Game of Drones (23 page)

Lut cried out to him. “Mufad!”

The young Arab didn’t seem to hear him as he went to his knees, dropping his tablet. For a long moment he stayed that way, as if entreating his God one last moment before keeling forward.

In an uncontrollable rage, Lut let loose a warrior’s cry as he barreled toward the source of the shots that took down Mufad. He peppered the brush with fire as he ran, swinging the point of his firearm from one side to the other, the bullets cutting and slicing their way through the foliage, limbs and leaves flying everywhere as if pruned by an unseen madman.

Tanner ducked beneath the botanical shrapnel. As he lay on his side, leaves, dust and even feathers raining down, he lowered his lip mike and hissed, “Chance!”

“Yeah.”

“Gate’s clear! Get moving!”

“I can get to him, Tanner. I can take out the big guy.”

“No time. Get inside and get to that console! Don’t worry about me. Out!” Tanner rolled to his left, away from the steady stream of gunfire. But the big man was almost on top of him.

Tanner got to his feet, raised his weapon, and fired. The reports were snuffed out by the suppressor as bullets zipped past the large Arab man, all the shots missing. By the time Tanner readjusted, Lut had taken to the brush in hiding.

What followed was a terrifying silence that Tanner did not expect.

He was being stalked.

Chance raced into the mouth of the bunker’s opening and ran down a tunnel that smelled of dung. After rounding a bend, he saw light that could only have been thrown by incandescent bulbs. The door to the interior space was either open or missing. Just before he reached the room, he took stock of his situation and proceeded with caution. He raised his weapon to eye level and used the magnifying lens of his scope to guide him. Chance moved forward bent at the waist while constantly looking around.

. . . 07:25 . . .

. . . 07:24 . . .

. . . 07:23 . . .

Not detecting any immediate threats, he entered the room.

#

Naji was manning the controls when he registered movement from the periphery of his sight. When he turned to look, he knew instantly that he was caught within the crosshairs--there was Chance, standing there.

“Move away from the console!” Chance demanded, sidestepping his way into the chamber. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

“You’re too late,” Naji told him calmly. “The first drone is locked in. The only way to take it out is with a fighter jet. But we both know that the Phantoms can’t reach it in time, don’t we?”

Chance was amazed at this man’s English. It was perfect—without even any hint of an accent. But then again, he was American. The enemy always hiding in plain sight.

“I said, move away from the console!”

Naji refused, his eyes shifting in their sockets from Chance to the podium, then from the podium back to Chance, his mind obviously working, which Chance could see.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Chance.

But Naji did think. And he reacted. He was swift and fluid in motion, his hand reaching for his holstered weapon, grabbing it, and then bringing it up. But Chance wasted no time in pressing the trigger, either.

Muzzle flashes exploded from the end of Chance’s weapon, the bursts of gunfire on target as the rounds ripped into Naji with punches that caused the Arab to jolt and contort with their sudden impacts.

Naji screamed as his entire body became a tabernacle of pain.

Chance lifted his finger from the trigger.

The smell of cordite permeated the air.

Naji, going to his knees, dropped his pistol and enfolded himself in a feeble embrace. Looking at Chance, he gave off a most chilling smile. His teeth were coated with blood. His eyes seemed to cast a horrific aura—something that told Chance he was too late to play the part of savior.

Naji burst out with a chortle as if he had the upper hand in playing some cruel joke. “Whereas I will go to Paradise,” he told him. “You shall suffer for all eternity."

Naji then coughed up a red glob that splashed on the floor before him. Slowly, he reached out and grazed his fingertips over the blood, using it as ink, and drew something indecipherable. When he was done he raised his head and focused his attention on Chance, who was quickly approaching with his weapon leveled.

Naji’s smile withered, his eyes taking on a look of detachment, and then he was gone, the dead man falling to the floor.

Chance took to the podium and studied its control panel. He had seen this before—the controls, the dials, the toggles and the joystick. Some of it was reminiscent of the overhead control panel of a Black Hawk. Other sections, however, were alien to him.

He checked the monitors and noted that some of the cameras were shots of the tunnels, others of the outside periphery. But on the center monitor he found what he was looking for: the aerial view of the drone already in flight, the Reaper flying just above the treetops in what was known as terrain masking, a way to further disguise itself from radar.

Chance flipped switches and played with the necessary toggles to bring up the unmanned plane's designated route. A digital LED readout displayed a series of numbers at the top of the screen. Coordinates. He then attempted to usurp the console's power by tapping into the Reaper's computerized brain, but failed, the flight of the drone unwavering. Then he tried to alternate its flight plan by hacking into its programming so that he could instruct it to fly into the ground. But once again, the drone didn’t respond, having a life of its own. It was starting to look like things were as Naji said-- the drone's course was locked in and there was nothing anyone could do to alter its course.

He then scrutinized the coordinates by entering the displayed digits into the computer.

What came up—what he realized had to be the target site—actually stole his breath away.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.
No.

He got on the lip mike to Tanner.

But the Outcast leader had problems of his own.

The foliage was a little too quiet for Tanner’s liking. He knew that the large man was close by, perhaps listening for the faintest of noises so that he could home onto his position and rush him like a mad bull. He was watchful, scouting for delicate twigs or branches that could be as inharmonious as alarms, before leveling his foot.

And then Tanner’s ear bud chirped.
“Tanner! Tanner, come in!”

Under normal circumstances, the audio transmitted through the ear buds was inaudible to anyone but the wearer. But amidst this dead quiet...

The moment Tanner reached to shut off the bud, Lut burst out of hiding and rushed him.

#

. . . 07:07 . . .

. . . 07:06 . . .

. . . 07:05 . . .

Chance was becoming frustrated. Everything he did ended in failure.

From the mouth of the south corridor, Nay and Stephen entered the main chamber. Moments later Liam and Dante entered from the southeast side. When they saw Chance and not Tanner, it begged a question from Nay.

“He’s outside,” Chance told her, “standing sentinel. But he’s not answering his mike.”

“I’m on it,” said Stephen, exiting the main chamber with his weapon held high and at the ready position.

Nay looked around, rapidly surveying their surroundings. “Chance, is there a panel around here? Something that could act as the sending station for the Semtex riggings?"

“Not in this room,” he answered, continuing to work the drone station feverishly. “Try the north-side tunnel. And Nay?"
I love you.
Words he deemed as inappropriate--out of place--came to the forefront of his mind. He pushed them aside.
Why do I want to say that now?

“Yeah?”

Stay focused.
“I need more time.”

“I’ll try."

When she left, Dante followed, leaving behind a wounded Liam, who left blood spots in his wake like a macabre breadcrumb trail as he walked to the podium and stood beside Chance.

He noted the dead Arab on the floor before addressing the ex-Delta Force operator. “You got this?”

Chance ignored him as he allowed his fingers to dance over the controls, totally absorbed by what he was doing.

Liam checked the monitors. On one screen was the bird's-eye-view video feed from the MQ-10 in flight as it dipped and rose over treetops. On the monitor beside it was a still-frame photo of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant near Lusby, Maryland.

And then Liam’s mind clicked. The Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant was the drone’s destination.

Liam was starting to feel the wooziness of his wound.

“Can you stop it, Chance? Before it gets to Calvert?”

Chance shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s just hope that Nay finds that box.”

“If not?”

Chance wanted to say,
Then
Calvert Cliffs
goes up like a fireball unlike any other and that part of Maryland will be a no-man’s land for a thousand years to come.

But he remained silent, knowing that neither of them needed any distractions right now.

#

When Aasif Shazad reached the main chamber, he saw Naji lying in a pool of his own blood.
Dead, or nearly so.
Nearby, a clearly uninjured man stood helming the podium, trying his best to commandeer the Reaper in mid-flight, with a second man--this one with a serious shoulder wound-- standing beside him.

These people were quick and efficient, he thought, dispatching his team with such little effort. But his unit had served well, as they now stood on the threshold to greatness and Paradise ever after.

Shazad was pleased.

But unlike his fellow jihadists, he would not be martyred. It was no longer necessary for him to engage with these treacherous infidels. The Reaper would carry out his work. The best thing for him to do was to live another day so that he could plan and execute additional holy missions, to serve yet another glorious day under the banner of Allah, peace be with him.

He slunk back into the shadows and retreated into the dark recesses. Knowing that time was winding down and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop the drone, he slipped away from the bunker and deeper into the woods.

. . . 06:43 . . .

. . . 06:42 . . .

. . . 06:41 . . .

Lut was no stranger to the weight room. At least from what Tanner could tell by the man’s thick neck and broad shoulders as he rushed him, hollering with unbridled rage. The big man’s knife remained sheathed while his assault rifle was festooned across his chest. Tanner figured that he wanted to get up close and personal--to rip him apart with his bare hands--which the apish combatant looked quite capable of doing.

Tanner swung his own rifle around. Lut kicked it away, reached down and grabbed Tanner by the throat with both hands. He raised him off the ground effortlessly until Tanner found himself kicking for the purchase of land.

Lut was quick and sprightly, far too fast for someone his size. Yet he was. And Tanner would have to find a way to deal with it. Fast.

With incredible power behind his grip, Lut was slowly squeezing the life from Tanner, whose complexion transitioned from tanned to red to mauve as his blood flow was constricted.

From his earthly position, Lut stared up at the OUTCAST leader and gave a carnivorous grin.

With pinpoints of light sparking across his steadily shrinking field of vision, Tanner focused his thoughts as best he could. He looked down at the immense man with a certain gravity to his stare. Slowly, Lut’s smile diminished as their eyes met, a deliberate wilting at the corner of his lips. The man he held high had two different-colored eyes--one so pale blue that it appeared almost white. The other, however, was as black as pitch and seemingly without pupil. Lut stared into the dark eye, deep inside the orb, fathoming an uncontained volatility within this man, something brutal and without mercy.

Unhurriedly, this man with the dark eye spread his arms out in mock crucifixion, then brought them in quickly, clapping his hands hard over his aggressor's ears and rupturing his drums.

Lut released Tanner and staggered back into the brush, crying out. Blood trickled out through the fingers that were clamped over his ears.

Tanner didn’t hesitate. He closed the gap between them and served Lut with a flurry of punches to the solar plexus—dizzying combinations—that sent the man off balance and to his back.

Lut stared up at Tanner, who stood over him with the look of a man who held the life of another in his hands. But that raven eye of his seemed to be warring with the one that was almost without color, the dark orb pulsating in the lattice of red stitching that now surrounded it. In the end, the mercy won over as Tanner raised his balled fist and brought the heel side down against the fallen man’s face, slamming him into unconsciousness.

“Nice move.” It was Dante. “I thought you could use a hand when you didn’t return Chance’s calls.” He then walked over to Tanner and handed him the weapon that had been kicked free from Lut’s foot. “You might want to hang onto this,” he added, smiling.

But Tanner did not reciprocate with a smile of his own. Instead, he grabbed the weapon and looked beyond Dante's shoulder. Alvarez turned to see what he was looking at.

On the runway, the remaining Reaper was picking up speed. And then it launched, heading east.

“Chance?”

Recognizing Tanner’s voice over his ear bud, he answered. “Tanner.”

“The final drone’s on the move.”

“I’m controlling it,” he replied, manipulating the joystick and watching the monitor. “Tanner, we’ve got a huge problem. You need to contact John Casey right now. I tried contacting you before, but you were down.”

“Got a little tangled up there for a moment,”
he told him.
“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t control the first launch because the programming on the first Reaper is locked in. I can’t change it or command a new course. What I can do is control the second Reaper. I was able to take command before it was locked onto its mission course.”