Death Drones

by Christopher Fox

  “I don’t have a religious belief myself, but respect those that do. I studied the two popular religions to try to understand what it was that caused people to be so militant, even Christians.”

  “And did you?” asked Alberto.

  “Did I what?”

  “Understand what made people so militant.”

  “Not really. It comes down to that leap of faith people take and for most, it cannot be shaken. It is ingrained into them from early childhood. I remember asking someone once during a discussion on religion, what if science eventually proved that there was no God, and that events in the Bible were shown to be untrue? His answer was that it would not shake his faith, and that he would still believe in God and follow the scriptures of the Bible. This is how the militant Jihadists think also, except they take many of the Qur’anic verses out of context.”

  They arrived back at the hotel and called Alex to meet and discuss their newfound knowledge.

  “It is obvious that there is going to be an attack on the Super Bowl tomorrow,” said Miguel, “so we need to advise the FBI and Homeland Security of what we have discovered.”

  “I will call them,” said Melinda.

  “So, given there will be an attack, how do we stop it?” Miguel continued.

  “They must have a plan to circumvent the closed roof,” said Alberto. “Either they are going to blow a hole in it or have someone open it.”

  “Could a drone carry enough explosive to create a hole big enough?” Maria asked.

  “Drones can carry about 25 lb. max,” said Alex. “So what damage would 25 lb. of Semtex do?”

  “It could certainly blow a gaping hole in the roof of the stadium. Reportedly, the amount of Semtex that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was only 250 grammes, or half a pound.”

  “Holy shit,” said Maria .

  “But your guy at the warehouse said that there were 10 drones carrying cylinders and one carrying the camera,” Alberto said. “When asked how they would access the stadium, he didn’t know. There were 12 drones total, and you found one damaged at the warehouse, so that accounts for all the drones.”

  “So,” Miguel reasoned. “They must have a plan to either open the roof or have explosives in place.”

  “Another question,” said Miguel. “Even if we find these drones, how are we going to disable them?”

  “Give me a shotgun and I will shoot them down,” said Jimmy. “I was good at skeet shooting.”

  “That doesn’t work,” offered Alex. “The critical issue is stopping them from activating whatever release mechanism they have on the cylinders. Since they have cell control, we could have the cell towers shut down.”

  “Good luck with that,” Alberto said. “Also, the controls may be wired fail-safe, so that any loss of signal to the drone activates the valve and disperses the toxin. Even outside the stadium, it can still kill hundreds of people. I would set it up that way.”

  “They would have to be sure of a constant strong signal for that,” Miguel said, taking out his phone to check the signal strength. “Five bars.”

  “So much for that,” said Melinda. “We’re coming up with few options. I’m going to call Josh and get him to convince FBI and HSI that this is a real threat.”

  Melinda took out her phone, checked the contacts and pressed the appropriate one.

  “Masters.”

  “Josh, it’s Melinda.”

  “Hi Melinda, how are things going?”

  “We are convinced that there is going to be a drone attack on the NRG Stadium during the Super Bowl tomorrow.” She filled him in on what they had discovered in the warehouse and what they had learnt from the captured terrorist.

  “Christ! That’s not good. Let me call Gordon at HQ. They were convinced that an attack would not be feasible.”

  “We think that they plan to blow a hole in the roof, and that explosive charges may already be in place. You need to check that out.”

  “Will do. Do you have any idea where the drones are now? ”

  “None. I have asked Alex, their tech guy, to find out if any new cellular accounts have been issued in the names of any of the known terrorists. You can also check from your end as well.”

  “I’ll have our people look into it.”

  “We considered requesting that the cell towers be shut down, but we are concerned that there may be a fail-safe mechanism to activate the gas if there is a loss of signal.”

  “That’s quite possible,” said Josh. “Thank the group there for keeping on this and for getting the information. I must admit that we were looking in the wrong direction.”

  “Find those explosives,” Melinda said, and hung up.

  Twenty Five

  Alex had been seeing Sarah for a while now, but due to their schedules, they could only meet sporadically. Two years ago, a mutual friend introduced them while in San José, and they hit it off, having a whirlwind relationship for a while, until life got in the way. Sarah worked for an insurance company that had their headquarters in Houston, Texas. Due to her exemplary performance there, she eventually secured a management position, but that meant frequent trips to Houston. Alex, on the other hand, quit the police force and joined CI after Frederico’s term as Chief of Police ended. His assignments kept him away from home frequently and often, when Alex was home, Sarah was in Houston. Fortunately for them, their schedules aligned when Alex was in Houston at the same time as Sarah, enabling them to get together. Alex, being somewhat of a nerdy type, was often just as happy with his head buried into computers, but Sarah brought out another side to him. Sarah was heavily into Yoga and other physical, mental, and spiritual practises. She encouraged Alex to embrace many of the yoga teachings and they would attend classes together. This opened a new way of thinking for Alex, and it helped him in his application of cyber wizardry. Also, Alex had never considered himself as a sexual person, shying away from members of the opposite sex for most of his life. But Sarah taught him how to enjoy sex, and how to appreciate both his own body and hers.

  “Where did you learn all this shit?” Alex said after one particularly raunchy session of sex.

  “I just don’t have any inhibitions,” she replied. “If it feels right, I do it. If I wonder what it’s going to feel like, I do it and decide if I like it or not. It may shock you to know that I have even tried women, but prefer men.”

  Alex looked at Sarah in wonderment. “Gee,” he said. “That sounds kinda cool. I would love to see you make out with another woman. ”

  “See,” she said. “Now you’re learning what it’s like to be uninhibited. If that is what you think you would like, then we do it.”

  “Cool,” said Alex. “I hope you don’t want me to make out with another guy.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said while chuckling. “It sounds like a double standard, but lesbian sex is not regarded in the same light as gay sex. Most sex videos are made for the benefit of men because men are the biggest market for pornography. I have no issue with anyone’s sexual preferences, and one should not be blamed because their preferences do not align with the norm. What is sad is to hide those emotions and live your life unfulfilled because someone else has a different opinion.”

  “I had a buddy who was openly gay in university,” said Alex. “I had no issues with it, but other guys harassed him, and would harass me also because I befriended him. They accused me of being a fag or a queer, but I didn’t let it bother me. The guy was brilliant with computers and I learned a lot from him. We still hang out occasionally and he has a partner now.”

  Alex called her when they arrived in Houston and, although he knew he would not have time to see her before the shit storm hit with the drone attack, they planned to have Dinner Monday. Alex reserved at Pappas Steak house because TripAdvisor rated it top. Expensive, but then all the good steak houses in Houston were expensive. Where an abundance of disposable income exists, enough establishments will be there to take advantage of it. He figured he will drop clo
se to $500, depending on what wine they chose. No matter, she was well worth it.

  At 7:00, he picked her up from her hotel as they had reservations for 7:30. She looked gorgeous when she opened the door. Alex handed her the long-stemmed rose.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him a passionate kiss on the mouth. She took it to the kitchenette and placed in in a glass of water.

  “God, you look stunning,” Alex said, giving her another kiss. There was a glint in his eye as he said, “I wish I had reserved for later.”

  “Cool down buddy,” she said. “I’m starving. Let’s go.”

  Alex gave a pout and then laughed. “Not my fault if you turn me on so much. ”

  Alex drove to the restaurant and handed the car key to the attendant. The maître d’ greeted them at the lectern and, after checking the name on the reservation, showed them to their table and placed a menu in front of each of them and stood a wine list between them.

  “Never been here before,” said Sarah as she perused the surroundings. Framed pictures of previous guests and celebrities adorned the walls.

  “Me neither,” said Alex as he opened the menu.

  “So,” he said rhetorically. “What shall we have?”

  While studying their menus, a server approached them and, after welcoming them to Pappas, asked if they would like something to drink before dinner. Alex looked at Sarah and she made a gesture to say your decision , so he turned to the server and said, “We’ll be having wine with our dinner.”

  Alex ordered the Lobster Devilled Eggs as an appetizer and Sarah opted for the Seared Foie Gras. He ordered a Caesar Salad, which they shared, then as the main course, an 8 oz. Filet Mignon, medium rare for Sarah and a 14 oz. Prime New York Strip, medium well for himself. Sarah selected an appropriate wine as her palate was more refined than his, choosing a moderately priced Argentinian Malbec that would be well paired to the red meats.

  They talked about how they could see more of each other but came to the same conclusions as they always did. One of them would have to change their lifestyle to make it happen, and neither was about to do that. After finishing their meal with a New York-style Cheesecake, Alex summoned the server for the check and they left the restaurant. Alex handed the car attendant a ten-dollar bill, and they drove back to Sarah’s hotel. Alex couldn’t wait to get her to the room. He was burning up with desire for her now as she fumbled for her key-card and slid it into the lock. Alex almost pushed her into the room and closed the door, turning her around and crushing her mouth with his.

  “A tad horny, are we?” she taunted when he finally allowed her to breathe. He fumbled with the buttons on her blouse while she undid the ones on his shirt. Shaking the garments from their shoulders and casting them onto the floor, he started on her skirt and she on his pants. Before long, he was standing in his stockinged feet and her in her bra and panties. She led him to the bed and taught him yet more ways to enjoy each other.

  * * * *

  Danny watched as hordes of security personnel were crawling along the catwalks, checking the trusses. He was certain they were going to find the charges he had laid. Finally, one shouted out that he had found one. Then others were found. This was going to cost him $5,000. He needed to call his contact.

  “Omar?” Danny said as the phone was answered.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Danny. They found the, eh … packages I installed for you.”

  “Damn! All of them?”

  “Yes. I watched as they found all eight.”

  “Shit!” said Omar. “OK, thanks for letting me know.”

  “What about my other $5,000?”

  “You’ll get it,” Omar lied, because he had no intention of paying the moron any more money. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Kadar was standing next to him and got the gist of the call.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Take the canisters from two of the drones and replace them with Semtex charges. We’ll blow a damned hole in the roof from above. I’m sure eight canisters of Sarin will do one hell of a job, anyway.”

  They had gathered in the room that they rented in the condo that overlooked the stadium. It was their intention to go to the roof not only to cut the Drone Security System antenna, but to launch the drones from there. The roof had a garden accessible to residents, and they intended to barricade the door while up there. The antenna was mounted on the top of the elevator control room, the highest point of the building, along with several other antennas and satellite dishes.

  “Which one is the Drone antenna?” asked Kadar as they looked at the array of communication equipment on the roof of the elevator control room.

  “No idea,” said Omar. “We’ll just cut all the feeds to be sure.”

  “Best to do that tomorrow just before the game starts because we don’t want maintenance crews up here to fix stuff.”

  The stadium was visible from their vantage point and that would make it easier to guide the drones to the hole in the roof, but they would need the camera for close-in monitoring.

  * * * *

  Alex’s fingers flew over the keys of his keyboard as he searched for patterns that would give a clue as to where the drones were and how they could disrupt their feed. There was a recent 4G LTE account registered to an O. Maroun, but he was having difficulty accessing the network to intercept it. The encryption on modern cell phone accounts was very secure, and it would take a while to break the code. Even if he broke the code, he would still need the control sequence that controlled the drones. He surfed the web for drone controllers operating on a cellular network and found a supplier in Houston. He sent Jimmy to pick it up. However, he would not be able to access any of the drone’s controllers until they were in the air and being controlled over the network. This meant very little time to crack the algorithm and seize control of the drones. Also, he would only be able to control one drone at a time. He called Miguel.

  “Miguel,” he said when he answered. “I have sent Jimmy to get a drone controller to operate on a cell network, but I will only be able to run one at a time. Can you have Melinda contact her guy and see if they can access some controllers? I’m texting you the specs.”

  “Will do,” said Miguel.

  He asked Melinda to make the call to Josh, giving the specifications Alex gave him for the controllers.

  While Jimmy was out buying the controller, Alex set up other checks for the computer to analyse. There was a meeting somewhere near Washington DC a few weeks ago that was suspected as being a planning meeting for the terrorist. He set the parameters for that meeting and for Houston to see any similarities in persons travelling to both. The computer came up with eleven matches, and Alex started to sift through them all. Reasonably sure that none of the terrorists would be female, he skipped the four women on his list. Of the others, he checked backgrounds for all of them and essentially came up blank. He was convinced something was there, so he looked deeper, eliminating another three because it was clear that they had reasons to be in both locations at the time. That left four to dig into deeper. One was an executive who had an office in DC, but not Houston, so likely he was just attending the game, so he put him on the back burner. A professor from NYU travelled a lot and had a plausible reason for being in both locations. One had no apparent reason for being in both locations, so better check further there. The last one was in his seventies and, although it was still possible that he could be a terrorist, most disillusioned Jihadists were younger.

  Further checking of the one who had no clear reason for being in both places showed that he had a female travelling companion, who was not his wife. Scratch that one. So, what about the professor? He hacked the hotel records at the Houstonian Hotel and Spa and found that he had booked three nights in a penthouse at $1,500 per night. Now that seemed suspicious. A little rich for a professor. So he delved deeper into Tom Delaney’s background. Apparently, his parents had been killed in a car crash a few years ago and he had no living relatives. Accessi
ng a photo of the parents, he found one with Tom in the picture at the age of about 25. Once he called up Tom’s current driver’s licence photo and, it was definitely not the same person. He called Alberto.

  “Got something here,” he said when Alberto answered. “Found someone who was at the DC meeting and in Houston, and there is a disconnect in the history.”

  “Be right over,” said Alberto.

  They both scanned the info on Tom Delaney. By the time Alberto had joined Alex, Alex had dug up more info.

  “Seems like there was no history before 2008 when he took a position as a teaching assistant at Philadelphia University. He was then hired at NYU as a professor in 2013. Although the records of Tom Delaney suggests that his parents were white, the DL pic of him shows a darker completion.”

  “Maybe he just had a tan?”

  “And possibly dyed his hair black too?”

  Alex showed the picture of Tom with his parents taken in 1998 when he was 25. He had fair hair and fair eyebrows with a light-coloured beard. When they compared the photo of the current Tom, he had dark hair, eyebrows and moustache.

  “Definitely not the same guy.” Said Alberto. “You’re right, we have something here.”

  “Let’s take a look at this guy. I’ll get Jimmy and Miguel to check him out.”

  Alberto explained their concerns with this guy and suggested that they treat him as armed and dangerous. Miguel and Jimmy, along with Melinda, proceeded to the hotel with a key-card on which Alex had embedded the code for the penthouse suite that Tom occupied. Getting into the hotel was not an issue, and they walked directly to the elevators. They had to use the key-card to get to the guest floors, and the one they had provided them access to the penthouse floor. They exited the elevator and walked up to the room.

  “Room service,” said Miguel as he tapped on the door. There was no answer so they let themselves in.

  “Is that legal?” asked Melinda. “You’re breaking and entering.”

  “That’s why we can get things done,” said Jimmy. “We don’t have to abide by the codes you fibbies do.”