In order to slide the disassembled UAV out of the plane, the right side door had to be removed. The UAV’s separate wing section and fuselage were stowed from the extreme end of the cargo area, up between the headrests of the rear seats. Logan used a small hammer and a drift punch to tap the pins up out of their hinges while Alex held the door steady. When the hinges were free, he set the door carefully on the ground. Logan tilted the right side seats all the way forward and down, and gently maneuvered the long UAV components out of the plane.
Both men immediately went to work assembling the UAV, while Ranya stood guard with her Dragunov. The bottoms of the drone parts were painted sky blue, their tops were coyote brown. The wing section fit into a notch across the top of the fuselage, forming a cross, and was bolted in place. A pair of wheels was attached in front, and then the propeller, rudder and elevator were quickly installed. In twenty minutes, the Pelican UAV was ready for flight, and the men were running systems checks. The UAV came with a pair of laptops, a remote control console, and a UHF radio and whip antenna for its telemetry and video links. When the electronics were powered up, they were able to pan and tilt the video camera protruding from the belly of the little plane, and swing the rudder and elevators from side to side and up and down.
***
As an assistant dean of admissions at the University of New Mexico, Inez Ibarra Trejo could have used the perfectly adequate gym right on campus. Nevertheless, the trim fifty year old made the two-mile drive downtown to the elite Club De La Buena Salud women’s fitness center every weekday at lunchtime.
The reason that she rarely missed her workouts was because the private women’s club was one of Albuquerque’s most productive sources of useful high-level gossip. Besides being a dean at the university, Inez Trejo was also a clandestine member of Felix Magón’s secret Revolutionary Council.
Today she fiddled with the Nautilus machines, pretending to work on her shoulders, while listening carefully to a conversation between two of her acquaintances. Family Court Judge Galatea Obregon was pedaling a stationary bicycle next to her unlikely friend Frederica Chupatintas, who was the second in charge of the FBI’s local Field Office.
Inez Trejo knew that Chupatintas also had a perfectly fine gym to use in the Federal Building only two blocks away, but she frequently complained that the male-dominated venue presented a “hostile environment,” and said that she felt more comfortable at the all-female and Latina-oriented Club de la Buena Salud. Comrade Inez assumed incorrectly that Chupatintas also belonged to the club in order to pick up useful human intelligence, but in fact, that rationale had never crossed the woman’s blissfully naive mind.
Neither lady was putting much effort into cycling; instead, they were engrossed in office chitchat. Both women were wearing stylish pastel-colored warm-up suits, which could not conceal that Chupatintas had skinny stork-legs, or that Galatea Obregon had a culo like two sacks of cement, and thighs to match. Even though she was almost a decade older than these two women, Inez Trejo took satisfaction from knowing that she was still in better shape than either of them, despite a few extra lines on her face, and her graying hair.
Inez was half-following some story of FBI office politics, but when she heard one of the names being discussed, she choked out a gasp and let go of her lat bar, causing the small stack of chrome weights to come crashing down. The name she overheard was Alexandro Garabanda! She quickly moved over to the curling machine, just a few feet behind the stationary bicycles, where she could hear every word.
“Oh, he’s not really such a bad guy,” said Frederica Chupatintas. “Who knows, maybe this diversity workshop will do him some good. It might broaden his horizons.”
“I don’t know,” replied the judge. “These gay-bashers only take the training because they have to. It’s never from the heart. A week in Santa Fe doesn’t change them—it just teaches them how to be better at pretending.”
“Well, even if they’re pretending, isn’t that an improvement?”
“Maybe. We’ll see in six months, when I review their case.”
“His ex-wife moved to San Diego, you know.”
“Of course I know—I approved it. She’s marrying her girlfriend, the one who whacked him at the picnic.”
Chupatintas said, “I’m not sorry that she’s gone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-gay all the way, but that Gretchen Bosch was one scary chick.”
“That’s quite a value judgment, Frederica,” the judge said in a mildly scolding tone. “At least their little boy will be raised without all of that heterosexist baggage. Say, did you know that he was adopted? I’ve seen the original documents—it’s really quite the soap opera. Brian Garabanda’s birth mother was a gringo traitor, an Arab terrorist! But all of the records are sealed, so Brian will never know he was adopted.”
“His mother was an Arab terrorist? You’re joking!”
“No, for real. Her name is Ranya Bardiwell, she’s Lebanese.”
“You’re right, that does sound like a telenovela,” tittered Chupatintas. “So, what do you think the odds are of Garabanda ever getting visitation rights again? Believe me Galatea, he’s far from the worst of the male agents I’ve dealt with.”
“Hmm…realistically? I’d say very slim. Slim to none. It won’t help Brian’s social development to shuttle back and forth between two stable lesbian parents, and a bitter, heterosexist male father figure. Besides, Alexandro Garabanda’s not his biological father anyway. There’s no blood connection, so Brian won’t really be missing anything.”
Their conversation continued, but Inez Trejo didn’t hear it, couldn’t follow it. Ranya Bardiwell and Alexandro Garabanda, mentioned in the same conversation! The last time Comrade Inez had seen Ranya Bardiwell, the Arab girl’s mettle was being tested against a wall, by Comandante Guzman’s staged firing squad. The only time that she had ever seen Alexandro Garabanda was in the surveillance photographs from the cemetery, the ones that she had passed on to Basilio Ramos. These photos had led to the Jewish traitor Luis Carvahal being burned at the stake after the Rally for Social Justice. In her wildest dreams, she would not have imagined a connection between Bardiwell and Garabanda. This would require closer scrutiny, much closer.
***
When they were satisfied with the UAV, the pilot looked straight up at the patch of blue between the trees, and then checked his watch. “Al, it’s only 12:30. Do you want to wait awhile, or put her up now? We’ve got weather coming in this afternoon, what do you think? Fly now, or wait? It might be too early. We might miss some of the jets if they’re not all here yet…but on the other hand, we don’t want to get caught by bad weather.”
“We can bring it back and refuel it, can’t we?”
“Sure, I guess so, but the longer it’s up, the greater the chance of being compromised, one way or the other. And if we wait too long, we might get stuck in here if the weather turns nasty.”
“How high over the place is it going to fly?” asked Alex. “You’re sure they won’t see it, right?”
“Pelicans should be 8,000 feet higher than the people they’re spying on. Any lower than 6,000 feet above ground level, and there’s a chance it might be spotted. Remember, the ranch is already at 6,000, so we’re really talking about flying 14,000 feet above sea level.”
“So if it’s at 8,000 over the ground, it won’t be seen or heard?”
“Above ground level, yeah, that’s right. They won’t see it. But the downlink transmission…that’s another story. They might catch it, depending on what they’re using up there at Vedado. Most scanners won’t pick it up, it’s pretty damn tricky. It frequency hops and transmits in bursts, all of that good stuff. It was made for the military.”
“But even so, they still might catch it?”
Logan stared at the drone, and then glanced up at Alex. “You have to assume so. There’s always a chance. We don’t know what kind of electronic warfare gear they’re using up at Vedado.”
“Then let’s fly now. Let’s
just get it done. Let’s go see who’s there.”
The Pelican’s miniature rotary engine was chosen for its silky smooth running, and when the little plane went zipping down the road, it was surprisingly quiet. Alex and Logan walked behind the taxiing drone until it was clear of the trees, and set for its takeoff run. Logan made final checks of the plane, the radio transmitter and his controls, lined the drone up perfectly by hand, and then looked at Alex and said, “That’s it. She’s ready.”
“Okay then, let’s do it.”
After tearing down the road at full power for no more than 75 yards, Logan used his remote control “stick” to lift the Pelican into the air, its powerful gas motor dragging it aloft at a steep angle. When it was clear of the immediate obstacles around the old mining camp, he switched from manual control to a programmed ascent.
The plane was quickly lost from sight, corkscrewing up into the sky to its predetermined operational altitude, before it set off on the 14-mile flight to its station above the Vedado Ranch Conference Center, Wayne Parker’s mansion, and his mile-long jet runway. It needed no further input from the ground after Logan sent its flight plan. Until it was given new commands, it would fly at the ordered altitude and then orbit above the GPS coordinates that were already programmed into its microchip brain.
The two men walked back down the lane into the woods and climbed into the Cessna, where the laptops and the radio could be run off the airplane’s power supply. Only the system’s whip antenna remained outside, connected by a white coaxial cable. On one side of Logan’s screen they could see the UAV’s current position and flight data, overlaid on a color GPS map. On the other half of the screen, digital representations of an altimeter, compass, air speed indicator and other displays gave the appearance of a virtual cockpit instrument panel.
On the second laptop, they could see the Pelican’s camera-eye view in live streaming color video. This screen also showed the key flight information, in text and numbers overlaying the camera view. Both lap-tops could toggle between any of the screens, as desired, so that both men could see the same images. In twenty minutes the Pelican arrived over its first target, the Vedado Ranch’s six thousand foot jet-capable runway.
Ranya remained standing outside the Cessna with her Dragunov rifle, providing their security. Besides the ten rounds in her rifle, she had two extra loaded magazines in her leather fanny pack, which she wore toward the front. If trouble found them, the Dragunov was their most powerful weapon.
***
Mommy and Gretchen were in the other room, with the door closed. That meant they wanted “private time,” and he should not bother them unless the house was on fire. That’s what Gretchen had told him a long time ago: not unless the house was on fire. And she meant it too. Once when they were having private time, she had come out in her bath robe with a very scary red face, shouting at him to shut up and stop crying. So even though they weren’t in a real house, Brian knew that he should not do anything that was loud while they were having private time.
Brian was watching Sponge Bob on the television in the living room, but boring commercials came on, and he got up from the carpet and walked over to his toy bag, the one that he packed back in Albakirky. He had already played with everything in the bag ten times. He looked out of the big sliding windows at Sandy Eggo. He liked that name, even though he had seen a lot of signs and he knew that it was spelled San Diego. He was a good speller, but he still thought Sandy Eggo was a better name.
The two glass doors were not locked, and he could go out on the little patio if he wanted to. He didn’t, because the little patio scared him to death. Out there, it was very windy all the time. He could look through the railings straight down at the street, down to where the cars looked smaller than Hot Wheels, and people looked like little bugs.
Brian knew that Spiderman wouldn’t be afraid. Spiderman could swing right down the side of this building, and across the street to the other tall buildings. But Spiderman could shoot sticky spider webs out of his hands, and Brian could not.
They were just staying in this place for a week or two, that’s what mommy said. Then they were going to get a real house, but with green grass and not just pebbles like in Albakirky. Brian didn’t like being so far up in the sky. It didn’t scare him, except outside on the balcony. He just didn’t like it. Yesterday they drove over a bridge across Sandy Eggo Bay that was even higher than this building. Through the big windows, he could see part of the Bay, and even over to the ocean, but not that high bridge.
Through the windows, he could see lots of other tall buildings, and between them, there were airplanes flying on their way down to the Sandy Eggo airport. They all went the same way, from the right side to the left side. They were flying so low, sometimes they were flying lower than the buildings. They flew right over a highway full of cars, and then they landed. The pilots had to be really good pilots, to always land on the runway, and miss all of those buildings. Airplane pilot was a good job, one of the best, almost as good as astronaut or FBI Agent.
Brian knew that his Daddy flew in airplanes a lot. Sometimes he flew in small airplanes, when he was doing FBI work, catching crooks. He flew in the big airplanes with lots of people on them when he traveled to cities that were far away, as far away as Sandy Eggo was from Albakirky. He flew on airplanes just like these airplanes that were landing all day long, one after the other. The airplanes were close enough to see clearly, but far enough away that he could hold out his pointer finger, and his finger was bigger than the airplane. He wondered if his Daddy was on one of those airplanes that were landing every minute.
He had not seen him since that day they went to the toy store, except for a minute on the playground by his old house. He wondered if his Daddy missed him, as much as he missed his Daddy. He wondered if his Daddy had already forgotten about him, and that made him hurt inside, that made him feel like crying. He wished that he knew his Daddy’s phone number. Mommy left her pocketbook on the low table in the middle of the room, and her little silver phone was in it. Brian wished that he could remember his Daddy’s phone number. But it was no good wishing. He didn’t know how to use Mommy’s silver phone, and he didn’t know his Daddy’s phone number.
He just hoped that his Daddy was in one of those airplanes that were landing every minute. He hoped his Daddy would come to Sandy Eggo and get him.
30
“I count fourteen,” said Alex Garabanda. “What kind are they?” His laptop’s screen showed a long line of corporate jets parked nose to tail on the taxiway, which ran parallel to the wider asphalt runway.
Logan, sitting in the pilot’s seat with the other computer on his lap, operated the drone’s camera with input commands. The picture zoomed in until only one jet at a time was visible on the screen. A white cursor in the shape of a cross appeared on the ground. He could move it with laptop’s touch pad, and then command the camera to aim at the designated spot. The Pelican was not flying directly over the runway, but was filming slantwise from an angle. “Hmm…the first one is Gulfstream G-100, that’s a 9 seater. Last time I checked, they go for over two hundred million blue bucks. Nice clear tail number, can you read it?”
“I got it.” The plane’s “tail number” was actually painted on the side of the jet engines, which were located on either side of the fuselage, between the wings and the tail. Garabanda copied the plane’s number onto a notepad, as a backup in case anything happened to the computers, which were saving all of the transmitted imagery.
“But how are you going to know who came on it? The number will just tell you the corporation that owns the jet, and most of them are probably just charters anyway.”
“Don’t worry, Logan, I’ll find out who the VIPs are. That’ll be easy.”
“I hope so—otherwise this is all a waste of time. Okay, the next one is a Cessna Citation. Hard to believe the same company made this Centurion. You get the number?”
“Got it.”
“There must be a couple billion blu
e bucks worth of private jets down there today,” said the pilot.
“I guess it’s not every day you have a dozen friends drop in for lunch…in their own jets.”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve been places and seen thirty or forty private jets stacked up like this. Palm Springs, the Super Bowl, the Key Largo Club… Alex, the jet set have their own world. We just live in it, but we don’t count, not really. We’re so far beneath them, that we’re too small to notice. We’re like the ants under their feet.”
“Except for today,” observed Garabanda. “Today, they’re below us for once.”
Logan continued moving the ground image down the runway, past the hangars along the eastern end. “Look, four Blackhawks. That would be the security, I suppose.” The four-bladed helicopters were lined up abreast, their tails toward the side of the main hangar. This was at the end of the runway closest to the mansion, which was built on higher ground two miles away.
“The Blackhawks belong to the state guard,” noted Logan. “I’ll switch the radio to the cockpit speaker. If they go on alert, we’ll hear it on the scanner.”
“Those guys must be the Falcon Battalion,” said Alex. “Ranya was right.” He looked outside of the Cessna to where she stood watch, the Dragunov held horizontally at waist level, its weight supported by the peculiar necktie sling around the back of her neck. She was taking her job seriously, walking around the plane, looking in all directions. Her back was presently turned toward him, and with some pleasure he noted her long legs, and the sweet swelling of her hips below the narrowness of her waist, and the roundness of her—
Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista Page 52