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Drone (A Troy Pearce Novel)

Page 1

by Mike Maden




  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2013 by Mike Maden

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Maden, Mike.

  Drone / Mike Maden.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-698-14109-4

  1. Drone aircraft—Fiction. 2. Vigilantes—Fiction. 3. Suspense Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.A284327D76 2013 2013025096

  813'.6—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to you, Tom Lavin, my magnificent father-in-law, a combat-wounded, combat-decorated Marine. In 1952 you were just a kid hunting the enemy on night patrols with nothing more than a .45 in your hand and your head on a swivel, the point man on a zeroed-in path between rice paddies forward of the MLR. Overrun on the Yoke, bombarded on X-Ray, ambushed on Irene, you and your friends were outnumbered and outgunned, but you prevailed, unyielding in blood and valor. You did your job well, Pop, and so did your friends, the ones who came home from Korea and the ones who didn’t. You believed, and that made all the difference.

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHARACTER LIST

  EPIGRAPH

  AUTHOR NOTE

  MAY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  JUNE

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  JULY

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  AUGUST

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  SEPTEMBER

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  OCTOBER

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  FEBRUARY

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ADDENDA

  CHARACTER LIST

  PEARCE SYSTEMS

  Troy Pearce

  CEO, Pearce Systems

  Udi and Tamar Stern

  Husband-and-wife team; field operatives

  Stella Kang

  Former U.S. Army drone pilot; field operative

  Judy Hopper

  Pearce’s personal pilot

  Johnny Paloma

  Former LAPD SWAT; field operative

  Ian McTavish

  Director of IT operations/research specialist

  Dr. Kirin Rao

  Head of research and development

  Dr. Kenji Yamada

  UUV research and operation; oceanographer (whale researcher)

  August Mann

  UGV specialist; head of nuclear deconstruction division

  MYERS ADMINISTRATION

  Margaret Myers

  President of the United States

  Bill Donovan

  Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

  Jackie West

  FBI Director

  Dr. Karl Strasburg

  Foreign Affairs/Security Advisor

  Frank Romero

  U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

  Faye Lancet

  Attorney General

  Mike Early

  Special Assistant (Security) to the President

  Nancy Madrigal

  DEA Administrator

  Pedro Molina

  Director of ICE

  Robert Greyhill

  Vice President

  Roy Jackson

  Head of DEA Intelligence

  Sandy Jeffers

  President’s Chief of Staff

  Sergio Navarro

  DEA Intelligence Analyst

  T. J. Ashley, Ph.D.

  Head of Drone Command

  Tom Eddleston

  U.S. Secretary of State

  OTHER NOTABLES

  Antonio Barraza

  President of Mexico

  Hernán Barraza

  The president’s brother and chief advisor

  César Castillo

  Head of the Castillo Syndicate

  Ulises, Aquiles Castillo

  César’s twin sons

  Colonel Israel Cruzalta

  Battalion Commander, Infanteria de Marina Mexicana

  Victor Bravo

  Head of the Bravo Alliance

  Dmitry Titov

 
President of the Russian Federation

  Konstantin Britnev

  Russian Federation Ambassador to the United States

  Ali Abdi

  Quds Force Commander

  ACRONYMS

  AMISOM

  African Union Mission in Somalia

  AUMF

  Authorization to Use Military Force

  ARGUS-IS

  Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System

  ARSS

  Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System

  BMI

  Brain-Machine Interface

  DARPA

  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

  DAS

  Domain Awareness System

  FISA

  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

  JDAM

  Joint Direct Attack Munition

  JSOC

  Joint Special Operations Command

  LATP

  Lima Army Tank Plant

  RIOT

  Rapid Information Overlay Technology

  UAV

  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

  UGV

  Unmanned Ground Vehicle

  USV

  Unmanned Surface Vehicle

  UUV

  Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

  WPR

  War Powers Resolution

  Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.

  — ATTRIBUTED TO JULES VERNE

  AUTHOR NOTE

  All of the drone systems described in this book are currently deployed or in development. I have taken the liberty of simplifying and, in some cases, amplifying their performance characteristics for the sake of the story. However, I am confident that the “new and improved” versions I have described will soon be widely available.

  MAY

  1

  El Paso, Texas

  Cinco de Mayo was cooler than usual in the sprawling border city of El Paso, one of the poorest in America. In one of its grimmest barrios, a pink stucco house thrummed with life on a dark, narrow street. A crowd of teenagers from the nearby arts academy high school danced to throbbing music in the frame of its big picture window, their faces all smiles and laughter. The first graduation party of the year.

  Out on the front porch, a knot of young men in hoodies and drooping pants stood guard, drinking beer out of Solo cups and smoking cigarettes, trying to look tough in a brutal part of town. To anybody passing by, they looked like somebody’s crew, but they were just teenagers like the kids inside, their young bodies rocking unconsciously to the beat of the music behind them.

  An obsidian-black Hummer on big custom wheels slowed as it passed the house. The windows were blacked out. Death-metal music roared inside. No plates on the bumpers.

  The hoodies out front pretended not to notice, playing it cool but keeping careful watch out of the sides of their bloodshot eyes.

  Four houses up, the Hummer’s red brake lights flared as it slowed to a stop, then its white back-up lights lit up. The big black box of steel rolled backward. The gear box whined until it stopped in front of the pink stucco house.

  It just sat there, idling.

  The death-metal music still thundered behind the Hummer’s blackened glass, muffled by the steel doors.

  Now the boys turned in unison, stared at it, starting to freak out. The oldest kid nodded at the tallest.

  “Yo. Go check it out.”

  “Me? You check it out.”

  No need.

  The Hummer’s doors burst open, death metal exploding into the night, drowning out the music inside the house.

  Two men leaped out, strapped with shoulder-harnessed machine guns. Balaclavas hid their faces. They wore black tactical gear and Kevlar vests stitched with three letters: ICE.

  The ICE men advanced in lockstep as they raised their weapons in one swift, synchronous motion, snapping the stocks to their cheeks, picking their targets through their iron sights.

  The boys bolted toward the back of the house.

  Too late.

  Machine-gun barrels flashed like strobe lights in the dark. The air split with the roar of their gunfire.

  The first rounds tore into the lead runner, then raked into the backs of the guys right behind him. They tumbled to the pavement in a heap like broken marionettes.

  The gunmen advanced toward the porch, firing at the big picture window. The plate glass exploded. Panicked shouts inside.

  In sync, the shooters loaded new fifty-round drum mags and fired at the house. Steel-jacketed bullets sliced through the walls, throwing big chunks of soft pink stucco into the air. One of the rounds smashed the party stereo, killing the music inside.

  The shooters dropped their empty mags again and loaded two more. They advanced shoulder to shoulder onto the porch, the machine-gun stocks still tight to their faces. Gloved hands tossed flash bangs through the shattered picture window. The concussion grenades cracked like lightning.

  Bodies on the floor writhed in blood and glass. The killers jammed their machine guns through the window frame and cut loose until the ammo gave out and the barrels smoked with heat.

  Three hundred rounds. Eighteen seconds. Not bad.

  Grinning behind their masks, the two shooters high-fived each other, then scrambled back into the Hummer. They slammed the doors shut as the vehicle rocketed away, tires screeching. The roar of the machine guns and the shrieking death-metal music disappeared with it. The night was finally quiet around the little pink house.

  Except for the screaming inside.

  2

  Mogadishu, Somalia

  Colonel Joseph Moi took his daily afternoon nap from exactly 3:15 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. It kept him sharp late into the evening when he usually did his whoring. It also gave him a reason to stay out of the withering sunlight boiling his troops in the compound outside.

  The colonel’s sleep was abruptly interrupted when his silenced cell phone vibrated on the nightstand like a coping saw on a piece of tin. His conscious mind rose through the thick waves of REM sleep just enough to guide his hand to the phone and shut it off. Gratefully, the practiced maneuver spared him any significant mental effort and he was able to slip back down into the depths of perfect slumber, noting the faint breeze beating gently on his face from an overhead fan.

  Then his cell phone rang.

  Pain furrowed his angular face. Once again, his mind had been dragged into semiconsciousness, but now it was attended by a splitting headache. He’d been robbed of precious sleep. Rage flooded over him.

  Who the hell is calling?

  He forced his heavy eyes open.

  It suddenly occurred to him that it wasn’t possible for the phone to be ringing like this. He’d put it on silent, as always, just moments before he lay down, and when it vibrated earlier, he’d silenced it again.

  Strange.

  Moi rolled over and snagged the phone off of the nightstand. The number read UNKNOWN.

  That was stranger still. Only two people had the number to this particular phone and they were both well known to him.

  The first was General Muwanga, the overbearing Ugandan army officer in charge of the African Uni
on military district to which Moi’s command theoretically reported. That was a phone call he would have to take despite its inevitable unpleasantness.

  The other was Sir Reginald Harris, the English lord and bleeding-heart administrator of a charitable family trust, but that would have been a very enjoyable phone call to receive. Harris would have rung him up only if he was ready to pay the additional “security fees” Colonel Moi demanded in order to release the shipment of corn soya blend (CSB) the trust had shipped to Mogadishu two weeks ago. Harris’s CSB shipment was intended for three thousand starving Somali children at a refugee camp one hundred kilometers toward the northwest.

  Colonel Moi’s compound was strategically located in one of the least inhabited suburbs of Somalia’s capital city. As the commander of a unit of Kenyan troops assigned to AMISOM (the African Union Mission in Somalia), Colonel Moi’s responsibility was to ensure the safe transport of much-needed foodstuffs from Mogadishu’s revitalized deepwater port to the hinterland where famine had once again displaced over one million starving Somalis.

  The Islamist al-Shabaab militia had reinfiltrated Mogadishu recently despite the best efforts of the African Union forces that battled against them in an attempt to give the Somali Transitional Federal Government time to reestablish functioning democratic institutions in the world’s most infamous failed state. At the moment, the Shabaab militia posed the greatest threat to the safe delivery of food.

  But not in Moi’s sector. His command had completely cowed the Shabaab, thanks to Moi’s aggressive tactics. Or at least that’s what Colonel Moi reported to the Western aid organizations that coordinated deliveries through him. Moi cultivated the extremely profitable fiction for naive outsiders. The Shabaab left Moi alone because he paid them in hard currency, not because they were afraid of him.

 

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