Predator One (8 page)

I could hear the beat of helicopter rotors far off to the north, as our evac bird came hustling through
the shadows to take us home. We stood and waited, watching the last of burning sparks drift down to the lawn. None of us said a word. What was there to say?

The video feed was out.

“Well, fuck me,” breathed Top.

It was damage done. We pulled off the Scout goggles, but I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes.

Very quietly Bunny said, “Without the beard and hair … maybe no one will know who it was.”

Top gave him a withering look. “You’re out of your damn mind, Farm Boy. Hope you had all your shots ’cause we are about to be well and truly fucked.”

Our Black Hawk swept over the trees accompanied by a big Chinook transport helicopter. They descended like monstrous birds from the night sky. But even their combined and powerful rotor wash couldn’t sweep away the weeds of doubt that were trying
to take root in the soil of my soul.

Interlude Four

Joint CIA-MOSSAD Safe House

Ha-Avoda Street

Ashdod, Israel

Three Years Ago

The sign outside said it was a hardware store. The store was open, fully stocked and staffed, and did good business.

The three floors above the store were not used for stock, offices, or employee break rooms. They were nicely furnished apartments. The doors were
of the best quality, the security systems state-of-the-art, the staff fully trained. Two of the agents on each shift were Israelis on the payroll of the CIA. The other two were MOSSAD agents. Three men, one woman. They spent a lot of time together. They talked shop, they played cards, they surfed the net, they watched a lot of TV. Mostly, though, they read reports. This station was one of several
joint operations that formed small but valuable links in the intelligence chain that was looped through every town and country in the Middle East.

The lead agent was named Dor Ben-Shahar. His mother was a Tel Aviv Israeli; his father was from Brooklyn. Both of them were experienced agents, both second generation Agency operatives, which made Dor a third-generation spy. He treasured his agency
legacy as much as his ethnic and religious heritage. His grandfather had fought in the Six Day War. One of his uncles was at Entebbe. His great-aunt had been part of Operation Wrath of God following the Munich Massacre. There was no one in his family, on either the American or Israeli side, who hadn’t seen active combat. Not one.

Dor Ben-Shahar was different only in that he never wore a uniform,
but he’d seen his full share of dirty little actions. He had blood on his hands, and most of it was guilty blood. Bad guys who needed to die. A few drops of blood were from civilians caught in the cross fire. Collateral damage. Unfortunate but unavoidable.

Lately, though, Dor hadn’t had to use his gun or any of the skills he’d learned from the Agency trainers or from his friends here in Israel.
He hadn’t touched his gun at all except to clean and oil it. Lately he’d put on three pounds from eating too much falafel and doing too few crunches.

Lately, he had become a babysitter.

Part, in fact, of a team of babysitters.

All for one man.

A little pip-squeak of a guy from New Jersey. An egghead. A scientist.

Doctor Aaron Davidovich.

Dor thought the guy looked like a tailor. Or maybe
a bookie in a 1960s New York gangster movie. Beard, big nose, thick glasses, delicate hands, bad breath. Not the kind of guy you’d want your sister to marry, unless you didn’t care much for your sister. Dor’s sister, Esther, was in Army Intelligence. He did like her, and her taste in men tended toward Navy SEALs or Delta gunslingers.

Not creepy little guys like Davidovich.

Dor’s job was to protect
the scientist and guarantee that he would be fit, healthy, and whole so he could make his presentation to a joint panel of military strategists from the United States and Israel. All very hush-hush. All tied to a new phase of the drone project. All part of a new level of warfare that would—if Davidovich was as good as his promises—significantly increase the tactical effectiveness of UAVs used
in surgical strikes while decreasing collateral damage among civilians. Bystanders were martyrs waiting to happen, children doubly so. Nobody wanted them killed. Not even the kind of people who didn’t give a cold, wet shit about Muslim children as long as the target was secured. Those ultrahawks weren’t motivated by compassion. Not even a little. Any concessions they made to reducing civilian casualties
were measured against negative political pressure because political pressure was often tied to defense-budget purse strings.

Dor, though a warrior and son of warriors, was a family man. He considered himself to be a good man. Not really as devout as he might be—his wife had to all but threaten him at gunpoint to get him to synagogue except on the High Holy Days—but he believed that warriors were
defined by their skill, not their body count. If it took a little more work and time to reduce unwanted nonmilitary casualties, then so be it. Otherwise, a warrior became a barbarian. A Philistine. Dor took pride in what he did.

If Davidovich could accomplish both goals—increasing the likelihood of killing high-level targets while decreasing unwanted casualties—then Dor was more than happy to
do his part to keep him safe.

Shame the guy was such a drip.

“You want to play cards?” asked Dor.

Davidovich didn’t look up from his laptop. “I’m busy.”

He wasn’t working. Dor could see that easy enough, even without the laptop beeping and booping as the guy battled his way through some old retro arcade game. Ms. Pacman for god’s sake. Guy writes artificial intelligence software for drones
and he can’t play anything more challenging than Ms.-fucking-Pacman? Seriously?

“You want coffee?”

Davidovich ignored the question. He paused his game play, put earbuds into his ears, turned up the volume on his iPod and resumed chasing energy dots and fleeing from ghosts.

Dor sighed. He shared a look with the other agent working this shift, an Israeli national named Tovah. She made a face
and shook her head. She understood.

Dor went to the kitchen to make coffee for himself. Tovah was drinking Coke.

The coffeemaker began beeping, and at the same moment there was a knock on the door. Dor and Tovah exchanged another look, and this was of an entirely different frequency. Without saying a word they both stopped what they were doing, drew their guns, and took their positions. Tovah
hooked Davidovich under the arm and pulled him gently but firmly up from the couch and away from his game, then guided him quickly down a short hall to the bedroom that had the reinforced door.

Meanwhile, Dor went to the door, standing to its left side, which was the wall with the steel sheeting hidden beneath the drywall and wallpaper. Without opening the door, he said, “Who is it?”

“Delivery
for Yev,” said a voice.

Dor relaxed. That was the correct day code.

He replied, “Mr. Yev is not here.”

“This is for his mother.”

All correct, and the voice sounded familiar.

Even so, he kept his gun down at his side as he disengaged the lock and, with the chain still on, opened the door one inch so he could peer outside. As he did so, he asked the final verification question.

“Is it still
cloudy?”

“No, the sun is shining. It’s a nice day.”

Dor exhaled and grinned. “Simon,” he said, “you’re early.”

Simon Meir was his relief man.

“Let me in,” said Simon. “I have to use the john.”

Dor closed the door, slipped off the chain, opened it, and died.

Just like that.

Simon’s gun was fitted with a sound suppressor. The bullet entered under Dor’s chin and punched a hole at an angle
that blew off the crown of his head. Dor stood straight and still for a moment, his head raised as if listening, though he was already past hearing. His body was caught in a moment when it was balanced only by skeletal alignment, the muscles not yet responding to a lack of signal.

Then Dor’s knees buckled and he puddled down.

By then Simon Meir and his companion were already inside the apartment.
Simon closed the door while the second killer—smaller, slimmer, female—hurried down the hallway toward the secure room.

From the mouth of the hallway, Simon called, “Tovah. I brought some falafel. You hungry?”

From inside the room, Tovah laughed. “I’m always hungry,” she said as she opened the door. “Hope you brought enough for—”

And she died.

Boy put three rounds into her: one in the heart,
two in the head. Boy used a .22 with a Trinity sound suppressor. The shots made only small, flat noises. There were no exit wounds. Almost no mess. Tovah staggered, tried to catch the wall, failed, and fell.

Then Boy and Simon entered the secure room, guns up and out. Doctor Davidovich began backing away from them, his eyes wide and filled with the sure and certain knowledge that his world—everything
in his world—was going to change. That everything had already changed.

He held up his hands. Tears sprang into his eyes. He sank to his knees.

He said, “No … please, no…”

Boy smiled as she holstered her pistol and removed a syringe.

“Please…,” whimpered the scientist.

Boy liked it when they begged.

Chapter Twelve

The White House

Washington, D.C.

October 13, 2:45
A.M.

The president sat slumped on a sofa in his apartment in the White House. The room was filled with people. Secret Service agents, senior staff, his body man, a military doctor and nurse, and Linden Brierly, who had four stitches in his lower lip. The first lady was in Detroit on a speaking tour.

Brierly, despite the pain
and discomfort of his injury, was doing most of the talking.

“We’re tearing the car apart,” he explained. “So far, we’ve eliminated simple mechanical problems. The senior mechanic thinks that the onboard computer system is the culprit.”

“The car was turned off,” said the president. “Isn’t that what you told me? James had the key in his hand.”

“He did, and I’m not trying to protect one of my
own when I say that I don’t think he is in any way to blame for—”

The president flapped a hand. “Oh hell, of course not. And I don’t want to hear about James being transferred to the dark side of the moon. I can’t see how this is his fault. He’s a good kid.”

“We think the problem is in the autonomous vehicle software.”

“The what?”

“Autonomous—”

“I heard you. I mean … since when do we have
that installed in the Beast?”

Alice Houston answered that. “Eighteen months ago, Mr. President. You, um, were briefed on it when you took office.”

“Oh,” said the president. “Right.”

Brierly said, “The systems were installed to allow the car to operate in a defensive and protective manner, sir. Even if the driver were incapacitated, the car would use its GPS and other software to get you out
of there. It’s tied to all of the internal security systems and countermeasures and is in constant contact with the White House Communications Agency. The idea is to make sure you’re never sitting in a dead or driverless car.”

The president gave a sullen nod. He was a year and a half into his presidency, and the glamour of the gizmos and geegaws had long since eroded, revealing a set of security
protocols that were ponderous and annoying. Necessary, sure. But annoying. The Beast was a perfect example of what he considered overpreparedness. It was sealed against biochemical attacks and had a full medical kit in the trunk, including pints of blood in the president’s type—which he found deeply unnerving. It even had its own oxygen supply. And it was so heavily armored that it barely got
eight miles to the gallon.

Now this. An autonomous driving system.

“I would have assumed,” he said acidly, “that someone was supposed to vet this system before we paid whatever we paid—probably fifty times what we should have—to have it installed?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” said Brierly. “The operating software package has been thoroughly tested by DARPA and some independent labs.”

“Then explain
to me why and how this happened, Linden.”

Brierly had no answer to that.

No one did.

The president got wearily to his feet. Everyone else got to their feet as well. “I can’t do this anymore. I need some sleep. Alice, you kick whoever you need to kick, but by the time I wake up, I want to know why my car turned into a Transformer. Are we clear? No excuses, no buck passing. I want a clear and
cogent answer. Capisce?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” she said.

The crowd began edging toward the door, with the president walking behind them, arms wide, like a shepherd driving his flock into a pen. When they were outside, he closed the door and turned and leaned back against it, blowing out his cheeks.

“Damn,” he said, sighing out the word so that it was stretched as thin as he was. After a moment,
he pushed himself upright and had just hooked his fingers into the knot of his tie when someone knocked on the door.

Very hard, with great insistence.

“Jesus H.…”

He bellowed, “Come in, damn it.”

The door opened and two heads leaned in. Alice Houston and Linden Brierly.

“It’s too soon for good news,” grumped the president. “So, if it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Mr. President,”
said Houston, pushing past Brierly to come in. She crossed to the TV, snatched up the remote, and clicked it on. “You have to see this.”

The screen filled immediately with a video already in progress.

Three hulking armed figures in dark clothes stood in a tight cluster around the nearly naked corpse of a man.

One of the men barked out a command in American English.

“Jam the signal!”

The president
said, “What the hell is this?”

Chapter Thirteen

Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa