Kill Chain (16 page)

“If I told you, I’d have
to kill you.”

Dawson chuckled. “Ahh,
got ya. Now that you have a starting point, let’s hope you can find a truck a
little bit quicker.”

“We’re already on it.”

“Copy that, Zero-One,
out.”

He watched as a forensics
team began to pick over the bus, Spock holding up one of the downed drones.

“What do you make of it?”
asked Jagger as they all examined the heavily damaged device.

“Looks pretty basic to me
except for that piece of hardware strapped to the top of it.” Dawson’s eyes
narrowed. “I don’t recognize it. You guys?”

A string of negatives was
the reply, a surprise considering among the four of them they knew pretty much
every weapon in use today.

Dawson pointed at it.
“Get images of that to Langley. It might be another lead.”

Incheon
International Airport
Incheon,
Republic of Korea

“No! They
said I can’t leave the country!”

Cheng yanked her arm away
from the man, a member of her husband’s security detail. She had hoped that
after they woke from being tranquilized by the American—or who she assumed was
an American—they’d be more amenable to listening to her.

She had been wrong.

Instead, her evacuation
had taken on a greater urgency, she essentially carried from the SUV to the
airplane awaiting takeoff, its engines already powered up.

“Ma’am, we have our
orders. You must leave!”

She held her ground. “No!
I won’t!” She gripped the railings of the steps leading into the aircraft,
holding on as tightly as she could. “They’ll kill the others!”

“They aren’t our concern,
you are,” said the man, prying her fingers loose. “The President has ordered us
to evacuate you to Beijing immediately.”

Another security staffer
ended a phone call. “Ma’am, your husband said to carry you if you don’t
cooperate.”

Cheng glared at him for a
moment before her shoulders collapsed in defeat. “Fine.” A moment of rage
returned as she jabbed a finger at the man. “But their blood is on his hands,
not mine!”

She climbed the stairs
and was ushered into her seat by an impossibly thin flight attendant, normal
circumstances perhaps causing her to feel a little self-conscious about her
aging and thickening frame. But not today. The door shut and the plane
immediately began to taxi, the pilot apparently given priority clearance for
takeoff. Tears burned her cheeks as she stared out the window at the city that
had caused so much terror, wondering where her fellow captives might be, and if
they would survive their ordeal.

And why she had been
singled out to live.

The engines whined and
they began to accelerate down the runway, her body pressed into her seat. She
eyed the wing just behind her, the rippling heat from the engines going almost
unnoticed.

She wiped her eyes.

That poor little girl.

Her eyes narrowed as she
spotted something through the tears. She swiped her sleeves across her eyes,
decorum forgotten.

What’s that?

Ahead of them, at the end
of the runway, something had risen from the grass. She pressed against the
window, trying to make sense of what she was seeing as more small objects rose.

Then she gasped as she
recognized the instruments of their tormentors.

Drones!

Dozens. Scores. Perhaps
more, rose from the end of the runway, abruptly streaming toward them in long
lines like a flock of birds, turning as one.

“Look!” she cried,
pointing.

One of the security team
looked to where she was pointing then leaped from his seat, charging toward the
cockpit. An alarm sounded before he could reach it, the pilot evidently
spotting the problem but too late, the wheels just having lifted off.

“Crash positions!” cried
the waif attendant, rushing toward her. Cheng cinched her belt tight and leaned
forward as the woman double-checked things before moving on. Cheng raised her
head slightly so she could still watch out the window, the drones racing toward
them.

What are they doing?

Four groups had split off
from each other, two of the distinct lines disappearing from view as they
repositioned to the other side of the aircraft, the other two racing toward
them at incredible speed, speed she realized was actually their own, the drones
simply sitting in midair, adjusting their position as if they were massive
airborne millipedes.

And suddenly they were
upon them.

She gasped as the first
was sucked into their engine, the impact unnoticed, but as drone after drone
were drawn in, smoke began to emerge from the rear.

Oh no!

A sudden ball of fire
erupted from one of the engines and she screamed.

Operations
Center 1
CIA
Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“Any
serial numbers?”

Leroux peered at the
close-ups of the drones sent to them by the Delta team, Spock dismantling one
in the back of their SUV.

“Not on the weapon,”
replied Spock. “They’ve been filed down as far as I can tell. Not sure where to
look, though, I’ve never seen this type before.”

Leroux’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you sure? I figured you guys would have seen pretty much anything out
there.”

“Me too. None of us
recognize it. I have a funny feeling that’s going to be your lead.”

“Any serial numbers on
the drone?”

“Nothing I’ve seen yet.”

Tong pointed at the
screen. “Is this it?”

Leroux examined an image
from Alibaba, the Chinese based store-of-all-things. He stepped toward the
screen, examining the sales photo and the image of one of the shot down drones.
“Definitely looks like it.” He pointed at a set of red and blue striping along
the sides. “Those I think match up pretty much perfectly.”

Tong’s fingers tapped at
the keyboard and two isolated photos showing the stripes appeared, the computer
then superimposing and adjusting them to match point of views.

They were perfect.

“Okay, get in touch with
the manufacturer and find out where the serial numbers might be. We might get
lucky and be able to trace who bought them.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Tong,
working her terminal.

Child cleared his throat.
“I’ve got those bandwidth estimates you asked for.”

Leroux turned toward
Child. “And?”

“Zero chance it came
through North Korea’s pipes.”

Leroux nodded. “Didn’t
think so, though it still doesn’t rule them out. They’ve been known to use
agents positioned in China and elsewhere to do their dirty work.”

Child leaned back in his
chair. “They could have just used malware to hijack computers over time in prep
for this, then sent out the video when they were ready.”

Leroux shook his head.
“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Why?”

“Well, the video showed
the victims. That means it was created, or at least modified, just before they
uploaded it.”

Child’s head bobbed.
“Good point.”

“So what does that tell
us?”

“That this was a
coordinated job using dedicated technical resources to upload the videos.”

“Right, and as far as we can
tell so far, no two uploads originated from the same IP address, though with
spoofing, that doesn’t really mean much.”

Child sighed. “We’re
going to have to dig a lot deeper to see if we can trace the origins.”

Leroux nodded. “Do it.”

Guro
District
Seoul,
Republic of Korea

“All
there?”

Atlas nodded, having just
returned from inspecting the gear delivered by chopper from Osan Air Base.
“We’re ready to start a war.”

Dawson grinned. “Good. I
want to be ready for anything. If we get a lead, we’re not waiting for the
locals to get their shit together. Start gearing up—”

An explosion in the
distance cut him off and he spun toward the sound, a sound that from his
experience indicated something big. A black and orange fireball tore its way
into the sky to the west and he cursed. “What the hell is that?”

Everyone stopped what
they were doing before a flurry of activity erupted, almost everyone on the
Korean side reaching for comms, those inside the warehouse working on the bus
rushing outside to see what had happened.

Dawson activated his comm.
“Control, Zero-One. We’ve got a massive fireball to the west. We need to know
what that is, over.”

“Copy that, Zero-One.
Standby.”

Atlas shook his head, his
deep voice echoing what they all felt. “I have a feeling things just
escalated.”

Operations
Center 1
CIA
Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“What’s west
of their position?”

Child’s fingers flew over
the keyboard, a map of Seoul appearing, Delta’s current location displayed by a
pulsing red dot. “A lot. We need to narrow it down.”

“Get me eyes on the city.
Any camera that might show the skyline.”

More tapping and camera
feeds began to appear in a grid, Leroux snapping his fingers. “Number six!” The
image enlarged and they could clearly see a massive plume of smoke on the
horizon, the thick black billowing eruption still fueled by something. “Where
is that?”

“Definitely the airport,”
replied Child, another camera angle appearing, the tails of jetliners visible,
a huge fireball at the end of a runway occupying a portion of the frame.

“Christ!” Leroux snapped
his fingers, their translator having already left to analyze the hostage video
more closely. “Tap their ground feed and put me on comms.

“You’re on,” replied one
of his team.

“One-One, this is Control
Actual. Listen to this feed and tell us what’s being said.”

“Roger that, control,”
replied Niner’s voice immediately. There was a pause as the shocked airport
crew shouted orders to each other over their radios. “A plane has crashed.”