Game of Drones

by Rick Jones

  “And the Reaper itself?”

  “Taken down by the remaining fighter. But the drone had completely exhausted its payload by then--both Hellfires and both remoras.”

  The president steadied his eyes on the screen. That meant Shazad had four Predators and ten MAUVs left at his disposal, and an infinite amount of targets to choose from. “Are we getting anything from the Internet? Any insurgent chatter that could lead us to Shazad and his team?”

  This was specifically directed to the NSA and CIA personnel, those responsible for national security abroad. But the answers were the same: None at this time, Mr. President; we’re getting little from our sources, Sir; there doesn’t seem to be any reactionary response, Mr. President.

  Not a thing, Mr. President.

  Not . . . a single . . . thing.

  He never felt so powerless in his life. The drone was a dead end. He willed himself to keep his team moving, to keep looking for something they might be able to latch onto. He'd learned long ago during his political rise not to get too bogged down in the details. Let his people handle the technical crap--MUAVs and whatnot. Follow the big picture and you can't go wrong.

  “Zawahiri's the focus of all this," he came up with. "What’s his status?” Carmichael directed his gaze to the Director of the CIA.

  Marsden Manetti's appearance could be summed up with a single color: he always sported a gray suit, gray tie, and gray shoes to go along with his gray hair and eyes. In the decade or so he'd known him, Carmichael had never seen the CIA top dog with a beard, and he suspected it was because it, too, would be gray. A concession to overkill. Even without the beard, though, Manetti had occasionally been teased about his color scheme (the women tittering something about Fifty Shades), but his response was always the same: "The world is not black and white." Indeed, Carmichael thought as he watched his Central Intelligence director begin to respond.

  “We think that Pakistani officials are debating whether to hand him over to us. They’re apprehensive since al-Qaeda started verbalizing threats. So far, I'd say their commitment to this matter is tenuous at best.”

  “What’s the point of having the eighth largest army in the world if you’re not going to utilize it? They need to make a stand and not be bullied.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me, Mr. President, but that is where they stand. As best we can tell, at least some of their political elite are mulling over the pros and cons of the situation, now that al-Qaeda has reared its head.”

  “But they had to know al-Qaeda would get involved, yes?”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “Then get on the phone or the video line and push back. Tell them that we need Zawahiri in our custody and we need them to stop playing games.”

  “Very well, Mr. President.”

  Carmichael eyeballed his table monitor, where a list of key points now magically waited to trigger his impromptu agenda. He supposed Wilcox, his DNI man, put them there earlier when he was afraid he might be unsure how to proceed. The president noted with grim satisfaction that he'd already addressed what Wilcox saw as the number one point--al-Zawahiri. With Manetti now tasked with acting on that, he moved down a progressively unpleasant bulleted list.

  “I assume that Shazad has yet to call in his demands? Which we anticipate to be the release of Zawahiri?”

  Simon fielded this. “No demands yet, Mr. President. It’s our belief that Aasif Shazad is flexing his muscles to demonstrate to us--and the world--that he’s on top.”

  President Carmichael closed his eyes and inwardly cringed. Shazad was sitting at the top of the food chain defecating on the U.S. with malicious amusement. Meanwhile it was he--the POTUS--who was relegated to a godforsaken hole in the ground, hiding in a fucking cave like bin Laden had been forced to do when the U.S. had relentlessly pursued him in the wake of nine-eleven. How quickly the tables have turned.

  He consulted the flip screen again. “What about the media?” Jesus.

  This time it was Cayne who spoke. “Right now, as they usually do, the news outlets have taken the material we gave them and are running wild with all manner of speculation. Some of the more informed of this holds that the JBAB and the senator’s plane may have been targets of terrorism connected to Zawahiri's capture, but then in the same breath they report how the two events may well be unrelated.”

  “And the state of the citizenry?”

  “They’re scared, Mr. President,” Wilcox said with rigid certainty. “Airspace is closed nationwide, which is only fueling the media's speculative fires. And word may be leaking to the press from credible sources that the attack on the JBAB was at the hands of terrorists, domestic or otherwise. Again, everything is pure conjecture at this point.”

  He hesitated a moment before continuing. “But in the end, you know the truth will come out . . . It could be like nine-eleven all over again.”

  “Which is why I want the Press Secretary to move on this and engage the country with nominal facts about the JBAB. Although I want the nation to prepare itself, I don’t want the people to feel as though the situation is hopeless or unmanageable."

  Carmichael held his breath, silently daring any of his people to utter the question that threatened to burst through his own skull: Isn't it, though? He went on before someone could ask it. "We will ride out this storm, people. I promise you that.”

  He scowled at his flip screen as he fell back into his seat, and then looked at the Director of the FBI with a sidelong glance. After a period of silence, he asked him a single question:

  “Have you spoken with Jenifer Rimaldi concerning your position in this matter?”

  “I have, Mr. President.”

  “And? Since this falls under your purview...”

  Carmichael meant to put Director Casey on the spot, but instead he looked like a man with an ace up his sleeve. A sly grin formed on his face as he answered. “I’m assuming, Mr. President, that I'll be given the wherewithal to utilize whatever resources are necessary to get us out of this mess?”

  President Carmichael gave him a sharp look that said: of course, before articulating his thoughts openly. “Carte blanche, John. You use whatever is available. When it comes to national security on this threat, then you--and this goes for anyone else sitting at this table-- draw upon whatever it is you have at your fingertips, as long as it spells out success.”

  John Casey nodded and forced himself to subdue that sly grin. He just happened to have--at his fingertips, he thought, already reaching for his smartphone--the perfect solution.

  He had Tanner Wilson.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bethesda, Maryland

  An outcast.

  Tanner Wilson held no illusions about what he was. Thirty-six years old, the former FBI man had served two years as a field operative and then twelve more as a Special Agent in Counter-terrorism (CT). His case exploits were the stuff of legend in the Bureau's hallowed halls. He had an uncanny knack for achieving results, albeit at the expense of rule breaking. Due to his stellar record of results, however, the top brass had tolerated it.

  But last year, Tanner had become the target of a trumped-up internal investigation for alleged sexual harassment. When Internal Affairs Division pushed and pushed hard, Tanner shoved back, angering high-ranking administrators with the exception of Director John Casey, who favored overlooking his transgressions with an eye toward preserving Tanner’s incredible potential as a clandestine operator and prospective team leader. But when unfounded accusations and insinuations continued to surface regarding his alleged guilt, even Casey had been unable to smooth things over and Tanner eventually resigned. Not because he couldn't fight for himself. But because in the meantime, he could no longer be effective at his actual job. He only knew one way to get it done, and that was to do it right. With the constant distractions of his personal investigation, he forced himself to admit that he could no longer do it right, and therefore he shouldn't do it at all. He would break rules but he wouldn't cut corners.

>   At first, when Tanner found himself unemployed for the first time since the age of twenty-two after joining the FBI straight out of college, he had been angry and upset. What was he going to do now? What agency would accept him with this black mark on his record? He had served his country with unquestioning loyalty, and this is what he got in return?

  But as the old expression has it, cream has a way of rising to the top. And the world didn't stop turning because one man had been expunged from the FBI. For those still with the agencies tasked with keeping America safe, their job just got a little bit harder. There was still a lot of terror out there being planned and executed. Tanner soon began to receive phone calls and e-mails--messages from former contacts, some of whom he had never even counted among his friends, surprisingly enough. But terror was a dirty game, and when you thought you knew someone who might be able to help you win it, you tried to get that person on your side, personal opinions be damned.

  Slowly but inexorably, Tanner was either put in touch with or contacted directly by a breed of person more common than he would have guessed--people like him, who had been perfectly qualified former operatives for U.S. agencies, but who were swept away in a tidal wave of hyper-vigilant political correctness and a robotic adherence to a dense litany of ineffective rules, codes, and laws. Nobody cared what you could actually do, how much money had been spent on your training, or that there was a shortage of qualified agents--experienced operators who truly knew what they were doing. If you even allegedly did something that the masses would find "offensive" in the media, then you were out. End of story. Bad publicity outweighs our need for competent agents.

  The first of these people to actually meet with Tanner post-FBI was Stephen Shah, a forty-three-year-old ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Special Agent. He was fired from The Company after bringing a discrimination lawsuit against the agency. He was a man of Middle-Eastern ethnicity who served for two decades with expertise in Arab language and Mid-East operations.

  Second onboard was Danielle Sunderland, thirty-seven, an ex-National Security Agency (NSA) Analyst who was terminated without benefits for using NSA resources to locate information about her child abducted during a custody battle with her ex-husband. She was, by all appearances, frumpy and scholastic-looking, wearing Lennon-like glasses and a short, conservative haircut. Her expertise: fourteen years of experience in computational forensics.

  After meeting with Sunderland and Shah, separately, it occurred to Tanner that between even the three of them, they could do a lot of damage. They had none of the red tape to deal with, no cross-agency roadblocks. They could do what they wanted, when they wanted. He began to think seriously about forming his own unit. And the contacts kept coming, some from unexpected sources.

  One of the most battle-hardened of Tanner’s fledgling outfit was Liam Reilly, twenty-six, an elite special warfare operator and former member of SEAL Team 6, who was dishonorably discharged for writing a book about his role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He stood six-three and was sizeable at the chest and shoulders. It goes without saying that he was superior militaristic fighter, but he was also skilled in the martial arts with notable proficiencies in American Kenpo and Aikido.

  Liam told Tanner about an old friend of his, Chancellor ‘Chance’ Zanetti, who was also a warrior, a former Delta Force operator whose primary tasks were to engage in CT tactics, national intervention operations, and to take part in various high risk missions such as hostage rescues, extractions and clandestine raids. Chance stood at five-eleven with raven hair and eyes so blue that they were both piercing and electric. His body was lean and cut, the man designed for quickness, and he was especially deadly with double-edged weaponry in one-on-one enemy engagements.

  Next into Tanner's world came Naomi Washington, a thirty-six-year-old African-American female and love interest of Chance. She was an ex-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Special Agent who was dismissed after being placed on administrative leave for two years following her role in a whistleblower scandal. She was tall and quite appealing to the eye. With long legs and a tapered waistline that evoked something exotic about her, she moved with great economy. Her skill-set in Tanner’s league was that she had under her belt thirteen years experience as an explosives and arson investigator.

  Tanner wished to keep his team small and agile. He was thinking about not taking anyone else on board when he was introduced to Dante Alvarez, a man whose name was placed in an envelope along with a generous check from a senator who felt Tanner had received the short end of the stick and figured he could ease the pain a little. "Thanks for all your help in the past. I know you'll do good work going forward. Your country needs you more than you know," read a scrawled note on a Post-it.

  So Tanner had proceeded to meet with Alvarez. At thirty-two, the ex-Secret Service Special Agent was dismissed after his involvement in a prostitution scandal abroad. He stood six-five with dark hair and deep brown eyes. His face was long and thin with somewhat of a Simian cast to it. Slim and wiry with ropy muscles, he possessed surprising nimbleness and speed. Alvarez often proved his skills and ability in jujitsu by showcasing his talents in dojo challenges, winning more often than not. At the time of his termination, he had served eleven years as a member of the Presidential Guard detail as well as being a seasoned Fraud Investigator.

  With these six people painstakingly vetted over the course of a year, Tanner came to the conclusion that he had a stellar group he could move forward with. A team with which he could restore his faith in himself and his country. A team of outcasts. In the end they had become the exiles and pariahs of their organizations, a team of rebels with skill-sets that made the Outcast Operators--or "double-O's" as Tanner liked to call them--a unique and highly qualified specialized unit.

  And he gave that unit a fitting name: OUTCAST: Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats.

  One year after being railroaded out of the FBI, Tanner Wilson was commanding his own dedicated outfit.

  It was all he could ask for as he stood before the bathroom mirror shaving. With careful strokes he trimmed his face to smoothness. When he was done, he washed away the leftover foam and looked directly into two eyes of differing color reflecting back at him. Tanner was born with a condition called heterochromia, in which one eye was so pale blue it nearly matched the white of its surrounding cornea, while the other was so black that it appeared without a pupil, so dark was the iris. Despite the opposing colors, they were the perfect reflection of Tanner as a man. The pale-blue eye connoted him as a person of deep compassion and kindness, a person of light. The dark eye, however, represented the side of the man who was also capable of great violence when pushed beyond his limits. But Tanner Wilson wasn’t torn between two worlds. He knew exactly who he was. He was a man who stood for everything that was right, and a demon to those who wronged him.

  He heard his phone start trilling out in the living area. When he walked into the room, he called out, “Phone on,” to the voice-commanded receiver.

  On the other end was Director John Casey of the FBI, the only man who supported Tanner during his alleged misconduct. In the end, they remained the best of friends.

  “What do you want, you old goat?”

  Casey chuckled from his end. “You might be glad to hear that I’ve just been told to use whatever ungodly resources I may have at my disposal to achieve our means.”

  “And of course you thought of me?”

  “No joking, Tanner. This is big.”

  “How big?”

  There was a slight pause. “Coming from the highest level,” he told him. That’s how big.

  “From the 'highest level’ meant one thing to Tanner: that the orders were coming directly from the Commander-in-Chief. “From the POTUS?”

  “This is attached to the JBAB . . . And to the downing of Senator Houseman’s plane. They’re connected, Tanner.”

  For a long moment Tanner was at a loss for words, his mind trying to wrap
around the connection. “How are they linked?”

  “You hearing the news?”

  “I’m hearing unfounded speculation from the media, nothing that isn't quickly followed by ‘this has yet to be confirmed.’”

  “Some of those speculations are turning to facts."

  “Are you telling me that this was a coordinated terrorist attack?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  “By who?”

  He told him about Shazad and Naji, their backgrounds, American upbringing and military service within elite programs; how everyone else in the pack was faceless and had no identities—not yet, anyway.

  “We trained these people?”

  “As far as we know, only Shazad and Naji.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s two or a hundred and two. The fact is, we’re dealing with people who have insight into our tactics.”

  “I won’t argue with you there, Tanner. But they’re American-born nationals who share the same constitutional rights regarding religious freedoms as everyone else. We cannot hold every one of their faith responsible for the actions of a few. You know that.”

  Tanner frowned because Casey was absolutely right. In fact, the OUTCAST unit was created to protect the freedoms of everyone. So he shelved his positional thinking and became open-minded to what Casey was telling him. For the next several minutes he was briefed on al-Zawahiri and the subsequent attack on the JBAB. He was also informed of the modified MQ-10s and MAUVs taken from the base.

  “These things are demons in the sky,” said Casey. “Their stealth technology is strictly Top Secret and known only by the Joint Chiefs and the engineers who created them--and even most of those guys worked in a compartmentalized fashion so that they were only privy to the specific sub-system they worked with. You never see these drones until it’s too late, Tanner. They do not register on any existing radar system.”