“A MASTERPIECE,” Marshall said, leaning back in his chair and stretching.
Ahmed had been looking over Marshall’s shoulder as he keyed in lines of code to tweak the programming on his prototype RAT. He shook his head in wonder. Even though he could appreciate the value of the final product, none of what was on the screen made any sense to him. “Looks like chicken scratches to me.”
“Ha. Sounds like something Tony would say. The big guy’s rubbing off on you.”
Ahmed liked the sound of that. “So the RAT’s ready?”
“For testing? Sure. But it’s still a long way from being ready to deliver to the client. That’ll have to wait until I can get back into the field to test it out on a few remote servers. There are always bugs to work out. I’ve done all I can for now.”
“Which means you’re about to get as bored as me.”
Marshall blew out a breath, nodding in resignation. Lacey looked over, and Ahmed caught her suggestive wink that had been intended for Marshall’s eyes only. “Are you bored, honey?” she said in a sultry voice.
Ahmed looked away to hide the flush on his cheeks.
Sarafina was lounging sideways on an easy chair across from where Mom and Lacey sat on the couch. “Eeyew! Get a room or something.” She pointed the remote at the TV and flicked it on.
Lacey rolled her eyes and Marshall chuckled. Mom remained lost in her thoughts, still basking in the news that Dad and Alex were on their way home. Ahmed grabbed the broken drone from the far end of the table and brought it over to Marshall. “Let’s check this out.”
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 their 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.