Against All Odds

by Richard Bard

  Marshall cleared a spot beside his laptop. “Why not? Pull up a chair.” Marshall turned the drone over and examined the tinted dome underneath. “Hand me that multi-tool over there and we’ll check under the hood.”

  Ahmed grabbed the tool and unfolded a tiny Phillips-head screwdriver. “How about I handle the mechanical stuff and you deal with the electronics?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Two minutes later the guts of the drone were exposed, a spare battery was hot-wired to its processor, and the unit was connected to Marshall’s laptop with a USB cord.

  “This sucker is top notch,” Marshall said. “The components are military grade, and the software is way beyond what you’d expect to find in a hobby drone.” He scrolled through the drone’s code and submenus. “Whoever built this baby knew what he was doing. Besides the high-def gimbaled camera and the state-of-the-art comm equipment, this baby’s got a very cool GPS mapping program built into it. From what I can tell, it seems as though it can even record its flight in 3D space—” He stopped scrolling and leaned closer to the screen. “Hey, wait a sec. I’ve got an idea.” His fingers skipped across the keys, and a new window popped up. Marshall smiled.

  “What’s that?”

  “The GPS location of the unit’s home.” Marshall activated his smartphone, opened up a map program, and entered the coordinates. “The poor sucker who lost this baby launched it 59.66 miles from here. Out in the boonies off the grapevine, east of Lake Castaic.” He zoomed in on a forested area in a mountainous region north of Los Angeles. A few isolated structures peeked through the trees, and a private lane snaked from the highway onto the property.

  “Looks like an old ranch or something,” Ahmed said.

  “Who knows? Anyway, if the dust ever settles around our lives, we can let the guy know we—”

  “Oh my God!” Sarafina cried out, and everyone looked toward the TV. It was a Breaking News announcement. The newswoman was clearly shocked as she spoke, and bodies littered the ground on the window inset beside her. The scroll at the bottom of the screen read TERRORIST ATTACKS ON US SOIL.

  Sarafina crowded between Mom and Lacey on the couch. Marshall sat beside them and wrapped his arm around his wife. Ahmed stood behind them. He placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder, and she reached up and gripped it. The attacks had occurred thirty minutes earlier, and the scenes of devastation switched from one site to another—six in all—as the reporter described what had happened. The attacks had occurred near Chicago, Dallas, and in downtown New York City. Hundreds were injured, and the death toll was mounting. An image of a man wearing a dishdasha with a scarf wrapped around all but his eyes appeared, laying out his demands and promising more attacks.

  “The bastards,” Marshall said under his breath.

  “When is it going to stop?” Francesca asked.

  Not until every American makes it his or her responsibility to fight back, Ahmed thought. The terrorist’s voice was altered, but his calm delivery was clear. As the man went on to describe his justification for the attacks, there was something about the lilt of his speech that nagged at Ahmed. The man’s pitch rose ever so slightly at the end of each sentence in a way that seemed familiar, and when the terrorist made references to the Crusades, Ahmed’s mind flashed back to the caves he’d played in as a child, and the murals on the walls of the sacred cavern that had housed the first pyramid. His mentor and tribal leader, the sheikh who had become known to the world as Luciano Battista, had often spoke of the Holy Crusades in much the same way as the man on TV, blaming the atrocities of that era for the continuing struggle between East and West.

  Sarafina whimpered. Ahmed’s focus returned to the exploding clock face in Times Square and the victims below. He brushed away the coincidental connection to his past.

  But then the terrorist’s final words were spoken in Ahmed’s native language. The man recited word for word the inscription over the mural in the cavern. He will grant you victory over them. Ahmed flashed to childhood recollections of the group of older boys who used to tease and bully him because he was different, and how glad he’d been when they’d all been taken away, especially their leader with the odd manner of speaking. Farhad. No one had known why they had left, and it wasn’t until Ahmed had been taken under Signor Battista’s wing in Venice that he’d heard a quiet mention of them being part of a special mission.

  What if—?

  “Hang on,” Marshall said. “Give me the remote.” Sarafina handed it over. Marshall paused the broadcast and rewound it several seconds.

  “What did you see?” Lacey asked.

  Marshall held his hand up and restarted the video. An unsteady cell phone video of one of the sites was onscreen, replaced quickly by another, and then another as the reporter spoke.

  “Authorities are requesting bystanders to please forward cell phone videos, such as these captured at the scenes, to assist in the investigation. Send them to…”

  Marshall hit Pause. The frozen image was a clear shot of the collapsing front of the movie theater in Dallas: smoke, flames, debris, fleeing people—and a drone overhead.

  An exact duplicate of the drone on the table.

  Lacey said, “Hey, isn’t that—?” Marshall held an index finger to his lips and shook his head. He played the video and the drone quickly departed the scene.

  “I’ve been to that movie theater,” Marshall said, looking at everyone with an expression that signaled them to change the subject. “I can’t believe it.”

  Lacey nodded. “I remember, Marsh,” she said, picking up on his cue like the actress she was, though Ahmed was still unsure of the reason for it. “You were in Dallas for a symposium or something.”

  “Those poor people.” Marshall moved to the table, retrieved the tablet Alex had left behind, and sat back on the couch. Mom and Sarafina kept silent throughout the exchange. The family’s current reality had honed them to expect the unexpected, so they hadn’t questioned Marshall’s change in behavior. They waited while his finger danced madly over his tablet. After a moment he passed the device to Sarafina so everyone could read what he’d written. A Word document filled the screen.

  IT’S THE SAME DAMN DRONE! Can’t be a coincidence. It’s possible we’ve been bugged, or that they’re watching from the woods. I’ll scan for signals to confirm. Until then, show no sign of suspicion. Be careful what you say. If I’m right and this drone belongs to the same bastard we just saw on TV, who’s to say they haven’t already planted charges around us, too? MUST STAY CALM! It’s a good guess we’ve been targeted because of Jake, and maybe they’re waiting around for him to show up. But we’ve got ransoms on our own heads so they aren’t about to let us leave. Plus, we can’t risk notifying authorities until we’re safely out of here, because if whoever’s watching us picks up on it, we’re toast. Must wait until after dark.

  Lacey took the tablet and wrote:

  You’re making a lot of assumptions based solely on the drone.

  She passed the tablet back. Marshall typed:

  A very high-tech surveillance drone, exactly like the one on the screen. Yes, I may be paranoid, but what if I’m not?

  Mom frowned. She took the tablet and made an entry:

  Must warn Jake!

  Marshall nodded.

  Ahmed noticed all this, but his mind was elsewhere as puzzle pieces came together like a video of an explosion played in reverse. Terrorist attacks perpetrated by the very same people he’d been a part of so long ago. His people, from his tribe. They were watching Ahmed and the others, following them, waiting patiently for their moment to strike. Likely waiting for Dad to return with Alex and Tony so they could reap their revenge on all of them. But in the meantime lashing out across the country in support of their greater cause, one established long ago by their ancestors. Ahmed had long since learned better. Their cause might have been righteous centuries earlier, but not today. Today they were simply the killers of innocents, and after all the years of preparation and training for th
eir so-called mission, he had little doubt they’d keep their promise to continue their attacks.

  He glanced at the dismantled drone.

  I know where at least one of them is located.

  The urge to be proactive was overpowering, but doubts clouded his thoughts. What could he possibly do on his own? He needed help. He needed to tell Tony and—no. They’d set the boy on the sidelines as usual, when in fact, because of Ahmed’s history, he was likely the most essential man for the job.

  He looked at his pistol on the table. He needed to do something. He would do something. When his eyes locked on the RAT, a plan took shape in his mind.

  He jumped when Marshall reached over the couch and tapped his arm. “Are you okay?”

  Ahmed nodded.

  Chapter 22

  A COUPLE HOURS LATER, Ahmed breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the key ring in the kitchen junk drawer. It included the Alfa’s keys, as well as a master key he assumed would unlock the barn. He stuffed them into his pocket and sauntered back into the common room.

  Sarafina had disappeared into her bedroom. She hadn’t been sleeping well at night so she’d learned to catnap. Mom and Lacey were still on the couch watching follow-up broadcasts regarding the attacks. The president was onscreen telling the nation not to give in to fear.

  “Yes, terror has reached American soil once again, but we must not allow it to deter American spirit.”

  It was the last thing Mom and Lacey wanted to listen to right now, but after Marshall’s scan had confirmed the existence of at least one listening device, it was important they kept up appearances. It had been too risky to seek out the bug to try to dismantle it, since doing so could alert the people listening. Or watching. Marshall’s casual walk around the outside of the house—while the scanner in his pocket recorded signals—had confirmed the existence of three more devices somewhere in the trees.

  Probably 3 more camera drones, Marshall had written on his tablet. But there’s a coverage gap on the west side where the fourth drone went down. Tell Skylar to come in from that angle with her toys. We’ve gotta stay cool in the meantime.

  Pete and Skylar were stunt people who worked on Lacey’s films. If not for their help when the entire family had been abducted a couple of weeks earlier, most of them would probably be dead. Pete and Skylar knew the truth about Dad and the rest of them, and had been eager to help when Lacey texted them earlier. They were due to arrive shortly after dark.

  The plan was simple. Make the watchers think they were settling in for the night and then slip away. After that they would call the authorities and give them the location from where the drone was launched.

  Ahmed intended to be long gone by then.

  Marshall was hunched over his laptop. He’d discovered the signals from the listening device and the three cameras outside were being transmitted via his own Wi-Fi. Marshall’s face had gone so red when he found the breach that Lacey had noticed. She’d used fake tears to lure her husband over to the couch so he could use the tablet to explain what was happening. After revealing the news about the hacked Wi-Fi, he’d written: But now I’m on to the bastards. I can’t very well lock them out or they’ll know something’s up, but that won’t stop me from trying to back-trace their IP address. If I can isolate it and hack in, who knows what I could find? He’d motioned toward the TV where another aftermath video was streaming. With some luck we could shut them down!

  Marshall had been working on it for over an hour. When Ahmed walked over to the table to casually retrieve his pistol and a couple of other items, Marshall glanced up at him with tired eyes and a frustrated scowl. Ahmed threw him a questioning look regarding his progress. Marshall’s lips tightened, he shook his head, and went back to work. If Marshall was having trouble hacking into their system, then the team on the other end was every bit as tech savvy as Farhad had claimed they were in his speech.

  That’s okay, Ahmed thought, because he had inside information on the group and a plan of his own. “I’m tired,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m going to catch some shut-eye.” His mom glanced over and nodded.

  A few minutes later he slipped outside a rear window and headed for the barn. The padlock key worked like a charm, and he rolled the wide door open. He knew he was being watched but that didn’t matter. One person leaving the scene shouldn’t trigger anything. Especially since it was him, and he’d never been mentioned on any of the ransom boards. He figured whoever was watching would simply think he was running to the store for something.

  The car cover was still stacked in a pile where he and his sister had left it. The Alfa Romeo’s green paint job sparkled in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the door. It was a beautiful vehicle, like something out of a James Bond movie. He smiled, patted the pistol at his side, and jumped in the driver’s seat.

  “This, I gotta see,” Sarafina said, startling him. She was standing in front of the car with hands on her hips. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing sunglasses. A plastic grocery bag was on the dirt beside her.

  “What are you doing here? Go away!”

  She crossed her arms, tilted her head, and didn’t budge.

  “You can’t be here. I’ve got something to do.”

  “Oh, really? Like I haven’t already figured that out.”

  He inserted the key in the ignition. “Move out of the way. Or else.”

  She rolled her eyes, grabbed the bag, and stepped to one side, waving her arm in a be-my-guest gesture. Her strange behavior bewildered him, but at least she’d moved clear. He turned the key and the car lurched a few inches forward without starting. He tried again, got the same result.

  Sarafina faked a yawn and stepped up to his door. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s a stick, dummy.”

  He glanced at the footwell. “I’m an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re just a little overanxious sometimes. So what?”

  He appreciated how quickly she’d switched from tormentor to supportive sister. She’d always been like that with him. “Actually, in this case I really am an idiot. I never learned how to drive a stick.”

  “It’s not hard, but then I’m an Italian. It’s in my blood.”

  “An Italian raised in Venice where they don’t have any cars!”

  That brought a smile to her face. “You got me there. Actually, I learned from Tommy.”

  “Tommy Brown let you drive his dad’s Mini Cooper? You’re only thirteen years old!”

  “I’ll be fourteen next month. Now scoot over.” She opened the door.

  “Wait a minute. You can’t go with me.”

  “Of course I can.”

  “But what I have to do is…well, it’s dangerous.”

  “Trust me. I know exactly what you plan to do.”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on, Ahmed. We’re both Bronsons now. As Uncle Tony would say, we know what’s up. You don’t think I haven’t noticed how nervous you’ve been lately? How frustrated? It was only a matter of time before you burst. And you know what? I don’t blame you. I feel the same way. We’ve been sitting around doing nothing for way too long. Heck, even our little brother has gotten into the act. It’s time to do our part. Now move over. We need to leave before Mom notices.”

  He moved to the passenger seat. There was no way he was going to allow his sister to get in harm’s way, but for now she was his only ride out of there. He’d find a way to get different wheels after that. Then he’d send her home where she could stay safe.

  She dumped the bag on his lap. “By the way, you forgot to bring Marshall’s phone with you. You know, the one with the exact location of their base east of the lake? I peeked at it long enough to copy the address onto one of the burner phones. Did you think of that, or were you going to wing it based on that not-so-fantastic memory of yours? I also brought the binoculars, an extra phone so we can stay in touch if we get separated, and a spare magazine for your pistol
in case they spot us checking out the place.” He gaped at her, and she cocked her head to one side. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that girls rule?”

  Chapter 23

  Los Padres National Forest

  FARHAD WATCHED AS THE green sports car departed the lodge. The girl and the traitor Ahmed were in the car.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Ghazi asked.

  “Likely another store run,” Jamal said. “They’ll be back soon enough.”

  Ghazi said, “We can’t follow them. The three drones barely have enough juice left to transmit video. They’ll be dead soon.”

  Behind them Amir was double-checking the control mechanisms of one of the Pelican drones. Without looking up, he said, “Just as dead as anyone in that lodge after my drone magazine unleashes hell on them.”

  Normally, they could have sent Pelican-1 or 2 to recover the camera drones and replace them with fully charged units. At this point, though, it was more important to maintain a low profile, and to give Amir and Tarik plenty of time to ensure the mother drones were in perfect working order for the next day’s attack. In any case, sending the video signals over the lodge’s Wi-Fi allowed them to maintain uninterrupted surveillance when satellite uplinks via the Pelicans weren’t available.

  One of the twin displays at Jamal’s station flickered and went black. “The bug drone finally gave out,” he said. The dragonfly drone had been feeding them sound and video from inside the lodge.

  Terrible timing, Farhad thought. Eavesdropping on the conversations had been a boon, especially when they’d heard Bronson and the boy were on their way back from South America. “What about hacking into the laptop the actress’s husband can’t seem to live without? Perhaps we can use its camera and microphone.”

  Jamal motioned toward Ebrahem, who was huddled over his own laptop. “Ebrahem’s already working on it.”

  “No luck yet,” Ebrahem said. “This Marshall character is no slouch when it comes to security. He’s got layers over layers of firewalls. Every time I get through one, another pops up. I have to go slow to make sure I don’t trip any alarms. It’s starting to piss me off.”