by Alec Peche
Damian had a peaceful night with no intruders attacking his island. He decided to hack again into their email system to see if there was any communication about the event at his island, although when he thought back to other emails it seemed likely that they communicated some other way about activities on the outside of the prison. He certainly hadn’t found how or when Natalie’s name was placed in the hat so on second thought, why waste his time.
He began running on his treadmill to think about the people and problems in his life. They were rather like his inventions; he never knew the outcome of any tweak he applied to a design until he tried it. Sometimes he was spot on and other times he missed by a mile. He had to be grateful that all three women in his life, Natalie, Ariana, and Hermione were not drama queens.
Then a new thought hit him, the police report of last night. His personal privacy was so important to him and now there was a public record that he owned this island because of the police report. This morning, he would devote his time to figuring out how to erase his existence from the Sheriff’s database. He would give them twenty-four hours to get the word out about his island and the problems there, but then he’d make sure he erased his name from their database or at least substituted the corporate name that the property was listed under.
His cell phone rang and he saw that it was Natalie.
“Was Deputy Peterson helpful?”
“More than I expected since he put a bulletin out to arrest the guys in the video and he notified his dispatch that if I ever call it’s not a prank. The thought of being a one-man army with no re-enforcements is daunting in light of the vast number of thugs that belong to the Brotherhood.”
“What did he think of your pepper spray water cannons?”
“I think he rather liked the idea of disabling the enemy without causing permanent serious harm or death.”
“You have a unique need because of your island status, but I admit if I could cheaply add it to the sides of my house to keep criminals out, I would. Of course that just moves the problem elsewhere, but at least my home would be safe. Guess it is rather like Medieval Times, when they threw boiling oil over the castle walls, except I surmise a fair number of them died from their burns.”
“Thanks, Natalie, for that vision. Though, I’ll admit that the men probably looked much the same after being doused in my pepper spray as they would if hot oil had reached their eyes.”
“Back at you, Damian, thanks for that horrible vision. What should we do about the Brotherhood? Should I try meeting with the guy again or should you release a few more emails today?”
“Natalie, I hate to be horribly pessimistic, but I’m no longer sure under what condition the Brotherhood will take your name out of the hat. I almost think we need to incite a riot where all the leaders are killed. How’s that for lowering myself to their level of scumbag?”
“It’s called fighting fire with fire. I feel like I need to talk to someone who understands this gang’s behavior. If this is indeed hopeless, what are my options?”
“I wonder what the Black Guerillas would say about the Aryan Brotherhood? Maybe we need to partner with them to get them to back down.”
“I’m going to talk to the department and see if they have any ideas. I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”
“From the day they murdered my family, I’ve been at your side fighting these domestic terrorists. You didn’t drag me into this fight; this is where I want to be. Why don’t you talk to your gang experts and get back to me as to whether we should release any more emails?”
“Will do.”
After they ended the call, Damian did a search on successes against violent gangs. The only tactic that seemed to work was changing their sentences from life imprisonment to being condemned on death row. Even if he went back and looked at the violent gangs from the 1920s, they were stopped by putting the gang members in jail for tax evasion. Today’s prisoners had so much more contact with the outside world that they could run criminal enterprises from behind prison bars.
He thought about the situation some more and decided he had nothing to lose by stirring the pot so to speak. So he released another five emails to the Black Guerillas. He wanted to send them anonymously to the Justice Department so they would go after the gang members for racketeering. He dropped Natalie a text asking her what she thought of that strategy while she waited for an answer from her gang experts.
Natalie didn’t respond right away and so he changed tactics completely doing some more research on Hermione’s parents. He couldn’t identify them with fingerprints and he could think of ways to avoid having your fingerprints on file. So how about facial recognition? He went back and slowed down the video from their house to see if there were frames that he could use for facial recognition. He didn’t have such a technology yet, but first he wanted to find out if he had a decent facial photo. Then Damian smacked himself up the side of his head, ‘what was he thinking?’ Hermione’s recovered phone had pictures he could use.
He pulled up the file with her images and started going through the pictures, then he had to smile. Her parents were masters at making sure their faces were never caught on camera as a full frontal. Without fail, each picture had their faces turned to one side or the other. The few full frontal shots were in costume, presumably Halloween. Next he went online to see if any of their monthly utility bills had been paid and he was excited to see that they had. Then he noticed they were on an auto pay scheme so that would continue as long as there was money in their bank account. Maybe he could track the bank account to see if money was being deposited in to it.
Banks were some of the hardest to hack into after a Russian group of mobsters stole an estimated $100M after hacking into over one-hundred banks worldwide. Then Damian saw another path he might take. He banked at the same institution as the Sherwoods, so maybe he could enter through his account. He was thinking about that when his alarm system sounded.
Crap! He was hoping to have more time before the idiots came back. He moved over and checked his monitors to see where they were. They were trolling close to the island and were planning on landing on his beach. He tried Shawn Peterson first and then thought he’d move on to dispatch if he didn’t answer his phone.
“Peterson.”
“Hi, it’s Damian Green and the Brotherhood are back. They’re surveying my beach to land there.”
“Let me order our copter then I’ll call you back.”
Damian sat at his computer screen firing his water cannons at the approaching boat and men. He also sent his drone around to drop some of the excess purple smoke bombs he had from setting up Natalie’s house as well as the green ink bombs. He moved the ink from the device he used for Natalie’s house into a water balloon. After he’d been attacked the previous night, and once the cops left, he rigged up his drone to assist with dropping the bombs. It might make a mess out his beach sand, so he hoped he could drop it on them before they reached the shore.
Peterson called back and said the helicopter would be arriving in about ten minutes. He was traveling by land and would be much slower. Damian gave him directions to the Richmond Marina while Peterson’s partner called the Harbor Master to ensure a boat ride upon their arrival. Damian had set the phone down to chat by speakerphone while he operated the drone by headset and the water cannons by a joystick.
“I’m firing water cannons at the boat, but I don’t have them loaded with pepper juice and they’ll realize that sooner or later. I’m about to drop green ink water balloons on the men and I’m putting purple smoke bombs on the sand which will block their view. Your helicopter can land on top on my island or just follow the boat if they give up and head back to shore.”
Peterson’s partner relayed that information to the approaching helicopter.
Damian debated getting the submarine out, but his hands and eyes were occupied operating the cannons and the drone.
Over the noise the men didn’t hear the drone as he had it sweep in from the
back. They were wearing what looked to be ski googles to protect their eyes. Three on the boat were hit by the green dye balloons and they were soon covered in green ink. Two other men wearing raincoats had stepped onto his beach.
He moved the first drone quickly away from the boat and back around his island as he didn’t want them shooting it. A second drone dropped purple smoke bombs on both the boat and the sand. Sadly, it became a casualty of automatic gun fire. He had secondary water cannons that would soon go off from the cliff adding to the barrage on the sand, but this landing party was in a different boat with more men and based on the raincoats and googles, they came prepared for pepper juice.
Peterson said “Copter has your island in view and sees smoke. They want you to confirm that nothing is on fire.”
“It’s just smoke bombs on the sand. Warn your Copter that the men have automatic weapons as before. They’ve successfully shot down one of my drones and are working on the water cannons, but that’s just wasted ammo.”
“They plan to hover over the boat and give them a message from the air.”
Damian checked his boundary cameras and could see the copter’s approach. He relaxed a little knowing that re-enforcements had arrived. He landed the working drone as he didn’t want it near the copter. Within a minute the copter was in place over the bay and was using a PA system to address the boaters. Damian didn’t have speakers outside and decided that was the next security enhancement he would install. In a small portion of his brain, he wondered how long this little war would go on and were the men back because of yesterday’s action or this morning’s second release of emails. The boat pulled away leaving the two men on Damian’s island while the copter pursued the boat. Great, thought Damian, there went my back-up.
“Damian, the copter’s going after the boat. We have a boat approaching your island from the Delta; it’s about fifteen minutes away. My partner and I made good time and we’re pulling into the Richmond marina. We’ve arranged with the harbormaster to borrow a boat so I hope we’ll be out there in about five minutes.”
“There’s a few more smoke bombs I can drop on them and the water cannons should make it hard to climb the hillside to my house.”
“Is there a second beach we can dock the boat at on your island?”
Damian debated revealing the location of the dock but decided he needed a few secrets still. He didn’t know why that was important but it was.
“There’s a second beach, that’s harder to navigate, but doable. It’ll give you cover; just come in slow and be careful as there are rocks in that area. I’ll text you a quick diagram of what to avoid. It’s around the corner from the beach you landed on yesterday.” Damian drew two quick images of his island and texted them to the Deputy.
He could hear the wind noise in the background and then Peterson said, “Got it. Are they making any progress scaling your hill?”
“Not so far. It’s tricky under the best of circumstances and with the water pelting them; they’re stuck on the sand. The water is coming from the bay so I can keep the cannons on for a long time. You’ll be able to land, peer over the hillside and then I can turn them off when you’re ready to move. They’ve fired a lot of bullets at my hillside so hopefully they’ll be out of ammo soon.”
“If you can, aim the cannon at the gun as water in time will cause the gun to fail.”
“I didn’t think of that! Thanks, will do.”
Damian studied the two men’s movement and moved his water guns accordingly. Soon enough one of their guns failed to operate. Awesome! Now he was down to just one serious thug.
He could see through his security cameras, Deputy Peterson approaching his second smaller beach looking over the front bow of the boat watching for the rocks that Damian had drawn on his map. They drove the boat right up onto the beach and hopped off, taking cover. Damian sent Peterson a picture of the thugs on his other beach. They nodded and moved forward with the hillside providing cover.
Peterson texted Damian to shut off the water as they were in position.
The water noise ceased and then Peterson called out, “This is the police, put down your guns and put your hands in the air.”
The two men scrambled to take cover. The one man was wielding his non-working gun like a piece of pipe. The other took aim and fired at where Peterson’s voice had sounded from. Damian could see that Peterson and his partner had combat helmets on along with body armor, but they were vulnerable in the face, legs, and arms. They normally didn’t carry riot gear in their car.
Expecting a confrontation and knowing their own back-up boat was still about twelve minutes away, they requested the assistance of another airborne unit and help arrived in the form of two copters from neighboring municipalities. The two men were debating something amongst themselves whether it was death by cop, surrender, or perhaps swimming to escape, Damian couldn’t tell. He hoped the men would just dive in the bay and take this problem away from his island and his home. He spared a thought for his cats and figured they were huddled in one of the tiny caves on the far side of the island.
One of the copters was preparing to land on Damian’s front lawn, and that was when the two suspects dove into the water, planning on swimming to shore and away from police. The two copters just stayed above the water adding wind turbulence to the difficulty of the swim. The water temperature was sixty-one degrees and unless they were high on Meth, the cold would soon get to them. Then Damian noticed they had stripped off their street clothes to wet-suits underneath, a mask and snorkel must’ve been hidden on their person as that suddenly appeared as well. They disappeared below the surface and were not seen again.
Damian doubted they drowned, but he wouldn’t place it past them if they had buried a scuba set-up underwater to facilitate their escape. He was tempted to send out his unmanned submarine, but decided he would let the police deal with it. The two copters were watching the surface as the police cruiser arrived from the Delta.
What a flaming mess and his privacy was now shot! Ugh. He wished he had an underwater torpedo that he could fire across the bay at San Quentin. He was fed up with the Aryan Brotherhood and the mess they were making of his island and his privacy. He pounded his fist against a boxing training bag he had in his gym and let out a primordial scream, then took a deep breath, before heading upstairs to exit his house.
He walked outside to the noise of the two copters close by. Since they couldn’t hear him down on the beach, he texted Peterson that he was coming down on his zip line and not to shoot him. Wouldn’t that be ironic; to be shot on your own private island. Peterson texted back that he would make sure they held their fire.
Chapter Thirty-One
Nearly eight hours later, he was fed up with the world and law enforcement in particular. Crime Scene techs had collected ammo and fingerprints from his beach, they wanted copies of his video and had been down in his lab to understand his technology. He was proud of it for all of about ten minutes, and then he wished they would get out of his lab and off his island. Worst still was the picnic ants; he knew the Aryan Brotherhood would be back. They had their endless ants to spoil your picnic, and with each attack, there would be more of them. He needed to talk to some gang psychologists on what to do. He couldn’t go through one of these attacks every couple of days.
Finally, when it was over and everyone had left his island, he debated what to do. He could call Ariana and let her know about the second attack and then invite himself over; he decided that he needed something else that night. So he got in his new, fast, two seater boat having made arrangements to dock it near Pete’s bar. Thirty minutes later he was inside at the bar chatting with Pete, a cheeseburger underway in the kitchen.
Damian had sought out Pete with the thought that this was where he always came to lighten his mood and he was at a loss to understand why this bar gave him that experience. He looked around and thought about it and decided it was because he fit in. There were people of every ethnicity in the bar as well as a few of
every interest there. There were men huddled over whisky and beer that he thought he’d seen before in the bar. The Warriors playoff game was on the TVs and that was attracting a younger crowd of both sexes. He bet the final group stopped here on the way home from work because it was peaceful. It wasn’t quiet at all, but you could fall into the zone of your own choosing and stay there until it was time to leave.
When Pete returned with his food, he asked, “You seem to have a little of everything here Pete. How many regulars do you have here and how many nights a week do they stop by?”
“Well, there’s you, Damian, and you stop by about once a month.”
“Touché, but go on.”
Pete went on to name about half the people in the bar and their frequency. There were a few patrons that he didn’t recognize but as Damian had thought they were regulars of all sorts - daily, weekly, monthly, and others like himself that were irregular regulars.
“So what’s your problem at the moment, Damian?” Pete asked.
Damian looked at Pete’s face and said, “What do you mean, what’s my problem?”