Chapter 24: Aerial
"Ready?"
Simon's voice came through the intercom headset, calm and conversational, like he hadn't just lifted a helicopter off a pad at the LA Harbor and climbed to a thousand feet above the city.
Meg gave him a thumbs up.
The Bell 47G was a two-seat light helicopter — bubble canopy, open fuselage, the kind of aircraft that felt like flying in a glass fishbowl, which made the views considerably better than anything with walls. Simon had booked two hours at one of the few facilities in the city that offered private pilot rentals rather than guided tours — five hundred an hour including fuel, insurance, and a ten-thousand-dollar damage deposit that Simon had put down without flinching, which said something about his current financial situation even if he chose not to discuss it.
Below them, Los Angeles performed its standard nighttime transformation — the grid of streets becoming orange-and-white light strings, the freeways moving like slow rivers, the coast a dark edge where the city stopped and the Pacific decided it wasn't interested.
"This is incredible," Meg said into her headset.
"Better than the restaurant?"
"There's no comparison." She was looking out the canopy with the expression of someone recalibrating their understanding of scale. "Everything looks — manageable from up here."
"That's the point."
He banked them gently south along the coast, following the curve of the bay, keeping altitude steady at three hundred meters. The controls were responsive — lighter than a fixed-wing, more sensitive to inputs, the kind of aircraft that punished inattention but rewarded precision. Simon flew it the way he drove — economically, with the specific confidence of someone who had moved past the phase of thinking about technique.
"There's a backpack behind your seat," Simon said.
Meg reached back. Found it. Opened it.
She held up the night-vision binoculars with an expression he could only partially see through the ambient light. "Simon."
"Before you say anything—"
"Why do you own night-vision binoculars?"
"Every guy has certain items that are harder to justify than others. These are mine."
"These are like — military grade."
"They're civilian spec. Commercial. Available online."
Meg looked at them. Looked at him. Looked at them again. "You're unbelievable."
"They're excellent for stargazing."
"We're in Los Angeles. There are no stars."
"There are some."
She shook her head but opened the focus ring and raised them to her eyes — because of course she did, because Meg was constitutionally incapable of not being curious about things, which was one of the things Simon liked most about her.
For a few minutes she swept them across the city below — the harbor, the industrial blocks, the residential grids stretching inland.
"Oh," she said.
Simon glanced sideways. "Something?"
"I'm not sure." She kept the binoculars up. "There's a car. In front of what looks like a residential street — I can't tell exactly where, but it's near a neighborhood I recognize. And there's a—" She stopped.
"Meg."
"There's a woman. Blonde. She's not — she's being carried. Someone is putting her in a trunk."
Simon processed this in about one second.
"Which car?"
"Dark sedan. Four-door. It's pulling out now, heading—" She tracked it. "South. Or southwest. It's moving."
"The backpack." Simon kept his eyes forward. "Second zipper. There's a monocular night-vision unit. Single eye. Pass it to me."
Meg found it without looking, the way she'd gotten used to finding things in Simon's various pockets and bags when he was occupied with something else.
"You said there were no more of these," she said.
"I said there were no more binoculars."
"Simon—"
"I know."
He took the monocular with his right hand, found the car Meg was tracking, and locked onto it. Dark sedan, moving southwest with the steady pace of someone who wasn't in a hurry because hurrying would draw attention.
He handed the monocular back. "Don't lose it."
"I have it."
He banked to follow, keeping altitude and staying far enough back that no one on the ground would think twice about a helicopter moving across the city at night — there were always helicopters moving across LA at night.
"We should call the police," Meg said.
"Give me two minutes." Simon reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. One-handed, which Meg diplomatically chose not to comment on.
He had Chuck's number memorized.
Chuck picked up on the second ring, already tense. "Simon, this really isn't a great—"
"Are you looking for Sarah right now?"
A pause. "How do you—"
"Yes or no."
"Yes. Why?"
"Because Meg just watched someone load a blonde woman into the trunk of a dark sedan near your neighborhood. We're currently in a helicopter following the car." Simon kept his voice level. "If it's Sarah, I can track it. If it's not, I'm going to call LAPD and let them handle a kidnapping."
Silence on the other end — then Chuck's voice, lower, talking to someone else.
Casey's voice in the background: a single clipped syllable that wasn't quite a word.
Chuck came back. "What direction?"
"Southwest. Moving steadily. Whoever's driving knows where they're going — no hesitation at intersections."
"According to the tracker—" Chuck paused. "The tracker says she's heading toward the Buy More."
"The tracker is wrong or the tracker has been moved. I'm watching a car take someone southwest toward the port district. Based on the route they're running, I'd put my money on the harbor." Simon checked his heading. "Los Angeles harbor. Best exit point in the city if you're trying to move someone out of the country quietly."
Another pause. Casey's voice again, longer this time.
"He says that's the correct read," Chuck said, with the tone of someone surprised to be delivering that message. "Simon, how are you doing this?"
"I told you. Helicopter." He banked slightly to keep the sedan in his line of sight as it took a highway on-ramp. "I can see both of you, by the way. Your car is about a street behind the target. Slow down — if they check their mirrors you'll be the only moving vehicle in the frame."
Chuck relayed this. The car in Simon's view slowed.
"Better," Simon said. "I'll call out turns as they come."
For the next twelve minutes Simon ran aerial direction — calling intersections, flagging lane changes, tracking the sedan as it worked its way through the port district toward the waterfront industrial blocks. Meg held the binoculars steady and confirmed everything he called, which was useful because it meant he could keep both hands on the controls.
"Warehouse," Simon said. "Loading dock on the south end of Pier 14. The car just pulled inside — no, scratch that, it stopped short. Someone got out. Male, carrying the woman over his shoulder. They're going into the building."
"We're at the gate," Chuck said.
"Second entrance, east side. There's a personnel door — it's not locked, I can see it from here, it's standing slightly open." Simon watched Casey's car stop and both doors open. "You're clear. No visible guards on the exterior."
"Got it." Chuck's voice changed. "Simon—"
"Go. I'll be here if you need eyes."
He held the helicopter in a slow orbit above the pier, two hundred meters up, watching the doors.
Four minutes.
Then the personnel door opened and three figures came out — Chuck, Casey, and Sarah Walker, who was walking under her own power with the specific composure of someone who had been through something unpleasant and was choosing not to make it a production.
Simon exhaled.
"Okay," he said into his headset — not to Chuck, just to himself.
He pulled the helicopter back north, resuming the flight path they'd been on before the detour.
"They're out?" Meg asked.
"All three. Sarah's walking on her own."
Meg lowered the binoculars. She was quiet for a moment.
"Our date," she said finally, "keeps getting interrupted by espionage."
"We still have forty minutes of flight time."
She looked at him.
"I know," Simon said.
His phone buzzed. Chuck.
He answered. "They're good?"
"Everyone's okay." Chuck sounded slightly stunned, which tracked. "Simon — I genuinely don't know how to thank you for—"
"Don't mention it. Literally. To anyone."
"Right. Yeah." A pause. "You really were in a helicopter."
"I really was."
"Do you want to know how insane that is?"
"I have a general sense." Simon looked at Meg, who was watching him with an expression that was somewhere between exasperated and deeply fond. "I have to go. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Chuck."
"You too," Chuck said. "Whatever that looks like from up there."
Simon ended the call.
Meg put the binoculars back in the bag with the careful efficiency of someone returning borrowed things. She folded her hands in her lap and looked out at the city.
"I want to ask you something," she said.
"Okay."
"How often does this happen? The — things that happen around you."
Simon considered the honest answer.
"More recently," he said. "It's been escalating."
"Is it going to keep escalating?"
He thought about Chuck, and the Intersect loading one percent at a time, and Doc's prepaid phone in his jacket pocket, and the list of film and television universes that were apparently bleeding into the same reality he lived in.
"Probably," he said.
Meg looked out the canopy at the city below.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"I said okay." She found his hand on the collective and covered it with hers — briefly, warm. "Just — keep me in the loop. Don't manage me out of things. If something's happening, I'd rather know."
Simon looked at her profile in the dark of the cockpit — the city lights catching the line of her jaw, her expression settled into something that was neither worried nor performed.
"Okay," he said.
They flew the remaining forty minutes.
Nobody interrupted them.
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