“More or less? Hey, buddy. This is her life we’re talking about.”
Lyle looked up from the drone and met Wolfgang with unblinking eyes. “I’m very aware of what we’re talking about.”
Wolfgang stood up. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and circled the van. Kevin and Edric were helping Megan to adjust the harness to fit her slender body. It was too big for her, but with adjustment, it would suffice.
Kevin cinched a strap around Megan’s shoulders, and then Lyle appeared with an iPad in one hand. “The elevators and stairwells run up the core of the building, with hallways connecting the apartments.” He zoomed in on a blueprint image of the IronGate tower, and everybody leaned in. “Every apartment features a private balcony, along with floor-to-ceiling windows,” Lyle continued. “However, there’s dead space between each unit where there are no windows facing outward. That space is about fifteen feet wide and is found where the balcony of one floor is overlapped by the balcony of the floor above it. If we fly the drone directly up the path where the balconies overlap, it will never become directly exposed to a window.”
“Just a couple dozen balconies,” Megan muttered.
“Right,” Lyle said. “Which is why Wolfgang will make sure they’re empty before you lift off.”
The group grew quiet as Lyle continued to stare at his iPad, nodding to himself. Wolfgang wasn’t sure if he was as confident in the plan as he pretended.
“Any other questions?” Edric asked.
“What about the noise?” Kevin said. “How loud is it?”
“We’ve actually got a break on that,” Lyle said. “The drone isn’t quiet, but I was able to find exact specs on the glass the tower is encased in. It’s pretty thick, designed to isolate city noises and to protect the building against sandstorms. The occupants won’t hear a thing, so long as their balcony doors are shut.”
Wolfgang ran the numbers through his head again. The total lifting power of the drone, minus so much weight for the cable, minus Megan’s bodyweight, minus the weight of the harness . . .
“Maybe your shoes,” he said hesitantly.
“What about my shoes?” Megan snapped.
“I was just thinking . . . You don’t really need them. Could save a couple pounds.”
“Seriously?”
Nobody said anything, and Megan cursed as she bent to untie her sneakers. “You morons would be lost without me. You really would.” She kicked the shoes off, then waddled across the rough pavement to the back of the van. “Come on, wiz. Let’s do this shit.”
7
“T-minus one minute,” Edric said. “Charlie Two, have you got the goods?”
Wolfgang held one hand over his ear, waiting for Kevin’s reply to Edric. He stood across the street from Amelia Pollins’s building and traced the outline of each floor, all the way to number eighteen. Dr. Pollins’s balcony jutted out over downtown Cairo, pointed toward the Nile and the Great Pyramids beyond. It sported a four-foot metal railing and sliding glass doors. Those doors would certainly be locked, but under Megan’s practiced hands, they would pose much less a challenge than the security downstairs.
“Just completed the pickup, Charlie Lead,” Kevin said.
“Copy that,” Edric said. “Deploying now.”
Wolfgang turned back to the street that lay between himself and Pollins’s apartment tower. Charlie Team’s van was parked half a mile down the street to his left, its headlights set to dim as exhaust clouded beneath the rear bumper. With a little rumble, the van pulled away from the curb and turned toward the IronGate tower, driving past the main entrance before turning down the service alley on the far side. The alley sat conveniently eighteen floors beneath Pollins’s apartment, with a clear vertical shot all the way to her balcony, along the windowless dead space Lyle had described.
The van ground to a halt.
“Charlie Three, what’s your visual?” Edric said.
Wolfgang scanned the street in both directions, then looked upward at the balconies for any sign of smoking occupants standing near the railing and observing the streets below. It was after midnight, and the balconies, like the streets, were empty.
“Charlie Lead, you’re all clear,” Wolfgang said.
The back doors of the van popped open, and Lyle jumped out. A moment later, Megan appeared, and they pulled the drone out and set it on the concrete behind the van. Megan wore the repelling harness cinched tight around her petite torso, with a thick strap running from between her shoulder blades to the bottom of the drone. A neat coil of cable lay on the ground, with one end running into the bottom of the drone and the other end connected to a Honda generator in the back of the van. Lyle leaned into the van and hit the start button on the generator, and Wolfgang heard a soft humming sound, like that of a distant lawn mower.
All eight blades of the drone spun to life as the generator pumped power into the motors, and a more present buzz joined the distant humming, exactly like that of a horde of bees.
It’s loud. Is it too loud?
Megan stood back, staring fixedly at the vibrating, multi-bladed beast in front of her with something between dread and disgust on her face. Then Lyle shot her two thumbs-up, and she nodded reluctantly.
“Charlie Three, what’s your visual?” Edric said again.
Once more, Wolfgang scanned the balconies and streets. They still lay empty, lit only by intermittent streetlamps spaced evenly along both sidewalks.
“Charlie Lead, all clear,” Wolfgang said.
“Copy that. Charlie Eye, execute.”
Lyle crouched in the back of the van and lifted a giant remote control, complete with thumb-sticks and enough switches to run a submarine. He nodded once to Megan, and she took another step back from the drone. All eight blades accelerated, spinning so fast that they appeared as solid discs. The buzz of the drone doubled, then tripled before it lifted off the ground with the grace and stability of Marine One. The drone hovered six feet off the pavement, the
