Game of Drones (16 page)

“And that’s me,” Dante responded. “I’m that guy.”

Liam wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t the first time that Alvarez reported for duty slightly impaired. He once showed up to a mission reeking of alcohol. But when it came down to crunch time, Dante was indeed that 125 percent soldier in the battlefield who never missed a beat. In fact, he was nothing short of stellar.

Dante finished with his weapon and set it down on the table with a
clack
, lifting his gaze to meet Liam's with the sound. “You want to know what’s funny about this? What’s funny is that it’s coming from a guy who sold his team out by profiting from operational secrets about the Bin Laden mission, breaking a code of honor . . . And now he thinks he has the right to judge others.”

Liam said nothing as he went back to breaking down his weapon.

In response Dante did the same, moving on to a new gun.

Neither man said anything more.

#

Tanner, Chance and Stephen Shah remained topside while Danielle manned the console.

They were studying the map on the table, drawing pencil lines to indicate the possible whereabouts of Shazad somewhere inside the triangulated circle.

"Listen up." Tanner pointed to a spot on the map. “This zone of triangulation is a large area. But it makes sense; it’s wooded, which allows for concealment. But more importantly, it’s a perfect position from which to strike anything along the eastern seaboard. The problem is, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack that’s about the size of New Jersey.”

Chance raised his finger as if to make a point. “True. But a Reaper drone still needs a substantial amount of space to become airborne. So within this area, there has to be a runway off the main drags. Someplace obscure.”

Stephen checked the electronic board. “We can zero in, right?”

Tanner pointed at the board. “Danielle has the ability tap into the satellite system, as well as the GPS data to tell them where to look." FBI Director John Casey had granted her those permissions. But even leveraging that technology, it was a lot of ground to cover. Shah was right, though. They could zoom in and look for an anomaly. Perhaps heat signatures of people in places they shouldn’t be.

Tanner addressed Danielle. “Can you log into a bird that’s situated above the point of triangulation?”

She didn’t even hesitate. From a numeric list entrusted to her by Casey, Danielle hit the keyboard like a pianist, with precision and without missing a key, until she was able to tap into the eye of the satellite that overlooked the triangulation area.

The view on the electronic display changed. Instead of a map, they were now looking at a real-time aerial photograph of the landscape—a dense tract of wilderness marred only by a few unpaved roads running through it.

If they were down there, Tanner considered, then the search would be a long and difficult one.

He asked Danielle to magnify the western portion of the area.

She zoomed until the treetops appeared like the heads of broccoli fields.

“Look for roads that veer off the main rural routes,” said Tanner.

Minutes passed while she concentrated, but nothing came up.

Tanner stood straight, ready to attend to other matters. “Keep looking.”

Leaving his three Outcasts to stare at the board, Tanner checked his watch. According to John Casey, Shazad had given the president one hour to concede to his demands.

Only twenty of those minutes remained.

The Bunker

Since Aasif Shazad had twenty minutes before he addressed the president in a pseudo-diplomatic game of push and shove, he walked the corridors of the facility alone, noting the cracks and fissures in walls that continued to hold up. As a deterrent to invading forces, he had his team set defenses by placing Semtex charges throughout the warrens, especially along the beams and supporting columns. Should the mission be compromised, he would make sure that the bunker would be razed by a series of powerful blasts.

Walking outside the bunker, he took note of the camouflaged runway. Tree branches, vines and brambles were placed over camo-netting in order to shield the impromptu airstrip from celestial eyes. At tunnel’s end was a bullet-shaped opening that served as the exit point. Once the drone picked up enough speed and cleared the netting, it would then lift off and take to its planned aerial trajectory.

Close to the bunker doors sat a single Reaper drone poised to take off. Its nose faced the exit point. Attached to its undercarriage were two Hellfire missiles. Fastened to its topside--two MUAVs.

Shazad looked at his watch.

The president had fifteen minutes left to choose America’s fate.

“Al-Shazad.”

Shazad turned to the speaker, a young person, if not a boy, on the cusp of becoming a man. Other than Naji and Lut, who were elite warriors from well-respected organizations, the remainder of his team were unskilled soldiers whose training before coming to the United States consisted of spotty al-Qaeda camp drills.

The young man addressed his leader. “We’re ready to go."

Shazad smiled and patted him on the shoulder, knowing that in the end, should America bring down his organization, this young man would die.

“That’s good,” he told him. “In a few minutes, if the president does not concede, then this drone will launch. And I want you, Mufad, to make sure that it does so without a hitch. Can you do that?”

The young Arab smiled with pride and puffed his chest. “I can.”

Shazad nodded. “Very good, Mufad . . . Very good.” Saying nothing more but managing a false smile, Shazad turned and walked away with his hands clasped behind the small of his back.

The president now had thirteen minutes.

Raven Rock

“Your time is up, Mr. President." Shazad's demeanor on the streaming video registered zero emotion. “Do you choose to release al-Zawahiri?"

“I know we agreed upon an hour,” President Carmichael returned. “But I'm afraid I need more time.”

“You have good reason to be afraid. More time to strategize? I think not.”

President Carmichael’s team was unable to trace the trail of Internet breadcrumbs left by Shazad’s last couple of transmissions, which meant that the gamble on his part proved to be a failure. “Please. I can make progress in one more hour.”

“Your request is denied.” Shazad shook his head in admonishment. “If you think I’m going to allow you to dictate the course of our interactions, Mr. President, you’re wrong. You had the opportunity to stop all this. Instead you allowed your arrogant pride to perpetuate a legacy policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists--a term so vaguely defined that were you sufficiently determined I'm sure you could see to it to classify me in some other way. That's your loophole, Mr. President. That's your way out. But you couldn't see it.”

"I need more time to play those kinds of word games."

On screen Shazad was visibly angry as he worked his jaw line, realizing that Carmichael had already played him for more time, getting him to talk uninterrupted. “Negotiating is not a game, Mr. President.”

“Negotiation is
always
a game,” he shot back. “We need time to sort this out, Shazad. We’ll come to a conclusion on this matter.”

“Yes, well—unfortunately, Mr. President, your time is up and this is going to cost you.”

The president lifted an imploring hand toward the screen. “Shazad! Wait!”

The video connection winked off.

#

Mufad was young and eager to please.

While lining up the drone for its run down the tarmac, Mufad checked the weaponry systems. When the diagnostics checked out the way they should on his tablet, deeming the Reaper ready, he spoke into his lip mike. “We’re good to go."

Inside the bunker, Naji eased the joystick forward and the drone began to roll.

Allahu Akbar!

#

From the keen eye of a low-orbiting satellite, a late-generation thermal lens registered an unusual signature shaped like the threading of a screw that spiraled to the northeast, then summarily disappeared from the screen.

But it did not go unnoticed.

OUTCAST Facility

Danielle Sunderland had two eyes on three screens. The first display had a satellite overview of the triangulated circle and its periphery of neighboring states. The second was a close-up of the landscape west of the triangulation point, with rural roads running through it. The third monitor depicted the satellite’s thermal- and infrared-imaging scans, capable of detecting ultraviolet and heat signatures.

On the westerly edge of the triangulation area, far from the center and nearly beyond the circumference, the third screen responded with a series of beeps. The eye of the satellite’s lens then scanned the image’s origin and automatically centered the anomaly on the display.

The figure was oddly shaped, sort of like a horizontal tornado, with the funnel having a deep red coloring which indicated a high measure of heat. Then the screen became a visual of jagged lines and snow, the signal jamming momentarily before returning to normal. When it did the anomaly was no longer there.

Danielle had seen this happen before. She quickly came to the realization that signal jamming devices had hijacked the system and blinded it.

But not before it had given up the ghost.

The brief glimpse of pattern she'd seen was the heated contrail of something airborne, the corkscrew configuration of the contrail similar to that left behind by the Stealth Bomber. Even though the vehicle could not be detected visually, the pattern of its heated contrail acted as an infrared footprint.

Danielle smiled.

Gotcha!

#

Everyone gathered by the electronic board while Danielle zoomed in to a location fifty miles northwest from the original point of triangulation. With processed pixels, the screen gave them a clear view of the pristine, forested landscape.

“This is where the contrail was picked up,” she told her fellow Outcasts. “It was just a flare-up, but enough for me to notice it. And then the system jammed. When it came back online it was gone. Nothing.”

“Maybe it was a glitch,” offered Chance.

“No.” Danielle was convinced that this was spot on and worth pursuing. “I’ve seen this with Stealths. They jam the system to wash away the image. But there’s always some type of artifact left behind, no matter how minute. And that artifact is its contrail, the infrared footprint that we’ve been looking for.”

Tanner looked at her. “You’re sure about this?”

“I’m positive.”

He pointed to the screen. “Zoom in so that I can compare the surrounding roads with those on the overhead images. I’d like to see if there’re any differences between the two.”

Daniele typed in a series of commands, then stabbed the ENTER button with a flourish.

The two maps merged on the central display--the sat-photo and the map--overlain until the images became one and the same, the roads lined up to perfect scale.

The computer was designed and programmed to pinpoint certain inaccuracies by highlighting them in red. Just east of the contrail, a thread-like image indicating a road that was no longer visible popped up on the screen.

Nay squinted at the image as she moved closer to the screen. “A road is missing."

Tanner followed to get a clearer view as well. Then more to himself: “Or is it?” He called out to Danielle over his shoulder. “Zoom in.”

She did. Pictures loaded up as the pixels self-defined themselves with precision, transforming from a blur to crystal clarity.

“See it?” Tanner asked the group in general.

Liam shrugged. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s my point. It’s missing about three hundred feet of roadway off the rural route.”

Danielle enlarged the image further, making minor adjustments until the celestial eye was right above the missing real estate from the vantage point of about 100 feet.

Someone in the group, Tanner didn’t know who, hitched a breath, and justifiably so. The stretch of roadway was gone, covered by camouflaged netting, which was topped over with broken tree limbs and greenery for additional concealment.

“That’s it,” whispered Tanner. Then much louder: “That’s it! The drones are ramping up speed beneath the netting, then they go airborne once they reach launch speed at the exit of the runway!”

Chance nodded. “They’re about ninety minutes away,” he said.

Tanner turned to Danielle, their eyes meeting and coming up with the same question simultaneously:
Where was the drone heading?

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Tanner. The system jammed before the drone hit its set trajectory.”

Then with urgency, Tanner said, “All right. Everyone listen up. I want two vehicles loaded and ready to move within five minutes. Danielle will maintain Base Command with commlinks to John Casey and myself. Everyone else will link up on my frequency.
Hoorah!
”

In concert:
“Hoorah!”
Then they galvanized themselves as a collective.

Weapons were quickly loaded inside two SUVs--one black and one glossy white--sort like Tanner's eyes, Nay had joked when she first saw them. Both had with windows tinted so dark it was impossible to see inside them.

With Tanner, Chance and Nay in the lead vehicle, Liam, Stephen and Dante drove the follow-up, the SUVs heading northwest.

Islamabad, Pakistan

Council Administrator Saj Usmani wasted no time or effort in contacting Zawahiri’s people, those who were chiefly responsible for carrying out brutal attacks on civilian populations. Plans had already been well thought-out. It was just a matter of
when
to implement them.

As he sat in his upscale living area watching TV and drinking a bottle of Murree beer, his mind failed to register the channel’s programming as thoughts carried him elsewhere.

It was late, and meetings inside the Parliament House Building had yet to conclude on several issues—Zawahiri being one of them.