Riding the Red Horse (7 page)

“Petty Officer Rogers, do something about that, would you?”

“Sure thing, Master Chief,” replied Rogers. He pushed the button on his transmitter, and the three vehicles detonated.

Chief Reese watched as the two terrorists that had been getting into the technical went cart wheeling through the air. “Disregard my last,” Reese transmitted, “I think they just changed their minds.”

The troop reached the north end of town without seeing any more terrorists and joined up with the rest of the squadron. Almost all of the women and girls had been loaded into the trucks, which had arrived five minutes earlier. With the extra assistance, the loading process was finished in two minutes, and the trucks roared off to the east, where the sky was just starting to lighten.

“Gold Knights, Knight 01,” said the CO, “fall back to our rendezvous point and prepare to depart.” The rendezvous point was in the trees, 100 meters to the west; the squadron was gathered within minutes.

“You know, Master Chief, we’re like thieves in the night,” said Petty Officer Parker as he put on his flippers for the short swim downstream to the extraction point. He nodded back toward the village, where everything was once again dark and quiet. “No one’s going to even know we were here.”

Master Chief Rowntree looked back at the village and shook his head. “No,” he said, “you’ve got it all wrong; we’re not thieves. It’s like that old Jimmy Buffett song. We ain’t stealing, we’re just taking back.”

Vox has the distinction of being the first and, so far, only member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America ever to be formally purged from that organization. I said “distinction,” and I meant “distinction,” and in the most positive way you may imagine. A man ought to be known by his enemies. Being named a public enemy by SFWA, a once-great organization now deep in the throes of the Social Justice Cultural Revolution and latter-day Great Leap Forward, a mental and moral sewer, an intellectual black hole, a vile and despicable den where calling a woman a “lady” constitutes capital thoughtcrime, says nothing but good about the enemy so designated.

Vox is a Hugo-nominated science fiction author and the Lead Editor for Castalia House. He is also a professional game designer, a three-time nationally syndicated columnist, a three-tongue polyglot, and the co-founder of the techno band, Psykosonik, which has four Billboard Top Forty Club Chart hits to its credit.

Although we’re officially co-creators,
Riding the Red Horse
is more Vox’s brainchild than mine. He brings to this first volume “A Reliable Source”, a frightening glimpse into a future all too probable. Indeed, that future becomes more probable, shading towards the inevitable, with each passing day. It was perhaps already present in the form of my old Arabic instructor, Ali Abdel Saoud Mohamed, former Egyptian Army officer, former US Army Sergeant, and all-around helluva nice guy when he wasn’t engaged in things like trying to blow up the old World Trade Center.

When I start explaining the principles of war, and discuss my own suggested additions to those principles, think about “Shape” in relation to the world of “A Reliable Source”, a place where there is no longer shape, where everything is an amorphous blur, a place where the threat is everywhere, and where there is neither security nor sanctuary. For anyone.

Even with the drone's high-resolution camera, the streamed video appeared blurry at the edges on the massive high-definition screen in the middle of the Operations Center. The GPS coordinates across the bottom were sharp and clear, however. Just moments ago, three men exited the building over which the camera sights had been hovering and climbed into a white Jeep Grand Cherokee that was parked near the side entrance. No sooner had the third man closed the rear driver-side door than the vehicle disappeared in a flash of bright light, followed by a billowing cloud of white smoke.

“Bang, you're dead,” a young 2nd lieutenant cried exultantly.

“Settle down, Wexsler,” barked Captain Hainesworth. He glanced at Ronald, who was too busy frowning at some notes he'd marked on legal pad from an earlier briefing to have noticed the lieutenant's outburst. “Sorry, Colonel.”

“What's that?” Colonel Ronald M. James, Wing Commander of the 111th Fighter Wing, wasn't paying attention. “That's a confirmed kill. No question concerning the identities of the three targets?”

“None whatsoever, Colonel. We had solid intel from NSA.”

“Very good, Captain. Who was flying?”

“Major McGinness was the pilot, sir.”

“A nice clean kill. No collateral damage. That's what I like to see.” Ronald scribbled a brief note on his pad, reminding himself to review the After Action Report and put the captain in for a medal. He was overdue. “Tell the major I said as much.”

“Of course, Colonel.”

The three militants never had a chance. The MQ-13 Grimm could carry 1,500 pounds of ordnance, which usually took the form of GBU-42 PLH bombs and AGM-117 Hellfire III air-to-ground missiles. It was also equipped with a pair of mini-ATAS missiles and an XM-2 autofletchette for defense against enemy drones. It could stay in the air for 96 hours, floating patiently high above its unknowing targets, waiting until the right opportunity presented itself.

Judging by the size of the explosion, the white vehicle had been taken out by a Hellfire. And just like that, Ronald could scratch two more names off the Pentagon's list of most wanted militants. Which was certainly timely, considering his meeting in Washington this afternoon; being able to report the kills in person to the Commander of Strategic Air-To-Ground Operations, more commonly known as SATGO, would be one more checked box on his eventual ticket out of Willow Grove. The mission had actually been completed several hours ago, before he'd even arrived in the op center, but he'd wanted to personally review the recording before he departed in case he was asked any questions about it.

Not that he minded life in the suburban Pennsylvania town. Jennifer enjoyed its proximity to the civilized amenities of Philadelphia and the public schools were a damned sight better than they'd been on his last two assignments. Bruce was the proud third-string defensive end on the junior high football team and Michaela was active in gymastics as well as some sort of knitting group, if he understood correctly.

But the fact was that the 111th Fighter Wing was a National Air Guard unit, not a proper Air Force unit, its manned aircraft had been permanently grounded seven years ago, and an air base located out in the middle of suburban Pennsylvania was no place to win a general's stars. He'd made full bird four years ago and leaped at the chance to command the UAV base established there because he knew drones were the future of air combat. But since then, he'd learned that the promotions and plum assignments were still mostly going to the traditional flyboys commanding bomber wings and the sort of fighter wings that still had real planes and pilots.

Tradition was always hard to overcome. But things were changing. The 111th now had 25 Reapers and 10 Grimms in the place of the A-10 Thunderbolts it had once flown, and had used them to rack up more confirmed kills in the last year than any traditional fighter wing in the Air Force. Targeted drone strikes might be considerably less glamorous than high-altitude bombing or dogfighting, but no one could deny that they were a damned sight more useful these days in light of the understandable reluctance of the Red Chinese, the Russians, or anyone else to challenge American air supremacy.

And under his command, the 111th boasted the third highest kill rate per mission of the 72 drone bases around the country. Perhaps more impressively, his operators had only lost one bird, an old model Global Hawk that was hacked and diverted by unknown parties while flying over Ghana. Ronald assumed it was the Chinese, since no one ever took credit for the exploit and neither the Iranians nor the jihadists were inclined to keep their mouths shut whenever they seized a drone.

“Sir, your plane is ready,” a lieutenant informed him.

He nodded. “Remind Bart that I won't be back until Monday, Eric.” Bart was Colonel Corbett, the wing's Vice Commander and Ronald's second-in-command.

“Will do, Colonel. Have a safe trip.” Captain Hainesworth saluted crisply and Ronald acknowledged it. He stopped by his office long enough to slip the legal pad into his attache, tucked his lid under his arm, and made his way out to the tarmac. One benefit of commanding an Air Force base, even if it was a fighter wing without any fighters, was having ready access to air transportation.

The T-6A Texan II, one of the base's two trainers, was already warmed up and waiting for him. The Beechcraft was no speed demon, but it would get him to Fort Drum before he would even have been able to board a commercial flight in Philadelphia. His garment bag was already stowed underneath, so he gave the pilot, a captain by the name of John Hallowell, a thumb's up as soon as he was strapped in.

Ronald would have preferred to fly himself, but these flights were too good an opportunity to see how the younger officers comported themselves to pass up. And it was nice to relax in the back seat, knowing that no one would ambush him with questions or urgent matters requiring immediate resolution. The skies were clear, the takeoff was smooth, and Hallowell proved to be pleasantly taciturn. They had barely reached cruising altitude before Ronald fell asleep.

Fort Drum was considerably busier than Horsham and its security was much tighter. Once they were on the ground, he and Hallowell were met by a pair of muscular infantrymen, who escorted Ronald to a black Suburban that ferried him to an unexpectedly beautiful cream-colored mansion featuring four massive white pillars in the front. There he was greeted by an Army colonel, his garment bag was collected by a lieutenant, and he was shown into a well-appointed, high-ceilinged meeting room in which there were eleven officers wearing the uniforms of four different service branches.

There were four other Air Force men, one general and three colonels, five Army generals, one rear admiral, and a short Marine general who looked rather like the bulldog that served as his Corps's mascot. He didn't recognize most of them, but he knew they were his counterparts, commanders of various drone bases from Florida to Alaska.

“There's the man of the hour!” General William Norstad, commander of SATGO, was a tall man whose broad shoulders bore three stars apiece. “Colonel James, allow me to be the first to congratulate you. And someone get this man a beer!”

“Thank you, General.” James smiled at the blank looks on the faces of the men from the other three forces. “We had some first-rate support from the intelligence community.”

“Earlier this morning, a Grimm pilot under Colonel James's command terminated with what can only be described as extreme prejudice both Aden al-Muhajir and Osama al-Ansari, numbers twelve and eighteen on our priority list.”

“Just doing our job, General.” The officers with their hands free clapped, others raised their drinks in salute. Three more officers arrived, including another Air Force general, and they, too, came over to congratulate James and shake his hand as the reason for the celebratory mood was explained to them.

However, once all sixteen of the invited commanders were present, Norstad's face grew more serious and he urged them all to take a seat and get comfortable.

“I'm sure most of you are wondering what the purpose of this interservice conclave is. As I expect you will have worked out by now, all of you command drone bases located on U.S. soil. As it happens, you represent sixteen of the twenty-five most effective drone commands in terms of kill-to-mission ratio. I think it speaks well of the armed forces that each branch is represented here today; it appears excellence in unmanned flight operations is not limited to the U.S. Air Force!”

There were a few groans at this, but in light of Norstad's compliments, the officers from the other service branches were inclined to let the little dig go.

“However, the nature of war is such that no success long goes unremarked by the enemy. As with the laws of physics, for every action there is bound to be a reaction of some kind. In the last four years, our drones have successfully targeted over fifty-six hundred enemy combatants and proven to be our most effective weapon in the ongoing effort against terrorists and militant extremists around the globe. So, it is not surprising that the enemy appears to have embarked upon a new strategy, one that involves attacking our drone pilots and sensor operators here in the United States of America!”

There was more than a little murmuring at this, but James exchanged a glance with the Marine general, who nodded at him, his face showing absolutely no surprise. Had the Marines lost any pilots, or was this simply the Corps's storied stoicism in action?

“In the last six months, fourteen drone pilots and three sensor operators have been found dead in circumstances ranging from deeply suspicious to seemingly innocuous. In addition, eight non-flying staff officers have either been murdered or committed suicide, inexplicably in the case of the latter. These deaths fall within the range of statistical probability, athough they are on the high side, and none of them show any overt signs of being the result of terrorist activity. Moreover, the 25 deaths were spread out among twenty different bases, which is why no one recognized the pattern until there was a reason to go looking for it.”

“What sort of reason was that, General?”

Norstad smiled grimly and turned to face the Army general who'd asked the question. “Two weeks ago, the National Security Agency contacted SATGO with regards to intel it harvested from a social media site. We were informed that a YouTube channel was being used by a militant branch of Parisian jihadists to disseminate coded messages in retro music videos, hiding their communications in plain sight. Apparently single frames consisting of one letter were being inserted into the videos, which were invisible at a normal 24 frames-per-second rate, but allowed the viewer to read the message when the video was slowed down.”