DRONE (2 page)

That wouldn’t be happening.

She slid the first box back in. Tugged out the much heavier one.

While Shalik pretended to look at the unit, turning it over, then back to the front (he already knew everything there was to know about it), he could feel her re-evaluating his suit, his haircut. She was leaning forward just a little. The silly bitch was
attracted
to him.
If only he had more time.

It was good he didn’t. She was
haram,
just like nearly everything else in this disgusting country.

“Excellent!” he smiled, “I’ll take it.”

He left the store carrying the box in his arms, his wallet twelve hundred dollars lighter.

On to Step Four.

Chapter
4

Shalik stopped at
a place called Sports Authority and bought two ring-type five-pound dumbbell weights. He made his third stop at an Ace Hardware store where he purchased a road atlas, a blue painter’s tarp, some medium gauge green picture wire and a small pair of wire cutters known as dikes. He paid cash.

Fifty miles south, he pulled off the freeway a fourth time. He made a left, two rights, and turned onto a dirt road for half a mile.

The field was open and vacant just as the pictures had shown on Google, surrounded by a ring of trees. Shalik pulled his SUV into the tall grass. He walked to the vehicle’s rear, raised the hatch and pulled out his new toy.

With a thumbnail he slit open the thin plastic that covered the box and carefully laid out each component. He plugged the power cords into two of the SUV's cigarette lighters, then sat back in the driver’s seat and carefully read the instructions again. He knew each word by memory. He’d already read them eight times at a safe house in Delhi.

When he’d finished reading he cut off a five-foot section of picture wire, threaded it though the big center hole in the weights wrapping it several times around one side of the ring and tied the wire in a knot. He wrapped the ends around either side of the drone’s landing gear so the weight would hang free, in the clear beneath the camera. He twisted the wire tightly back onto itself so there’d be no chance of it coming loose in flight.

For another half an hour he re-studied the map to his destination — a location that he already knew so well he could picture it with his eyes closed.

Exactly an hour after he’d begun charging the drone and its control module, he unplugged them both, attached his iPad to the top of the control module and powered up. The screen came live. It took about thirty seconds for the two to sync to each other. He watched the indicator. The display unit beeped. He gave the slider a little throttle. The props turned.

Shalik had control.

The drone was a little sluggish lifting its ten pounds of steel ballast off the ground, but Shalik knew the weight to be well within the unit’s payload capacity. He wasn’t going to be doing anything tricky. Just straight and steady — at a single destination.

He flew the unit down the field, climbing on an angle, then slowed the drone to a hover, hit the
Return Home
function (something he wouldn’t be using tomorrow) and watched the unit fly smoothly back to hover beside him.

He landed the drone on the ground. Undid the wire, removed the weights. It was too sluggish.

He cut off a fresh piece of wire, tied and hung only a single weight below the drone. It would be more than adequate.

This time when he launched, the drone accelerated nicely, turned more quickly. When commanded, it rose almost three times as fast.

Much better!

He worked the unit for another fifteen minutes, flying back and forth, imagining his prey, gaining to its expected altitude, making subtle turns of realignment.

When the drone finally bogged down and had trouble gaining altitude, he made it return.

He set the drone and controller back inside the SUV’s hatch, plugged them into the SUV’s rear lighter sockets, covered everything with the blue tarp and drove away.

*

In the distance, a short man with a bulldog neck watched through a pair of high-power binoculars as Shalik’s SUV turned back onto the highway. He’d seen the whole thing.

He lifted a smartphone from the roof of his Hummer, activated a number, brought the phone to his ear.

The number rang eight times before it was answered. “Yes?” said the voice belonging to a man he thought of simply as
Big.

“I’ve seen six so far. Each perfectly on schedule.”

“Very well,” Big replied.

The number disconnected.

Chapter
5

The candidates in
this year’s U.S. Presidential election were diametrically opposed on almost every issue. Voter turnout was going to be huge. Every registered voter, it seemed, wanted their say.

Billionaire industrialist Robert Osborn, the Republican Candidate, wanted a ban on all Muslims entering the country. Osborn sought tariffs, restrictions on abortion, communications and the press, while claiming to be a staunch Capitalist.

His Democrat opponent, a stout woman named Wen “Ma” Carter whose favorite word was
tasty,
supported multiculturalism. So liberal in her socialism many called her a Communist — Ma Carter wanted free college, free healthcare for all, free dentistry, and free food and housing — for those making less than twenty thousand dollars a year. She never said how she was going to pay for anything. “These new government programs,” she shouted, “are American Rights! With a Capital R!”

Many agreed.

Osborn said Wen’s platform would turn the U.S. into a third-world country, bankrupting the United States. He said it would inflate the money supply until the savings of old people were worthless, cause food prices to skyrocket, drive home-prices and apartment rents into the stratosphere. Many agreed with Osborn too. The economy was already bad enough.

To balance the Republican ticket, Osborn picked up a two-term Morman congressman from Utah named Christopher Wall as his running mate. Wall wasn’t much of a speaker. Osborn told him to shut up and smile. His job was to pull in the religious vote. Wall did as he was told.

*

Shalik waited until after dark, then pulled into the gated parking area of a local, north D.C. mosque. Step Seven. A holy number. He would not go anywhere until the call came.

“I have not even been told why you are here,” the local Imam said, after welcoming Shalik. “I was instructed to give you every courtesy. Perhaps if you shared your load, my brother, I could be of some assistance?”

Shalik shook his head. Said nothing.

After a cold dinner of pita and hummus he went to bed that night in a cotton sleeping bag on a concrete floor in the back. He lay awake for hours. He didn’t know himself who had created the plan. Who was funding it.

None of that mattered! The result would show the true power of the Brotherhood! It would be glorious!

*

State-by-state across the country, dawn brought what looked to be a bright sunny day — and a very close race.

Ma Carter offered charm and growl and the promise of never-ending freebies. Would it be enough? Historically, the poor didn’t vote. Strict ID requirements, now law in forty-eight states, made it still harder for poor Democrats to get inside the polls. Meanwhile, the Republicans were out in force.

At two o’clock Eastern Standard Time, with zero percent of precincts reporting, Fox News, based on exit polls, called the election. At two-fifteen, CNN said the same. Ten minutes later ABC, CBS and NBC agreed.

Robert Osborn would be the next President of the United States.

Vice-President-elect Christopher Wall was already in Washington setting up Osborn’s preliminary team for the transition. At three o’clock Robert Osborn left his penthouse apartment in Chicago for O’Hare Airport. At three-thirty-one, his jet left the ground. By four-forty-five p.m. he was over east Virginia, beginning his descent into Andrews Air Force Base.

Chapter
6

Shalik was driving
down I-95 precisely at the speed limit when a police cruiser pulled up close behind. He tried not to look in his review mirror. He kept the wheel smooth, the accelerator pedal steady.

For more than two miles the bastard stayed right back there, glued to his tail. Shalik carried no driver’s license. It was his only risk. It was a cool November day. He was starting to sweat.

The cop’s lights came on. He’d never be able to outrun a cop. He carried no weapon. Talking his way out seemed unlikely.

He was just pulling over when the policeman triggered his siren, pulled around him and rocketed away.

Shalik exhaled a long blast of air. He’d been expecting something to go wrong. Things had been too easy. But now he’d had his
gotcha.
The way was clear.

A few minutes went by before he realized he wasn’t feeling much better. The closer he got to his destination, the more tense he felt. This was a big one.

He’d spent the entire morning on “pins and needles” — an expression he was particularly fond of — in the back room at the mosque, praying, waiting for the call that came finally at three o’clock this afternoon. Waiting had always been the worst. He’d thought when he got moving he’d relax into the job. It didn’t happen.

Ten minutes after the cop disappeared he merged into traffic on the I-495. There was no forecast for any of the typically changeable weather he’d been told could occur in Washington. Today was fair and cool. He felt his neck tensing up. The muscles across his shoulders begin to ache. This wasn’t like him.

Coming into Forestville, Shalik was so nervous he missed his exit. He entered the cloverleaf and looped around three times until he was heading west on Rt 4. Half a mile down the road, at the first light, he did a U-turn and came back east the other way.

It popped into his mind what was causing his unnatural discomfort. He was afraid to fail. Fear was driving him crazy. He was a professional! He didn’t want to let Allah down — or his client.

He took the highway ramp southbound. Halfway down the ramp, he pulled a sudden hard right off the road, onto a dirt track. He cut left, pulled into tall grass not all that different from his practice field and parked.

He shut off the SUV. His heart was hammering. Washington was to his west. Andrews Air Force Base was directly south, behind him. It was like a picture, all in his head.

His phone rang. “Ten minutes,” a voice said.

He hurried to the SUV's rear hatch. Pulled back the blue tarp. Nothing had been touched. He unplugged the drone and controller. Attached his iPad. He put in a set of earbuds. The camera had a mic. Shalik wanted to hear every second of it.

The units synced to each other. The rotors turned. He had control.

He set the drone on top of the SUV. He waited anxiously while the unit’s GPS connected to four satellites. The light went green. He lifted off.

He put the unit into autopilot mode and directed it to fly due north, steadily climbing.

A minute later, along the top of the iPad’s screen, a collision avoidance warning lit up. He’d been expecting this.