Collateral Damage d-14

by Jim DeFelice

  He certainly didn’t feel guilty — he hadn’t been responsible. Truly, it wasn’t his fault.

  So he felt bad, but clearly not bad enough, as far as anyone seemed to think he should.

  The briefing continued. Turk felt out of place, but it seemed too awkward to leave. The commanders recounted some of the basic protocols, some of the SAR arrangements in case things went wrong, and reiterated the need to call in for permission to blow your nose…

  That got a laugh, at least.

  As the briefing broke up, Turk slipped out of the room. He was halfway down the corridor when Ginella called after him.

  “Hey, Turk, why are you running away?”

  “Running?” Turk stopped and waited for her. “I was just walking.”

  “That was a weird question.” Ginella started walking with him toward the door at the end of the hallway.

  “What?”

  “How did you feel about gunning down four fighters trying to kill you?” said Ginella, paraphrasing the German’s remark. “That was a weird question to ask.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I would have said ‘kick-ass.’ ”

  “Well, uh—”

  “Isn’t that how you felt?”

  “Kinda,” he admitted.

  “You feel bad because of the accident,” said Ginella. “We all get that. But that has nothing to do with the dogfight. You nailed those bastards. You oughta be proud of that.”

  “Thanks,” said Turk.

  “So you really want to drive Hogs, huh?”

  “Well, I like them—”

  “They’re a lot different than that pretty li’l thing you’ve been tooling around in,” she told him. “Stick and rudder. Meat and potatoes.”

  “I remember,” said Turk.

  They reached the door. Turk reached to open it, but Ginella got there first, slapping her hand on the crash bar and holding it for him in a reversal of etiquette, chivalry, and rank.

  “I need another check pilot for a flight this afternoon,” she told him. “You’re welcome to apply. We’ll see how good you are.”

  “You’ll let me fly?”

  “If you won’t break it.”

  “Well, I—”

  “It’s already cleared.”

  “Really? But I’d be bumping somebody—”

  “I told you, three-quarters of my people are down with the flu,” said Ginella. “You saw who I have left at lunch. If I use their hours for the check flights, we won’t be able to take a mission. At least not if I obey the alliance flight rules.”

  “Hell, I’d love to do it,” said Turk.

  “Report to Hangar B–7 at 1600 hours,” she said, her voice suddenly all business.

  “I will,” said Turk.

  She smacked his back. “See you then, Captain.”

  9

  Washington, D.C.

  When she was running for President, Christine Mary Todd was asked how she would respond if woken up at 6:00 A.M. for a national emergency. She had responded that anyone looking for her at 6:00 A.M. would find her at her desk.

  Or in this case, in the secure conference room in the White House basement, where she’d arrived to review the situation in Libya with her national security team.

  “Good morning, Mr. Blitz,” she said to the National Security Advisor. She nodded to the secretary of state, Alistair Newhaven. “Mr. Newhaven.”

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with several Air Force officers, were at the Pentagon, displayed on the large video screen at the front of the room. Breanna Stockard, who headed the Defense Department’s Office of Special Projects, was also participating via a link to her office on the CIA campus. NATO liaison General Daniel Yourish and Air Force Special Warfare Command Chief of Staff James Branson were in Belgium and Florida, respectively.

  “I assume that you have all read the latest bulletins,” said the President. “The preliminary reports that I’ve seen indicate that the aircraft made the attack on its own.”

  “It’s pretty clear that the pilot did not initiate it,” said Breanna. She had been working much of the night, and didn’t seem to have bothered much with makeup beyond a small dab of lipstick. Yet she looked as well put together as ever.

  The President admired that. Smart, good-looking, virtually unflappable — Breanna would do well in politics. Except of course that her husband had that covered.

  Todd would have preferred Breanna to Zen, actually. He was a crucial ally, but often a difficult one.

  “There are two problems here,” continued Todd. “One obviously is the media fallout. But just as important, in my mind, is the implication of the technology failure. What went wrong?”

  “We have to find that out,” said Breanna. “That obviously is our focus here. Ray Rubeo has already volunteered to go personally and assist in the examination.”

  “How close is this to Raven?” asked the National Security Director. The loss of the Raven drone two months before had caused considerable consternation — and an attempt on the President’s life.

  “We don’t believe it’s related at all,” said Breanna. “The UAVs use a different protocol, different systems entirely. They are unrelated.”

  “The Sabres are autonomous as well, though,” said Branson. “They make their own decisions.”

  “I think we want to keep that under wraps as much as possible,” said Blitz. “As a matter of national security.”

  And as an important public relations measure, the President thought. It wouldn’t do to have stories to the effect that U.S. robots were killing people on their own.

  Yet, that was what they were doing. The technology employed in the UAVs, now used for the first time in combat, allowed the machines to decide who their enemies were. There were a large number of parameters, but in the end the decision was the computer’s.

  Was it a remarkable and necessary extension of a weapon? Or was it the beginning of the end for the human race?

  It was a question straight out of a 1950s sci-fi flick, and yet one Todd had wrestled with carefully before authorizing the deployment of the Sabres to Libya.

  There were plenty of precedents for computers being involved in the decision-making process. The Navy’s Aegis system, far back in the 1980s, computed firing solutions on its own — though these were always under the supervision of crew. The Flighthawks developed by Dreamland in the mid- and late 1990s chose their own course and tactics when dealing with enemy fighters.

  From one perspective, the Sabre missions were hardly different. The targets were specified by humans, and the feeds from the sensors aboard the aircraft could be constantly monitored.

  Could be, not were.

  That was one difference. Another was the fact that the Sabres plotted their own courses, and chose their own strategies for approaching targets. They didn’t need humans at all. They were capable of switching off prime targets, and even secondary targets. They could decide how to handle threats.

  They’d done an excellent job in all the tests so far. They seemed ready for the next step.

  And now this. A humanitarian disaster.

  “Taking people out of the loop was a definite mistake,” said Branson, who though he had welcomed the Sabres was now clearly having second thoughts. “I was under the impression that they would be controlled by the Tigershark pilot at all times. I’d like to review why he diverted.”

  “He diverted because he came under fire,” said Breanna.

  “I think we’re drifting into an area of debate that will be unfruitful at the moment,” said Blitz. “We all know the issues involved long-term. The ability of robots on the battlefield is something to be discussed another day.”

  “You prejudice the argument by using the word ‘ability,’ ” countered the general.

  “Dr. Blitz is right,” interrupted the President. “This will be a valuable discussion for another time. Right now, we need to sequester those aircraft and find out what went wrong.”

  “We�
�re working on that,” said Breanna.

  “Good. Now, for the diplomatic fallout. I assume you’ve all seen the gun camera video.”

  “We’re working on who leaked that,” said Yourish. “Unfortunately, there’s a large list of people who had access.”

  “Why?” asked the President.

  “Well, the investigation…”

  There was no satisfactory answer. Well over a hundred staffers had access to the computers where the information was being gathered for review, and dossiers had been prepared for all the members in the alliance. There were any number of people who wouldn’t mind embarrassing the United States, or perhaps making a little extra money by selling the video.

  President Todd assumed that the investigation would go on for months without coming to any real conclusion.

  In a sense it didn’t matter. The gun tape wasn’t particularly revealing: a building targeted, the missile launch, then on to the next target before the missile hit. The images on the ground were much more devastating, in terms of public relations.

  But they did mean blame couldn’t be shifted away from the Sabre project, if anyone was so inclined.

  The President was not. She had already directed a statement to be issued with the bare facts — the attack had been misdirected and was under investigation. The U.S. deeply regretted the loss of life. The victims would be compensated in accordance with past precedent.

  “What do we do when people ask how it happened?” asked General Yourish, returning to a question that had been nagging at them since the incident first occurred.

  “The truth,” said Blitz. “It’s still being investigated. We don’t want to prejudice the investigation. And we don’t know.”

  “I think Senator Stockard’s presence on the committee has helped defer some of the questions,” said General Branson. “I just hope it doesn’t backfire.”

  “I talked to the senator personally,” said Ms. Todd. “I think he’ll do an excellent job.”

  “For us,” added Blitz.

  “For everyone.”

  The President glanced at Breanna. She had a vaguely worried look on her face.

  “I don’t expect Jeff to mince any words,” the President added. “I know that he’ll be a straight shooter. But really, that’s the best we can hope for. And we will fix the problem.”

  “We will,” said Breanna.

  “All right, very good,” she told them, rising. “We all have a lot to do. Keep me up to date on this.”

  The deputy chief of staff was waiting in the hall with her news briefing as she went out.

  “How are the reports?” she asked.

  “You want the good ones or the bad ones?”

  “Good ones first.”

  “There’s a headline from the New York Post: American killer drone wipes out village.”

  “That’s a good one?”

  “Wait to you see what al Jazeera has.”

  “I think I’ll save that for after lunch,” said Todd, stepping into the elevator.

  10

  Sicily

  To know why something had failed, one first had to know exactly what had happened.

  This was not necessarily easy. In the case of the Sabre UAV, for example, hundreds of subsystems contributed to the aircraft’s flight behavior, and while the main focus was on the flight computers and AI sections, the systems that it interacted with had to be investigated on their own. It was a laborious and time-consuming project.

  Despite a well-earned reputation for being exacting to the point of overbearing, Ray Rubeo no longer had the patience to oversee the myriad mundane details that needed to be attended to as the investigation proceeded. Instead, he turned to Robert Marcum, the vice president of his main American company, Applied Intelligence, tapping him to head the investigation. Marcum was among the most anal retentive people he employed.

  Which was saying quite a lot.

  Traveling from Paris, where he had been overseeing another project, Marcum arrived in Sicily shortly after Rubeo, but already had an impressive investigative team in place. They were given a small facility at the air base, and rented much larger quarters about five miles away. These quarters consisted of the top three floors of an eight-story building perched above a series of hills that cascaded down toward the seacoast some ten miles away.

  The executive suite on the eastern side of the top floor had a gorgeous view, and even Rubeo had a difficult time concentrating on the video projection as Marcum briefed him on what was known so far about the accident.

  “Pilot action from the Tigershark can now be one hundred percent ruled out,” said Marcum. He had worked as an engineer for many years before going into administration. “The flight records have been carefully reviewed. He gave no command that altered their flight.”

  “You’ve looked at the logs yourself?” asked Rubeo. The two men were alone in the large, sparsely furnished room. Levon Jons had gone into town to arrange for more transportation and backup, in case they went to Africa.

  “Of course,” said Marcum. “The pilot was Captain Mako. He’s been flying for Special Projects for a few months. I don’t know too much about him personally. I’m told he’s an excellent pilot. Young.”

  “Very young, yes,” said Rubeo.

  “Additionally, we are fifty-eight percent through with our checks on the Tigershark. It would appear unlikely that it was involved in any way.”

  “I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the fighters were scrambled,” said Rubeo.

  “In what way?”

  Rubeo folded his arms. The office chairs that had come with the rooms were deep leather contraptions that would be very easy to fall asleep in. This would have to be fixed.

  “I understand that the government hasn’t flown against allied coalition planes until this mission,” said Rubeo.

  Marcum shook his head. “An exaggeration. This is what I mean when I say there has been much misinformation about the entire intervention. I don’t blame anyone, not even the media. It’s a very difficult situation, and NATO command has been less than forthcoming with them. We have already identified half a dozen flights by the government in the past five days. This was the largest, and the only time they engaged a plane. My bet is they won’t be doing that again anytime soon.”

  “Nonetheless, it is an interesting coincidence,” said Rubeo. “If it were significant, how so?”

  Marcum frowned. Engineers didn’t believe in coincidences. But then again neither did Rubeo.

  “The pilot would not be paying attention to the Sabres, not fully,” said Marcum. “He admits this.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the government would have to know about the attack in advance. A possibility not yet ruled out, but a far-fetched one.”

  Rubeo wasn’t so sure. His attention drifted as Marcum continued, reviewing the preliminary data from the Sabres.

  “All of the system profiles are absolutely within spec,” said Marcum. “There are no anomalies. Sabre Four believes it struck the coordinates it was told to strike.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “No. Exactly.”

  “The visual ID package should have checked off,” said Rubeo, referring to a section of the system that compared the preflight target data with information gathered by the aircraft before it fired. “It should have seen that it wasn’t hitting the proper target.”

  “One of our problems. Or mysteries, I should say.”

  Marcum went through a few slides, showing the designated target and then the village that had been hit. The devastation was fairly awful, as would be expected.

  “Were the coordinates entered incorrectly?” asked Rubeo.

  “If they were incorrect, how are they right now?”

  “Hmmmph.”

  “We are checking, of course, for viruses and the like. But at this point we have nothing firm.”

  “Understood.”

  Marcum turned to administrative matters, briefing Rubeo on the different team members
he wanted and the procedures he would follow as he proceeded. NATO and the Air Force were conducting their own investigations; there was also to be a UN probe. Marcum had assigned liaisons to all, but expected little in the way of real cooperation. These were more like spies to tell him what the others were thinking.

  Rubeo listened as attentively as he could, but his mind was racing miles away. He was thinking of what the attack would have looked like from the ground.

  There would have been no warning until the first missile was nearly at the ground. A person nearby would hear a high whistle — Rubeo had heard it himself on the test range — and then what would seem like a rush of air.

  Then nothing. If you were within the fatal range of the explosion, the warhead would kill you before the sound got to you.

  That would be merciful. If you could consider any death merciful.

  “Brad Keeler is on his way from the States,” said Marcum. Keeler had headed the team that developed the control software. “Once he’s here, we should be able to move quickly.”

  “Good,” said Rubeo, still thinking of the missile strike. He saw the fires and the explosions. Bodies were pulled from the wreckage before his eyes.

  Was I responsible for all that?

  My inventions make war more precise, so that innocent people aren’t killed. But there is always some chance of error, however small that chance is.

  Little consolation if you’re the victim.

  “Something wrong?” asked Marcum.

  Rubeo looked over at him. Marcum had turned off the projector.

  “Just tired,” Rubeo told him. “Keep at it.”

  11

  Sicily

  Any aircraft would have felt a little strange to Turk after the Tigershark, but the A–10 was nearly as far removed from the F–40 as a warplane got.

  The A–10A Thunderbolt had been something of a poor stepchild to the Air Force from the day of its conception. With straight wings and a cannon in its nose, the aircraft was the antithesis of the go-fast, push-button philosophy that ruled the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s — and in fact, still largely ruled it today.