by Joshua Hood
The feed from the drone’s heads-up display was linked to the giant screen that hung on the far wall, and Renee watched as the pilot banked the drone hard to the west.
Over his headset, he was talking with one of the air force’s AWACs, the sophisticated aircrafts that provided command and control for coalition pilots in the area.
“Whiplash 14, this is Sentinel 3, readvise heading and altitude,” a voice said from the speaker attached to the station.
“Sentinel 3, this is Whiplash 14, stand by.” The pilot checked his heading before turning to the sensor operator. “Sensor, confirm heading, I think there’s a problem with the compass.”
“Heading is two nine zero degrees,” the red-haired woman replied.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve got. I can’t bring the damn thing around.”
The pilot gently pivoted the joystick in his hand, but the Reaper refused to respond.
“Run a diagnostic check for me,” he told his female counterpart.
“Flight systems green, navigations systems are green, uplink is . . . We have uplink failure.”
“This piece of shit,” he swore. “Sentinel 3, Whiplash 14, be advised that we have uplink failure. I say again, we have no control of the drone.”
“Whiplash 14, I copy. Be advised you are leaving your operation box.”
“What’s going on?” Renee asked.
“Something is interfering with the drone. It’s not responding,” the female captain replied calmly.
“What in the hell?” General Swift bellowed from across the room. “Why am I getting calls that my Reaper is leaving the ops box?”
“The drone isn’t responding,” Renee replied.
“I can see that. Why is this happening?”
“No idea, sir, we are running diagnostic checks right now. Something is wrong with the signal,” the male captain replied.
“Get that piece of shit back online, I don’t need this right now.”
“Whiplash 14, Sentinel 3, we are clearing the airspace until the drone gets back online. How copy?”
“Whiplash 14 copies.”
“The frequency’s jammed. It won’t let me override it,” the woman said, typing furiously on the keyboard in front of her.
“Where is it going?” Renee asked.
They ignored her as the drone leveled out and then gently waggled its wings back and forth. “Diagnostics are good, it’s not a software problem.”
A red alert prompt popped up on the Reaper’s heads-up display. It read, “UPLINK TERMINATED.”
“Someone has hacked the feed.”
“Is that thing armed?” Kevin asked.
“Yes, it has the usual complement of Hellfire missiles,” the woman replied.
The general snatched a phone off the cradle and violently punched in a number. He impatiently waited for someone to answer while yelling orders across the TOC. “Can someone find out where the hell this million-dollar piece of shit is going?”
“Can you disable the flight link?” Renee asked.
“No, ma’am, it doesn’t work like that. If the guidance link is severed, they are programmed to return to base.”
“Is there anything you can do? I mean, there has to be something in the manual.”
“No, ma’am, someone is going to have to shoot it down.”
“This is General Swift. I need to speak with the officer in charge. No, I can’t wait, get him on the phone.”
“Sir, it looks like the drone is heading to Highway One,” a lieutenant said from the map attached to the wall.
“Yes, who is this? Captain Otto, we have a nonresponsive drone two kilometers west of Highway One. I need an immediate intercept with authorization for a shoot-down.”
Renee could see Highway 1 appear on the horizon where it snaked toward Pakistan like a dull gray serpent.
“Bird’s inbound, time to intercept five minutes,” the general yelled without taking the phone from his ear.
“Whiplash 14, we have two F-15s moving in for intercept. ETA five mikes, how copy?”
“Roger, Sentinel 3,” the pilot responded.
“What’s that on the road?” Kevin moved forward to get a better look at the screen.
A line of SUVs appeared at the upper edge of the feed. The vehicles were moving at a high rate of speed and bunched tightly together.
“Sir, we need to find out if we have an asset on the road,” Renee said.
“I’m on the phone with Bagram, waiting on an answer,” another officer said from his desk.
Renee realized that her fists were clenched in anticipation, and she forced herself to relax. Her palms were red from where her fingernails had dug into her skin, and she wiped her clammy hands on her pant legs.
“Sir, it’s Hamid Karzai’s convoy.”
“Shit. I need those birds expedited, now.”
The Reaper cruised lazily at fifteen thousand feet, where it was invisible to anyone on the ground.
“Pilot, we have sixty-degree target lockout. Weapon and laser spin up,” the sensor operator said.
Renee wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t sound good.
“Sensor, check weapon and laser status.”
“Status complete, weapons are hot. Laser and auto track are coming online. Laser status complete, laser is hot and tracking on heading three five zero.”
“Initiate auto-destruct.”
“Pilot, access denied. Master arm is hot, we have missile launch.”
The reticle of the high-definition camera was focused over the second vehicle in the convoy. The feed showed where the infrared targeting laser was locked on to one of the vehicles as it moved unsuspectingly down the road.
“Pilot, impact in three, two, one.” The missile appeared in the screen for a split second as it slammed into the roof of the target vehicle. The explosion obliterated the vehicle and washed out the camera in a giant orange burst of flame and black smoke. Before the smoke cleared, the sensor operator was speaking again.
“Pilot, laser is hot. Master arm is hot, missile away.”
“Oh God,” Renee whispered as the second Hellfire went streaking toward its target.
A deathly silence fell over the TOC as everyone focused on the unauthorized strike unfolding before their eyes. In the background someone aboard the AWAC was trying to confirm the first missile strike, but the pilot wasn’t answering.
Renee was amazed at the sensor operator’s cool. She reported the drone’s functions with an unattached professionalism, void of any emotion.
The drivers of the convoys had been trained by American Special Operations and went into immediate evasive action on the road. Assuming they had hit an IED, the trucks sped through the kill zone. If they stuck to their training, they would stop and take up a defensive perimeter once they were clear. There was no way for them to know that a second Hellfire was hurtling toward them.
Renee had seen countless drone strikes in her time, but never one like this. The state-of-the-art UAV seemed to be functioning autonomously while losing none of its lethality.
“Pilot, impact in three, two, one,” the woman said again.
The laser designator tracked its target as the vehicles sped down the road. It was two hundred meters away when the second Hellfire detonated. The impact tossed the vehicle in the air, where it tumbled like a scrap of tin before slamming into the ground in a ball of flames.
General Swift silently lowered himself into a chair, the phone cradled to his ear, forgotten.
“Sentinel 3, I confirm two unauthorized missile launches. We have two hits at grid . . .”
Renee wasn’t listening. She looked over at the general, who’d buried his head in his hands in disbelief.
The feed suddenly shuddered and the picture violently corkscrewed on the screen as the drone tumbled toward the ground. The last thing they saw was an air force F-15 shoot past the Reaper after successfully hitting it with its twenty-millimeter cannon.
“How do you hijack a drone?” Kev
in asked from her side.
“Someone has to be very familiar with our operating systems,” Renee replied.
The enormity of the situation filled the room and slowly settled on the silent witnesses like an invisible weight. Everything had just changed.
“Sir, I just received another message on the secure network,” one of the men said from his desk.
“What?” General Swift asked weakly.
“Another video, sir.”
“Put it on the screen,” Renee ordered, taking the initiative.
“Yes, ma’am.”
A moment later the screen, which had gone blank after the Reaper was shot down, blinked to life. A blue box with a white “play” arrow appeared, and Renee watched the sergeant’s cursor scroll over to the arrow and click it.
The video showed the inside of an American FOB. The gravel was scorched black in some places, and the walls of the buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes. The camera panned over a row of bodies before focusing on Colonel Barnes.
The colonel stood framed by the dark mountains in the background. The sky looked impossibly blue, with white clouds slowly drifting on an invisible breeze.
“General Swift,” he began. “Do I have your attention now?” Barnes looked comfortable and supremely arrogant in his dirty camouflage uniform. His blond head was streaked white in the sunlight, and despite the dark sunglasses, he oozed a violent aggression.
“I advised you to heed my warning, but you wouldn’t listen. Still the most clueless man in Afghanistan, I see. I would suggest leaving as soon as possible, before the natives find out that the Americans killed their president. Anvil 6 out.”
The video ended, leaving Colonel Barnes’s face framed on the large screen.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
Libya
The drive from Algiers to the Libyan border crossing at Ghadames took seventeen hours, and Mason tried to sleep for most of the way. The compact Toyota was cramped and smelled like dirty laundry and stale cigarette smoke. It was impossible for him to get comfortable, and he finally gave up the idea of going to sleep and just smoked.
His driver, a young Libyan, stopped before the border crossing to buy six cans of warm beer from a roadside vendor. Returning to the car, he asked Mason if he wanted one before popping the top and chugging the can.
Alcohol was illegal in Libya, which meant that it was hard to find but not impossible to get. Mason got out of the car to take a piss on the side of the road, and after he finished, he stretched his legs and surveyed the long line of cars at the border.
Ghadames had always been a prominent city because it had fresh water. Thousands of years ago, the arid crossing would have been packed with caravans waiting to water their camels at the oasis. Since the civil war it had become a hub for drugs being smuggled into the country and weapons coming out.
It was a dangerous place, but Mason’s only concern was the 290 miles left to Tripoli. The driver tossed the empty can of beer out of the window and lit a cigarette before getting back on the road.
The driver cursed under his breath and honked his horn as he maneuvered the car onto a dirt bypass and snaked around the line of cars. He stopped next to a tan shack and honked his horn twice. A middle-aged soldier ambled slowly from the building, with the bored expression that only a civil servant can muster. His uniform was stained with sweat and bulged around the midriff as he made his way to the car.
“You again. What do you want this time?” he asked the driver, his hand resting on top of his leather holster.
“Uncle, you look tired. Are they working you too hard?” the driver asked with concern before handing over the sack of beer.
“This fucking job, all day I sit out in the sun and listen to these people. I’ve had enough, I tell you.” He took the beer with a smile and patted the driver on his hand. “You are a good nephew, but next time bring me the American porno mags that I’ve been asking for.”
His nephew smiled as the soldier bent down to get a look at Mason.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have family in Tripoli and my mother is sick,” Mason replied in Arabic. The soldier nodded and patted the top of the car, telling them that they were free to go.
The car pulled off and the driver asked Mason if he had his pistol ready.
“Yeah, why, what’s up?”
“There are more checkpoints on the road ahead, but they aren’t manned by the military. It should be okay, but you never know.”
Mason slipped the Glock out of his waistband and placed it beneath his thigh, making sure it was out of sight. He ignored the sharp edges cutting through his pants and tried to enjoy the scenery as they drove toward the city.
They had to stop four more times before making it to Tripoli, and at each checkpoint the driver had to fork over a wad of wrinkled dinars to get past the militia guarding the road. The government might have controlled the borders, but the road was still in control of the rebels. Halfway to their destination, the driver pulled over at a bombed-out gas station and Mason switched cars. He thanked the man for his help before settling into the nicer Toyota Land Cruiser that would take him to the safe house. The American wondered if Toyota was the only company that imported vehicles to the Mideast.
“Maybe I should give all this up and set up a dealership,” he thought to himself before dozing off.
His new driver woke him up outside Tripoli and pulled the SUV through the gate of a modest house on the outskirts of the capital. Mason grabbed his gear and stretched before walking up to the door.
Knocking twice, he turned the brass knob and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The interior of the house was dimly lit and filled with cigarette smoke. The floors were a rough concrete, and a large rectangular rug took up the middle of the large room, beneath an equally large table.
The furnishings of the house had obviously been picked off the street, because nothing in the room matched. A faded blue chair and two brown couches added an island of color in comparison to the whitewashed walls, and the chairs surrounding the table were mismatched and rickety.
Mason smiled as Zeus turned away from the table, the small black comb he used to brush his prized goatee still in his hand.
“Well, look who finally decided to show up. I was just telling Tarek that I thought you’d decided to live in Morocco.”
The American looked over at Tarek, who was hunched over a computer, his strong shoulders and huge arms dwarfing the tiny laptop. Like Zeus, he had worked for Ahmed in the Libyan intelligence service, and after a visit to the United States he had fallen in love with the movie Serpico. Ever since, he had adopted Pacino’s shaggy hair and thick beard, which he dyed black to cover the gray. Mason had bought him a leather coat, like the one Pacino wore in the movie, and despite the warmth of the night he still had it on.
Zeus embraced him as he dropped his gear near the couch, and kissed both sides of his face in the traditional Middle Eastern greeting. Mason nodded to Tarek, who made no attempt to tear his attention away from the laptop.
“What happened to your face?” Zeus asked, holding his friend at arm’s length. “I told you about the whorehouses in Morocco, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s nothing,” Mason replied.
“Let me guess, you got into a fight because you ignored your friend’s advice. Am I right?”
“I handled it.”
“That’s not the point, my friend. One day you’re going to go against someone faster or stronger than you, and then what? If you don’t listen to me, you will never live long enough to get out of here.”
“I got it,” Mason said, annoyed at the scolding. “I see you’ve been busy.”
He pointed to the table, which was covered in maps and photos, and a computer that had seen better days.
“When Ahmed said that his ‘little prince’ needed help, we dropped everything.” He smiled at his own joke and pointed to Tarek. “Now, if I could only get this one to do some work,
I might be able to get some rest. Tarek, you are being rude. Say hello to our guest,” he snapped.
Tarek grunted from the computer. Mason could see that he was scrolling through a gallery of porn, which had become a national obsession since the Internet ban was lifted.
“Tarek, turn off that filth and get us some tea,” Zeus commanded while lighting a cigarette. “I swear to you, your bombs will never do as much damage as your American pornography. It will be the death of this country.”
Tarek cursed loudly when the video he clicked on refused to load and slammed the computer shut.
“I keep telling you that we need better Internet. How am I supposed to do my job when I must wait an hour to download anything?” He stood with a huge smile, popped the front of his leather jacket like he’d seen in the movie, and swept Mason up in a backbreaking hug. “He has been on a long journey. I am sure he doesn’t want tea. I have something much better.” Tarek released Mason and disappeared into the small kitchen. A moment later, he returned with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and three glasses. He poured a healthy amount of the golden liquid into the glasses before passing them around.
“To the return of a good friend.” Holding the glass high, he slammed the contents down with a fluidity born of practice. Once all the glasses had been refilled, cigarettes were passed out and Zeus moved to the center of the table.
“So what do you guys have for me?” Mason asked.
“I hate to be the one to tell you, but the files you downloaded, they were all corrupted,” Tarek said as gently as he could. “I thought I could fix them, but right now it’s not looking good.”
“Shit . . .” Mason felt the bottom fall out of his plan and prayed that Zeus had something.
“Don’t worry, my pale friend, once again I, the almighty Zeus, have come through,” the large Arab said with a flourish. “You didn’t give us very much to work with, but we made it happen. There have been three Americans who entered the country in the last two days.” He pulled three pictures off the top of the large stack and laid them out on the table with the flourish of a showman.