The Drone

by Adrian Magson

  The camera panned away and settled on a large sign at the entrance to a neat, gravelled driveway. The sign read: Tivenhall Preparatory School for Boys.

  The effect on the prisoner was electric, like nothing he’d seen or heard before. The howl began deep in the man’s throat and made the hairs on the back of Tommy-Lee’s neck stand on end.

  ‘Hey, what the—?’ He grabbed the man by the shoulder and shook him hard, but it didn’t seem to register. Instead his body arched off the bed and only the handcuffs prevented the man from rolling to the floor.

  Tommy-Lee didn’t mind admitting to himself that right then he was frightened. He’d dealt with more than a few detainees in Iraq who’d gone batshit crazy in the end, enraged by their circumstances to the point of wanting to throw themselves straight at a gun if they could have done so. Some of the worst had been the little guys, the sort you could almost pick up with one hand, lean and mean and all sinew, muscle and hate. Suddenly, after months of seeing a near-docile individual who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, you were dealing with a crazed human being with more strength than four people, who’d throw off a couple of guards trying to restrain him with no more effort than shrugging off a coat. They’d kick and spit and if you got in the their way, no matter how strong you were, they’d take you down as if you were a ten-year old.

  He pushed the DVD player to one side and leaned on the man, pinning him by his shoulders until he started to go quiet. It took a while, all the time with the guy staring up without seeing him, his mouth working and dragging in air as if it was his last.

  ‘Easy,’ Tommy-Lee muttered, and leaned over to put himself in the guy’s line of sight. But it didn’t do any good at first; whatever the prisoner was seeing, it was something, somebody or somewhere a long way from here.

  After a while the tremors running through the man’s body ceased and he turned on his side facing the wall and went quiet. His eyes were closed and his breathing gradually went back to normal. He was covered in sweat but that was normal in this shitty box. At least sweat showed he wasn’t too dried out that he might die.

  Tommy-Lee stood up, scooped up the DVD player and went back over to his own bed. There was probably a bit more film to come so he decided to watch it by himself.

  He killed the sound, which had been all background hiss but no commentary, and took up watching from the point where he’d seen the school sign. There were more scenes of the houses in Sydney Street, with one in particular where the camera zoomed right up to a front door and hovered on a black, fancy iron door knocker with a horse’s head. Then it cut away and showed a busy street full of shoppers, like a mall but narrow and crowded with stores.

  He fast-forwarded the film after a while until a new scene came up. This showed a park through some chain fencing, with a bunch of kids playing baseball in the distance, and nearby, a couple of old people sitting on a bench and laughing at something they’d said. And right away Tommy-Lee knew this scene was in the US.

  Then the camera began to pan round, making his eyes go funny, and suddenly he was looking at an apartment block on the other side of a street. It looked neat and brick-built, and the front entrance suddenly grew in the lens and showed a line of entry-phone buttons and a speaker box with a grill. He wondered what this was about when the camera began to move forward and he realised the guy holding it was walking across the street towards the apartment block, and the detail of the picture was changing as he changed the focus.

  He must have stopped right close to the entry-phone because the next thing Tommy-Lee saw was a white card alongside one of the buttons and a name.

  Valerie DiPalma.

  Then the screen went dead.

  He shook his head. Damned if that made any sense. He hadn’t got a clue what the places were or where, but it obviously made sense to the guy on the other bed, otherwise why the howling wolf act just now?

  He heard a noise and looked up. The prisoner had relaxed fully and had turned his head and was watching him. He was still sweating and red in the face with his exertions, but no longer breathing heavy.

  ‘You want some water?’ Tommy-Lee asked.

  ‘No.’ The croaky voice said otherwise but that was the man’s choice; he wasn’t going to force it on him. ‘I want to see the rest.’

  Tommy-Lee thought it over. He had to show him, there was no question, otherwise Paul and his buddies might take it seriously. ‘Are you gonna go all lunatic on me again if I do? ’Cos I tell you, you do that again and I’ll swat you like a fly.’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’ The prisoner tried to sit up, but fell back with a sigh.

  Tommy-Lee moved over to the other bed and showed him the rest of the DVD.

  17

  There was a lengthy silence while they all digested what Brasher had said.

  ‘Chadwick a terrorist threat?’ Ruth said. ‘How do you make that out – and how long have you known about any of this this?’

  Brasher looked nonplussed, as if they were questions he hadn’t been expecting or maybe didn’t want asked. He took out a slim notebook from his coat pocket and flipped it open, checking the details before explaining, ‘Three weeks ago James Chadwick made a late-night phone call to US Air Force Office of Special Investigations in Quantico, Virginia. He was described by the duty officer as sounding agitated and didn’t seem to know who he should speak to. He expressed concerns about an individual who had approached him in Chicago some weeks prior to that date. He’d been attending a conference and exhibition on the use and development of small UAVs – that’s unmanned aerial vehicles – for commercial use. This individual, who introduced himself only as Paul, said he was seeking expertise as he and his colleagues were looking to capitalise on the potential of drones in the commercial sector.’

  ‘Them and Amazon,’ Reiks commented dryly. ‘Did he say why he called the Air Force and not the FBI or Homeland Security?’

  Brasher nodded. ‘Not specifically, but we know Chadwick served with USAF Intelligence several years ago and it seems reasonable to assume that as a former officer he decided to seek directions from them first. He told them of his concerns and how this person had offered to pay him a substantial sum of money to help him with a start-up venture involving UAVs, but needed someone with expertise to help train him and his colleagues to fly and demonstrate the machines. Chadwick described this as very un-businesslike and an unlikely scenario for a start-up. As you probably know, he’s a financial and business consultant so I guess if anybody had an opinion on the matter, he would. Anyway, he said his concerns were heightened when he made it clear he was unable or unwilling to help and the gentleman became forceful and aggressive.’

  ‘Sounds like a nut job,’ Reiks ventured. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Because he had no specific threat to speak of, he was advised to call us at the FBI.’

  ‘And did he?’ said Vaslik.

  ‘Yes, he did, only three days later.’ He tilted his head sideways. ‘My guess is he was unsure of what to do, so he may have been debating following through on his initial call. Anyway, he was put through to our Joint Terrorism Task Force and talked to a member of our investigative support team. He relayed the conversation he’d had with this Paul guy and also mentioned that he was thought he was being followed. He was particularly concerned because this Paul guy had made it clear that he knew a great deal about Chadwick’s personal life and family details here and in London.’

  He stopped and sat back, snapping the notebook shut.

  ‘And just from that,’ Ruth said, ‘the FBI believes he’s a terrorist threat? You’re kidding. It sounds as if he was the one being threatened.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was justified, but we have to go with what we’ve got.’ He seemed to lack a degree of conviction in what he’d said just moments before and Ruth wondered why.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said softly.

  Reiks looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘We screwed up.’ The admission from Brasher came out hard and flat and he loo
ked embarrassed, his face flushing.

  ‘How?’ Vaslik asked.

  ‘The support specialist who took the call passed it on up the line for action, but it coincided with a flood of high-level alerts and reports of terrorist-related activity which had to be investigated as a matter of extreme urgency. Chadwick’s call wasn’t ignored in any way, but it was rated as of secondary importance to other parallel reports and threats at the time.’ He rubbed a hand across his face at the shocked silence from the others in the room and added, ‘By the time the team got back to it a day or so later, it was suggested that Chadwick might have been…’ He stopped and waved a hand.

  ‘A what?’ said Ruth.

  ‘A fantasist.’ He sat forward and looked around at the faces with more than a degree of professional embarrassment. ‘Some were of the opinion that he was nothing more than a former Air Force spook wanting to see this approach as more than it actually was. In their defence I have to say it’s not uncommon for former law-enforcement or security agency personnel to have a heightened sense of perspective about these things. They relate it to their own experience and the state of threat today, and it builds up in their minds to something bigger. And because they often have access to more specific inside contacts than the general public, they find themselves pumping it up a little.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain,’ Vaslik murmured, ‘how he got slapped with the terrorist threat label.’

  Brasher stuffed the notebook back in his pocket with a degree of defeat. ‘It’s a precaution, that’s all. The report was reviewed by our intelligence analysts in the last couple of days, and their conclusion was that Chadwick must have been compromised in some way. And because of his Intel background, he would probably have access to information that would be of help to terrorists. I’m not excusing my colleagues in any way… I’m just saying how it is.’

  Bergstrom had been silent throughout Brasher’s words, merely sipping his coffee and staring into the cup. It was an indication that he probably already knew about the stuff-up and had said plenty on the subject already.

  ‘What’s your take on it, Agent Bergstrom?’ Ruth asked him. ‘Do you think he was fantasising?’

  He took a moment to answer, and Ruth thought he was ignoring her altogether. Finally he said, ‘I don’t know, Miss Gonzales. Frankly, we shouldn’t dismiss anybody who makes a report of this nature, no matter who they are. But Tom’s right about one thing: there’s been an unusually heavy flush of alerts, internet and phone chatter coming in for the past few weeks, all pointing towards something about to happen. When it reaches a certain pitch like that it takes a vast amount of work to weed out the crap from the real intelligence. The two things together – the chatter and Chadwick’s report – served to cloud the issue. It shouldn’t happen but it does. As we know to our cost.’

  ‘What sort of chatter was it?’

  ‘It’s difficult to analyse clearly and I haven’t seen all of it – only those bits that affect me and my colleagues. There have been many references to a high-value ‘hit’ on a government facility. None of them are specific and it’s mostly wishful thinking. But there have been a couple of recent references to – and I quote – “The wounded beast, damaged but not brought down in the glorious holocaust.” That last reference has been used by some jihadists to refer to nine-eleven, and in many views the wounded beast is the Pentagon.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s as valid an explanation as any.’

  There was a silence until Reiks said, ‘So what’s the current view? That commercial drones are the next jihadists’ weapons of war?’

  Brasher looked grim. ‘God, I hope not. We’d never see them coming.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘It’s worse than that – it’s real. The machines Chadwick was talking about at the conference are extremely high-tech and capable of some amazing stuff. They can move at anything between forty and seventy miles per hour and the payload capabilities and flight distances are being stretched all the time. There are strict regulations governing their use in certain areas, but they’re being tested, too.’

  Vaslik said, ‘I suppose they’re easily available?’

  ‘Sure – if you have the money. My guess is they’d probably steal one to avoid paperwork or records. And I doubt they’d be signing up for any authorised training for the same reasons; it would leave too much of a trail.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘That explains why James Chadwick was approached.’

  A silence descended on the room while they all considered the probability of anything like that happening. After the horrors of 911, it didn’t take much for any of them to imagine anything so seemingly outlandish; in modern guerrilla or terrorist warfare, anything was possible if the technology was available.

  Ruth decided to take a break and the others agreed. She excused herself while Reiks got busy arranging more coffee and some sandwiches. As she walked down the corridor towards the washroom her cell phone buzzed.

  It was a withheld number. ‘Gonzales.’

  ‘Ruth? Hi. Thank God I caught you.’ It was Valerie DiPalma. She sounded animated, the words pouring out of her in a rush. ‘I’ve found something but I don’t know if it’s important or not. Can you come over to my place? I was clearing out the trunk of my car just now and I found an iPad hidden under a blanket. It belongs to James.’

  18

  ‘This sounds crazy, I know,’ said Valerie on opening the door to Ruth. ‘I’m not sure how long StoneSeal are going to put up with me being away, but I couldn’t face going in there and answering questions so I decided to get busy to take my mind off things. When I found the iPad in the trunk of my car I had to talk to you.’ She led the way inside the apartment and pointed to a table where the iPad was sitting. ‘I recognised it the moment I saw it. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Ruth replied. She opened the iPad and began running through the emails and document files. If James Chadwick had chosen to hide this in Valerie’s car, he must have had a reason for it. It could have coincided with his apartment being trashed and he’d placed it in the only location he could think of at short notice.

  It was quickly clear that James rarely used this iPad for direct business-related purposes. There were few emails, save for brief memo notes he’d sent to himself as reminders, and a few related to general commercial and finance matters that had caught his attention. But there was almost nothing heavily related to StoneSeal apart from general reading matter, notes for further research, lecture outlines and some family topics she didn’t open. After a while she began to recognise the style and pattern and was able to rattle through them at speed.

  But it was the saved photos and web pages that immediately grabbed her attention. For some reason Chadwick had saved a number of Google Earth maps, most of them focussing on the central US states, like the folding map from the storage room back at StoneSeal. The site searches told her nothing by themselves to account for why he’d been looking at them other than having all been saved recently. Whatever his reasons it showed a clear interest that seemed a lot more than casual. She moved on and found a collection of screen grabs showing what she instantly recognised as airfields, and links to a number of websites dedicated to looking at little-known, defunct, lost or abandoned bases. One site in particular listed abandoned airfields by state, and a quick click of the keys took her to aerial shots of old runways and roads, of taxiways and buildings, some encroached on by more modern building developments and facilities, others still clearly in use for other commercial purposes. More photos showed derelict hangars and support buildings, weed-strewn runways, rusting fuel storage tanks and rotting piles of brickwork and other rubbish. Then she found faded copies of original plans and black-and-white photos of buildings in their prime taken many years ago.

  She sat back, puzzled. Abandoned airfields focussed on the states of Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. But what was he looking for?

  She checked his history of Google searches. A few took her to websites showi
ng details of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, with photos of a whole range of machines including spider-like multi-copters. She didn’t know what to make of these; they could have been picked as part of Chadwick’s general interest. But how could she tell?

  Other searches referred to ‘Freedom’, with links to towns in the US with that name. Then she found a list of searches that all had striking similarities and felt her neck go cold. They included entries for USAF, USAF Intelligence, Office of Special Investigations, Quantico, Virginia.

  Ruth was holding her breath. She was thinking back to what Special Agent Brasher had told them. James Chadwick had been looking for somebody to contact about his fears; about a man named Paul. He’d probably started with the USAF he’d once known and worked his way through a number of searches, trying to narrow down the focus to a specific area, a specific office. No doubt things had changed a lot since his days in the service.

  She needed to show this to the others. Bergstrom probably not so much but definitely Vaslik, Reiks and Brasher. She debated keeping it to herself and Vaslik, but realised this had already gone too far; that whatever had happened to Chadwick must in some way be related to the man named Paul, to drones and to abandoned airfields.

  She looked up to find Valerie watching her with an air of sombre anticipation. ‘Did James ever mention a man named Paul?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Who is he?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. Just a name that cropped up.’

  ‘Is that it?’ the young woman asked softly. She was clutching her hands tightly together and Ruth felt guilty at having inadvertently zoned her out.