Drone Games (34 page)

“Any place you want as long as it’s out of California. I hate this state,” she said, resting her head on Akil’s shoulder and gazing through the windshield. “I’ve always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. How about New York City?”

Akil bit into his sandwich and checked the rearview mirror again.

“New York sounds like a winner to me.”

The White House

Washington, DC

African American Chorale Breakfast

THE PRESIDENT had finished his remarks and was sitting with leaders from the Urban League and the National Council of Churches. The Umbato Choir from Uganda had finished a second set of hymns.

Eerily reminiscent of a scene that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001, in the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, Chief of Staff Bard hurried to the table and bent next to the president’s ear.

Guests were riveted by the action.

The president nodded twice and made it a point to examine a fork before calmly setting it on his plate. His face had turned ashen. He neatly folded his napkin and then rose from the chair.

“Folks, I apologize, but something has come up.”

By the time he reached the Oval Office, he was shaking with anger.

“California? Federal Express?” the president shouted into the speakerphone. “Samuel, this is indiscriminate anarchy. Do something!”

Bard entered the room with a handful of faxes. The president covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

“Mr. President, the airports are in panic. You need to reverse your position. Someone is killing our citizens. Flight crews and passengers across the country are already refusing to board planes. The American people think that you’re putting the economy ahead of their lives by keeping the airspace open. They’re blaming you for the deaths.”

The president strained to make sense of what he had just heard. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to stay calm. He lifted the phone. “Get Minka to reinstate the no-fly order, please. Do you hear me, Samuel? Back to nationwide groundstop—
do it
.”

The president hung up the phone. “Get me Jack Riley. Then the Secretary of Defense and General McFarland.”

“Sir, please, you cannot deploy the military on US soil without declaring a state of emergency,” Bard warned. “And even then, you need explicit requests from state governors. It would be viewed as a severe intrusion into—”

“I don’t care about states’ rights,” the president shot back. “And you’re wrong. I have the absolute power and authority to deploy federal troops anywhere in the country in a national crisis, and I’m going to take action. I want a presence. An overwhelming presence at all airports. We need to screen everything and everyone.”

“Sir, there’s no need,” Bard said calmly. “The airports will shut down per your order. That will show you’re in charge.”

The president glared at him.
In charge of what? An incompetent Department of Homeland Security that can’t stop aircraft from crashing to the ground like paper toys
?

“I want a thousand soldiers patrolling every airport. I want them hand searching every single passenger and opening every piece of luggage.” He nodded confidently. “The military will assist the airlines. They’ll board every aircraft just like the Israelis. Soldiers, scanners, even polygraph machines if we have to. Everything. We’ll open every single piece of luggage on every single plane, then put it through the scanners, and then let the canine units have their way. Or better yet, we’ll simply disallow all luggage. That’ll work. It has to.”

“Mr. President,” Bard interrupted the tirade, “two pilots and two technicians are dead. This was a cargo jet flying from San Diego to San Francisco for routine maintenance.” The president looked at his chief of staff quizzically. “What’s your point?”

“There was no luggage, sir. It was empty.”

—

Courtyard Marriott

Milwaukee, WI

“YOU SMUG idiot. Are you insinuating that I need counseling?” Ross’s ex-wife yelled through the phone. “Don’t you
ever
suggest that again. We may be divorced, but I’m still the tenant, and you’re still the landlord. I demand to be treated with respect. The weeds in the front lawn look like a jungle to the point of embarrassment. The railing in my hallway is loose, and so is that same piece of carpet on the stairs. I came home the other night with a friend and nearly fell. Oh, and by the way, Brad is twice the man you ever were. When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know,” Ross answered, shifting the phone. “We’ve got three major investigations running simultaneously in three major cities. This is entirely different than 9/11. At least with those crashes, we knew the cause. We don’t have enough people to support the work on this one. I can’t just up and leave.”

“I despise you and your misguided loyalty. Can’t you even answer a simple question?”

“I’m sorry,” Ross said evenly. “It’s the best I can do.”

“The best you can do,” she said disgustedly. “Did you know . . .”

Marcia continued to talk, but Ross wasn’t listening anymore. A sudden realization had come to him. He wasn’t angry; he wasn’t frustrated. In fact, he actually smiled before hanging up. As he did, he felt a sudden euphoria. This was an opportunity for a clean break and a fresh direction. She’d receive the move notice at her office via registered mail in a few days. For the first time in months, he had clear insight into who he was and what he wanted from a relationship. Good riddance.

There was a knock on the door.

Riley stormed in and clicked the TV remote. “I’ve been calling. Who have you been talking to?”

“A bad connection.”

The breaking news showed a helicopter’s view of San Diego’s Mission Bay, six miles northwest of the airport.

“The media know what’s happening even before we do,” Riley observed.

Ross’s face was drawn, the pain obvious. “Whoever’s doing this has us running all over the country. The NTSB can’t handle it anymore, Jack. We need help. It’s gone beyond our ability.”

“It’s about to get worse,” Riley said, reading a news scroll announcing expected financial market futures. “Bridge said the president is ordering another nationwide shutdown until the military can put armed soldiers on all commercial flights. One more thing: Congress is in emergency session, and your organization is on the agenda. They’re thinking that the NTSB can do more good in this crisis by assisting law enforcement task forces than by staying so isolated. If the recommendation is accepted, then you and your teams will be reporting to me until further notice. All other investigations and work efforts will stop, and resources will be redirected and made available to Homeland Security. We need the expertise, pal.”

“Firearms on aircraft is a horrible idea, Jack. Is that even legal?”

“Nobody knows anything. The whole country is in chaos.”

“What do you need from me?” Ross asked.

“Physical evidence.” He snatched the plastic bag on the tabletop containing the mysterious red plastic wing. “The president’s coming down on me—hard. At this point, I’ll take anything. Is there any way this thing has significance?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Ross said. “One thing’s for sure—it came from somewhere or something. We need more time.”

Riley’s cell phone chirped.

After a brief conversation, he raised his arms. “There is a God, after all. A webcam operating in Fiesta Bay Park in San Diego captured the whole flight path on film. We’ve got live video of the explosion. It came from under the cockpit.”

Courtyard Marriott

Milwaukee, WI

Monday, June 1

2:30 a.m.

RILEY SUCKED the last of the liquid from a plastic water bottle and neatly replaced the cap. Numb from hours of nonstop video meetings with field teams, he sat on the floor, staring dejectedly at a stack of unread investigation progress summaries. He yawned at the television. The sound was barely audible, but he managed to hear a cable news roundtable guest claim that the airline crashes were caused by shoddy maintenance and that the president was culpable for not adequately funding the FAA and its inspectors.

Riley tossed the bottle across the room at Tom Ross, who was curled up on a sofa. It landed directly on top of his head, giving off a loud but harmless bonk.

“Turn that idiot off,” Riley said with considerable annoyance. “News commentators who allow people to bloviate without supporting facts should find another job.”

Ross snorted and reached for the remote.

“When can I go back to my old job?”

“When the skies are safe, and not a minute before,” Riley said, rubbing his eyes. “Did you ever have that pain in your side looked at?”

“It hasn’t bothered me lately, but I gave up the pumpkin seeds.” Ross stretched. “I’ll be in my room. I need two hours.”

Riley turned his head suspiciously. “Your room or Neela’s?”

“Mine,” Ross answered firmly. “Besides, she’s still in New York. She’s driving back Wednesday.”

“That job offer?”

“Uh-huh. And get this—she’s supposed to be interviewed on Fox’s national morning news show. They want to hear about her embedded assignment. She’s really getting popular. Unfortunately, I’m not real keen on long-distance relationships. We’ll have to see.”

Ross pressed what he thought was the TV remote’s
ON/OFF
button. Instead, it was the “favorites” button, and the screen flipped to the Discovery Channel. He found the right button, and the screen went black.

Riley was in the middle of a deep yawn when he suddenly leaped to his feet.

“Did you see that?”

“Huh?”

“Turn that TV back on.”

Ross complied and raised the volume.

A narrator was standing inside a sports stadium underneath a football goalpost. He was holding some kind of mechanical, bird-like creature.

“. . . the Mars project due to severe federal budget cuts. It’s the brainchild of Professor Michael Robertson, who designed the flying insect for Georgia Tech here in Atlanta. As you can see, it actually looks and feels like a toy with wings. That makes the Entomopter quite different from traditional unmanned military drones. It has a built-in camera, and thanks to its pincer-like legs, can carry up to double its weight in rock samples from the Martian landscape. Unfortunately, even the best inventions never get off the ground. Next, we’ll look at some of the military’s high-tech land robots.”

Riley’s eyes and mouth couldn’t grow any wider. By the time he turned to Ross, his face resembled that of some wild, raging beast. The TV screen showed a commercial touting Taco Bell’s late-night drivethrough. Neither man heard a word. They spoke in unison.

“Drones.”

—

Decatur, GA

4:30 a.m.

LINDA ROBERTSON sat up in bed, awakened by what sounded like voices and radio static. She fell back to the pillow, wondering why the boys would be up so early. The bedroom door cracked open, and she heard the sounds again. She nudged her husband.

“There’s someone in the house. It’s your turn. And don’t pull my covers off this time.”

“That’s far enough, buddy,” Michael groaned, rising on his elbows. “You’re gonna need more than a Nerf gun. I’m serious. If you come in this room, I’m going to tie you to a tree outside and squirt you with the garden hose.”

There was silence.

The door burst open.

Seven federal officers armed with AR-15 assault rifles surrounded the bed.

A second team swept onto the premises.

Linda pulled the covers up to her face, gasping in disbelief as they whisked her pajama-clad husband outside and into a waiting vehicle.

A young, clean-shaven Abe-Lincoln-ish man strode into the room and gently laid an envelope on the bed.

“Ma’am, y’all need to be advised that this is a federal warrant served by authority of the US attorney’s office to detain a Mr. Michael C. Robertson,” FBI Special Agent Harlan Ellis said in a soft Southern drawl. “Your husband will be at the FBI offices on Century Parkway in Atlanta. If y’all have a lawyer, then you can call the number on the back for further information. Y’all need to get up and get dressed, ma’am. We need to search this room.”

—

Atlanta, GA

10:30 a.m.

RILEY STOOD outside the secure detention cell, peering through its thick glass window and studying his prisoner’s physical appearance.