s time we stopped running and took the offensive. It is time we attack.”
“Attack?” He stared at his uncle to make sure the man was serious. “What are we going to attack? Better yet, what are we going to use to attack once we have a target? We don’t even have a pea shooter between us.”
Redneck drew closer, chuckling. “Man, you have no idea what kind of weapons we have. When Mr. J gives the word, we can go to war with weapons you only dreamed about.”
“And who’s going to fight this war, R. D.? Willy the computer geek? Alena the book binder? Joe the scientist? And you…what kind of fighting have you done outside of a barroom? No offense, guys, but this is hardly a fighting unit.”
Redneck looked at the others. “I think this man just disrespected us, Mr. J. Shall we give him a demonstration?”
Joe shrugged. “Just don’t hurt him.”
Redneck nodded toward Alena. The next thing Gerrit knew, he was lying on his back, with Alena kneeling on his chest, switchblade pointed at his neck. She had swept his legs from under him in one fluid motion, using his weight to her advantage.
She leaned closer and whispered, “And that’s how a chef does it.”
Chapter 33
After Alena allowed him to rise from the floor, Gerrit saw they were all laughing. All except Joe. “Are the rest of you as slick as she is?”
Redneck seemed to speak for the group. “Until you joined us, Al and I were the muscle, so to speak, and Mr. J and Pea brain the techno geeks. Now that we’ve got a jarhead with us, we should be unbeatable.”
Willy glared at Redneck before speaking. “Hillbilly, the only muscle you got is between those two cauliflowers you call ears. A waste of space, in my book. Let’s line up and get this over with. You first, Mr. G.”
Armed with the handheld scanner, Willy searched everyone and their belongings for any readings that might have given them away. He identified and neutralized every signal embedded by manufacturers just to make sure. Once he finished, he let them know they were clean. Thirty minutes later, Joe and Redneck had them in the air.
While Redneck took over the controls, Joe left the cockpit and sat near Gerrit, pulling out a satellite laptop from a carry-all case. “I encrypted this baby to use anywhere in the world. Even if they were able to pick up my IP address, it would be bounced from one part of the globe to the other.”
Gerrit leaned over. “What are you planning?” He watched the screen come alive, and a familiar site appeared on the monitor. “NSA? How’d you…?”
Joe didn’t answer for a moment as he punched in a series of codes. “The bad guys have their people and we have ours.” It looked like his uncle opened up a second program. Once on the screen, it appeared Joe had entered a chat room. Only two people logged in. Joe was obviously one of them. Both active users used a series of numbers as identifiers. “I’m requesting resources to be available when we land. And a search of communications traffic between known identifiers used by Kane-cell phones, IP addresses, the works. I need to find out what information Kane has been trying to access. And what information came to him.”
His uncle worked quietly for a few minutes, then paused as if waiting for a response. “I’ve tried to hold back on this because I am concerned that Kane might have piggybacked his communications with a code that would alert him if anyone else tried to track him. But we need to move forward, particularly since we now know a little about what he’s up to.”
“Which is what? Trying to find us?”
Joe shook his head. “In the grand scheme of things, we’re small potatoes to him. Just irritating flies. Something to be swatted out of the way while he works on bigger things.”
“Do you know what he’s working on?”
“Remember that project Megiddo?”
“The thing Dad stumbled on?”
“Exactly. After they were…after your parents died, I began searching for a connection between what your dad told me and what happened to your folks. After I re-created myself, I began to develop trusted contacts within the government and business, those I felt I could depend on.”
“That’s hard to determine, isn’t it? I mean, almost anybody can be bought or rolled.”
Joe leaned back and squinted. “My, that is a very cynical outlook on God’s creatures.”
Gerrit stared back. “Tell me I’m wrong, Joe. Tell me there are a lot of people out there you can trust. I mean, truly trust. People who can’t be bought, compromised, or just simply paid off to rat on their own mother. It’s just the way of mankind.”
Joe looked at him for a moment, then leaned over the laptop. “Well, unlike you, I feel I can trust those I befriended over the years. Those I learned to trust in one way or another.”
His uncle watched a response come over the screen. “Anyway, I cross-referenced everything your dad worked on and compared it to Kane’s life-his business interests, government connections, his communications I could unscramble. Everything.”
The jet hit an air pocket and fell for a few seconds. Finally, the aircraft leveled out and Gerrit slowly unclenched his armrest. “So, did you find a lead?”
