Drone Wars 1: The Beginning

by Mike Whitworth

  "Toni, do you see that?"

  Toni turned her head, ducked lower, and looked out the rear window. "I don't think that looks good Bill," she said.

  "Neither do I, Honey.” Bill kept driving because there was simply nothing else he could do. When the exit for Raphine Road came up, he took it, and headed toward the town of Steele's Tavern. He knew they were in trouble when the chopper followed. The only thing Bill thought they could do was head for cover. The problem was that he didn't know this area at all.

  In his four years in the Army, Bill had never seen combat. In some ways he regretted that, and in some ways he was very pleased he had never had to fire a shot at another human being during his time in the service. When he shot the two men who broke the patio door down, he was acting on instinct alone. His Army training had kicked in, and he fired without even being conscious of what he was doing.

  Right now though, he knew what he was doing. He ran through the options over and over again as he drove, and it always came down to the same thing. They would have to try to escape on foot. He thought escaping on foot was a bad bet, but it was the only bet they had.

  Bill had always been decisive. He knew that was one of his strong points. When he came to a heavily wooded area, he quickly slowed down and swung the car off the road and under the trees. "Everybody out," he said. "We need to abandon the car and get under cover.”

  Toni got out of the front seat as soon as the car stopped. She helped Mary out of the car while Bill did the same for Ashley. With Bill leading, they ran for the woods.

  The woods were thick enough to hide their progress from the helicopter, as long as it didn't have thermal detection capability. As a minor deputy director with the Department of Interior Security, Bill knew that the state police helicopters were slated to receive that capability later this year, but that it wasn't installed yet. He also knew that it wouldn't take very long for the government to provide a helicopter that had thermal imaging capability, or even a drone, if he were considered a valuable target. Considering what he had discovered, he thought he just might be a valuable target.

  It had been accident, not intent, that allowed him to stumble onto a copy of a top-secret report written for the higher ups in his own agency. However, he knew the government well enough to know that would not matter.

  He was very worried about Toni, her sister, and niece because the part of the information that had shocked him the most was how witnesses were murdered as well as the intended targets. He knew very well how the government could cover up incidents.

  Bill led them into the trees, angling southeast down the slope. Once, they carefully skirted a house set deep into the woods. The house was well kept, and had three cows in a small wooded pasture, and a very large garden. Bill thought it might belong to one of those preppers that this administration kept saying were likely to be terrorists. Bill had never met a prepper and, considering what was usually said about them in is department, didn't want to. At this point, he just wanted to get away with his family intact.

  As they moved through the woods as quickly as they could, Bill knew that the cops, or more likely trained agents of the agency he worked for—had worked for he corrected himself—would be after them. It was obvious now that he was no longer a valued employee, just a valued target.

  Bill's office in the DIS handled paperwork involved with providing surplus military equipment to the increasingly federalized state and municipal police forces. Even though he was a minor bureaucrat with a moderately impressive title, at least to those outside, he knew almost nothing about the overall operation of the agency. Until he had seen the top-secret report, had not even known that the agency had armed drones or trained killer agents.

  He was trying to remember what the killer agents had been called in the report. He remembered only part of a code name, ground hounds, because the alliteration and lack of the use of an acronym had also surprised him. He had glossed over that part because the use of armed drones to kill American citizens had shocked him so badly. It was positively un-American. He was starting to realize that America wasn't the America of his youth anymore.

  The name ground hounds suggested they had the ability to track people on the ground. Bill shuddered to think of what technology they had. With the effectively unlimited budget of the Department of Interior Security, he was afraid almost anything was possible

  The brand-new, black helicopter landed in the middle of the road. Two men dressed in camouflage jumped out. They were both lean and incredibly fit. They had not said a single word to the pilot, nor to each other.

  The taller of the two seemed especially withdrawn, the pilot thought. He had not said a word to either of them either, not because he had been instructed not to, but because there was something about both men that scared him. They were not normal. The cold stare they gave him almost made him sick to his stomach. He was relieved when they left the helicopter.

  Once they were far enough away, he lifted the helicopter into the air, and returned to base, as per his orders. As he flew away, he could see where the state police had traffic stopped in both directions. The traffic was starting to really back up. He wondered what the official excuse would be this time? Maybe a training exercise?

  Greg led, and the other ground hound followed. It was easy for them to pick up the trail at the car. This time they were under orders to take out the targets as quickly as possible. Intel said that there were three targets, but the tracks showed four. An extra kill would be just fine, Greg thought. He hoped he was able to kill all four, but he knew the other hound was hoping the same. They would probably have to split the kills between them, but Greg could always hope. They followed the trail at a fast jog.

  They were on the scene an hour after the car had been abandoned. That meant that the targets were unlikely to be more than four miles ahead of them, and probably much less.

  Bill kept pushing them along. Ashley was complaining, although he kept whispering for her to stay quiet. Bill guessed that was typical for a 14-year-old these days. Mary seemed to be in shock and said nothing. Toni was also shocked, but seemed determined. She had always been made of sterner stuff than her sister, Bill thought. Her competence was one of the things that had attracted him to her when they first met.

  Bill wondered who would be coming after them. He only had three rounds left in the .45, and he knew they wouldn't be enough.

  He also knew for the first time that he wouldn't survive this. The feeling shocked him enough to make him shiver, even though it was warm. He now knew what it was like to be in a combat theater; feeling your impending death as wasted years, and all your future hopes and dreams, flashed before you. Yet, he knew he could not just quit. He was mad now, but it was a cold, thinking madness, one unlike any he had known before.

  Bill could think of only one possible way that he could keep Toni and her family alive. He knew how important her sister and niece were to Toni.

  He and Toni had never had children. The doctor said Toni was barren. That left her with a deep sadness that had taken years to go away, if it ever had. Bill had always wanted children too, so it was a hurt for him as well; a hurt he never let Toni see.

  Mary and Ashley were Toni's only relatives. Her parents had died in an automobile accident when Toni was 15, leaving her and Mary behind. The doctor said that the accident had left Toni unable to conceive, taking away most of both her present and future family in one screeching crash of bending metal and broken glass.

  After the accident, Toni had raised Mary, who had only been eight when the accident happened. Mary had been the only one unhurt in the accident, probably because Toni had covered her with her own body when she saw that the crash was inevitable. With no relatives to turn to, Toni quit school, got a job, and petitioned the court for custody of her sister. It was testimony to her competence that the judge granted it.

  Bill was an orphan. He had never known his parents. His mother had given him up for adoption at birth. Unfortunately, Bill was never adopted, a
nd had grown up in a series of foster homes, often moving from one to another more than once a year. He joined the army as soon as they would take him, at 18, just to get out of the system. At 22, he left the army and started college on the GI bill. He earned his degree in general business and accounting, and went to work for the federal government right out of college.

  He and Toni met at a party and, once they started talking about being orphaned, something just clicked between them. It took Bill about three weeks to realize he was in love with Toni, but then she always was the smarter one. She later told him she had known that first night at the party.

  Bill led the women along the creek that ran along the base of the hill. They stayed under cover of the trees as much as possible. After about a mile, they came to a rickety bridge across the creek and a poorly maintained dirt road. Bill had been hoping for a more traveled road, but beggars couldn't be choosers. They ran across the bridge as quickly as possible and then back into the woods beside the road. Bill watched hopefully for a car.

  Bill chose a location where the forest canopy almost covered the road. He stopped. "Toni, Mary, Ashley; please listen to me. We are going to hijack a car and get out of here."

  "But Bill, that is illegal," Mary said.

  "Mary," Toni said, "just go along with this. It is very important. Do you remember what I told you?"

  "Of course," Mary said, "but the government won't really hurt us."

  "What about the men who broke our door down?” Bill asked. "I checked. They both had government IDs."

  "I don't believe this," Mary said.

  "Mom, do what Aunt Toni and Uncle Bill say. We can argue about this later.” Bill was surprised. It seemed like Ashley was growing up very suddenly.

  Bill heard a vehicle coming and motioned everyone into position. The vehicle was an older pickup truck, and the driver looked like a real country boy. He was maybe 30 years old, unshaven, and just looked rough. Bill thought he might be armed, but he had no choice. Time was short.

  Bill stepped into the road in front of the oncoming pickup truck, and leveled his pistol at the driver. The truck quickly braked to a halt in a cloud of dust. Bill could see Toni run towards the back of the truck followed by Ashley who was almost dragging her mother. The driver's eyes were on Bill's gun. Bill didn't think the driver had seen the women. Toni climbed over the tailgate just as the driver suddenly floored the gas pedal and tried to run Bill over. Bill jumped out of the way, and the truck disappeared across the bridge. His plan had not worked completely, but at least he thought Toni might have escaped.

  "Mary, you and Ashley stay under cover of the trees and keep going. I will stay here and cover you. Don't come back here for any reason, no matter what you hear."

  "Yes, Uncle Bill," Ashley said. She led her still protesting mother away in the direction Bill had indicated.

  Bill thought that any pursuers would have to cross the bridge, so he crouched in some bushes where he could watch the bridge. His pistol was in his hand, and he was determined to at least get the three rounds he had left fired at his pursuers. He hoped it would buy the women some time, but, in his heart, he knew he had failed. He never heard the bullet that entered the back of his head and killed him.

  "That's one," Greg said as he put his silenced pistol back in its holster.

  "Such amateurs," the other hound grinned. "Let's get the others."

  "You bet," Greg said.

  Both hounds started off at an easy lope in the direction that Mary and Ashley had taken. Reading their tracks was as easy as reading a comic book.

  When the truck started moving, Toni instinctively pulled herself over the tailgate and into the bed. At first, she didn't realize that her sister and niece had not made it with her. Since the truck was rapidly accelerating, and she had no choice, Toni lay down in the bed of the truck. She noticed a blue plastic tarp and covered herself with it. The ride was bouncy and rough.

  The truck continued along the road for about 15 minutes, then pulled into a driveway, and drove almost a mile into the woods. Toni did not rise up and look because she didn't want the driver of the truck to see her. She waited fearfully until the truck stopped.

  After the truck stopped she heard the driver's door open and close, and heard the footsteps of the driver walking away. He was talking on a cell phone as he walked.

  "Larry, you're not gonna believe this. Some guy pulled a gun on me and tried to steal my truck. I was almost carjacked."

  As the driver walked farther away, Toni could no longer hear what he said into the phone. She waited until she heard the door on the house close. Then, she quickly rose and rolled out of the truck on the side away from the house. She immediately ran behind the barn and made her way into the woods. As she crouched behind some bushes, she realized she was back at the place that they had skirted when they were walking through the woods. Since she didn't know what else to do, Toni sat down and cried as quietly as she could.

  Ashley and Mary kept moving. At times Ashley had to almost drag her mother, but they still managed to keep moving. Coming around the bend in the road they ran right into two men dressed in dark camouflage. Each man was carrying a rifle. Both men had holstered pistols on their belt. Mary assumed that they were police, broke free from Ashley, and ran toward them.

  "Please save us," she said.

  "Yes ma'am," one replied as he drew his pistol and shot her.

  Ashley was in shock as one of the men grabbed her arms and said, "You're coming with us, young lady."

  Five hours later, Greg looked at the other hound and said. "Well, that's three. That's all they told us to get."

  "But the tracks show there were four."

  "Yeah, it looks like that one managed to catch a ride with someone."

  "The weekend is coming up. I am off duty. I have plans."

  "Well, that's fine with me. I have plans too."

  "I guess that settles it then," Greg said as they both started toward their pickup point leaving the naked body of Ashley in the woods behind them.

  Four days later, Toni was still hiding in the woods near the house. She had been stealing food from the garden at night and water from a horse trough. She was getting tired of eating raw bell peppers, onions, and green beans, but that was the least of her problems. She was worried almost out of her mind about Bill, her sister, and her niece. It took all of her ability just to get through the days. She cried herself to sleep in the woods every night, burrowed into a pile of leaves to stay warm.

  It was on her 17th day of hiding that the man found her. He was the owner of the garden she had been stealing food from; the man who had driven the pickup truck that brought her here. She begged him not to turn her over to the government. Much to her surprise, he did not. He and his wife simply took care of her until some of her fear was gone, and her appearance, at least, was normal again.

  These were the first preppers Toni had ever met. She began to question the government's story that preppers were terrorists. It was the government doing the terrorism, as she now knew very well.

  Then, one day, Lorne Vanders and Doc drove up and took her away to safety. She never figured out how the man knew Lorne, and Lorne never volunteered that information. Most of the fear went away in time as she mourned her loss, but a bright ember of that fear remained deep in her belly, ready to violently explode if she were not careful.

  Chapter 12: THE BIG SPLASH

  "No man knows the mind of a woman before she knows his.” John Debrouillard

  Gulf of Mexico

  The meeting was over, but everyone stayed around talking for quite some time. After a while, I asked Lorne "How are we going to get off the ship?"

  "The other members of the Council will take a small submarine to the Yucatán Peninsula, and then each will return to his or her home from there by different routes. We will take the ship's launch and meet our boat at another oil platform. We will then take our boat back to the Gulfport Harbor."

  "That sounds okay," I said. "The sooner the
better, I think."

  "Let's get going then," Doc said.

  Toni, Peggy, Lorne, Doc, and I headed for the ship's launch. Once we were aboard, the crew quickly lowered us to the water, and we started toward the production platform where we were supposed to meet the ship's crew with our boat. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the platform. Our boat was already underneath the platform structure waiting for us. We switched boats and took off in the direction of Gulfport Harbor in our original boat.

  After we were well underway, I asked Lorne. "Do we have a backup plan?"

  "Well, kind of," Lorne said. "We do have snorkeling gear in case we have to swim."

  "I suggest we get it out then," I said.

  Doc went below and came back with a large plastic tote containing flippers, snorkels, and masks. We passed those out to everyone.

  "Folks, I suggest we keep these very close at hand. Wear the masks around your necks. Does everyone here know how to use flippers and a snorkel?” Everyone nodded so I assumed we were in pretty good shape. I was hoping we would not need the flippers and snorkels, but I knew the government wanted me, and probably Peggy and Toni, very badly. On the water, we were a sitting duck for a drone attack. No matter how many precautions we had taken, I was skeptical that they were enough.

  Our trip was uneventful until we were about five miles from shore. Then, Toni saw the drone.

  "Look! Over there," Toni pointed. I looked to see what she was pointing at and caught the flash of a white drone silhouetted against the gray storm cloud. Off in the distance, I could see the gray curtain of rain falling from the cloud. Just in case the drone was after us, I asked Doc to take us into the rain. Doc immediately turned the boat and headed for the rainstorm.