Sting of the Drone (34 page)

“Colonel, are you the acting Officer in Charge?” the Admiral yelled down the line.

“Yes, sir. Under the Continuity of Ops plan, I took over when the Director was … was no longer available.”

“Well, what the shit did you guys just do in the Ukraine? There’s been no authorization to fly in there, let alone bomb in there. You trying to start a war there, son?”

“Admiral, I am operating a mission today under the Intelligence chain of command, not military. And, with all due respect, sir, I am still in the middle of that mission, so if you will forgive me, sir, I need to get back to work. I’m sure the White House will—”

“Colonel, you are to stand down. Now. You are relieved of any billet you have in any Intelligence outfit. Let the Agency do that stuff. I will not have a serving officer starting a Goddamn war. You get in your car and you drive over to Nellis Air Base and report to the Inspector General. Colonel?”

“Sir, I think you may be mistaken. I am not in your chain of command, sir.” Colonel Parsons hung up the red phone and looked at Sergeant Rod Miller.

“You get to DG Khan city yet?”

“Been there about thirty mics, sir. Nice villa Qazzani’s got there, but it’s no family manse. This is clearly the workplace, lots of guys with guns. No kiddie toys. No clothesline. Last time we profiled this place it came up clean for collateral then, too.”

“How do we know Qazzani himself is there, the big guy?” Erik asked.

“That step van out front is his personal war wagon, we know the plates,” Miller replied. “We’ve also been listening to his bodyguard’s mobile. He ordered up two boys to be delivered to the villa. Then Qazzani’s step van showed up about two hours ago.”

“Boys?” Erik asked.

“Intel says that’s what he likes,” Miller replied. “He didn’t take too long with them. We saw the two kids walked to a car and driven away about twenty minutes ago. The bodyguard’s mobile was on again. Looks like he is the one driving the car away from the compound with the kids. I think in the compound now is just Qazzani himself and some other bad guys.”

“Wonder how we got the bodyguard’s cell phone number?” Erik mused aloud to no one in particular. He then switched the image on the Big Board to the target in Pakistan. It was a nice, clear High Definition image from the Reaper.

“Colonel, two questions,” Miller began. “First, aren’t the Paks going to be rip-shit about us hitting down there, long way from the kill box they approved up in Waziristan? And, two, would you like to fly this, because rules are we need an officer flying when we pull the trigger.”

“Different rules today, Rod, different rules. Imminent threat to Americans, exigent circumstances,” Erik explained. “Yes, the Paks will be pissed. Think what the Ukrainians will be saying once they figure out it wasn’t a meth lab that blew itself up out at that gang’s compound. Are you willing to fly this one, Sarge?”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Miller replied and looked back at this controls.

“Hit the main building with two now,” Erik ordered. “Wait fifteen minutes and see who shows up to rescue and then hit it again with the last two, the frag warheads, so we get the rest of them, too.”

Erik looked down at Miller’s hands as the sergeant flipped switches and moved the joystick, causing weapons to release thousands of miles away a fraction of a second later. He noticed the pack of Marlboros next to Miller’s wallet in the cubicle. Then his eyes moved to the HD explosion on the Big Board and then the same view from a Predator higher up. There were secondary explosions, bombs or ordnance cooking off inside the building.

“You can’t smoke in here, Sergeant,” Erik said as he took the Marlboros and the lighter. “Major Hernandez, you’re in Control. I’ll be back in ten.”

The last of the night sky was disappearing and the sun beginning to brighten the day as he stood in the parking lot and lit up. He had stopped smoking eight years ago, but the smoke felt so good just now as he leaned against Jen’s white Ford Edge. It was a nice crossover, but he missed his Camaro. He missed Bruce Dougherty, who had died in that Camaro. And he was still trying to come to grips with losing Sandra Vittonelli. So many good friends, fellow war fighters. The fun had gone out of this job a long time ago, he thought. Too much killing, maybe time for him and Jen to find that place on the islands in the Juan de Fuca.

As he was thinking of Jen, his mobile vibrated. The caller ID said it was Ray Bowman phoning him.

That’s when he saw the C-17 diving for the Edge. He had no time to react. It hit the Edge in the middle of its large moon roof, bursting into an orange sunburstlike flash flame. Colonel Erik Parsons’s last thought was half formed when his brain was shattered by the blast. He had seen scores of attacks from the perspective of the attacking aircraft. For a second, he thought he was seeing one from the other side, and then he thought no more. The explosion was big enough to blow in the front doors of the GCC and channel a blast down the corridor, cracking interior glass walls, but the center survived the aircraft attack.

A few miles away, a B-17, an A-380 and a B-29, laden with explosives, destined for the GCC, were now in little pieces on the ground near Ghazi’s dead body. Ray Bowman, still dazzled by the concussive effect of their explosion, dusted off the dirt on his clothes. He had tried Erik on his landline in the GCC, then on his mobile. Nothing. Now he tried Dugout at the North Vegas ranch scene and got through. “How’s the exploitation coming?” he asked Dug.

“I think I stopped the preprogrammed cyber attacks on the subways in DC, San Fran, and Atlanta. Got good leads on guys in Boston, Chicago, and Philly. The Fibbies think they can set those guys up for meets and then bag them before any attacks,” Dugout explained. “How’s things at your end?”

“Guy had huge model planes with some high explosive in them. He launched one. Don’t know where it went. I guess we will find out. He tried to kill us by blowing up the three others. The Bureau guys dropped him. They’re going to go through what’s left of him and his car. I’m not going to wait around. Thought I’d go by the ER and get some nicks tended to,” Ray said walking toward a waiting Sheriff’s car. “I guess I’ll advise Burrell to hold off issuing a public warning. Let the Christmas shopping go on.”

“Who was the guy piloting the RC models?” Dugout asked.

Ray used one hand to shield his eyes from the bright morning sun coming up over the mountains, and with the other hand held his mobile. “Dunno. Was yelling something about our not being invulnerable here, something about payback. Vengeance. Sounded American.” Ray sounded tired, his mind seemed focused elsewhere. “We’ll try to figure out who he was. See where in the never-ending circle of retaliations this guy fits in.”

As he walked away from the smoking wreckage of the radio controlled model aircraft, past the dead body of the terrorist, Ray heard a buzz and looked up. The white drone circling above the scene had large block letters in blue that read
SHERIFF.

43

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22

NAVY HILL

WASHINGTON, DC

It was warm for Christmas, he thought. Climate Change was going to be the big issue from now on, not terrorism. It would do what the terrorists never could, bankrupt us and kill millions. So if the entire world was going to hell, why not smoke the Havana? What was there to lose? Sandra was dead, as was Erik. The drone program was in a legal straitjacket and the Ukrainian and Pakistani governments were demanding investigations, arrests, UN meetings, INTERPOL red notices.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to escape town for the week between the holidays. Maybe fly down to Anguilla. Get a room at that high-end resort. Blow some of the small savings he had left.

Raymond Bowman sat on what he thought of as his bench above the Potomac, wearing the leather flight jacket that had been Erik Parsons’s. His widow had insisted that he have it. She didn’t blame him for Erik’s death, or Sandra’s, or Bruce’s. But he blamed himself. Failure sat on his shoulders like twenty-pound weights. It ate at his gut like an acid. It kept him awake like that damn Provigil pill. It caused him to think that nothing was worthwhile, especially him.

Sandra had been the first woman whom he had really connected with in years. She was so good at everything she did, and all that she asked for were tougher missions, harder jobs, and a chance to do good for her country. Between him and her, Ray thought, there was mutual understanding and real mutual respect. While he had never admitted it to himself before, he had hoped at some subliminal level that it might go somewhere, might lead to the next several chapters of his life. Now he had no idea what those next chapters would be and, worse yet, at this moment, he did not care.

“You should shave. How long’s it been? You look like a park bench bum, even if the park bench is inside a highly guarded facility.” Dugout sat down next to him, holding a half lit cigar.

“Privacy. I know it’s a concept that’s foreign to you hackers, but,” Ray said to him. “And theft. Even theft of a Havana. It’s theft. Four days and I think I may not shave again for quite a few more.”

“The Bureau thinks they got the last guy this morning,” Dugout said. “He was a Yemeni American student at Temple. He was supposed to set off a bomb in Reading Terminal in Philly.”

“So it’s over?” Raymond Bowman asked.

“For now. Just in case I missed something, Metro, MARTA, BART, the T are all on manual. Their digital control networks are severed from the Internet. From what we found on a trick thumb drive at the ranch in Nevada, the FBI tracked down the facilitators in Philly and Chicago. None of them had ever gotten the go signal. Seems like the guy that got shot in Heathrow was going to send out the go code from Dubai or Karachi.”

“We think the guy in Heathrow was the guy that got on the boat to Canada? Doesn’t make sense,” Ray noted.

“He never got on the boat. He kept leaving false trails, just in case we got to any of the bombers. CIA thinks now that he was one of the two falcons. The guy you got in Vegas was the other,” Dugout explained. “Lived in Canada, but originally Pakistani, one Ghazi Nawarz.”

“Probably some facilitators in the U.S. the Bureau hasn’t identified yet,” Ray thought aloud. “Did you see the BDA on Kiev and DG Khan?”

Dugout shook his head in the affirmative as he sucked on his cigar, trying to keep it lit. “Bomb Damage Assessment, not Big Data Analysis? It’s pretty good. Those drone attacks fried both places. Also HUMINT says that the heads of both the Qazzani and the Merezha bought it, along with lots of underlings. Apparently some friendly country, I think the Brits, had a guy in the Qazzani compound and the Agency signaled him to leave just before we hit it.”

“Ah, the falcon watcher,” Ray said. “But this won’t be the end of the Qazzani enterprise. Too much money on the table. Where there are drugs to be moved, there will be movers.”

“Right, but now there will be a scramble among the deputies and lieutenants to see who gets to take over both groups. Probably end up killing each other in the succession struggle, as number fours become number threes, and number twos go after each other.”

“I’m sure the Kill Committee will update the target list,” Ray replied.

A white drone with a red stripe on it was headed south above the river. On its side, Ray could make out the words
COAST GUARD.

Ray stood and looked down on the river. “Winston Burrell called this morning. Wants me to come up to Camp David. President wants to give me some bullshit award.”

“When?” Dugout asked, standing next to him and looking down at the river.

“Tomorrow. But I think I’m headed to the beach instead. Maybe Anguilla.”

“You do know it’s Christmas in three days?” Dugout said.

“So?”

“So, it’s happening without the attacks. You saved a lot of lives. You should accept the Goddamn medal,” Dugout said.

“I saved a lot of lives, except for the ones I knew, the ones I cared about most. There’s no great feeling of accomplishment when you kill the bad guys, knowing that there will just be more of them and you or someone else will have to do it again, and again. There’s just a feeling of emptiness.”

Ray turned to face Dugout and put his left hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Jennifer said there is a PTSD syndrome that happens when you survive and everyone else in the Humvee buys it. She said the best cure is to change your environment completely and chill out as much as possible, beer, sun, sand, waves.”

“And then what? When are you coming back? After New Year’s?” Dugout asked. “There are a lot more bad guys out there we haven’t gotten yet.”

“There will always be bad guys out there.” Ray pulled his right arm back behind him to gain leverage and then threw his cigar out as far as he could, toward the Potomac.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Readers of two of my earlier books may recall that I have some personal responsibility for the use of drones against terrorists. In full disclosure, here is that story. I served in the White House for over a decade beginning in 1992, for three successive Presidents. My job for many of those years was National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism. In that capacity, I came to believe that we needed to capture or kill the leadership of a group that few people in the United States had ever heard of, al Qaeda.

The CIA was instructed to get bin Ladin, but proved incapable of doing so. They were then asked to locate him reliably in a place where he would be staying for at least four hours, so that we could launch cruise missiles at the site. That did not work either. Frustrated, I asked for an independent review by Charlie Allen, a legendary intelligence officer and iconoclast. Charlie suggested we deploy Predators to the region and fly them over Afghanistan. Predators were only available as unarmed aircraft in those days, but we thought that they might be better than past efforts to find bin Ladin. CIA and the Pentagon, however, opposed the use of Predators for this purpose.

Eventually, the White House had to order the CIA to do a test deployment of the unarmed Predators. I still recall my amazement, sitting in a darkened room well after midnight Washington time, watching the video feed live from Afghanistan, following a truck, zooming in on a camp. On the fourth flight, bin Ladin was located. Then the winter set in and the winds were such that we could not fly the Predator over the mountains into Afghanistan from its base in Central Asia. We would not be able to fly again until spring. It was the fall of 2000 and the Clinton administration was coming to a close.