Against All Odds

by Richard Bard

  Walt had contacted the guy who’d designed the device, and the whiz kid had sent a PDF of the operating and warning instructions to Jake’s phone. He’d memorized them during his race up the twenty-one flights of stairs to the catwalk access point. It was a simple design, with a charge meter, a variable output control, and a remote-control activation switch. That was the good news. The bad news was that it used what was supposed to be a small amount of explosives to compress the electrical field generated by the ferromagnetic materials packed in the center of the ball. The duplicate unit Walt had tested on the EOD range had been set for a low-level output. Nevertheless, it had blown the walls off the testing shack at the range. Had anybody been near the shack, the accident would’ve proved deadly.

  Of course, the unit had also knocked out electrical devices as far as two hundred yards away, and that aspect was fine with Jake. For his needs, the more expansive the electromagnetic pulse, the better, regardless of the possibility of damage in the immediate vicinity. He planned to suspend the device in the middle of the airspace surrounded by the drones, too far away from any of the spectators in the stands to cause injuries.

  The crowd had stopped singing, and Farhad’s speech echoed in the vast space. Jake could tell it was about to end. He turned the device’s variable output knob to the max, zipped up the backpack, and secured the straps to the end of the coiled safety rope beside him. He looked over the edge. According to the building specs, the football field was two hundred and seventy-five feet below. The safety ropes workers used for climbing on the roof were only one hundred feet long, which was ideal. By lowering the pack to the rope’s full length, the EMP device would be in perfect position amidst the drones.

  Before hefting the pack over the edge, he opened the outside pocket, pulled out the remote control, and—

  The remote was broken. It must have been smashed from the fall on the roof.

  Jake’s brain usually sorted through unexpected challenges on its own, at blazing speeds. In this particular instance, it froze. He stared dumbly at the useless remote. He couldn’t fathom that it was all going to end this way. Farhad’s speech was almost over, the drones were about to explode, and there was nothing he could—

  The bomb’s PDF schematics flashed across his mind, exposing the inner workings of the device. He unzipped the bag and rotated the bomb so that its access panel was visible. Two screws secured the hinged panel. He picked up the broken remote and snapped it in two to access its guts. Shards of circuit board and plastic stuck out at odd angles. He pressed the tip of a shard into one of the panel’s screws and twisted. It loosened, and after he removed it, he repeated the task on the second screw. The panel flipped open.

  After seeing what he needed to see, he clutched the bag to his chest, looped the straps over his shoulders, and jumped over the rail.

  Time slowed.

  The people below had risen to their feet, many pointing upward. It seemed as if they all went quiet at once. Images of Jake’s family came to him, and he remembered leaping from the cliff on the mountain in Afghanistan, begging for the adrenaline rush he’d needed to project a telepathic warning to Francesca in the airplane, knowing then, as he did now, that he was falling to his death. It was long overdue, wasn’t it? He’d cheated the Grim Reaper so many times, he’d lost count. It was finally his turn and he was ready for it. He remembered struggling inside the confines of the MRI during the earthquake that had changed his brain eight years ago, praying he would live at least long enough to make a difference in the world—and he’d done that, hadn’t he? At least he’d tried to, time and time again. As he fell through space with seventy thousand souls at risk, he would try one last time, knowing he would face God with a heart that had been true. When Farhad’s voice over the loudspeaker shouted Allahu Akbar, Jake Bronson found peace, and threw the switch.

  Chapter 37

  Stunt training ranch

  Seconds earlier

  WE STARED IN SHOCK AT THE BROADCASTS. There’d been a number of TV crews in the stadium media room for the event, and their cameras had swept upward when they caught sight of Dad running along the catwalk. Every major network was broadcasting the feeds, and I’d swiped four of them onto the wall screen. All of them were zoomed in on Dad as he snapped the remote control in half and was using it to do something inside the backpack. I turned the volume up on the NBC broadcast, where a female reporter spoke in an urgent voice-over:

  “…have confirmed the man is, in fact, Jake Bronson, the confessed Global Terrorist wanted by authorities around the world. He appears to be activating something inside the pack. Oh, dear Lord,” She touched her ear. “Please, I beg of you, ask your children to leave the room. Seventy thousand people, trapped, this can’t be happening! He’s standing up, clutching the pack…He’s going to jump!”

  “No, no, no!” Mom pleaded.

  Dad leaped over the rail.

  “Daddeee!” Sarafina cried.

  My chest seized

  Dad plummeted, and all four network feeds blacked out.

  Uncle Marshall sat stunned, Little Star bowed his head, and Sarafina sank into Mom’s embrace.

  Ahmed turned his stony gaze toward me. “Father was a hero to the end.”

  “It can’t be the end,” Uncle Marshall said, his eyes pained. “It can’t be….” He gestured toward the laptop. “What are you seeing?”

  I glanced at the laptop screen. I’d been scanning live cell phone videos. There had been thousands of them streaming on social media. Some of them focused on the crowds, some on the drones, and some on Dad on the catwalks. But most were selfies of people saying good-bye to loved ones. They’d all gone dark, too. I shook my head and wiped tears from my eyes as the reporter continued:

  “…an electrical disturbance of some sort has interrupted our feed, but I understand one of our mobile units recording outside the stadium was unaffected. They’re moving inside now. We should have it up…there it is. She touched her ear. “Turning it over to our reporter on the scene...”

  The view switched to a ground-level feed from the football field.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” the breathless male reporter said. “It’s a sight unlike anything I’ve ever seen, where every electronic device in the space suddenly switched off as a result of the midair detonation of the backpack device. Emergency lighting has since kicked on, and as you can see behind me, there are no drones flying overhead. I repeat, there are no drones in the air! They all dropped from the sky. There appear to be no serious injuries among those gathered inside, and stadium officials are using portable loudspeakers to urge attendees to slowly exit the facility. However, in an incredible exhibition of solidarity—the likes of which have never been witnessed before by this reporter—people are refusing to leave. Instead, they’ve joined hands in song, led by pop star Miley Cyrus, who looked up and saluted the man who’d saved them all and then began singing our national anthem. Teary-eyed attendees are singing along, grateful for the man who activated what we now know was an EMP device. Though he’d been branded the Global Terrorist, it seems Jake Bronson actually sacrificed his life to save everyone inside.”

  The people in the stands looked upward as they sang. When the camera panned up, I had a distant view of my dad’s limp form dangling at the end of the rope. Four people had converged on the catwalk above him, and his body rotated slowly as they pulled him up. The cameraman could’ve zoomed in on him, but out of apparent respect for my dad, and concern for viewers, he didn’t do so. Dad was lifted over the rail and laid gently on the ground. Two of the rescuers crouched as if to examine him. One suddenly jerked backward and fell on his butt. One of those still standing waved his arms frantically at the crowd, and the cameraman couldn’t resist. He zoomed in as my dad staggered to his feet and stared at the camera. His face was blackened with soot, but there was no mistaking his crooked smile.

  The crowd burst into cheers.

  Epilogue

  Western British Columbia, Canada

  Four wee
ks later

  LIFE WAS GOOD. My dad was fine, the family was together, and I hadn’t killed anyone—in real life or in a video game—for 41 days, 17 hours, and 7 minutes.

  We were at my great-grandfather’s cabin in the wilderness of southern British Columbia. Dad had argued it wasn’t the safest place to hang out, what with the bears and all, but Mom had insisted, particularly since Dad had never bothered to mention to her that the cabin existed. “No more secrets!” she’d demanded, and Dad had agreed. I think he meant it this time.

  I had so many drawers packed with secrets that it would take a lifetime just trying to explain them all to Mom. A lot of them I didn’t even understand myself. At least not yet. So I didn’t make any promises like Dad had. It was a good thing, too, because Mom was pregnant and she didn’t even know it yet. How did I know? Well, let’s just say I’d learned an awful lot of things from the brief connection I had with Gualu the Overseer in the Brazilian jungle. I’d soaked it all in, especially when he’d used the power of the portal to heal me and Dad. After Gualu had sacrificed his life to save us from Frank and Trumak, I’d tapped into that same power to remotely heal my new friends from The Card Club. I wished I could’ve healed Deondre, too, but he’d passed on, and some things were impossible. In any case, now that the portal, the mini, and the mountain surrounding them were out there in space somewhere, I guessed my days as a healer were over.

  As for an entire mountain launching into space? We’d expected to come home to nonstop news broadcasts about the event. Instead, there’d been absolutely nothing mentioned. The only people who knew about it were those of us who witnessed it firsthand. The stealth technology developed by Gualu’s people was way beyond anything our scientists could even imagine. When I took a peek inside one of my drawers to try to understand how it all worked, my head spun.

  Thoughts of Brazil reminded me of Lucy and Mandu. We’d gotten word that Mandu had taken over Frank’s bar on the river. She’d given authorities in London the thumb drive containing Frank’s confession to murdering the billionaire’s kids, and had received word the five million-pound reward was coming her way despite the fact Frank would never appear personally in court. She was going to use the money to expand the village surrounding the waystation as a sanctuary for tribes who continued to lose their native lands to so-called progress. I was proud that Dad and I had helped to make that happen.

  “Are you going to join in, or are you chicken?” Simon shouted from the shoreline. He, Ellie, Jazz, and Strawberry were there with Sarafina and Uncle Tony’s kids, Andrea and Tyler. Dad was showing them how to skip rocks, and they’d decided to make a contest out of it. What chance did I have? I was half their size.

  “Show ’em what you got, Alex,” Ahmed said. He was sitting on the porch with Little Star. The two had become fast friends during my brother’s recuperation from his knife wound. He was moving much better now. He still had a ways to go, but Little Star had been working with him daily, incorporating movement techniques perfected over the ages by monks from his former monastery. But the real changes I noticed in my brother had little to do with his healing wound. He had a confidence that reminded me of my dad. He’d stepped up to save our family. If it hadn’t been for his courage in infiltrating the terrorist group, we’d have never known of Farhad’s plans. He winked at me and motioned toward the shoreline.

  I turned to Simon and yelled, “I’m not a chicken. I’m a Bronson!” I knew I was going to come in last place in the contest, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing my best. Uncle Tony’s big son skipped a rock nearly a quarter of the way across the lake.

  Uncle Marshall and Lacey were lounging around the picnic table with Pete, Skylar, Mom, and Uncle Tony and his wife, Mel. Their two-year-old son kneeled on the bench between them. We’d all just eaten lunch, and the kid still had barbecue sauce on his face. Uncle Tony gave me a thumbs-up as I trudged toward certain defeat. Mom offered me an encouraging smile. She knew what I was thinking. She always did.

  The Aussies, Becker and Jonesy, had shown up as well. They’d taken the big speedboat to pick up Doc and his family from Port Hardy airport thirty-five miles away. They’d be back before sundown. Ripper and Snake had passed on the offer to join us, and Walt and Sam and their teams couldn’t make it either. We’d see them soon enough, because once Dad made a friend, they were friends for life. I watched Ellie skip a stone across the water, and hoped my friendships would last as long as my dad’s.

  Yes, today was an awesome day. The gang was all here, in person or in spirit. I’d heard there’d been a few raised eyebrows when the invitations went out and everyone realized the cabin was in the middle of nowhere. But when they learned it was an all-expenses-paid trip, including first-class plane tickets, they were more eager to jump aboard. The offer of a free trip, compliments of the United States government, had come as a shock when Doc told us about it. I guess that’s what happens when you save the president’s life, not to mention seventy thousand of his constituents. You get a few perks.

  Obviously, there wasn’t enough room for all of us to spend the night in the cabin, but that was what the yacht was for. The 125-foot-long ship had used the deep intracoastal waterways to find its way to the lake. It was moored offshore, and had enough staterooms for the overflow. I stayed in the cabin on shore with my family. After all, if any bears came snooping around, I was the only one who knew how to handle them.

  Following our stay here at the lake, my family and I were heading to Venice to see Grandpa Mario and the rest of our friends and family there. Grandma Milena and aunt Susie would be there, too, and I couldn’t wait to see them again. After Venice we planned to go back to our normal lives in Redondo Beach. We could do that now since we were no longer on the world’s Most Wanted list. The broadcast from the stadium had gone viral and Dad had been proclaimed a hero. On top of that, I’d been able to unlock Farhad’s backup drives from the cloud, where I’d discovered the raw footage that had been automatically backed up when the terrorists had connected Little Star’s hard drive to their network. After I uploaded all the raw videos to YouTube, most of them had gone viral, too, and our names were finally cleared. For good measure, I’d used the Spider to bring down every website on the darknet that had posted rewards for Dad’s head. I hadn’t told anyone about that, though I suspected Uncle Marshall had figured it out somehow. At his urging, I’d kept the Spider hidden ever since.

  As for the government types who wanted to get their hands on me because of the rumors about my super hacking abilities, our ruse during the video chat with former president Jackson had paid off. He’d convinced the current administration I’d lost my abilities. I’d had a few interviews and played my “ordinary” role pretty well, if I did say so myself. I’d gotten a few sideways glances but that was about it.

  Uncle Marshall had turned over Farhad’s backup cloud drive to Doc, and the government had used it to locate a drone manufacturing business Farhad’s team had set up on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Apparently, they’d been building attack drones there for the past three years. There were thousands of them. The government also located Farhad’s other safe houses across the country. There were thirty-two in all, and each contained drones, drone magazines, and plenty of homemade plastic explosives. Government agents had also found a number of larger drones, which we later learned were called Pelicans. Two had been used by Farhad’s team over the stadium, and they’d eventually landed on their own before running out of power. Homeland Security was still scratching their heads over the advanced programming on all the drones, and was probably hard at work figuring out how to defend against similar attacks in the future. I hoped so, because like it or not, drones were here to stay.

  As I approached Dad and my friends at the shoreline, I thought a normal life sounded pretty good. Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make something of myself. Like father, like son, right? I wanted to make a difference in the world. Now that I was healed, I had a long life ahead of me and the possibilities
were unlimited. Dad glanced over at me and smiled. His shoulder wound wasn’t bothering him anymore, and the scorch marks on his face had mostly disappeared, though the bruises on his chest and stomach hadn’t gone away yet. If it hadn’t been for the ballistic vest Mom had insisted he wear, he’d have been a goner. Still, the impact had cracked two of his ribs, so his hugs had been less than fierce lately. Anyway, our mental connection since we’d linked with Gualu was stronger than ever, and knowing how he felt beat getting a hug.

  Our mental bond didn’t mean we still couldn’t put walls up when we needed to, and a part of me wondered what was secreted away in the drawers of his mind. Had he retained the information revealed to us during the mind meld with Gualu’s technology, like I had? Or had it vanished from his brain like Gualu said it was supposed to? Dad hadn’t brought it up, and I hadn’t, either, though we’d probably have to do it sooner or later. But not for a while, and definitely not today. Nope. Today was about family, friends, and fun.

  I gave Ellie a smile, picked up the flattest rock I could find, and hurled it across the water.

  It skipped nearly all the way across the lake.

  Everybody turned and stared at me.

  Uh-oh.

  ###

  Author’s Note

  IF YOU ENJOYED this final installment in Jake’s story, I’d love to hear from you! Send an email via the Contact link at RichardBard.com, or, better yet, leave a review on your favorite site. Reviews, no matter how short, are a huge help, especially for the last book of a series, so I’d sincerely appreciate it.

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