Waypoint: A Game of Drones

by C. F. WALLER

  “That’s not going to be good for anybody,” I mutter, blowing on my hot coffee.

  Moving closer to the assembled crowd to hear what’s being said, I observe two special guests debating. A liberal democratic congresswoman is blasting the military for being in such close proximity to Chinese airspace. Opposing her is a republican pundit defending our right to fly over international waters. I myself do not understand why we deem it necessary to sail halfway around the world to practice off their coastline. If China held military maneuvers two-hundred miles off San Diego we would lose our minds.

  “So, are we at war?” a middle aged tourist in a koala bear tee-shirt asks, glancing around the group.

  The discussion that follows bores me. These tourists don’t have a clue. They saw the same report I just watched, and it basically said nothing. It’s probably a mechanical malfunction. All this happened six hours ago. Wouldn’t Hal have mentioned it if war was breaking out?

  …

  We fly for hours on a huge sea plane called a Bombardier. Two giant propellers, one on each wing, pound the air, as well as the inside of my skull. I had hoped to get some shut eye on this leg, but arrive bleary eyed and confused instead. The plane hits the water hard, jarring my spine, then bobs up and down on the waves. What had felt like a huge plane, suddenly feels tiny as it’s lifted up and down by the ocean.

  A sliding door is pulled open by the co-pilot; gas fumes mixed with a salty scent invade the interior. I jump when a tall wave crashes into the side, splashing water on the co-pilot, who frowns. Several gallons run down the floor and I lift my shoes to keep them dry.

  “They’ll get wet eventually,” he chuckles, wiping water off his dark glasses.

  Two huge skiffs come over and unload the cargo. After the first one shoves off, we are herded onto the second. The guy driving the boat claims these are calm seas, but we bounce between huge swells just the same. On the low ebbs, we can’t see over them, nothing but walls of water in all directions. I’d hate to see bigger ones.

  Besides the driver, it’s only me and the two guys I’m pretending to know in the skiff. One of them, whose name is Cam, is a slob. Unkempt curly brown hair and a half grown beard signal his devil-may-care attitude on hygiene. He hugs a laptop bag over his chest and mutters to his friend frequently. The other guy looks put together, recent haircut, clean shaven and tidy. He’s wearing jeans and a pullover top that looks waterproof. Neither seems bothered by the waves, but then again, they are dive specialists. Probably not their first time in a boat.

  To get aboard, we have to climb up steel rungs welded to the side of the ship. The Arcadia looks like a mini battleship, although she’s only a few hundred feet from bow to stern. Probably a military cast off, but who knows. I slip twice on the way up, the corroded orange steel leaves my hands gritty. A second ship is visible from the rungs, probably the one dragging the sonar. I am pulled over the railing by a nice looking man in shirt sleeves and cargo pants. On him, the beginnings of a beard and outdoorsy appearance work. I’m day dreaming when I realize he’s talking.

  “John,” he repeats, my having missed his first introduction.

  “Lydia,” I reply, but receive a nasty look from Cam.

  “Your equipment’s all aboard,” he tells the clean cut arrival, who he refers to as Dexter. “Stowed at the stern. Once you’re settled, we should get it unpacked.”

  “Where is the plane in relation to the boat?” he asks.

  “Straight down, with a crap load of water in-between.”

  “It’s not that much water,” Cam balks. “We’ve seen deeper.”

  Dexter digs around in an over-the-shoulder bag, removing a silver square of metal, a foot across. He scans it, turning the device over in his hands checking for defects. It appears to be a stack of metal plates with fans in-between. A blue light on the top flickers wildly as the blades begin to turn.

  “The information you sent us had the depth at six-thousand feet?” Dexter verifies, still picking at the box.

  “Yeah, a little over, but—.”

  “How’d you measure the depth?” Cam grunts.

  “Long piece of twine with a rock tied to the end?” John fires back, seemingly un-phased by the tech nerds.

  “But straight down,” Dexter confirms, frowning at Cam.

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Then, let’s get started,” he announces, tossing the metal square over the side like a Frisbee. It sails along, then plummets twenty-feet down into the ocean. “Where are we going to be working from?”

  “Up top,” John stammers, pointing up, but looking over the side. “That’s it? Just toss whatever that was over the side?”

  “No, you also have to drop the sled that’s crated up in our stuff,” he explains. “Let’s get Cam set up, then you and I can put the rest overboard.”

  “Right,” John nods, waving to another man in khaki pants and shirt. “Take them upstairs and introduce them to Todd.”

  When I don’t follow, John eyes me suspiciously.

  “Not going with?” he asks, wagging a thumb at the stairs.

  “Those two are big boys. They don’t require a babysitter.”

  “If you say so. How about I get you to your cabin?”

  I nod for him to proceed and then tag along a half-step behind.

  “So, you guys lost a plane down there?”

  “Gulfstream,” he nods, leading me along the deck. “Locked on the black box signal, but it’s too deep to salvage.”

  “What’s to salvage?” I inquire, trailing along. “Or is this body retrieval?”

  “No, none of the guys on board are high enough on the food chain to warrant this kind of expenditure.”

  “So why? What’s inside that your boss can’t live without?”

  “Metal case,” he slows to a stop on the switch back metal stairs. “About the size of a brief case. You think your boys can find it and bring it up?”

  “Well,” I stall, having no idea what they promised. “If they said they could do it, then yes.”

  “That’s good news,” he winks, then continues up the stairs.

  “What’s in the case?” I ask a second time. “Blood diamonds, gold bars, a paternity test?”

  “Cute,” he smirks as we hang a right and stop in front of the second door. “I’m not high enough on the food chain to know. This is you.”

  “Thanks,” I nod, slipping past him and into the room. “What about my bag?”

  “Which one’s yours?”

  “Red one,” I offer, scanning around the room and finding only a single bed hung on the wall and a desk. “Rolling suitcase.”

  “Yeah, I saw it. I’ll run down and get it.”

  “Oh, just point me in the right direction. You don’t have to go.”

  “You should stay here for now,” he almost orders me, a hand across the door.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Listen,” he groans. “Lydia, you said Lydia, right?”

  I nod, feeling trapped with his arm across the door.

  “There are over thirty crew on this boat, all men. You’re the only woman out here.”

  “And you think I’d be harassed or attacked?”

  “No, I don’t,” he holds his hands up in a defensive way. “Listen, this isn’t our boat. We hired these guys to take us out here, but they aren’t technically speaking, my guys. I doubt you’d be molested, but just to be safe, I’ll come back and we can eat dinner together,” he suggests, then pauses. “I mean, with all three of you, not just you and me.”

  “Either way,” I return his earlier wink. “Okay if I smoke on deck?”

  “Yeah,” he taps a finger on his breast pocket, indicating it holds a pack of cigarettes. “Just stay near your room and don’t litter in the ocean.”

  “Me?” I chuckle as he heads down the stairs to the stern. “You guys dropped a whole plane in there.”

  He doesn’t reply and I watch him disappear behind a lifeboat hanging from a beam. This is happening
pretty fast. The guys already dropped their camera, if that’s what that was. I flip open my phone to see if I am getting any bars. There aren’t any, which doesn’t surprise me inside this metal box. I wander outside and lean on the stairway railing to check again. I’ll be darn, there’s four bars in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I use speed dial to call the number listed under Daddy. It rings twice before Hal picks up.

  “Stacy?”

  “Lydia,” I correct him, reminded of Agent Katz.

  “Right, what’s up?”

  “Just got to the ship,” I reply, pulling a smoke out of the pack with my lips and fishing in my jean’s pocket for my lighter. “The dive guys tossed a camera or something in right off, but I doubt I’ll know anything ‘til tomorrow. What time is it back in the world?”

  “Fourteen hours ahead of you.”

  “So what, eight in the morning there?” I mutter, trying to do the math. “Tomorrow, it’s eight tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, welcome to international travel.”

  “Feels more like time travel. What are the lotto numbers from yesterday?”

  “Very funny. Don’t forget to send me some pictures.”

  “Sure,” I confirm, blowing smoke over the rail. “Hey, are we at war with China?”

  “Not yet, but ask me again tomorrow.”

  “It is tomorrow where you are,” I chide him.

  “Is this a preview of our future communications?”

  “Future communications?” I snicker, thinking the time travel metaphor is taking a beating today.

  Hal doesn’t answer, so I move on.

  “Did they actually shoot down our jets?”

  “It’s complicated, but it seems that way. Their fighters jumped us out near the international free zone. We fly near them all the time, but for some reason the Chinese pilots just opened fire.”

  “And China says what?”

  “They deny it of course, but they got a bigger problem.”

  “What’s that?” I exhale a cloud over the rail and onto an unseen crewman passing under me.

  “They claim the J-16’s never came home.”

  “So, it’s a who shot at who game?”

  “It looked that way originally, but radar shows their guys doing a turn and burn for Haikou.”

  “That someplace in China?”

  “Yeah, they have a base there.”

  “CNN said we got two pilots back,” I report, watching the dive guys passing under the stairs. “What tune are they singing?”

  “Unknown at this time. Airforce has them on lockdown.”

  “If we declare war on China, am I safe out here?”

  “As safe as any of us. Call when you have something.”

  “You got it,” I sign off and slip the phone back into my blazer pocket.

  John comes up the deck below me from the stern. He’s already looking at me when I notice him. There’s a smile and a nod that feels like a flirt, but I am the only woman on the ship. Who else would he flirt with? I recall the two guys paying no attention to me at Brittany’s apartment complex. It would appear that the male to female ratio on this ship adds to my appeal.

  Chapter Seven

  A flat screen sits on a dangerously tipsy rolling cart. I have the urge to steady it, but a guy John introduced as Todd, frowns when I get too close. The dive guys have ported a laptop onto the screen, and another hangs off the wall. I lean on a battered grey file cabinet waiting for something to happen. We aren’t going to see a live shot, rather a recording that floated up last night. A flash drive on a tiny yellow balloon was fished out of the sea using a GPS tracker. They claim to have a dolphin that does this job back in New England, but that seems a little farfetched to me.

  The cobalt blue screen flickers several times before the tan seafloor emerges from the darkness. This depth is far out of reach of the sun’s rays, but the LED lights on the little silver box are quite bright. The view zooms along the bottom, then pulls up sharply and turns slowly, panning a complete circle. This repeats several more times, then it darts forward and we are treated to the business end of a jet engine half buried in silt and sand. I expect the plane to be rusted or barnacle covered, but it’s neither.

  “Is this what you guys were looking for?” Cam mutters, squinting from behind the laptop.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Todd mumbles.

  “Pan around that,” Dexter requests, head tilted to one side.

  I am astonished when his partner uses a tiny joystick to rotate the view. I thought this was a recording? On the screen the view pans overhead looking down at the leading edge of the wing. John stares, then glances over at me frowning. He thinks I know how they are doing this.

  “I thought you lost a Gulfstream?” Cam nods at the screen. “This is way too big.”

  Before anyone can reply, the camera zooms away, but as it does we are treated to a birds-eye view of a commercial airliner. Shadows lay across the white fuselage as fish pass between the lights and the downed jet. The room is silent as the shot drifts the length of the wreck, then back over the sandy bottom.

  “Are you seeing this Dex?” Cam exhales loudly.

  “Yeah, I think you guys forgot to mention—,”

  He freezes as the tiny box coasts over the tail section of a second huge airliner, this one wearing red and blue stripes. On the second screen, the path of the camera is tracked with a yellow dot. As it moves across the tipsy screen, it reveals the area it passes over. This is some wild tech.

  A gasp escapes my lips when the screen passes over a gash in the top of the second jet, revealing shadows that might be bodies inside. The images appear as if a strobe light were hitting the top of their heads, but it’s simply the sea life passing between them and the camera. I am suddenly aware that John has slipped up next to me.

  “I was going to tell you guys ahead of time, but thought it might be more fun to watch your expressions,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Was the lie of omission worth the trouble?”

  “What do you think?” he nods at an irate Cam.

  “How many are—?” I pause, the macabre scene giving me dry mouth.

  “Too many,” John sighs, arms crossed.

  Todd pulls a paper roll the size of Christmas wrapping paper from under the center table and spreads it out haphazardly over the top of books and debris.

  “The side-scan mapped out a twenty by twenty-five-mile area,” he explains, trying to smooth out the map. “We have eighteen confirmed, three smaller ones and—.”

  “The small one being your Gulfstream?” Dexter scowls.

  “Actually we think those are military,” John jumps in, drawing surprised looks from the room. “I thought your camera would pick up the ping and find ours?”

  “It will,” Cam remarks. “I mean it has.”

  The lighted area on the screen passes over a smaller tail fin. It then glides smoothly down the side revealing several blown out windows. When it gets to the nose, it’s caved in, the front windshield mashed shut. We watch in silence as it makes a complete circle around the Gulfstream. One wingtip is torn off, but other than the crushed nose, it seems to be in one solid piece.

  “Went down hard,” I shake my head, breaking the silence.

  “Actually, it came down perfect,” Cam argues, tilting his head as he pauses the camera shot every so often. “The nose bent when it hit the bottom. The water landing was one in a million.”

  “Or one in eighteen,” Dexter exhales, raking a hand through his feathered black hair. “We want nothing to do with this. It’s a hornet’s nest and I don’t want to be out here for two or three years taking pictures for a bunch of FAA jokers.”

  “That’s fine by us,” John announces, putting up his hands to keep control of his audience. “All we want is for you to bring up the case. After that, you can bail for dry land and we will call 911.”

  “Oh, they are going to want see this footage,” Cam groans, eyeing Dexter. “I’m pretty sure everyone is going to want to
see it, but that’s not the real question we should be asking.”

  “And what might that be?” Todd inquires, hands on his hips.

  “There is almost certainly someone who doesn’t want anyone to see this,” Dexter balks. “Probably whoever is responsible.”

  “Might be like the Bermuda Triangle,” Cam tosses out. “An interstellar plot to—.”

  “It’s not aliens,” Dexter grumbles, head tilted as he watches the screen.

  “Speculation aside, what you do with it is up to you,” John cuts in, taking a moment to look back at me. “We don’t want any of the video. Help us out, then do whatever you want with the pictures. I’ll hand over the side-scans to whoever needs them, but your level of involvement is totally up to you.”

  “We can’t just—,” Cam starts but is cut off by Dexter.

  “Delete it,” he barks. “Let’s do what we came here to do and then we burn the whole mess and go home.”

  “Forgive me,” Todd pipes up. “With this video, you three will be famous. Whatever your tech is, it will be worth millions, maybe billions. This is Howard Carter discovering King Tuts Tomb. Why wouldn’t you want to stay and be the face of the discovery of the century?”

  “We tried famous before,” Dexter shakes his head. “Famous nearly got us killed. We get your case topside, you pay us, then we bail. That work for you?”

  “As long as you get me the case, you can do whatever you want.” John confirms.

  It isn’t lost on me that the implication is that without the case, they can’t do whatever they want. I study John for a moment, but I don’t think he’s the kind to make threats. Did he phrase it that way on purpose? Dexter eyes John as if it wasn’t lost on him either. Smart cookie.

  “How are you going to get it?” Todd asks, still watching the camera circle the wreck. “Fuselage is intact and the windows are too small to pull the case out.”

  “How big?” Dexter bobs a head at John.

  “Normal brief case size, or so I was told.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dexter exhales deeply, putting a hand on Cam’s back. “I need to unpack Sophie.”