by Richard Bard
The helicopter held its position, though the sound from its blades seemed to grow louder. Movement caught his attention. The second drone was circling a couple of thousand feet overhead. It had spent its load and resigned itself to watching what transpired. The throb of the helicopter continued to escalate, and when he cocked an ear, it dawned on him he was hearing a second aircraft.
A moment later a CV-22 Osprey flew over the berm to settle into a standoff hover three hundred yards to his right. Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a tilt-rotor aircraft capable of both vertical and forward flight, making it one of the most versatile military aircraft ever conceived. He’d been on that plane many times, and even though he couldn’t see the faces of the two pilots from this distance, he knew his good friends Cal and Kenny had come to pull his butt out of the fire once again.
The nose of the aircraft was pointed at the helicopter, and the positioning left little doubt as to the threat the CV-22 posed to the smaller chopper. The Osprey’s offensive capabilities weren’t apparent to the casual observer, particularly since the gimbaled lens apparatus under its nose made it look like nothing more than a reconnaissance aircraft. But the GAU-17 minigun hidden within its belly was a devastating equalizer, and with Kenny, an aeronautical engineering genius, behind it, there was no telling what else the CV-22 could unleash. The mercenaries stopped fifty yards away, several with their weapons trained on Jake. Despite that, Alex and Lucy returned to his side, each taking hold of one of his hands.
“We’re with you, Dad. No matter what.”
“Get ready to drop flatter than a pancake. Both of you.”
The uniformed officer held his radio to his mouth, apparently conversing with the CV-22 crew. Jake could imagine Cal’s surfer-dude demeanor issuing the mercs a chance to walk away or be wiped from the face of the Earth. But he could also imagine the mindset of the officer and the mercs around him, who’d given up much to corner their prey. And when Jake saw the officer glance at the helicopter and issue an order that made his men tense…
“Down!” Jake yelled. The three of them dropped to their bellies.
The helicopter opened fire on the Osprey. The mercs swiveled their weapons and followed suit.
And that’s your second mistake.
A laser beam shot from the domed lens under the CV-22’s nose into the chopper’s cockpit. The helicopter burst into flames and crashed to the ground. At the same time, the six-barrel minigun raked the mercenaries with 7.62 mm slugs at a rate of four thousand rounds per minute. Two three-second bursts were all it took to kill the lot of them. And just like that, it was over.
***
Dust kicked up in all directions as the Osprey settled to the ground. Jake and the kids shielded their eyes as they trotted toward the descending rear ramp. By the time they got there, Tony was waiting on the ground, wearing combat fatigues and a wide smile. Alex ran full out toward him and leaped into his arms.
“Uncle Tony!”
Lucy edged closer to Jake—until Mandu appeared at the top of the ramp. Lucy gasped and charged into her mother’s waiting arms. The entire scene felt surreal to Jake. He should’ve died several times over in the last couple of days. The kids, too. But they’d stayed alive, thanks to the help and sacrifice of good people, like young Deondre, who’d died saving Alex and his friends, and Mandu, who’d wagered everything to help them escape. There was also Gualu, the stranger from a distant planet, who’d defied an entire culture so man might live. Jake exchanged a look with Tony as the big man cradled Alex against his chest, and the big lug’s eyes moistened.
No obstacle was too great for a man with friends, Jake thought.
When Jake approached, Alex slid from Tony’s grasp. Tony smacked the side of Jake’s head. “When are you gonna get it through your thick skull that we’re far better off together?”
Jake’s ear smarted, but he knew he deserved the abuse. The two exchanged a strong hug. “Nick of time, bud,” Jake said as they pulled away, raising his voice so he could be heard over the rotors.
“Same ol’, same ol’.”
“Guess so.”
Tony examined the wound on Jake’s scalp. “It’s a graze. You were lucky. We’ll get you a Band-Aid inside.” Tony frowned as he stepped back. “You hook up with a plastic surgeon or something?”
Jake rubbed the side of his face. He hadn’t come across a mirror yet, but according to Alex, Gualu’s parting gift had restored Jake’s face to the way it used to be. He shrugged. “Surgeon? Nah. Something? Oh, yeah.”
“Can’t wait to hear.”
He pointed at the holstered Colt .45 at Tony’s side. “Did you keep her clean for me?”
“What? You expect me to give it back or something?”
“Well, it did belong to my grandpa.”
“Get your asses aboard!” Kenny shouted from the top of the ramp. He sounded urgent, but his boyish, freckled face carried a beaming smile. The off-and-on copilot was only a reserve officer because he spent most of time at his own private company creating the latest high-tech weaponry for the United States Air Force, most of which was tested on board the CV-22. The thirty-two-year-old looked more suited for a geek convention than a combat zone, but he was all business when the fighting started and his “toys” made all the difference. “There are more of the suckers headed our way.”
Jake climbed the ramp and high-fived his friend. “Yeah, it seems like everybody wants a piece of me these days.” Kenny wore a flight helmet, and the top of his flight suit was zipped open to reveal the latest Star Wars T-shirt underneath. Kenny sometimes referred to the CV-22 as his Millennium Falcon. “Thanks for the pickup, Han Solo.”
“Whatever. But you owe me a drone.” Kenny patted Jake on the back and ushered him inside. Tony and Alex followed, and Kenny activated the wall switch to close the ramp. “Buttoning up,” he said into the headset. The plane’s rotors increased their speed, the airframe vibrated, and the engine’s roar echoed through the fuselage.
Mandu and Lucy were already belted into the inward-facing web seats, and Alex hurried to sit beside them. Jake deposited his pack, took Mandu’s hands, and leaned over so she could hear him over the noise. “Thank God you’re okay. Without your help, we would never have made it out of Frank’s trap. You should know that Lucy was a hero, and that Frank and Trumak will never bother you again.”
“They are dead?”
“Not yet. But we sent them away.”
“But what if they—”
“Trust me. They’re on a one-way trip.” He pointed to the heavens.
It took a beat before she understood what he was saying, and then her jaw dropped.
Jake winked. “Lucy will fill you in. Trust me. It’s a great story!”
Kenny handed him and Tony headsets. They put them on and headed forward. As he passed the console Kenny used to remote-pilot the drones, Jake noted another layer of complexity had been added to the instrumentation and controls since he’d last been aboard. He adjusted his boom microphone. “So you’re into stormtrooper particle-beam weapons now?” He was referring to the blasters used in Star Wars.
Kenny rolled his eyes. “Lasers, not blasters. But I’m working on ’em.”
“Well, your laser worked like a charm. Saved our butts big time.”
“Glad to be of service.” Kenny saluted and sat at the console. “Now get out of my hair. I’ve got work to do.”
Jake squeezed his shoulder, stepped into the cockpit, and strapped himself into the copilot’s seat. Tony situated himself in the jump seat behind them.
“Long time no see,” Cal said, his focus on the controls and instruments. Jake and Lt. Colonel Cal Springman had been buddies since they met in flight training school eighteen years earlier. The tan surfer with the infectious smile never let Jake forget that he, Cal, had finished number one in the class against Jake’s number two. Cal shot him a grin as the plane shuddered and lifted off.
“Steer a heading of two-eight-five,” Kenny’s voice said over the radi
o. “The only bogie in the air is a slow mover on our six, and the two inbound ground-pounder groups are coming in from the south and the northeast. Either way, Falcon-Two will keep us shielded.” Kenny’s drones were equipped with both jamming and false-flag capabilities. They weren’t as high-tech as the cloaking devices used in Star Trek—Kenny’s second favorite franchise—to make a starship invisible, but the ability to generate dozens of false positioning images on enemy radar and scanners yielded the same results.
Jake surveyed the horizon. The Andes loomed in the distance. “You’re taking us into Peru?”
“Yep,” Cal said. “Same way we came in. It was a little sketchy, but with a little help from Doc, we avoided trouble.”
“Doc’s okay?”
“Not really. He’s been detained.”
“Crap.”
Cal adjusted course, leveled off five hundred feet above the canopy, and turned to Jake. “Welcome aboard—” His face wrinkled in disgust. “Damn, dude. Tony warned me that something happened to your face, but I didn’t expect it to be that bad.”
“Very funny.”
Tony snickered from the back.
“Seriously, you should get that looked at.”
Jake made a fist. “You do realize I know how to fly this bucket, right? So if I beat you unconscious, I can easily take over.”
Cal smirked. “Give it your best shot, Number Two.” They gave each other fake snarls and busted up laughing. “It’s really good to see you, pal.”
“Not as good as it is to see you. All of you.” Two mike clicks signaled acknowledgments from Tony and Kenny. “How the hell did you find me?”
“Good old Marshall got us started in the right direction. He put a tracker on your encrypted burner phone, and was keeping tabs on you while you were gallivanting in Bogota with your son.”
“I wouldn’t call it gallivanting.”
“If you say so. Anyway, when your signal showed you heading toward Brazil instead of coming home, well…Tony can tell it better than me. He was there.”
Over the headset, Tony said, “We tried to call you on both the burner and the sat phone. When you didn’t answer, your family went nuts. It was all I could do to keep Francesca and the others in the safe house. Especially Ahmed, who all but demanded to come with me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. He’s been through some stuff. We’ll talk about it later. Anyway, that’s when I decided to break protocol and risk reaching out to a few people that knew the truth.”
“And that led to us,” Cal said. “By then the bidding on your head was out of sight, and suddenly people were looking for Alex, too. And when Marshall saw that word went out on the darknet about a first-come-first-served auction in the dregs of the Brazilian rainforest, we beat feet and here we are.”
“But I lost the burner phone at Frank’s.”
“Which is why we were glad to come across Mandu, who knew where you were headed.”
Kenny said, “Though as it turned out, we hardly needed her help.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Cal asked. “Most people send a signal flare into the sky when they’re waiting to be rescued. But not Jake Bronson. No, he launches an entire friggin’ mountain into space.”
“Oh, yeah. There was that.”
Kenny said, “And you’re going to spill every detail about it. No holding back.”
Why not? Jake thought. The story was too wild to share with the world, but his friends deserved to know the truth. His family, too. Besides, it was a long ride home. “You got it, guys. I’ll tell you everything.” He blew out a long breath. On top of all that had happened in the last couple of days, the battle with the mercs had stretched him to the limit. Now he found himself in the company of friends and his system wanted to shut down. He sank deeper into his seat. “Assuming I can keep my eyes open.”
“The hell with that,” Tony said. “This is no time for shut-eye. And you can hold on to your stories for now because we’ve got bigger problems to deal with than hoisting you out of the frying pan.”
Jake stiffened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s a long list,” Tony said. “Let’s just say all hell’s broken loose back home.”
Chapter 18
Foothills of Mt. Wilson, California
AHMED’S MOTHER STOOD STIFFLY in front of the couch, the phone pressed to her ear in a white-knuckled grip. Dad was on the other end of the conversation. Mom’s eyes grew larger with each word she heard, and the tension that had been etched on her face for the past few days was melting away.
“A-are you sure?” she asked. “But how…?” Her brow furrowed as she listened to Dad’s explanation.
Ahmed opened and closed his fists, anxious to know what was being revealed. But he didn’t want to interrupt to ask that she put the call on speaker. Marshall and Lacey stood nearby holding hands as they too watched his mom. Ahmed could tell from Lacey’s expression and the way Marshall kept licking his lips that they shared his frustration. He exchanged a hopeful glance with Sarafina, who stood beside Mom with her palm on Mom’s shoulder as if to bolster her spirit regardless of the news.
Mom blinked several times, then her knees wobbled, her breath caught, and she sagged onto the couch. “I love you, too,” she said into the phone, before ending the call and clasping the device to her chest as if it were a favorite long lost doll. She looked up. “He found Alex. And they’re both coming home.”
“Yes!” Marshall shouted, sweeping Lacey into the air and spinning her around. Sarafina covered her mouth with her hand and plopped next to Mom.
Tears dripped from Mom’s eyes. “And that’s not all. Alex is no longer sick.”
“What?” Lacey asked.
“Oh, Mom,” Sarafina said, throwing her arms around her.
Ahmed was elated, and a part of him wanted to join in their embrace. It was a new feeling for him. All his life he’d had a violent aversion to being touched, one that hadn’t gone away after he received the brain implant that helped control most of the other aspects of his spectrum disorder. But that aversion had abated lately, and he was surprised to note that in this circumstance, it was replaced by a desire to participate. He’d shaken Dad’s hand when Dad returned from the dead a couple of days ago, and it had felt good. In this case, however, he sensed joining in would take away from the moment for the others. So he held back. He’d save his hug for his little brother when he walked in the door, and the thought of it brought a smile to his face.
“Tell us everything,” Lacey said. They gathered around as Mom relayed what Dad had told her.
Half an hour later Ahmed was outside in the forest, sitting alone with his back against a tree as he stared at the lodge. He held his knees to his chest, rocking gently as he absorbed what his father and Alex had been through. Dad had only touched on the highlights of the adventure, but those alone had left Ahmed astounded. And angry.
His eight-year-old brother had traveled to Bogota to help a group of kids rescue a friend from slave traders? And Alex was about to be taken himself when Dad had shown up to save the day? Then the two of them traveled into the depths of the jungles of Brazil to confront an alien who’d been part of the grid, and who’d magically cured Alex and healed his father’s face? All while Ahmed was forced to sit on his hands?
“It isn’t fair,” he mumbled to himself. People had died, Mom had said, including one of the kids Alex had befriended. Ahmed glanced at the pistol he’d set on the ground beside him.
If I’d been there, that boy would still be alive.
Instead, he’d been forced to remain behind like some little kid. Tony knew what Ahmed was capable of—he’d proven himself by taking out those bikers. Nevertheless, Tony hadn’t permitted him to go on the rescue mission with Dad’s Air Force friends on the CV-22. He’d dismissed the notion out of hand, and that’s what hurt the most. No, Ahmed thought, the only way he would prove he could measure up was to partake on a
mission of his own making.
He hefted the pistol.
Someday.
Chapter 19
Los Padres National Forest, Southern California
July 3, 10:00 AM
FARHAD AND HIS TEAM were at their mountain control center going through final preparations for the day’s opening salvo when Hadi called. “What do you mean, he’s in the wind?” Farhad asked his mentor. His anger grew as Hadi explained he’d had Bronson in his grasp, only to lose him over the edge of a rooftop. Hadi had thought the boy was on the roof with the father, but the child had slipped away. The American had survived the fall, and Hadi had kept his promise and not finished him. Instead, he’d turned the unconscious man over to traffickers who’d apparently had their own run-ins with the American’s son. Hadi had hoped Bronson’s capture would lure the boy out of hiding, but his plan had collapsed when father and child escaped.
“I should have killed him,” Hadi said over the phone.
“And I shouldn’t have made you swear to keep him alive until you had the boy in hand.” The cursed American was still alive because of the promise he’d forced Hadi to make. He’d reached too far in hoping to capture the boy. Hadi knew it as well, and Farhad appreciated that his mentor wasn’t rubbing his face in it. Nevertheless, the stretch of silence on the other end of the line spoke volumes.
Finally, Hadi asked, “Are we in agreement that our entire focus must shift to the task at hand? No more distractions?”
“Indeed we are. I’ll not make that mistake again.”
“And that Bronson, his son, and his family must forfeit their lives, but it matters not whose hand strikes the lethal blows?”
Farhad sighed. The sly old warrior was never one to pass up a teaching opportunity. Hadi’s question was intended to remind Farhad of one of the lessons of war his mentor had drilled into him long ago. “An enemy’s loss of life is a blessing that is doubled when none of your own risks injury in the taking of it.”
