The Steel Shark

Chapter 16

Avi flew the drone back for its last battery change. The doughty black and white device came straight for him, as loyal as a falcon returning to the leather glove of its master. Light caught the dust motes around it, and they swirled in a dance both ancient and modern.

His shoulders were tense from working the remote control all evening while he’d waited for this moment, but soon his mission would be over and he could take a long soak in the fine bathtub at the Hyatt with Epsom salts.

He reached out his arm for his flying machine. Its weight settled into his outstretched palm, and he drew his hand back from the railing. Using the joystick, he swiveled the tiny camera around to study the people around him, including those above and below. No one watched the anonymous man with the drone. He was simply a fixture at the whale’s tail, like the museum exhibits they no longer bothered to look at. He was the invisible help, not worth these fancy people’s fancy time.

Still, he did a second pan with the camera to verify that he was unobserved. With a practiced motion, he took out the spent battery with one gloved hand, added the battery to the box next to his black shoes, and slipped in a fresh one. The drone was ready for action.

Instead of releasing it into the air as he’d done all night, he fitted a small tripod to the drone’s belly. He’d modified an off-the-shelf tripod to make it sturdier and to build in a specialized frame for its new cargo. Carefully, he lined the tripod up with the camera’s view. He checked the tripod with a tiny level to make sure it was perfectly straight.

Again, a slow camera pan to make sure no one cared about his actions, then he casually drew a 9 mm Ruger from the gray box he’d stashed near the emergency exit. The gun was clean. He’d purchased it from his long-term weapons supplier, one of few men he trusted with his life, and he’d been assured it couldn’t be traced.

The modified grip fit easily into his gloved palm, and he tightened his fingers around it, whispering a blessing before fitting the gun into the tripod. Far below, a man in a navy blue tuxedo stepped onstage to a smattering of applause and began to introduce Tesla. Avi had to be quick.

He cupped the drone in a gloved hand to hide the gun from view as long as possible, then used the controls to have it lift off his palm. The drone staggered and dipped next to the railing like a baby bird on its first flight. He adjusted for the extra weight. He’d spent hours practicing with the drone with the gun and without, and he knew it could carry its deadly cargo as far as needed.

Stabilized, the drone soared along the back of the whale, across the crowd, toward its destiny.