I sent another message to Jerrod early Thursday saying we’d be there in another few days now but that I didn’t want to commit to a day because Jim was dawdling, looking at everything there was to look at on the way down and pissing me off to the max doing so. I wrote that I was pretty sure he was teasing me. We were having fun, though, and I didn’t want to miss any of it. I also repeated that I had a question for him I didn’t want to message; I needed to talk to him, and he needed to call me when he was able to talk.
There was an answering text to this one. I guessed they didn’t want us getting suspicious. All it said was, ‘Can’t wait to see you.’ I could only hope Jerrod was still alive. I did have a good reason to think he was, though: that large food order to go that the brother guy was buying at the Burger King. But I desperately wanted to hear Jerrod’s voice!
We had a lot to do, and Jim had already set things in motion with his boss. He’d already known most of what he’d need and had arranged for it to be sent down. I almost pissed myself when he said what he was going to do. But he was adamant it was the best way and it would work. He’d asked me how I thought he should get in and rescue the captives, and I’d admitted that I had no idea. Just getting into the house through a door or a window and starting to shoot people he encountered inside seemed almost certain to end up with Jim dead and the house blown to smithereens.
Things he’d requested from his boss were there when we got up Thursday morning, having been accumulated and sent by jet to Orlando, then by car to us. He called his boss and told him what else was required and that it had to be delivered within a few hours, and they talked awhile. I listened, my heart beating quicker than usual. The plan had been developed before we’d slept Wednesday night. It was more than scary; it seemed foolhardy to me. But Jim felt good about it. He hadn’t at first because he didn’t know what to do about a critical problem in one part of the plan. He’d decided not to fret and simply wing it. I thought his chances of winging it to be about zero percent.
But I’d thought about the problem before dropping off to sleep that night, even thought I’d been up really late in the woods and all, and in the late morning Thursday when I woke up, I’d come up with a solution. He wanted to have some sort of light on the top of the roof and had no idea how to do that. Ideally, he wanted several lights, wanted them to be positioned appropriately, and wanted them to be unable to be detected from below. We’d discussed it before bedtime and he’d resolved it the only way he knew how: he’d simply decided not to use lights. I thought he was crazy.
But Thursday morning, when I arose, I’d come up with a way to get the lights up there. I could get them where he wanted them, too, by using a drone! I knew how to fly one; Jerrod and I had built our own from a kit, and I was pretty good with it. It was like playing a video game, somewhat. I was good at those, too.
I told Jim what I needed over a very late breakfast; he agreed and made another call to his boss. He was told they had drones already rigged with service packs and thought they had one that could do what we needed it to do. He said he’d get it sent by jet within the hour. We had everything else we needed from the overnight delivery.
After breakfast, we suited up in our black clothing again and headed out for the house. This was as scary as it had been the night before, and seemed even riskier to me because this was in daylight! Fitz didn’t like being left behind, but I certainly couldn’t take him with us; we had no other option but to leave him. He watched us leave from the bed I’d slept in. We hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door so the maid wouldn’t be terrified walking in on him there.
We parked again on Lionel Road where we’d been before, and then, instead of walking down Cedar Lane and taking the chance of meeting one of the terrorists driving out to get lunch, we entered the woods right there. Walking through the trees was much slower going than strolling down the lane, but while we weren’t in much of a hurry, we were very conscious of not being seen. We had a few hours to spare, and we weren’t planning to be there all that long. This was more a surveillance mission to do some fact-finding.
We walked, dodging trees and bushes and vines and tangled foliage till we were about abreast of the house the terrorists were occupying. We were probably twenty, thirty yards back from Cedar Lane and could only get random glimpses of the houses we’d passed. What we were looking for was what we thought we’d seen on the map display we had—a slight knoll, a place where the ground rose some and provided us a meager view of the house but also was almost entirely screened by trees and scrub growth.
We sat on the ground and kept our movements to a minimum. It seemed almost impossible we’d be seen; we were close to the trees screening us, and the people in the house were a distance from them. Also, we were dressed in black and probably just about invisible.
Jim pulled the infrared-imaging equipment from his backpack and set it facing the house. He switched it on, and we soon had images coming to the screen. He panned it across the whole back face of the house. What we saw was heat flashes in five of the rooms. Two were downstairs in separate rooms, three were upstairs. We saw two heat images together in the bedroom on the northeast corner of the house and two separate ones, one across the hall from the two together, one about halfway down the hall on the same side as the two together.
“Just what I thought,” Jim murmured. “That has to be Jerrod and his aunt there—” he pointed at the screen at the corner bedroom “—and the rest are four bad guys, two upstairs and two down. I’d guess they stayed up as late as we did and haven’t got up yet. So these are the locations where they sleep. This will probably be where they’ll be when I go in.”
I found a spot on the knoll where I had a clear view of the roof—well, the short wall around the roof. I still couldn’t see the surface behind it. One of the things we’d received in our morning delivery was a set of plans for the house, so I now knew the wall rising above the roof’s surface was three-and-a-half feet tall. I also knew that the roof itself was indeed flat. Large and flat. The house was the size of a mansion, and it had an expansive, mostly rectangular roof.
We stayed there for over an hour, watching the thermal images of the house. We saw four individuals—what I assumed were the kidnappers—moving around, all coming together at one point, and then an image leaving the house. We heard a car drive away. Lunch trip, we assumed. Probably not a chef among them.
We saw the two images in the corner upstairs bedroom remain in the room. I saw them both move, and my heart fluttered. Jerrod was alive.
We waited till we heard the car coming back; we saw an image entering the house and an image climbing the stairs, entering the bedroom with the hostages and leaving two small somethings that had vague thermal images. Had to be food, still warm from where it had been cooked.
After that, we left. We had to be back at the motel to take late afternoon delivery of the drone. I waited in the motel for that and Jim took off to get in some practice time. His mission would be much harder than mine. Mine was mostly stationary, away from any real trouble. Mostly. His was in the thick of things. He needed to be as ready as he could be.
We went back that night, Thursday night, and verified what we’d seen that morning, that everyone was in the same room they’d been in before. They were. So we had the information we needed, and the plan was set. We were ready. As ready as we could be. All we needed to do now was practice what we were going to do. The plan still seemed full of chances of screw-ups to me, but it could work. Maybe. It was the best we could come up with. It had to work!
Jim had been in a lot of dangerous situations before, and he’d always survived them. I hoped that didn’t make him overconfident. This plan had all sorts of places it could become a disaster in a mere moment. He’d told me that’s what he was best at, reacting to the unexpected. Improvising. It didn’t reassure me. The two people I most loved in the whole world could and probably would die if this didn’t go just right, if he didn’t pull this off perfectly.
My role was important, too. I had to succeed just as he had to. Scary stuff for a 15-year-old. This wasn’t fun and games. This was real life with real lives at stake. Innocent and valuable lives.
I didn’t sleep well that night, and Friday morning I had trouble getting out of bed. But I had something to do right then, even before breakfast. I sent another message to Jerrod. I told him we were on our way, we were coming, but that we’d been delayed. The car’s fuel-injection system had gone kaplooey and the car was now in a small-town garage and they’d had to order the part. We’d be delayed two days but then would head out again. He was to expect us probably on Tuesday. I’d call him to confirm on Monday. I told him I wanted to hear from him and not get a fucking message!
I’d been thinking about the plan, thinking about my role, thinking about the risk Jim was taking, thinking what could go wrong. A lot could go wrong. And I could help lower the risk a little. So I told Jim what I was thinking. He objected. I argued and I could see he could understood the logic in what I was saying. He knew my past and my resolve, knew my character. In the end, he finally agreed. Then I made another demand. We both had cellphones, and I told him I wanted him to talk to me as his mission played itself out. A constant stream of what was happening. I had to know what was going on. I’d go crazy otherwise, and I couldn’t really help him if I needed to if I were entirely in the dark. He didn’t put up any fuss about this. I was surprised, but he agreed. So I’d be in on it all as it unfolded. That made me feel better.
Friday, we both practiced, him again with his armament, me with the drone. The drone had been modified for what we needed and was pretty clever. I guess they had some pretty capable techies and engineers or whatever back in Washington. The drone had a jig attached at the bottom with four spring-loaded clamps, and the control box had four extra buttons that would open the clamps. We’d also been sent four mini LED flashlights, and I attached them to the clamps in a horizontal position.
Jim had a sound-suppressed Walther P-22 chambered for the .22 LR cartridge. He’d trained with sound-suppressed handguns but rarely used one. If he had to use this weapon, it had to be sound-suppressed, and he had to be accurate and quick with it. That meant practicing, getting used to the balance with a suppressor attached, and he took the time that afternoon to get used to drawing and shooting the gun.
I got used to the controls on the drone. They were different from what I’d had before but not difficult to learn. I had other practice to do as well. By the time Jim was done practicing, I was, too.
By nightfall, we were both dressed and ready.
I’d been too nervous to eat much dinner. Jim said I had to eat something, and so I munched down a couple of power bars and drank a bottle of water.
We drove and parked on Lionel Road, and I got out. He drove off. Before I left, I hugged him hard. He reciprocated. He had confidence I’d do my job. I had the same confidence in him. I knew he could do what he had to. I knew I could do my part as well. Didn’t stop my nerves from jangling, though.
ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ
Jim had dropped me off where he’d parked the past two days before driving away. It was 11:30, a fairly long time before anything would happen. I was alone, which meant my nerves were on edge and I had to swallow a lot. I forced myself to concentrate and put that aside. I had to walk through the woods to the knoll but was able to use the lane much of the way there, which made it easier. I made it to the knoll just after midnight, plenty ahead of time. Jim wasn’t set to arrive till 1:30 AM. But I had things to do before he arrived.
I set up the infrared equipment, then took out my cellphone. I’d already turned off the light on the screen. I had an LED flashlight somewhat like the ones that had come with the drone. Jim had put duct tape over the lens so there was only a peephole for the light to come through. Using that to see what I was doing and pointing the light away from the house, I dialed Jim’s number.
He answered immediately, which was a great relief. Not that I hadn’t expected him to. It was just gratifying to know that this was working. I told him that two of the four guys were still up, two were already stationary in their rooms. It was the two downstairs who were up; they were together in one of the rooms.
It would be a problem if they didn’t go to bed. But the 1:30 time was flexible. We could wait longer if we needed to.
It didn’t matter if two of the bad guys were still up as far as using the drone went. The one I had was almost silent. I turned it on and flew it straight up till it was above the trees, then flew it to the house, watching on my control screen where it was going from the camera it carried. My screen was also pointed away from the house so no light would be visible from there. I flew the drone up and over the roof, then hovered it while scanning the rooftop.
I flew the drone to each of the four corners and lowered it almost to the rooftop, then released each of the flashlights. The techs who’d designed the rig had been really smart. They’d thought of a problem I hadn’t considered: How to keep the bright lights hidden from anyone in the house while they were being flown from my position in the woods to the roof. They’d solved it by sending us flashlights that had been designed to turn on when they were bumped. So the flashlights were turned off while the drone was in the air.
When I pressed the button to release each one, the flashlight only dropped a few inches, but the landing impact was enough to turn it on. The four of them lay on their sides on the roof, providing light that was fairly intense, but for only a short distance along the top of the roof. Looking through the trees at the house, I couldn’t see any light from below. Perfect.
The phone call was being kept open. “Lights in place,” I said, speaking softly. “The roof is entirely flat except for the couple of pipes coming up was saw on the plans. They’re both on the east side about two feet from the surrounding wall, if you need a reminder.”
Jim chuckled and replied, “Good job,” rather than making a sarcastic rejoinder. I accepted his compliment. I couldn’t help but feel some pride.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine. You?”
He laughed. “This is what I do, Colt. I like the adrenalin rush. You feeling it, too?”
“Yep. Good luck.”
“You, too.”
And that was that. We both kept the phones on, but there was no more talk for a while. My job now was to keep him informed about movements in the house. Later on, I had another job. The one I’d politicked for.
I had a wait in front of me. Jim wouldn’t be coming for another hour or so at the earliest. Early morning hours. He’d said waiting might be hard. I didn’t just sit there. Instead, I moved, tracing out the route I’d use later when it was time to leave. I wanted to be as ready as I could and able to move fast without obstacles interfering. It felt good to be on my feet. Took some of the nervousness away. I realized I wasn’t scared any longer. I was doing a job that needed to be done and was getting on with it.
I checked my exit route twice and felt I had it memorized, which trees to go around in which direction, where there were bushes to avoid, but I added helpers, dropping hand warmers here and there along the path in critical areas. Then I settled back at the knoll and checked the infrared.
“Jim, they’re all back in their rooms. No one’s moving. All five blips are stationary.
“Okay. I’m resetting go time. 2 AM.”
“OK. I’ll be ready.”
And that was that. A little over an hour to wait.
I had a rifle with me. Jim hadn’t argued about it. I’d told him if push came to shove, I wanted to be involved. He knew I could shoot. I’d grown up doing it—had grown up shooting game. While he’d been practicing with his .22 handgun, I’d spent time when I wasn’t playing with the drone practicing with a .22 rifle we’d picked up at Walmart. It was a better, more accurate weapon than the one I’d had as a kid, and it had a low-power scope. If I needed to use it, I’d be effective with it.
As the time passed slowly, I took the rifle out of its carry bag and set it aside where I could quickly grab it. Then there was nothing to do but sit and watch the infrared screen, which was showing the same thing: no movement anywhere.
I checked my watch, and when it was ten till two, I heard Jim’s voice. “We’re away, should be in place in five. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Good,” I said and my nerves came back. This was the part I thought was foolhardy. He was planning to parachute onto the roof.
He’d had to convince me he could do this. I could still hear him: ‘I’ve had lots of practice, Colt. For my last assignment, I had to be able to jump well enough to escape after the cell leader had fallen to his death. That took some really skilled flying, and I pulled it off. Yeah, this is risky, aiming for a dark roof, but I’ll have an oversized black chute and can descend very slowly. I’ll have a jet-pack harness allowing me more precision than just the control sheets on my chute. I’m confident I can do this.”
I thought it absurd, coming down from 7,000 feet at night onto a black roof that from above would be undetectable and tiny. That’s when it had occurred to me how to make it visible. He’d wanted light on the roof, and I’d figured out how to accomplish it. The lights were now in place. LED flashlights when left on generally had a lifespan of over 18 hours. Ours only had to stay lit for a fraction of that time.
They didn’t have to put out that much light, either. Jim had night-vision goggles. Those flashlights would look like bonfires to him. Well, small bonfires, but they’d stick out like bright suns in the darkness below him.
Jim’s voice was somewhat masked by the sound of the small plane he was in. It was high enough that the sound should be unnoticeable on the ground. I moved the phone from my ear and listened and might have been able to hear something, but wasn’t sure, and I was listening for it. Anyone not doing so wouldn’t notice a thing.
“Okay, we’re over the zone.” There was a pause, and then, “I’m flying. Full chute. Very light wind, drifting me in the direction I want to go.” Another pause, and, “I see the lights. Farther away than I thought, but I’m high enough. Shouldn’t be a problem…drifting…drifting...okay, opening panels, coming down faster…need to move a little south, using my jetpack… okay, over the target, coming straight down now.” A longer pause, then, “I’m down.”
I let out my breath. I hadn’t realized I was holding it. “Good job yourself,” I said. I felt like celebrating. Knew it was way too early for that. The next part might be more scary than this.
“Status unchanged inside?”
I checked the screen. “No change at all,” I reported.
“Okay. Taking my collapsible grappling hook and rope out of my pack. I’m at the wall, looking down. I’m going down onto the balcony of the room next to theirs.”
There was a sheet of plywood over their window. He’d seen that when surveilling the house that first night.
There was nothing for maybe a half minute before his voice came back, this time in a whisper. “I’m on the balcony. Have to be quiet, I’m between occupied rooms. Window’s locked. Using my glass cutter.” Another pause, shorter this time, and, “Put duct tape on glass, cut a section out, unlocked window, am in.”
I guess I was breathing. I was so into what I was hearing, I wasn’t aware of anything else.
“Opening the door into the upstairs corridor,” he hissed.
Ten seconds. Then, “Moving down the hallway past the captive’s room. Okay, turned the corner. No other movement. Time: 2:18. Should be something in about ten minutes.”
We’d seen, while watching the night before, that a guard would check their prisoners once during the night. We didn’t know if it was always at the same time, but last night, a guard had opened their door at 2:30, then closed and locked it again. We were hoping it would be the same tonight but weren’t sure it would be. We’d talked about how the rescue would play itself out. It would be easier, Jim had said, if we let the guard open the door rather than Jim trying to do so. He’d expected the door to have been fixed with a hasp and padlock, and it would take him too long and make too much noise if he had to remove that.
2:30 came and went. No movement. 2:40. Nothing. I knew Jerrod and his aunt hadn’t been checked earlier. I’d been watching my screen. What was going on? Why had no one come to check the bedroom? I didn’t want to interrupt Jim; I didn’t know how sensitive his situation was right then. He was quiet, and so I was, too. I waited, silently and fretting. Then—
“Jim, the guy in the front bedroom just moved. I think he’s on his way toward you. Yes, here he comes!”
A whisper: “I see him.”