He didn’t answer, but I was grateful. He wasn’t taking anything for granted. We headed north on Route 41 past Lake Forest and Lake Bluff. Eventually we turned east to Great Lakes Naval Station , boot camp for navy recruits and the service’s largest training facility. More than eleven hundred buildings sit on sixteen hundred acres, making it a small city unto itself. I figured we were going to meet someone there, but when Luke passed the entrance I was confused.
“We’re not going in?”
He shook his head.
Five minutes later we were in downtown Waukegan. Unfortunately, Waukegan, Illinois, is not an example of progressive urban planning. After the affluence of Highland Park, Lake Forest, and Lake Bluff, Waukegan seems like the orphan child left behind. With a hundred thousand people, the city isn’t small, but whatever charm it may have had has been gutted by decades of mismanagement and corruption. Now it has a distressed, hardscrabble landscape broken up by a string of chain stores and gas stations.
“Luke, why are we here?” I asked.
Luke studied the rear view as carefully as the windshield. After five minutes circling the block, he pulled up to a place that had to be two steps below a dive bar. A corner tavern, its walls were covered by graffiti in loopy letters, and its windows were probably last washed during the Depression. It didn’t even have a name, but a neon sign above the door said “Bar.” The letter r flickered in the dusky light.
“We could have gone to Solyst’s,” I said. “Why did we have to come all this way?” Solyst’s was a bar in my village, although the new owners recently upgraded the bathrooms to semi-luxurious, so I’m not sure it still qualifies as a dive.
Luke got out of the truck, came around to my side, and opened the door.
“Something tells me I’m not gonna like this,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Saturday
The bar’s interior was as shabby as its exterior. Scuffed linoleum floors, a cracked ceiling running the length of the room, and warped, bowed-out paneling. The only saving grace was a cheerful swath of colored Christmas lights high up on the walls, which I guessed was a permanent fixture, since it was nearly March.
Luke craned his neck at the people in the booths lining both sides of the room. His gaze stopped at the back, where a guy in a gray hoodie and a Sox ball cap stared back. As a die-hard Cubs fan, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. His expression was curious, perhaps even suspicious, but when he saw Luke, recognition lit his face, and he smiled brightly.
“That’s him.” Luke guided me toward the booth. As we approached I spotted a pair of crutches lying on the cushion beside him.
He reached for one of the crutches and attempted to stand.
Luke hurried over. “No. Don’t get up.” He embraced him. “Hey, man!”
“Hey, man, you!” They exchanged joyful looks that indicated they were thrilled to see each other. Then the man’s gaze turned to me.
“This is Ellie?”
I smiled. “Guilty.”
“Ellie, this is Artie Hubbard.” We shook hands. He had a lean face, a pointed chin, a forehead with deep lines, but soft brown eyes. “He’s an old pal.”
Hubbard cleared his throat loudly. “It’s Commander Hubbard now, pal.” He stroked a growth of gray stubble on his chin, which could have been a beard or the result of not shaving for a week.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You finally did it, you old geezer,” Luke said. He turned to me. “We used to call him Grizzly. Maybe you can see why.”
Hubbard patted his chin. “The stubble effect. Supposed to drive women crazy.”
I giggled.
“Funny…that’s what the other ladies did, too.”
I slid into the booth across from him. Luke got in beside me. “You’re in the navy?” I asked.
“Great Lakes is my home.”
“But Luke was in the air force. How did you meet?”
Luke cut in. “We grew up together in Lake Geneva. We both worked at the old Playboy Club during high school.”
I nodded, remembering Luke’s history at what was now called the Lodge but at one time was one of the trendiest spots north of Chicago.
“We stayed in touch,” Grizzly said.
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” I replied. “The only other friend of Luke’s I’ve met is Jimmy Saclarides.”
Grizzly looked like he wanted to say something, but Luke cut him off. “How’s the leg?” Then he grimaced. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“No worries. There’s still some phantom pain, but I live with it.” He turned to me. “I lost it in a helicopter accident in Afghanistan.”
“You were lucky, bro,” Luke said.
“Don’t I know it.” He paused. “My pilot wasn’t.” He rubbed his nose as if trying to erase the memory. “Hey, the pizza here isn’t bad.”
“Then, that’s what we’ll order,” Luke said. “Drafts all around?”
We nodded. Luke went up to the bar to place the order.
I gazed around. “So, why are we meeting here?”
Grizzly smiled. “Because your boyfriend wanted to.”
“Luke picked this place?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Not a word.”
“Well…” A jukebox in the corner I hadn’t noticed before belted out a Taylor Swift song. “I’m on my last assignment. Base commander’s training staff.”
“In what?”
“Intelligence.” He paused. “And before that, I was director of all source intelligence analysis in Qatar. And before that in Afghanistan.”
I was beginning to understand why Luke had brought me here.
Grizzly’s next words confirmed it. “I know a lot about drones.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Saturday
Twenty minutes later, I was lifting skinny strings of mozzarella cheese and winding them around a slice of pepperoni pizza before I shoveled it all into my mouth. Which I washed down with a draft. The taste of spicy flavors, milky cheese, and cold beer was addictive. Pizza was my favorite cuisine. And no need for forks or knives.
“I understand you have some questions about counterdrone systems,” Grizzly said to me.
I held up a finger while I chewed and swallowed. Then: “I’m not sure if ‘question’ is the right word. Confession might be more accurate.”
“You may confess to me, young lady.”
“Thank you, Father.” I glanced over at Luke. He nodded. “I was told by a top executive at Delcroft that they’ve been working on a counterdrone system for over a year. This executive was testing it in Utah. She says the system is flawless.”
Grizzly took a swig. “I’m not surprised. Anti-drones use the same technology as drones. All you have to do is reverse engineer them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most of them are controlled by old-fashioned radio signals.”
“Radio signals?” I knew a little about radio signals, ironically, because of the case through which I met LeJeune.
“Satellite GPS signals, too.”
“Okay.”
“As you probably know, the payloads on drones are either cameras and sensors for surveillance or explosives for attacks. Sometimes both. If I wanted to take control of a drone, I’d mimic and boost its radio signal. That way I could feed it misinformation about where to drop the bomb or what to spy on—they call them spoofing attacks—or just shoot it out of the sky if I wanted.”
I nodded, pretending I understood a lot more than I did.
“So, whatever system Delcroft is developing would probably have a sensor to detect and triangulate the targeted drone’s position. The counterdrone would fly over to it. Once it was within range, the guys on the ground would transmit a signal with new directions. The counterdrone would acknowledge the new input and do whatever it’s been ordered to do.”
“You make it sound simple.”
Grizzly waved a hand. “You know, I am curious about something, Ellie. Why is it supposed to be so f
lawless?”
“Something to do with artificial intelligence.”
“Really?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“I suppose it does. Radios and radars used to be built with hardware that could only transmit in certain ways. Today, there’s software that can change how they emit from moment to moment. For example, we heard that someone recorded one burst transmission—he didn’t say from where—that changed modulation eight times in two seconds. In order to do that, the thinking goes, it has to be controlled by a ‘cognitive’ computer—ergo, artificial intelligence.” He went on. “And if you do that, you’ve opened the door to all sorts of other things.”
“Like what?”
“Hacking into enemy networks. Placing malware on enemy systems.”
“NSA-type hacking?”
“You betcha. But from the air. Unmanned. Untraceable. It’s pretty amazing. Remember, Delcroft has the most advanced drone systems in the world. Hell, they even make an F-16 drone, and they’ve come up with a way to control drones from an Apache helicopter. So whatever anti-drone system they’ve come up with probably takes those issues into account. It’s pretty advanced technology. Not a lot of companies have the investment dollars to perfect it. Or make it flawless.”
“But Delcroft does?”
“What do you think?”
I took another sip of beer. “So, bottom line, assuming Delcroft has this bigger, better system, there might be ‘parties’ who want to get their hands on the technology.”
“Are you kidding? Of course. We’ve done a shitload of damage with our drones. Our enemies want to pay us back. Although, like I said, if the engineers of those ‘parties’ know what they’re doing, they might be able to figure out Delcroft’s technology on their own. You remember how the Iranians shot down a drone a few years ago?”
I nodded.
“That was a CIA drone.” His voice held just a trace of smugness. “The Iranians claimed they jammed the signals, reverse engineered it, forced it to land where they wanted, and lifted all its data.”
“Did they?”
“Who knows? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It’s not rocket science.”
“Funny.”
Luke got up and brought back a fresh pitcher of beer. I pushed the pizza plate toward him. One slice was left. He scooped it up.
“So what’s your deal with Delcroft?” Grizzly asked.
Luke and I exchanged glances again. Then Luke said, “Ellie has information that someone connected to Delcroft might be selling this new system to the Chinese government. Or military.”
“They’re one and the same,” Grizzly said. “So that’s why you wanted to meet off base. What’s the story?”
I looked around. The booth next to us was empty, and there weren’t any people close by. Still, I lowered my voice and explained about the video, Parks, the flash drive, Hollander’s suspicions, and the IED that blew up Dolan’s office.
Grizzly worked on his beer while I talked. When I finished, a tiny layer of foam coated the top of his lip. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Good old Delcroft. The military’s best friend. They know more about our country’s capabilities than your average brigadier general or admiral.”
“So if Delcroft is building a supersecret counterdrone system, people would know about it?”
“By ‘people,’ I assume you mean our enemies?” Grizzly asked.
I nodded.
“It’s hard to keep that kind of thing secret for long.” He wrapped his hands around his empty beer glass. “By the way, most of the counterdrone tests for the military happen at the navy’s Point Mugu, near China Lake. That’s in California, not Utah.”
“Are you saying Hollander lied about where she was working?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because she can.”
I thought it over. “Wait a minute. If she lied about Utah, could she be lying about the artificial intelligence part of it, too?”
“It’s possible. Remember, our enemies aren’t stupid. They can take advantage of our technology and push it out fast. In some ways we’re still playing catch-up. It pays to lie. Confuse the situation. Make the enemy think we know or have more than we really do.”
My head was spinning. “Jesus. This is worse than going through the looking glass. Who do you trust?”
“No one.”
“But this is our country’s security we’re talking about.”
It was Grizzly’s turn to glance around. “Let’s blow this pop stand. Take me for a ride in your pickup.”
I frowned, but Luke promptly got up and went to the bar to pay.
Grizzly picked up his crutches and grinned. “I need to hang out with rich guys more often.”
Chapter Thirty
Saturday
The three of us crammed into the front seat of Luke’s pickup and threw Grizzly’s crutches into the bed. Grizzly’s forehead puckered; he looked like he wanted to say something. Luke was about to turn over the engine but unexpectedly stopped as if he’d received a telepathic message. He opened the driver’s side door and jumped down.
“Don’t touch anything,” he said.
We watched as he walked slowly around the pickup, peeked underneath the body, then opened the hood and peered in. Apparently satisfied nothing was wrong, he returned to the cab and hoisted himself up. Then he turned off the GPS. Grizzly’s forehead smoothed out.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked.
Luke and Grizzly exchanged glances. “It was.”
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“Join the club.” Luke keyed the engine and we pulled out.
“Why’d we leave the bar?”
“Because I didn’t want anyone to hear me,” Grizzly said.
“And that’s because…”
“Look. This may be my last assignment, but I’m still in the navy. We’re not supposed to have opinions that—uh—well, we’re not supposed to have opinions at all.”
“What kind of opinions?”
“You asked me who did I trust, and I told you no one.”
“So?”
“Luke,” Grizzly said. “Turn on the radio.”
As soon as the Stones belted out “Brown Sugar” on the classic rock station, he spoke. “Ellie…DOD is a fucking wormhole. The left hand never knows—or trusts—what the right hand is doing.”
“But you’re part of it.”
His tone was patient, not irritated. “You know that picture of the galaxy with zillions of stars and the arrow that says ‘You are here’?”
I nodded.
“Well that’s what it’s like to work in Defense. I mean, think about it. The country has seventeen intelligence agencies, and most of them are connected to DOD. Then, a couple of years ago, the Pentagon says the military needs its own team of spies to get human intelligence. There was no debate in Congress. No public announcement or explanation. But a few months later there’s something called the Defense Clandestine Service.”
“Number eighteen?”
He nodded.
I was feeling the buzz from the alcohol and the carbs. “You’re pretty cynical. Maybe even paranoid.”
“A career in military intelligence does that.” He pulled out a cigarette and matches from a crumpled pack. “Fucking oxymoron.” He rolled down the window, struck a match, and touched the flame to the cigarette. He took a long drag and blew it out. “But you know something? It doesn’t make a coon’s bit of difference what I think. Or you. Or our friend Luke over there.”
“How come?”
“Because we live in the Deep State.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “What is the Deep State?”
“It’s the government behind the one on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. A state within a state.”
“Now you’re a conspiracy theorist?”
“No. I’m a realist.”
“That’s nothing new. Eisenhower warned us about t
he military-industrial complex sixty years ago.”
“But this one has new, more powerful members. Everyone is focused on national security, so we’re talking not only the Pentagon, but State, Homeland Security, the CIA, and Justice. Even Treasury. As well as major corporations with the same agenda.”
“And Congress?”
“Nope. All they do is rubber-stamp what the Deep State does. But here’s the thing. Everything the state does is secret. Classified. It’s a surveillance state run amok. And, more and more, it’s run by the private sector. Banks, Wall Street, and your buddies at Delcroft, for example.”
“What do you mean?”
“Weapons suppliers. Private contractors, digital types like the old Blackwater crowd, ethical and nonethical hackers. They all work with the government now. Closer than ever.”
I thought of Dolan.
“About seventy percent of America’s intelligence budget goes to the private sector. To root out terrorism and protect the country.”
“That much?”
He tried to smile, but it looked like a scowl. “Yeah. Which, in practice, means that the CEO of Delcroft advises the president on technology and national security probably as often as the Joint Chiefs. Add to that the fact that most retired admirals and generals end up on the boards of companies like Delcroft. In fact, most big corporations have their own intel operations today. And they share information. On a scale that would shock even Edward Snowden.” He took another drag. “Did you know that the government is starting to protect companies like Delcroft and Google and AT&T from privacy lawsuits in return for their data?”
I shook my head. “What about the subpoenas and things they need to get at that data?”
Grizzly’s laugh was hollow. “Gone with the wind.”
“But doesn’t it take a long time to find specific data and transmit it?”
“If you think a fraction of a second is a long time.” He paused. “Look, I love my country. I lost my fucking leg because of it. But I don’t recognize it anymore.”
Luke cut in. “So, you’re saying they could be looking into Ellie right now?”
“You bet they are. Delcroft, the FBI, probably this new DCS too.” He crossed his arms. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
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