“You see?” Rick slapped the table. “He’s not even denying it.”
Damon closed his laptop. “I need some sleep. I’m going to bed.”
“Not in this house you’re not,” Ken said.
“Then I’m going outside.”
“Stay, please,” I said. “We need to talk this out.”
“Nothing to talk out, Mitchell,” Rick said, his voice rising. “We are cut off. Radios jammed, not even any shortwave. No networks. No power. No routes in or out, we tried. One way or the other, the assholes out there want your Senator Seymour. Maybe it’s terrorists, maybe it’s our own government, the CIA or something. They want to grab him and put him into power and kill all of us so there is no evidence of what happened, or they want to kill him to get rid of him.”
Ken stood beside him and said, “Either way, before dawn, all of us, and all of our families, are going to be dead unless we get rid of you. And it’s your fault, Mitchell.”
Chapter 34
“CAN WE CALM down?” Travis said from the end of the table. “I think we need a little time to separate fact from fiction.”
“You don’t think we’re about to be attacked?” Rick said.
“I agree with you on that.”
Rick and Ken leaned into the table and glowered at me; their faces lit by the flickering light of the fire. Chuck sat between them but didn’t hold the two back. He kept his eyes from meeting mine. The three of them looked like they were about to jump across the table.
Travis, on the other hand, looked as cool as a Kentucky spring. He had to be about twenty-three or so, with close-cropped brown hair, a muscular build, and a no-nonsense long-sleeved T-shirt with the arms rolled up, his two hands together in a steeple where he rested his chin, elbows on the table. His pale blue eyes looked in my direction, but not exactly at me—they seemed to stare straight through me, at some point a million miles away.
“They killed my fiancée, Jolene,” Travis said. “Way back two weeks ago. In another universe before all this started. That wasn’t Mr. Mitchell’s fault. This isn’t on him, it’s on whoever is attacking us.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Rick mumbled.
“Please, sit down,” Travis asked politely, “and let me tell you what I know.”
Ken said, “What could you possibly know?”
“I’ve been fighting with and against drones for five years, out in sand holes that don’t even have names, that’s what I know. Afghanistan. Syria. Yemen. Echo Company of Second Battalion, the Gray Eagles of Special Operations Aviation Regiment.”
Chuck said, “You’re a Night Stalker? You served with SOAR?”
He nodded.
“Night Stalkers are the ones that flew SEAL Team 6 into the Bin Laden raid,” Chuck said to me. “These are the guys who can fly any hardware anywhere in the world. You got your wings? You a pilot?”
“I got wings, but I’m more of a drone jockey. Gray Eagles. We’ve done more killing in the name of Uncle Sam than anyone else in the past decade. That’s how I stayed alive the last two weeks. How do you think I know what I know?”
Rick eyed him, then everyone sat back down quietly.
Ken said, “You never—”
“You never asked, and it’s not something I talk about. Not with anyone. Not usually, but these are about as unusual as circumstances get, I figure. And I appreciate you and yours taking me in for the past week, but you need to listen to me now.”
The fire popped and spit an ember onto the table. I swept it away onto the ceramic floor.
“That, today, was a scouting group,” Travis said. “No doubt about that. And I’ve scanned all the radio frequencies. Someone is jamming us, Rick and Damon are right about that. The signal jam is coming from south and east and west all at the same time. Surrounded. We can’t send out a call, can’t hear anything from AM to FM to shortwave. I can’t even launch one of the commercial drones from the hobby store. The RF control won’t work. We’re blind and cut off, and there’s only one reason someone does that.”
I said, “We’re about to be attacked?”
“They’re doing recon right now, as we speak. Only reason they haven’t come in faster is they’re forming a plan, sizing us up.”
Rick asked, “You ever see things like these before? These little drones?”
“The little killers? Heck, we have a tiny bastard called the Switchblade we’ve had for more than ten years. Fits in a backpack. Add C-4 and a detonator kit, same thing. We’ve been popping off bad guys with mini drones for years. But these ones, they’re smarter. More AI wired in. They can operate autonomously.”
“So they don’t need human operators?”
“Maybe not quite that. I talked to Susie, talked to your crew.” Travis flicked his chin in my direction. “Those flamethrowers you saw? They had to have human operators nearby, either that, or satellite hookup, which isn’t out of the question, even with what’s happened. Even if they did talk to satellites, they would need human tenders on the ground, like sheep herders. That’s a lot of what we did. Get the drones up, let the pilots in Nevada fly ’em around and get the kills, then bring the drones down and service them.”
“The terrorists are using our own tech against us?” Ken said.
“This is Chinese tech,” Damon said. “We might have started using drones, but every country on the planet has their own now.”
“We gotta stop calling them terrorists,” Travis said. “Because whoever is running this, they are not terrorists, not in your typical sense.”
I said, “Meaning what?”
“You said there were Humvees? A few semis? Up at the cabin? And down at the water where you rescued your wife?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m guessing we’re talking platoon strength, maybe twenty to thirty special ops guys in three or four squads, with a tech team backing them up. If they’re planning what we had cooking for our guys, maybe each squad has one of those big-dog bots in support. A couple of the flamethrowers. And those nasty little bastard drones? No idea how many of those they have. Must have slipped in a few shipping containers of them, let them loose. Operate them semiautonomously, one human operator per swarm, something like that.”
“Which means satellite uplink?” Damon asked.
“Maybe they kept hold of a few of those GenCorp birds.” Travis rubbed his face in his hands. “This crew is running an operation in the way that American special ops want to be working, but we’re talking five years out. Even we’re not there yet. A small ground crew supported by mobile ground and air platforms, semiautonomous, using local resources. Each human becomes like their own platoon using drone support.”
He got up from the table and began pacing. “When we fought terrorists, they had their own drones, too, and they fought back something fierce, but it was sporadic. Low tech. Commercial stuff like you could get off Amazon, modified by hand. See, these guys are more like rebels, not terrorists. Rebels control their own territory and can hide from security forces. These guys needed time and space to conduct training exercises and had to stay hidden. Nobody saw or heard anything about this crew before this. How’s that possible?”
“That sounds like Chechens,” I said, except it was more of a question.
“Except Chechen terrorists don’t really control their own territory. And this is sophisticated stuff. You don’t just start using AI-powered distributed robotics together with ground troops and have it all just work. I mean, this is beautiful from a certain point of view.”
I didn’t share his enthusiasm.
“Commercial drones have ranges of one to ten kilometers. These haver capabilities are way beyond that. Definitely military hardware. Has to be state sponsored.”
I asked, “If it’s state sponsored, which state?”
“Chinese have the best tech these days,” Damon said.
“But they don’t have top-tier special ops,” Travis replied. “Tech is one thing. Human capital is another. Not like our Delta F
orce or SEAL Team 6, or BOAT or MARSOC teams—they have nothing on that level. Their squads aren’t trained for unconventional warfare or foreign internal operations.”
“But it is their hardware,” I said. “Maybe these are mercenaries?”
“Stealing high tech drone hardware is easier than grabbing nukes,” Damon said. “And maybe just as deadly.”
Travis nodded, but then shook his head. “They didn’t steal this tech. This is a proxy war we’re fighting. Somebody is backing them on purpose. Question is, how did they get in under the wire? How did they sneak in under our noses?”
Damon said, “All the confusion that’s been going on? You should have seen the shipping ports when we left New Orleans.”
“What’s the point of all this?” Ken said. “Talking about it? Ain’t gonna to solve nothing.”
“The point of this is exactly the point,” I said. “We need to understand.”
“What we need is some kind of plan.”
“We do have one advantage,” Travis said, sitting down. “We know they need to be out of here, and soon.”
“Out of here?”
“Of America. They aren’t invading. This is a smash and grab. They caught us with our pants down, but only for a second. There’s something about Seymour and your gang that’s critical to their operation, but I think they were supposed to have egressed already.”
Travis looked at Chuck and me. “You guys threw a monkey wrench into their plans, I’d wager, but this crew needs to disappear back into the night. And soon.”
“How is this helping?” Ken said.
“What I’m saying is we just gotta survive one more day.”
Ken said, “Surviving isn’t winning. Just surviving means we let them win. We need to find a way to stop them getting what they want.” He looked at me and Damon. “Whoever ‘they’ really are.”
Chapter 35
“CAN YOU BELIEVE those guys?” Damon said. “‘Just surviving means we let them win.’”
He mimicked Ken’s voice as he said it.
I would take simple survival at this point, too. My family was here. My kids. But then, so were Rick’s and Ken’s. I said, “A lot of their friends died today.”
That earned Damon’s silence for a few seconds.
About a football field separated the barn and the farmhouse. Just being outside felt unsafe, the open sky a naked invitation to whatever might be lurking up there in the dark. We walked quickly, just one cell phone’s flashlight lit and pointed at the ground.
“Shouldn’t leave Chuck in a room full of conspiracy wingnuts,” Damon said quietly. He had an armful of blankets for Lauren and Luke and Olivia.
“They’re not nuts. They’re scared, trying to make sense of this.” I was too. I hadn’t had time to think. Just staying alive had ruled the past twenty-four hours. “You never told me about your dad.” It wasn’t an accusation.
“News to me, too. And I’m being honest. I never met the guy. They think Seymour staged all this. You know that?”
“His sister died, my wife’s mother. You think he faked that?”
“I’m just saying what they’re saying in there. Her death might have been an accident, that’s what they’re saying. That he needed to make it look convincing he was attacked.”
It had certainly felt convincing at the time. The terror on Seymour’s face hadn’t been faked, of that I was sure.
We passed the huge structure a few hundred feet away that housed the corn heads and tractors. The metal roof and massive machines were just visible, their eight-foot-high front-end blades gleaming in the dim light of the crescent moon. “That was good work,” I said, pointing.
Damon had rewired two of them to use as drones to flatten the cornfields and create a fire break and save the town the week before. He nodded his agreement.
“Why don’t I give you two a minute alone?” Senator Seymour said.
He had been in the middle of telling Olivia a story.
“How about you go out with Uncle Leo?” my wife said to our daughter.
The three of them were still cuddled on the bench in the same stall as when I left. Seymour got to his feet and picked up Olivia. I gave her a kiss and thanked him as he left, heard him saying maybe they could get enough battery power in Selena to play some Fortnite.
“I brought more blankets.” I held them up. It was getting cold outside.
I heard Damon talking to Luke in the next stall.
“How’s Susie?” my wife asked.
“Getting better. Travis is a good medic. He got supplies from the pharmacy in town.”
“Sit down with me,” my wife asked. More commanded.
I did as I was told and let out a sigh of relief as I felt her arms around me. I leaned my head back against her, felt her warm breath against my cheek, the heat of her body near mine.
She kissed me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told y—”
“No, I’m the sorry one. And don’t worry, I understand. It was just a surprise.”
“You think my involvement in the drone program has anything to do with all this?”
“That’s the problem. I haven’t had any time to think at all.”
“Don’t try too hard.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She laughed lightly to make sure I knew she was joking. “You’re funny, though.”
“Oh yeah?” I had never thought of myself as being good with a laugh.
“Looking, I mean.”
“Ha-ha.”
She kissed me again. “You’re all thumbs with a gun, and you’d struggle to fight your way out of a paper bag—”
“Did I do something to insult you?”
“Let me finish. But you’re brave, Michael. You’ll risk your life for a stranger, and for your family? You’d walk through an inferno for us. That’s what I love about you. You see the way your son looks at you? You’re his hero, and mine.”
She hugged me tight.
“But your superpower? You know what that is?” my wife asked.
“Making waffles on Sundays?”
“People trust you, Mr. Michael Mitchell. You go ask anyone, and they’ll say they trust you. And that’s about the biggest thing there is in this world.”
“They’re going to attack us,” I said quietly. “That’s what Travis is saying. They’ve cut us off and isolated the farm. Radio frequencies are jammed. The second we stepped out of that truck today, they knew exactly where we were. They want your uncle, maybe me, too. Maybe all of us. And I can’t get the people in the farmhouse to rally. Everyone is pointing fingers.”
“And that’s a problem of what?”
I exhaled. “Trust.”
“So, then go and do your job, Mr. Mitchell. I trust you. Get us out of this.”
Great. No pressure.
The senator appeared in the doorway of the stall. “The pig show is playing in the truck. Travis got it working. Olivia didn’t want Fortnite. No more fighting, she said.”
“He’s here?” I thought Travis was still in the farmhouse.
“Can I speak to you a minute?” the senator asked me.
My wife kissed me once more for good luck, as she’d say, and I got up to join Leo. He took me off to one side.
“What they’re saying is nonsense, Mike,” Leo whispered urgently. “I had nothing to do with these attacks. You think I would plot to assassinate the president of the United States? It’s total lunacy. And my sister?” Tears welled up in his eyes.
“I don’t believe it, sir.”
But was I totally convinced? Politicians had always been a slippery sort for me and became slimier the higher they jumped the Washington fish ladder to the top. But this was my wife’s uncle.
“One thing I will admit,” he said. “I did have an exceptionally large contract with GenCorp. Billions. It was off the books. Part of what they’re saying is true. Wasn’t entirely legal, but then, that’s how we do things sometimes in Washington. But
I didn’t shoot Tyrell. I was trying to protect you.”
“I understand, sir.”
His politician’s bright smile returned. “Thank you, son. Remember, we’re family.”
He had his suit jacket back on, more than slightly soiled, but no tie. His blue shirt was a mess of blood and mud. Lauren and the kids had changed into clothes Rick found, and he offered Seymour a change of clothes too, but he refused and said he was fine.
I checked on Luke in the next stall, but he was sleeping. On the ground, in the dirt, was the EMP device, the top caved in. Luke must have smashed it. I exhaled. Damn it, Luke, you shouldn’t have done that. Still, I wasn’t going to wake him.
I’d lost track of Damon.
Then I heard him, talking to Travis on the far side of the truck parked in the middle of the barn. Two of the gull-wing doors were open, with Olivia inside, her face lit up by a screen.
“We live in a post-heroic society,” I heard Damon say to Travis. “We’re risk averse. Used to be, heroes like you would go off and line up toe to toe in a field and hack each other to pieces. Now we fight from the comfort of a Barcalounger in a trailer in Nevada.”
“Ain’t quite that simple,” Travis replied. “And it ain’t an easy job, killing people on a screen. Gives you nightmares, I can tell you that.”
“If you do a survey,” Damon said, “and you ask everyone in a country if they would prefer to send in drones or robots to fight a war, instead of their own sons or daughters, guess what people choose?”
“Easy. We’re already sending in the drones.”
“And in countries with falling populations, like most western countries now? Sacrificing young people becomes unacceptable. So what do the politicians do?”
“You ask a lot of rhetorical questions, don’t you?”
“But put the shoe on the other foot, and ask someone if they would prefer to be attacked by a human soldier or a machine? Nobody wants to be attacked by a robot dealing impersonal death from the sky. Maybe it’s the machines that have finally taken over. Maybe this isn’t even terrorists or China.”
CyberWar: World War C Trilogy Book 3 Page 24
