Sting of the Drone (32 page)

“We sure it’s the same guy?” she asked.

“Yeah, they found the Indian passport and ID sewn into his carry-on, same guy.”

“Well, who gets to go to London to interrogate him? I’ll call Headquarters. It’s our case,” she said.

“Don’t bother. He’s dead. Resisting arrest. Grabbed a cop’s gun, killed him, wounded another one. Scotland Yard guy I talked to said it was like he didn’t want to be taken alive.”

“Shit,” Wolosky said. “That ain’t good. Means he was afraid of revealing information, like what the other things are that are supposed to happen simultaneously.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Gallagher added. “That probably means they will go off without needing him. Autopilot.”

Judith Wolosky walked to the big window looking out on the city. “Besides the Indian ID in the lining, anything interesting? Any pocket litter?”

“Nada.”

“Of course not,” Wolosky said. “If you were going to bomb the T, maybe other cities’ subways, too, maybe other things, when would you do it?”

“The busiest shopping day is probably tomorrow, or maybe the day before Christmas,” Gallagher offered.

“We have to get them to go back into the tunnels with the dogs, with lights. Double-check that no one has planted anything. Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line, Orange Line, the works,” she said. “I think I should call the Governor.”

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20

SPECIAL OPERATIONS ROOM

GLOBAL COORDINATION CENTER

CREECH AFB, NEVADA

After a fruitless hour and a quarter of flying the drones over Las Vegas, Ray said to Erik Parsons, “Well, we didn’t think they would have her near the Strip or in Henderson. Let’s expand the search areas, two north toward Creech, two east toward Nellis. Good thing is, now, we got Clark County SWAT ready to go if we get a location. FBI got Nellis Air Force Base to give them four Blackhawks to fly SWAT in.”

Erik instructed two Air Force sergeants where to move the two pairs of Predators that were circling low over Clark County, Nevada, transmitting an open WiFi network signal.

“Got it,” Dugout cried out.

“You found her phone?” Erik said, moving quickly down the line to Dugout’s desk.

“No, not yet, sorry I didn’t mean to, uh…” Dugout said, looking up at the Air Force officer. “But I did find the flaw in their encryption algo.”

“Good for you,” Erik said sarcastically. “Dug, I’m sorry, too, man, no sleep. What does that do for us?”

“Means in a few hours or so, if I’m lucky, I can crack the three servers we’ve been looking at and maybe get the IP addresses of where these guys are. Maybe run a trace route that will tell me which buildings, maybe which hotel room or office suite,” Dugout said. “They may have her at the U.S. location, the one that’s connected to the server in Dallas.”

“No need to wait for that, sir,” Sergeant Miller said, standing up at his screens. “I got her iPhone pinging back up north of the city, near the golf course. Getting visual now on the area.” He adjusted the camera. “Nothing around up there but that old trailer home. Looks abandoned.”

Erik looked at Ray. “Let’s go.” The two men ran to the Chevy Suburbans parked outside, where a team of FBI agents had been waiting, hoping that the Predators would find a signal. As the three black trucks drove off the base, the lead Agent radioed ahead to the SWAT team.

“Do you hit the house right away? The bad guys might kill her if they see us coming.” Erik asked the lead Agent.

“We’ll sneak up to the building, they won’t see us in the dark,” the FBI man explained.

“But they may have perimeter sensors,” Ray said. The FBI man frowned, but said nothing.

“Wait a minute. Patch me through on your radio to the GCC,” Erik said to him. “Miller, don’t we have the IR human form sensors on those Preds? Good, image the house through each of the windows. Also scan multispec for tunnels.”

In a few minutes Miller called back to Erik Parsons. “Right, you’re one hundred percent sure?” Erik looked at Ray and the Bureau lead. “We assess one live body in the trailer home. No tunnels.”

“You willing to risk your wife’s life on that, Colonel?” the FBI man asked.

Erik inhaled, exhaled, thought a long moment. “Yes.”

The FBI Agent talked into his radio. “All right, tell SWAT to land two of the helos at the house and go in. We think there is one person in the house. Could be the vic or the perp. Don’t shoot till you are sure which. Watch out for booby traps.” The Agent looked at Erik. The black Suburbans were racing up the Interstate, pushing traffic out of the left-hand lane. Ray saw the speed indicator go to three digits.

Ray and Erik exchanged nods, hoping they had done the right thing. The FBI Agent put the tactical commander’s radio bridge on speaker.

“Hawk one landed.”

“Hawk two landed.”

“Two other Blackhawks are circling the site, throwing down light.”

Then there were three very long minutes of static.

“Going in, going in.”

Erik’s eyes were closed, his head down, his hands squeezing the back of the seat in front of him.

For five more minutes they raced up the highway listening to static. Silence.

Then, “Building cleared, no traps. Victim recovered. Reports she is thirsty, hungry. Should we chopper her to the ER for a checkup?”

A cheer went up in the Suburban. Tears ran down the Air Force pilot’s face. “No, no. Wait till we get there.” Erik began to choke up. “If she’s hungry, she’s fine. Can I talk with her?”

“That might be hard to patch together, Colonel, but at this speed, we’re less than five mics out,” the lead FBI Agent replied.

He was out of the Suburban before it stopped, running toward his wife, who sat in the open side door of one of the Blackhawks. He embraced her and then lifted her high in the air before the two collapsed in the dirt together, crying and laughing.

After they had settled down and were holding hands, staring up at the stars, Ray knelt next to them in the dirt. “Dr. Parsons, I know this is not the time for the debrief, but time is important right now. You are a trained observer. Is there anything you can tell us that would help us right now?”

Both Jennifer and Erik sat up. She began, “One man,” she began. “Thirties. Sounded American. Ski mask, couldn’t see the face. Made me watch video of drone strikes. Said he was going to get Erik. Said he tried once already, but got the wrong guy. Maybe I’ll remember more, but…”

Ray thanked her and walked away. He pulled out his mobile and called Sandra Vittonelli. “I heard, it’s great news,” she said before Ray could talk. “I was just about to hop in the shower. Come on over. Did you talk with her?”

“Yeah, not much to add yet, but the kidnap was definitely about drones. It wasn’t some former patient.”

Sandra adjusted her terry cloth robe with one hand, her mobile in the other. “What did they do to her,” she asked Ray Bowman.

“One bad guy that she saw. Made her watch video of drone damage and said—”

Sandra cut him off. Thirty-three floors above the Vegas Strip, Sandra Vittonelli walked past the floor-to-ceiling windows in her living room. She paused at the door out on to the tiny balcony she used to grow some herbs. The peripheral vision in her left eye saw movement and she turned. “What the fuck? There’s a B-52 coming straight for my—”

At first it seemed like the B-52 was some distance away, but her brain quickly flashed to the conclusion that it was just outside the window, a miniature B-52. In the nanosecond that her conscious mind understood what was happening, she saw a metal rod extending from the nose of the aircraft smash through the floor-to-ceiling glass window. As glass crashed into her suite, the B-52 erupted into a fireball that chased the glass inside, flash-burning everything in the room.

Raymond Bowman heard her say “B-52” followed by a loud noise. Then the line went dead. He redialed, but the call went to voice mail. He tried again with the same result. He got the number of her condo building and tried to call the concierge desk, but it just kept ringing. He called Dugout back at the Global Coordination Center. “Ask Miller to fly one of the drones over to the intersection of Flamingo and Wynn, scan the big new condo on the corner, the blue glass one, see if anything looks odd. Also scan the sky en route for a B-52 flying low.”

“You got it, boss, and by the way I think I’ll have the geocoordinates of those servers in an hour or so,” Dugout added.

Ray walked back to the Suburban. The driver was standing outside with the door open, listening to radio chatter. “Anything else going on tonight on the frequencies?” Ray asked the driver.

“Nah, not really. Lots of assault and batteries, but that’s normal. Explosion and fire in some high-rise.”

Ray’s mobile rang. It was Dugout. “There’s a fire in an upper floor in that building. Looks contained to one or two apartments.”

“Thirty-third floor?” Ray asked.

“Could be, yah? What’s in that building?”

Ray ended the call and found the lead FBI Agent. “We need to get one of those Blackhawks and fly downtown now. We can land in the street.”

Ten minutes later they could see the smoke pouring from the upper floors of the condominium tower. Ray’s heart sank. He knew Sandra’s apartment was in flames. His mind flashed to images of her there, standing naked in the dark looking out on the flashing lights of the Strip before he dragged her back into bed. As the helicopter neared the Strip, the smoke was already diminishing. He knew it was futile to hope that she had survived, but she was special, tough, creative. Maybe she had found a way.

The Blackhawk touched down in an empty, dirt parking lot across the street from her building, kicking up a dust cloud that blinded the Las Vegas police who were there waiting for them. The helicopter lifted off almost immediately, as Ray was running across the lot to the nearest police car. A uniformed officer moved to greet him. “I’m Captain Robinson, LVPD. I just got told by headquarters that you’re from Washington and I’m supposed to cooperate with you. What’s this all about?”

Ray flashed his credentials to the police captain. “There’s an important federal official who lives in this building,” he yelled over the noise of the ascending helicopter. “I have reason to believe this fire is from an explosion targeting her, maybe an aircraft of some kind.”

The captain indicated for Ray to follow and they began moving quickly toward the tower. “Well, I don’t know what happened yet, but I don’t think an airplane hit the building. The explosion was fairly contained and the FD has got the fire almost out,” Robinson said. Ray’s optimism was rising again.

The police car pulled up to a Fire Department Mobile Command Post in the middle of the street below the smoking condominium building. Ray and Captain Robinson both quickly jumped out of the car. The policeman introduced Bowman to the fire chief who was the on scene commander. “Yeah, it’s under control now. It was some sort of explosion on thirty-three. We’ve only found one fatality so far, but there may be others.”

Although he could barely get out the words, Ray Bowman asked, “Do you have an ID on the victim?”

“No, not yet, the ME just rolled with the body a few minutes ago.” The fireman consulted his iPad. “Female, badly burned. Found in the probable bedroom area in 3304. The concierge guy told us 3304 belongs to a Janet Sutherland.” Ray knew that was Sandra Vittonelli’s cover name for her life in Las Vegas. He turned away from the Fire Chief, hung his head, and pounded his fist hard onto the hood of a patrol car.

Then, slowly, he regained control. He walked back to the Chief. “I will need to see the body,” he found himself saying. The words had come out of his mouth, but his mind had frozen up. He felt himself shutting down.

He was aware that the policeman was talking to him. “I can take you over to the Medical Examiner’s building.”

With effort, he formed the words of a reply. “Yes, please.”

41

MONDAY, DECEMBER 21

SPECIAL OPERATIONS ROOM

GLOBAL COORDINATION CENTER

CREECH AFB, NEVADA

None of them had slept. Ray had identified Sandy’s body at the Medical Examiner’s building. She had been burned badly, but was recognizable. He did not stay there looking at the charred remains, did not stand by her side and think. He left quickly before the image of her that way froze in his mind. With all of his self-control, he had decided to lock his emotions away in a corner of his brain, a corner he would revisit later when he could deal with it. Now, he told himself, he had work to do. If he let himself go, let himself feel, he would not be able to work, to finish the job. She would want him to finish it. He had to find her killers. He had to kill them.

Erik Parsons had taken his wife to the Emergency Room, where she had been examined and found to be dehydrated, but otherwise fine. They had urged her to spend a day under observation in the hospital. Her hospital room was protected by an FBI Agent and a local policeman. She asked for an Ambien and told Erik to go get some rest. He went back to the GCC.

Dugout had never left the drone operations center. When Ray reappeared at the Operations Room it was three thirty in the morning. His suit had ash and dust on it. His pants were dirty at the knees. His tie was off and his hair was unkempt. He carried a coffee.

“Don’t say anything about her. Not yet,” he said to Dugout and Erik. “Ask your Big Data Analysis thing to find connections between what we have been looking for and model airplanes, radio controlled, big ones, custom. Add model B-52s as a subset.”

He then placed a secure call to White House Signal, the Army-run communications room for the classified networks serving the President and his staff. He asked to be put through to the National Security Advisor. Before Winston Burrell could say anything about Sandra Vittonelli, Ray got down to business.

“Win, we have a tough decision to make and we have to make it now. We have every reason to believe that there is an active plot to conduct bombings in the U.S. in the next forty-eight hours. We don’t know where, but we believe it could involve subways, possibly including Boston’s. If we issue a vague national warning, some people will panic needlessly, but if we say nothing and it happens…” He let the implications of that course go unsaid.