Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

need the aircraft details, as many as you can give me...”

Renard heard Shepard giggle—a weird sound of excitement and self-acknowledgment. “I knew it was right to call you! Already transferring all I know about it. Hack that aircraft, Scott.” Shepard’s voice had turned from apoplectic to a plea. “Stop it from reaching North Korea. We can’t handle it, but maybe you can. Once she’s there, she’s gone.”

“Forget you people,” Renard snarled. “And I mean that in the broadest possible terms.”

“Got you, Scott. Really sorry.”

Renard sped into his study, which looked like a combination of the Dr. Strangelove war room, an Apple Store, and FAO Schwarz. “No apologies wanted, Linc—just send me a live link to your nav system, and make sure her cell’s blinking at me like a lighthouse. Think you can handle that?”

“Yes!”

“Good. I’ll do what I can do and maybe call you back later.”

“Thanks, Scott.”

“Don’t thank me. We can’t save Lily from here, but maybe we can help her save herself.”

Renard snapped his fingers, the programmed audio signal for his smart-home to accept a new task.

“How can I help you?” a woman asked.

“Call the office.”

“Calling office.”

A young woman answered. “SR Holdings, how can I help you?”

“Hi, Jackie, it’s Scott.”

“Hey there!” Things were very informal out at SR.

“Listen, I won’t be coming in today, at least not till much later. But I need some help. Send me our two craziest gamers.” He could “hear” her blink and gape, too.

“Chilly and Hot Shot?”

“Yup. And Jackie, don’t use Uber. I need them here fast, so use the car service and tell them we’ll pay double if they step on it. Got it?”

“You bet!”

Scott disconnected the call, and then Renard’s cell phone dinged. He picked it up, tapped in his code, and a link popped up in a text message from Lincoln Shephard. Tapping on that, Renard’s screen filled with an overhead satellite image of unfamiliar greenery, mountains, and a weaving, blinking yellow orb moving quickly from left to right as the background scenery swept underneath. And when that screen filled, the study became that image. Renard was standing in the middle of it.

“She’s right there,” he whispered. “If I could just reach out and grab her...”

For the next twenty minutes he studied every millimeter of the terrain like a caged leopard. I can do this, he promised himself, knowing that whatever he did could well make it worse. And if I can, maybe she’ll realize that this is no life and that her real life is right here, with me.

The front doorbell rang, and he opened the door remotely, his security equipment informing his visitors in the kindest voice that the master of the house was in his study. Within seconds, Chilly and Hot Shot were in the doorway. Chilly had a crop of bright red hair gelled straight up, and Hot Shot looked like a Tom Cruise stand-in circa Top Gun.

They both wore torn jeans, ratty high-tops, and sweatshirts. Before coming to SR, Chilly had made a living hacking for anyone who’d pay. Hot Shot had served in the air force as a UAV pilot, or a “drone jockey” and then turned his skills to advanced software development.

“Mornin’, bossman,” Chilly said with a wide grin.

“What’s up, sir?” Hot Shot still had the air force in his blood.

“Morning, boys,” Renard said. He managed a gap-toothed smile, but he pointed his first and middle fingers at their chests. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to do something terrible, dangerous, and illegal, and which may even cause World War Three. If you talk about it to anyone, I’ll fire you, sue you, and make sure that you never work in this town again. But that really won’t matter, because I’ll also have you killed. Clear?”

Chilly’s red eyebrows shot up. “You had me at illegal.”

“Shut up, Chilly.” Hot Shot elbowed him in the ribs and nodded at Renard. “Clear.”

“Okay,” said Renard. “Let’s go.”

Chilly looked around in confusion as Renard walked to the far wall. “Go where?”

“Never told you this, Hot Shot,” Scott said with his back to them. They couldn’t see what his hands were doing, but they were moving fast. “But I secretly wanted to be a fighter jock. That’s why I’m always asking you about UAVs.”

“Didn’t know that, sir,” Hot Shot said. “Why didn’t you do it?”

“Low pay and too many rules.”

“That’s for sure.” Hot Shot laughed. “And long stretches of boredom between trigger times.”

But then the bookcase Renard was standing in front of hissed and popped out from the wall. It then rolled to the left on quiet Teflon-coated casters, revealing a gray steel door with a digital keypad.

“Too cool, dude!” Chilly said with glee.

Renard pressed the keypad and let a laser read his palm print and retinas before he pulled the door open and waved a hand inside the sill. A light glowed on.

Inside was a room the size of half a shipping container, with black lacquer walls that curved to an apex of dim blue lights. The far end was occupied by racks of servers on heavy steel shelving, before which two forty-inch monitors were angled downward at a pair of thick leather seats, side by side. A pair of heavy-duty Motorola headsets snuggled the headrests, and each chair featured a right-handed joystick with multifinger controls. At the foot of each chair were sets of aircraft brake rudder pedals. Renard flicked a switch on the wall and the servers began to blink and wine.

“Jesus,” Hot Shot whispered. “This looks just like that friggin’ box I sat in for three years at Wright Patterson. How come you got the whole double rig?”

“When I had the house built,” Renard explained, “I was dating a former navy pilot. Thought she’d like it for recreation, but it turned out she preferred this room over the bedroom.”

Chilly snickered. Hot Shot murmured, “Yeah, pilots have egos. Zipper-suited sun gods.”

“Right,” Renard said. “She was tight and not in a good way. Gentleman, take your seats.”

Hot Shot slipped into the right seat, Chilly into the left, and Renard