by Rawlin Cash
The train driver heard the bullet and pulled the brakes. The train jerked and screeched.
“You’ll be in police custody soon,” Hunter said. “If you’re smart.”
“Fuck,” MacGregor screamed.
He was loosing a lot of blood. Hunter worried he might not make it until the ambulance arrived. He pulled the belt from MacGregor’s trench coat and tied it around his thigh.
“Y4456. Tell me fast before I have to shoot the other knee.”
MacGregor looked at him. He knew the game was up.
Thirty-Seven
Fawn took a military plane back to Quitovac and had the army drive her to Puerto Peñasco. A soldier in a jeep waited for her as she walked with an army translator up the steps of Hunter’s house. The translator was a woman in her twenties from Florida. Fawn had briefed her on the drive and when Antonia saw them, she brought them through to the kitchen and made them hot tea.
The translator introduced herself and Fawn said, “Tell her Hunter sent us.”
Antonia nodded, she already knew that.
“He wants the child to be looked after,” Fawn said.
The translator explained. Antonia spoke and the translator said, “she says there’s a family in town who could take her.”
“Are they good people?” Fawn said.
“Yes,” Antonia said in english. “They’re good people. They will look after her.”
“I’ll need to meet them,” Fawn said.
Antonia got up and made a phone call. They sat and sipped their tea. The child came in from the living room and watched them. Fawn tried to be friendly but she was awkward around children. The kid left without speaking to her.
About twenty minutes passed before a young couple entered. They were shy. The translator was in an army uniform and that made them nervous.
Fawn stood. “Do you speak English?” she said.
They nodded. They’d both lived in New Mexico and still spent half the year there. They looked nice. The husband was a little older than the wife.
“We can’t have children,” the woman said when they’d all been served more tea.
“You’ve seen a doctor about that?”
“Yes. A good one in Las Vegas.”
“It’s me,” the husband said. “I’m impotent.”
“I’ll need to run a background check,” Fawn said. “To make sure you are who you say you are.”
“Of course,” the woman said.
Fawn called in to Langley and got a call back about twenty minutes later saying the people were who they said they were. They owned property in Las Cruces, had good credit scores, paid US taxes. They even had the medical records confirming they’d sought fertility treatment. Neither had a record.
“The child is older than what you’d get if you went to an adoption agency,” Fawn said.
“We know the child.”
“My wife teaches her at the local school,” the man said.
“I know the child,” the woman said again.
“And you want to give her a home?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“We’ve never been more certain of anything,” the man said.
“Has Antonia told you her history?”
“We’ve picked up a few things. We’ve seen the man who brought her here. We know he’s a military man. We know she came from Sonora. We know something happened down there and he feels responsible.”
“He’s killed many people,” Fawn said.
The couple nodded.
“I’m not telling you that to scare you. I want you to know because if anything bad happens to this child, he’ll come back.”
The couple nodded again. “We know,” the woman said. “We’re not going to harm this child. I promise you.”
Fawn looked at them for a long moment. They had no idea what they were getting into. Then the child entered and the look on the woman’s face said that maybe they did. She was one of those women who was born to care for someone. She immediately got off her seat and crouched down.
She spoke in a higher pitch to the child. The child knew her from school and lit up when she saw her. They talked and the child nodded and it was clear she was not opposed to going with the couple.
Fawn looked at the husband. He nodded. He knew his wife. This would be a good place for the child.
“I’m going to give them some money,” Fawn said to the translator.
“Please don’t,” the man said.
“It’s just to help with your expenses. Hunter wanted it that way.”
“No,” the man said. “We won’t take it.”
Fawn nodded and turned to the translator. “Tell Antonia she can stay in the house,” she said.
Antonia asked if Hunter would be returning.
“I don’t know,” Fawn said.
Antonia nodded. “If he comes back, I will have his house ready for him.”
Fawn and the translator left. They rode back to the base with the driver. Fawn thought about what had happened at the house. A child found a home. That was a good thing. A few months ago she’d been happy with her mother and grandmother. Now they were dead. That was war. Big players. Big machines. Big politics. Little girls.
She understood something more about Hunter, though. She felt she knew him better.
They were still on their way back to the base when Hale called.
“Remember you said there was a drone in the air the night of the first assassination?” he said.
“Yes.”
“There was never any record of that in the transcript.”
“It was there, Hale.”
“Right. I know that now. At the time I thought maybe you’d made a mistake.”
“Or that I’d lied?”
“You were under a lot of pressure.”
“And now you believe me?”
“Some fishermen found something off Cobb Island.”
“Let me guess. They found a drone.”
“Not just any drone.”
“So I was telling the truth.”
Hale said nothing. Fawn thought the call had dropped. “Hello?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Yes, you were telling the truth.”
Fawn let out a short laugh. “If this is supposed to be an apology, you’ve got work to do.”
“Well,” Hale said awkwardly.
“Well? What’s the deal with the drone?”
“It’s definitely military grade.”
“One of ours?”
“It can’t be.”
“Then whose?”
“That’s the thing.”
“What is?”
“It’s advanced.”
“How advanced? Russian? Chinese?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not from what we know of their technology.”
“European then?”
“We have schematics for everything being produced in the European Union.”
“Israeli?”
“Fawn. You need to see it. I’m sending some images.”
“All right.”
She hung up and waited for the files. When she saw the image, she let out a gasp. The translator was sitting up front and looked back at her.
“Everything all right?”
Fawn rose an eyebrow. “I’m not sure,” she said.
The files were photographs taken by the fishermen of the recovered drone. Up close, it looked nothing like any military drone she’d ever seen. It had a metal shell, silver colored and smooth as a mirror. She doubted it was steel because of the weight. It must have been some alloy. There were small grills on the side, like the gills on a fish, and optical lenses in two rings on the upward and downward slope of the body. As far as she could see, there were no markings, no attempt at camouflage, and no visible means of propulsion.
The images were all close up and she scrolled through them. When she came to the first photo that took in
the entire body of the object, she almost dropped the phone.
“Holy shit,” she said.
The translator looked back again. Fawn was already dialing Hale’s number.
“Fawn?” Hale said.
“I’ve seen that before,” she said.
“What?”
“I’ve seen that drone before.”
“Where?”
“I can’t say.”
“What do you mean, you can’t say?”
“It’s classified.”
“Fuck off. I’m the Director.”
“You’re not cleared for this.”
“For what?”
“You’ve got to speak to Antosh.”
“I’m not speaking to Antosh.”
“It’s his call.”
“He can suck my cock.”
Fawn sighed. Antosh probably knew nothing about the program. She wasn’t sure anyone did.
“Is the president there?”
“Just tell me what you’ve got, Fawn.”
“The Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Because you’re not cleared.”
“Funny.”
“Basically, it’s the reporting system for when an Air Force pilot sights something we can’t explain.”
“Like a UFO?”
“Or a high-tech drone.”
“Who gave you that job?”
“I got it before I started with you.”
“From who?”
“The Defense Intelligence Agency.”
“But who in the agency?”
“I don’t know, Hale. It came anonymously. A cooperation code.”
“Hmm,” Hale said.
“What?”
“It never crossed your mind to tell me about it?”
“What do you care? Half the time it’s a bird or something.”
Hale was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “So what are you saying? Someone’s seen a drone like this already and they reported it to the Defense Intelligence Agency?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who saw the drone?”
“It was a pilot on the USS Roosevelt. His plane had just been upgraded to the new IR sensor.”
“I should speak to him.”
“Go for it. His name is Lieutenant Buddy Geiger.”
“Okay. And what did the sighting entail?”
“They spotted some drones. Thought they were faster and more maneuverable than they should be.”
“Anything happen?”
“One of the drones buzzed him.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“What was he flying?”
“An F/A-18 Super Hornet.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“How fast are these things?”
“I don’t know, Hale. Are they UFO’s?”
“Ha ha. Where was the Roosevelt when the sighting happened?”
“Persian Gulf.”
“Okay. That makes sense.”
“Why?”
“You remember what happened with that RQ-170 Sentinel?”
“The Beast of Kandahar. It’s got a wingspan of over sixty feet. This is way smaller.”
“Right, but do you recall what happened with the Iranians?”
“They downed one.”
“Yes. In 2011. They managed to override the controls and bring it down without any damage.”
“I remember. It was a CIA drone.”
“Yeah. We said it was the Air Force but it was ours.”
“We’re so clever.”
“Well, it’s come back to haunt us.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Revolutionary Guard reverse engineered the whole thing.”
“I remember hearing that they’d claimed they had.”
“They also decoded its data.”
“So that worked?”
“Sort of. This drone appears to be based significantly on the tech that was stolen in that breach.”
“So they’ve been busy this whole time?”
“Someone certainly has. Whatever they’ve built is beyond next generation.”
“The Iranians couldn’t possibly have done that.”
“Who knows who did it? The Iranians could have sold the downed drone years ago and someone else has been working on it.”
“Jesus.”
“Yup.”
“This one’s a lot smaller.”
“Yes it is, and the chassis is completely different. The casing. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But you’re sure it’s based on the RQ-170?”
“The guidance electronics, the optics, some of the sensors, they’re all based on our tech.”
“Well, how advanced can it be if it’s based on one of our own ten year old drones?”
“Fawn, it’s crazy. They’ve taken our tech as a starting point, but they’ve gone even further with it than we have.”
“Come on.”
“I’m serious. Electro-optical and infrared sensors, AESA radar, data-links for modular payloads, communications intercept.”
“Fuck.”
“Right. Whoever built this, they’ve got access to the best scientists and best tech possible.”
“I thought those were our scientists.”
“Not anymore.”
“Wasn’t the RQ-170 designed not to expose sensitive tech?”
“Well, that didn’t work.”
“So, what’s the consensus? Everyone thinks it’s the Iranians we’re dealing with?”
“I don’t know. They pulled down the drone. They’ve got the will to go after us, and they’ve got scientists.”
“But they can’t possibly have pulled this off.”
“Well, someone has. And no one else ever captured an intact RQ-170.”
“It will mean war,” Fawn said.
“Two dead presidents,” Hale said. “You bet your goddamn ass it will mean war.”
Thirty-Eight
Hale was with the president, Antosh, Fitzpatrick, and an array of other military and security personnel. With Goldwater’s death, the Joint Chiefs were in disarray. All the people necessary for a decision to go to war were in the room, but no one knew where anyone else stood. On Jennifer’s insistence, Meredith Brooks was also present.
Antosh had opposed that. Right in front of Meredith, he said, “She doesn’t need to be here and with a leak like the one we have, we should be keeping the circle as small as possible.”
Jennifer wasn’t having it. “I just told the nation she’ll be president if anything happens to me,” she said. “She’s sitting in.”
Hale respected the decision. She was putting continuity of governance and the security of the nation before her own interests.
“She’s not cleared for this,” Antosh insisted.
“Meredith stays,” Jennifer said. “That’s the end of it.”
Everyone in the room understood why Jennifer was standing her ground. She was afraid she wouldn’t live to see whatever decision they made through, and in the case of her death, it would fall to Meredith to see it through.
They were located at Site-R, Raven Rock, pursuant to the Department of Homeland Security’s Exercise Eagle Horizon emergency protocol. It meant Jennifer was back in the hands of the federal government and was being protected by formal measures designed to safeguard the presidency in cases of critical threat.
The site was referred to as the underground Pentagon and had emergency operations centers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force that allowed it to direct all military action. It had an underground communications center housed in a fifteen-hundred-foot-high, mile-long tunnel, an automatically activated air defense command bunker, a war room capable of housing the Chief of Staff and all key officers, and a NORAD Alert Network connection. Together, the facilities comprised a comprehensive N
ational Military Command Center that had been operational and actively maintained since 1962.
From this location, Jennifer could access all government and military branches, could exert full control, and could issue all the commands necessary to conduct any type of action.
“Are we ready to go to war with Iran?” she said to the people assembled in the room.
Antosh spoke up. “We can get a carrier strike group to the Arabian Sea by dawn local time. A second strike group could be off the coast in a matter of days.”
“What capabilities does that give us?”
“With time, we could do anything,” Antosh said. “Immediately, we’d be able to begin the type of air strikes we’ve been using in Syria and Iraq.”
“What about allies?”
“That too would take time, ma’am,” Meredith said. “Given the circumstances, I think our allies in the Middle East and NATO would support us with words.”
“Real support would take longer,” Antosh said.
“Ma’am, a war with Iran would be a major military undertaking,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t think we should rush into it lightly.”
“We need to be decisive,” Jennifer said.
Hale was worried. Jennifer had been president for just a few hours. She was unelected. Lashing out would look good, it would play well with voters, but it would be extremely costly.
“Ma’am,” he said. “The Iranian army has four-hundred-thousand ground troops. Half conscripted. The Revolutionary Guard gives them another hundred thousand troops.”
“They also have the Basij,” Fitzpatrick said.
Hale shook his head. “They claim they can call up eleven million men in case of invasion,” he said. “Our reports put that force at closer to ninety thousand uniformed members, three hundred thousand reservists.”
“Eleven million?” Jennifer said. “That’s bigger than the army of China.”
“The Basij is a volunteer militia,” Hale said. “And I wouldn’t take the volunteer part too literally. It’s basically the Iranians saying they can get every able-bodied man in the country to fight.”
“And can they?” Jennifer said.
“More or less,” Antosh said.
“Ma’am. Make no doubt. Iran is a dictatorship. The government exerts extreme control. The people are probably more hostile to the US military than any other populace on the planet. A ground invasion would bring us up against a force numbering in the millions.”