Ring of Fire

by Brad Taylor

  Tariq unlocked the door, and Anwar was torn between running into the house to see the splendor and tearing into the box. Tariq said, “Get settled first. I’ll bring the drone in.”

  A childlike smile on his face, Anwar ran inside, seeing the sunken den and the ceiling fans. He whooped and ran to a bedroom, coming out seconds later. He said, “Sorry. I see that one’s taken. Where’s my room?”

  Tariq smiled and said, “The next one over. It’s just as good, only a little smaller.”

  Anwar ran into it, and Tariq waited. When he didn’t come back out, Tariq went to the room, finding Anwar working the jets on the bathtub.

  He said, “You can use that after the work is done. We have a lot to do.”

  Anwar nodded, refocusing on the mission. He said, “You have the explosives?”

  “Yes. In the closet.”

  Anwar went back into the den and opened the box. He pulled out the pieces to a quadcopter drone, much larger than the pathetic one he’d used in Nevada. Able to carry close to a fifteen-pound payload, it was made for surveying power lines and industrial facilities and making Hollywood movies. With a user-defined software capability and a dual control panel that allowed simultaneous manipulation of the camera and the drone, it was state of the art.

  Something Anwar could only dream of. The closest he’d ever come were pictures on the Internet.

  He said, “Did you get the laptop as well?”

  “Yes. It’s on the kitchen table. But why do you want to manipulate the software? From what I’ve seen on the brochure, you can’t make this thing fly any better.”

  Anwar went to the laptop and said, “We have Wi-Fi?”

  “Yes, I paid for that, as you asked. Why?”

  Anwar booted up the system and said, “Our drone is powerful, but it has a weaknesss. I can send it on a GPS track, which requires the drone to receive a GPS signal, or I can fly it with my control panel, which requires the drone to receive my radio signal. Both of those are vulnerabilities that the government has worked to overcome. Make no mistake, when this thing is seen, it will be targeted. They will try to block both signals. So, what we need is a third way to fly the drone.”

  He started typing on the computer, pulling up one weird website after another.

  Tariq said, “What third way?”

  “Facial recognition. There are a bunch of PhD students here in the US who have developed facial recognition software, trying to get drones to follow a certain person by his facial features alone. Some of the software algorithms are good; others are a waste of time. They’re students, after all, but the good thing is they want to brag about what they’ve done, so they put the software on the net. I found one open-source experiment called, appropriately enough, Predator. And I want to load that into the drone.”

  “Wait, you want to load the man’s face into the drone? And it will chase him?”

  Anwar laughed and said, “No. We aren’t at the Skynet level yet. Most of these are built on certain characteristics that have to remain, like a hand in a pocket or a specific vehicle. Hard things that don’t change.”

  He typed on the computer, and Tariq said, “What ‘hard thing’ are you looking for?”

  Anwar turned the computer around and said, “This. I get the software installed, and it will fly to this at sixty kilometers an hour.”

  On the screen, Tariq saw the Great Seal of the United States.

  82

  We reached the crest of the Ravenel Bridge and I could see activity at the Yorktown. A ton of people milling around the parking lot, probably here for some sort of conference. Built in World War II, it was actually the second carrier to bear that name, the first being sunk at the Battle of Midway. It now housed a Medal of Honor museum as well as all sorts of naval aviation artifacts, and was rented out for conferences and other events. Jennifer and I had been to it a couple of times, when we were spending a lazy Saturday looking for something to do.

  Jennifer took a right off Coleman Boulevard onto Patriots Point Road and began to wind down toward the end, where the cottages were located. I knew Kurt said not to do anything, but just driving by wasn’t something I’d call “operational.”

  We passed the College of Charleston sports fields, then a sign proclaiming helicopter rides, one of the few things I hadn’t done in Charleston.

  It was one of those rinky-dink three-seater helicopters that looked like it had been built with toy parts and flew damn near every day, going back and forth giving tours of the harbor for about fifty bucks, and landing literally in a patch of grass next to the parking lot for the Yorktown.

  We went through the first traffic circle and ran into a phalanx of security at the lot’s entrance. At first, I thought it was the “high alert” call that Kurt had made, and that they were taking no chances about anyone trying to harm the carrier, but as we drove by I saw it was something else. There were too many people running around with suits and earpieces. Not something I would expect from port security.

  They’d created an open lane for folks like us just trying to drive by, and had a uniformed policeman controlling traffic. We went by the mess of security and returned to the quiet, tree-lined drive.

  My phone rang, and I saw it was Kurt. I told Jennifer to pull over, then to call Knuckles behind us, telling him the same.

  “Hey, sir, give me some good news.”

  “Are you on the ground? Right now?”

  I lied, “Yes, I’m headed to my office just up the road from the cottages on Coleman Boulevard.”

  “Pike, it’s not good news. Not good at all. I just hung up the phone with the president—”

  I cut him off, saying, “He didn’t authorize the operation? After everything I’ve done to save his ass?”

  “Quit interrupting!”

  The comment was sharp, and uncharacteristic of him. I said, “Yes, sir,” and shut up. He said, “Yes, he authorized the operation. What’s not good is that he’s on the campaign trail, and he’s giving a speech on the Yorktown today.”

  That’s explains the security.

  He continued, “We don’t know if this was just a coincidence with what you discovered in Norfolk, but we found no connections between the Saudi shipping firm and anything coming to the Port of Charleston. It’s too dangerous to ignore. I have to call him back right now, because the secret service is spinning up the counterassault team.”

  “You have the location?”

  “Yes. Tariq rented it under his true name. It was child’s play for Creed to get into their database. It’s cottage number nine, in the back. Can you hit it?”

  “In about five minutes. Don’t let the CAT launch. We have control of the target. The last thing I want is a friendly-fire incident.”

  “Will do. I have to get back to the president. He’s on the ground as well and is due to speak in thirty minutes.”

  “Got it, sir. Call you in a few.”

  I said, “Everyone in Knuckles’s van, now. Jennifer, bring the tablet.”

  Jennifer, Veep, and I ran back to Knuckles’s rental van and crammed inside. In as brief a time as I could, I explained the situation, ending with, “We’re hitting it right now. Jennifer, bring up the satellite view of the cottages. Veep, get out a notebook and hand it to Jennifer.”

  She did as I asked, then gave me the tablet. I said, “Sketch out the floor plan of the cottage we stayed in.”

  I pulled up the satellite image, showing a line of cottages with a view of the harbor, then the rental office, then three more cottages surrounding a small lake with a fountain. Number nine was the farthest away and butted up against woods behind it. To the east was some sort of bike trail or service drive running right up to the side of the target cottage.

  I said, “Okay, we park up high, away from the rental office, and use this service road, going in on foot. We’ll breach the back of the house. Jennif
er and Carly, you’re squirter control. Take pistols only. Jennifer, you lock down the front, facing the lake. Carly, you lock down the back, just in case someone jumps out a window after we enter.”

  Carly said, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Prevent anyone from escaping, using lethal force if you have to. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked confident, so I didn’t press. I said, “Okay, plan’s changed from what we discussed on the plane down. No more explosive breach. We do that, and we’ll get a response immediately from the clusterfuck of security for the president. We go mechanical. Veep, you have the Bam-Bam. Order of march is Knuckles, me, Retro, then Veep.” I paused and said, “Jennifer, you done?”

  She handed me her sketch, and I laid it on the seat. “All of the cottages are the same; the only differences are the decorations and trim.” I pointed, “A central den, an open kitchen off of it, and two bedrooms. We go in, clear the den and kitchen, then hit the bedrooms, two men each, first come, first served. No stealth here, boys. I want speed and violence. Remember, it’s a daylight hit, so we don’t spend any time getting set. We get within the sphere of observation of the house, and we assume we’ve been compromised. Any questions?”

  Veep said, “Weapons? I don’t really want to do this with a Glock.”

  I laughed and said, “Me either. We’ll use the .300 Blackout, but we go in concealed, which means a jacket.”

  The .300 was an integrally suppressed short-barreled rifle built on the AR platform that fired subsonic ammunition, making it extremely quiet when used. It had a stock that folded over at the charging handle, making it pretty compact, but not invisible. We had harnesses that would allow it to be concealed in the armpit, but it required something to cover it, which would look mildly strange in the Charleston heat.

  The system wasn’t designed to be something that could infiltrate a security force looking for a threat—more like concealing the fact that you had a weapon from someone across the street, at night—but it beat trying to walk down that service road with our rifles at port arms.

  I said, “Kit up. I want to be moving in less than five minutes. We’ll travel in a single vehicle.”

  Three minutes later, we were rolling. Jennifer went through a traffic circle, then pulled over, bouncing up on the sidewalk. To our left was the service drive, a broken strip of asphalt leading through the trees. I said, “Everyone ready?”

  I got a thumbs-up, and we exited the van, quickly getting into the tree line. We moved at a rapid clip, in a wedge formation with Knuckles on point. I knew everyone wanted to bring out their weapons—because I did—but the lake to our right gave an unobstructed view from the other cottages.

  We reached the fountain at the head of the lake, and I could see the front porch of the cottage across. Knuckles held up a fist, and we stopped. He said, “This is last covered and concealed.”

  I nodded and said, “Carly, Jennifer, get in position. Call when you’re set. Keep the guns out of sight unless you need them.”

  They began walking together, but about fifty meters up, I saw them split, Carly going to the left, and Jennifer to the right.

  We waited, then heard, “Koko set,” followed by “Carly set.” Off the radio, I said, “We really need to give her a callsign.” On the net, I said, “Roger, here we come.”

  We broke out our rifles, snapping the stocks in place, then waited a beat while Veep opened up the handles of the Bam-Bam.

  A miniature battering ram, it looked like a twelve-inch section of a wooden six-by-six but was made of steel, with folding handles on top.

  He slung his weapon across his chest and got both hands on the handles. I said, “Knuckles, on your command.”

  83

  Knuckles nodded, and we began walking forward with our weapons at the ready. The minute Knuckles caught a glimpse of a window from the target, he assumed that anyone on the other side could see him, and broke into a sprint. We followed directly behind him.

  Knuckles turned the corner of the cottage and sprang up the steps two at a time, locking down the back door with his rifle. I came up behind him, putting a barrel on the window to his right. Retro did the same to the window on the left. Veep was last.

  He shattered the deadbolt with the battering ram, splintering the doorjamb and flinging the door open.

  Knuckles sprinted in, barrel high, with me right behind him. He went left, and I went right. I heard Veep and Retro following behind. The den was empty, and so was the kitchen. We raced to the bedrooms, me and Veep on the first one, Knuckles and Retro on the second. It wasn’t planned, but we kicked the doors in like synchronized swimmers.

  They were empty.

  My bedroom had a cheap backpack and some clothes, but nothing else. Knuckles’s had another suitcase, with additional clothes that were clearly more expensive.

  We returned to the den, and I saw a box next to the couch. I went to it and realized it was a FedEx delivery container. Inside was a smaller box, for an industrial-strength personal drone.

  Knuckles said, “Pike, over here.”

  I went to the kitchen and saw him holding up wires and a silver tube about the size of a cigarette. I said, “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yep. It’s a blasting cap.”

  I said, “Veep, go through that box and get the manual for the drone. I need to know its specs—specifically, how much can it carry, how long can it fly, and what’s its operational distance from the controller.”

  I called Kurt. He answered on the first ring.

  “What did you find?”

  “Sir, it’s a dry hole, but they were here. We must have missed them by minutes. There’s a box for a commercial drone, and we found evidence of explosives. He’s built another flying bomb.”

  “My God.”

  “Tell the president to cancel the speech.”

  Kurt said, “It’s going to start in about five minutes. Stand by.”

  He hung up, and I said, “Veep, what do you have?”

  “It’s pretty robust. With a ten-pound payload, it can stay aloft for twenty minutes. The more weight you add, the less time of flight. Its max payload is fifteen pounds. Its radius of flight is a little over a thousand meters.”

  My phone rang again, “Pike, he’s not leaving the stage.”

  “What? Whose stupid idea is that? Call him yourself. Someone is looking at this with campaign optics instead of national security.”

  “That was from him. He said that, as the president, he wouldn’t flee the scene, leaving the crowd in danger.”

  “Then get the fucking crowd off the boat.”

  “Impossible. They’re packed in like cattle, and the only ways off the ship are narrow, one-person stairwells. Even if we got them off, they have a hundred-meter walk down the pier to the parking lot. The president thinks that if he leaves, they’ll become a target of opportunity that his secret service detail can’t possibly protect. If he stays, he’ll be the target. Best case, the secret service can protect him. Worst case, only he and his detail will take the attack.”

  “Sir, that’s very courageous of him. Not to be callous, but losing the president of the United States is a hell of a lot worse than losing some of his supporters.”

  “Pike, it’s not my call. Find them and make the whole thing a moot point.”

  “Sir, I have nothing to go on. They could be anywhere.” Then I thought of the range of the drone and some other unique vulnerabilities.

  I said, “Sir, there’s a helicopter that’s flying tours just outside the parking lot for the Yorktown. I need the most senior agent you can find for the secret service detail. Tell him to meet me there right now. If anyone gives you pushback, tell the president to order it.”

  He said, “That didn’t take long. What did you figure out?”

  “Nothing just yet, but I have an
idea. Get the agent there, or I’m going to have to use a gun.”

  “He’s on the way as soon as I hang up.”

  I pocketed the phone and said, “Everyone back to the van, now.”

  We collapsed and stowed our weapons on the run, reaching the van in seconds. I said, “Veep, you drive. Go to that helicopter launchpad.”

  He slid behind the wheel and I said, “Carly, Jennifer, you’re going up in the helo. The drone has a range just outside of a kilometer, and it has to fly from an open space. They won’t be launching it from inside the forest. Take some binos and go spot him. Do a cloverleaf until you’re either out of gas or the damn drone has struck.”

  Knuckles said, “Pike, with a klick range they could be launching from the other side of the river, on the Charleston peninsula.”

  “Yeah, they could, but if they were going to do that, why get a cottage on this side? No, I think they’re close. Probably at one of the soccer or softball fields up the road. Jennifer, find some boundaries on the map that you can ID from the air. Go no further than fifteen hundred meters.”

  I returned to Knuckles. “When they find the target, you guys are going to launch to interdict.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “See what sort of security the secret service has for drones. Do whatever I can to increase the odds of stopping it.”

  Veep pulled up to the little shed advertising the tours, and I saw at least two families with children, and one guy wearing a suit with an earpiece cable running down the collar of his shirt.

  I jumped out with Carly and Jennifer following. I said, “Secret service?”

  He nodded, looking at me warily. He said, “They told me you were, too.”

  “I’m the supersecret service. I need to use your badge to commandeer that helicopter.”

  “What?”

  “You heard about the possible threat against the president?” He nodded, and I said, “I need aerial observation to find it, so unless you have a helicopter jammed up your ass, get your badge out.”