Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (68 page)

“So if it’s at 8,000 over the ground, it won’t be seen or heard?”

“Above ground level, yeah, that’s right.  They won’t see it.  But the downlink transmission…that’s another story.  They might catch it, depending on what they’re using up there at Vedado.  Most scanners won’t pick it up, it’s pretty damn tricky.  It frequency hops and transmits in bursts, all of that good stuff.  It was made for the military.”

“But even so, they still might catch it?”

Logan stared at the drone, and then glanced up at Alex.  “You have to assume so.  There’s always a chance.  We don’t know what kind of electronic warfare gear they’re using up at Vedado.”

“Then let’s fly now.  Let’s just get it done.  Let’s go see who’s there.”

The Pelican’s miniature rotary engine was chosen for its silky smooth running, and when the little plane went zipping down the road, it was surprisingly quiet. Alex and Logan walked behind the taxiing drone until it was clear of the trees, and set for its takeoff run.  Logan made final checks of the plane, the radio transmitter and his controls, lined the drone up perfectly by hand, and then looked at Alex and said, “That’s it.  She’s ready.”

“Okay then, let’s do it.”

After tearing down the road at full power for no more than 75 yards, Logan used his remote control “stick” to lift the Pelican into the air, its powerful gas motor dragging it aloft at a steep angle.  When it was clear of the immediate obstacles around the old mining camp, he switched from manual control to a programmed ascent.

The plane was quickly lost from sight, corkscrewing up into the sky to its predetermined operational altitude, before it set off on the 14-mile flight to its station above the Vedado Ranch Conference Center, Wayne Parker’s mansion, and his mile-long jet runway.  It needed no further input from the ground after Logan sent its flight plan.  Until it was given new commands, it would fly at the ordered altitude and then orbit above the GPS coordinates that were already programmed into its microchip brain.

The two men walked back down the lane into the woods and climbed into the Cessna, where the laptops and the radio could be run off the airplane’s power supply.  Only the system’s whip antenna remained outside, connected by a white coaxial cable.  On one side of Logan’s screen they could see the UAV’s current position and flight data, overlaid on a color GPS map.  On the other half of the screen, digital representations of an altimeter, compass, air speed indicator and other displays gave the appearance of a virtual cockpit instrument panel.  

On the second laptop, they could see the Pelican’s camera-eye view in live streaming color video. This screen also showed the key flight information, in text and numbers overlaying the camera view.  Both lap-tops could toggle between any of the screens, as desired, so that both men could see the same images.  In twenty minutes the Pelican arrived over its first target, the Vedado Ranch’s six thousand foot jet-capable runway.

Ranya remained standing outside the Cessna with her Dragunov rifle, providing their security.  Besides the ten rounds in her rifle, she had two extra loaded magazines in her leather fanny pack, which she wore toward the front.  If trouble found them, the Dragunov was their most powerful weapon.

***

Mommy and Gretchen were in the other room,
with the door closed. That meant they wanted “private time,” and he should not bother them unless the house was on fire.  That’s what Gretchen had told him a long time ago: not unless the house was on fire.  And she meant it too. Once when they were having private time, she had come out in her bath robe with a very scary red face, shouting at him to shut up and stop crying.  So even though they weren’t in a real house, Brian knew that he should not do anything that was loud while they were having private time.

Brian was watching Sponge Bob on the television in the living room, but boring commercials came on, and he got up from the carpet and walked over to his toy bag, the one that he packed back in Albakirky.  He had already played with everything in the bag ten times.  He looked out of the big sliding windows at Sandy Eggo.  He liked that name, even though he had seen a lot of signs and he knew that it was spelled San Diego.  He was a good speller, but he still thought Sandy Eggo was a better name.  

The two glass doors were not locked, and he could go out on the little patio if he wanted to.  He didn’t, because the little patio scared him to death.  Out there, it was very windy all the time.  He could look through the railings straight down at the street, down to where the cars looked smaller than Hot Wheels, and people looked like little bugs.  

Brian knew that Spiderman wouldn’t be afraid.  Spiderman could swing right down the side of this building, and across the street to the other tall buildings.  But Spiderman could shoot sticky spider webs out of his hands, and Brian could not.

They were just staying in this place for a week or two, that’s what mommy said.  Then they were going to get a real house, but with green grass and not just pebbles like in Albakirky.  Brian didn’t like being so far up in the sky.  It didn’t scare him, except outside on the balcony.  He just didn’t like it.  Yesterday they drove over a bridge across Sandy Eggo Bay that was even higher than this building. Through the big windows, he could see part of the Bay, and even over to the ocean, but not that high bridge.  

Through the windows, he could see lots of other tall buildings, and between them, there were airplanes flying on their way down to the Sandy Eggo airport. They all went the same way, from the right side to the left side. They were flying so low, sometimes they were flying lower than the buildings.  They flew right over a highway full of cars, and then they landed.  The pilots had to be really good pilots, to always land on the runway, and miss all of those buildings.  Airplane pilot was a good job, one of the best, almost as good as astronaut or FBI Agent.

Brian knew that his Daddy flew in airplanes a lot.  Sometimes he flew in small airplanes, when he was doing FBI work, catching crooks.  He flew in the big airplanes with lots of people on them when he traveled to cities that were far away, as far away as Sandy Eggo was from Albakirky.  He flew on airplanes just like these airplanes that were landing all day long, one after the other.  The airplanes were close enough to see clearly, but far enough away that he could hold out his pointer finger, and his finger was bigger than the airplane.  He wondered if his Daddy was on one of those airplanes that were landing every minute.  

He had not seen him since that day they went to the toy store, except for a minute on the playground by his old house.  He wondered if his Daddy missed him, as much as he missed his Daddy. He wondered if his Daddy had already forgotten about him, and that made him hurt inside, that made him feel like crying.  He wished that he knew his Daddy’s phone number.  Mommy left her pocketbook on the low table in the middle of the room, and her little silver phone was in it.  Brian wished that he could remember his Daddy’s phone number.  But it was no good wishing. He didn’t know how to use Mommy’s silver phone, and he didn’t know his Daddy’s phone number.

He just hoped that his Daddy was in one of those airplanes that were landing every minute.  He hoped his Daddy would come to Sandy Eggo and get him.

30

“I count fourteen,” said Alex Garabanda. 
“What kind are they?” His laptop’s screen showed a long line of corporate jets parked nose to tail on the taxiway, which ran parallel to the wider asphalt runway.  

Logan, sitting in the pilot’s seat with the other computer on his lap, operated the drone’s camera with input commands.  The picture zoomed in until only one jet at a time was visible on the screen.  A white cursor in the shape of a cross appeared on the ground.  He could move it with laptop’s touch pad, and then command the camera to aim at the designated spot. The Pelican was not flying directly over the runway, but was filming slantwise from an angle.  “Hmm…the first one is Gulfstream G-100, that’s a 9 seater. Last time I checked, they go for over two hundred million blue bucks.  Nice clear tail number, can you read it?”

“I got it.”  The plane’s “tail number” was actually painted on the side of the jet engines, which were located on either side of the fuselage, between the wings and the tail.  Garabanda copied the plane’s number onto a notepad, as a backup in case anything happened to the computers, which were saving all of the transmitted imagery.

“But how are you going to know who came on it?  The number will just tell you the corporation that owns the jet, and most of them are probably just charters anyway.”

“Don’t worry, Logan, I’ll find out who the VIPs are. That’ll be easy.”

“I hope so—otherwise this is all a waste of time.  Okay, the next one is a Cessna Citation.  Hard to believe the same company made this Centurion.  You get the number?”

“Got it.”

“There must be a couple billion blue bucks worth of private jets down there today,” said the pilot.

“I guess it’s not every day you have a dozen friends drop in for lunch…in their own jets.”

“You’d be surprised.  I’ve been places and seen thirty or forty private jets stacked up like this.  Palm Springs, the Super Bowl, the Key Largo Club… Alex, the jet set have their own world. We just live in it, but we don’t count, not really.  We’re so far beneath them, that we’re too small to notice. We’re like the ants under their feet.”

“Except for today,” observed Garabanda.  “Today, they’re below us for once.”

Logan continued moving the ground image down the runway, past the hangars along the eastern end.  “Look, four Blackhawks.  That would be the security, I suppose.”  The four-bladed helicopters were lined up abreast, their tails toward the side of the main hangar.  This was at the end of the runway closest to the mansion, which was built on higher ground two miles away.

“The Blackhawks belong to the state guard,” noted Logan.  “I’ll switch the radio to the cockpit speaker.  If they go on alert, we’ll hear it on the scanner.”

“Those guys must be the Falcon Battalion,” said Alex.  “Ranya was right.”  He looked outside of the Cessna to where she stood watch, the Dragunov held horizontally at waist level, its weight supported by the peculiar necktie sling around the back of her neck.  She was taking her job seriously, walking around the plane, looking in all directions.  Her back was presently turned toward him, and with some pleasure he noted her long legs, and the sweet swelling of her hips below the narrowness of her waist, and the roundness of her—

He stopped himself short.  Why, you dirty old man!  She’s young enough to be your daughter.  Still…

Logan said, “I’ll zoom in all the way—let’s check ‘em out.”

Alex’s attention snapped back to his laptop’s screen.  “M-16s and brown berets.  See the silver shining on their berets?  That’s the Falcons for sure.”

“You think they’re expecting trouble?” asked Logan.

“Ahh, I doubt it.  I think they’re mostly for show.  They’re probably Magón’s way of showing he’s in charge of the New Mexico Milicia, that he has his own military units that answer directly to him. All of the guests had to see the Falcons, after they landed.  See how they’re right next to the airport road?”

After studying the troops and their four helicopters, Logan continued moving the cross-shaped cursor from jet to jet, until he had captured clear digital video of each aircraft’s tail number, and in several cases, the corporate logos painted on their fuselages.  When he finished, he said, “Okay, let’s recover the UAV, and get the hell out of here.”

“Hold on,” said Alex, “While it’s up, let’s go see what’s happening at the conference center.  Swing the camera over two klicks to the southeast.”

“Okay—I’ve already got it pre-registered.  Here we go.”  The screen blurred for a few seconds, and then it refocused with razor-sharp clarity. “Nice place, is that a manmade lake?”  Logan pulled the camera lens back for a wider view.  Between the runway and the ranch’s main buildings there was a kidney-shaped mile-wide alpine lake, glimmering silver with reflected mid day sunlight.  The lake was surrounded by meadows and then by pine forests, which ascended the slopes of the surrounding mountains.

“I’m not sure.  It has a dam there on the south side, but I don’t know how big it was before.  It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

“Looks like a slice of heaven.  So this is what a few billion dollars can buy you.”  The camera continued panning past the lake.

Garabanda studied the picture and said, “Nobody’s at the conference center, unless they’re all inside.  But there’re no vehicles outside.  Let’s check out the mansion.”

The camera view zoomed away for a wide angle, centered on the Wayne Parker residence, and zoomed back in.  Logan said, “Nice place!  It looks like a damn castle.”

“It was a damn castle,” replied Alex.  “Wayne Parker had it dismantled and brought over, stone by stone.  It’s from Italy.  Sweet, huh?”

“Whew! All it takes is money...”

“A
lot
of money.”

“Well, there they are,” said Logan. “The party’s on the front porch.”

The “front porch” was a terrace balcony that was at least two hundred feet wide, overlooking the sparkling mile-wide lake, which lay downhill across verdant alpine meadows.  Seen from a slight angle in wide view, the people were barely recognizable dots.

“Let’s go in and see if we know anybody,” suggested Alex.  “Hey, is this all being saved?”

“Yep, all of it. Everything we see is saved to the hard drive.”  Both men switched their screens to show the current camera view of the ground, 8,000 feet below the Pelican.

“Okay, let’s zoom on down and see what we can see.  Hmm…check out all the waiters.  Looks like they’re not holding back on the catering.” There appeared to be more servants than guests, many of them carrying silver trays that flashed in the sun.  White uniformed bartenders behind a long table upended dark bottles, keeping the trays filled with fresh flutes of champagne.