Outside Forces

  ***

  When the Russian left the Georgetown Inn to pick up the mysterious envelope, he was in an exhilarated state and he took no notice of the black SUV parked in the corner of the lot. The Russian also didn’t see the small, high-speed drone hovering thirty feet above the inn. Both machines followed him as he backed the Prius out of the lot behind the inn and headed off in the direction of the freeway.

  Inside the black SUV sat two men. One was the driver. The other, in the passenger seat, was the gadget man with one laptop perched precariously on the centre consul and another on his lap. Sandwiched in his crotch were what looked like two modified joysticks. One laptop displayed a map image of the Canmore area with the positions of the drone, the Prius, and SUV flashing on the screen as different-coloured dots. The other laptop ran a small program that displayed the operational status of the Prius the Russian was driving.

  The black SUV followed the Prius about a half kilometre behind. The passenger carefully manipulated the control on the first joystick until the exceptionally fast drone was moved forward and positioned above the Prius as it cruised down the highway, and two of the coloured dots on the screen merged together as one. A few commands were typed into one of the laptops, and as the second joystick was pressed forward, the man watched the screen carefully as the Prius’s speed indicator climbed. He rolled the joystick to the right and the Prius drifted right, pulled left and the Prius drifted left.

  It had been easy to set up in principle but highly technical to execute. All gadget men of the Order were specialists, and with every job came a challenge to master the newest and latest technologies to achieve the desired goal.

  Earlier in the day, while the tall man kept the Russian occupied over a few beers after returning from the climb up the mountain, the Prius was shunted away to a small warehouse where the vehicle was fitted with a customized program that allowed remote access over the ECUs (electronic control units) that controlled many features of the vehicle, including brakes, speed, steering, and others. Access to any of the ECUs was gained through a wireless link, which was the purpose of the drone kept within proximity of the Prius. The drone was fitted with a cell phone, configured as a Wi-Fi hotspot, which was enabled to automatically connect to the Prius communication ECUs when the vehicle was running. The cell phone Wi-Fi completed the link back to the laptop in the black SUV chase vehicle. A Go-Pro camera mounted in the belly of the drone allowed real-time viewing. Within minutes of entering the highway, the Prius was already under complete control of the men following in the black SUV.

  Many cars stopped to assist the Prius as it spewed smoke and steam from where it rested upside down in the river, but the black SUV was not among them. It continued down the highway a further two kilometres before stopping, at which point the small drone was brought down and carefully moved into the rear hatch.

  Witnesses reported the Prius weaving across the road prior to the crash. Toxicology tests would later confirm the driver had a high blood alcohol level, nearly twice the legal limit. No further investigation was warranted.