ASSASSIN 5 - SITTING DUCKS (Assassin Series)

by Bryan Murray

  “Absolutely.” The voice on the other end answered.

  “Thanks.” Andy clicked off the phone in a daze.

  “What was that?” Jake asked.

  “That was the ordnance department. Eight warheads are missing!”

  Jake and Sarah looked at each other. “Sweet Jesus!” Jake gasped. “And did they say who signed them out?”

  Sarah interrupted them. “Let me guess, it was the guy who called in sick today?”

  Andy nodded in confirmation, still in a daze. “What the hell do we do, Jake?” he almost whispered.

  CHAPTER 30

  Suddenly, it was pandemonium in the Control Center. Doug Mulgrave had been pulled out of a meeting to get an update from Jake on the current crisis. Roddy was still at lunch with a client.

  Doug looked agitated at being disturbed. “This had better be good, Jake,” he began. “That was a twenty million dollar customer I had to leave on his own!”

  “I’m sorry, Doug, but the shit just hit the fan!”

  “You mean…?” the words died in the CEO’s mouth.

  “Exactly, it looks like we just launched four armed Death Darts with warheads fitted and we don’t know where they’re going or who’s controlling them!”

  Mulgrave sank into a chair in deep shock. “I don’t believe this!”

  “And we can’t find Ben to find out what happened!” Jake added.

  “So, where is he, for Christ’s sake?” Doug gasped.

  Andy replied as he was already gathering his laptop and plug in cables. “He’s supposed to be heading into Alpha as usual to supervise the Jordanian pilots putting the drones through unarmed target practice.” he looked across at Sharon who was still holding her phone in her hand, nodding negatively to indicate that there was still no news on Ben’s whereabouts.

  Jake’s mind was moving fast. He looked at Sarah who was almost reading his mind. He pointed to his cell phone that they had just been looking at minutes earlier and she nodded her head in agreement, angling her head in the direction of the stressed out CEO. Jake took over.

  “Somebody had to be on the inside to make this happen, Doug!” he began.

  “But who?” Mulgrave looked lost for words.

  “The clock’s ticking and I need you to look at this, Doug, okay?” he clicked on the phone and pulled up the video of Roddy. “Does this look like a problem to you, Doug?” he asked.

  Mulgrave watched the video and then shook his head negatively. “No way. That’s just Roddy meeting with Jason Dexter. He’s what you might call our industrial espionage specialist.”

  “Who does what?” Sarah inquired.

  “He works the competition, gets info on what they are planning and when so that we can stay one jump ahead. That’s just Roddy ‘taking care of expenses’ shall we say.”

  Jake and Sarah exchanged glances and she now had the situation in clinical focus. “In that case, Doug, we have a major problem. Four armed drones are missing and we don’t know where they are or where they’re heading!”

  She was interrupted when Andy’s phone rang, He answered and listened for a second as his face turned ashen-colored. “Holy mackerel! Thanks!” he put the phone down. “That was the chopper we sent to Beta site,” he was almost choking in grief. “Everybody’s dead, including Isaac, the four trainee pilots and all the security detail!”

  They were all in shock as Andy continued. “And that’s only the half of it! A four station mobile control module is also missing! Those bastards killed Isaac, I can’t believe it!”

  * * *

  Jake was already moving ahead. “Okay, here’s the plan. Steve, you stay here as our contact. Sarah and I with you and your assistant, Andy need to head over to Beta site to try and pick up the trail and in the midst of all this we need to find out what the hell happened to Ben!”

  Mulgrave nodded in agreement as Jake continued. “Oh, and Andy, you need to bring that new software with you and pray to God it works, because if it doesn’t we have four rogue drones with almost a thousand miles range, stealth protected and flying at Mach 1 with two deadly missiles in each!”

  Andy was already grabbing his laptop and Sharon was also grabbing her stuff together. Andy looked at Doug, a desperate look in his eye. “What Jake’s saying, sir, is that we need your permission to activate this untested software to try and take over the drones in flight?”

  Mulgrave nodded desperately. “You’ve got it. Now get out of here!”

  “Thank you, sir,” Andy replied. He turned to Jake, Sarah and Sharon. “Okay, we’ll take Control One.”

  Jake looked at him. “Control One?”

  “Yes, a two-station Master Control Module.”

  “Okay,” Jake turned to Steve. “This shit smells bad, Steve and you need to dig deeper to see what could have put a burr under Ben’s saddle, because every minute that goes by without contact from him looks deadly serious, okay?”

  Steve nodded. “Will do.’”

  Jake looked at Andy, Sarah and Sharon. “Ready?”

  “You bet.”

  Jake looked at Doug. “Keep logged on closely to all we can find out and send back to you, okay?”

  They all nodded as Jake and his team sprinted out to the parking lot following Andy and Sharon to Control One, a modern two-station control module with a regular engine drive.

  As they piled in, Andy gave Jake the keys and Jake and Sarah sat up front. Jake looked back quickly at Andy and Sharon who were connecting their laptops.

  “Nice wheels!” he added.

  “Ever think you’d drive a million dollar van, well, now you are. This is what the firing officer would use with his staff so they can move around and check on the other mobile modules.”

  Jake was already roaring out of the gate in the direction of the Beta site.

  CHAPTER 31

  As the stolen command module made its way up into the foothills away from the more heavily populated parts of the area that housed the massive aerospace community, in the back of the module, the four American Jihadist pilots were now in control of all four drones, heading them on a north easterly course.

  The driver of the tractor/trailer was consulting his GPS module and he signalled to turn left at a sign up the mountain road that said ‘Minton Coal Company’ and pasted diagonally across the sign was another sign that read ‘CLOSED’.

  The SUV with Al-Bikari at the wheel also turned left and followed the module ahead up a deserted side road and through the open gates of the now overgrown coal cleaning plant.

  The driver knew exactly where he was going as the two vehicles came to a halt and two of the terrorists jumped out of the SUV and moved over to the old building and opened a large door. The two vehicles drove through before the two men closed the door after them and went back to guard the gate.

  Inside the building, Al-Bikari quickly jumped out of the SUV and entered the command module. The four pilots looked up as he entered and the team leader smiled. “So, my brothers, now we have control of the drones, what is the heading?”

  Jeff Dearden, one of the two brothers replied. “North East, my brother.”

  Al-Bikari nodded. “Excellent. When our leader arrives, we will assign the individual targets, but until then, keep them on course.”

  They all nodded in agreement and he turned to his armed terrorists behind him. “Until then secure the site, my brothers. All infidels must be terminated on sight!”

  CHAPTER 32

  Jake and Sarah were still desperately trying to figure out what to do about the massive problem as they roared in through the open gates of the Beta test site. The scene was heartbreaking. Ambulances were still arriving and the medics were already on site and the bodies of the dead were being loaded onto gurneys for transfer back to the security of the main facility.

  Jake jumped out and rushed over to the senior security officer. “Hi, I’m Jake Harrigan!”

  The man shook hands. “Eddie Benson, sir.”

  “Did anyone see what happened or are
we out of luck?” Jake inquired.

  “Out of luck, I’m afraid, sir!”

  “Where was the command module taken from?”

  Benson pointed. “This end of the line, sir.”

  “And what speed can these tractor/trailers do?”

  “Oh, about forty miles per hour, sir.”

  Jake had seen enough. “Okay, thanks, Eddie.” he sprinted back to the control van and jumped behind the wheel. He turned to Andy. “Nothing to help us there, Andy, are you connected yet with the Control Center?’

  Andy nodded. “Yes, just got past the protocol.”

  “So, what now?” Jake inquired. “The clock’s ticking and we’ve no idea where the hell they went. They could be holed up anywhere.”

  “Exactly,” Andy replied. “And what worries me, we’re already about fifteen minutes into the flight of those little puppies, we don’t know in which direction and we’ve still got forty five minutes of fuel left at the speed of sound!”

  Sarah suddenly slapped her head in recognition. “Damn!”

  Jake looked at her. “What is it, Sarah?”

  “The GPS chip!” she replied.

  Jake understood immediately. “The one implanted in Ben?”

  “Exactly. If he is the inside man and it looks like it, he will obviously want to be in on the ‘kill’. That means he must be heading for where they took the command module instead of Alpha site.”

  “And the tracking device?” Jake asked.

  She smiled and reached in her tote. “I still have it here from the trip to Israel.” she activated the device and waited for it to zero in.

  Sarah was thinking out loud. “When you think about it, Jake, Ben had it all planned out to the finest detail!”

  Jake nodded. “You’re right, he explained every detail of how the system worked except one!”

  “Which was?” she inquired.

  “The fact that the one thing that was not monitored, because of the unbelievable trust that Winston had in him, was where he finally sent the launch codes from his laptop. Everybody automatically assumed he would send the codes as usual to the Alpha site and nobody checked that he sent them to Beta site until it was too late!”

  “I agree.”

  In the back of the van, Andy’s fingers were flying across the keys on his laptop. He looked at Jake. “Well, Jake, I guess its shit or bust!”

  Jake looked over his shoulder as he drove along away from the Beta site.

  “You ready to try the software?”

  “Well, the first part at least.”

  “First part?”

  “Yeah, if this works, we’ll at least be able to see where each drone is heading.”

  “Time’s ticking, go for it!”

  In the back seat Andy was busy clicking buttons with Sharon watching closely.

  “Okay, fingers crossed!” he clicked the final key and waited. Suddenly, his face changed to a grin. “Bingo! That’s one at least!”

  “One what?” Sarah was still checking the GPS tracker.

  “We’ve hooked into one drone and they’ve no idea we’re watching them!”

  “And where’s it heading?” Jake was anxious.

  Andy looked closer. “It’s heading North East,” he checked a further key and turned to Sharon. “Okay, I’m downloading this one to you!”

  She was watching her laptop closely and smiled. “Here it is, the second one is also heading North East.”

  Jake was listening intently. “Still no specific target?”

  “No.” Andy replied.

  Sarah suddenly let out a loud sigh. “Bingo!”

  “What do you have?” Jake asked.

  “Looks like Uncle Ben’s still on the move!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Not far away. Looks like he’s heading towards the foothills, certainly not in the direction of Alpha site as we had expected!”

  Jake’s adrenaline was now surging. “Great, so which way do we go?”

  Sarah looked at her GPS tracker. “Stay on this road, it looks like he’s about five miles ahead.”

  “No problem.”

  Andy spoke from the back seat. “There’s number three, Jake, also heading North East.”

  Sharon added. “And here’s number four, same direction.”

  * * *

  Outside the coal cleaning plant, the two terrorists guarding the approach road up to the plant, AK47’s on their shoulders, emerged from the trees at the side of the road, weapons suddenly aimed at the driver of the SUV approaching.

  Ben stopped and wound down the window and sitting next to him was a passenger he had picked up along the way. It was David Peshar, the ordnance officer and another of the terrorists, who at dead of night had armed each of the missiles now in the air with their deadly warheads. Ben smiled at the two terrorists who recognized him.

  “Everything secure, my brothers?” he asked.

  They both nodded and waved him through. He drove the rest of the way up to the plant, totally focussed now that he was nearing the conclusion of his long-awaited revenge against the Americans and the Israelis.

  His mind went back to that dreadful day years ago when his wife and daughter had been visiting relatives in Northern Israel close by the Iraqi border.

  Ben had been working for Isradrone at the time. His boss had been Ravi Bernstein. Ben was the team leader on the UAV reconnaissance drone project and at that time the Israelis were working with the USAF to use the drones to pinpoint targets in Iraq for the American F16 manned fighter jets.

  When a target acquisition error occurred in one of the drones that directed the US fighter jets to bomb a small synagogue instead of a rebel camp nearby, the collateral damage had been considerable, including Ben’s wife and daughter.

  In those high profile times, admitting error was almost not an option and when the joint statement by the Americans and Israelis announced that it was the terrorists who had bombed the synagogue, the whole sad story was quickly swept off the front pages of the world media.

  However, Ben was not taken in by the cover story and when he visited the bombed out synagogue the next day, his trained eye spotted a piece of metal debris amongst the rubble. It was a part of a USAF missile, one that could only have been launched by a fighter jet and not a terrorist mortar or shoulder launched missile.

  He then checked the operating log for the Isradrone reconnaissance drones from the day before that were operating in that sector and he was able to pull up the details of the erroneous target deployment information given to the Americans.

  From that point onwards, once he had buried his family who he adored, his one objective in life had been to plan his revenge on both the Israelis for their error and on the Americans for killing his family.

  After a reasonable amount of time, he had left Isradrone for what seemed a good opportunity with Winston and an opportunity with a deep significance. In Winston, Ben would be able to work on combat drones, that once launched there would be no stopping them!

  His targets had been Ravi Bernstein, the CEO of Isradrone and the entire US Government for perpetrating the collateral damage and cover-up involving his family.

  After joining JOD, who were delighted to welcome him on board, he had then painstakingly built the Death Dart at Winston into his own personal weapon of revenge. Now, after patient, meticulous planning, the drones were now within minutes of Washington DC and the world would soon see the depth of his vengeance.

  His apparent kidnapping in Tel Aviv, had all been contrived with the JOD to enable him to finally brief the JOD team and also to ensure that the JOD executed Ravi Bernstein and his wife in the same, sudden way that Ben had lost his loved ones all those years ago.

  He returned quickly to the present as they moved into the coal plant and over to the command module, climbing the steps to see his technical team inside. They all hugged each other at the audacious success of the mission so far.

  “Well done, my brothers!” Ben began. “And now we can enter the
detailed targets so that the infidel Americans have to sit and watch it happen without being able to do a thing about it!” he handed a slip of paper to each of the four pilots.

  “Enter these now,” he quickly checked his watch. “The drones are only fifteen minutes away from history!” they all started to enter their new target data.

  * * *

  Back in the van, Jake got a hurried call from Steve.

  “Jake, I checked on Ben’s profile. It seems he lied when he joined Winston.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, his wife didn’t die in a car accident!”

  “She didn’t?”

  “No, she and Ben’s daughter were killed in a drone-guided missile attack that hit the wrong target. The Israelis gave the US fighter jets the wrong info. It was a synagogue they hit instead of a terrorist building near the border with Iraq!”

  “Oh, shit!” Jake replied. “You reckon that’s what sent him off the rails?”

  “Could be, Jake,” Steve replied. “But if it was, he sure as hell planned his revenge over a long period of time!”

  “Right, some obsession! Okay, thanks, Steve.” Jake hung up.

  CHAPTER 33

  Suddenly, in the back of the van, Andy’s eyes widened. “Uh, oh, now we’re getting new data being inserted into the targeting software.”

  “We are?” Jake was trying to stay focussed.

  “And guess what?” Sarah added. “The GPS signal ahead has stopped moving!”

  Andy was thinking aloud. “And that’s probably because that bastard Ben is now with them, giving them the new instructions!”

  “And what’s the first target acquisition change, Andy?” Sarah asked.

  He looked at his screen and his eyes widened in shock. “Oh, Sweet Jesus!” he exclaimed. “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!”

  Jake was already ahead of him. “My God! That’s the White House!”

  Sharon was clicking buttons and she was also in shock. “The next is the State Capital in DC!”

  Sarah was devastated. “They’re going after the Congress and Senate!”

  Andy was still clicking buttons. “And here’s the third. I’ll give you one guess, an address in Langley, Virginia!”