The Drone

by Adrian Magson

  ‘What about the brother inside the jail?’ said the driver. Like the others, he’d been given the barest of details about the job: find where the prisoner was being held, go in and hit them hard and get out fast. Nothing had been said about releasing the prisoner, even if he was one of them.

  ‘What about him?’ The front seat passenger cleared his throat and spat through the window. ‘By his actions he betrayed us all. Let him rot in hell.’

  38

  ‘I want to talk to Donny.’ Ruth faced Brasher the moment he entered the room. She was having a hard time holding in her anger at Wright’s attitude, and how she appeared to have dismissed the possibility of Donny providing them with any useful information.

  ‘What?’ He looked surprised and waved a hand, frowning at the idea. ‘Sorry – that’s not possible.’

  ‘I already told her that,’ Wright snapped, stepping in close enough for Ruth to smell her cologne. Her mouth was set in a line and she looked ready for a fight. ‘You’re not authorised. This is our responsibility.’

  ‘Why – because I’m British?’ Ruth turned away and focussed on Brasher, who was looking nonplussed at the crackly atmosphere between the two women. ‘There are several unanswered questions remaining, Tom. Donny probably has an idea where the others have gone even if he doesn’t realise it. Men like Donny and Paul don’t travel around together for several days on end without something slipping out, even by accident. And Donny’s no idiot; he’s probably managed to join the dots without even thinking about it.’

  ‘That may be true, but Agent Wright is correct. Can you imagine what a good lawyer would do if he found out we’d allowed you to interrogate a suspect? They’d tear us apart and poor innocent Donny would become a YouTube sensation.’

  ‘Really? I happen to know the FBI sits in on British interrogations in the UK whenever it wants if there’s a US connection; why doesn’t the reverse work for you?’ She held his gaze, as much irritated by Wright’s condescending and bullying manner as Brasher’s instinctive default response to play it safe. ‘Chadwick’s wife is British, don’t forget. That’s what brought us this far and unveiled a real and genuine threat. I think you owe us that at least.’

  ‘His wife is not my concern. Let me remind you this is an FBI matter.’

  ‘Which we alerted you about in the first place and we came up with the evidence that brought you two out here. If you still have doubts about that, talk to Dave Proust.’

  ‘I know what Dave thinks.’

  ‘His name’s Arnold Keegan, if you want to call him,’ said Vaslik.

  ‘What?’ Brasher threw a scowl at him.

  ‘The FBI bureau chief in London. Arnold Keegan. I know him quite well. You want me to call him? I’m pretty sure he’d back up what Ruth said.’

  Brasher looked annoyed at being cornered, but after a few moments he nodded in defeat. ‘OK. I guess it can’t do any harm at this stage.’

  ‘I disagree!’ Wright snapped, face flushing. ‘This is against all the rules.’

  ‘To hell with the rules,’ Brasher replied. ‘They’re right – we have a real and imminent threat against the president and we don’t have time to stick to the niceties. Or maybe you’d like to call in and report me?’ When Wright bit her lip and said nothing, he turned to Ruth. ‘What do you want to ask him?’

  ‘We know from the phone call to the office in New York that I’m being followed. How closely we don’t know. But I’m willing to bet Donny knows about it because Malak is the controller behind this whole thing and would have mentioned it in case we showed up. Let me start with that – it might just throw him off.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Moments later Ruth stepped into the interview room, leaving Vaslik, Brasher and a fuming Special Agent Wright next door. Donny didn’t look up, his shoulders slumped in defeat and exhaustion. She walked slowly around the room, her footsteps measured, passing close enough behind him to note the greasiness of his hair and skin and the smell of his nervousness in the air. She came to a stop in front of him.

  ‘Hello, Donny.’

  At the sound of her voice, Donny looked up. For a couple of seconds, he didn’t react; then he jerked back, his mouth dropping open before he shut it again and swallowed, his Adam’s apple jumping furiously. Now he was looking seriously nervous and said, ‘Where is the other woman? I want to talk to the other woman!’

  Ruth smiled. He’d recognised her, which he could only have done if he’d seen a picture of her. Now all she had to do was find out what else Donny’s leader had let slip.

  ‘You recognised me, right, Donny?’ she said briskly. ‘My name’s Ruth, by the way. How did you know me?’

  ‘I… I saw a photograph. You aren’t American. Are you British?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I am. Tell me about the photo.’

  ‘It was sent to Malak by his people in London and New York. Also the picture of a man with you, but in New Jersey, I think it was.’

  ‘I see. So he has others working for him.’

  ‘Yes. Several others. But I don’t know their names.’

  ‘That’s fine. We don’t need those yet. But one of these men knew how to find me in central New York, Donny. They contacted an office where I was working – a new place only just set up. Tell me how they were able to do that.’

  He shrugged. ‘Simple. Malak showed your photo to Chadwick; he didn’t recognise you personally, but he guessed you were from the company in London that sent you here. Malak got one of the brotherhood to track you down and they found you had an office in New York.’

  ‘You mean the Muslim Brotherhood?’

  ‘No. Not them. This brotherhood… it’s not an official name. They’re just… people who are willing to help, that’s all.’

  ‘Help and weapons.’

  ‘Some. Not all.’ He scowled. ‘Many are ordinary people, but they know others who can do these things.’

  ‘So it’s a loose network, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Maybe. Why do you people always assume any group of people is an organised terror cell?’

  Ruth raised her eyebrows at this sudden show of spirit. ‘Maybe,’ she said heavily, ‘because if they supply or use guns and violence, that’s what they are.’

  Donny shrank in his seat, refusing to meet her eye.

  ‘Fine,’ she said softly. ‘Let’s call them sympathisers, but not necessarily extremists. What else do they provide?’

  ‘One is a computer expert who was with Egyptian Intelligence. I think that’s who found you. When Malak heard you were so close, he was pretty angry. He said he would get you tracked down and…’ He hesitated and looked away.

  ‘And what?’ Ruth rapped on the table with her knuckles to grab back his attention. ‘And killed? Is that what he said?’

  ‘Eliminated.’

  ‘Do you know who’s coming after me?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know. They’re from outside. Malak said they are expert trackers and have already dealt with many traitors who have turned against the cause, wherever they try to hide.’

  Ruth felt chilled at the idea of a mobile hit squad travelling the world to do the bidding of whoever could call on their services. ‘Freelancers?’

  ‘Yes. Wherever they have to go, they go. The brotherhood is all over the world.’

  ‘You mentioned the cause. What cause is that?’

  ‘Islam. Jihad.’ He shrugged as if it was obvious. Or of little importance. Ruth concluded that right now, in Donny’s eyes, it was probably more of the latter and he was wishing fervently that he’d had nothing to do with it.

  ‘Is Malak part of a terror group, Donny? al-Qaeda? Al-shabab? Islamic State? Or is he a lone wolf?’

  Another shake of the head. ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t say anything about others. But I know he has contacts because I’ve heard him talking, although I don’t know what he says.’

  ‘But he can’t be a loner, can he? I mean, all this planning, stealing the drones,
kidnapping James Chadwick, setting up the airfield where he kept him prisoner and where you flew the drones. That takes time and money to organise. So who is he working for? Who’s behind him? You must have an idea… bits and pieces you’ve picked up, fragments you’ve overheard. You’re not stupid, we know that. So what’s your guess?’

  ‘I don’t know, I told you. Yes, I heard bits, but not enough to form an opinion. I wasn’t part of it; he deliberately kept me out of it. All he wanted from me was to prepare and fly the drones once Chadwick had taught me how.’

  ‘Prepare? What does that mean?’ This was something Agent Wright hadn’t covered in her line of questions.

  For a long moment Donny said nothing while his eyes went walkabout and his fingers became knotted together on the table top.

  ‘Donny. Focus.’ Ruth rapped the table again. ‘What did you do to the drones?’

  Donny’s eyes filled with tears, and he swallowed hard, then said, ‘Malak made me adapt the parachute tube fitted on the drones to take a cylinder.’

  ‘A cylinder? But I thought they’d already been adapted to take powder. Isn’t that what was used at the airfield – a red dye? We saw the rocks.’

  ‘It was. But he got me to change them back. It was a simple process because it worked on the same principal. A radio signal would activate the parachute by releasing the cap on the tube, and the powder would be drawn out through the passage of air over the top in a gradual stream. It worked well in trials.’

  ‘The red dye.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he got you to change them again. Did he say why?’

  ‘He said the dye was not part of his original plan and he needed me to make some alterations.’ He looked suddenly drawn and hollow, as if the full realisation of what he had been a part of was just now hitting him.

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘He asked me to fit sensors to enable something else fitted inside the parachute tubes to be activated, allowing…’

  Ruth had to force herself to breath. ‘Allowing what, Donny? Tell me.’

  ‘He didn’t say what was inside the tube, only that it would bring…’ He banged his hands down on the table with a crash and shouted ‘I can’t say it!’

  Ruth lifted her hand to stop any of the guards rushing in. They couldn’t stop now; it was too crucial and they were right on the brink of a discovery, she was certain.

  ‘What, Donny? Tell me!’

  Then it came to her: she knew precisely what he’d been about to say. ‘Bring what, Donny? The sting of death from the sky… your own toys of death spraying our message of destruction on the head of your leader and ending his tyranny. Was that what Malak said?’

  Donny stared at her in dismay, and whispered, ‘Yes.’

  39

  The tears were now streaming down Donny’s cheeks and he was staring at her in disbelief. ‘How did you…?’

  ‘We know lots, Donny. What we don’t know is what the sting of death refers to. Perhaps you can tell me.’

  ‘No. I promise you, I can’t, even if I wanted to – I don’t know!’ He clutched his face in his hands and bent his head to touch the table. ‘This is all crazy!’

  ‘But you’re a chemist, aren’t you? Wasn’t that part of your training at NYU, among other things?’ She leaned forward and got him to lift his head, staring him in the face, deliberately piling on the pressure. She had no reason to believe Donny was anything other than a techie originally brought in by Malak to fly the drones. But squeezing him on the question of the weapon involved might be enough to make him crack. ‘Isn’t that one of the reasons you were recruited at the mosque in Queens – to produce a chemical agent?’

  He stared at her in confusion. ‘What? Me? How can you think that? I did some chemistry at NYU, sure – that was part of the course. But I’m not a chemist! I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff!’

  Ruth sat back, giving him the time and space to calm down. His voice carried a worrying ring of truth, and she decided that if Donny was playing them as Wright had claimed, he was a world-class actor.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Tell me about Freedom. What does that refer to?’ She deliberately didn’t tell him where she’d seen the word; she was hoping that if he knew it he’d work it out for himself.

  He frowned and scrubbed at his cheeks. ‘Freedom? I don’t know. Malak never said exactly. He used the word all the time but in different ways, like it was some kind of mantra. But he said lots of things without going into detail… as if was talking to himself. I think there were times when… it was like he wasn’t even aware of me.’

  ‘Because he didn’t think you were important enough?’

  ‘I guess. I never thought about it before.’ He looked miserable and refused to meet her eye, and Ruth figured Donny was trying to come to grips with the knowledge that he’d only ever been a small cog in the machine, unimportant and no doubt easily expendable.

  ‘OK. Let’s assume he wasn’t talking about freedom as a concept, like freedom from repression, freedom of speech or stuff like that. Did he use the word like… I don’t know – a place or a code, for example?’

  ‘Field. Freedom Field.’ He looked up and blinked, like a small light had gone on. ‘He said that the day before I… left. I asked him where we were going and he said Freedom Field. It’s the only thing I can think of.’

  ‘So it’s a place. Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said the name… only not to me or Bilal; it was just something he mentioned sometimes.’

  ‘What was the context?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What else was he saying at the time? Did he say, ‘We must go to Freedom Field’, or ‘How do we get to Freedom Field’? Words like that. The context.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He bit his lip and said, ‘I recall at the time he was like angry, but it wasn’t at me any more for crashing the drones.’

  ‘Like angry?’

  ‘Intense. He did that occasionally, going into some other place as if he was reminding himself about what he had to do.’ Donny snapped his fingers a couple of times, then said, ‘I’ve got it: he said Freedom Field, then something I can’t remember and “…the fools would regret honouring the fallen because it was going to come back and bite them.” That was it – I don’t remember the rest.’

  Ruth thought it over. Honouring the fallen? That sounded like a garden of remembrance. But there were hundreds, thousands of those scattered across the country, with one in most towns and cities. ‘Fine. One last point, Donny, then you can get something to eat. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes, please. I think I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. My point is, this entire plan is bigger than it seems. Bigger than one man’s idea for inflicting a blow on the United States; bigger than merely leaving a car bomb in a crowded place timed to explode, which is much easier. This is about chemicals – a dirty bomb. And a unique form of delivery. You don’t exactly pick up dangerous chemicals or drones at B&Q, do you?’

  ‘Huh?’ He looked puzzled and Ruth realised he’d never heard of the British DIY chain.

  ‘Like Home Depot.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Instead, Malak would have needed finance and resources and manpower to get it going. And that’s a lot more than a single man could do. You agree?’

  ‘Yes. I guess. But I never saw anybody else except for him and Bilal.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Bilal Ammar. We know he’s no organiser. He’s a lump of muscle.’

  Donny scowled. ‘He’s a pig. I hate him!’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He’s hardly in the same league as you, is he?’ She decided to throw in a change of direction. ‘Was it Bilal who killed the construction crew?’

  His mouth dropped open again and he went pale. ‘I had nothing to do with that… it was all them, I promise you.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It was before Chadwick arrived. I was sent out to the far end of the runway because Malak want
ed me to test one of the drones, to see that it worked and to try out a few simple manoeuvres. I did as he ordered and made sure it was assembled and functioning properly, then made some very simple manoeuvres.’ He hesitated and looked away. ‘I went even further than he told me because I didn’t want him to see me if I made a mistake. While I was running the motors I thought I heard some noises, but I was concentrating on not crashing the drone, so I never gave it a thought.’

  ‘What sort of noises?’

  ‘Popping noises… very fast, but not loud.’

  ‘You mean gunshots.’

  ‘Yes – but I didn’t know that at the time, I swear!’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When I got back Bilal was walking around outside the hangar waving an assault rifle. He was grinning like he always did and I could see and smell the gun-smoke in the air. He was also excited, which made me feel sick.’ When Ruth looked blank he explained, ‘He was clutching his groin and showing off his arousal to me as if I’d be impressed!’

  ‘What had he done?’

  ‘He showed me the hole in the floor… where the dead men were lying. I couldn’t believe it. He said Malak had ordered him to kill them all because they had demanded more money for finishing early. Malak had refused and one of the men had threatened to tell the police. Malak ordered them into the pit and… Bilal shot them.’ He shook his head. ‘You have to believe me – I had nothing to do with it.’

  Ruth breathed out slowly. It was most likely that Malak had never intended letting the men go in the first place. Once paid off, all it would have taken was for one of them to talk about what they’d been told to do, and his whole plan would have been thrown into disarray. ‘Very well. Let’s get back to Malak. Where does he get his money? How does he have a call on the men he needed to watch Chadwick and his family in England and here in the States; to watch me… even to follow me halfway across America?’