Chapter Seventeen
Abigail
The comms room was bathed in the cool, blue light of Leo’s monitor bank.
For the last three hours, The Refuge had been operating in a state of quiet, hyper-focused lockdown.
The heavy storm shutters remained sealed.
The diesel generators hummed a steady, vibrating rhythm beneath the floorboards.
The easy camaraderie of the morning had vanished, replaced by the cold, calculated efficiency of a military unit preparing to repel an invasion.
Abby sat in a rolling chair beside Leo’s workstation, a mug of untouched coffee in her hands. Will was standing directly behind her, his hand resting in a warm, heavy, and reassuring weight on her shoulder.
"They're moving," Leo announced softly, breaking the thick silence in the room.
He tapped a key, bringing a topographical map of the valley to the center screen. A small, pulsing red dot had appeared at the edge of the grid, hovering over the washed-out remains of Route 9.
"Vehicle?" Trent asked, stepping up to the monitors.
"Negative," Leo said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Radar cross-section is too small. It's airborne. Moving fast, maintaining an altitude of about four hundred feet. It's a drone."
Abby leaned forward, her corporate instincts snapping to the forefront, momentarily overriding her fear.
In Los Angeles, she hadn't just managed financial spreadsheets; she had overseen the due diligence for acquiring several tech startups.
She didn't know how to build a surveillance drone, but she knew exactly how to dismantle the companies that did.
"Leo, can you tell what kind of drone they're using?" Abby asked, her voice steady. "Are they streaming video?"
Leo’s fingers flew across the keyboard. A moment later, a secondary screen populated with scrolling lines of encrypted code. "It's a top-tier commercial rig. Heavily encrypted downlink."
"Vanguard uses proprietary tech," Abby stated, staring at the screen. "David bragged about it at a dinner party last year. They bought a company called Helix Tech to build their surveillance fleet."
Will’s hand tightened slightly on her shoulder. "Leo, can you fry it? Hit it with an EMP burst from the directional antenna?"
"I can," Leo confirmed, his eyes darting across the screens.
"But a hard kill leaves a signature. If a high-end Vanguard drone suddenly drops out of the sky from a localized electromagnetic pulse, it proves they aren't looking at an empty forest. It proves they've found a highly fortified, military-grade target.
We'd be confirming Abby's location and blowing our cover in one move. "
"We need it to look like an accident," Trent agreed, his arms crossed over his chest. "A malfunction caused by the storm debris or wind shear."
Abby stared at the pulsing red dot. It was creeping closer to the outer perimeter wire.
"My firm looked at buying Helix before Vanguard did," Abby said, the details of a four-year-old failed merger flooding back to her with crystal clarity. "We backed out during the risk assessment phase. Their liability report was a nightmare."
Leo stopped typing, glancing back at her. "What kind of liability?"
"A software defect," Abby explained, a fierce, unapologetic light in her hazel eyes. "If the drone lost its GPS connection, the system didn't know how to fly home. It would just panic, lock up, and slowly drop to the ground so it wouldn't crash. It cost them a massive federal contract."
Leo’s eyes widened, a slow, deeply impressed grin spreading across his face. "Are you telling me you know the backdoor defect to Vanguard's multi-million dollar tech?"
"I'm telling you I know why they were cheap enough for Vanguard to acquire," Abby corrected. "Can you cut off its GPS without frying the whole drone?"
"Oh, absolutely," Leo breathed, turning back to his keyboard with renewed, frantic energy. "I can flood the localized GPS band with white noise. The drone will think it's blind. It'll trigger the exact safety override you're talking about."
"Do it," Trent ordered.
Abby watched the screen, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm. She wasn't hiding in a tent anymore. She wasn't a victim waiting to be rescued. She was sitting in the nerve center of a tactical compound, using the very corporate knowledge David had exploited to fight back against him.
"GPS spoofing initiated," Leo murmured. "Come on, you little plastic piece of shit... blind yourself."
On the center screen, the pulsing red dot suddenly stopped its forward momentum. It hovered in place for three agonizing seconds. Then, the altitude tracker began to drop rapidly.
"It's initiating the descent protocol," Leo confirmed, a triumphant edge in his voice. "It's dropping into the canopy."
"Kaiden," Trent barked into his chest radio. "Grid sector Alpha-Niner. We have a blind bird dropping into the trees. Intercept and acquire."
"Copy that," Kaiden’s voice crackled back, breathless and wholly in his element. "I have visual. It's coming down right into the old-growth pines."
There was a tense, thirty-second silence on the radio. Abby held her breath, Will’s thumb stroking a slow, calming rhythm against her collarbone.
"Got it," Kaiden finally reported. "Had to scale a pine to grab it. I snapped the rotors and cracked the casing. Looks exactly like it caught a branch in the wind and went down hard. Removing the memory card now. The camera feed is officially dead."
"Good work, Leo," Trent said, clapping the comms expert on the shoulder. He looked down at Abby, a profound, respectful gravity in his dark eyes. "And excellent intel, Abby. You just saved us a massive headache."
"They won't stop there," Abby warned, the victory short-lived as the reality of David's persistence settled over her. "Vanguard doesn't just rely on tech. When the drone goes dark, they'll send someone on foot to retrieve it and verify the target."
Right on cue, Leo’s perimeter alarm flashed yellow.
"Motion sensors on the lower logging trail," Leo said, his voice tightening. "Half a mile from the washed-out bridge. We have a single thermal signature moving up the mountain on foot. He's armed. I've got a distinct cold void at his waistband. A concealed sidearm."
Will pulled his hand from Abby's shoulder. The warmth vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, lethal energy of a man preparing for violence. He reached down and adjusted the holster strapped to his thigh, checking the seating of his 9mm pistol.
"Will," Abby said, turning in her chair to look at him, her heart leaping into her throat.
"Stay here with Leo," Will commanded softly, his stormy eyes locking onto hers. The fierce devotion in his gaze was absolute. "I'm not going to let him anywhere near you."
"Trent," Will said, turning to the commander. "Let's go take out the trash."