Mike Maden - Drone Threat

Twenty minutes into her search Tamar found the bedroom door with the heavy security bracket and a simple combination lock. Not a problem. Tamar removed an automated lock picker from her shoulder bag and placed it on the lock’s black dial. Two seconds later it popped.

She pushed the door open and stepped in.

Inside she found two long workstation tables loaded with video monitors, keyboards, joysticks, and a virtual-reality headset. At first she thought it was a film-editing suite, but the joysticks didn’t make any sense. Maybe he was a crazy online gamer. That would explain the VR, too. His brief said he had a background in computer science and did some contracting work for the U.S. government in Iraq.

What bothered her was the electronic hum of the CPUs on the floor below. How was that possible? The power was off. Her heart skipped a beat. Had she missed something? She double-checked the security camera in the far corner. It was clearly powered off. What was going on?

Battery backup power for the computers. Of course. She stepped over to a closet door and saw the power cable snaking through the green shag carpet. She opened the door and found three large battery backup systems. Thank God Pike hadn’t thought to do the same with the security system.

She shut the door and turned around. Something caught her eye hanging on the far wall.

It was a small reproduction print in a cheap frame. She recognized it instantly because she had written a paper on French Romanticism for an art course at university. It was Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa . A brilliant piece of work, tragic in subject but beautiful in both its realism and construction. Strange it should be here , she thought, but then again perhaps not. Pike was a boat captain and its subject was the sea. It was the image of survivors on a raft on the verge of rescue having suffered the fate of people lost a long while on the ocean and the hard moral choices the starving often face. Géricault’s meaning was clear, her professor had insisted: Civilizations must sometimes be reduced to savage barbarism in order to survive.

Did Pike know that? Not likely, she decided. He had probably bought the print at a garage sale.

She stepped over to one of the keyboards and pressed the power button. The screen flashed on. It required a password to proceed. That was a lock that Tamar knew she couldn’t pick, but Lev could. He was the best in the business. He was the IT officer assigned to her case and he was on standby waiting for her call. If anyone could break into a secured system it was him. She dialed and he picked up instantly. She pulled out the necessary cable and connectors from her pouch to link her phone to the CPU so that Lev could begin remotely hacking into Pike’s computer. Once connected, she pulled up the rolling executive chair and plopped down into it, leaning in close to the screen to watch Lev move the arrow and operate the keystrokes remotely from his office in Tel Aviv. He was on speakerphone.

“It’s going to take a little while. Not your typical password protection.”

“I’ve got plenty of time. No worries,” she said. “Pike is far away and won’t be back for hours.”

Pike sat in his van on the side of the road, admiring Tamar’s lovely face in his laptop monitor. Her green eyes and sharp nose were slightly distorted because she was sitting so close to the computer monitor back at his house, and the glow of the light from the screen muddied the color of her beautiful bronze skin.

He fired up the engine and put the van into gear. He was very much looking forward to seeing much more of that beautiful bronze flesh in a better light very soon.

“Assholes! Move!” Mathis shouted, his voice muted by the blaring squad car siren.

Sergeant Vasquez wove skillfully past the slowing cars. She was surprised they’d made it as far as they had on Wilshire, always busy this time of the morning. But the news broadcasts had really thrown a wrench into it. People were losing their damned minds. Helluva training day for Mathis, she thought. Just a week out of the academy. Couldn’t be worse than her first week, though, she thought. It was the end of the world, or so it seemed to her that day, thanks to Rodney King.

She wondered for the thousandth time if it was time to retire.

“Should I unlock the shotgun?” Mathis asked. Sweat beaded on his black skin.

“It’s a two-eleven in progress, not a riot,” Vasquez said. “No point in escalating the situation.”

“Yes, Sergeant! I mean, no,” Mathis said.

“Take a deep breath. You’ll do fine,” she said.

She hoped he would. You never knew with probes.

Two minutes later Vasquez slammed the brakes and screeched to a halt at the edge of the intersection. A half-dozen cars and pickup trucks surrounded a red-and-white Coca-Cola delivery truck in the middle of the street. Its rolling doors were flung open and nearly empty. Civilians were stealing the last cases off the racks and tossing them into their vehicles.

“Let’s go!” Vasquez shouted. She leaped out of the driver’s side, drew her pistol, and charged toward the pickup nearest her. A young Hispanic male was throwing a case of orange Fanta into the back of his Chevy.

“Stop! Put it down! Now!” she shouted in Spanish.

“FUCK YOU, PIG!” the man shouted back in English, laughing, flipping two birds before leaping into the truck bed.

Adrenaline begged her to pull the trigger but her training kicked in. No telling who was driving the truck. A kid could be riding in the passenger seat. If she missed, the rounds could kill innocent bystanders. Besides, it was just a case of soda. Not worth it. The news this morning had caused this panic. Scared people did stupid things.

The other civilians were already scattering, slamming doors and squealing away in blue clouds of burning rubber.

Vasquez charged around to the other side of the Coca-Cola truck, Mathis hot on her heels. She stopped dead in her tracks. The uniformed delivery driver lay facedown in a pool of blood on the asphalt, his head broken open like a pomegranate.

Mathis puked.

“No time for that shit!” Vasquez shouted.

Mathis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes, Sergeant.”

Gunshots rang out from the corner. A 7-Eleven convenience store.

Vasquez turned and ducked into a low crouch, running toward the 7-Eleven. People bolted out of the front door, hauling armfuls of juice boxes, bottled water, energy drinks, and anything else remotely potable.

A Korean clerk emerged a second later, his face streaming with blood, waving a large-caliber revolver, shouting profanities in his native tongue.

“Drop your weapon! Now!” Vasquez shouted, her pistol pointed in his direction.

The Korean turned toward Vasquez, his bleeding face a mask of mindless rage.

Gunfire exploded in her right ear as Mathis ripped off a half dozen .40-caliber rounds. She winced in pain but through her squinting eyes saw three rounds flowering blood in the Korean’s white shirt as the plate glass window behind him shattered. He tumbled backward, screaming, arms wide like the Christ. He was dead before he hit the pavement.

“Got you, motherfucker!” Mathis shouted, a half-crazed smile smearing his face.

“You stupid shit! What did you do?” Vasquez shouted. She laid a hand on Mathis’s Glock. The barrel was hot. “Holster your weapon, officer.”

Mathis frowned at her, confused. “What?”

“Holster your damn weapon! Now!”

Mathis blinked away his confusion. “Yes, Sergeant.” He holstered the Glock.

A blue helicopter thundered overhead. Vasquez glanced up. White call letters plastered the side. A video camera pointed directly at them.