11. Patrick
As soon as the words leave Jerry’s mouth, I place myself between Ariella and the outside world, walking her backward toward the door. Once we’re inside, I lock the doors and ensure that the alarms are set.
“What area was the breach?” I ask, pulling up the camera feeds on my phone.
“Bravo four,” Jessie answers. Our grid is set into 16 sections, with the phonetic alphabet identifiers of Alpha through Delta referencing the longitude while the numeric sequence identifies the latitude. We can narrow it down further with exact GPS coordinates if need be.
“That’s northeast of here. Jerry, my laptop is in the living room. Can you please pull up the camera feeds for Bravo four and screen mirror them onto the television screen?”
“On it.”
While Jerry is taking care of that, I look at the terrified faces of Ariella and Alex and do my best to reassure them. “It might just be a few game hunters looking to catch themselves a mountain lion. Hunters that aren’t local sometimes ignore the private property signs posted in the area.”
Everyone follows me to the living room, where Jerry has the live feeds streaming on the big screen. “What do we have?”
“Not much. Whoever it was, they just left on ATVs. I’m pulling up the recording now.” Jerry begins pecking at the keyboard, and soon, we’re watching the video of two men pulling up on ATVs wearing camouflage clothing and pistols on their hips.
“Oh, good. It looks like it’s just a couple of hunters,” Ariella says with relief. We watch as the men stomp through the area and stop just before the edge of the tree line, using binoculars to scope the area.
“When they broke through the perimeter line, our thermal sensors picked them up and identified their shape, alerting us to the intrusion,” Jerry explains.
“Are you telling me that your sensors can decipher human from animal and send the alert based on classification?” Ariella asks. “I didn’t know there was technology that could do that. Brachha has never shared anything like that with us.”
I love talking about this stuff, so I jump in to answer her question. “There are all kinds of camera and surveillance equipment available depending upon the need. You can set some to alert you if an object passes by a sensor over a certain height. This helps to prevent small animals like raccoons, dogs, and chickens from inadvertently setting off an alarm.
“Some of the lower-end tech can be adjusted for sensitivity and mass but not set for height. However, since we have thousands of acres to cover, we use highly advanced cameras of varying capabilities. Some of them are able to process body temperatures, mass, and whether the intruder is a biped or quadruped within nanoseconds. It sends the alert once it identifies that the potential threat is human. Otherwise, we would get pinged every two minutes for deer, elk, mountain lions, or any other wild animals. You don’t need something like that in your palace because you have a security team constantly monitoring the video and not a whole lot of wild animals running around.”
“That’s so cool!” Alex exclaims.
“Mom, can you take Alex downstairs and show him my gaming console? I bet there are a few games he might want to play.” Having watched the video and quickly coming to the same conclusion we have, she didn’t hesitate to acquiesce to my request.
“Sure. Alex, we have a really neat virtual reality gaming system downstairs. You can even ride rollercoasters with it!”
“No way! On it!” he says, mimicking Jerry’s words from earlier. He slips his hand in hers as she leads him to the basement. Once he’s out of earshot, Ariella addresses the room.
“Okay. Clearly, you all have something to say that little ears shouldn’t overhear. What did I miss? It’s just a couple of hunters that came and left. What’s so bad about that?”
Savannah shakes her head. “They weren’t hunters. They may have dressed to look the part, but they were scouting.”
“How do you know?”
“For starters, they didn’t have orange vests, which hunters are required by law to wear for safety. Then, they were stomping through the woods. If they were hunting game, they would move slowly and quietly so as not to startle their prey. And then there is the fact that they had handguns on their hip and not rifles on their back. No one uses a handgun to go hunting,” I explain.
“Did you notice the direction they were scanning when using the binoculars? They weren’t scanning the tree line or forested area where animals roam. They were scouting the house,” Jessie says.
“If they aren’t hunters, then what do we do? How did someone find us so fast? We’ve been here for less than two days!” Ariella asks, panicked.
“Calm down,” I say.
“Ooh! That is the absolute worst thing to say to a woman, Patrick. Even I know that!” Jerry jokes.
I can’t help but roll my eyes, but when I see all the women bobbing their heads in agreement, I realize I’m outnumbered and decide it’s best not to argue the point.
“Okay then. How about we take a step back and think about this rationally?” I ask, figuring that this is a reasonable request.
“That’s not any better,” Jessie says under her breath.
I raise my hands in surrender. “There’s nothing that I can say that will be right in this moment, is there?”
Savannah touches the tip of her nose with her index finger, “Bingo! Now you’re catching on!”
The banter back and forth is just what Ariella needed because I can see that she looks more relaxed now. If we’re not panicking about the situation, then she shouldn’t either.
“I need two volunteers to go to the area where the men were last seen and check it out. The plates on the ATVs were removed, so there isn’t a way to track them down by searching the database. I’m hoping that they dropped something or left behind identifiable bootprints or DNA.”
“I’ll go, Son. I know these woods better than anybody here, and I have the tactical skills and can handle myself if I get into any scrapes,” my dad offers.
“Thank you. That’s an excellent idea. But please be careful, Pop, and take someone with you.”
Jessie raises her hand. “I’ll go. I could stand to stretch my legs a bit.”
When Jerry yawns loudly and begins rubbing his eyes, Savannah walks over and places her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take over on surveillance duty while you go get some rest. You’ve been awake for more than 24 hours.”
Jerry pats her hand and relinquishes his seat. “Thanks. I just need a few hours. When everyone returns, I want you to use the setup in the bunkhouse to monitor live streams. We all need to enable the encrypted walkie-talkie feature on our phones for instant comms unless you want to use the earpieces.”
“Walkie-talkies should be good for now. I think you’ve all heard enough conversations that should have been private,” I say, smiling.
He waves and leaves, dragging his feet. Ariella walks over and stands beside me. “Jerry is going to sleep, Savannah is monitoring the video streams, and Jessie is going for a hike. As leader of this team, what do you plan on doing? And don’t you dare say ‘supervising.’”
Smiling, I take her hand in mine and head toward the basement. “We have a rollercoaster to ride.”
When Jessie and my father returned, they didn’t have much to share with us. The tire tracks were made by a Maxxis 4 ATV snow tire, one of the more popular tires sold in this area this time of year. Even my dad’s ATV has them, making narrowing down ownership even more difficult.
With very little to go on, everyone decided it was best to burn off some energy and go outside to play. We all bundled up to help Alex build his very first snowman, except for Savannah, who was in the bunkhouse monitoring the cameras.
While we all worked to roll the snow into three compact balls, Jerry opted out, content to walk around and keep his eyes open for any signs of intruders. Armed with a few hours of rest, his Wilson Combat 1911, and a thermos full of hot chocolate, he was good to go. I doubt he needed his weapon; the scowl on his face would scare away the deadliest of assassins.
“I didn’t think snow would be so heavy when it’s rolled into a ball,” Alex says, bent over with his arms resting on his knees. We just finished placing the head on top of the body, and its weight was substantial for an eight-year-old.
“He looks a little plain. We need to find some sticks for arms and some rocks for eyes,” Jessie suggests. “Want to help?”
“I have some carrots in the fridge. We can use one for the nose. I’ll grab that while you gather some branches,” my mom tells them. It doesn’t take long for us to find what we’re looking for, and soon, the snowman has arms and a face.
Alex stands there, staring at his masterpiece, with a look of dismay.
“What’s wrong, Buddy?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. He still doesn’t look…finished. Something’s missing, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
“He’s got eyes, a nose, arms, and even your grandpa’s old top hat. Do you think he needs a pipe?” I ask. I hope he says, ‘No,’ because no one in our family has ever smoked.
He shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s it. I can’t quite place my finger on it.”
Jerry sets down his cocoa and ambles over, taking off his scarf and wrapping it around the snowman. He doesn’t say anything. He simply waits for Alex to confirm or deny that the problem has been resolved.
Alex tilts his head left, then right, before an ear-to-ear grin stretches across his face. “That’s it!” He wraps his arms around Jerry, repeating, “Thank you!” several times.
“No problem, Kiddo.” Jerry looks mildly uncomfortable with the display of affection, but I’m grateful to him for not pushing Alex away.
With our task complete, Alex asks, “Now, can we shoot some guns?”
After all the excitement this morning, I don’t think it’s wise to be out in the open unless we all go. I don’t believe it’s wise for us to be out here, either, but Ariella said she’s only willing to take the “hiding” thing so far, and staying cooped up in a house and living in fear isn’t going to happen.
When I tried to convince her that Alex’s safety was paramount, she said, “I trust you all to keep us safe so he can enjoy his childhood. If you honestly don’t think it’s possible, I’ll concede. But if there is even the slightest chance you can make it happen, then please let him enjoy the snow. I promise that we’ll stay close to the house.”
I conferred with my team and my parents, and they all agreed that we could manage it with Savannah as our eyes and Jerry as our ears.
I turn to Alex, “Not today, Buddy. It will get dark soon, and we’re all a little tired.” Although he is disappointed, unlike most children his age, he holds it in. “Give us a few days to tighten things up around here, and I promise I’ll teach you personally. Scout’s honor!” I pinch my pinky finger to my thumb, holding up three fingers. That seems to do the trick because his smile returns in full force.
“Were you a Boy Scout?” he asks excitedly.
“I was. I was an Eagle Scout, the highest rank you can get.”
“Can I be a Boy Scout?”
“I don’t see why not. They teach you all kinds of wonderful skills. I can teach you some of them if you want,” I tell him.
“Yippee!” he shouts, running up to his grandparents to tell them the good news. It’s not until I see Ariella’s frown that I realize I may have overstepped.
“Cothena doesn’t have Boy Scouts, so you just made a promise to him that you may not be able to keep,” she says sadly.
With those words, it’s clear that we have a lot more to discuss than just mending our relationship.