The Drone

by Adrian Magson

  But Malak was dangerous for entirely different reasons, and James had to admit to being terrified at the coming few hours.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  It was the same answer each time. All he knew from the restricted view inside the van was that it was getting dark and they had been following a meandering route for the past couple of days, always on the move and using back roads. They had stopped only at remote motels, sometimes overnight and for a few hours during the day when Malak needed an internet connection. Another stop was coming up.

  He adjusted his buttocks on the bench seat and leaned against one of the boxes containing a drone. That was another question to which he’d received a shrug and no comment: what hideous concoction lay inside the glass tube packed in foam that he’d seen Malak handling back at the airfield after the man named Donny had disappeared? He could only speculate, but the obvious conclusion was the stuff of nightmares.

  But that wasn’t the only danger inside the van; not two feet from where he was sitting were several small packs of what he was certain was some form of explosive. If it was C4, as he suspected, there was enough there to completely vaporise this van and everything else around it for a considerable distance. He’d tried figuring out what possible use Malak might have for the stuff. Was he going to load some on the drones and use them as flying bombs? If so he would need some form of detonator – maybe one of the mobile phones in the box. It would work, but the combined weight would stretch the carrying capacity and speed of the drones and make them more difficult to control if there was any turbulence.

  So what was the plan? The only thought that came to mind was a suicide run; if all else failed Malak might choose a spectacular ending. But was that really his style? The more the man talked, the more James was beginning to read him and understand the character behind the cold mask. And something about his personality, as guarded as he was, spoke of a man who would not choose suicide unless all else was lost – an option of last resort.

  Logic also told him that Malak wouldn’t risk his own life unnecessarily when he clearly had a mission to accomplish. But what if fate intervened and they ran into a police or army patrol? It was clear that the one named Bilal was a violent thug with a love of guns, and thought himself invincible. But a volley of bullets would go through this van without stopping and one only had to strike the launcher or the C4 and…

  He pushed the thoughts away, focussing instead on Ben and Valerie. Occasionally his thoughts dwelled on Elizabeth, but hardly to the same degree; that boat had sailed a long time ago, for which he blamed himself. He made a resolve, however, that if ever he got out of this jam in one piece, he would go see her and try to make some peace between them, if only for Ben’s sake.

  Malak sniggered and held out his cell phone so that James could read the screen. It was a breaking news report of a rocket attack on the county jail in Alva, Oklahoma, followed by the pursuit and shooting dead of the attackers by local law enforcement officers. The death toll in the attack on the jail stood at five, with two injured jail workers in a critical condition. One of those killed inside the jail, the report continued, had been a newly-arrested man named Donny Bashir, who was said to have had proven terrorist connections and was being interviewed by the FBI at the time of the assault. Police and FBI sources were speculating that the attack had been to gain Bashir’s release.

  ‘They’re running around in circles. Like headless chickens,’ Malak said softly, taking the phone back and snapping it off. More and more, Chadwick noticed as time went on, Malak the apparent American was given to using a more staccato form of speaking which made him seem both more foreign than he had first sounded, and increasingly more intense, as if he were now the person he had always aspired to be. It made him seem both tragically comic and frighteningly dangerous.

  ‘They were your men,’ said James. ‘Don’t you feel for them?’ He no longer felt wary of asking such questions; whatever Malak had prepared for him in the coming hours was hardly going to be made worse by anything he said at this stage.

  ‘They weren’t mine. They were tools, like Bashir.’ He gave a self-satisfied smile, and the intensity of his gaze so close was deeply unsettling. ‘And there are others. They, too, will perform a task or die in the attempt. It is how things are done.’

  ‘That’s cold.’ James nodded at the phone in Malak’s hand. ‘At this rate you’re going to start running out of tools.’

  ‘Never.’ Malak leaned forward until James could smell his breath, and spoke so softly that it had to be so that Bilal up front wouldn’t hear, ‘There are always those willing to die for a good cause. Always. Have you not already realised that from everything you’ve seen over the past twenty-five years?’ He grinned and sat back as if enjoying himself. ‘Of course you haven’t. You think it’s a filthy Arab habit, so nothing to concern yourselves with. So what if a few dozen ragheads blow themselves to pieces? Let them do it… as long as they keep it to the Middle East where you westerners don’t have to watch it! Well, your time has come and you had better get used to a new era in conflict!’

  James said nothing. An inner light was glowing in Malak’s eyes, and he realised there was more than a glimmer of the idealist in there. Yet somehow, as loaded with passion as it should have sounded, the words had come across as somehow a little too rehearsed, as if he were talking to like-minded individuals like the muscle-man up front, voicing words that were part of a common mantra they expected to hear.

  ‘Another thing,’ Malak continued, this time in a calmer tone. ‘You Americans think you created the joint idea of enterprise and war, of big business making profits from conflict by manufacturing arms and munitions. But what of waging war itself – as a business? Huh? You ignore history at your peril. There have been armies since the dawn of time making profit from fighting, but in modern-era America, that has been seen as too disgusting to consider – until recently.’

  ‘You mean mercenaries?’ James decided to interrupt the flow, if only to show he wasn’t intimidated by this man’s passion. ‘That’s hardly an American invention.’

  ‘True enough. But it’s the United States that has taken the idea of paid armies to a whole new level, with its PMCs – its private military contractors; thousands of private soldiers and so-called black ops ‘specialists’ fighting on behalf of the state and doing its dirty work under cover, unaccountable and untouchable. Well, you’re not the only ones who can play by those rules. You had better be ready for the reality of what you’ve unleashed because now there’s a new game in town.’

  ‘You’re a mercenary? Is that what you’re saying? Am I supposed to be impressed?’

  Malak smiled. ‘I don’t care whether you’re impressed or not. But you had better be concerned.’ He held up a finger. ‘As a business consultant I’m sure you’ll appreciate that it’s a very simple principle. Take one organised and patient man with an idea and lots of financial backers. Team him with others who care nothing for money or reward, but who share a deep, abiding hatred of a common superpower and a lasting faith in the hereafter. Now what do you have?’

  James was horrified. There was no answer he could think of.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you have, Mr Chadwick: you have what you fancy business consultants might call a first-class business model: the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. And the best thing of all? It’s constantly renewable, generation by generation, feeding on itself and gaining ground. In the end it will be everywhere and unstoppable.’ He grinned and waggled his fingers in a ghastly parody of a comedian. ‘Now that, my friend, is an idea you can take all the way to the bank!’

  47

  Ruth sat up with a jerk, eyes wide open, mouth gummy with the taste of last night’s easily forgettable meal. She experienced a momentary confusion due to sleep deprivation and the events of the past few days, before tuning in to her surroundings and why she was here.

  She was in bed in some nameless motel near Oklaho
ma City’s Will Rogers airport; the luminous readout on the bedside radio clock told her it was 03.00am. She couldn’t recall much about getting here or falling into bed the moment she’d eaten, only that Andy Vaslik and Dave Proust had waved goodnight, Vaslik to hit the hay and Dave to see about refuelling his helicopter for the flight to Altus in the morning.

  Exhausted or not, sleep had not come easily. Her brain had kicked in within minutes of lying down, churning with thoughts of how they were going to find Malak and Chadwick and the lethal drones in such a vast landscape. So far she’d been unable to settle on a specific plan of action.

  In an attempt to draw her mind away onto other things and to allow thoughts of mundane matters to deflect the problems that lay ahead, she had switched on the room’s television. But it had offered only a partial success. The news programmes had been full of the president’s visit to Altus Air Force base the following day, which had sent her spirits plummeting at the idea of what might happen if they failed to stop Malak’s planned attack. Logic told her to stop looking, but she had been unable to turn off the repeated bulletins and live-action shots of the base and surrounding area, with elegantly-manicured reporters with huge microphones and logo plaques announcing their stations of origin, hopeful that something in there would trigger an idea, no matter how limited.

  The main focus of their excitement appeared to be in the base itself, and a planned demonstration parachute jump by trainees from a C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft. There were other items mentioned, but the flickering screen and its attendant electronic buzz had soon dulled Ruth’s attention and she had zoned out, turning on the laptop instead and trawling for possible leads to the location Malak was planning on using.

  The word Freedom had danced across her consciousness in all its permutations, from concepts, place names, films, songs and snippets of writing and speeches of the great and the good. But none had led to anything useful. She had finally fallen into a restless half-sleep, her mind full of the mixed images and sounds of their confrontation with the men in the van and of skies filled with deadly drones like swarms of flies.

  Now she was back to some semblance of full alertness, she jumped out of bed and splashed her face with water, then drank from a bottle in the room’s refrigerator. She knew she was going to regret rising so ridiculously early later on, when tiredness would catch up with her, but she was being pushed forward by some tiny fragment of information, a miniscule sound bite perhaps, that had finally penetrated her brain and wouldn’t let go.

  But what the hell was it?

  The television was still on, but with the sound down low, showing a slew of commercials for auto sales, dietary supplements and the benefits of home gym equipment being demonstrated by stick insects in makeup. She clicked through a few channels until she found a local news reporter running through the agenda for the coming event at the Altus base.

  Within seconds, she had the answer that had been eluding her.

  ‘The White House has confirmed that following an inspection and meeting with officers, staff and their families at USAF Altus, the president will attend a parachute demonstration by approximately thirty trainees exiting a giant Globemaster Three cargo aircraft. He will then go to an area of land outside the base perimeter which has been donated by local land-owner and farmer, Philip J. Duncan. This land is to be converted into a remembrance garden in honour of the fallen who passed through Altus over the years, having given their lives in the service of their country in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theatres of conflict in the name of freedom. Groundwork on the field, which is yet to be formally named but is now widely expected to include the word Freedom, will begin in the next few weeks, and…’

  Freedom. Field.

  Ruth felt a jolt of energy go through her and picked up her phone. First she called Vaslik and got him to turn on his television, then called Brasher and prayed he was awake.

  He was. ‘What’ve you got?’ he asked. His voice sounded dulled by lack of sleep but he was alert enough to know she wasn’t calling just to say hi.

  ‘I know where the target area is,’ she said. ‘It’s a parcel of land outside the base to be used as a remembrance site. I don’t know where – and I doubt the base office will tell me now with the president going there to show his support. But I think that’s where Malak might make his strike.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make some calls and get back to you. How did you hear about this? It was supposed to be unofficial until the last moment.’

  ‘It was in a local news bulletin. The land’s been donated by a local farmer to be used as a remembrance garden. It hasn’t been formally named yet but the clincher is in the name. There’s talk of the title incorporating the word freedom.’

  Brasher swore softly. ‘That’s close enough. You were right all along, Ruth. Christ, I should have listened harder.’

  ‘No need to beat yourself up. Until now it would have been guesswork, anyway, because if Malak had sensed too much interest he’d have simply changed his plans and we’d have lost him for good. Right now we need to get combing within a few miles of this Freedom place. I’m guessing Malak and Chadwick will be somewhere away from the base itself, but that’s still quite a lot of ground to cover and we don’t want to risk alerting him.’

  ‘I agree. Incidentally, my guy got an answer from Donny about geo-fencing. Malak knew all about it and had him disable the devices. It means they can fly anywhere he chooses.’

  Malak had indeed thought of everything, Ruth reflected. Not that it made much difference now; it was possible that the area to be known as Freedom Field lay outside the geo-fenced perimeter, anyway.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Brasher continued. ‘Word has just come in about two men seen acting suspiciously outside Fort Sill army base yesterday evening. They were in army combat uniforms but the person who reported it in was the wife of a serving officer and said they didn’t move or look anything like serving personnel.’’

  ‘Fort Sill? I remember seeing that name.’ Ruth had a momentary surge of alarm at the idea that Malak had changed his plans after Donny’s arrest and was going to launch an attack somewhere else instead.

  ‘Right. It’s a combat training and field artillery school about fifty miles east of Altus. The men were approached by military police and pulled automatic weapons. They killed one MP and wounded another before they were taken down and arrested by a backup patrol.’

  ‘Not Malak or Bilal?’

  ‘No. They turned out to be two unknown Middle Eastern males with false IDs and very little English. But one was carrying a sandwich wrapping from Chicago O’Hare International with a display date from two days ago. Our initial assessment is that they were probably flown in as a distraction attack. If so, it means that whatever network Malak’s connected to is well organised.’

  And the rest, Ruth thought. She didn’t think she had to add to Brasher’s worries by pointing out that the men had somehow managed to fly in, get equipped very quickly with false papers, a vehicle and automatic weapons, then find their way to Fort Sill without being spotted. That pointed to resources and good organisation.

  ‘So what happens now? Are we still going in?’

  ‘Just about. After your talk with Donny and the attack on Woods County jail, I reported up the chain of command about Karina’s death and what we’d learned so far. Washington received only a partial call from her just before she died, but it was enough to get an internal investigation going into the circumstances leading up to her death and why she’d been going over my head.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. What are they going to do?’

  ‘There were some calls from the most senior levels for a full-scale alert. I managed to resist that on the grounds that Malak would simply disappear along with the drones and whatever poison he’s planning on using. They and the Secret Service agreed but as of now it’s no longer in my hands.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘There will be two Globemasters overflying the base, not one.
The first will drop the genuine demonstration team at eleven hundred hours. But we got the landing target moved slightly away from the base center on the grounds of security to the president. The drop will be close enough to be seen and draw attention away from the second plane which will carry a team of our own Enhanced SWAT personnel. I hope we can get those men dropped right on the nail.’

  ‘Assuming we can tell you where that nail is.’

  ‘That’s correct. Anybody suspicious is going to find a fully armed body of men dropping on their heads, hopefully before they can get those drones in the air.’

  ‘What about Chadwick? He’s an innocent in the middle of this. Will they know what he looks like?’

  There was a brief hesitation, then Brasher said, ‘They’ve been briefed and issued with photos, yes. But this could be a messy intervention. I wish I could guarantee his safety but I can’t. He’ll have to take his chances. I’ll get back to you about the location of the target.’

  Ruth said goodbye and cut the connection. She felt conflicted. Part of her wanted to isolate Malak as quietly as possible and deal with him without using outside forces. She could understand the FBI response, which was to protect the president’s safety and the safety of the Altus personnel and their families. However, the hard truth was that however carefully an operation was planned and executed, there was always aa risk of it ending messily, leading to innocent casualties along the way. She just hoped that Chadwick wasn’t one of them.

  She got dressed and walked along to Vaslik’s room. The door was open and he was gingerly slipping on his jacket.

  ‘How is it?’ she asked, helping him with the sleeve.

  ‘It’s a scratch.’

  ‘Of course it is. And you’re such a brave boy.’ She grinned briefly, then told him what Brasher had arranged with the SWAT team.

  He winced. ‘I don’t like the idea of being too close to that. Identifying the crowd will be easy enough, but if they see us on our own in the target area from a thousand feet in the air we could have ourselves a problem.’