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23
The sky wasinky black by the time Bridger drove Jane to Jason’s hangar. He was thankful for the extra power of the special headlights on his Jeep. The brilliant white light sliced through the velvet night, carving a car-sized tunnel in the darkness.
Jane rustled in the passenger seat. Every movement sent the scent of warm street tacos wafting through the Jeep.
His stomach growled. All the more reason to get inside quickly. Despite the hefty lunch they downed before that weird interview with Billy Peckham, he was starving.
Eager to get his web of security devices up and running, Tai had passed on dinner, so Jane suggested they pick up tacos at her favorite street vendor and eat at the hangar while they searched for more info on Jason’s disappearance.
Before exiting the vehicle, Bridger glanced at the private security app on his phone. Tai had all his toys tied into an elaborate software program. Between the advanced software and the bazillions of sensors Tai set out, he could tell everything about Jason’s property, including how many ants had made a run for the dried-out half of a Milky Way in the back office.
All systems glowed green. No intruders in the area. He punched in his code and disarmed Tai’s security alarms.
“Hang here until I check the perimeter,” he told Jane and slipped out of the vehicle.
She looked amused. “Don’t trust Tai?”
He leaned on the doorjamb and ducked his head back inside. “I don’t trust electronics.” Not when he could take a good, old-fashioned stroll around the building. One last set of eyes never hurt.
He shut the door and punched his key fob, locking her in the Jeep.
He’d spent more nights than he could count in high desert terrain of one sort or another, but the way the temperature dropped at night still caught him off guard. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and walked the exterior of the over-sized hangar, alert for any unusual sound or movements.
Nothing caught his attention until he rounded the far east corner. A light, whirring sound, like a hummingbird in flight. If he wasn’t expecting trouble, he would have passed it off as a desert breeze.
But it wasn’t. The sound was too mechanical. Too precise.
He flattened himself against the concrete wall and slid downward until he was on his haunches. Only then did he peer around the corner. With his head low, he’d be far less of a target.
The sound grew louder, like a mosquito coming in for blood.
He reached beneath his jacket and slid his handgun out of its holster. Not that he could see anything. There were no lights burning anywhere on the vast property, or on the miles of desert between the decommissioned airfield and crumbling mountains to the east. The runways were all in disrepair. No way Jason would have lights going that might signal otherwise to a weary pilot looking for a place to land for the night.
The buzzing became more insistent. He hunched his shoulders, bracing for an attack by some kind of unseen insect. Instead, a voice called out.
“Yo, North. I see you-u-u-u. Tag. You’re it.”
Bridger groaned and jumped to his feet. He craned his neck, glaring up in the direction of Tai’s voice. It sounded like the man was twenty feet in the air. One of his stupid mini-drones.
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to take his pulse down a notch. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Sorry.” The drone zigged to the left. “I never get to test the speakers on these things. Wanted to see if they work.”
“Oh, they work.”
More zigging and zagging. “How do I sound? Good?”
Finger on the trigger, Bridger pressed the gun against his thigh. “You sound like you’re close enough to punch.”
“Awesome. I’m telling you, we need to buy stock in this company. These babies are a lotta bang for the buck. They fly great. They’re practically invisible, and they can be programmed to do all sorts of cool stuff.”
All true, probably, but Tai’s sense of humor was getting out of hand. Time to take the big guy down a peg.
He raised his face in the general direction of the invisible machine. “Do they light up? You know, like the ones at those drone sky shows?”
“Are you serious? Helllooooo?”
The berry-sized machine glowed red, then green, then blue. He raised his weapon, sighted, and fired.
