“Hey, Jack, how the hell are ya?” Andy greeted the oldest Marten.
“Good, Andy. Why didn’t you stay on the trail?” Jack asked. “Jesus, you could’ve broken a leg or something.”
“Thought I could make my own trail…hehe,” Andy said, laughing at himself. “Didn’t think that bank would be so slippery.” He scanned the ice, surveying the tip-ups already in place and thought about where to drill a hole to jig for perch.
“Andy, you know my brother, Paul, don’t you?” Jacked asked the burly man. Paul stepped forward with an ungloved hand.
“Oh yeah…hehe, how you doing, Paul,” Andy asked, grasping Paul’s hand with a firm shake.
“Good…good, thanks. How’s the fishing been this year, Andy?”
“Not bad…hehe, not bad. Caught a nice northern out here last week. Too big. I decided to throw it back, ‘cause I like the smaller ones for eating,” he rubbed his protruding belly at the thought of eating fish.
Andy Kessler was a man everyone in town knew. He lived in his cabin just off the river, not far from where they were now standing. He did not work a traditional job, but rather, was a survivalist. Andy lived off the resources of the land, and was a skilled hunter, fisherman, and gardener. Many people envied Andy’s lifestyle and how simply the man lived. A few had even tried to replicate his life by building cabins on the east side of the river until the isolation from society drove them back to civilization. But, Andy enjoyed the solitude of the woods.
People in town would see Andy year-round, despite his isolation. He was a friendly man, early 50s, with no wife or children. Every week, he would drive his truck to town and gather some supplies. He would often park at the fire station and sell firewood, fresh berries, baskets he had weaved, or traps he had built. The townspeople kept him busy with odd jobs and praised his work ethic. If you could contact him, Andy would perform any construction, cleaning, or repair around the house. The quality of his work was professional, and he charged half of what most contractors would.
Paul was kneeling on the ground, searching for Andy’s gear in the snow. He retrieved an ice-spud, an ice scoop, and a minnow net. A Cobra CXT, two-way radio, found its way into Paul’s hand. Paul curled the cuff of his buckskin mitten, revealing the wool lining and used it to brush away the snow packed into the speaker of the walkie-talkie. The radio squawked, surprising Paul.
Andy reached for the radio. “Oh, that stupid thing…picks up signals from all around us. I just keep it off.”
He took the walkie-talkie from Paul and turned off the power. He reorganized the gear in his Jet Sled and started for the center of the bay. Jack and Paul walked on Andy’s flanks, talking about their day so far, but all of them had eyes on Eric, kneeling at a hole, pulling fishing line hand-over-hand. A large walleye soon followed the line and lay on the ice flapping in protest. Paul and Jack broke into a slow jog, racing toward their young brother and leaving Andy behind.
Andy peeled to the left and stopped 50 yards from the brook. He lifted his auger from the sled and began cranking the six-inch hand drill, boring through the ice. Using a hand auger rather than a gas-powered, alleviated the extra weight and expense of gas. Thick arms, from years of manual labor, cranked the drill clockwise for 30 seconds until the drill dropped through. A gush of river water flooded the ice, melting the snow around the six-inch hole. The auger was set back in the sled, and Andy retrieved a small folding chair made of aluminum and canvas. The first hole he drilled was his last for the day. A small fishing rod, about 24 inches in length, was baited with a small minnow. Andy intended to sit and catch a few perch for today and leave the bigger fish for another time. He jigged his rod in a slow upward motion then let the bait settle back down. The motion repeated over and over, and it wasn’t long before a 10-inch perch showed interest.
Chapter 8 / Cordelia
The Canadian hiked in circles on top of the ridge for no other reason than to warm up. He collected firewood along the way, even though the use of the fire would soon come to an abrupt end. The sun was illuminating the hillside now. He peered down the cliff, staring at his tracks in the snow, meandering through the diversity of trees and climbing with determination. The ridge appeared so much smaller in the daylight. Was it because the darkness had concealed the scale of the granite ridge, tricking him into believing he had climbed higher than his current elevation? Or was it the snow that had fooled him, forcing his steps to be high as he picked up his boots with every step? He rubbed his legs, thinking about how they had burned from fatigue earlier that morning. He peeked at the cheap watch strapped to his wrist.
7:25
Time to get busy.
The backpack leaned against the cherry tree where he had slept. He pulled it closer to the fire and unzipped the top, exposing a black plastic case the size of a pillow. The case sat on the ground in an area of packed snow, not too far from the fire. Inside, the contents included two batteries, a remote control, an iPhone, a bag of spare parts, and a quadcopter that the Canadian had built himself. Flying remote aircraft became a hobby for the mechanic three years prior when he had observed a helicopter at the airport where he worked.
He envied the pilot behind the controls—rising, spinning in 360s, hovering over the city like a superhero waiting for the public’s laudation. The aerial machine fascinated him. While most people only saw the big machine with a giant rotor, he thought about all the internal parts working in harmony—perfectly timed mechanisms; electricity being produced, torque converted to power, the power turning rotors, the rotors supplying lift. It was a thing of beauty, and the mechanic watched with the same awe that a luthier might watch a symphony. All those essential parts synchronized to play and work together in harmony to form a powerful masterpiece.
That very day, a new remote-controlled helicopter occupied the back seat of his Silverado. It wasn’t long before he was adept at flying the toy aircraft and yearned for more power and speed. He perused online forums, bought books to study, and joined a local RC club. Within a year, he was ordering parts and building RC aircraft for racing. His favorite was a quadcopter he called Cordelia; named after a song by The Tragically Hip—not realizing the reference came from King Lear.
The diameter of the drone was about 30 inches once the arms unfolded. The Canadian inspected each rotor blade, the gas lines, and the wiring. The remote control batteries were at full charge. Good. The little gas engine, the heart of Cordelia, was from a Stihl 56 RC weed eater. The engine could produce one horsepower with its 27 cc engine, and fly for almost an hour.
He pushed the primer bulb five times and pull-started the engine. Cordelia coughed, but was reluctant to start in the cold. He switched the choke lever to the cold position and tried again, but to no avail. He cranked five more times. This time, the little engine whined at him and then idled down to a quiet rumble. The two-stroke engine idled until he pushed forward on the right stick of the remote.
Cordelia came to life and rose from her base. She hovered like a hungry bumble bee, ready to feed on a succulent flower. The Canadian watched the five-inch screen mounted on the remote control as he guided Cordelia higher. She climbed unobstructed over the treetops, her single lens staring downward, unblinking, shutter open, and aperture set.
“Sorry, Cordelia,” the Canadian said. “Won’t be any pictures today.”
Cordelia turned her eye toward the horizon and then spun 360 degrees. A horde of clouds stormed into view to the north, obscuring visibility in a white haze. This was the direction from where the target would be approaching. The other 270 degrees were much more clear with a cyan sky washed with stratus clouds like freshly cleaned sheets hanging on a clothesline, blowing in the wind in slow motion.
Cordelia finished her test flight and descended to the ground.
Luckily, a large cherry tree had fallen here some time ago, uprooted by a wind storm. Several smaller trees lay under the large cherry tree as collateral damage to the violent fall. The missing trees created a void in the canopy of bran
ches above. The void allowed the sunlight and rain to penetrate the forest and nurture new growth. It was the perfect example of how nature worked—old must die so new can be born, or in this case, grown. The old tree would rot away and fertilize the young saplings growing in the sun, nourishing their bark and leaves so they would be healthy and strong. The death of the large cherry was a melancholy event, but necessary. If the mature trees continued to live, they would suffocate the new flora, robbing it of a chance to grow and thrive.
That’s how nature was supposed to work. Old dies so the young can survive.
The vision of the tombstone zipped through the Canadian’s mind faster than Cordelia could fly a circle around him.
A deep breath of cold New York air filled his lungs to bursting capacity. He exhaled with force, clearing his lungs, his mind, and his conscience. Cordelia was parked on the packed snow in front of him, her all-seeing camera pointing straight out to where he was sitting. The Canadian walked over and hit the kill-switch to stop the engine, then returned to the log where he’d been sitting.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Cordelia continued to stare.
“I know…I know, but Jesus, this is what I have to do. We’ve come this far, no sense turning back now, eh. Besides, ya know, this is my only shot. I fail today, there is no hope. No hope at all.”
His eyelids swelled a little, fighting the urge to burst.
Cordelia sat unresponsive by his argument. Her four arms reached upward, lifted as though giving up on the Canadian and asking forgiveness from a higher power.
“You do your job, and I’ll do mine. Everything will be okay.”
A single tear fell from the human’s eye and disappeared somewhere in his red beard. He stood abruptly, fighting the weakness that had momentarily overtaken his determination. Two hands clenched into fists, pulling the skin taught over thick bony knuckles. The fists finally relaxed and reached into the open backpack to retrieve a canister.
The canister was a galvanized steel cylinder about six inches in length with a diameter of two inches. One side had a steel cap threaded over the end. The steel cap was drilled out in the center, and the hole was threaded to accommodate a spark plug. Two wires ran from a battery to a remote switch and then to the spark plug. Once the switch was turned on, the set-up created an internal spark—a spark that would ignite four ounces of gunpowder. The rest of the canister space was full of ball bearings—the smallest were the size of BB’s, the largest were similar to marbles. The opposite end of the canister was then sealed off by a thin piece of galvanized steel welded into place. The entire thing was, virtually, an oversized shotgun shell with an electric primer.
The canister mounted to Cordelia’s back with the help of some pre-fastened velcro and a couple of zip-ties. The wires peeking through the end of the canister were attached to a whip that was ready to receive them. The Canadian had removed all of Cordelia’s lights and rearranged the wires to act as the ignition for the homemade pipe bomb. Once he hit the light switch on the remote control, the spark plug would ignite the gunpowder. The explosion inside would be contained, blowing the ball bearings out of the weaker end of the canister.
The Canadian finished strapping the pipe bomb to loyal Cordelia and sat , staring at his device of destruction. He listened to the silence. The wind moved like a ninja through the leafless trees, leaving the snow and everything it touched undisturbed. The only evidence of its existence was the temperature change on the Canadian’s face. A chickadee fluttered from branch to branch in a thin gray birch tree, scouring the dry catkins for seeds. Each time she changed location, she announced it with her delicate voice. The Canadian watched her movements hypnotically as she danced, fluttered, and sang. He felt as though this tiny bird might be trying to tell him something and he enjoyed her company. Then she was gone.
His attention turned back to the silence. Cordelia watched him stoically, waiting to serve him loyally and execute her orders without hesitation. Her controls rest in the Canadian’s lap as he thumbed the joysticks and thought about her mission. With his eyes closed, he focused and listened for the sound of their intended target.
He didn’t have to wait long.
In the distance, coming from the north, the sound came as a whisper on the wind. He heard the distinct sound of the engine he had worked on many times in the past. He heard the propeller chopping at the wind with its high-speed revolutions. The sound grew louder as it closed the gap between them.
He raced over to Cordelia and refired the warm engine. She enthusiastically spun her rotors as gray fumes spit from her exhaust. She looked pissed off but ready to go.
Cordelia sprung from her perch as all four propellers achieved lift. She throttled up in a perfectly straight ascent, leaving the Canadian with no second thought or remorse. In four seconds, the tall trees were looking up at the little quadcopter, watching her climb until she was barely visible.
Cordelia hovered at the peak of her range. Her wide eye scanned the ground momentarily and then she turned her focus to the oncoming plane. She needed to be flawless. Her altitude perfect. Her timing impeccable. She had one chance to prove her worth.
Below, the Canadian’s eyes burned into the monitor mounted on the remote control. He had picked this location after hours of calculating and planning. The Beechcraft would stay low without the altimeter working correctly, so he made sure it would fail while doing his routine maintenance. He also sabotaged the windshield wiper to obscure Ozzie’s view and force him to fly by GPS to stay on course. The plane would still have been out of Cordelia’s vertical limit, but the ridge he climbed to fulfill this mission increased his elevation by 700 feet. If Ozzy kept the plane at an altitude of -1,200 feet, Cordelia could easily reach him before she hit her vertical limit or left the remote control’s range.
Finally, the plane came into sight. To Cordelia’s surprise, it was lower than she had anticipated. She back-flipped and dove straight down until she was hovering about 500 feet off the ridge, and refocused. Thirty feet too low. A boost in throttle brought her back up again. She had one shot to win her game of chicken against the Beechcraft, which was closing in at almost 263 miles per hour. Cordelia yawed to the left, pitched forward, and sped 70 feet. She was fast and extremely agile, like a cat chasing a laser pointer. Now, her alignment was nearly perfect. The homemade pipe bomb pointed straight at the propeller of the incoming aircraft. Just a few more seconds of patience and she would prove her loyalty to her creator watching below.
Ozzy Sullivan squinted through the beads of water condensing on the cold windshield. The wiper was nearly useless, but the wind was blowing the condensation off the top and sides as the Beechcraft’s aerodynamics worked flawlessly. He looked back to see Blankenship reading a magazine with a pistol on the front cover. The case of money lay on the copilot’s seat. Ozzy thought about the pistol holstered on his side—a Taurus .38 special revolver. He could easily pull the gun now, dispatch the brutish bodyguard and fly away with the loot. It would be easy.
Or would it?
Blankenship was to report to Skiff as soon as the wheels hit the ground. If he did not call, Skiff had more associates he could contact to find the plane. The fuel gauge vibrated from the roaring engine, making it difficult to get an accurate reading, but he knew there would be little excess fuel for this trip. The plane would make it to Schenectady and then to Burlington, plus a little further if an emergency arose. How far could he get? Not very. He’d have to ditch the plane in some farmer’s field and go on the run. He hadn’t prepared for that.
“Damn,” he thought to himself, “should’ve planned this before we left.” He gave up on the fantasy, knowing full well he could not pull off such a heist and live to tell about it. It wasn’t worth the risk, and he wasn’t ready to die for Skiff’s dirty money. “Maybe next time,” he thought.
He turned his attention back to the sky and scenic mountains appearing in his trajectory. He’d wished it was Fall and the curvaceous peaks in his
foreground were yellow, orange, and red. Without the canopy of leaves, Ozzy could see every detail of the terrain below—the rocks, creeks, and beaver ponds. He could see whitetail-deer browsing the hillsides and flocks of winter birds scuttering about the trees. A murder of crows, perched in a large tree overlooking an unplowed road, scattered as the plane flew overhead. When his keen eyes left the ground and leveled out in front of the plane, he saw the anomaly in the sky hovering directly in the plane’s path. Cordelia stared him down like some maniacal killer in a horror movie.
“What the bloody…holy shit!”
Ozzy cranked the yoke to the right, stepped on the rudder pedal, and hammered the throttle. The Beechcraft responded and banked. Cordelia’s all-seeing eye saw the evasive maneuver and countered. A straight shot was out of the question now. Cordelia yawed to the left 30 degrees, anticipated the new flight path, and bolted forward. She screamed like a warrior—all four rotors spinning at full speed as she launched her Kamikazee assault.
Ozzy couldn’t see the quadcopter outside becausing he was banking away. He changed rudder and direction to level out again but stayed on the throttle so the plane could climb in altitude. His eyes nearly burst out of his head when he realized the drone had turned and was tracking the plane. He knew the plane would take some damage, but he had no idea how bad it would be.
Blankenship heard the terror in Ozzy’s scream and instinctively grabbed his assault rifle.
Cordelia zipped at almost 70 miles per hour. The Beechcraft had no further evasive tricks and held its course. Cordelia was aiming straight for the engine mounted at the front of the plane, but the plane was faster than she realized. Milliseconds before the collision the light button was flipped to the ‘on’ position sending the electric current from Cordelia’s battery pack to the canister. The spark lit the gunpowder, which exploded with the force of dynamite. Two-hundred ball bearings exploded out the weak end of the canister and into the Beechcraft. They violently tore through the thin metal of the plane, piercing the fuselage and perforating the frame. They ripped apart fuel lines, punctured the engine block, devastated the door and its hinges, shred the left wing, and left a hole in the plane the size of a hoolahoop. The ball bearings ricocheted within the interior of the plane, creating more destruction.
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