Page 50 of Daddy's Oath
Atop the vehicle, a small panel slid open, allowing a black drone to fly straight up and away. The tiny camera mounted underneath it sent stunning, full HD-quality video back to the screens in the van.
Just having the control stick in his hand made Ace smile. But it would be even better if he were in a chopper, flying over the city. That wouldn’t serve the current mission, anyway. Plus, he didn’t have access to a chopper.
Perhaps one day that would change.
Right now, though, all that mattered was stopping the thugs who wanted to hurt his babygirl. Nothing would stand in his way. The mission would be completed, one way or another.
“You all watching?” he asked.
“We’re on it,” Ryan replied. “You just fly. We’ll spy.”
Ace groaned. “That was really bad.”
“Ah, man,” Ryan said. “I kind of workshopped that one for a while. Held it for just the right time. It sounded better in my head.”
“Well, you should have kept it inside,” Ace told him.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Ryan extend his arm and hold up his middle finger. Ace just smiled and kept on staring at the monitor before him while his steady hand expertly guided the drone over a typically busy Hollywood.
He sent the small aircraft up to Yuca Street. “Anything?” he asked the others, though he had the same view on his monitor that they had on theirs. Most of his attention, however, was focused on keeping the drone on course.
“Nothing,” Ryan announced.
He kept going to Franklin. “I’ll go north a bit, but I doubt our federal friends would be up this high. Getting into the hills and just a bunch of dead-end streets. Hard to get in and out of.”
The palm trees lining both sides of the street were huge now. So were the homes. The cars parked in front of them cost a pretty penny, too.
“I’m bringing her back down toward us,” he announced. “Feds aren’t driving these cars.”
The other guys laughed.
He brought the drone a little higher, giving them a view of the 101, and took one last look from that vantage point. Then, he lowered it a bit and dropped it south to Franklin.
The drone was back now in the world of apartments. Still a nice area, but not the gated homes that were just a couple of blocks north in the foothills.
Ace smiled to himself. Take it even further south, near where their van was parked, and one would hit a sketchy part ofHollywood Boulevard. It wasn’t awful. And it was still touristy. But it had abandoned theaters, tattoo parlors, and cheap souvenir shops about a mile away from homes that sold for a couple of million bucks.
Hollywood was like that.
“Let’s sweep down Cherokee Avenue,” he said, referring to the block behind Lana’s apartment.
The drone soared above a woman walking a fluffy dog. Either she didn’t notice the drone or it was such a common occurrence around there that she didn’t feel it was worth paying attention to, but she never so much as glanced its way.
A lot of photographers used drones to capture stunning images of Hollywood. Of course, that worked to the Guard’s advantage. Ace could fly the thing around without anyone really caring or getting too curious.
On the other side of the street, a group of young people were getting out of a pickup and talking about how to move the couch from the vehicle’s bed all the way up to the apartment on the sixth floor of the building before them.
Down the sidewalk, an LAPD cruiser was parked at the curb.
“Guys,” Ace said.
“We see it,” Isaiah commented.
Ace guided the drone closer. The cop might notice but probably wouldn’t think much of it.
Again, this was Hollywood.
“He’s just eating lunch,” Isaiah said as the image of the officer came into view.
