Authors: Barry Eisler
“Good idea. Also, let’s not assume he’s alone. Keep your eyes open. If Gillmor’s at the controls and you see someone else, then by all means, shoot the other guy, he’ll just be security, and that’ll be one less thing we have to worry about.”
“Got it.”
He looked scared. It wasn’t confidence-inspiring.
I glanced at the HK he was holding. “You know how to use that, right?”
“I’ve had the training, yeah.”
Which was another way of saying,
but not the experience.
“Okay,” I said. “Remember. Aggressive stance, gorilla grip, front site on the target, press the trigger.”
He gave me a tight grin. “Dox always said you micromanage.”
Damn it, he was right. He was either going to perform or not. Whatever I said to him at this point wasn’t going to make the difference.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.” For the benefit of the others, I said, “Kanezaki and I are moving in on the granary now. Should be on target in five minutes.”
We headed north a quarter mile across flat grassland, then west, keeping low and moving quickly. There was a stand of trees between us and our objective, but, other than that, no cover or concealment anywhere. I tried not to think about snipers and what we would look like if one were watching us from that granary. When we reached the trees, we paused. I could see the granary. It was circular, about twenty feet high, but it was crumbling and offered no sniper hides, at least nothing that looked in our direction. Thank God. I couldn’t see around it. There was a truck partly visible next to a pond to the right, which might have been good news, but no sign of people. We were going to be in a hell of a jam if Hort’s intel was wrong, and there was nobody here.
“Children going in the front entrance,” I heard Dox say in the ear-piece. “Lots of ’em. Walking in from the neighborhood and some getting dropped off by their parents. No sign of our shooters.”
“My side’s clear, too,” Larison said.
“Same,” Treven said.
“John, I hope you’re in position,” Dox said. “Our timeline’s getting kind of tight.”
I didn’t want to speak, but I tapped the boom twice with a finger.
“Roger that,” Dox said.
I looked at Kanezaki. He was pale. I hoped he was going to be okay. I inclined my head toward the granary. He nodded once and we moved in, our guns up now. I didn’t know who’d trained him, but I had to admit they’d done a good job. Despite his obvious fear, he had his HK out at high-ready, his head was swiveling to increase his range of vision, and he propelled himself with a nice, smooth shuffle.
We reached the wall of the granary. It smelled of earth and hay and I had the urge to cling to it you always get just before you move out from your last position of decent cover. Still no sign of anyone at the truck.
I signaled left to Kanezaki. He nodded and moved off. I headed right.
At the limit of the structure’s circumference, I crouched and darted my head around and then back. In the instant I’d been exposed I’d seen Gillmor, a tall, wiry Caucasian in hunting fatigues and with a graying high-and-tight. He was standing, facing the road, working the keyboard of what looked like a large laptop suspended at waist level from a strap around his neck.
I stepped around, the HK on him. I checked my flanks quickly, then said in a loud, command voice, “Gillmor. Do not move.”
He started and glanced over at me. But his hands stayed at the controls.
“Get your hands up!” I shouted.
I heard Dox in my ear: “Shooters have arrived. Running at the front entrance. Larison, you win the prescience prize. Engaging them now.”
I heard a soft crack. Another. Then two more.
“Thank you for playing,” Dox said. “Next contestants.”
“Your four shooters are done!” I said, swiveling left and right to check my flanks. “They didn’t even make it inside. Now hands up, or you’re dead right there!”
He raised his hands and turned to look at me.
“Circle him!” I called out to Kanezaki. “Watch the truck, I don’t know if there’s anyone inside it.”
Kanezaki moved out, past Gillmor, his HK up.
Gillmor glanced at him, then back to me. “Who sent you? Was it Horton?”
“Call it back,” I said. “The drone.”
“No.”
“Call it back,” I said, my voice flat-lining. “I won’t ask again. I will shoot you in the head.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I die,” he said, nodding. “The mission will still succeed.”
Okay
, I thought, and shot him in the head. The HK kicked, there was a crack about as loud as the thump of a sewing machine, and a hole appeared in his forehead. His body shuddered, his knees buckled, and he folded to the ground on his back.
“Jesus Christ!” Kanezaki shouted. “How are we going to stop the drone now?”
“Check the truck!” I said. “And stay alert.”
I heard Dox chuckle. “Cop’s freakin’ out. He’s wondering, ‘Who were these four guys who were charging me, and why did their heads all suddenly uncork?’”
I rushed to Gillmor’s body and examined the laptop. Two joy sticks, telemetry readouts, a video feed that looked like it was coming from a camera in the drone. I recognized the terrain from the maps we’d been reviewing. The east/west rural highway we’d driven in on from Lincoln. The river just south of it.
Oh shit, he’s programmed it to go straight for—
Gunshots to my right. I spun. Kanezaki was down. I saw movement at the far end of the truck.
I charged for the granary.
No time to think about Kanezaki. I hoped he’d taken the hits in the Dragon Skin, but I didn’t know. “Dox,” I said into the commo boom as I got to cover, “Gillmor’s down, but he’s programmed the drone to go straight to the school. I think he set the Hellfires to go at the last minute and then for the drone to follow them in, or maybe for them to detonate on impact with the drone. It’s coming at you from due east. ETA three, maybe four minutes. Can you take it down?”
“I don’t know. Where are its avionics?”
I darted my head around and back. Three gunshots rang out from the far side of the truck and rounds struck the granary wall. Chunks of dislodged concrete hit me.
“I don’t know, I didn’t design the fucking thing! The nose, I guess.”
“Guess you can’t ask Gillmor?”
Another gunshot, another spray of concrete. I was distantly aware that if the shooter was firing even when I didn’t show myself, he couldn’t be that good.
“Gillmor’s dead!” I said.
“Well, under the circumstances and assuming we don’t have any other drone architecture experts on hand, I’d have to call that a fail.”
Unless, I thought, the shooter was covering for someone coming in from my left. I moved out to the other side of the granary, the HK up. “Treven, Larison, you need to clear out of there now.”
“I’m going in,” Treven said. “They have to evacuate.”
“You don’t have time!”
“Gotta try.”
There was a pause.
“Goddamn it,” Larison said. “I knew this was going to happen. I’m going in, too.”
“Use the sides,” Dox said calmly. “If you come around to the front, you will have to engage a very upset police officer.”
“Roger that,” Treven said.
“Going in,” Larison said. “Goddamn it.”
The other side of the granary was clear. It was just the one guy, then. And he wasn’t that good. I wondered if I could charge the truck from here.
“Dox,” I said. “Do you see it?”
“Not yet, but I’m looking.”
I heard Treven and Larison shouting, “There is a bomb in the school! This is not a joke and it is not a drill! Everyone needs to evacuate now and scatter to at least one hundred yards! Move! Move!”
“Come on, baby,” I heard Dox say. “Where are you? Come to Dox.”
I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, readying myself to charge the truck. I counted one, two—
I heard three soft cracks, then a gunshot. I tore around the side of the granary and straight for the truck.
There was no need. Kanezaki was on his feet, to the left of the truck, the HK up at chin level and angled to the ground, smoke drifting up from the muzzle of the suppressor. I dropped down and looked under the chassis of the truck. There was a prone body on the other side.
“Is he dead?” I called out.
“I think so.” He sounded like he was in shock.
“Well, fucking make sure!”
I heard another soft crack. Then, “He’s dead.”
Dox, in my ear: “Goddamn it, I am taking fire.”
He said it so calmly it took me a minute to understand what it meant. “Someone’s shooting at you?”
Treven and Larison were still shouting. Sounded like pandemonium inside the school.
“Yeah,” Dox said, “it’s that cop. He must have seen me. Good eyes. He’d need a hell of a lucky shot to hit me from there, but still I’d be grateful if someone could knock him down or something. I’d prefer not to shoot a police officer. Treven, Larison?”
“I’m on it,” Larison said.
“Thank you,” Dox said. “Still no sign of the drone. Kids are all running out of the school, though. Nice work there.”
A few seconds went by. I heard a sound—half thud, half crunch—and Dox said, “Thank you, Mister Larison! Ooh, that had to hurt.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Clubbed the cop,” Larison said. “Took his gun.”
I heard him say, “Here, I’m sorry about that, sir. We’re from the government, we’re not here to hurt anyone. The school’s under attack and you need to run away from it before the bomb blows up, do you understand? Just run with the kids, they need you.”
“I see it,” Dox said. “Going pretty fast. Gonna have to lead it some.”
Kanezaki and I ran to the drone controls. “You all right?” I said.
“He hit me in the vest. Knocked me down. I’m okay.”
Gillmor, on his back, his legs folded under him, his eyes staring and sightless, was still holding the controls. We looked at the screen. I could see the school through the drone’s camera. The drone was heading right for it.
I heard a soft crack. The image on the screen shuddered, then stabilized. “Hit it, but not on the nose,” Dox said. I heard a series of additional cracks. The screen image shuddered violently, but stabilized again.
“The hell’s that thing made of?” Dox said. “I just put sixteen rounds in it. All right, switching magazines.”
“Larison, Treven, get the fuck out of there,” I said. “You’ve done all you can. There’s no more time. Go!”
The school was at the center of the screen and rapidly expanding. I thought the drone couldn’t be more than a few seconds from impact.
“All right, sweetheart,” I heard Dox say. “Come here. Come take what I’ve got for you.”
There was a methodical drumbeat of cracks. The image of the school shuddered. It shook. It stabilized, filling the whole screen—
And then the camera veered and began to spin wildly.
“All right!” Dox said, jubilation creeping into his normally supercalm sniper tone. “Score one for the home team.”
The sky flashed past on the screen, then the ground, then everything was moving so fast I couldn’t make out any features at all. A moment later, the screen went dark.
“Where did it go down?” I said.
“Not the school,” Dox said. “The parking lot, though. Hot damn, that was close. Nobody hurt, I don’t think.”
“Did the warheads detonate?”
“No, sir. Gillmor must have had them set to blow on nose-first impact.”
“Treven, Larison, you all right?”
“Fine,” Larison said. “Walking away southeast.”
I heard sirens in the background. “Same,” Treven said. “Could use a pickup. Feeling a little conspicuous at the moment.”
“Go to the bug-out,” I said. “Dox, you especially. That cop is going to report sniper fire coming from your position. We’ll rendezvous in twenty minutes. Or less, the way Kanezaki drives.”
I expected Treven and Larison would be able to ghost away just fine in the tumult outside the school. But it wouldn’t be long before coherent witnesses came forward and described them to arriving police. And Dox needed to get far from his hide.
Kanezaki pulled out an iPhone and took photographs of Gillmor’s body and the controls on top of it.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“This is our proof.” He started moving the phone in a small circle, talking as he did so. I realized he must have switched to video mode.
“We need to go,” I said.
He held up a finger. “The man on the ground is the new head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Dan Gillmor, who was controlling the drone that attacked a school in Lincoln today. This is Palmyra, Nebraska, about twenty-five miles away.”
He walked over to the guy he’d shot and took his picture, too, then filmed the truck and its license plates, talking the whole time, dates and coordinates and identifying details. Then we ran back to the van, which he proceeded to drive as though the trip out were just a warm-up. We reached the bug-out point, a church a mile from the school, in under fifteen minutes. Kanezaki cut his speed and pulled into the parking lot.
“It’s us,” I said into the commo, and Dox, Larison, and Treven melted out from behind a dumpster. They got in the van and we drove off at a normal speed.
I climbed in back. Everybody shook hands. I said to Dox, “Good shooting.”
“Hell,” Dox said, “if it had been good, I would have dropped it on the first shot.”
“Hey,” Treven said, “you put it down. That’s all that counts.”
“Well,” Dox said, looking at me, “I don’t want to blame anyone else for how long it took me, but I don’t think the avionics in that particular model of drone are in the nose, unless they’re severely hardened. I finally just shot the shit out of the thing, and hoped I’d hit something vital. Which apparently I did.”
We all laughed. “Tom,” Dox said. “Are you all right? Did I hear you say you were hit?”
“In the vest,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“You’re going to be sore later,” I said. “But the hell with that. Nice shooting.”
“You shot Gillmor?” Dox said. “I thought that was Rain.”
“No, his security,” Kanezaki said.
“Who had me pinned down,” I added.
“Oo-rah!” Dox said. “Somebody give me that man a cigar. Was that your first kill?”