Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller

by David Austin

  From across the lobby she heard the protective agent’s voice answer that he was.

  “Great. Have the detail fire up the cars. We’re heading to Langley.”

  *

  Lawrence Sloan rose to greet his counterpart, and the rest of the assembled group followed his lead. At the table were Katherine Clark and Bill Parker, the deputy director of science and technology. Parker had been promoted to the role after his predecessor, Paul Foley, was killed by a sniper’s bullet in last year’s attack by the Iranian hit squad in downtown D.C. Carl Douglas, the chief of the special activities division, was also in attendance.

  There was one other person in the room who looked as out of place as Miller felt. While everyone else was in business attire, dark suits, and conservative ties, or in Clark’s case, a charcoal gray skirt and white blouse with a matching cardigan, this guy wore jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt. His laptop was open, and he had an energy drink within arm’s reach. Feeling as if he had found a kindred spirit, Miller naturally gravitated toward the outsider. The two of them looked like a couple of computer nerds who had inadvertently crashed a very formal party.

  The man’s name was Fred Jackson, and he was a technical operations officer in the directorate of science and technology. But the innocuous title belied the fact that he was probably the most skilled hacker in the CIA. Jackson was a wizard with a keyboard and a string of code who had conducted the most sophisticated cyberattack the world had seen. The only problem was that no one besides Director Sloan and Katherine Clark would ever know he did it. If word got out that he was the man who created the Stuxnet virus that crippled Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, he would be a rock star among his peers. The only downside was that he would simultaneously vault to the top of an Iranian kill list. Weighing the pros and cons, he was perfectly content to keep the knowledge of his involvement in the operation limited to the nation’s top two spooks.

  Miller took the open seat next to Jackson, and Director Meyer sat across the table. After introductions were made, Jackson offered Miller a respectful fist bump. Having known the man by reputation only, he was happy to finally meet him in person.

  Director Sloan said, “Mr. Miller, we’re anxious to hear about what you’ve been working on, so why don’t we get started.”

  Elijah opened his laptop and established a wireless connection to the large monitor on the wall. With a few keystrokes his presentation was mirrored on the big screen. He took a deep breath and dove into his presentation.

  “Ever since the first drone strike, I’ve been searching for a way to regain control of the Reaper and track its signal back to the ground control station.” He paused a couple of seconds. “Last night, I had a breakthrough. I think I did it.”

  Doing his best to keep from going too far into the weeds from a technical perspective, Eli explained the architecture of a UAV system. Like any computer, the drone ran on a base operating system that was connected to the various components that control the avionics, communication links, sensors, and weapons. Each of the individual components must be able to communicate with the others and, at times, the ground control station. As a result, the two most important connections that allow the drone to perform its functions were the flow of information between the drone and its ground control station, and its sensors and the environment. Much of that communication was done wirelessly and was therefore a challenge to secure. It was this weak link in the wireless communication that he believed he could exploit.

  “You remember the RQ-170 the Iranians downed in their territory?” Eli asked. “Well, one of the theories on how they did it was by using a local transmitter so strong that it was able to overpower the signal the Sentinel’s GPS was receiving from the satellite. The drone’s navigation system locked onto the stronger transmission, and once the connection had been established, the Iranians fed the drone new coordinates and had it land at a location of their choosing. I think we can do something similar with the Reaper.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Bill Parker interjected, “But didn’t we patch that exploit after the incident?”

  “We did,” Eli confirmed. “But the code I’ve written will bypass the previous fix. The key will be getting close enough to the drone that we can transmit a signal capable of overriding the one it’s receiving from the Russian satellite.”

  “And what exactly would your code do if you were able to connect to the Reaper?” Katherine Clark asked.

  “For starters, I would transfer control of the drone back to one of our pilots.”

  Stunned, Clark said, “You can do that inflight?”

  There was a slight shift in Miller’s demeanor. It was the first time he didn’t seem fully confident in his plan. “According to my calculations…probably. I doubt it’s ever been attempted, but I’ve run multiple simulations, and it’s usually successful.”

  “Can you put a number on ‘usually’?” Parker asked.

  “Sixty percent,” Miller said. “I ran it ten times and six of the simulations were successful.”

  “And what happened the other four times?”

  “On three of the simulations the injection of the code confused the drone’s internal systems and it crashed.”

  “And the other sim?” Parker pressed. “What was its result?”

  “Nothing. The code didn’t work, and the Russians maintained control of the Reaper.”

  Feeling the tide begin to go against Miller, Fred Jackson spoke up for the first time. “Nine out of ten times we either regain control of the drone or destroy it in a crash. Either way, the Russians lose the ability to kill innocent people with our Reaper. That’s a ninety percent success rate. I’ll take those odds any day of the week.”

  “And as I mentioned,” Miller continued, his confidence bolstered by Jackson’s support. “My code will also track the signal back to the drone’s point of origin at its ground control station. Then, once we have the location, you can do whatever you want to the evil bastards behind this scheme.”

  The room went quiet as the group considered their options and next steps. After a minute or two of silence, Director Sloan asked, “We anticipate the next and possibly final attack is going to take place in Kuwait in the next forty-eight hours. How do you propose we put your code to use, Mr. Miller?”

  Eli was prepared for the question and moved to the next slide in his presentation. He laid out his plan and described how it could be implemented.

  Sloan was impressed with the young man. Finally, he said, “It just so happens, Mr. Miller, that we’re leaving for the Middle East this evening. If Director Meyer can spare you for a few days, I’d love for you to join us and see if we can put your plan into action.”

  Eli slumped in his chair. He had survived the Alpha Group men in Belgium by the skin of his teeth, thanks to the timely intervention of Joe Matthews and his operators. Now he was being asked to fly to the scene of an impending attack and do what he could to stop it. He was a computer guy, not a field operative. How the hell do I keep getting myself into these situations? he thought

  CHAPTER 44

  The flight from Syria had been bumpy, cold, and uncomfortable in the cargo bay of the Antonov AN-12. But all things considered, uneventful. After the mortar attack on the runway and the armed assault of the compound on the grounds of Khmeimim Air Base to rescue Tariq Kabbani, the men calling the shots considered the threat of an American airstrike a distinct possibility. As a result, they had made the decision to move the drone. Vasily Zubkin didn’t mind that the entire operation had been uprooted and relocated to this new site. The last place he wanted to be was inside the hangar when a two-thousand-pound, laser-guided bomb came crashing through the ceiling. Due to operational security concerns, Zubkin, his pilot, the sensor operator, and the ground crew had not been told where they were headed. It wasn’t until the ramp at the rear of the Antonov was lowered and warm, moist air and bright sunshine filled the cargo bay that Colonel Teplov, who had come along to maintain operational contro
l of the mission, announced that they had landed in Iran.

  The port city of Bandar Bushehr lies directly across the Persian Gulf from Kuwait, less than two hundred miles as the crow, or in this case, a multi-million dollar, remotely piloted aircraft flies. The shorter distance to target the upcoming summit from the southwest coast of Iran would reduce the amount of time the Reaper was in the air. Theoretically, the tactic would minimize the chances that American and Kuwaiti forces would have to discover the drone. And without an idea of which direction it would be coming from, they would be forced to spend considerable time and resources monitoring thousands of square miles searching for the deadly needle in a haystack. The reduced flight time would also decrease the possibility for mechanical or weather issues to impact the mission. All in all, using Iran as a launch point seemed to fit the bill nicely.

  Shying away from the busier Bushehr International Airport, a lesson learned from operating out of the base in Syria that shared runways with its commercial counterpart, the Russians had opted instead for the smaller Bahregan Airport, located southeast of the city’s center. The Iranian population tended to mind their own business, especially when it came to the happenings in and around government and military facilities. That fact was particularly true when those facilities, like the airfield at Bahregan, belonged to the feared IRGC, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. People who tended to be a little too curious could find themselves on the wrong end of a brutal interrogation, so privacy regarding what went on at the airfield was all but assured by the IRGC’s fearsome reputation. The five-hundred-meter perimeter along the south and east sides of the small, triangular facility to discourage onlookers and prying eyes didn’t hurt either.

  Vasily Zubkin checked the connections and ran diagnostics on the ground control station and satcom unit. With everything in order, he exited the small room that would serve as the flight operations center and crossed the interior of the hangar. Before him, on the spotless floor, sat the MQ-9 Reaper, reassembled after having been unpacked from its transport crates. Zubkin ran his hands over every inch of the airframe, feeling for blemishes or other imperfections that might compromise the drone’s structural integrity. As the aerospace engineer tasked with ensuring the Reaper could carry out its mission, he was keenly aware of the consequences should he fail in his assigned responsibilities.

  Returning to the flight operations center, Zubkin found Colonel Teplov waiting for him.

  “Everything is in order, I presume?” the GRU colonel asked.

  “The drone and the equipment appear to have survived the trip, despite our hurried departure. But the diagnostic tests I plan to run over the next few hours will tell me for sure.”

  “Tick-tock,” Teplov said, tapping his watch. “You’d better get to work. The launch time for our final mission is rapidly approaching.”

  *

  Across the Persian Gulf, a small army of logistical and protocol officers were scrambling to put the finishing touches on the preparations for the Arab League’s first emergency summit in years. Kuwait had last hosted the gathering in 2014, so it was not the first time the organizers had put together an event of this magnitude. Even so, workers swarmed over the emirate’s Bayan Palace and its state-of-the-art conference center. With gleaming marble floors and rosewood and teak veneers accented with gold and bronze inlay, the stage was set in preparation for the arrival of the Arab world’s most distinguished leaders.

  In an interesting twist, the last time the summit was held in Kuwait, it was attended by Russia’s deputy foreign minister, who addressed the forum and met with senior diplomats to discuss several topics. With Syria’s membership in the body under suspension because of the ongoing civil war, the Russian minister spoke on the regime’s behalf, lobbying for a political solution to the conflict and for the country’s vacated seat at the table to be reinstated. His presence at the meeting in 2014 should have indicated Russia’s opening move on the Middle East chessboard to enhance its reputation and standing throughout the region. But given President Polovkin’s plans for this summit, it was unlikely any representative from the Russian government would be in attendance this time.

  Security at the massive compound was already tight, since the palace served as the seat of the Kuwaiti government and was home to the tiny country’s emir. But based on the events of the past few weeks, the security posture had been ratcheted up a couple of levels.

  Members of the Emiri Guard, whose primary mission was safeguarding the country’s emir and prime minister, walked the grounds with officers from the Army and Air Force, having pulled in military support to bolster their security plan. Armored vehicles with soldiers manning heavy machine guns ringed the compound, and members of an air-defense unit armed with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles mingled on the rooftops with the Emiri Guard’s countersnipers in the event the rogue drone made an appearance in the vicinity of the palace.

  Every vehicle entering the compound was subjected to a thorough inspection, searched for weapons, and swept by K-9 teams for explosives. Even though the primary threat from the drone would come from above, the last thing the Emiri Guard wanted was for a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device, or VBIED, to slip inside the secure perimeter while everyone’s focus was on the sky.

  While all this activity was occurring on the ground, F/A-18 Super Hornets belonging to the Kuwaiti Air Force cut patterns through the cloudless blue skies above the emirate. With weapons hot and radar systems searching for violators of the country’s airspace, the fighter pilots were determined to make short work of any threat to their homeland.

  Ground crews set up landing zones on two large patches of emerald green grass next to the conference center to accommodate the pair of Airbus H225M Caracal helicopters outfitted for VIP transport use by the emir. The Caracals would be available to ferry individuals who chose the quick helicopter ride from the VIP terminal at Kuwait’s International Airport to the palace instead of the fifteen-minute drive. For those who did prefer to drive, the National Police would shut down the sixteen-kilometer route from the airport, enabling the motorcades to make the trip without encountering another vehicle on the road.

  The chief of the Emiri Guard returned to his office in the palace, savoring the chill provided by the building’s industrial air-conditioning units. The temperature outside had hit the forecast high of one-hundred-twenty degrees, and after conducting the final walkthrough, he was drenched in sweat. He grabbed two bottles of water from a minifridge and quickly downed one. Sipping the second, he stood in front of a seventy-inch monitor mounted on the wall. Displayed before him was a map of the palace grounds with an overlay showing the positions of each of the units supporting the summit. A shower and a change of clothes were in order, but first, he wanted to review the placement of the postings while they were still fresh in his mind.

  What am I missing? he thought, as he finished the second bottle of water and headed to the shower. He believed he had a good security plan in place, but with the summit only hours away, there was an annoying voice in the back of his head telling him that he could do more.

  CHAPTER 45

  The VIP terminal at Kuwait International Airport was a hive of activity as delegates from across the Middle East began arriving for the summit. A variety of luxury business jets and customized airliners filled the tarmac in front of the terminal, their size and opulence limited only by the wealth of the country whose leader they had delivered earlier in the day. Everything from Gulfstream G650s to Boeing 777s, and even one Airbus A380, the double-deck behemoth belonging to the king of Saudi Arabia, were parked wingtip to wingtip on the expansive apron.

  A line of black Mercedes-Maybach S 650 sedans idled with air conditioners running, in the shade of a large hangar. A fleet of black Chevrolet Suburbans driven by agents from the Emiri Guard were nearby, waiting to be filled by the heavily armed men of the royal protective details. For some of the larger delegations, Sprinter vans, capable of transporting twenty passengers apiece, we
re available as well. The larger motorcades, some with up to ten vehicles, wound their way through the airport’s grounds like giant black snakes until they cleared the final checkpoint and merged onto King Faisal Road. Devoid of traffic, thanks to the clearing operation by the Kuwaiti National Police, the drivers of the powerful Maybachs quickly reached speeds of eighty to one hundred miles an hour, easily making the drive to Bayan Palace in under twenty minutes.

  One of the Caracal helicopters was lifting off from the helipad near the VIP terminal as its twin came to a hover and prepared to land. The pilots of the departing helicopter rotated the nose until it pointed northeast, then gained speed and altitude for the quick flight to the LZ at the palace. As it departed, the arriving Caracal settled on the white H painted on the concrete pad and shut down the engines, allowing the rotors to come to a stop before the next delegation was brought out. It would not do to have the rotor wash ruffle the thobes and keffiyehs or tailored Italian and Saville Row suits of the region’s most wealthy monarchs. Once the next group was onboard and secured in their seats, only then would the rotor’s five blades gently flexing in the warm breeze spin up to full power and lift the helicopter into the air. The well-orchestrated air shuttle and motorcade departures would continue until all the delegations were delivered to the summit.

  Kuwait International Airport’s VIP terminal was a world-class operation, and no expense had been spared to ensure a premium experience for its clientele. Those amenities extended to the pilots and air crews transporting the rich and famous as well. A gym, showers, twenty-four-hour food service, and an impressive pilots’ lounge filled the second floor of the facility. On the roof was a large, enclosed and air-conditioned observation deck that provided a view of the tarmac and the expanse of desert beyond the airport’s grounds. Facing west, the deck was a popular spot to watch the sun set as it fell below the horizon.