by Stuart Woods
—
TEN MINUTES LATER, Dame Felicity was sitting in an armchair, waiting for them. “Please sit down,” she said, “and tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Quentin?” Ian said.
“No, you,” Quentin replied.
“Ma’am,” Ian said, “we’ve come to believe that the Kimbrough twins in London and Ali Mahmoud are assembling drones on the rooftops of their respective buildings.”
Dame Felicity thought about that for a moment. “Do you know what kind of drones?”
Ian looked uncomfortable. “Not yet. They’re doing the work under the shelter of marquees erected for the purpose.”
“Both of them? Simultaneously?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That is alarming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Special Agent Phillips, has your surveillance picked up any phone calls or electronic messages that refer to this activity?”
“No, ma’am. I checked with my team in Washington. Mahmoud has gone all quiet, and we don’t have our taps here in yet.”
Dame Felicity picked up a phone from a table beside her. “Please video-conference me with Director Lance Cabot at the CIA and Assistant Director Lev Epstein at the FBI.” She put down the phone. “This is going to take a few minutes,” she said. “Special Agent Phillips, while we’re waiting, can you give me some idea of what we’re dealing with?”
“I’ll try, ma’am,” Quentin said. He took a deep breath and began.
57
STONE SAT and stared out the airplane window at the North Atlantic far below.
“You’re not getting depressed, are you?” Dino asked.
“Not exactly. I’m just thinking about what not having an airplane means, and that’s pretty depressing.”
“So why don’t you get a new one? The process ought to cheer you up. You just told me about the CJ something or other.”
“CJ3 Plus,” Stone said.
“The one that has exactly the same avionics that your, ah, former plane had?”
“Yes.” Stone brightened, and slapped Dino on the knee. “You’re a genius,” he said.
“All I did was repeat what you told me.”
“Exactly.” Stone took out his iPhone and looked up the name of the Cessna salesman who had handled the sale of the M2. He put away the iPhone, picked up the satphone, and dialed the number.
“David Hayes.”
“Hi, David, it’s Stone Barrington.”
“Hello, Stone. What can I do for you?”
“Is the new CJ3 Plus certified yet?”
“Almost.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re waiting for final approval.”
“If I ordered one today, when would it be delivered?”
“Hang on, let me check the printouts.”
“See?” Dino said. “You’re looking happier already.”
David came back on the line. “I’ll have to double-check this with the factory, but it looks like about seven weeks. The airplane is already off the line, waiting for an interior and avionics installation. It already has a pretty high spec.”
“Read me the list of equipment.”
“Well, it’s got the Garmin 3000 panel.”
“Read me the options installed.”
“Okay, it’s got an Automatic Direction Finder, which you won’t use in the States but is good to have if you want to sell it overseas, Synthetic Vision, provision for high-frequency radios, Garmin datalink, Terrain Awareness Warning System—TAWS A, XM weather and radio, locking fuel caps, and Angle of Attack Indexer. On the interior it’s got the refreshment center with optional side-facing seat, sheepskin cockpit seats, dual satphones, Aircell high-speed Internet service—U.S. only, and the Hawthorne interior. You might still be able to change the interior fabrics at this point, and we’ll paint the airplane to your specs.”
“How much retraining would I need?”
“None. The cockpit is identical to your M2, but you’ve got seven hundred more miles of range, four hundred and twenty knots of speed, and you can go up to flight level 450.”
“Add the HD radio to the list, call the factory and get me a confirmed delivery date and a price. Same paint scheme as the M2.”
“I’ll do that.” Hayes hung up.
“You look downright cheerful now,” Dino said. “See what a satphone call can do?”
“And I wouldn’t have to retrain,” Stone said happily. He went forward to the cockpit and tapped Pat on the shoulder. “How far out are we?”
“It says here an hour and eight minutes to Presque Isle.” Stone thanked her and went back to his seat. “An hour and eight minutes,” Stone said.
Dino picked up the satphone, checked the number, and dialed. “Bob? It’s the commissioner. Where are you? Good, we’ll be in about forty minutes behind you. Listen, I think you’d better get somebody from the Maine State Police out there. We don’t want to step on any toes.” He listened. “Great, you’re thinking ahead.” He hung up. “They’re going to beat us there,” he said. “Looks like all’s right with the world.”
“Reeves and Keyes are armed, you know,” Stone pointed out.
Dino frowned. “You think they’re going to want to shoot it out with us?”
“Whataya mean, ‘us’? I’m not armed.”
“I should have asked Viv for her gun.”
“Maybe so. Listen, I think the way to do this is to let U.S. Customs go in first.”
“And let them do our dirty work?”
“It’s not that, it’s that they’re expecting customs, so they won’t be on their guard. We’re probably going to be there before Reeves lands. You can talk with them about it then.”
“Okay.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Stone asked.
“You’re supposed to stay out of the way,” Dino said. “I’ve got two detectives and the Maine State Police for backup. I think we can handle it without your help.”
“And you are welcome to do so,” Stone said, sitting back in his seat and relaxing.
The satphone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s David Hayes. The airplane is yours, if you want it. I added the HD radio in.” He quoted a price.
Stone haggled a little, and they came to an agreement. “I’ll wire you the deposit tomorrow morning.” Stone hung up happy. “I’ll have a new CJ3 Plus in seven weeks. You want to come out to Wichita and make the first flight with me?”
“I’d rather make the second flight with you,” Dino said. “Or the fifth. Maybe you’ll know what you’re doing by then.”
Shortly, the airplane began to descend. Stone could see a low line of land appearing out of the mist ahead of the wing.
58
QUENTIN REARRANGED HIMSELF in his chair and began. “I’ve been studying up on this. We can put drones into three categories for our purposes: One, aircraft that are like large, remote control model airplanes that can be launched simply by running with the drone and throwing it. Their payload is fuel—liquid or battery, maybe a small camera. Two, let’s call these mid-sized—drones that are like a cross between a flying saucer and a multi-vaned helicopter—usually with four small propellers. These are amazingly maneuverable. I’ve seen a video with a dozen of them flying in tight formation inside a gymnasium, controlled by a computer. They can be controlled by a man with a joystick, too, and they can carry more payload—a camera and other equipment, even a significant amount of explosives. The operator can control the airplane when it’s out of his sight line by watching the camera feed on a monitor. Three, military drones, which can vary from something the size of a very small airplane, all the way up to something that looks like a pilotless jet fighter. These can carry multiple cameras, can stay up for days, and can carry serious armaments like the Hellfire miss
ile. The Hellfire, which was originally intended as an anti-tank weapon, is old technology these days: it weighs about a hundred pounds, and twenty to thirty pounds of that is in two explosive charges—the first designed to penetrate armor, and the second, right behind it, to blow shrapnel everywhere. It’s laser-guided: you point it at a target, and it goes directly there, even if the target is moving.”
“It seems likely that if Moe, Larry, and Curly use drones, they will be in the middle category. We know that’s what Moe has been practicing with in Rock Creek Park—something about three feet in diameter.”
“With what sort of payload?” Dame Felicity asked.
“A larger version could carry twenty to thirty pounds,” Quentin replied. “Including the camera. The one Moe was operating in the park seemed to be electric, because it was very quiet. His type of drone is excellent for surveillance work—it can fly right up to an office building and hover outside an assigned window.”
“If they have an armed drone, how would we deal with it?”
“If it has a gasoline engine, we could bring it down with a heat-seeking rocket. If it has an electric engine . . . well, that’s another story. It would be hard to shoot at and hit. Think of how hard it is to swat a fly: they have very fast reactions. The drone could carry a GPS unit that could fly it to selected coordinates, while using a computer-controlled flight path that could zig and zag on its way to the target. The control unit could be no larger than a hardcover book, maybe even a paperback.”
“Is there a guided missile small enough to be carried by such a drone?”
“Not that I’m aware of. You’d have to design one from scratch, and that’s a time-consuming and expensive operation. But—and here’s the rub—if you want to go after a fixed target with a drone, you don’t need to fire a missile at it, you can just crash the drone into the target. Without the multiple warheads and electronics of a Hellfire missile, you’d just have the explosive, some shrapnel, and a contact detonator as payload, and with an explosive of twenty to thirty pounds. That’s quite a lot of C-4 plastique.”
The phone rang, and Dame Felicity picked it up. A monitor came alive with a split-screen image of Lance Cabot and Lev Epstein.
“Good morning, Dame Felicity,” Lance said, and Epstein gave a little wave.
“Good morning, gentlemen. I want to thank you both for your participation in this mission, and I want to bring you up to date. From the available evidence in both London and Washington, it would appear that the Three Stooges may be assembling drones, each on the roof of an embassy building here and in Washington. These drones would be large enough to carry a considerable explosive payload, and they are highly maneuverable. The work is being conducted under canvas awnings that hide them from view.”
At the invitation of Dame Felicity, Quentin repeated his theory of how the drones might work. When he had finished there was a long silence from everybody on both ends of the conference call.
Finally Lance Cabot said, “This is very worrying.”
“Yes, sir,” Quentin said. “We can’t see what they’re doing, and we can’t enter these premises to find out because both buildings are embassy properties. We also can’t arrest the suspects because they have diplomatic immunity. Not that we have a case that could be prosecuted, anyway, except after the fact of whatever they plan to do.”
Lev spoke up. “If we had hard evidence that they plan a terrorist attack of some sort, I would not hesitate to order agents into those buildings and face the consequences later.”
“Nor would I,” Lance said. “Have you given any thought to what their targets might be?”
Ian spoke up. “I have. If I were a terrorist, I would go for the most important available targets, both from a political and a publicity point of view. In the absence of large airliners to use as weapons, I would go for something more pinpoint.”
“Such as?” Lev asked.
“Such as the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain. I’ve checked: the president will return to Washington from Rome tomorrow afternoon, and the prime minister will be mostly at Number Ten Downing Street for the next three days. The day after tomorrow at nine o’clock AM London time, he will be holding a Cabinet meeting. That would be four AM Washington time, when the president would presumably be in bed asleep, so she won’t be surrounded by advisers. However, she is with child, and her assassination would inflame the world.”
“They can both be moved to secure locations,” Lev said.
“But for how long?” Ian asked. “All these people have to do is wait. They are secure in their physical positions and need be in no rush.”
“Then why do you think the day after tomorrow is such a strong possibility?” Dame Felicity asked.
“I’m sorry to have to use the word,” Ian said, “but it’s a hunch, one based on the earliest moment when it would be advantageous to execute an assassination.”
“It sounds like a pretty good hunch to me,” Lance said. “Is there a place at Number Ten where the PM and his Cabinet could be made secure?”
“There is such a place,” Dame Felicity said. “And I assume that one must be available in the White House, as well.”
“I expect so,” Lance said. “Quentin, what do you think the chances are of our shooting down their drones with our drones?”
“Somewhere between slim and nil,” Quentin replied, “and we can’t afford a lack of certainty.”
“Neither can we afford the risks associated with firing Gatling guns and air-to-air missiles over densely populated areas,” Lance said. “Those bullets and rockets, if they missed, would end up on the ground, and no one could predict where.”
“I can suggest a way to get one clean shot at them,” Quentin said.
“Please do so,” Lance replied.
“I can’t speak for MI6, but in Washington we have the possibility of stationing an armed drone above the Dahai building and firing on a drone the second it tried to take off.”
“That is a possibility in London, as well,” Ian said. “But if something goes wrong, then what?”
“It seems clear to me,” Lance said, “that we cannot allow those drones, if that is what they are, to be launched, and that we must use whatever means are at our disposal to see that they are not.”
“And face the consequences later?” Dame Felicity asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Lance replied.
“We certainly cannot do that without the concurrence of our masters,” she said.
“I agree, of course,” Lance said. “In the meantime, we must do everything in our power to bolster our case, and it seems inevitable that that will require the laying on of eyes on both of these rooftops, even if the means are extra-legal.”
“I agree,” Dame Felicity said.
“The question is,” Lance pointed out, “shall we ask permission, or shall we just do it and preserve deniability for our superiors?”
“I will have to go to the prime minister,” Dame Felicity said.
“Then I will go to the president,” Lance Cabot replied. “Shall we conference again when we have done that?”
“Agreed.” The conference call ended, and the participants returned to their work.
Millie and Quentin returned to the conference room. “I have to use your office to make a call,” she said.
“Go ahead,” Quentin replied.
Millie went into the room, closed the door behind her, and called Holly Barker.
59
STONE LOOKED out the window and saw the single runway of Presque Isle airport. As they turned to final approach, he searched the apron beside the runway for any sign of a Mustang and a King Air and saw neither. “Reeves didn’t beat us here,” he said to Dino.
“Did you see a King Air with NYPD painted on it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
&nbs
p; Pat set down the CJ4 lightly on the runway and braked. A moment later she was taxiing toward a waiting lineman near the FBO. She stopped and waited for the man to chock the nosewheel, then she shut down the engines and turned off the master switch. “Everybody stay on the airplane until customs tells us we can get off,” she said, as she made her way out of the cockpit, followed by her client. She opened the cabin door and flipped down the folding stairs, then they both took a seat.
“Good flight,” Stone said. “How much fuel did we have left? On landing?”
“Seven hundred pounds,” she replied.
“Very good. The winds held, huh?”
“They got better on the last third of the flight.”
“You’re a lucky pilot.”
A man stuck his head inside the door. “Who’s the captain?” Holly raised a hand, and he waved her out.
Dino followed her to the door and watched as she went down the stairs to meet them.
“Anything to declare?” The customs man asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, handing him a sheet of paper. “Here’s our general declaration.”
“There are several police officers waiting for you in the FBO,” the man said.
“May we go inside?”
“You’re cleared. Go ahead.”
Dino got down from the airplane, followed by Stone and the client. Dino showed them his ID. “We’re expecting two men in a Mustang,” he said, “and we’re going to arrest them.”
“We were notified of only one man, a Paul Reeves,” the customs man said.
“There will be another man aboard. You may have to look for him, and you should do so armed, because he will be.”
“Whatever you say.”
