“You said you could get Mr. Gilbert out safe!”
“Yes, and I thought they’d be waiting for us at the car when we got there, but obviously they had to make some adjustments.”
“Or they never made it out,” the second bodyguard says.
Both stare at Alfonso with an anger that makes him gulp with fear.
“He’s worth a lot of money, any one of those criminals at that event could have snatched him up for ransom.”
“My friend is with him, he’ll be fine,” Alfonso says.
“And what is it that your friend does for a living?”
“He’s a personal valet.”
“A driver? A driver is now protecting one of the richest men in the world from some of the most notorious criminals in the world?”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“What other way do you want me to put it?”
“Well, he’s not just a driver. He’s a problem solver. A fixer. And when he sets his mind to something he always comes through. Always! He’s the best guy I know, and there’s no one I would trust more with my life, than him.”
“That’s good, because you have trusted your life with him.”
The implication is clear, and Alfonso feels himself gulp again. The two men are huge, trained, and if they turned their anger on him, he wouldn’t last a minute. But it shouldn’t come to that, it won’t come to that. Ricardo knows what he’s doing. He’ll get the kid out, Alfonso reassures himself.
“Luis, you know where you’re going right?”
“Back to the venue,” he replies.
“Then why didn’t you turn—”
“Shortcut,” he says, cutting off Alfonso. “We’re going to come in from behind.”
“Why?” One of the bodyguards asks.
“If Ricardo couldn’t make it to the tunnel, then he sure as hell won’t be able to make out the front door. If he can’t go out and he can’t go down, where’s he going to go?”
“The roof!” Alfonso shouts, realizing the brilliance.
“The roof,” Luis repeats with a smile as the large ornate building comes into view only a block down the road.
***
“Step away from the edge, they’ll see you.”
“These morons won’t think to look up. They’re all brawn, no brain,” Braden says, watching the scene of the mob fighting down below, and his potential captors still searching him out. “What now?”
“I’m thinking,” Ricardo responds, as his eyes scan the roof of the old building.
“You’re thinking?”
“Would you rather me not think?”
“I would rather you have a plan!”
“The plan was down. That plan’s gone.”
“And you don’t have a backup? And a backup for the backup?”
Ricardo stops and looks at the kid.
“Who do you think I am?”
“The man who said he could get me out.”
Ricardo shrugs, looking around him.
“Out,” he says. “You’re out!”
“You said you could get me safe!”
Again, Ricardo shrugs, looking around at the empty rooftop.
“Is anyone attacking you?”
“So you lied?”
“Did I?”
“This is not what you implied!”
“And this is not what the plan was!” Ricardo says, snapping at the kid, his anger getting the best of him in the moment.
“Well whatever you’re thinking about, better come quick.”
“Why?”
“Cause they saw me.”
“What?”
Ricardo turns and Braden pulls his head back over the edge of the rooftop.
“You idiot!”
“Me? They looked because you yelled at me!”
“Oh so now it’s my fault they saw you?”
“You said you’d get me out of there, you’d get me safe. So just do it!”
“Look, you’re scared, I’m scared. That’s how this works!”
“You’re scared?” Braden yells. “No! You don’t get to be scared, because you put us in this situation. You put us in danger!”
“That’s the difference between us, kid. You’re scared for yourself. I’m scared for the ones I love.”
Ricardo takes a second, takes a breath, and smiles once again.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have yelled. We need to work together. We need to—”
“Do what?” Braden asks. “Repel off the roof into the crazy murderous mob? Or stay up here and wait for them to come grab us?”
“No,” Ricardo says, finally noticing something. “Hey kid, how are you with technology?”
“I’m a genius. Why?” Braden says, glancing over his shoulder, just waiting for the first signs of men coming over the roof wall.
Ricardo nods toward an old satellite dish. Its large metal shield is weathered with age and neglect.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” he asks.
“I’m not a huge technology guy, so you’ll have to tell me, what’ll happen if I grab this cable?” Ricardo asks, pointing to a large black cable streaming from the building’s roof to a metal tower standing across the street.
“Nothing. That’s just the building’s telephone line, but if it’s connected to…” Braden says before glancing back at the old satellite dish. “Oh, you’re brilliant!”
Ricardo smiles at the compliment as he reaches up and wraps his hand around the base of the cord attached to the building.
“If it’s connected to a Wi-Fi network,” Braden continues, “which in this day in age it surely is, then I can reroute the signal to use the satellite dish as a—”
In one swift motion, Ricardo rips the cable from the wall, tearing the wires from their base.
“What the hell are you doing!” Braden yells. “You just killed the whole plan.”
“I don’t think so. It can still be connected to the dish.”
“Oh. Exactly! Why reroute digitally when you can simply strip the wires and connect them directly to the dish. Assuming the dish is still aimed at the closest radio tower, we can—”
With a massive stomp, the satellite dish breaks from its stand and smashes to the rooftop floor.
“Why do you keep doing that!” Braden yells once again, outraged with the man who seems to be wrapping the cable around his arm as he lifts the giant saucer. “Why did you ask me if I was good with technology if you were just going to destroy the little bit of technology we even have?”
“You may be a genius, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that making a signal for someone to come help, was going to take too long,” Ricardo says, with a nod to the far side of the roof. “My plan is…a bit more immediate.”
Braden turns to see the first of his captors stepping up onto the roof and surely more are close behind. Ricardo walks to the edge of the building and looks down.
“Hop on my back.”
“What?”
“You were a child once, right? You know what a piggyback ride is?”
“Of course, but—”
“Then hop on.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at here and there’s no way I’m going to—”
Ricardo grabs the kid and throws him over his shoulder, as the group who’ve made it up onto the roof race toward them.
“Do you have any idea how imbecilically stupid this is?” Braden yells from atop the man’s shoulders.
“Imbecilically stupid? That was the name of my band in college.”
“You went to college?” Braden asks as Ricardo carries him to the edge of the building. The group of men, only feet away, gain with each second.
“Nope,” he says, before leaping from the roof.
***
“Is that…holy shit, it is!” Alfonso yells as the four of them stare at a sight they never thought they would see.
With Braden slung over his shoulder, Ricardo jumps from the roof of the building, just as a mod lunges for them from the roof. They fall through the air before the telephone cable catches, pulling Ricardo, Braden, and the satellite dish they sit on. Two men and a broken satellite dish swing through the air, gaining speed and heading straight for the street. With his legs wrapped around the dish’s neck, Ricardo braces for impact. Luckily, despite its age and the weight upon it, the dish doesn’t smash when it hits the ground. Instead, it scrapes across it. Momentum sending them careening down the road, bouncing and skidding like a rock across a pond.
“Break!” Alfonso yells as the projectile of men and metal fly directly toward them.
Luis slams on the brakes and the car begins to skid. Both objects on a collision course, neither going to stop in time. As they near, Alfonso can see the look on his best friend’s face. He’s smiling. He’s always smiling. Even in the shortest of moments, the brain can think. In fact, it only thinks faster, and Alfonso wonders what the man has to be happy about, knowing that in only a minute they will be crushed by a car. Just then the old satellite, scrapped and destroyed, bounces into the air, and spears itself into the tempered glass of the car’s windshield.
Finally stopped and silent, Alfonso, Luis, and the two bodyguards sit frozen, unable to see out of the windshield and unwilling to subject themselves to the fate of the others.
“Did we…” Luis trails off, unable to finish his question.
“Hit them? Yeah,” a bodyguard answers, staring at the disc embedded in the windshield.
“And they’re…”
“Dead? Probably,” the second bodyguard answers, not wanting to confirm his failure by stepping outside.
“He was smiling,” Alfonso mumbles to himself. “He was smiling.”
“What are you mumbling about?” one of the overly large men asks.
“He was smiling!”
“So that means he was happy to die?” the other bodyguard asks.
“No,” Alfonso says, opening the door. “It means he had a plan.”
As he steps out from behind the door, he sees them. Standing in front of the car, scrapped and bloodied, but in all appearances, alive, are Ricardo and Braden. The others all step out of the car, mouths agape at the two slowly walking toward them. Other cars in the street have stopped as well. People are looking from the roof, to the damaged car, to the two random people who caused the crazy mess.
Alfonso runs to Ricardo and gives him a hug and Ricardo yells out in pain.
“What? What did I do?” Alfonso asks.
“His arm’s dislocated,” Braden says. “Nearly ripped off the idiot’s body when the cable’s slack ended.”
“It’s what saved our lives,” Ricardo says.
“No,” Braden counters, turning on the man who forced him to jump off the roof of a building. “You’re what saved our lives. And I’ll always owe you a debt.”
“Look, that’s sweet and all, but there’s a mob spilling out of that building, a crowd forming out here, and we still need to get to the airport,” Luis says. “Now can we all get in the damn car?”