Lightship

by Stephan Besik

  Enzo, his second controller, had videos from six Mockingbirds around the FSB complex on his screen and pattern recognition software running, waiting for one of the Mockingbirds to pick up human-size objects or vehicles in its field of vision. His third controller, Jaime, was on watch at one of the big tourist hotels in Anapa, with medium resolution video from their second drone. He was also running close-in video from another six birdies, watching traffic in case Gorovyak was at one of the alternate locations identified in the intelligence reports.

  The controllers on the other aircraft were covering two other large hotels, large enough to host groups of military personnel. Charlene was watching one of the hotels, and a dark-haired kid everyone called Tex was watching the other. The third CI officer on Char's plane was Raquel, a threat detection specialist who had perhaps the toughest job of the mission, watching for local threats out of the Balkans using the passive sensor gear on her own aircraft while watching Russian territory through the surveillance capabilities of their drones. She would make the recommendation to bug out if the drones got in to trouble or the Russians spotted the E-7s.

  They were half way through the third day of the search for Gorovyak and he hadn't shown up yet.

  Emmett finished his lunch. He unbuckled and then rolled out of his seat to stand up and stretch. He took the few steps to the trash hatch and dumped the remnants. He took the short trip back to his seat and stood behind it, doing some twists and more stretches while glancing at his display every minute or so.

  Everyone was expected to get some exercise every few hours to keep them alert and mission capable. Not that there was much room for it, but standing up, doing some stretches and pacing was a necessity for nearly fourteen-hour duty cycles. As senior Combat Information Officer for the aircraft Emmett was expected to enforce the rules for food and exercise, as well as hold down his part of the mission. Fortunately his enforcement job was mostly leading by example. By this time his people had been on enough combat patrols to understand the rules and take care of themselves.

  He walked back and forth in the tiny space behind his station, trying to keep his eye on his display while getting some exercise. After a few more minutes he got back into his seat and turned it toward his display again. Enzo turned his seat and got up. He stretched as much as he could. "I'm going to hit the head and find something to eat. Anything decent back there, boss?"

  Emmett shook his head. "Not much. Chicken salad, egg salad and PBJ sandwiches. Not much to work with on Truman but the stuff is made from local ingredients and it's fresh. Some tins of canned fruit and bags of chips. Coffee's half decent and there's a fair amount of fruit juice and water. Good enough to hold body and soul together and that's about it. Better than old MREs, though."

  "Shit," muttered Enzo. "You'd think they could come up with something better for fourteen-hour shifts. How much do we have?"

  "Enough to feed the crew six meals and some snacks. Plenty of food but not much variety. Be grateful we aren't flying the night shift. Hard to stay awake, less likely they're going to spot the target or hit him if they do, and eating the same food. Those poor bastards really got screwed. If we want something better we need to waste a little sack time back on board and buy or scrounge. We might be able to find something in the mess or the store to round out these rations."

  "Okay. Well, back to the head. First things first." He walked back toward the stern.

  Emmett noticed Jaime watching him from across the narrow aisle and shrugged. Jaime smiled. "As long as he doesn't scarf up all the sandwiches, I'm good." Jaime turned back to his board.

  They flew in silence for the next five minutes. Enzo's station was aft of Emmett's and on the other side of the aircraft, midway between Emmett's setup and Jaime's. Emmett watched his own display and then turned to check Enzo's, watching both and getting some exercise at the same time.

  Enzo was out of the head and checking out the food stores when bells started to ring on Emmett's display. Emmett turned to check his station. Then an alarm on Enzo's station began to ring.

  After all the waiting, things began to move.

  "Get back here, Enzo. Something is up." Emmett slid into his seat, buckled in and checked the status. Something big enough to set off his alarm was moving around the FSB complex.

  Enzo grabbed some kind of sandwich and a bottle of fruit juice. "Damn, a guy can't even have a peaceful meal around here." He rolled into his seat, dropped his sandwich, popped the top off his fruit juice and chugged half of it. He checked his display and set his juice aside. "Pattern recognition is up and running. The birdies show three vehicles leaving the compound. Drones confirm. No people; they must have loaded up in the garage. I've got an armored personnel carrier and two big autos, like maybe armored limos." He buckled in and tore open the wrap on his sandwich.

  "We're going to have to follow the vehicles. We need positive ID for our target." He opened a channel to the other E-7 on duty. "Charlene, we've got motion at FSB. Three vehicles, looks like an APC escort for two heavy limos. You might want your people to zoom out their drone optics in case the convoy comes toward one of your sites." He covered his mic and turned toward Jaime. "Jaime, you should do the same thing." He uncovered his mic. "Charlene, we don't have an ID yet. The vehicles came out of a building on the grounds. They must have loaded up inside. We'll need your birdies if he shows up at one of your sites."

  Charlene asked, "What if he doesn't? What if he's going someplace else? Or we can't get an ID?"

  "We'll just have to wait. If it looks like the convoy is going someplace else we won't have the birdies to give us a good picture for recognition. Let's spread the drones out to see if we can get enough angle in the optics to run the recognition software on the images."

  "Got it. Should we start now or wait to see where he's going?"

  "Better spread now. It's likely we'll only have a few seconds to make an ID once he steps out of a vehicle. We want the drones in position to make the ID. It should get obvious pretty quickly if he's not going to one of the suspect sites. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the convoy will unload outside the FSB site when they come back."

  The three vehicle convoy left the FSB facility and turned on to a main highway.

  "What are we going to do?" asked Enzo. "I don't think we can get good recognition through the Panthers. We can't get enough angle at sixty thousand if they're over the target and we might not get enough magnification if they're far enough away to have workable angles. If the convoy is going someplace we haven't staked out with the birdies we might not be able to recognize the guy. And what if he unloads in a garage instead of in the open where we can see him?"

  Emmett thought for a minute. "How fast are the birdies? How far can they fly on a charge?"

  "Well, I think we got one up to forty miles per hour but it sucked down the batteries pretty fast. At that speed I’d say they are only good for three or four miles before they have to land to recharge." Enzo looked at his display. "We could probably tail them at the speed they're moving, but if they are traveling any distance the birdies will have to stop to charge. Do you want to follow them?"

  "I think so. Yes, do it but not at full speed. Take two of yours and start them moving in the same direction as the convoy. The drone video will allow us to track them. We just have to catch up once they stop; we don't have to really tail them. Wherever they're going they will probably be there awhile, long enough for the birdies to catch up. This is kind of a long shot, too. After all, we're not even sure he's in one of these. It might be a subordinate in the limos, or the whole thing could be completely unrelated."

  "Yes sir. We'll do the best we can."

  "Jaime, can you do the same thing? Take two of yours and do a long-distance follow? That way we've still got coverage at the most likely destinations and still have some chance of catching him if the destination isn't one we expect."

  "Got it, sir. Two birdies on the move."

  Emmett opened comms with Charlene in the second aircraft. "Char,
I'm having Enzo and Jaime follow the convoy at long range with four of our birdies. I'm leaving the rest in place in case the destination turns out to be the hotel we're covering. I think your people can stay where they are. No use spreading ourselves any thinner without more information."

  "Yes sir."

  "How's Raquel doing? Anything going on that could be a problem?"

  "Nothing besides the radars down below. She says nothing in the way of active detection from anywhere else. And no air traffic of any sort- commercial, military, nothing. She hasn't seen any air traffic at all."

  "Well, that should make our job easier. Let's hope it stays that way. The way things are shaping up we're going to have to take a swing when we get an ID, and that probably won't be at a time of our choosing."

  "Em, about that. This convoy was our first shot and we couldn't even see who is riding in those limos. If this guy is careful we may not be able to ID him. The birdies are helpful but what if he doesn't leave the complex? How do we ID him if he always loads and unloads under cover? We might have bad intelligence and we may never know it.

  “This could be a real boondogle. So far there's not much risk to us, but the UAVs are out there in the wild blue and could be spotted any time. Those things are probably irreplaceable now and if they are spotted we're likely to lose them. That's a pretty big risk for what's beginning to look like crap odds."

  Emmett gnawed his lip. "Yeah, this is beginning to look like a snafu. But orders are orders." There was silence as they both contemplated the future.

  "We can bring this up with Jenson when we get back, see if he or any of the other squadron leaders have any ideas. And we probably need to work this with the crews. Maybe we can come up with something to give us better odds. If nothing else it will help keep us alert while we hang around out here.” He hesitated for a moment. “I think they’re going to tell us to take out the location if we get even an approximate ID.”

  Jaime had pulled two of his Mockingbirds out of their hiding places and started them toward the FSB training center. His birdies hadn't flown very far, however, before he started getting suspicious. The little convoy was headed his way, not exactly but enough in the direction of the hotel he was watching that it might just be a roundabout route. He slowed his birds down and started looking at the possible routes that would bring the small convoy to his hotel.

  "Hey, boss, I think these guys are headed my way. I've got a couple of birdies moving but I think I may just move them out along the roads between the FSB complex and my hotel."

  "Okay, Jaime. This may be good news. Keep on it." Emmett adjusted his display to a wide view that included the hotel Jaime was covering.

  After a few minutes of silence Charlene opened a channel. "Em, we've got movement at both of our possibles. Two APCs each. From what we can tell it's a small group of brass in one vehicle plus an escort at each location. They've just pulled out. Not sure but it looks like they are moving in the direction of Jaime's location."

  "Keep on them. I think our limo is still the target, but we have to cover the possibilities. Keep me updated on their positions. Follow those convoys with a couple of birdies each. They don't have to be a tail, just get them to the destination after your possibles come to a stop."

  "Got it, Em."

  "You should start your pattern ID software running, too. If he's in one of your groups we'll need your help to spot him. The software may have a lot of people to sift through and it's going to be working with high altitude video at bad angles until we get some birdies in place."

  "We'll get it started and we'll run through as many bodies and faces on these APCs as we can see."

  "One more thing, Char. Check with your pilot and drones on your fuel condition and get back to me. We may still have a lot of waiting to do. I need to know when we have to break off if we can't get a confirmed ID this time."

  "Sir, that three-vehicle convoy is pulling up outside a building that's none of our locations," Jaime declared urgently. "My birdies aren't in position yet. We need the optics from both our drones and maybe another if we don't have enough angle. I'm sending you and Enzo coordinates now."

  "Enzo, get on the coordinates from Jaime. When you're there, zoom in and be prepared to run pattern recognition. Jaime, get your birdies into position ASAP. A couple of Enzo's birdies will stay at the FSB site in case we have to try again."

  "Em, we've got seven hours of fuel at current rates, so six hours before tradeoff with the night crew. The drones have got a couple hours beyond us before they swap."

  "Thanks, Char. Jaime, send Char your coordinates. Char, get one of your drones viewing the coordinates Jaime is sending. We've got no birdies in place yet; the convoy has pulled in to a site we don't have covered. We'll try to triangulate from the drones now and use the birdies later if we strike out. "

  Em flipped the arming switches on his Dragonfires, ready to fire if they got a good ID.

  "The limos are unloading now," announced Jaime.

  "Starting body/face ID with two-view 3-D," called Enzo.

  "Coordinates confirmed by our number two drone."

  "Okay, folks, on your toes. As soon as you've got a possible, snap it and get it to the software. Start a queue if the pattern software isn't keeping up."

  Jaime came back, his voice disappointed. "Not good, Em. I've got five brass out of each limo and the software hasn't finished the first group yet. They look like they're going in any second now. And the escort APC is unloading another eight men. The drivers are out too. No way I can screen that many bodies in the time we've got."

  "Em, our two groups look like definites for your location. They seem to be converging."

  "Jaime, you may have more bodies in the area in a minute or two. Keep working the group you've got now. Restrict your scan to the officers if you can. I still think that's the group he's in. Char will run the other two groups."

  "Got it, sir. Keep to the groups I've got. Shit, the whole bunch is entering the building. I'm losing them."

  "Okay, Jaime. Run whatever you have queued up. Did you get snaps of them all?"

  "No. By the time I excluded the escort troops I still had four officers from the limos that I couldn't triangulate."

  "Well, we'll go over the results to see what we've got with those you have two shots for."

  Emmett uncovered his mic to talk on the intership channel. "Char, Jaime had troops from the escort APC spill out with the officers. Try to exclude the escort and stick to checking officers. Snap as many as you can of the two groups of brass you are following and push them through the pattern software. Queue up as many as you can." He heard Char confirm his instruction.

  Emmett turned to Enzo. "Get your Mockingbirds into position near the limos. As soon as they come out we'll try to get good pictures from them." He turned to Jaime. "What have you got? Were you able to do any eliminations?"

  Jaime looked discouraged and disgusted. "No one looks close. I'm storing the images so I can discard negatives quickly when they come out of the building. It's a good thing we're moving the birdies in. I don't think the resolution on the images from the drones is good enough to do a fast process on these guys. We’ll be a lot better off with shots from the Mockingbirds."

  Emmett knew Charlene's groups were behind timewise. He didn't think her crew would be done yet but he needed a status.

  "Status, Char?"

  "Hang on; still working."

  The comm channel went silent as Emmett waited. After a short time Charlene came back.

  "No luck, Em. We maybe did a little better than Enzo; we got one of the APCs queued and processed but they were all negative. We got the escort troops screened out. We only got two of the brass in the second APC snapped, leaving two more to go. Pretty sure Enzo's right. The software is struggling with crappy images from the drones. We need to work from the birdies. But at least we cut down on the amount of processing we're going to have to do on all those faces."

  "Agreed. Things haven't been perfect but then n
othing ever is. At least we've got all the possibles that we know of in one place. Maybe more important, we've got them at a place where the birdies will be able to see them, a place where we've got a shot at identifying the guy we're after. The intelligence we have seems to be on target as well. Three of the spots they identified had military brass in them.

  “We've eliminated a lot of possibles. Now all we've got to do is find the right guy."

  Emmett flipped the arming switches for the Dragonfires, disarming the warheads. For a while at least, there would be no need for the missiles.

  Hurry Up and Wait

  All of the excitement had taken less than half an hour, from the time the limousines left the FSB training center until all of the Russian officers were safely inside the small building where they were meeting. It could have been a small hotel, but the meeting place looked more like some sort of office building. Enzo unwrapped his chicken salad sandwich and opened a bag of chips. Jaime got his birdies settled into hiding places with views of the front doors of the building and then hurried to the head (“Geez, I've got to go really bad!”). Emmett stood up to check Jaime's board. He could see two different angles of the front doors. Satisfied that the birdies were in good locations, he settled back in to his seat.

  There was a little more action. The escorts for the brass amounted to twenty men, not including the drivers. The group broke into two, one group forming a guard around the building while the other group went inside shortly after the officers. It was likely that the guards would swap duties, with the group that entered the building taking over from the current guard team. There was snow on the ground and it was clear, so the weather was almost certainly cold down below.

  The two Mockingbirds that Enzo had detached from the FSB observation took nearly ten minutes to get to the new building. "Em, my birdies have just shown up. I’m going to put one in orbit while I get the other settled with a view of the front."

  "Careful, you guys. Make sure they are well hidden. That cordon of guards might spot one if we're not careful."