Game of Drones Read online

  “If you know who I am, Mr. President, then you know what I’m capable of, am I right?”

  “I know you’re capable of killing helpless civilians who had no chance to protect themselves.”

  “Casualties of war."

  “You think this is a war, Shazad? Really? This is nothing more than the act of a cowardly madman." The president fell back into his seat.

  “Perhaps in your eyes, Mr. President. And in the eyes of those sitting around you. But I can guarantee you this.” He leaned into the camera, his stern face and unwavering gaze occupying more of the screen.

  “Each army standing at opposite ends of the battlefield always believes their cause to be the just one. For the longest time I walked the middle of the field, weighing the merits of each side. In the end I made my choice.”

  The president raised his voice a notch, a signal that he was beginning to lose composure. “You made the wrong choice, Shazad. Don't make it any worse than it already is. Turn yourself in. You’re American-born. You served at a high level as a lieutenant commander. Don't you have any sense of gratitude whatsoever for what this country has given you?”

  “The stripes don’t make the man, Mr. President, only the content of his character. When nine-eleven struck, my people became vilified for the actions of a few. From that day forward I no longer saw myself as a man with the same freedoms I once cherished. As a result I no longer felt duty-bound to preserve them. And for every year thereafter while I served as an officer, I felt a sense of hypocrisy by targeting those I shared a moral and ethical kinship with. So I left--a move I will never regret.”

  “You’re an American, damn it!”

  “A station in life I renounced on the day I deserted my post as lieutenant commander.”

  The president began to feel a heated boil from within, a strong stewing of emotions that culminated with: “We will find you.”

  “No doubt. But in the end, Mr. President, the United States will be laid to ruin--physically and psychologically. You will be the one who allowed it happen, and history will record it as such.”

  “What do you want, Shazad? You know that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “Mr. President...” Shazad remained exceedingly calm. “Don’t play me for a fool. I know that you're trying to keep me on the line as long as possible so that your computer forensics team can trace my IP addresses, but they’ll only exhaust themselves in trying to do so since I planned for every contingency. So I'm not afraid to keep our line of communication open. But if you refuse to negotiate—”

  Suddenly a new image came into play on the screen. It was video of a Reaper drone with its turboprop engine idling. Twin Hellfire missiles were visible hanging from its belly. On its back were two remoras as additional payload.

  “This is why I wanted the live stream, Mr. President. I want you to see that I have a Reaper on deck. Depending on your willingness to negotiate, this drone will either stay where it is . . . or it’ll be launched to its new set of coordinates. The call is yours.”

  The picture then shifted back to Shazad.

  President Carmichael looked over at the faces of his team, perhaps expecting the lettering of an immediate answer to be written on their countenances. “We need time, Shazad.”

  Shazad made a sad face and shook his head. “You knew that I would contact you, Mr. President. Stalling changes nothing.”

  “You still haven’t told me what it is that we’re allegedly negotiating.”

  “For the record, I’ll say this: We both know that the United States was instrumental in the capture of al-Zawahiri. And we know that he’s now in the custody of Pakistani authorities who are getting ready to hand him over to you within the next twenty-four hours. So here is what we are negotiating: If that man is not released, then the drone you just saw, Mr. President, will launch. Please keep in mind its stealth capabilities and the expansiveness of open sky. I know you do not have enough planes to cover the entire airspace. That drone is a ghost, Mr. President, ready to haunt the American people.”

  The image of the activated drone resurfaced on the screen. “Make your call.”

  Beads of sweat were clearly visible on President Carmichael’s brow. “Our policy is that we do not yield to the threats of terrorists. However, as Commander-in-Chief I concede that concessions may need to be made in this particular case. But you have to give us time to come to an agreement, Shazad.”

  “I have to?” His tone had an edge to it now. “Choose your words carefully, Mr. President. Concede immediately, and I mean right now, or the launch takes place.”

  The image of the drone remained on screen, the aerial destroyer ready for lift-off.

  President Carmichael looked at the monitor, then to the faces of his team, then back to the monitor. Normally he would discuss matters with his people by tendering possible solutions and brainstorming the best possible courses of action to take. But Shazad was disallowing him this opportunity.

  “Shazad, I need to discuss this with my team.”

  “And I’m telling you, Mr. President, there is not time for discussions, debates or further negotiations. It is as I laid it out. Release al-Zawahiri or the drone lifts. I want to hear the call go through live. If there is any deception, then the catastrophe will be of your own creation due to poor decision making on your part. I won’t be patient much longer. Decide, Mr. President, or I’ll decide for you. You now have ten seconds.”

  “Where is your loyalty?” the president cried in desperation.

  “My loyalty to my religion runs much deeper than to either of the two governments who pretend to like each other, the United States and Pakistan. Now make your choice.”

  The president looked to his team. Even Simon was caught off guard, the man shrugging in a way that suggested he didn’t know what to propose with so little time. The circumstances favored Shazad greatly.

  “You now have five seconds.”

  “We need more time!”

  “Two seconds.”

  “Shazad, all I ask—”

  “Time’s up.”

  The screen showed the drone revving, its engines in lift-off mode. It began to race along the makeshift airstrip until it was out of the camera’s view.

  Suddenly the image reverted back to Shazad, his features set with a stone cold intensity. “What happens next, Mr. President, falls on your conscience.”

  The picture winked off.

  “Shazad! . . . SHAZAD!”

  “He’s offline, Mr. President.”

  Carmichael slammed his fisted hand to the tabletop in frustration. Then in a more reserved tone: “Get every plane and drone we have to circle the D.C. area now. I want that Reaper knocked out of the sky immediately. If this son of a bitch wants to play games, then I’ll play.”

  "Yes, Mr. President."

  He addressed his team again. “Trace the relay points of his live stream,” he said. “I want to know where that transmission was coming from.”

  “We’re working on it, Mr. President,” said Rimaldi.

  “Work harder, people! We have a hostile weapon in the air with an unknown target!”

  “Mr. President...” This from Attorney General Stephen Cayne. “We have drones in lift-off mode. They’ll be airborne in moments.”

  Carmichael nodded, but his thoughts were dominated by a single question: How do you track something that can’t be seen until it’s too late?

  Closing his eyes and trying his best to let the tension flow and ease, he knew the clock was ticking and that his citizens' lives were in great jeopardy. All he could do now was to wait and hope and pray that the drone would be taken out before the death toll could rise again.

  But President Carmichael was never very good at waiting.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Bunker

  The drone headed down the covered runway and lifted off when it reached the tunnel’s end, rising and banking towards Washington D.C.

  Its stealth programming was fully operational, ma
king it impossible to detect on radar as it made its way to a designated location with two remoras upon its back. It glided above the terrain, dipping and rising over the contours of the treetops as it headed for its next target site.

  At a maximum cruising speed of 135 miles per hour, the Reaper was closing in to a strike time of less than two hours.

  From the control panel, Naji directed his weapon with surgical precision, watching for aerial resistance that was sure to come from the Presidential sky brigade. Not only was this particular Reaper designed to go unseen, it was also physically elusive, the machine capable of a much smaller turning radius that its predecessor the MQ-9, which gave it the ability to cut and turn in open space as quickly as a blink of an eye, making it impossible for opposing missiles to lock on.

  If the Reaper was agile, then the remoras were downright acrobatic, capable of 90-degree angle turns and split-second flip-flops. The attempt to knock one out of the sky would be like trying to hit a fly with a pea-shooter from fifty feet away.

  For all practical purposes, it was impossible.

  But Shazad was not a man to take things for granted, nor was he a man of complacency. He always stated that the word ‘impossible’ didn’t mean that a mission could not be completed. It simply measured the degree of the mission’s difficulty. And if that was the case, then the U.S. military always possessed the potential to knock the drone and the remoras out of the sky, should they be sighted.

  Anything was possible. By the very position in which he found himself, he of all people knew that.

  “How long?” asked Shazad, looking over Naji’s shoulder.

  But Naji never turned to acknowledge him as he maintained his focus on the monitor. “Within the hour,” he told him.

  “Any hostile forces?”

  “Not yet, sir. No. We’re remaining low and invisible.”

  Shazad nodded, all the while thinking of how stupid President Carmichael was.

  This was something he could have stopped.

  #

  “Any detection?” asked President Carmichael.

  “Nothing yet, Sir,” stated Rimaldi.

  The president began to rake his fingers nervously through his hair, wondering if he should have taken the unprecedented but seemingly life-sparing route of negotiating with a terrorist faction. But in the end he didn’t want to be known as the first president to buckle either, since such stigmas carry on through a lifetime and even beyond into the history books. Plus, he thought, who's to say he wouldn't have released Zawahiri only to see Shazad use the drones against his homeland anyway? Imagine how that would make him look. He felt his stomach churn at the thought and forced himself back to the moment at hand.

  “Nothing from the overheads? There’re no satellite imagery, drone spying or flight visuals of any kind?”

  Attorney General Cayne shook his head. “So far, Mr. President, if that Reaper is up there, which we believe it is, it’s imperceptible.”

  Carmichael's eyes were rimmed with red. “The optimal thing to do here, people, is to blanket the airspace above Washington. I want planes circling at every possible level.”

  “D.C. may not even be the target,” pointed out Simon Davis, his Chief Presidential Advisor. Like everyone else at the table, he appeared lost and powerless, a state that neither he nor anyone else in his midst was used to.

  “That’s not the point, Simon. The point is to provide protection to this country’s most important venues. Also, if that drone is heading towards Washington, then we’ll see how good our defenses stack up against it.”

  He consulted his watch. It had been almost an hour since they had seen the video feed of the predator taking off from an undisclosed location. Assuming that Shazad had the machine travelling at its maximum speed, it had traveled 135 miles by now.

  President Carmichael closed his eyes. He had lost control over the situation.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  O.U.T.C.A.S.T Facility

  Over the past hour the team had geared up by dressing as a battle-ready unit. They wore black jumpsuits with sewn-in composite shin and forearm guards. For further protection of vital areas, they wore Dragon-Skin armor to cover their chests. Tanner’s team was enthused to serve.

  On the main monitor that occupied the center wall, FBI Director John Casey was speaking in earnest to the team.

  “A Reaper was launched an hour ago from an unknown location,” he told them. “We don’t know its intended target. But we do know that its payload contains two Hellfires and two remoras.”

  “No visuals?” asked Tanner.

  “We have nothing, I'm afraid."

  “John,” Tanner said, pointing to Sunderland, “you know Danielle and you're familiar with her capabilities. If there’s anything out there, she'll find it.”

  “Not this time, Tanner. We’re talking about an MQ-10, something that gets lost on the grid by design.”

  “Everything has an Achilles heel,” Tanner told him. “Everything.”

  “The weakness of Achilles' heel was discovered by accident when an errant arrow from Paris’ bow found its mark by sheer luck. And at least that shooter could see his target. Christ, Tanner, we can’t even find this damn thing so that we can take a shot at it.”

  There was a pause before John Casey switched to another topic. “Danielle, have you received all the requested information?”

  “I did, Director, thank you.” She then informed him that she had all necessary codes and tools to tap the feeds from certain satellites and to extract visual data from them. In essence, she now had a measure of control over the eyes in the sky.

  “You think you can find this thing?” Casey asked her. “You think you can find Shazad?”

  She nodded with confidence. “If it’s out there, Director, and with the tools that I now have, I should be able to find it.”

  “That drone’s been in the air for some time now. Unless we locate it soon, something terrible is going to happen.”

  “I understand that,” she told him.

  “I know you’ll do your best,” he said to her. And then to the others: “I know you’ll all do your best. I know Tanner is very selective in his choices when it comes down to his operatives. He chooses the best of the best of the best. So Godspeed.”

  Tanner placed a hand on Danielle’s shoulder. “Like she said, John, if it’s out there, she’ll find it.”

  “I hope so,” Casey returned. But in his mind he knew it would take time.

  And time was something they did not have.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Reaper drone was a few miles west of Washington D.C., the vehicle moving in a straight line at maximum speed.

  From approximately 500 feet above, the pilot of an F4 Phantom jet spotted the drone and dove to intercept, taking a forty-five degree angle and closing fast.

  “Dog Fighter One to Base Command, I have a visual on the hostile unit. I repeat, I have a visual on the hostile unit. Dog Fighters Two and Three, come in.”

  “Dog Fighter Two is engaging, Dog Fighter One.”

  “Copy that . . . Dog Fighter Three?”

  “Dog Fighter Three also copies. Engaging weapon.”

  “Copy.”

  The three warplanes took a steep trajectory to intercept the drone.

  But then the Reaper took on a life of its own. It quickly went into maneuvers by making sharp turns and dips, the vehicle rolling and cutting through space at acute angles by going vertical, then horizontal, trying to shake off its tail. And then it looped so that it fell behind the jets.

  “You see that?” said Dog Fighter One.

  “This thing is wild,” said Two. ‘Wild’ was a designated term that listed the target as an object with a high degree of maneuverability, making it extremely difficult to acquire.

  “It’s behind me,” said Three.

  “Copy that,” responded One. “I’ll come in from behind.”

  The Phantom quickly arced into a perfect loop, trying to approach from the rear. But
the drone countered by dipping and turning south. By the time the jet completed its maneuver, the drone was coming back around to intercept One as the Phantom leveled off.

  From the drone's back a remora took flight, the mini-drone adopting an inconsistent trajectory with a series of cuts going up, then down, then from left to right--taking on a shaky pattern before it zeroed in on the Phantom. Its speed was alarming as it drew a bead and steadied with the progress of the jet, drawing closer.

  “Dog Fighter One to Base Command!”

  “Base Command.”

  “I have a unit on my tail. I repeat, I have a unit—”

  It was the last thing the pilot said as the remora struck the F4, the impact causing the detonation pins to set off the Semtex.

  From the elevation of 5,000 feet, burning debris began to rain down on areas a few miles west of Washington D.C.

  The pilot never had a chance.

  #

  Everyone inside the Raven Rock facility gasped.

  From a bird’s-eye view through the lens of the jet also known as Dog Fighter Two, they watched the MUAV take out the Phantom. On screen its movements appeared anti-gravitational as if defying the known laws of physics with its quick and sharp directional changes.

  President Carmichael could only watch as his heart seemed to crawl up into his throat. “How far is the drone from Pennsylvania Avenue?” he asked.

  Rimaldi checked a monitor on the opposite wall that depicted an animated display of the fighter jets in flight. The planes had already crossed the red circle indicating the "danger zone" surrounding Washington D.C. She looked directly at President Carmichael. And though she often carried herself as a woman with a narrow range of emotions, she appeared quite agitated.

  “Two miles,” she told him. “It’s two miles away.”

  #

  OUTCAST Facility.

  The members of OUTCAST had witnessed the same visuals as those at Raven Rock, without editing or censoring of any kind. They had seen everything live and uncut, and they could hear everything between the pilot and Base Command.