Off the Grid

He could think clearly there. He could relax, lower his defences for a while. It was a structural dead zone. An anomaly. An eccentric framework of concrete and rebar, compounded with industrial glass and some microwave-resistant plastic signs. Somehow it worked as a baffle, buggering up the radio transmitters and the analog acoustics. The parking garage impeded the satellite surveillance; he could ignore that KLH-90 that hung in a geosynchronous orbit overhead. So long as he stayed within a 40 meter sector on either side of the doorway, he was off the grid. Completely, totally, wonderfully off the grid.

The staff at Starbucks was beginning to act strange, though. And some of the customers were clearly former KGB; they had those flesh-colored earphones, cheap-ass Soviet era tech. That shit didn't worry him. So long as he stayed away from their diamond-tipped, hollowpoint umbrellas he'd be okay. Hell, in a way seeing them was good thing. They were like canaries in the mineshaft. A low-tech alarm system. If the Intra-Zionist insurrectionists showed up, those ex-KGB dudes would disappear faster than a dot com start-up.

It wouldn't last, though. He knew it. They'd find him there eventually. They always did. They'd probably infiltrate the Starbucks baristas. They wouldn't dare send in a tiger team, not in a public mall. So he ought to have plenty of warning.

But until then he could relax. God knows he needed it. God really did know.