“Don’t be stupid. There’s only one answer that makes sense.”
Dianne sensed her brother was correct in whatever assumption he’d made. “I’ll believe you, Josh. I know that you’re right. You can tell me.”
“Nadine is supposed to be his sacrifice for the July full moon.”
“Wow, that’s big, Josh. But I believe you. I feel it.”
“You don’t know what it means.”
With his cast riding over her back, the young hunter huddled beside her to express the outcome. “I think that means the wraith doesn’t know if he has his sacrifice in hand, right Josh? He suspects it’s one of the three Iraqi women he has, but he’s also not sure if it’s Dianne, or Nadine. We turned him around sideways at the auction.”
“Oh, you’re still so stupid!”
Liam backed off from Dianne’s side. “I guess I was off a bit on that theory.”
“Josh, can you be nicer to everyone?”
“I’m trying, but nobody else is trying.”
She understood his meaning. He grasped concepts that eluded those distracted by the mundane concerns he ignored. “I’m trying, Josh. You can tell me.”
“If he thought you or Nadine was really his next sacrifice, he would have bought you when you called him on the phone. But he wanted to keep the women he already has.”
Again, Liam crowded her. “So, I was half right? He thinks he has his sacrifice. He thinks it’s one of the three, but he’s not sure which one?”
“Yes.”
“But that doesn’t explain why he tried to bid for me, Josh. Do you know why he wanted me?”
“I can’t explain why people are stupid!”
The elder hunter’s voice was calming. “Perhaps I can. I believe we have an excellent theory here, thanks to our young detective, Josh. The wraith was indeed thrown off when we substituted Dianne for Nadine. That explains his erratic behavior. But now that he’s in the comfort of his lair, he can’t fathom the concept of failure. Dianne got away from him, and therefore, in his mind, Dianne couldn’t have been necessary for him, which means his other three Iraqi captives must represent success. He was still working through this thought process when we called him for the trade, and he drew his conclusion on the phone.”
“That’s sort of illogical, isn’t it, Father?”
“Not if you’re an egomaniac. Consider his supreme arrogance, and you’ll see that the logic becomes flawless.”
CHAPTER 38
Watching the setting sun through an open window, Liam leaned against the pillar of the unfinished building’s fifth floor. As a matter of good luck, the rising edifice provided a central point within the possible locations of the wraith’s lair, and his father’s call to the order had produced an elevator code giving access to the uninhabited structure. “This could take a while.”
His father seemed an infinite source of calm energy. “How long is that?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to fifty-two properties. I figure a fifteen-minute fly time for each gives four per hour, and that’s more than half a day of drone work. But we’ll need breaks.”
“And fortunately we can take breaks, thanks to this young man’s insights.” Connor slapped the back of Josh, who frowned and nearly dropped his tablet.
Liam wanted to believe the empath’s brother’s conclusion, but his doubting nature nagged him. “That’s true if the wraith thinks one of the Iraqi women is his sacrifice.”
With two young Iraqi women and her grandmother flanking her and joining in the chorus of protest, the empath reminded him of the truth. “Yulla! Stop doubting me.”
Liam pointed at Nadine and her sister. “Wait, I just made my comment in English. When did you two learn English?”
The elder sister shrugged. “We know a little but don’t need to know any. You always question Dianne.”
“Okay, fine. I get it that he thinks one of the ladies from Mosul is his sacrifice. But what’s to keep him from killing the Syrian women? We know the last wraith had flexibility with tributes.”
Connor’s tone was its usual soothing tonic. “We don’t know, but this young wraith’s on a shorter leash than the prior killer in Michigan. He’s probably a psychopath, which gives him a stronger resistance to Dianne than we expect, but he’s also viewing his Master in the same lens through which he sees himself.”
“A madman?”
“Precisely. He’s afraid to challenge his Master. If his Master told him to acquire three Syrian women, he’ll consider them precious until he’s finished his Master’s bidding with them.”
“Then we have two days to find his lair and storm it. I’ll need to manage the flybys, but I could use help setting the coordinates into the drones and keeping a constant charging of backup batteries.”
The empath stood defiantly. “And how do you plan to manage the flybys?”
Liam caressed his nape. “I was going to take still lifes and short videos for ease of storage and then show them to you in the morning. Then you’d pick the ones that looked like your visions to put on the short list for a closer look.”
“That sounds awfully inefficient.”
“I wanted you to get some rest, that’s all.”
“Let’s find the lair. Then I’ll rest, if there’s still time.”
“It’s already late, and it’s going to be a long night. Unless we get lucky, it’s going to go all night.”
Nana raised her voice. “Josh can help with the drones. I will get blankets and pillows so we can all rest here. If Dianne needs to sleep, she can take a nap, then she can wake up and look at pictures. We get enough blankets and pillows for everyone. Connor, we have the place to ourselves all night, yes?”
“Indeed, we do, and through the rest of the month.”
The Chaldean grandmother continued. “The girls, they can make hot tea to keep us awake. I’ll buy us snacks, too, for sugar to keep us alert.”
Liam knew sugar would help for half an hour and then turn him into a quivering ball of exhaustion on the floor, but he knew better than to argue with Nana. He’d pretend to eat whatever snack she’d bring. “That would be wonderful, Nana. Thank you.”
Proving the defiance running in the Nineveh blood, Dianne stood with her hands at her hips. “Well, are you ready to get to work?”
With late night hunts, his father had trained him to stay awake long hours. “I sure am. Let me pop open a few laptops.”
“Hold on, lad.” His father marched across the sparse floor to a foldout table and then dragged it towards the window. “You can set up here for a better view and a better work environment. You’ll fatigue too quickly if you try to work on the floor.”
“Thank you, Father.” He placed his hardware on the table, found a map on one computer, and clicked on the first property within the search radius that had any resemblance to a factory or warehouse. He’d tagged his targeted properties numerically, and he moved his cursor to the front wall of number one. Then he copied the coordinates and pasted them into a new window that controlled one of his drones. “Josh, will you take that hovercraft to the window, please?”
The young man complied and carried the drone to the glass, which was cracked open enough to slide the aircraft outside vertically. Backlighting Josh, the sun’s highest red arc was setting below the horizon.
“Now turn it on and hold it with both hands at its sides. I want to test the rotors.” Liam sent the aircraft through a propulsion burst.
Josh held the aircraft, which rose in his hands. “It’s working.”
“Great. Now slide it through the window and hold it there for a second. I’m going to set that point as the return-to-home location.”
“Okay.”
Liam set the home coordinates as Josh held the aircraft outside the building’s façade. “Okay, done. I’m going to release it now. Just wait for it to fly out of your hands.” The young hunter ordered the aircraft to the first building on his list. “Here we go.”
Josh released the first hovercraft.
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Liam watched it veer into the encroaching darkness, which he assumed would aid his attempt to keep his flying spies stealthy. “Let’s do this first one together as an exercise, so that we all know what’s going on.”
As the drone flew, the team gathered around the table, some of them bringing chairs and paint buckets to sit on.
On his laptop screen, the airborne camera showed an urban center with the silhouettes of skyscrapers. Interior lights lit a sparse matrix of windows for cleaning crews and late workers. Minutes later, the video showed an expanse of wider and flatter buildings as real estate became cheaper and allowed a spread of factories and warehouses. Security lights illuminated parking lots and entry points, and Liam realized he could see several candidate buildings.
Connor stepped away from the table and moved to the window. “I’m going to see if I can open this up a bit to make retrieval easier.”
“Sure, Father. Just make sure it’s not a hazard for falling.”
“Nonsense. The window only opens above waist height.”
“I don’t want Josh taking a spill. I’d still feel better if we tied something around his waist.”
“I believe a saw safety harnesses around the corner. I’ll see what I can find.”
On the laptop, the camera view settled as the drone hovered and awaited Liam’s command. He tapped an icon on the screen, ordering the lens to swivel towards the first building. “Dianne, can you see anything yet?”
Her sarcastic tone told him he’d be muddling through the process until they found a working cadence. “Yeah, I see a building with windows.”
Before the young hunter could defend himself, the Chaldean grandmother interjected. “You talk to him like you’re already married.”
In unison, the empath and the hunter objected. “Nana!”
The grandmother shrugged. “Sorry. It’s just what it sounds like.”
Liam returned his focus to the mission. “I mean, Dianne, can you rule it out from here? I don’t want to announce to the entire city that I’m spying on it by bumping my drones into every factory window.”
“Just get it a little closer so I can look inside.”
“Sure.” He nudged the controller icon, and the drone walked towards a second-story plate of glass. Liam saw rows of automotive parts stacked to the roof. “That’s not it, is it?”
“No way.”
The young hunter thought out loud. “I can probably do this faster if I move on to the next target, and possibly the next.”
Dianne’s sarcasm sounded flirtatious, so he hoped. “Yeah, you think?”
“Look, I’ve broken you into the back of a truck, I’ve watched over a slave auction house through a rifle scope, I’ve tracked a killer across town only to find out he outsmarted me, and then I killed human trafficker.”
“Your point?”
“It’s been a taxing day, and it’s still getting started.”
“Would you like to compare diaries? I’ve still got a sharp piece of metal glued to my crotch.”
He sighed. “Sorry. I get it. It just doesn’t help when you’re short with me.”
Nana took the opportunity to take herself, Nadine, and her sister from the quarrel. She spurred the women towards the elevator to find the promised sleeping and drinking supplies. “Yulla. Imshi. Let’s go now.”
Liam examined the numbering and geometrical pattern of his targets. “I numbered them clockwise in a shrinking circle. So, they aren’t grouped together in any real meaningful way. We’ll have to manage this by eyeball.”
When she withheld her sarcasm, he welcomed her stooping by his side. She pointed to the screen. “Looks like two, seven, and nine are all pretty close.”
“Yeah. The drone should have enough battery to hit them all, depending how fast we can rule each one out.”
“Go for it.”
He copied the coordinates for the second building and pasted them into the drone’s GPS navigator. “Here we go to target building number two.” The aircraft covered the short distance.
“It’s four stories tall and too narrow.”
“You can tell already?”
“I’m an empath. I’m supposed to trust my instincts.”
“These buildings can have a lot of height covering very few floors. It’s to allow stacking and inventorying of just about every conceivable kind of product.”
“That’s not the building, Liam. I just know.”
The irony struck him about how she knew about this building so quickly but had used sarcasm to make him move the drone closer to the window of the first. He was wise enough to leave the discrepancy unchallenged, but he couldn’t restrain an extended sigh.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just settling into a long night.” After checking the drone’s remaining battery capacity and flight time, he committed to the third building. “Off we go to building seven.”
Connor appeared with a safety harness which he tied around Josh, who held still like the elder hunter’s willing puppet. He then wrapped the free end around a neighboring window latch and clipped it tight, holding Josh safe from a fall.
With Liam’s guidance, the drone flew by building seven, and then building nine. When the empath rejected them as the wraith’s lair, the young hunter ordered the aircraft back to their makeshift command center. He prepared the second drone with the coordinates for target building three. “Josh, please get the second drone ready for launch.”
The empath’s brother complied through the pre-flight test and then held the hovercraft outside the window.
“Here we go.” Liam ordered the second drone into the night. “Father, are the spare batteries charging?”
The elder hunter stepped away to an array of secondary chargers and extra batteries plugged into a far wall. “All the lights are glowing red.”
“That’s good.” Liam glanced at the map showing the first drone’s location. “Get ready, Josh. The first drone’s about twenty seconds away. Father, please make sure he doesn’t fall out the window.”
“Yes, lad. Of course.” The elder hunter marched to the empath’s brother and stood beside him as the first drone returned to the window and hovered. “Go ahead, Josh. I’ve got you. The harness has you. And somehow, I think Liam could fly across the room to grab you before you could fall.”
“Funny, Father. I’m trying to keep everyone alive. That’s all.”
Josh reached for the drone and pulled it into the room.
“See, lad. He’s fine. No need to worry.”
“Wait until we’re bleary-eyed twelve hours from now. It could be a very long night, and nobody’s dying on my watch.”
CHAPTER 39
Lying on her side, Dianne awoke on a pile of blankets with a coppery taste in her mouth. Examining her surroundings, she saw everyone else sleeping except her grandmother and the young hunter. “What’s going on?”
“You were so tired. You passed out. Me and Liam have been using the drones all by ourselves.”
Despite trying to conceal his fatigue, the young hunter sounded exhausted. “Yeah. Josh needed a break, and Nana’s not bad at all with handling the drones.”
The empath looked out the windows at blackness and then checked her phone for the time. It was almost four in the morning. “So, the two of you haven’t had a wink of sleep yet?”
Her grandmother waved her hand. “I’m fine.” But she sounded more tired than Liam.
“Can’t we get Josh to handle the computer stuff so that you guys can rest?”
Liam shrugged. “I imagine, but I’m fine. We’ve covered half the targets.”
“No, you’re not fine. You’re about to fall over from exhaustion. Both of you. How long has Josh been asleep?”
The young hunter looked at her. “A couple hours. But before we move on, you should take a look at the properties we’ve recorded. You’ve got a backlog of almost twenty.”
Dianne rolled to her feet.
“Hold on. Let Nana retrieve the incoming
drone. Then we’ll all take a break.” The hunter walked to the window and held the grandmother’s arm to brace her as she reached for the arriving and hovering aircraft. He took the drone from Nana and walked it to a charger.
Two steps behind him, the grandmother moved to a break area where she’d set up tea and snacks. “I’ll make us some tea.”
Liam stooped, set the drone to its charge, and then walked to the table holding his laptops.
Dianne joined him. “Let me look at what you recorded.”
He yawned while playing through the videos. “You can control it here.” He pointed to the icons for the video player.
Sipping tea her grandmother had made, the empath cycled through the images, but none of them resonated with her as being the wraith’s lair. “Nope. We need to keep looking.”
“Right. Perhaps you had a point that I could use a short nap. If you’re up with him, I imagine Josh can manage the drone flights.”
“I’m sure we can manage. I’ll wake him.”
Ten minutes later, after he had time to freshen himself, Josh sat at the computer. “The next drone is going out to target number thirty-one.”
Keeping her voice down to avoid disturbing those who rested, Dianne carried the drone to her brother. “This one?”
“Yes.”
“What do I do with it?”
“Just hold it while I make sure it works.”
Without warning, the rotors whirred to life, and the drone jumped from her hands and steadied above the floor.
“I said hold it.”
“I was. Never mind.” She grabbed it from midair. “Now what?”
“Take it to the window and make sure you don’t fall out or Liam will get mad.”
“Cute, funny man.” She carried the aircraft to the window.
“Now just let it go. We figured this out hours ago.”
It flew from her hand out the open window. She stood and watched it disappear into the darkness. Despite her nap, she felt fatigue’s lingering claws creeping up her frame.
“Dianne.”
She heeded her brother’s call and joined him at the table. The computer showed the drone’s camera spying on yet another failed attempt to identify the wraith’s lair. “Nope.”
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