Zeb explained his plan on their way to Lighthollow, in two SUVs. Bear, Chloe, Bwana, and Roger, in one. Zeb, Broker, and the twins in the other.
Zeb was driving. Meghan was in her preferred place, in the front, next to Zeb, acting as navigator and sarcasm dispenser.
The SUVs had all the equipment they needed, including the few specials Zeb had wanted. They all wore loose overalls, underneath which was their body armor. Around their necks were sound suppressors and night vision goggles.
Zeb and Bwana drove as fast as traffic permitted and when the night lights of the capital fell behind, floored it.
Lighthollow welcomed them at eleven. It was slumbering, the way small cities did, with very few cars on the streets, an occasional truck carrying deliveries for the next day.
It was quieter in the smaller streets inside the city. Zeb killed his lights, saw Bwana follow suit, in his mirror.
The first stop was the pawnshop.
Broker fired up two computers, and connected to Werner. The twins brought out two drones that weren’t available in any hobby shop or any other commercial outlet.
The drones were equipped with infrared detectors, laser range finders, Doppler transmitters and more gadgets than Zeb cared to remember.
Broker and the twins launched into a list of features whenever the drones came up. Zeb cut them off each time. The drones could fly. They could detect. They could report back. That was all that mattered to him. How wasn’t relevant.
They parked a street away, one SUV at either end of the street.
Zeb and Roger jogged at a fast pace along with the twins and reached the pawnshop.
The store was closed and shuttered and had a few lights on the outside. Its parking lot, at the front, was deserted.
Zeb kept watch while Roger helped the twins launched the drones.
‘Got feeds,’ Broker whispered in their ears.
A dog walker appeared in the distance. Zeb watched him and relaxed when he turned into a driveway.
One drone circled the front of the store; another flew to its rear.
‘No infrared. No sign of life.’
They flew the craft for another fifteen minutes, confirmed that there were no humans in the store and set off to the second stop.
The small residence was ten minutes away and it took only two passes to confirm that there were three humans inside the house, no security setup of any kind was detectable.
‘Not the place we want.’
‘How long will we be at this place?’
Merritt, who was watching yet another news bulletin, craned his head toward Beldwin.
He studied the psychiatrist in silence and then chuckled. ‘Got somewhere else to go, doc?’
Beldwin looked embarrassed and muttered something.
‘We’ll be here for another week, Doc. Then we’ll exfil to another location.’
Not you though. We’ll leave you behind. Dead.
The answer satisfied Beldwin who watched the TV in silence for some more moments and then posed another question.
‘What if the boy never recovers?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
He’ll die too, in that case. Both of them.
He watched the news for a while and then turned off the TV, checked on the men on the ground floor, and went upstairs.
The first story had four rooms that faced the rear. The boys were in two adjacent rooms.
Merritt was in one room opposite the boy’s room. Next to the other boy’s, was a bathroom and yet another room which Avram occupied.
Carlos and Fiske shared a large room, which had an attached bathroom.
Merritt spoke softly to Avram and Pico, who were on duty, checked in on the boys, who were asleep, and went to his room.
Another uneventful day, he thought as readied his bed.
The first drone rose uneventfully and blended with the night. It had dull, radar deflecting paint and circled the front of the third location. The second drone followed and eyed the backyard.
‘Infrared sensors. All over the front yard.’
Zeb could feel Broker’s triumphant grin as he looked at the feed. Broker was parked half a mile away. The other SUV was at the other end of the street, facing Broker’s vehicle.
Zeb, Roger, and the twins were walking casually down the street. Just another pair of couples enjoying the late evening.
The drones whirred silently, saw everything and reported everything that they saw.
‘One last confirmation needed,’ Zeb said aloud.
Merritt didn’t know what woke him. One moment he was in a dreamless sleep, the next, he was awake.
He glanced at the clock. Half past eleven. Not too late.
A loud report sounded.
Sounds like a shot. That probably woke me.
His hand snaked to his Sig in a practiced move and he got to his feet and listened.
More reports sounded. Shouts and yells came from the street.
A gunfight right on the street?
‘Carlos? Avram? Pico? Fiske?’ he called out softly.
They acknowledged. The men from downstairs replied. Beldwin appeared in the doorway of his room, disheveled. Merritt sent him back inside.
He took over from Pico who went down to check the security set-up. Merritt was sure whoever was shooting, weren’t the cops.
They would have battered down the door by now. There would have been choppers in the air. Searchlights would have lit the night.
Fiske went to a front window and peered out cautiously. The street fight was still heated, but the sounds were growing fainter.
Gunmen firing at one another, from cars?
The drones circled and watched, relentlessly. Broker and Bear controlled them from inside one SUV and monitored the video. There wasn’t much to monitor.
‘Better and better. There’s anti-Doppler in the house. The windows are laser defeating. There seems to be some kind of thermal masking. No idea how many bodies are inside. Whoever’s inside is smart. Very smart.’
The lack of detail was good. It meant they were right to target the boatyard.
Bwana drove the second SUV which played sounds of a gunfight through a speaker on its roof. Lights came on in several houses and he knew 911 calls would be made. Those calls wouldn’t be attended to.
Zeb had told Burke to instruct Virginia State Police and the local P.D. to ignore any gunfight calls. Burke had wanted to know more. Zeb had asked her to focus on the two assaults.
Broker nudged the joystick and moved one drone to cover the entire front of the house.
He zoomed in on one window whose shades had twitched. The cameras were similar to what satellites had, only smaller. From this close, the cameras would pick every blemish and pore on a person’s body.
They picked out two faces and relayed them to the laptop in the SUV.
Werner grabbed those images and ran them against its databank and through facial recog.
Werner didn’t take long. It came back with a message, which Broker relayed.
‘Two faces showed themselves. One of those was in the hotel.’
The two couples were moving even before Broker had finished.
They turned and walked, a shade faster, to a rendezvous point behind a pickup truck on the street, away from the target house’s sightline.
Zeb spoke just once.’ We’re on.’
Merritt walked around the house for several minutes, making sure everything was locked down tight. He cracked the shades at the front and the rear. The yards were silent and empty.
He peered at Pico’s monitors and cameras. The pressure pads, the infra-red sensors – all showed no signs of intrusion.
Lastly, he checked the police scanners. There were reports of two cars shooting at one another in Lighthollow.
The cars were out of the city now and the cops were giving chase. A window had broken, but no one had been injured.
Gangbangers. He shook his head. Get high. Live hard. Die early.
They didn’t have the discipline Merritt had.
He checked in on the boys. One had slept through the racket. The other asked Merritt if they were being attacked. There was hope in his voice.
Merritt said no, and enjoyed watching the light die in his eyes.
He went back to his room and checked his inner radar. It was quiet.
Most exciting night since the kidnap. Some hoods shooting at each other. The FBI should be ashamed.
He snorted, pulled back the spread and lay down and closed his eyes.
The accident occurred when he was deep asleep.