Sting of the Drone (16 page)

“Yes, but it won’t be us who will have killed the people when the bomb goes off and it would be us if we strike the truck. And after the orphanage fiasco…” Burrell replied. “Besides, it doesn’t sound to me like there is an imminent threat of a terrorist attack
against Americans
.”

“There is a UN compound at the other end of this road,” Ray replied. “You remember how many people were killed at the UN headquarters in Baghdad by a truck bomb just like this. Not sure how we explain that we just sat by and watched. May even be some Americans there. There’s also the African Union compound and the Somali government buildings, a big marketplace, lots of possible targets.”

“Ray, I have to get back to this dinner with the Israelis. Here’s what I suggest, you warn the UN and the others and suggest they evacuate possible targets. You do what you think best after that, but under no circumstances are we using the Predators in any strike that kills civilians. Not now. It’s getting way too hot. Gotta go.”

“Schlitz?” Sandra asked when Burrell had signed off. Ray rolled his eyes. He hit the microphone on button. “We’re back.” He glanced up at the image of the trucks moving down the road. “Doesn’t look like anything has changed. CIA, State, DOD, can you all go through your channels to warn the UN, Somalia, African Union? We are not authorized to fire because of the risk of the civilians being killed. Anybody got any ideas?”

The conference link was silent except for the humming from the microphones’ static. “If we don’t do something, some of the guys on our side of this fight are going to get killed pretty soon. I don’t know that they can evacuate everything that is a possible target, not fast enough,” the General replied.

The red light came on next to Erik Parson’s screen. Ray hit a button that connected his audio feed from Las Vegas to the group. “I want to confirm my orders,” Erik began. “I am not authorized to fire where there is a risk of hitting civilians?”

“That is correct,” Sandra answered.

“Is there any rule against scaring civilians or bombing dirt?” Erik asked.

“Nice,” Ray replied. “No, Colonel, you may scare civilians and you may bomb nothingness. Just do not strike anywhere that could cause civilian casualties from our missiles.”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13

THE GLOBAL COORDINATION CENTER

OPERATIONS ROOM

CREECH AFB, NEVADA

In the GCC, Erik Parsons walked about five meters from the videoconference site to the cubicle in which Sergeant Rod Miller and Major Bud Walker were flying the two Predators over Somalia. “Sergeant, step aside. Let me fly that baby for a minute,” Erik said, replacing the pilot. He grabbed the joystick and put the first Predator into a steep dive from ten thousand feet. The image on the screen showed the ground rushing up at the camera. Then the road quickly appeared on the screen and the three-truck convoy ahead. The Predator flew low over the convoy and banked right. The faces of the women and children on the truck showed clearly in high definition, faces of surprise and horror. “Christ, Colonel, you got that sucker down to one thousand feet off the ground. They’ll shoot you down,” Sergeant Miller said from behind him.

“Can’t shoot me down. I’m not in Somalia. I’m in Vegas,” Erik replied as he hit the toggle switch on the side of the joystick to arm the Hellfire missiles on the Predator. “Bud, look at the image from Bird Two. What’s in front of these three trucks?”

Bird Two was the second Predator, operating as a reconnaissance spotter, flying at twelve thousand feet, above Stinger range. Major Walker panned the camera out ahead of the convoy. “Nothing on the road this early. I can see three or four clicks ahead. Nothing on the road or on either side of it but dirt, sir.”

Erik quickly brought the Predator around for a second pass. The trucks had stopped. People were jumping out, running. Four men were standing still shooting rifles, probably AK-47s, up toward the incoming Predator. Erik hit the Launch button on the joystick once, moved the Predator slightly left and fired again, again to the left and fired, and a fourth time. He then pulled the joystick back hard, forcing the Predator into a steep upward climb to the right of the road.

“Give me the video feed from Bird Two on the Big Board!” Erik yelled.

The image on the screen showed four smoke trails as Hellfire missiles from Bird One streaked over the convoy. In seconds, the missiles hit less than a kilometer ahead of the trucks. Two hit the road, two others hit just off the pavement, one on either side. A wide wall of brown smoke and dust rose up across the path of the convoy. Erik brought Bird One around and began another dive toward the now stationary trucks. It was out of missiles as it passed overhead, this time at fifteen hundred feet. The camera showed that the trucks in front and back were empty of their earlier passengers. What looked like as many as eight men were shooting upward, but even they were running away from the road as they shot. The images from Bird Two showed a cluster of people, the women and children passengers from the trucks, hunkering down in a dry river bed about four meters below the level of the road and about six hundred meters to the north of it.

In Washington, Ray watched with a broad smile spread across his face. He turned to the Pentagon screen. “Are those people, those civilians now a safe distance away from the target, General?”

“Safe enough for us to strike? I don’t think we need to. That road ahead is so badly cratered, that truck isn’t going to get through. Besides, when we told the African Union about the convoy just now, they dispatched a squad on a Hip helicopter. Now that the bad guys have abandoned the trucks, the Ugandans ought to be able to land nearby and render safe the bomb.”

As the General spoke, the camera from Bird Two zoomed out toward the horizon and focused in on a helicopter moving slowly toward the scene of the explosions. The armed men running from the trucks heard the noise of the old helicopter and also looked in its direction. One of the men stopped running, took a small black box from his backpack, and lay down in the dirt. Erik was bringing Bird One around again to further scare the shooters away from the vehicles, as the truck bomb detonated, sending an orange flame and then a thick black column of smoke rushing into the air above the convoy. On the two screens showing images from the two Predators, one at two thousand and one at twelve thousand feet, the explosion erupted violently, silently.

Erik struggled to pull the Predator up quickly enough that it would not fly into the concussive wave sweeping out from the truck. The aircraft rocked violently, but began to climb. Then it shook and dove quickly down and to the right. “I think you lost a chunk of the left wing, sir,” Sergeant Miller said. “Going down.”

Erik still had video feed and he looked ahead of the path of the aircraft, hoping to bring it down where the impact would do no damage to anyone on the ground. There was nothing but sand and rock in the view screen. A lone tree stood in the distance, but the aircraft was not going to make it that far. The camera showed dirt rising up quickly just before the screen went blank.

Erik stood up and turned to Major Walker. “Bud, blow up my aircraft, or what’s left of it.”

On the Big Board, there was now only one image, from Bird Two. What it showed on close up was that Bird One had had a rough landing, with both wings breaking off, but remarkably, the fuel tank had not yet exploded. Then the image zoomed out. A Hellfire zoomed off the left wing of Bird Two, soaring ahead of the Predator, the smoke briefly clouding the image from the camera. In seconds, the wreck of Bird One exploded, leaving nothing large enough to salvage, nothing of value to anyone trying to learn about the aircraft.

“Well done, Colonel,” Sandra’s voice from Washington boomed over the speakers in the GCC. A cheer rose up from the twenty pilots on the floor.

Erik had walked back to his desk and placed the conference call headset back on. He spoke into it. “Kill Call Closed.”

18

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13

CAMINO AL NORTE BUSINESS CENTER

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

“I’m afraid the doctor does not take walk-ins,” the receptionist said. “You will have to have a referral and then request an appointment.”

“Tell her Mustang is here,” he said. “Go ahead. Ask her if she wants to ride a Mustang.”

The receptionist was a temp and clearly uncomfortable. She thought that taking a job in a psychiatrist’s office at night was going to be strange and it had been ever since she sat down.

“Doctor,” she said into the telephone, “a man named Mustang is here and wants to see you and he won’t go away.”

“Oh, dear,” Jennifer Parsons replied on the telephone, from inside her office. “Well, then ask him if I can ride him.”

Hearing that, the receptionist hung up the telephone, picked up her bag, and walked quickly out of the office. “You people are just not good Christians,” she said as she slammed the door to the suite.

“You know, she’s right,” Jennifer said, standing in the doorframe of her office. “We’re not. And I do need to find a new temp agency.”

“Or a more devout husband,” Erik Parsons replied.

“Never,” Jennifer replied, putting her arms around his waist. “I like my Mustang, my horse.” She gave him one of her long, slow kisses. “How was your day at the office, dear? Did you push lots of pieces of paper?”

“It was good. I think we saved some lives today,” he said as he lifted her up and then sat her on the receptionist’s desk. “But I crashed and burned, destroyed my airplane.”

Jennifer folded her legs behind him. “That’s okay, Mustang, they’ll give you a new toy tomorrow.”

The door flew open. “I forgot my cell phone,” the ex-receptionist said. Jennifer and Erik leaped off the desk. “You people don’t need a shrink, you need a preacher. And a cold shower,” she said as she stormed out a second time.

“Buzzkill,” Erik said to her on her way out.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Jen replied. “Le Croupier is still open. They make great mojitos.”

“If that’s what the doctor is prescribing for my condition,” he replied.

“It’s part one of a two-part therapy,” she said. “The second part requires you to get in a hot tub. Later.”

They took a booth in the back of the bar and grille on the first floor of the office building. Despite the half-off prices, the crowd was thin. Most people still preferred to go to the casinos for their drinking, free drinking if they were gambling.

“Did you really crash and burn?” Jennifer asked.

“Yeah, but these things only run around four million. It’s not like I crashed a B-2, or even an F-16,” he said, sipping his mojito. “You’re right. They will give me a new one tomorrow. Several.”

“So what’s the problem? What brings you to the shrink’s office today?” she asked. “Or were you just feeling horny because you were a hero?” She knew not to ask how he had saved people’s lives, but she did not doubt it.

Erik laughed. “No, I’m okay. It’s just that after the orphanage, things are a little different. More tense. We actually got turned down by the White House for the first time today.”

“But you went ahead anyway?” she asked.

“Well, kinda. Let’s just say I found a way of proceeding that was consistent with the Commander’s Intent,” he said. “But I am a little worried about Bruce. He thinks it’s his fault those kids got killed. I think he’s drinking too much, but I don’t want to put him on report. That would tank his shot at promotion to O-5.”

“But you can counsel him, can’t you, without it going in his jacket?” she asked.

“Sure, and I have,” he replied. “It’s just, it’s more than Bruce. It’s like something’s shifted. Like the bad guys are figuring us out, like we’re not quite invulnerable anymore.”

“Look, honey, you always said you had to fight against this whole idea that you all are the Avenging Angels who can throw lightning bolts down from your home in the sky,” Jennifer said. “You’re not invulnerable and you do fly real weapons that can hurt real people. You may have to remind your guys of that every once in a while, but I am still much happier having you fly your drones than when you were flying the F-16. If you crashed and burned one of those, you might have been a crispy critter.”

“Yeah, well, I miss the real cockpit,” he replied.

A young man in a blue blazer, sitting at the bar by himself, finished his 7 and 7, put down a ten, and walked out. Jen watched him through the bar’s window as he got into a Cadillac XTS. “I’m thinking about looking at the new Caddy to replace my Ford,” Jennifer said to her husband. “Have you seen it?”

“No, I love my Camaro and I’m gonna take you back to my place in it, with the top down. Let’s go check out the hot tub.”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13

COPPER HILLS RANCH

KYLE CANYON, NEVADA

Yuri Poderev did not like the sun. He was happier now that it had set. Bright sunlight made it hard for him to think clearly. It distracted him. He liked the night, when it was as if a noise went away. To deal with the Nevada sun, he had bought black-out shades and curtains for the rooms where he and Mykola Zatonsky had set up their equipment. The rest of the house they had left largely untouched. It was isolated, well off the Kyle Canyon Road, slightly more than an hour’s drive north from the Las Vegas Strip. There was a large pool in the backyard inside the fence, and beyond that a horse barn twenty meters away. There were no horses.

There were satellite dishes, a T3 high capacity Internet connection from the phone company, and a separate fiber line from the cable company. Running the lines from the road had been costly, but there did not appear to be any budget constraints on this operation. The Pakistanis had money, apparently from some Arab supporters. The only Pakistani Yuri had met so far in the operation, the one who had just moved into a high-rise condominium in Las Vegas, was Ghazi Narwaz. And Ghazi appeared to be a very Westernized, global operator who seemed to be somewhat computer literate. He could not follow all that Yuri and Mykola had explained to him, but he seemed to have a far better understanding than most “tourists,” as the two computer experts referred to the millions of Internet users who had no idea how either their computer or the networks worked.