Off the Grid Christmas Page 13

  She shrugged out of her pack and followed Kane into the kitchen. She’d give the whole team thing a shot, but first she needed to break the code that protected those files, and that was something she’d have to do alone.

  * * *

  Kane placed the bag on the table and started unloading the supplies. In addition to a plastic litter pan and a bag of cat food, he’d asked Silas to bring some breakfast food. He was pretty sure Arden must be starved. He knew he was. Kane pulled the last item from the bag, held it up and looked at Silas. “Hershey’s Kisses?”

  “Don’t all girls like chocolate?” Silas shrugged.

  “This one does,” Arden piped up, snatching the bag of assorted chocolate kisses from Kane’s hand and ripping into it. “And I can definitely use the sugar right about now.” She popped one in her mouth. “Mmm. So good. Thanks, Silas.”

  “No problem.” Silas had the decency not to gloat as he placed the box of kitty litter on the floor. “Dutch is in the yard taking care of business,” he said, walking toward the back door. “Do you mind if I let him in?”

  “Go for it,” Kane responded.

  “Dutch?” Arden booted up her laptop and reached for another chocolate.

  “My dog.” Silas opened the back door and gave a piercing whistle. “He served in combat with us.”

  “He’s retired?” Arden asked, typing on her keyboard.

  “By default,” Kane explained. “When Silas decided to get out, Dutch was supposed to be placed with another handler, but no one could get the Sioux commands quite right.”

  “At least that’s the theory.” Silas grinned. Dutch crossed the threshold into the kitchen. Silas shut the door behind him.

  “Are you sure he’s a dog?” Arden pulled her earbuds from her bag, eyeing Dutch from her seat at the kitchen table.

  “He’s a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, to be exact.” Silas gave a command in Sioux. The dog immediately lay on the rug by the back door.

  “Looks like more wolf than dog to me,” Arden mused before shoving the earbuds into her ears. “The chocolate’s given me a renewed burst of energy. I’m going to see if I can get this algorithm working before dawn.”

  “I’m not sure if my parents had time to call and get the Wi-Fi switched on yet, but you can use my cell phone as a hot spot if you’d like.”

  “The Wi-Fi’s active,” she responded, popping another chocolate into her mouth.

  “Great, let me know if you need the password for it,” Kane said.

  “No need. I’m in already.”

  “How’d you get around the password?”

  She met his eyes across the table. “Have you forgotten what I do for a living?”

  Silas snickered.

  “I just didn’t realize you could hack in so quickly. You’ve only been sitting there for a few minutes.”

  “It’s a known fact that people tend to choose passwords that are easy to remember and mean something to them. In this case, your last name, the word home and the house number were used. You should probably consider changing it.”

  “I’ll do that,” Kane responded drily, but Arden didn’t seem to hear him. She was lost in her work, her jet-black, shoulder-length hair tucked casually behind her ear, thick-lashed eyes focused on the screen in front of her.

  She was the exact opposite of every woman that had even remotely attracted him in the past, but he found himself drawn to her. She was extremely intelligent, but that was only part of the person she was.

  Truth be told, she drew him in from the first time he met her, but his friendship with Jace and Arden’s ever-present jerk of a boyfriend gave him plenty of reasons to tamp those feelings down. One of those reasons was now out of the picture. His friendship with Jace, on the other hand, would not be easy to get around.

  Jace knew Kane before he became a Christian. He’d accepted him for all his past mistakes and helped him find his faith. But that didn’t mean Jace would ever see Kane as good enough for his little sister. Kane wouldn’t blame him there.

  A rapid succession of buzzing tones came from Arden’s laptop.

  “That didn’t sound promising,” Kane commented.

  “It’s not great news, but on the plus side, I got past the first level of encryption. It’s only a matter of time before I break the last.”

  He admired her confidence.

  * * *

  Nearly an hour later, Kane had filled Silas in on the events of the evening while making some breakfast sandwiches. Arden had scarfed down her food with a quick thanks, barely taking her eyes from the computer screen. Kane wondered about the progress she was making but didn’t want to distract her from her task.

  “Yes! Thank You, God!” Arden exclaimed happily.

  “What?” Kane and Silas both came around the table and peered over her shoulder.

  “My decryption application is loaded and ready to test.” She stretched her arms and yawned. “We’ll know in a few moments if it works.” Her fingers ran over the keyboard. “Here goes nothing,” she said and pressed Enter to launch the program.

  “Is it working?” Silas asked.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  Kane tried to focus on the rows of code that scrolled quickly across the dark screen. He had no idea what he was looking at, but judging by her enthusiasm, he predicted success. “How long will it take to run?”

  “It’s almost complete.” As if on cue, a tune erupted from the computer—a tune that sounded suspiciously like the fanfare in one of his retro video games that signaled a player had found an important item. Typical Arden. Kane couldn’t help but smile.

  Arden pulled up the first of the decrypted files and began reading. Kane and Silas attempted to read over her shoulder.

  “I can’t keep up. She’s reading way too fast,” Silas commented.

  “I’m in the same boat,” Kane said, still trying to skim the contents of the files as Arden clicked from page to page.

  “Houston, we have a problem.” Arden focused on the screen in front of her, still scrolling through documents.

  “What is it?” Kane asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said flatly. She leveled her gaze on him and shut her laptop. “It’s worse than I thought. Marcus Emory is not just selling research—he’s planning to sell the code for the prototype of the self-improving weapons control program that GeoArray developed for the Department of Defense.”

  “To who?” Kane asked.

  “It’s not clear, but my guess is it’s a foreign buyer. The first payment was wired to an offshore account about a month ago. The rest will be paid on delivery of the weapons control system. The trade is scheduled for two days from now. We don’t have much time.”

  Kane thought Arden was probably spot-on. She’d been right to this point, so it was likely Marcus Emory was planning to sell United States secrets to the highest bidder. Likely a nation-state entity that could threaten world peace.

  A low growl sounded from the corner. Dutch was standing alert by the back door. “Someone’s out there,” Silas whispered.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  Arden started to get up from the table.

  “You stay here, Arden, and keep away from the windows,” Kane said. “Silas and I will handle this.”

  For a moment, Arden looked ready to argue the point, but Kane decided to beat her to the punch. “Someone needs to remain here and be ready to warn my parents if needed.”

  “You’re right, of course.” She sat back down, began to pack her computer. “But just be careful.”

  * * *

  Kane and Silas left through the front door.

  “You take the left and I’ll take the right.” Kane was only slightly mollified by Arden’s promise to stay put. He’d hated to leave her alone in the kitchen, but nothing else could be don
e.

  Silas headed toward the front corner of the house, Dutch at his heels. Kane didn’t bother to warn him to keep quiet. If Silas didn’t want you to hear him coming, you wouldn’t.

  Kane saw fresh footprints in the snow leading to the back of the house. Someone was here.

  He slipped around the corner, saw a shadowy figure advancing toward the kitchen window, something dark in his hand. A gun?

  Kane rushed forward and tackled him, the impact sending them both reeling into the side of the house. Something black fell from the man’s hand. Kane jumped up and grabbed for it. A tactical flashlight? Oh, boy.

  Within seconds, Silas and Dutch were at his side. Kane shined his light on the man who was still sprawled facedown in the snow.

  Silas turned him over. Snow coated the man’s uniform and stuck to his face. “You just knocked out a cop, bro.”

  Kane looked at the nametag on the man’s department-issued jacket. Deputy C. Moran. Great.

  “Deputy Moran, this is dispatch. Please report findings from the Walker place. Over.” A woman’s voice crackled through the radio holstered to the officer’s belt. Kane looked at Silas, whose expression likely mirrored Kane’s thoughts. Not good. “Deputy Moran, do you copy? Over.”

  “We need to get your girl and book it before dispatch sends backup. I’m guessing that the local cops are checking out the place as a favor to the FBI. It probably won’t be long before either GeoArray or the FBI show up.”

  Kane had been thinking the same thing. The FBI had somehow connected him to the plane. The Cape was no longer safe for any of them. He handed the flashlight to Silas and hoisted the deputy on his shoulder.

  “What are we going to do with him?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead, but we can’t just leave him here in below-freezing temperatures. Let’s get him to the house.”

  TWELVE

  Three minutes, ten seconds.

  Three minutes, eleven seconds.

  Arden watched the second hand on the old grandmother clock creep to twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

  Every second seemed like an eternity. Every minute that passed brought them closer to disaster. Someone had been outside. Silas’s dog had made that clear. If it were one of GeoArray’s thugs, there’d be more assassins waiting in the shadows.

  She shuddered, sliding the laptop back in her pack. Now she understood why GeoArray had been so desperate to retrieve the files and stop her from opening them.

  She understood, and it terrified her.

  There had to be a way to keep them from releasing the information, and she planned to find it. Standing around waiting for Kane and Silas to return wasn’t helping her do that.

  Besides, she wasn’t just terrified. She was worried.

  Logically, she knew that Kane and Silas didn’t need her help, but logic had nothing to do with the heart. And her heart was telling her they might be in trouble, that even with all their combined training and expertise, they might have run into a situation they couldn’t get out of.

  She grabbed the baseball bat that Henry had abandoned earlier and walked to the back door. She peered out the little window beside it.

  The light above the garage door was still glowing, illuminating footprints and tire tracks left in the snow. A shadow moved near the corner of the garage, and a man appeared. Tall. Broad shoulders. Moving toward the house, a dog beside him.

  Silas. It had to be. The dog wouldn’t be walking beside anyone else.

  She unlocked the door and stepped onto the back stoop, still clutching the baseball bat.

  “Where’s Kane?” she asked, and Silas gestured toward the back corner of the house.

  “Coming. You need to get your things. We need to move out.”

  “My things are ready to go.” She stepped back as he walked up the steps, crowding into her space and making no apology for it.

  “Go back inside, Arden. It isn’t safe out here.”

  “Did you find the person who was out there?” she asked, peering around him and finally catching a glimpse of Kane.

  He was moving across the yard, something flung over his shoulder. A bag of some sort? An animal?

  The closer he got, the more it looked like...

  A person?

  “In the house,” Silas repeated, and somehow he had her moving backward, across the threshold and into the mudroom.

  Once she was inside, he moved past her, the dog trotting along beside him.

  Seconds later, Kane appeared in the doorway.

  “You were supposed to stay inside,” he growled. He closed the door with a little more force than she thought was necessary.

  “Shh!” she cautioned. “You’re going to wake up your parents.”

  “You were supposed to stay inside,” he repeated, his eyes flashing with irritation as he strode past. The person he was carrying hung limply over his shoulder.

  A man.

  She could see that now.

  In a police uniform.

  “Is he dead?” she asked as Kane set the guy in a chair.

  “No.” Kane’s response was terse. He grabbed Arden’s backpack and was sliding into it. “Did you leave anything upstairs?”

  “Just Sebastian. I’ll get him. He’s not going to be happy when I put him back in the carrier. I think he’s sick of traveling. Cats aren’t known for being fond of it. I read an interesting article about—”

  The floorboards in front of the kitchen doorway creaked, cutting off the rest of whatever babbling diatribe Arden had been about to deliver.

  Nerves.

  Because she knew Kane was upset, because there was an unconscious police officer in a chair at the kitchen table, because everything was riding on them being able to stop GeoArray before the company transferred the system to a buyer and she was scared they wouldn’t get the opportunity.

  “What’s going on?” Henry asked, walking into the kitchen. Jules was right behind him. “Why is Chuck Moran here?” His focus jumped from the officer to Silas. “And who are you?”

  “Silas is my business associate,” Kane explained, taking the baseball bat from Arden’s hand and setting it on the table. “The officer ran into some trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Jules hurried across the room, lifting the officer’s wrist and checking his pulse.

  “He was outside the house. I thought he was trying to break in. I knocked him out before I realized he was law enforcement.”

  “Did you also think he had something to do with whatever Arden has gotten herself involved in?” Jules asked.

  Arden met Kane’s eyes. He looked as surprised as she felt.

  “What are you talking about, Mom?” he asked.

  “Arden was on the evening news last night. That’s one of the reasons why Henry and I remembered that article so well. Right, honey?” She plugged in the coffeepot and filled the reservoir.

  “Right. They even had a picture of you, Arden. Apparently, the FBI has you on its most wanted list. Someone spotted you at an airport in Maine. I heard your name and remembered you from that article, so I looked it up online to refresh my memory. Very interesting read, Arden. Very interesting.”

  “Why,” Kane began, and Arden thought he was doing everything in his power to hold onto his patience, “was the local evening news running a story about Arden, Dad?”

  “It was a short piece, really. Simply said the FBI believed Arden to be traveling with an unknown male companion and that they were likely headed toward Massachusetts and one or both could be armed. Once you showed up here, we realized that the FBI was totally wrong about whatever they think Arden did. You have too much integrity and honor to ever get involved with someone who deserves a spot on the most wanted list, Kane.”

  “So you didn’t call the police?�
�� Kane asked, glancing at the officer.

  “Good gravy train! Why would we do something like that?” Jules exclaimed. “We trust you to know what’s going on and to find a way out of it.”

  “That’s not going to happen if we stay here much longer,” Silas grumbled.

  “Right. Logic dictates that if there’s one police officer here, more are probably coming,” Henry said. “You three go do what you need to do. We’ll take care of Chuck.”

  “If he realizes we were here, you both could be in trouble,” Kane warned.

  “He’s still out cold. We’ll wake him up after you leave and tell him we heard a noise and went out to investigate. That we found him unconscious in the snow, poor man, and dragged him into the house out of the cold.”

  “He’s going to ask about me,” Kane said.

  “We haven’t seen you and have no idea what’s going on.” Jules pulled a bag of corn from the freezer.

  “And that last part, of course, is true. We’re clueless. When it’s all over, I hope you’ll fill us in.” Henry took Arden’s arm and walked her through the mudroom to the back door.

  “I need to get Sebastian,” she said, pulling away and not promising anything. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to tell the Walkers what was going on. She wasn’t even sure if she’d see them again.

  “The cat? Is he really going to want to ride in the car with that dog?” Henry asked.

  “He’s not going to have a choice.”

  “He will if you leave him with us. We’ll take good care of him until you return,” Henry offered.

  “I can’t. He’ll think I abandoned him.” Arden turned, ready to get Sebastian, but Kane blocked her path.

  His expression was grim. “Chuck is starting to come to. We need to move out.”

  “I need to get Sebastian.”

  “I know you love the cat, Arden, but you’re going to have to make a decision here.” He opened the back door, letting cold air blow into the mudroom. “You walk back into the kitchen, and you’re going to be seen by a guy who is going to be happy to tell every police officer in the area that you were here. There’ll be blockades up from here to Boston, and we’ll be fortunate to make it onto the interstate before we’re caught.”