Game of Drones (19 page)

“No thermals?”

“Nothing other than what I’ve told you, Mr. President. But believe me, Tanner Wilson knows what he’s doing.”

“You have faith in him?”

“Tons. In fact, I was to propose to you the possibility of sending an air sortie to the zone.”

“Which is not going to happen since I don’t have confirmation that Shazad is actually there. I can’t afford to pull a jet from detail when there’s a Reaper en route. But with that being said, John, I definitely see merit in your man’s opinion. The location is definitely a plausible launchpad that needs to be looked into. Verification or not, I want a chopper with highly-trained operatives green-lighted immediately to the area.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what's Wilson doing now?”

John Casey looked at him with a poker face. “When I last spoke to him, Mr. President, he was en route to the bunker via highway with his team. He should be arriving there very shortly.”

Carmichael shook his head vigorously. “Contact your man and tell him to stand down. I don’t want my elites to mistake this...this OUTCAST group as the targets. Clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”
But Tanner isn’t going to like this
.

But what Tanner thought mattered little to the president, if anything at all, thought Casey. The director excused himself from the table and made the call.

En Route to the Bunker

“Tanner.”
Danielle’s voice pierced through his ear buds.

He flipped his lip mike down. “Go ahead, Danielle.”

“Dispatching Director Casey.”

There was a series of clicks, a hum, and then a connection.
“Tanner.”

“What’s up, John?”

“The president sees merit in your assumption that the bunker could be Shazad’s stronghold. He’s sending in a chopper with select operatives to police the area immediately. I know you're almost there, Tanner, but he ordered you to stand down. He doesn’t want his unit to
mistake OUTCAST as hostiles
.”

Tanner felt his face grow hot. “Are you serious? We need a ground-based tactical team, John. Not a chopper! Shazad will be waiting for that helo with ground-to-airs. Our job will be that much more difficult. He’ll set off the other drones as soon as he realizes he's been compromised. There won't even be time for a fighter jet response.”

“Tanner, I know you're private sector now and probably getting used to doing whatever the hell you want, but this is an order coming directly from the
Commander-in-Chief
.”

“I don’t care, John. He needs to know that if Shazad is there--and I think he is--then he’s sending his men to a certain death. Shazad is a seasoned officer who takes nothing for granted. Being a lieutenant commander, I’m sure that he’s prepared for every contingency.”

“I concur. But like I keep telling you, Tanner, he’s unwilling to pull a fighter from detail when there’s a Reaper on the loose. He firmly believes that if Shazad is based at the bunker, his commando team will take them out.”

Then he’s a fool,
thought Tanner.

He pressed down on the accelerator. “All right, John, you informed me. Duly noted.”

“Yeah. But are you going to listen?”

“What do you think?”

“Not only no, but Hell no?”

“Bingo.”

“Tanner—”
Casey cut himself off and redirected his course of discussion.
“Good luck.”

“Out.” Tanner snapped the lip mike over his head.

Noting the agitated action behind the harsh flip of the lip-mike’s stem, Chance said, “Trouble in Paradise?”

“Carmichael is sending troops to chopper in,” Tanner returned.

“Does he not think that Shazad will have that area covered?”

“That’s what I tried to tell him. But apparently the president has all the confidence in the world in his team.”

“And what about us?” asked Nay.

“We’ve been told to stand down,” Tanner answered evenly.

“Is that what we're doing?” asked Chance.

Tanner scoffed. “Not only no—”

Nay and Chance joined Tanner in chorus. “—Hell no!”

They continued up the road toward the bunker.

Raven Rock

The news out of Islamabad arrived within minutes after the president issued an order to deploy a special chopper unit to the bunker location. The development was not a positive one. Indigent factions had eliminated their chief ally in the prime minister, then proceeded to weaken their financial and transit industries, all within a matter of minutes. Now with the prime minister gone, the role of decision making belonged solely to the president, who was a mere figurehead and not as strong of a leader as the prime minister. Things appeared to be souring between the two governments regarding whether to hand over al-Zawahiri. Apparently the discussion was still up for debate inside the Pakistani Assembly.

“They can’t do this,” protested the president. “They made a commitment to us.”

“A commitment that now appears to be in jeopardy, in light of recent events,” returned Rimaldi. “The threat of international sanctions no longer seems to hold the weight it once had, now that they have come under attack.”

“If they stick to their guns like we’re sticking to ours,” said the president, “then they would earn the respect of the worldwide community.”

“Perhaps,” said Cayne. “But right now they have more important things to worry about than earning the respect of the international community, Mr. President. They're scared. Their capital city is a war zone and for all they know other cities are about to follow suit. Plus, Zawahiri has many supporters in the region.”

“That is far too much power for one man,” added the president. “Too much!” He turned to his Chief Advisor. “Simon: Thoughts.”

“As soon as the prime minister went down, Mr. President, our stance with the Pakistani Administration became severely undermined. It appears that support may be shifting. Pakistanis want the bloodshed to end. They don’t care about Zawahiri or his kingdom of terrorists as long as they can live within a symbiotic relationship, even a strained one--the rest of the world be damned.”

President Carmichael grew agitated, grimacing silently before speaking. “So now we may lose Zawahiri. He may never be handed over into our custody.”

Simon Davis spoke as if defeated, his measured delivery low and somber. “There is now a very high probability that the exchange will not be happening, Mr. President.”

“And we suffer this in the meantime!” yelled the president, pointing at the far-wall monitor. The Capitol was still burning.

Worse, there was another drone up there waiting to unleash its fury.

Carmichael looked at his wristwatch. More than an hour had passed since Shazad’s launch. Yet nothing further inside D.C. had been hit. It occurred to him that Tanner Wilson must be right. Aasif Shazad had other targets in mind besides the highest political seat in the land. The president closed his eyes and fought for calm. But calm would never come. Not while the MQ-10 was making its final run. He mentally pictured not only the Capitol in flames, but New York as well--two of his country's flagship cities going up in flames at once. The thought was almost too much for him to bear and he was hit by a sudden onset of nausea.

"Mr. President, are you all right?" His colleagues voiced their concern at his lapse.

Then he opened his eyes wide. "Simon! We need to ready our defenses for New York City."

Manhattan, New York

Activity in the city was deadened ever since the continuing crisis in Washington D.C., especially when people had long memories with nine-eleven still fresh in their minds. But New Yorkers themselves were not necessarily the exclusive targets of the drone as it stayed its course within the cover of accumulated clouds. Guided by software, its heading was a straight line between two points at an altitude of 15,000 feet. As soon as the Reaper neared its programmed targets, it began its descent at a 45° angle.

When it broke the clouds at a speed of 135 miles per hour, the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges quickly came into view. The drone then began to position itself between the two bridges. The moment it reached its pre-set location, it shot off its Hellfires, the missiles summarily banking away from each another as one veered to the left, the other to the right.

White contrails followed in their wakes as the projectiles sped to their points of impact.

And then they struck.

#

Jared Whitmore had been driving a fuel truck for most of his life, since he was twenty. Now he was sixty-six and about to retire on his sixty-seventh birthday in two months, two weeks and six days. It was a milestone in his life that he had been waiting for nearly five decades, always dreaming of owning a simple home in Florida where he could have a palm tree or two in his yard and sit around all day outside of a vehicle.

Two months, two weeks and six days. That’s all he had left.

Two months . . . two weeks . . . six days.

So he dreamed.

And he smiled.

Then he saw the Hellfire missile curve toward the bridge with the smooth arc of a smoky contrail spraying the air behind it.

It was quick and moved with purpose, the missile drawing a bead.

His smile evaporated.
Two months . . . two weeks . . . six days. That’s all I had left.

The missile struck the tank of his fuel truck.

#

The truck erupted into a fireball, red and yellow and angry, with black smoke roiling skyward. The surrounding pavement cracked and gave, causing huge chunks weakened by the blast to separate and fall to the river below. Cars and pickups close to the fuel truck were lifted and blown away by the force of the destruction, the vehicles either plummeting straight down to the water when the roadway crumbled out beneath them, or careening through the air over the railing like toys thrown by a careless child.

In all, twenty-seven people were killed on the Manhattan Bridge.

#

The remaining Hellfire did not miss its mark, either. That missile impacted with a major structural support, causing expansion wires to strain and snap, leaving the bridge perilously weakened. As the tension on the remaining wires became too tight, they also snapped, the cords whipping dangerously about like the heads of a Hydra. Cars slowed, stopped; drivers panicked when traffic came to a standstill and they realized they were trapped. So they ran, and they screamed as they ran, the twang of popping wires sounding off all around them.

Mercifully, the Brooklyn Bridge held and no one was killed, although one man lost a leg when one of the steel expansion cables snapped and recoiled into his calf. His life was saved by a quick-thinking Good Samaritan who thought to use a belt as a tourniquet--a man who stopped to help instead of running with the stampeding crowd.

The bridge itself, though, was as good as dead. The city—so reminiscent of what happened in 2001—was once again paralyzed.

Overhead, the Reaper parsed through its stored instructions.

#

Bells and whistles blared in fire and police stations. Calls for help rang out as chaos ruled. Roads closed due to immoveable jams. On the horizon towards the cap of blue-gray clouds, muscular plumes of black smoke rose steadily.

Two F4-Phantoms quickly mobilized to the points of attack only to be confronted with the destruction wrought by the drone. The jet pilots quickly reacquired their target and moved to pursue, wending and diving until they were on the Reaper's tail.

In turn the MQ-10 reacted by waving its wings in a seesaw manner before shifting and diving to its right. The jets kept pace with the drone until they were almost on top of it, the pilots zeroing in. But the Reaper was elusive, suddenly moving left to right, then right to left, dipping then rising.

That's when the clamps holding the remoras lifted, releasing the MUAVs. They took to the air, hovered, got their bearings, then zipped toward their objectives as the Reaper--its payload exhausted--lifted skyward at a vertical angle.

The Phantoms stayed with the MUAVs, finding them impossible to line up and tack onto as they dipped and turned at circus-like angles on the way to their mark at the Holland Tunnel. But when the Phantom pilots saw the ground coming up fast, they peeled off and banked away.

There was no way to stop the remoras as the mouth of the tunnel loomed large and inviting.

No way at all.

#

The MUAVs entered the tunnel cavities, one each into the north and south sides. They moved at uncanny speeds, each working independently of the other as they flew a few feet above the traffic.

Quick and agile, they traveled toward the center of their respective tunnels, which were about a mile-and-a-half in length, and directly beneath the Hudson River. When they neared their designated points they slowed, hovered, and spun. Drivers began to honk their horns and point at the things, and then they exploded, their payloads of Semtex discharging with sufficient force to rupture the ceiling.

Cracks and fissures raced along the tiles, connecting one crack to another until parts of the walls and ceiling caved and tumbled. Veils of water began to cascade downward. The pressure on the damaged areas then became too weighted, too heavy, the ceilings of both tunnels collapsing as water from the Hudson spilled in uncontested, the rush of water lifting and carrying cars as if they floated. Vehicles were crushed into one another, killing the lucky ones on impact before they could drown.

When it was over, with the tunnels completely flooded, rescue divers would eventually discover countless bodies floating in gentle repose inside the tube. Their arms and legs would be extended as if they were skydiving; their hair would be fanning out behind them and moving with the course of the water’s soft flow.

Underwater, everything seemed to move with the slowness of a bad dream.