Off the Grid Read Online Free PDF

hand.
    “I should have said ‘cause.’” Buzz Cut grinned.
    “I don’t have one of those, either,” Nate said.
    “Can we end the lovefest and go inside?” Volk asked.
    •   •   •
    T Y RELL , V OLK , AND N ATE sat at the kitchen table while Doctor and Laura Bucholz left the room for the upstairs library. Before climbing the stairs, Bucholz turned and looked over his shoulder at Nate, as if it were the last time he’d ever see him.
    Nate wasn’t sure that he was wrong. “It’s okay,” he said to Bucholz.
    When the couple was upstairs with their door shut, Tyrell said, “Shall we get to it?” It was more of a statement than a question.
    Nate nodded.
    Tyrell reached out and opened a laptop sitting in the middle of the table.
    “We had to talk here because I needed a secure Wi-Fi connection,” Tyrell said. “I know you don’t have one at your place.”
    “You’ve got that right.”
    “Or a landline, or a cell phone, or for that matter anything that will link you to the outside world,” Tyrell continued. “No credit cards, loans, subscriptions, licenses, tax forms . . .”
    “I have a Social Security number,” Nate said with a wry smile.
    “That you never use,” Tyrell said. “We know the number, believe me.”
    Volk said, “Five-one-six, three-three, three-one-one-eight. Montana prefix.”
    Nate arched his eyebrows at that. Volk was correct.
    “We probably know as much about you as anyone could,” Tyrell said. “And like our colleague out there on the porch, we think there is much to admire. Your years in special ops were . . . special. The men you worked with all speak highly of you, if we can persuade them to speak. The black ops reports of your missions are impressive.”
    He hesitated a moment. “But you’ve certainly gone your own way since you were a special operator for the Peregrines, haven’t you?”
    Nate didn’t answer.
    The Peregrines were an off-the-books strike team that had operated on behalf of the government without any official sanction. If the team failed on a mission, there weren’t any officials who could take responsibility, because the command structure was top secret.Nate and his colleagues knew at the time that the existence of the Peregrines was known to fewer than five people in Washington and he didn’t know the names of any of them. But the team rarely failed.
    The special status of the Peregrines had led to hubris in the commander, John Nemecek, and resulted in a wholesale dissolution of the strike team. Nate didn’t disapprove of the action, because he’d been betrayed by Nemecek. Later, he’d taken his old ranking officer down.
    Tyrell said, “You’ve done a hell of a job staying off our radar the last seven months, and that’s a pretty hard thing to do these days for anyone, as you know. That’s how long we’ve been trying to find you. As far as we can tell, you never made a phone call, logged on to the Internet, or sent an email or a text. Not to mention no use of credit cards or anything else. You don’t have a bank account. Obviously, you’ve paid no federal income taxes.”
    “I haven’t had income,” Nate said.
    “You still have to file and you know that. But we’re not here on behalf of the IRS. What I’m saying is, you’ve done as good a job of hiding in plain sight as anyone we’ve ever tracked domestically. We have access to surveillance video nationwide and there’s never been a hit. We find it nearly incomprehensible that you’ve never shown up in a public or private place with cameras.”
    Nate said, “Public
or
private?”
    Tyrell grinned. “We have access to it all. If you walked into the local convenience store for a quart of milk, we’d know it.”
    “Face recognition software,” Volk added.
    “So how did you find me?” Nate asked.
    “Alas,” Tyrell said with what appeared to be sincerity. “Olivia Brannan had to make a few calls in the last month, didn’t she?”
    Nate got it. When Liv learned