Off the Grid Read online

  She had to stop thinking about that. It wasn’t helping.

  But she’d meant what she told him before she left. There weren’t going to be any more Lost Platoon stories without proof—her editor had made that clear. Which was why she was here making friends.

  The documents and satellite images from her mysterious source seemed to point to a secret mission in Russia. Given the state of tension between the two countries teetering on war, it made sense that no one would be eager for the information to get out. One of the few helpful clues in the redacted deployment orders had been Vaernes Air Station. If she could prove that Brandon had been here, that would help establish the authenticity of the document, and if he was here right before the purported missile “test” in late May, that might be enough to link SEAL Team Nine to the explosion in Russia. Vaernes was an obvious launch point for an operation in Russia.

  Assuming her new source hadn’t sent her on a wild-goose chase, as she was beginning to fear. She was still hoping Mac would be able to come back with something more on the license plates, but the car had been a pool car used by any number of people in the Department of Defense. If they kept a list on who took it out, it wasn’t electronic.

  For now this was her best lead. But so far it wasn’t paying off. Hopefully, her luck would change tonight.

  “It was your smile,” the soldier said. “Americans are so friendly and confident.” He frowned, noticing the change of her expression. “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head, realizing she was still frowning from thinking of John. “No, sorry. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

  He didn’t hide his disappointment. “Then you are waiting for someone?”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to take a chance that you aren’t a serial killer scouting bars for victims, but no, I’m not.”

  He grinned. “Not a serial killer; we don’t get a lot of those in Norway. My name is Nils Olsen—Corporal Nils Olsen—I’m stationed at the base.” He motioned toward his group of friends, who were watching his progress. “You can ask any of them, and they’ll tell you, I’m perfectly safe.”

  Her mouth quirked in a playful smile. “Brittany Blake. It’s nice to meet you, Nils. But maybe I should ask those women over at that table instead? A couple of them keep looking over here.”

  He blushed. If he was indeed a budding ladies’ man, as she suspected, he hadn’t perfected the smooth-operator bit. She guessed he was a couple years younger than her—maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Give him a few years.

  Her thoughts slid to another smooth operator before she forced them back to Nils.

  Not wanting to scare him away, she changed the subject. “Are you in the air force?”

  “I’m with the Home Guard.”

  From her research on the air station, she knew what the Home Guard was but pretended as if she didn’t and gave him a questioning look.

  He explained. “It’s an Innsatsstyrke—what you would call a Rapid Reaction Force. We are trained to respond to all kinds of emergencies, from bomb threats to terrorism. We actually do an exchange with your national guard every year in Minnesota.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “I think my brother mentioned that.” At his questioning look she explained. “He was here briefly with the marines a few months ago.”

  Brittany didn’t think the recent US marine presence at Vaernes was a coincidence. Earlier this year, Vaernes had welcomed three hundred marines from North Carolina. They were the first US troops to be officially stationed in Norway since World War II. Not surprisingly, Russia wasn’t too happy with the arrangement. The marines were on a six-month deployment and the second group had rotated in this summer. The US troop presence at Vaernes would make it easier to hide a team of SEALs moving through.

  She let the mention of her brother go and changed the subject when her food and drink arrived. She wasn’t hungry, and she was tired of bar food, so she’d ordered a salad and fries. But her attempt at healthy had been foiled by a large glob of creamy dressing.

  Oh well.

  Brittany was having a surprisingly good time talking to Nils, and it was only after the waitress had cleared the table and brought them each another beer and he’d asked her how she ended up here that she returned to the subject of her brother.

  “I was already planning a hiking trip over here with a girlfriend, so when my brother told me about the annual blues festival, I knew I had to check it out. My friend had to go back for work, but I decided to stay on for an extra week to go to the ‘Blues in Hell.’”

  Hell was the name of a small village near Vaernes, and not surprisingly, the festival took advantage of the catchy name.

  Before Nils could ask her any blues-related questions, she asked him what she’d been wanting to ask since he sat down. “I wonder if you crossed paths with him while he was here?”

  It was the same question she’d asked a handful of other soldiers stationed here the past couple nights with no luck. She was trying to be careful, but if this didn’t yield something soon, she was going to have to come up with a way to show the picture to more people without drawing attention to it or herself.

  She’d always taken the get-more-bees-with-honey approach to her investigating. In her experience, people didn’t like reporters—especially aggressive ones—and were naturally defensive around her if they thought she was trying to question them or wanted something. She got a lot more just by talking to people and being friendly.

  Flirting wasn’t usually part of the repertoire, but with young soldiers it seemed the best way to relate and not seem suspicious. When in Rome . . .

  “Maybe,” Nils said doubtfully. “What’s his name?”

  “Brand,” she said, and took out her phone. “I have a picture.”

  It was the same photo from the beach zoomed in on his face. She was going to hold it out to show it to him, but Nils took the opportunity to slide onto the bench seat next to her.

  Maybe he was more of an operator than she’d given him credit for. He was sitting close enough for their legs to touch. She could feel the muscle of his thigh pressing against hers. He was tall and lean, but not physically overwhelming like—

  Stop.

  He took the phone, gave it a brief glance, and then looked back with a small frown. “He looks familiar. When was he here?”

  Brittany tried to control her excitement, but her heart was beating so hard she thought he might hear it. “End of May. He didn’t stay very long. But after his description of the area, I knew I had to add it to my itinerary.”

  He handed the phone back to her, and the way he was looking at her made her realize he was more savvy than his age suggested. “Yeah, I remember him. He and his friends were only here about a week. They kept to themselves and didn’t mingle—even with their own guys. I assumed they were some kind of Special Forces.”

  Brittany acted embarrassed. “I’m not supposed to talk about that.” She bit her lip in an effort not to burst out with a bunch of questions. But with her first confirmation, it wasn’t easy. “I’m impressed that you remember him. Did you talk to him or any of his friends?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. As I said, they weren’t interested in meeting the locals, but you do this long enough and you begin to pick out guys like that. Intense, all-business, focused.” He shrugged. “My friend Johan drove them to one of our training facilities. He said they barely spoke two words and their uniforms didn’t have any kind of military branch or unit on them. Just some kind of patch.”

  “Johan?” Brittany hoped she didn’t sound too eager, but every bone in her body was screaming “Yes!” If she could get a description of the patch, it could be proof that Team Nine had been here—especially if it matched the new tattoo she’d noticed on John of the trident and net, which she suspected was some kind of unit or platoon badge. “Is he one of your friends over there?”