Sting of the Drone (6 page)

“You will have all that you need, my friend,” Qazzani promised. “As will you, Bahadur.”

Ahmed Bahadur looked confused. “
Janab?
”

“You have a mission, too. We have a job to do, for the Arabs. I agreed we would do it. I gave my word. They paid us half, a big half. We will do it.” Qazzani scanned the circle of men after his announcement, showing the palms of his hands, opening the floor for discussion.

The one who looked perhaps to be in his twenties spoke first. “Father, if the Americans were the ones who killed our people in Europe, it may be that they knew what we were planning. If we go ahead, won’t they be looking for bombs in the metros?”

“Yes, they may be. That is why, son, we will not do the train operations where they were originally planned. I have told the Qaeda people we will do it in the heart of the beast, in America. It will be harder, riskier, more expensive.” He let the thought sink in. “They have already sent the money. For a group that has so few of its own action men left, they still get the gold, from the secret
Ikhwan,
from the rich ones.”

Bahadur examined his sandals, summoning courage. “
Janab,
I will do whatever you instruct, of course. My territory is the Pacific, Indonesia, Philippines. I live in Sydney. I do not know America. I do not know people who will do bombings there. And if we do the bombing in America, won’t they come after us here?”

“I know, nephew, I know. Even an old man can learn from his mistakes. Al Qaeda will still provide you with the bombers, from their new groups in the Yemen, Nigeria, and Somalia. But Ghazi Nawarz and his Ukrainians will help you with their computers. If you and Ghazi both succeed, the Americans will think Qaeda did all of it. Or the Taliban. And yes, they will go after them, even more, for a while. But not us, not us. And then they will finally leave.”

Qazzani signaled to Bahadur to help him stand up. The meeting was over. Rising, the older man pulled his nephew close and spoke into his ear in a whisper. “Tomorrow I will go to Iftar at your mother’s house. After we break the fast, you and I will sit alone in your late father’s diwan. We will discuss how you will do this. And your reward, Bahadur, your big reward.”

Everyone stood.

“Friend, Ghazi, walk with me,” Qazzani summoned as he headed for the door. The two men crowded into a small elevator with the guard who had patted Ghazi down earlier. In the basement garage a white step van waited, its rear doors open. Inside, Ghazi could see that the van had been converted into a little room of red carpets and green pillows. The guard lifted Qazzani into the van and strapped him into a seat on the floor. Ghazi sat next to him and the van began to move up a ramp and onto a street, one in which people were not walking, vendors were not selling, people not watching. The van had good suspension, but Ghazi could still feel the bumps through the rugs, through to the bones in his cheeks.

“Ghazi Faqir Nawarz, a man should always leave enough gold aside for his wives, for his boys, for dowries, in case he may be called by Allah. And Allah, he may call at any time. Your father left his gold with me for safekeeping. Now it is yours. I will understand if you just want to take it and go back to your life in Canada.” Qazzani took hold of both of Ghazi’s hands and squeezed them. “Are you sure you want to do this mission? If you do, I will add one rupee for every one your father left with me for you.”

“
Janab,
the message I sent you was sincere. I asked for a mission to avenge my father. He gave me everything I have, everything I am,” Ghazi replied. “I may seem like a Westerner to the others, but I still hold with many of the traditions. When a man murders my father, I must avenge the death. And with this way of revenge, I can also stop the drones, which are unnatural, a sin against Allah.”

The old man stroked his beard, which he kept black with a dye that Ghazi could now see had clumped in places. “I make honey at my farm, Ghazi. I have many drones, but they do not sting. Drones in nature do not sting. These American drones sting with a lethal venom. They are unnatural. They must be stopped.”

He placed his hand in the hand of the younger man as they sat together. “Ghazi, I know about these Ukrainians. Your father told me about them, what you have done with them. I don’t understand it all, but I understand that with the computers, you have become a rich man. Tell the Ukrainians if they help you stop the American bees from buzzing us and if they help with the operation in America, they can take over the distribution of the poppy paste in Europe.”

“That is a high price to pay for vengeance,
Janab,
” Ghazi replied.

“Ghazi, with your father gone, you are now my son and I can tell you things that I cannot share with the others,” Qazzani said, no longer sounding like the old man in the meeting. His voice was different. No longer the sage who talked in riddles, he began to sound like the CEO he was. “Your father ran Europe for us, but the men killed with him, his deputies, were the ones who were trained to take over if something happened to him. The men I have there now are not up to the job. In time, the Russians will move in and take over our markets. So what we offer the Ukrainians is a wasting asset. They don’t know that yet.”

The truck began to pick up speed as they left the city. “By attacking their drones, you will distract the Americans and make us safer. Then when the bombs go off in their cities, Qaeda and the Taliban will tell them that the bombs will continue until the foreigners all leave Afghanistan completely. The American people will agree, they are weary of war. After they bomb Qaeda and the Taliban some more for revenge, they will go. This time, they will all actually leave.”

Rashid Qazzani smiled for the first time since Ghazi had been with him that night. “And when the Americans finally leave, it will not really be the Taliban who take over, it will not be Qaeda. Ghazi, it will be us. We will have all the money we need to do it. We have all the growers. They do not want the Taliban in charge. When they were, last time, they stopped the farmers from making the paste from the poppies. But when the Americans finally leave, the drones must stop, too. We cannot have these pilots from their Sin City hitting our people here and in Afghanistan. So while Bahadur’s operation will convince the Americans that the price of keeping their soldiers in our part of the world is too high, you will convince them that using the drones must also stop.”

“I understand,
Janab,
and I will stop the drones. And I will help Bahadur. But,
Janab,
why did the Americans kill my father and his men in Europe? Not because of the drugs. They must have known what they were planning to do for al Qaeda.”

Qazzani looked into Ghazi’s eyes, probing them. “You are a wise man, Ghazi. Your father was very proud of all the money you made stealing with the computers. He wished you had brought him grandchildren, but he was very proud of his Canadian son.”

*   *   *

The van stopped abruptly and one rear door opened. “Ghazi, this time there must be no connection to us. Make it look like the ISI is going after the drones. Some of the ISI will help you. And Bahadur will leave a trail from the bombings to Qaeda. Not to us. Not this time.”

Ghazi stared back at the old man. “I will do this,
Janab,
but not for the extra money, for my father.”

“I feel like the falconer who launches two birds to attack the target. You, Ghazi, and Bahadur are my two attack falcons. I trust you both and you may trust each other, but Ghazi, trust no one else. The Americans would not have killed your father in Vienna, of all places, unless they knew what he was planning. Somewhere, my son, there is a traitor. I will find him and he will die a slow death, but until then, be very careful.”

“
Shab bakhair,
” Qazzani said in parting. Ghazi stepped out of the van onto an empty road. The van pulled away. In the dark, under the tree, Ghazi could see his Kawasaki. It had been moved from the alley while they were meeting. Qazzani was always thinking several steps ahead, moving pieces on the board while eyes were elsewhere.

Qazzani’s bodyguard moved next to the old man on the floor of the van. “Tell them I will be there shortly and tonight I want a younger one, no hair,” he admonished the guard. The bodyguard removed a mobile from his pocket and inserted a battery. In less than three minutes, he had placed the request, and then removed the battery again and slipped the mobile back into its leather case in his pocket. That was time enough.

Eight kilometers west and five kilometers up, the mobile’s signal triggered a response in an unarmed black object flying quietly in the night. The caller’s number was known. He was a man associated directly with Rashid Qazzani. The small drone dove, sped up, and activated its night vision camera. The onboard computer calculated that the mobile was moving at eighty kilometers an hour off to the east. Just before the mobile shut down, the computer targeted the camera to look at all vehicles heading north within a hundred-meter strip on the highway. There was only one. Its image was recorded. Its license plate imaged. Its route tracked.

The information was bounced to a satellite and then down to a server, for when it might be needed. Then the black bird resumed its patrol.

5

TUESDAY, JULY 14

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR’S OFFICE

THE WEST WING, THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC

She could no longer pretend. Sandra Vittonelli had to admit to herself that she could no longer wait until after the meeting. She would, after all, do better in the meeting with the National Security Advisor if she weren’t squirming. Moreover, Burrell had not yet shown up.

His waiting area consisted of two chairs stuffed among three secretaries in his outer office. “We make most people wait in the West Wing lobby, but you can just sit here with us,” one of his secretaries had said. “After all, you’re one of us.” Sandra vaguely remembered the woman, maybe Rhonda, from the seventh floor at CIA Headquarters, but now she was in the West Wing working for Dr. Winston Burrell, the President’s alter ego on foreign policy, defense, and intelligence issues.

“It’s that first little door on the right, dear,” maybe-Rhonda said. “Just be sure to knock. It’s a one seater. Unisex.” As Sandra was about to knock, the narrow door opened and a man she thought was Vice President Menendez came charging out.

“Yes, he doesn’t have his own bathroom in his West Wing office. Neither does the Chief of Staff or Dr. Burrell,” maybe-Rhonda laughed when Sandra returned. “It really is a little old building, you know.” Sandra had never thought of the White House West Wing that way before, a sort of Big Brother house with everyone living and working on top of one another. The few times she had been in the West Wing before it had always been downstairs, on the ground level, in the Situation Room meeting space. And she had always been “backbenching” for the CIA Director, or the Director of National Intelligence. Now she was here by herself, wondering if that meant she was being left out to hang by herself.

“Burrell just wants an informal, kind of off-the-record update,” she had been told at Headquarters. “No PowerPoint, no Happy Snaps, no YouTube hits. Just walk him through it. You do it by yourself. You can do it in your sleep.” She might have to do it in her sleep, she thought, since she had been largely unable to sleep the night before, her mind processing, planning, unable to shut down.

When she returned from the restroom, a man thrust out a hand. “Hey, Sandra, great to see you again. How’ve you been?” She recognized him immediately.

“Ray, are you working over here now?” Raymond Bowman, the last time Sandra had worked with him, had been Deputy Director of the Policy Evaluation Group, a small and somewhat vaguely purposed, independent agency that sat above the Potomac on Navy Hill, across the street from the State Department.

“Same, same. Still at the PEG.” Ray beamed his good mood, in a way that was rare among people in the intel business. “No, Winston asked me to come over to sit in on your meeting. I think it’s just going to be the three of us.”

“It is,” Winston Burrell announced as he entered the cramped outer office. “Come on in.” The National Security Advisor’s office was spacious and bright, with a conference table on one side and a living room set on the other, a huge desk set in the back. Two walls had floor-to-ceiling windows, causing Sandra instant reflexive worry about snipers and laser beams linked to audio devices.

Burrell motioned her to the couch. The two men sat in the armchairs, one on each side of the lower couch. It did not look like a power group, more like a meeting of a prep school faculty. Winston Burrell was in his sixties, broad, balding, beefy. He was known for his rumpled look. He could have been mistaken for the prep school headmaster. Ray Bowman was two decades younger, six inches taller, and looked like he had escaped from a J.Crew catalogue. He might have been the crew team advisor or tennis coach. At five foot five, with short black hair, and businesslike manner, Sandra Vittonelli might have been the Dean of Students or head of the English Department. Rather than having power over a thousand adolescents, however, these three ran a global empire of killing machines.

Burrell began. “Hell, you’ve been running this operation out in Nevada what, two months now? Figured it all out?”

“Four months now, sir. It’s familiar in some ways. I was originating some of the Kill Requests when I was at Kabul Station and before that at Baghdad Station.”

“Well, I just thought I should get to know you better, rather than just have you be a face on a television screen in the conference room,” Burrell explained.

To know me better, or to know the program better? Sandra thought. She knew the National Security Advisor by reputation. He was a survivor, having worked in both the Pentagon and at State. He had done his cooling-off time in a think tank, and then come back in with the new President. He had been with the President early in his campaign, before anyone else in the national security business. They were said to be very close, the two meeting for drinks most nights up in the Residence after the President and First Lady put the twins to bed. Burrell must work very long days, she thought.