The Drone

by Adrian Magson

  ‘You ask too many questions.’ Paul tilted the rifle towards Tommy-Lee. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t use this out here, Mr Chadwick. There’s nobody around to hear it save for a few birds and some rabbits. And I doubt they care one way or another what happens to you.’

  ‘You made that clear already. What manoeuvre do you want me to make with it?’

  Paul looked down the runway. ‘See that rock off to the left of the runway about three-hundred yards away? Fly the drone down as far as that, turn around it and hover overhead for a moment, then bring it back.’ He added, ‘No tricks, Mr Chadwick, and no crashes. Stick to about fifty feet going down and twenty feet coming back.’

  James picked up the handset and motioned them all to stand well back. His hands moved on the controls and the drone sprang into life, the rotors buzzing furiously. With barely a shimmer, the drone lifted off and went high in the air, settling at about fifty feet. Seconds later, it turned and flew away down the runway, keeping a steady course all the way. When it reached the rock Paul had indicated, it slowed and began to turn, then hovered, like a giant dragonfly, the sun shining off the white casing. All the time James was focussed on the control unit and screen, only glancing up at the drone to check its position and flight path relevant to the ground.

  Then Paul stepped forward. ‘Release the parachute.’

  James stared at him. ‘I can’t – it hasn’t got one.’

  ‘Do as I say. Press the release.’ The tip of the rifle barrel lifted to emphasise the order.

  James shrugged and pressed a button on the control set. As they watched, a spray of bright red blossomed out behind the drone and fell to the ground in slow motion, coating the rock and the area around it the colour of blood.

  When the drone returned at twenty feet and settled on the ground with the lightest of touches, Paul nodded with satisfaction. ‘See how simple that was? That is all I want you to do.’ He turned to Bill, who was scanning the area around the airfield, and said, ‘Pack it up with the others and load the van. We move out in thirty minutes.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ said James.

  ‘That is something you will find out in due course. Now move.’ He looked at Tommy-Lee and said, ‘You help him carry the smaller case. And whatever you do, do not drop it.’

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Bill had driven the van to just inside the hangar doors and loaded the remaining crates into the back. He shut the doors and walked across to join Paul, who was standing by the inspection pit with James and Tommy-Lee.

  ‘It’s done.’

  Paul nodded. ‘Good. You know what to do now.’ He watched as Bill hurried away and took two large plastic containers from the back of the van. He removed the caps and began sprinkling the contents all around the walls of the hanger. Within moments the heady smell of gasoline began to fill the air around them.

  ‘A final reminder for you, Mr Chadwick,’ said Paul. ‘In case you are thinking of doing anything stupid once the drones are in the air, forget it. If I get even a hint of that, you know what I will do.’

  ‘Them?’ James looked puzzled. ‘How can I fly more than one… unless…’ He stopped. ‘They’re fitted with GPS, aren’t they?’

  ‘Correct. They are linked to a master control. Once airborne they will each fly on a pre-set course. All you have to do is get them up and make sure they stay there.’

  ‘A set course. To the same target?’

  Paul ignored the question save for a pinched smile. He turned to Tommy-Lee. ‘Now, what was I saying about a reminder? Ah, yes. You were not entirely honest with me about your background, Mr Roddick. I am not entirely happy with that deception.’

  Tommy-Lee looked at him, eyes dulled with fear and pain. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I told you the truth.’ He swallowed hard and added lamely, ‘I was in Indiana like I said.’

  ‘I don’t mean your prison record, which was also a deception. I’m talking about your two years of military service in Iraq starting in two-thousand and three. You were with the National Guard and assigned as a prison worker to Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca. Correct?’

  ‘No! You’ve got that wrong.’ Tommy-Lee looked around desperately as if he might see a way out. ‘That’s bullshit… I was never at Abu Ghraib – you must have made a mistake.’

  ‘There is no mistake. You were jailer and quickly became a lead interrogator.’ Paul’s voice was insistent. ‘I’ve seen the military records and the reports into the activities of you and some of your colleagues. You tortured prisoners and made them suffer unspeakable indignities such as water-boarding and sensory deprivation. As a result of those things and the laxity shown by your commanding officer, you were relieved of your post and shipped back to the US in disgrace.’

  ‘No, wait!’ Tommy-Lee held up his good hand. ‘OK, I admit I was out there, in Iraq. But I didn’t do the kind of stuff you’re thinking about; that was down to a few CIA spooks and some low-life detention center guards. Man, they weren’t even properly trained, not like me. They were brought in by the CIA ‘cos they knew what to do and didn’t give a shit about procedure or human rights or none of that stuff, as long as they got results. They were animals. You gotta believe me.’

  ‘I don’t gotta do anything,’ Paul said tauntingly. ‘Except this.’ He handed the assault rifle to Bill, then reached round behind his back and brought out a semi-automatic pistol. He flicked the barrel sideways for Tommy-Lee to move to the edge of the pit, and said, ‘Kick the boards away.’

  ‘What? No, wait! I—’

  ‘Do it!’

  Tommy-Lee shuffled over to do as he was told. Tears were now running down his face and his chest and stomach were jumping with fear and frustration. ‘Man, this ain’t right. I did what you wanted… I looked after Chadwick like you asked and I persuaded him to help you, even though he didn’t want to. I did exactly what you said – I even refused to take the knife to you when he asked me earlier, so we could escape. That’s gotta count for something, right?’ He scrubbed at his face with his good hand and gave a shivering sigh.

  ‘Really?’ Paul glanced at James Chadwick. ‘Is that correct? Well, I’m impressed. He, at least, has some courage. Now kick the damned boards away!’

  Tommy-Lee did as he was told. The boards were thin and dried out by time and the elements, and one of them shattered and split, revealing the hole beneath. A strong stench of decay rose up like a vapour, and with it thousands of flies, filling the air around his head. Tommy-Lee tried to fend off the insects crowding against his face, filling his mouth, nose and eyes, and staggered away, but was pushed back by Paul. He stopped on the lip of the pit, then looked down and screamed in horror.

  33

  ‘Welcome to Oklahoma City.’ The man waiting to greet Ruth and Vaslik in the main terminal at the city’s Will Rogers World Airport was wiry and tanned and carried the healthy glow of an outdoor type. He wore jeans and a cotton shirt, with aviator glasses tucked into the top pocket, and seemed genuinely pleased to see them. ‘Dave Proust.’

  Ruth shook his hand. He had a crisp, dry grip and she guessed was in his mid-sixties but moved like a much younger man.

  ‘Please, call me Dave.’ He shook hands with Vaslik and gestured over his shoulder. ‘You want to get coffee or something to eat before we set out? It ain’t bad here – I’ve tried pretty much everything and I’m still standing.’

  ‘Coffee would be good,’ Ruth said. ‘And we can show you where we’d like to go, if that’s all right?’

  He grinned enthusiastically. ‘I can vouch for the coffee, and you show me a map and I’ll tell you what’s possible. Tom Brasher gave me a briefing on what you’re looking for, so I have a good idea already.’

  He set off at a brisk pace and led them to a small coffee bar where they ordered drinks before finding a table out of earshot of other passengers. Ruth relaxed; for the first time she began to feel that they might be getting somewhere instead of treading water. The decision to fly out here and u
se Oklahoma as their first jumping-off point had come as a relief, especially with Tom Brasher’s suggestion to engage Dave Proust as their guide and pilot. But the journey here had not shaken off the suspicion that her movements were possibly being followed. She had studied the other passengers on the way here but none had looked remotely suspicious or had seemed even slightly interested in her or Vaslik.

  Once coffee was served and stirred, Andy Vaslik laid out the map and gave Dave a summary of the situation.

  The former FBI man studied the map for a while, then said, ‘I know of only one Freedom; it’s up on the Cimarron River – and it does have an airfield. I’ve landed there a couple of times, but I can tell you now it’s nothing more than a runway, just south of town. You think these guys have been flying drones there?’

  ‘It’s the only lead we have,’ Ruth told him. ‘Chadwick wrote the name on the map and the circle he made is right on the spot where it should be. He doesn’t seem the kind of man to make a note like that unless it meant something.’

  ‘Well, he could be right, I guess. There are several airfields all over the state, many of them abandoned, some in the middle of nowhere and mostly to the south of here. They’re not all government built, but those that were products of a time when they figured it was worth having standby airfields in out-of-the-way places, some with runways long enough to take tactical aircraft. The one near Freedom, though, that’s pretty small and close to some homesteads. If these guys did their flying there, somebody would have seen or heard them.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘It’s a long shot, I know. But we have to start somewhere.’

  Dave folded the map and smiled. ‘That’s good enough for me, young lady. If I’d ignored every long shot during my time with the Bureau, I would have missed some golden opportunities. If this doesn’t pan out, I know of a couple of other fields not far away, although none of them has the name of Freedom. What say we get on board and start flying?’

  They finished their coffees and Dave led them out to a pickup parked near the front entrance. He drove them away from the main terminal to a line of hangars on the west side of the airport. He parked the pickup and led them through a security checkpoint and out to the apron where they saw a number of aircraft dotted around, some fixed wing, some helicopters. Pointing at one helicopter in a white livery he said, ‘That’s my baby. In case you’re interested it’s an Enstrom Shark. She’s done some miles but she’s sweet as a bee and loves to fly, same as me.’

  They climbed aboard and stowed their bags while Dave went through the pre-flight procedure and spoke to the tower. Ten minutes later, headsets in place, they were airborne and heading in a north-westerly direction away from the airport.

  ‘It’ll take under an hour to get there,’ Dave told them. ‘So sit back and enjoy the ride.’

  Vaslik put his head back and dozed, while Ruth stared down at the ground and realised what they had taken on. The countryside below looked vast, much of it seemingly given over to grassland, although from up here it was hard to tell. But it was already an indication of the kind of search they were setting out on.

  * * *

  She must have dozed off too because what seemed only minutes later she woke to a running commentary from Dave and felt the craft descending on a curving course towards a clutch of buildings far below.

  ‘This is Freedom,’ Dave was saying. ‘As you can see, it’s pretty small and isolated, with the airfield over there to your left. I’ll take you around the outside of the town first so you can get a feeling for the layout.’

  He did so, giving them a view of single-storey houses in separate lots, a handful of warehouse buildings and grain silos, mostly grouped around a single road. The airfield came into view as they reached the south-eastern outskirts. As Dave had told them, there wasn’t much to it, just a single runway.

  He set the helicopter down, watched by a couple of kids throwing a baseball. Ruth and Vaslik jumped out and ducked away from the spinning blades while Dave cut the engine and went across to talk to the boys. He came back shortly after with a smile on his face.

  ‘We’re in luck, but this isn’t the place. The kids said there’s been nothing here, otherwise they’d have heard it and come looking. One of them lives real close. But they say there’s been talk of some UFOs about fifteen miles from here north of the US Six-Four.’

  ‘UFOs?’ Ruth echoed.

  Dave grinned. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time; any kind of unexplained lights in the sky, it’s got to be UFOs or a government black operation of some kind. But the kids say one of their school friends who lives over that way was out looking for rabbits a couple of nights ago and claims he found some busted-up machinery which he saw come down from outer space. They asked to see it but he’s holding out for some money from the local county newspaper and told them to get lost. Putting it politely, they say the kid, whose name is Clay, is short a few balls of twine and talks crap most of the time, so there’s probably nothing to see.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a name and it’s close enough, so I figure it’s worth going up there and having a chat, don’t you?’

  The flight took only a few minutes, and they landed alongside a small ranch-style farm with a couple of barns surrounded by open grass fields. As the three of them climbed out, the front door of the house opened and a woman stepped out followed by two teenagers, a boy and a girl wearing battered jeans and sneakers.

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Dave politely. ‘Sorry to bust in on your day like this, but we’re looking for some information and we hope you can help us.’ He pointed at Ruth and Vaslik. ‘This is Ruth Gonzales from London and Andy Vaslik from New York. They’re a couple of investigators.’

  The woman smiled at the courtesy. She was thin and tanned with a freckled face and wiry auburn hair, and looked tired. ‘Well, you’re not busting in on anything that can’t be ignored. My name’s Janice Bernhauer and these two are Clay and Judy.’ She looked at Ruth. ‘All the way from London? You must be dry as dust. You want a cold drink?’ She didn’t wait for a reply, but turned back inside, shooing the children in front of her.

  The main room was neat and comfortable, with a long sofa, two armchairs, an air-conditioning fan blowing in one corner, a vast television in the other and a stack of books and magazines on shelves and side tables.

  ‘You folks do a lot of reading,’ Dave said, picking up a copy of a magazine with a garish looking front cover sporting a shot of outer space with a disc-shaped object in the middle.

  ‘That and television, DVDs,’ the woman said, coming back with a tray and four glasses of lemonade, which she handed out. ‘There’s nothing much else to do out here, so we keep ourselves entertained.’ She sat down on the sofa and the children sat either side of her. ‘Now, how can I help?’

  Dave looked at Ruth, who picked up the baton. ‘We’re trying to find a man who’s gone missing, Janice. We have reason to believe he might have come out this way.’

  Janice shook her head. ‘Well, we don’t see many folks around here, but those we do, we notice. A man, you say?’

  ‘Yes. In his forties, tall, dark-haired. A business type.’

  Janice looked at the two children. ‘Have you two seen any people you don’t know?’ She looked at Ruth again. ‘They get out more than I do, so if anybody came by, they’d probably see them. How about it, you guys?’

  Then girl, Judy, shook her head, eyes fastened on Vaslik as if he’d jumped out of the pages of a movie magazine. Vaslik pretended not to notice and looked at Clay, who wasn’t saying or doing anything but looking slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘Clay?’ His mother noticed and scowled at him. ‘Speak up, boy. I know you’re holding something in, there.’

  ‘He told everybody he found a UFO,’ Judy burst out, and threw a needle-sharp look at her brother. ‘An unidentified flying object. It was all bust up, too.’

  ‘Clay?’ Janice stared hard at her son, who had gone deep red and was giving his sister the e
vil eye. ‘You found what? Tell me you’re lying.’

  Clay shook his head. ‘It’s true,’ he burst out. ‘It was up by the old riverbed. I knew there had to be something because I’d heard noises a couple of times before. And this time there was this light…’ He stopped speaking and looked at his mother.

  ‘Say what, Clay?’ Janice’s voice was calm and soft, but full of parental threat. ‘If you saw lights, it must have been night – am I right? What have I told you about going out at night? What if you fell into a gully and broke your leg? And there are snakes out there!’

  Clay looked terrified but stubborn. Vaslik leaned forward. ‘You can tell us, Clay. It might be important in finding this missing man. What did you find, when and where?’

  ‘Is there a reward?’ Clay was pale with guilt, but clearly not above profiting from what he knew.

  ‘If your mother says it’s OK, then maybe. It depends what you tell us.’

  Janice hesitated, then nodded. ‘OK – but don’t think you’ve got away with this, young man. You know what being grounded means? Well, in case you’ve forgotten, you’re about to be reminded big-time – and that mountain bike along with you. Now tell the gentleman or I’ll double it and add ten.’

  Clay scowled but said, ‘It’s about four miles from here, in a dried-out riverbed close by an old airfield. It’s a good place to find rabbits and stuff. I took my bike up there three nights ago, to watch some burrows. There was a good moon and I heard this noise up in the sky, a sort of buzzing sound like a hornet. It freaked me out at first because…’ he hesitated and looked embarrassed, ‘…I thought it was a UFO. But then I figured it must be a small plane. Then I realised it was real close, but still not loud.’

  ‘Good. What else?’

  ‘The noise got closer, but it was too dark to see anything at first. Then I saw a red light, and it was moving real quick but in a crazy way like it was out of control, going one way then the other. After a while it went away, although not far, so I followed. I saw it go up in the air, then it went down again and…’ He made a noise with his mouth as if he was clearing his throat, and threw his hands in the air.