by Ward Larsen
A man Davis had never seen before, dressed in mechanic’s coveralls, was closing the DC-3’s side entry door. He secured the latches and gave them a slap. There were only two reasons a ground crewman buttoned up an airplane—it was either going to bed or being prepped for flight. That fifty-fifty was answered when the port propeller began to turn. The big radial coughed, spit black smoke, and chugged into a rhythm. As Davis kept moving his angles changed, and moments later he got a glimpse of what else was in the hangar. It brought him skidding to a stop on the hardpan earth.
The interior of the hangar was lit up like a museum display, and parked under the bright fluorescents was the exact thing Davis had hoped not to see. The Blackstar drone with its engine running.
Sitting motionless on the concrete, Blackstar resembled a massive ebony arrowhead, lethal and sharp. One landing gear strut didn’t look quite symmetrical, and even at this distance Davis could see rough patches on Blackstar’s radar-absorbent skin. Rudimentary repairs, probably no more than aluminum tape, or if they were really creative, fiberglass from a bucket, slapped and wrapped. Simple adaptations. Simple like roadside bombs made from fertilizer, triggered by garage door openers. That was how war was conducted in this part of the world. Indeed, Davis realized this was exactly what he was looking at. A machine of war about to be deployed. Blackstar had crashed and been damaged, but now it was reconstituted. Rebuilt with obsolete parts from old QF-4 drones. The CIA’s wreck had been claimed, taken from Africa’s junkyard, and restored.
Davis threw stealth out the window. On a dead run, he aimed for the clear area that bordered the connecting taxiway a quarter mile ahead. Through breaks in the vegetation, he studied the DC-3. The airplane was covered with antennae, a bristling array of fittings and appendages. If he were an engineer who specialized in electronic signals, he might have been able to guess the purpose of each accessory by its size and shape and location on the airframe. But Davis didn’t need any of that. All he needed was situational awareness, the big picture right in front of him. Two aircraft—a drone and a control ship. Rafiq Khoury had no capability to bounce signals through satellites, as was Blackstar’s original design, so he had gone old school—a line of sight radio channel, probably VHF. Simple adaptations.
The DC-3’s starboard engine began to crank. Davis watched the ground crewman pull chocks from under the wheels, then scurry over and stand next to Blackstar. But he didn’t touch those chocks. Black-star stayed where it was as the DC-3 began to move, taxiing to one side of the concrete apron.
Davis kept running, his feet pounding sand while his brain cranked logistics. How would it work? How could they get both aircraft aloft? Which would take off first? He didn’t see how Blackstar could even reach the active runway—the machine would have to negotiate over a mile of connecting taxiways. A normal airplane was guided to the runway by pilots. Getting a drone into the air was different. You had to tow it to the end of the runway with a utility tug, point it in the right direction, and then light the fuse like you would a rocket, maybe a few gentle directional inputs once the airflow was sufficient over the flight controls. So a drone parked in a hangar with its engine running made no sense at all.
Yet Davis was sure of one thing—if he could get close enough to Blackstar, he could stop it. He could throw something under the lopsided landing gear while it was moving. No, toss a wrench or a rock into the engine inlet. Something big and dense to get sucked in and act like a bomb, turbine blades chewing themselves to bits, the engine trashed in a matter of seconds. He could make that happen.
But he had to get closer.
With two hundred meters to go, he tripped over a bush and went sprawling through the scrub. Davis scrambled to his feet and kept moving, faster now, his eyes locked on the black dart at the mouth of the hangar. He saw the ground crewman pull the chocks from under Blackstar’s wheels, heard the engine wind up to a higher power setting. Much higher.
The machine began to shriek. It jumped out of the hangar and began rolling down the long taxiway. Davis saw the flight controls flexing at the trailing edge, moving up and down as the aircraft picked up speed. Right then, he realized his mistake. Blackstar wasn’t going to use the primary runway for takeoff. A mile-long stretch of reinforced taxiway would do just as well.
Davis watched helplessly as the drone accelerated, watched it pass by on the taxiway at eighty knots, then a hundred. The nosewheel rotated slowly upward, and the craft began to fly. The landing gear retracted, including the wheel that was crooked, and the drone began a smooth climb. Soon Blackstar faded from sight, just as it was designed to do.
A black weapon disappearing into a black sky.
Rafiq Khoury’s heart had nearly jumped out of his chest when the DC-3’s big engines exploded to life, popping and backfiring. The noise and vibration were much greater than he’d expected, although not as worrisome as General Ali’s cursed helicopter. It was peculiar, Khoury imagined, that he had never before flown in one of these craft—he was the de facto owner of the airline. But then, this would be a day of many firsts.
He was standing next to Jibril, who was focused intently on the computer screen at his workstation. A map display was selected, and Khoury could see Blackstar drifting slowly to the north, represented by a capital letter C. In a rare idle moment, Jibril had earlier explained that he’d chosen this symbol as an insult to Cal Tech, an American university that had denied him admission. An academic’s sense of humor, Khoury supposed.
“We have good signal strength,” Jibril announced. “All channels are active.”
Khoury assumed this was good news. “What distance can we allow?” he asked.
“With our aircraft on the ground, and the drone at ten thousand feet, we should stay within twenty miles. Once we are airborne, this distance increases.”
Khoury felt the big airplane begin to move under his feet. He looked to the rear of the cabin and saw his two guards situated on fold-down seats. They were his best men, fully committed, armed, and very capable. Khoury doubted they would be necessary, but he could not deny the comfort of their presence. In the other direction, he saw two familiar shoulders at the threshold of the flight deck—Schmitt in the captain’s seat and Achmed to the right. The American was the weakest link in the chain, Khoury knew, but there was simply no other way. Achmed was not enough of an aviator to make the plan work—he had admitted as much—and so Schmitt was a necessary evil. But as Schmitt watched the airplane, Achmed would watch him. Khoury had promised the American a substantial payday for this last mission, along with safe passage after their landing in Egypt. But he had also offered no alternatives to the arrangement, an omission that certainly spoke volumes. The imam was an expert at sizing men up, and he was sure that his chief pilot was no more than an opportunist. Bob Schmitt would do what was best for Bob Schmitt. The other two, Boudreau and Johnson, Khoury would never have trusted on a mere bribe. They were now in the custody of General Ali’s men, and in a matter of hours all would rendezvous at the abandoned airfield in northern Sudan. There, the last act would be staged, this very airplane set ablaze. A fiery finale, meticulously documented for the world.
“How fast is it going?” Khoury asked, eyeing Blackstar on the screen.
Jibril pointed to numbers at the bottom of his display. “One hundred knots.”
“That seems rather slow.”
“Unmanned aircraft are not designed for speed. They are meant to stay aloft for long periods of time. Anyway, our own aircraft will struggle to keep that pace. The flight to the staging point in Egypt will take a full three hours.”
Khoury checked his watch. So far, all was on schedule. The engines roared to a crescendo, and as the DC-3 began to accelerate Khoury felt a surge of confidence.
Davis sprinted toward the taxiway, his lungs straining. He had miscalculated and missed his chance with Blackstar. All that was left now was the DC-3. But what could he do? Rocks and wrenches? He could throw them all day and not stop the old tank. They don’t build �
�em like this anymore. Davis imagined someone inside the airplane’s cabin hunched over a workstation, watching a rudimentary instrument display. They’d be pushing and pulling a joystick like a teenager at a gaming console. Flying Blackstar. But the DC-3 had to get airborne because Blackstar was moving. If the drone got out of range and lost its controlling signals, it would cease to be a drone. It would become a ballistic projectile—exactly what had happened eight months ago when Blackstar crashed into the African desert.
He was running hard, harder than he ever had in the Rugby Union Over-30s. The taxiway was still a hundred meters in front of him. An Olympic sprinter on a good track could get there in ten seconds. An oversized prop forward stumbling through the desert in the dark? A lot more. The DC-3’s massive radial engines were rumbling at full power. He guessed the airplane would use the same procedure Blackstar had—a takeoff run on the taxiway. At this hour there wouldn’t be air traffic to avoid on the other runways. Chances were, the control tower wasn’t even manned. So in a matter of seconds the airplane would barrel past on the strip of asphalt ahead.
Davis’ chest was heaving, pulling massive gulps of air. He tripped again, but didn’t go down. Breaking out of the brush, he slid to a stop on the taxiway’s dirt and rock shoulder. The DC-3 was approaching fast, gaining speed. The fuselage was a shadow now, no longer washed in the bright lights of the compound. Davis saw a white glow from the cockpit, reflections from the flight instruments and perhaps a dome light. Enough to see a familiar silhouette. A thick round face topped by a mop of black Brillo.
Right then, Bob Schmitt looked out his side window and spotted Davis. His eyes bulged wide.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A lot might have gone through Davis’ mind if he’d had the time. Phones in cabinets. Less than honorable discharges. Dead Ukrainians. Walt Deemer. Some of that might have made Davis believe that Schmitt could be on his side. Some of it would shut the door on the idea. But there was no time to think. Not even a second. Davis had only one option—he had to trust the man.
With Schmitt staring at him, Davis stood straight, almost as if at attention. Very deliberately, he tapped a closed fist to the side of his head and gave signals in rapid succession: one finger up, two fingers up, two fingers sideways, five fingers up. He did it again, faster, hoping Schmitt could see in the early light. Or hoping he could guess what Davis wanted. 1–2–7–5. Their old squadron VHF frequency, 127.5 MHz. He thought he saw a quick wave in reply. The airplane passed, and Schmitt glanced over his shoulder as the airplane thundered away. Davis tapped two fingers to his wrist, where a watch would be, and added a one and a closed fist for a zero. Ten minutes.
Seconds later, Schmitt and the airplane were gone in a churning rumble, rising into the waking sky.
Davis needed a radio, needed it now. The hangar seemed the most likely place to find one.
Ever since Larry Green confirmed that something had indeed crashed into the Red Sea, Davis had asked himself one question. As improbable as it seemed, could Khoury’s people be trying to get Blackstar back in the air? The technicians in D.C. would have said no. They’d have said that the craft’s guidance signals came by way of encrypted satellite commands, and as such, no one in a backwater like Sudan could have a technical prayer of making it work. But when Davis had seen the modified cockpit at the bottom of the sea, he’d suspected they were very wrong. Now he knew it. And he understood why FBN Aviation had shipped in so much old-school hardware—telemetry interfaces, actuators, guidance modules. Somebody had taken out the original, high-tech parts, and replaced them with relics. Then they’d made it all work. But that left one unanswered question, the one Antonelli had nailed. Why?
Davis closed in on the hangar. There was no one in sight. The man he’d seen pulling the chocks had to be nearby. Davis stopped at the big entry doors and saw a void in the middle of the place where the two aircraft had been, tools and stands and work benches all around. He then looked up and froze at the sight—a huge American flag hanging from the rafters on the far wall. Davis stood dumbfounded, stunned by the incredible image. The Stars and Stripes fluttering softly in a hangar owned by a mad Sudanese cleric. He forced his feet to move, realizing there was no time to figure out what it meant. His universe was shrinking rapidly. He had to find a radio.
Davis sprinted to the side of the building where a door led to what looked like an administration area. He burst through, and once again came to a sliding stop. The man with the mechanic’s coveralls was in the middle of an office. Only the mechanic wasn’t working with a wrench. Instead, he had a camcorder held up to one eye and was panning across the room. When he sensed Davis’ presence, the camera came down. The man backed away cautiously, his eyes locked to Davis, and then bolted through a door on the opposite side of the room.
Davis heard him yell, “Hassan! Hassan!”
He stood still and tried to decipher yet another incredible scene. The office was torn apart. Chairs upside down, file cabinets tipped over with drawers agape. Loose papers carpeted the floor like some mini-haboob had rolled through the room. But the thing that really drew Davis’ attention was resting on the hardwood surface of the desk. Bob Schmitt’s Korean-made nameplate. And behind it, nailed to the wall, a photograph of the president of the United States. A Klaxon rang in his head, a five-alarm bell that blotted out the world. At that moment, everything made sense. Terrible, logical sense.
Davis heard more shouts from outside. Urgent Arabic. Closing in.
His universe was down to one word. Radio. He didn’t see one here, hadn’t seen one in the hangar. But Davis knew where to look. Knew where to find half a dozen. Turning back the way he’d come, he started running again.
His boots hammered over concrete, strides eating up ground. With three DC-3s to choose from, Davis headed for the nearest one.
As he ran, a terrible picture brewed in his head. The American flag, Schmitt’s nameplate, a ransacked office. And a man, probably the Jordanian mechanic, making a video record of it all. Taken together, it answered the “why” question. Blame. The Blackstar drone was going to strike, and when it did, the evidence would be insurmountable. Wreckage that was certifiably MADE IN USA. As an accident investigator, Davis knew how clear that would be. The rest was window dressing, visual sweetener for a media campaign. A hangar rented by a shady corporation that flew U.S. registered aircraft. Worst of all, plenty of unwitting, verifiable Americans on display—Boudreau, Johnson. Schmitt was the question mark. Davis hated the man, but he couldn’t believe he’d be party to this. More likely, he was being used at the moment for his flying skills, and later would be lined up as a third American scapegoat. Two pilots and a mechanic paraded for a sensational trial. Headlines as bold as they came. With such overwhelming evidence, could Washington deny it? Who would listen? Certainly no Arab nation.
The only question remaining was the target. In this part of the world there were a lot of options. Jerusalem? Mecca? Either devastating in its own way. Davis could think of only one way to get that answer. Ask Bob Schmitt. Schmitt could tell him because he was flying toward the target right now, even if he didn’t know it.
Davis reached the first DC-3 and pulled open the entry stairs. He climbed inside and rushed to the cockpit, tried to remember where the battery switch was. He found it, powered up the airplane, and tuned the primary radio to 127.5 MHz.
Davis picked up the hand microphone and switched on the overhead speaker. “Schmitthead! Are you there?”
“We are nearly eighteen miles behind,” Jibril admonished. “We should be closer.”
Khoury stood behind Jibril and watched the engineer manage his creation. “But you said we could control the craft at twenty miles,” he argued.
“By my calculations, that is the nominal performance. But we have never tested control beyond that range. There could be nulls in either the sending or receiving antennae. Here in safe airspace, we should err on the side of caution and stay close.”
Jibril’s jargon meant nothing
to Khoury, but his caution carried weight. “Schmitt!” he barked.
Khoury saw the American fiddling with something on the central instrument column. Schmitt peered back from the flight deck.
“We must go faster!” Khoury ordered.
Schmitt looked at his instruments. “I’m dead on time,” he argued, “right where you told me to be on the route.”
Khoury glared. “Do it!”
The pilot shrugged and pushed on a pair of levers. The engine noise rose to a higher pitch. Khoury then heard a less agreeable sound—an argument from the flight deck. Schmitt was pointing to a gauge, and soon Achmed came back from the copilot’s seat, his perpetual scowl in place.
“What are you doing?” Khoury asked.
“The infidel says there is low oil pressure on one of the engines. He wants me to check for a leak.”
Achmed went to a window on the left side of the cabin and studied the engine.
Khoury studied Schmitt.
“Well it’s about damned time!” Schmitt’s voice came in a hushed growl over the radio.
“Are we comm secure?” Davis asked.
“You’ve got about a minute. I sent my copilot back to the cabin to check on a bogus oil leak. I’m flying with your buddy, Achmed.”
That name struck Davis hard. The last time he’d seem Achmed, the kid’s eye had been behind the reticle of a gun sight.
Davis said, “Do you realize what’s going on here?”
There was a long pause. “This is my fini-flight with FBN,” Schmitt said, using the old Air Force slang for the last flight with a unit. “After this, I get a nice severance check and a good letter of recommendation.”
“Is that what Khoury promised?” Davis said sarcastically. “You must realize that the airplane you’re flying is the control ship for a drone.”