“Why?” Benjamin asked. “What does it say?”
“It’s the motto of some group called the Bohemian Club,” she said, pointing at the top search result. “It looks like they are some sort of real-life secret society. They own a camp called the Bohemian Grove—according to this article, it’s located right around the area we’re looking at.”
“So this Bohemian Grove, that’s where we need to go?” Benjamin asked.
Walter paused for a moment. “This sounds familiar. Benjamin, do you remember … Dad used to talk about meetings out in the woods in California. He would always come back with stories. Meeting famous people, politicians, businessmen. It seemed to get bigger and bigger each year.”
“Your father was a part of this group?” Haylie said.
“Maybe,” Walter said. “At least for a while.”
“Well, then, welcome to the one percent,” Haylie said. “The Google results for this stuff start getting pretty crazy. There’s like a hundred conspiracy theory websites and a ton of YouTube videos about this place. The only thing that’s for sure is that it’s legit, and it’s very, very secretive.”
Hovering over across the keyboard, Walter clicked on the top link and began to read out loud. “‘Founded in 1872 as a regular meeting of journalists, artists, and musicians.’ There’s a headquarters in downtown San Francisco and a campground in the woods. Some of the past members include Ronald Reagan … Nixon … Mark Twain … Henry Kissinger … all of the Bushes. Alan Greenspan. Henry Morgan, son of JP Morgan. Secretaries of State, foreign heads of state … good lord, this list is crazy.”
“Sounds like Burning Man for old, rich people,” Benjamin said.
“Old rich men. Women aren’t allowed,” Haylie said with a scowl as she continued reading. “For real.”
“No one will go on the record about what goes on in there, except for this one guy,” Walter said, still scrolling. “He bragged that the first concepts for the Manhattan Project and the United Nations both came out of the Grove. He’s no longer a member, for obvious reasons.” He looked up from the screen. “I can’t believe this place actually exists.”
“I can’t believe that we actually have to get in there, somehow.” Haylie’s pulse quickened as she planned the next step. “The riddle says we need to find the next clue behind the founding father. I’d guess that means either a statue or picture of the guy that started this place, located somewhere in the camp.”
“So,” Walter asked, “you need to walk into the middle of the camp? Won’t there be security?”
She thought for a few moments. A nervous wave had been sweeping over her body for the past minute or so, but now it was beginning to crest. Her stomach turned, she felt a bit light-headed. We’re not actually going to do this, right? And how did Caesar get away with this? She took control of her breathing and refocused.
“It’s just a system, like any other,” she said. “All we have to do is find the faults. We’ll need to gain an understanding of their physical security capabilities and then work around them. According to one of these conspiracy sites, the next big meeting isn’t scheduled for a few more months. That means security should be a bit more relaxed now, right?”
“You would think,” Walter said.
“So if the camp is empty,” Haylie continued, “we can coordinate a good plan between the three of us, pull the security teams away from the main camp. We’ll just need to work together.”
Walter and Benjamin exchanged looks.
“Haylie, there’s something we should have been clear about from the start,” Benjamin said. “We … there’s this thing.”
Haylie stopped in her tracks. She leaned back from her screen, crossing her arms tight across her chest. “Oh, really?” she asked. “There’s a thing?”
“We’re here to help your progress,” Benjamin continued, “but we’re—Walter and I—we obviously can’t do anything illegal. We’re going to need you to go in there alone. We just can’t….” His voice trailed off as he watched her face turn.
Haylie had stopped dead in her tracks. She shut the lid to her laptop with a firm, precise click. She spoke, slowly. “Can you say that again?”
Benjamin thought long before continuing. “You have to understand. This type of activity, if we’re talking about sneaking into a high-security facility, it’s a felony. Walter and I have thousands of people that depend on us for their jobs. We can’t be found sneaking around in places we don’t belong.” He gestured around at the interior of the private jet. “We can’t risk all this.”
Haylie’s curious stare began to flash over to anger. “But it’s okay for me? It’s fine If I get arrested by some backwater security team in God-knows-where California? There’s nothing wrong with that plan?”
Benjamin turned to look out the window with a wave of his hand.
“You,” she pointed a finger in Walter’s face. “You said that you had my back before I got on this stupid….”
She pushed past the brothers and sprinted down the aisle, stopping at the back galley. I need to get off this plane. I don’t believe this. I need to get back to Austin. She paced, running her hands through her hair, her mind darting from scenario to scenario, none of them good.
Walter jumped in. “Haylie, we are in this together. I said we have your back, and I meant it. We’re here to support you—we just need to do it from a distance. And let’s think about the big picture here, we all want the same thing; we all want to find Caesar. I’m sorry that this is a surprise to you, but you have to understand what Benjamin and I are risking here.”
Her icy stare worked its way down the narrow aisle and back towards the brothers.
“Well, I’m not doing it,” she said. “Turn the plane back around. Caesar will come back online eventually. He always does. I don’t need to go on some flipping field trip through the woods. There’s not going to be anything in there, anyway. I’m done with this.”
Walter rose to his feet, rocking on his heels with his head down. He looked up at Haylie, but said nothing.
“Tell her,” Benjamin said. “Tell her, Walter.”
“Tell me what?” she said.
“Right before we took off … our security team in New York,” Walter stammered. “They got access to Caesar’s apartment. The entire place had been overturned, his stuff was everywhere. Someone was there before us, and they were trying to find something.”
“It looks like he might actually be in trouble,” Benjamin said.
Haylie fell into the nearest seat, crumpled over into a twisted fetal position. Her mind raced violently, her teeth gritting together as she felt the anger rise in her cheeks.
“Who is it?” she asked. “Who has him?”
“We don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Benjamin said. “But this next step in the Bohemian Grove … it’s our best move to make progress. Walter and I, we’ll do anything we can do, other than walking in there with you. We’re here to help, absolutely. We have resources that can … we are–”
Haylie extended her hand up to Benjamin, indicating he should shut up. She leaned over to the side of the plane, looking out at the passing clouds. The blue of the sky soaked right into amber as she could see the faint light of the night’s first stars beginning to make their way through the daylight.
“Don’t worry about helping,” Haylie said. She walked briskly back to her seat. “I’m glad we’re all clear on the rules. But if you’re going to sit in your limo while I do the hard work, it’s going to cost you. I need to go shopping.”
Benjamin and Walter both looked relieved. Haylie cracked her laptop open and began typing. She extended her hand out to Benjamin while she scrolled with the other hand.
“Credit card,” she said without making eye contact.
Benjamin nervously patted his wallet in his pocket with his right hand. “Now I don’t….”
“CREDIT CARD,” Haylie repeated.
Benjamin removed his wallet and handed over an American Express Blac
k Card, eying Walter. Benjamin opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t,” she shot back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Monte Rio, CA
March 8th, 4:25PM
Pockets of thick, wet forest air rolled over mountains of ferns as the soil gave way. Haylie marched forward, feeling the soft crunch of twigs trapped between her boot and the spongy forest floor. The sweet, earthy scents of soil filled her nostrils as she scanned the area ahead, carefully treading boot over boot.
She turned to check behind her but saw only a never-ending splatter of green and brown; tall ferns and bright moss covered every spare inch of ground. A crisscross pattern of fallen, rotting trees blocked certain paths and opened up others. It felt like a lifetime since she had stepped up the stairs of that jet, but it had only been about twenty-four hours. Still, she had to get moving.
And she was not making good time.
Haylie had been walking for over an hour and felt herself slipping farther and farther away from any trace of civilization with each step. She could hear only the dull faded buzz of the forest all around—short sprints of chirps broken by an occasional rapid-fire pattern of cackling, echoing off the damp tree trunks. She looked to the forest canopy above, seeing only a few lucky slices of daylight fighting past the twisted branches and blackness that hung above, all swaying from the building wind.
I won’t be able to see anything once the sun goes down … but that’s what the drone is for.
When Haylie and the Sterling brothers had landed at SFO last night, a driver had been waiting for them on the tarmac. It only took a few hours to make their way north to Monte Rio. They had found an out-of-the-way Motel 6, and each crashed in their own room, with Benjamin paying for the lot with a few crisp hundred-dollar bills. Haylie was able to break the weak WEP encryption on the wireless network with a quick packet injection attack to get online. Sure, Internet access only cost a few bucks but, in Haylie’s mind, the real crime was asking people to pay for Wi-Fi in the first place. Not cool.
Earlier that morning, Haylie’s online shopping orders had arrived at the motel front desk. Thank God for Amazon’s one-day shipping. What she needed was pretty simple: components to piece together a custom drone capable of giving her the advantage against any security systems the Bohemian Grove would have in place.
There were plenty of models to choose from—including a bunch of plug-and-play drones that were aimed at kids—but to build out the advanced capabilities she needed, Haylie had to do some extra work. A few good hobbyist forums had helped her piece together the plans for a solid surveillance drone by choosing the best hardware and a mishmash of open source software; all it took was a few simple modifications to bring everything together.
As it turned out, multi-rotor drones were the best choice for short distances, and luckily there were a few that could be shipped to Monte Rio within a few hours’ time.
The battery she chose would normally provide around forty-five minutes worth of flight, but Haylie’s modifications would bring that number down. How far down was the real question. She figured the drone would need three cameras to find all security measures scattered across the camp, and each camera would add considerable weight. One camera would provide a forward-facing view for her to pilot the vehicle; another downward-facing high-definition camera would show a live feed of the ground below; and the final infrared camera would cut through the thick forest canopy, providing Haylie perspective on any heat signatures inside the camp.
Haylie’s last modification to the drone was to add an onboard Raspberry Pi—a tiny, stripped-down computer that could be used for all sorts of different stuff. The Raspberry Pi was running a code package named Loopy, which would survey the forest below for anything with a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signal, and send the information back to Haylie’s phone. With this setup, she’d have a real-time aerial map of every phone, computer, or camera in the Bohemian Grove, hopefully steering her far away from security guards that would be on patrol as she explored the camp.
That was the plan, anyway.
She’d spent the night studying up on schematics and writing custom code that would allow her to operate the drone as a one-woman show, based off some flight controller code that was available on the web. Once the packages had arrived, it didn’t take long to assemble the hardware and load the firmware; after a few hours of toying and testing, Haylie was happy with the result.
To stay on schedule, Haylie had time for just one test flight before she needed to enter the woods. She had snuck out into a pasture tucked in right behind their motel, waiting ten minutes to make sure the coast was clear. With a press of the activate button, the drone, which she had affectionately named BusyBee, lifted from the ground. Her flight plan sent the device to hover over the Bohemian Grove’s coordinates, instructing the machine to send back reports of any heat signatures and device signals it could find.
After a ten-minute flight at an altitude of roughly one thousand feet, BusyBee sent back its first round of data. What she found was encouraging; a series of buildings clustered together, surrounded by a loose patchwork of what must be Wi-Fi enabled security cameras fixed throughout the perimeter. The drone had also detected a handful of heat signatures slowly moving between buildings, but none on patrol in the surrounding woods. She took a screenshot of the view and saved it to her phone; that image would serve as a good map for an approach towards the camp. Once she got close enough, she’d switch over to a live feed for a real-time view of the guard positions.
After charging BusyBee back up to full power, Haylie hiked down the road and past twin reservoirs located directly south of the Bohemian Grove’s outer fence line. She easily scaled the barrier, picking a section without any security cameras or guard outposts, and headed north. Checking her saved map to steer clear of the sixteen Wi-Fi-powered security stations laid out around the camp, she began her journey on a course to find the center of the Grove. She figured it would be best to arrive at the camp close to dusk, but the terrain had proven to be more difficult than planned.
Haylie, now deep in the forest, stopped to listen for any signs of civilization, but all she could hear was the patterned chatter of birds and the occasional rustle from a fern.
What the hell am I doing here?
She sat for a moment at the base of a colossal redwood, sliding down the mossy trunk to rest on the forest floor. She reached down to the earth, taking a handful into her fist and watching the dark fibers of mulch fall from between her fingers. Breathing in and out, in and out.
> > > > >
“Getting dark, getting dark, getting dark,” Haylie whispered to herself as she squinted for a better view. She pulled off her glasses, wiping a thin layer of condensation from the lenses, and slid her sleeve across her forehead to clear off the sweat. She zipped her field jacket, shoving her hands in the side pockets as a chill filled the forest air.
Haylie pushed north, and the remaining daylight faded with each step. The sunbeams lighting her way had all but died off, leaving only a dark, soupy view of the path ahead. Haylie’s confidence in making it to the Grove by nightfall was fading fast, but at least she had been able to avoid the web of security cameras littered throughout the woods. She had yet to see any sign of buildings or other forms of civilization, and she wasn’t about to send in BusyBee before absolutely necessary, wasting precious battery power. She stopped for a pause, emptying the last of her plastic water bottle into her parched mouth.
“This sucks,” she said under her breath, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail. She took out her phone to check the map once again.
It’s been a few hours … the guards could have moved anywhere by now. Where the hell am I?
A few minutes earlier, Haylie had to curve around a stream, crawling over a downed log to find her way across the rushing water. She resumed her trek in the same general direction as before, but found it was very easy to get turned around in these woods. Even with her phone’s compass, she could easily be hundreds
of yards off course.
Haylie heard a sudden rustle of leaves and darted behind a redwood, pinning her back tightly to the bark. Trying not to breathe, Haylie froze in place. After a few seconds she heard the crunch again, this time getting closer. Human footsteps. Damnit.
She snaked her head as far around the tree as she could without showing herself, but still couldn’t see a thing through the darkness. That’s when she heard it: a loud exhale and sudden cough, followed by the sound of liquid hitting dirt, slowly dripping down the leaves of a neighboring bush with a pat-pat-pat rhythm.
What is that? Is someone … taking a leak?
An audible groan filled the air from the other side of the huge redwood, followed by a steady stream of liquid wrapping its way around the trunk. The stream headed downhill and formed a small pool at her feet. Well, this is charming. Haylie controlled her breathing, pinning herself closer to the tree trunk and remaining as still as her racing pulse would allow. A strange, slurring voice filled the air, causing her heart to beat even faster.
“I say, I say … there’s no excuse for not getting away once in awhile. Feeds the soul, it does.” The man on the other side of the tree let out a loud belch as he finished relieving himself.
“And I appear, yes, I appear to be out of wine.” There was a brief break of silence and then the unmistakable sound of a zipper heading north. “They shall make more, I believe. As they always do.”
Suddenly, a wine bottle flew past the tree trunk, inches from Haylie’s shoulder, hitting another tree directly across from her. The projectile exploded into a spray of dark glass and fell to the forest floor, disappearing into the black.
“And I shall find some more of that wine, now. Very good.”
Haylie heard the visitor’s heavy, slurred steps marching into the brush, directly north and away from her position. She hadn’t been expecting visitors, but as she thought back to her research on the plane, the man’s presence made more and more sense. She quickly remembered a few mentions of local Bohemian Club members that would visit the Grove for smaller, private trips now and then.
Crash Alive (The Haylie Black Series Book 1) Page 10
