ASSASSIN 5 - SITTING DUCKS (Assassin Series)

by Bryan Murray

In a nail-biting chase of the two senior terrorists through the center of Jerusalem, packed with devout tourists, both Jewish and Christian, Jake and Sarah finally terminated the bad guys with just seconds to spare. As they finally restored the peace of the holy week in the city, back in Austria, Interpol quickly closed in on the Neo-Nazis and arrested all the major players, with the exception of the 88-year-old billionaire, who had a fatal heart attack when he saw his life’s work of bringing down the Israeli economy foiled by the Americans and the Israelis.

  For his outstanding contribution in helping to contain the threat, Joseph had been given a major promotion by the Mossad.

  * * *

  It was perhaps somewhat fortuitous that Jake had been able to arrange some discreet babysitting by the Mossad of the two executives from Winston on their pending trip to Israel.

  Particularly if he had only realized that at that very moment, up in the JOD encampment in the mountains, General Al-Amabakhu had just received a coded message from his senior operative in the US, advising him that the two top technical men from Winston Aerospace would be attending the International Air Show in Tel Aviv in two days.

  The general quickly summoned his technical expert Al-Bikari. “I need you to visit Tel Aviv on an urgent mission, my brother.” he announced.

  “Of course, General, what would you like me to do?”

  He then sat and listened as the general outlined his plan.

  CHAPTER 8

  The next morning, Jake, Sarah and Steve arrived at the Winston plant and started their security audit in earnest. Steve was introduced to the support staff he would be working with in Human Resources, Sarah was already in the materials logistics group offices and they were both systematically reviewing and making detailed notes on all the items on the check list laid down by Homeland Security.

  Jake, with a wider area of security to review, was already revisiting with Andy Bevins some of the places they had seen the previous day. Ben was busy getting ready for his trip with Roddy to Tel Aviv and Isaac was back on the Beta test site with another group of trainee pilots, putting them through their paces.

  Jake had told Andy that he would like to look at the existing protocol for handing over the secure control of a Death Dart drone to a designated command module pilot. He was still having problems getting his head around the scenario where a pilot may be a thousand miles away and could simply take control of an armed combat drone, sitting on a distant runway.

  Then by a mere transfer of a secure, approved launch code, the pilot would be able to take the drone on a deadly mission, watched remotely by a senior group of attack co-ordinators. The latter would then review the incredible target data being fed back from the drone, all resulting in a decision by the firing officer to fire the missiles when the percentage likelihood of a solid ‘kill’ reached the ‘to go’ level.

  At that point, a launch command would be given to the pilot and the deadly vaporizing missiles would be launched at their unsuspecting target.

  Jake and Andy had been discussing the scenario and Jake had some final questions. “There are two major areas where I need to understand things a little more clearly, Andy?” he began.

  Andy smiled. “Sure, what are they?”

  Jake chose his words carefully. “As you’re probably aware, I’m not an aerospace whiz, so please make allowance if I sound a little naïve, okay? I know you’re probably sick of answering questions.”

  Andy grinned. “No problem.”

  “The first thing I need to understand a little clearer is how do we make sure we have absolute security at the point where the launch code is assigned to a drone and more important still, transferred to a specific pilot command module?’

  “Good question,” Andy replied. “When all the other aspects of a particular drone have been checked and double checked and security have signed off on the unit, then both Roddy and/or Ben assign a unique launch code to each drone that matches the existing software installed in the unit. Are you with me so far?”

  Jake nodded that he understood.

  “Then and only then, when we know the drone is fueled and if test firing is involved, also armed with a test missile but no warhead, will Ben personally transfer the launch code to the Alpha mobile command module.”

  Jake was listening intently. “Great, so Ben and Roddy will be the only ones who are cleared for assigning the launch codes.”

  “Exactly,” Andy replied. “And what was your second question?”

  Once again Jake was choosing his words carefully. “I guess this is as much concerned with collateral damage as with security, since this seems to be all we hear about from the terrorists these days - that we killed innocent people, invariably children!”

  “Go ahead, I’m listening?” Andy urged.

  “It’s also about drone pilot stress as well, Andy. It must be a terrible strain for a pilot to have acquired target data and relayed it to the firing center hoping to have given the correct prediction of a solid hit and waiting for the go ahead to fire the missile!”

  Andy was still listening patiently as Jake continued. “So, how can a pilot be sure that the video feedback he is getting from the drone is taking into account all the surrounding activity in the target zone, equivalent to what a human fighter pilot might see and assimilate before launching a missile? You know what I mean, could there be a school bus full of children or other innocent citizens heading into the target zone that the drone pilot hasn’t spotted?”

  Andy was looking at Jake with a new kind of respect. “Excellent question, Jake. This has been one of the main problems we’ve had to date with all our target acquisition video capture. The cameras were exceptional, but the area of view was limited.”

  Jake nodded that he understood. “So, what did you do?”

  Andy gave a knowing grin. “Exactly what we did is still classified, Jake, but to put it into laymen’s terms,” he pulled out his iPhone and showed Jake the back of it. “Just imagine how neat this existing cell phone camera is for people like you and me. It takes great video and it can zoom in and out no problem.”

  Jake was still with him so far.

  “So, now imagine a video camera with a curved lens with around three hundred similar cameras like this on the cell phone attached, but infinitely better, and all looking at a target zone now about the size of a small city, with all of them inter-connected at the touch of a button. It would involve about two billion pixels at once with each ‘magic eye’ operating independently, looking for movement and being able to scan each location individually, if the pilot spots anything that looks questionable, like the proverbial school bus approaching.”

  Jake was in shock. “My God!”

  “Exactly!” Andy smiled. “It would be like having one hundred UAV’s monitoring a medium sized city, all at the same time. Not only that, but you would be able to store a million terabytes of video a day, so you could even track back to see what happened on say a busy intersection for many hours previously.”

  “What’s a terabyte, Andy?”

  The young engineer smiled. “It’s equal to one thousand and twenty four gigabytes!”

  “Totally amazing!”

  Andy continued. “Exactly and all this is mounted in a UAV at 5 miles altitude so that this data would also be available to the Death Dart pilot to make sure that the certainty of the ‘hit’ is the most accurate it can be!”

  “And were you involved in the design of this new technology, Andy?” Jake inquired.

  “Yes, Isaac, myself and Sharon, with guidance from Ben, that guy is amazing!”

  “And who is Sharon?” Jake asked

  “She’s a brilliant young engineer that Isaac and I are training to take some of the load off us.”

  “Good thinking, Andy. In your business, a back-up brain is twice as important as a back-up piece of equipment!”

  Andy nodded. “I agree.”

  CHAPTER 9

  That night, Jake, Sarah and Steve had a quiet dinner with Ben prior to
his flight the next morning with Roddy into Tel Aviv.

  Ben was anxious to know how things were going. “So, how did the day go, guys?” he asked

  “Went very well,” Jake replied. ‘Sarah and Steve had excellent sessions with Sandy and Heather and as we expected everything checked out very favourably so far.”

  “And what about you, Jake?” Ben inquired.

  “It also went well,” Jake began. “I spent quite a bit of time with Andy and believe me, Ben, that is one amazingly smart young man!”

  Ben nodded. “You’d better believe it. Our recruitment experts had both Isaac and Andy picked out and under contract over two years before they even finished college. When I retire, the technical core of Winston could not be in better hands!”

  “I agree,” Jake replied. “There wasn’t a question I asked that Andy didn’t have a detailed answer for.”

  “That’s great,” Ben replied. “Roddy also tells me you’ve had a word with your friends in the Mossad?”

  “Yes, I just wanted to make sure that you were both well looked after whilst you were in town. Tel Aviv is a safe city, but when an Air Show comes to town, every bad guy on the planet wants to take a peek at the latest weaponry and also at the guys who designed it.”

  “Well, thanks, Jake. I guess we’ll meet our babysitters when we get to the airport in Tel Aviv.”

  “Right, and once you’ve met them, you won’t even know they’re around.”

  “Perfect!”

  “And have you got all your plans finalized that you were mentioning for each night after the show?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, I’m going to try to visit my sister who I haven’t seen in three years on the first night and I’ve also been invited to dinner with my former friends and colleagues at Isradrone, hopefully on the second night.”

  “That should be nice,” Jake replied. “And how many staff do you expect to have on the booth?”

  “Well, excluding Roddy and myself in the inner sanctum on the booth, only seeing select visitors, we will have twenty two marketing staff and five security staff.’

  “With the star of the show being the Death Dart!” Jake added with a smile.

  “Exactly, or at least we hope so. At the last show we had one of our hand launched drones cruising the air space above the show and it was amazing.”

  “How come?” Steve inquired.

  “Because we were able to plot crowd patterns and almost one third of the whole attendance at any one time almost always looked to be located around the Death Dart display!”

  “Well, let’s hope the same thing happens this time, Ben. We’d better let you get some rest, you’ve got a long day ahead.”

  “Sounds good.” Ben stood up to leave and they all shook hands.

  “Good night, have a safe trip.”

  “Thanks, guys.” Ben left to drive back to his apartment.

  * * *

  Jake, Sarah and Steve all ordered a final night cap as Jake continued to explain his day with Andy. “Let me tell you, guys, after chatting with Andy, this Death Dart is the deadliest attack drone on the planet. No wonder so many Al-Qaeda leaders have been taken out by them. If you could see the incredible target scanning software that this thing uses, my God, from five miles up, it can aim a missile straight through a one foot square window!”

  Sarah looked serious. “This is what scares me, Jake. If I were a terrorist leader, I would be salivating at the chance to scupper these babies in some way!”

  Jake nodded. “I agree, that’s why although Winston are putting the Death Dart on display at the show, all the clever bits will be missing from inside it!”

  “Well, thank goodness that’s not our problem. We finish the job and head back to DC after doing a nice, safe job for once.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Jake replied.

  As they headed for their rooms, Sarah had no idea how wrong she was!

  CHAPTER 10

  The scene outside the huge International Air Show in Tel Aviv was one of total chaos. Thousands of visitors were waiting in line to clear security to eventually get into the amazing display area. Potential customers from all the friendly nations that the US were now able to sell to, were already in line waiting to see the next official presentation of the Death Dart.

  Ben and Roddy had left the hotel in a limo and made it safely to the Winston Aerospace Booth that was a futuristic sight to see. It was located almost in the center of the huge display area where aircraft of every kind and nationality were on display, with over-zealous salesmen of each vendor busy plying their wares.

  The whole size range of aircraft from the massive Russian Antonov 225 Mriya Cargo Planes down to the small, hand-held UAV reconnaissance drones, were all on display. Ben flicked through the complete show catalogue where it was immediately apparent that the number of exhibiting displays of unmanned aircraft of any kind, easily outnumbered those involving manned aircraft, almost on a scale of three to one.

  * * *

  The Death Dart display was an amazing combination of good, old American smoke and mirrors, that was almost like something from a Star Wars movie.

  The middle of the display area was a square-shaped construction with draped curtains around all four of the fifty foot wide sides. Crowds were gathered in the seats on each of the four sides of the structure in readiness for each fifteen minute show.

  When the show started, the curtains on each side of the display would slowly rise cinema-style and show the audiences from each different quadrant a view of what appeared to be an empty auto showroom,

  The voice of the seductive sales professional welcomed the audience to the Death Dart display, the world’s leading stealth combat drone, adding, ‘Now you see it, now you don’t!”

  As she finished speaking, each of the quadrant views, which were just a series of five foot wide by twenty foot high swivelling glass plates, suddenly swivelled through ninety degrees to show the Death Dart now sitting there majestically in what had previously appeared to be an empty space.

  The audience caught their breath as each quadrant was then covered by a huge video screen being slowly lowered and they sat back in amazement as if they were now inside the Death Dart on a mission, zooming through space at the speed of sound. Suddenly, the two missile ramps slid smoothly down and the two DM4 missiles were launched in a spectacular ball of flame before they zeroed in on a large building on the ground. In the second they made impact on the target, the building was literally vaporized and reduced to a pile of rubble. This was a similar video to the one that Doug Mulgrave had shown to Jake and his team back in his office at Winston.

  The audience looked on in amazement as an attractive salesperson then appeared on the screen, asking the suitably impressed audience the following question. “Isn’t this what we all need to keep our borders safe? Please visit with our sales personnel and see how easy this can be. Thank you for visiting the Winston Aerospace Pavilion!”

  The curtains dropped down again and the wide-eyed potential customers moved over to discuss business with the friendly Winston sales personnel.

  At the back of the crowd, one man in particular was watching all the activity and he was also looking at the closed glass door of the office at the rear of the discussion area, The JOD terrorist Al-Bikari was only looking at one unsuspecting person… Ben Jacobs!

  At the entrance to the discussion area, in addition to the Winston security staff, all dressed in their corporate uniforms, there were also two men in dark suits, bulging shoulder holsters apparent. They were also keeping an eye on both Ben and Roddy in the glass-fronted office at the rear of the booth!

  CHAPTER 11

  With two free evenings at the show, Ben had arranged with Roddy that he would spend the first evening with his sister Rachel who lived in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and the second evening having dinner with his former colleagues from Isradrone.

  Ben’s sister Rachel was a widow. Her husband had been killed years previously while he was on a military border patro
l in the Gaza Strip.

  She had never re-married and she had been like a sister to Ben’s wife Miriam prior to her death. She lived in a modest home and she was delighted to see Ben when he drove up in the rental car and parked outside.

  She answered the door and gave him a big hug. “Welcome to my home, my brother, come in, it is so good to see you!”

  Ben smiled. “Good to see you too, Rachel. You look well, how is life treating you, my dear?”

  She gave a tired smile. “It’s good, lonely at times, but I visit the synagogue regularly and the Rabbi and I speak often,” she looked closely at Ben. “And what about you, Benjamin?” she asked. “Is life in the USA all you expected it to be?”

  He nodded affirmatively. “Yes, Rachel. The job is very good and I am kept very busy which helps me to try and forget Miriam most of the time.”

  She nodded sadly. “Yes, I never saw two people so completely matched!”

  He sighed sadly. “Yes, we were very close!”

  She changed the subject. “So, I made your favorite dish, my dear, and I know you also like my matzo ball soup.”

  Ben smiled. “I was hoping you would say that. Miriam and I always loved your cooking.”

  They settled down to talk about old times over dinner. Time seemed to fly by too quickly until Ben had to return to his hotel, ready for another busy day ahead.

  * * *

  To Ben’s surprise, the second day at the Air Show was even busier than the first and the crowds around the Winston booth never seemed to diminish throughout the entire day.

  Both Ben and Roddy were still busy discussing business with very interested customers after each show on the booth, and even before they were finished, further interested customers were already descending on them from the following show.

  Luckily, Roddy had foreseen this and the sales staff were busy getting interested customers to fill out a brief questionnaire of their specific item of interest, after which the sales staff would then have a brief verbal discussion with the potential customer. The result of that would be reviewed by the Sales Vice President Dave Lowe after which if he considered it necessary, he would finally get Roddy and/or Ben involved.