Sting of the Drone

by Clarke, Richard A

  Sandra muted the microphone and turned to Ray Bowman. “We give each targeted terrorist a code word name. Civil War battles. Whatever. Now we are on old cars.”

  Winston Burrell walked in and sat next down to Sandra, who remained at the head of the table. “Keep going, this is your show,” he said.

  “Erik, there is too much cloud cover in this image for me to authorize a shot,” she said.

  “If we go lower, they will hear the bird,” the Colonel replied.

  “Go lower.”

  The image on the screen showed the clouds disappearing and then a lone SUV moving slowly on a road. Two minutes later the Toyota pulled abruptly off the road and halted. Three men burst out of the vehicle, each running in a different direction, diving under the low scrub bushes that lined the road.

  “They think they can hide,” Erik’s voice said over the speaker. As he spoke, the image on the screen changed to black and white with shades of gray. “The infrared cam has all three targets fixed.”

  Sandra looked at Burrell, who nodded, got up, and walked out of the room. She looked into the video camera above the flat screen. “I judge that we have located an HVI on the target list and two of his body guards. I have determined that there is no apparent risk of collateral damage. I have obtained the necessary clearances and I authorize weapons release.”

  Within seconds, the image on the screen was showing three explosions. “How much do each of those missiles cost?” Ray asked, after muting the microphone.

  “You don’t want to know. A lot more than a nine millimeter bullet,” she replied. “But a lot less than the cost of a U.S. embassy blowing up.”

  The videoconference continued, as the operation went into the Bomb Damage Assessment phase and the wait for compatriots who might show up. Ray kept the microphone muted. “Sandy, Winston has asked me to watch out for you. That means intel support, being the political eyes and ears in this town, doing counterintel and force protection analysis, everything. In short, I got your back.” He hesitated a moment. “It’s been a few years, but, as I recall, it’s quite a lovely back.”

  Sandra flashed on a night in London six years earlier. “Watch it, Ray.”

  Erik Parson’s voice came out of the speaker on the wall, “Kill Conference closed.”

  6

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 14

  WORLD WIDE NEWS HEADQUARTERS

  NEW YORK, NY

  The bottom, again. She threw the ratings report in the waste bin under her desk, closed her eyes, and ran her left hand through her hair. Then Karen Rosen remembered that her office had a glass wall looking out onto the news floor. Everybody could see her, unless the curtain was pulled. And it wasn’t. She had to look positive, give no signs of impending doom to further demoralize the team.

  They really were the best news team left, the best international correspondents, the longest stories, in-depth coverage of issues. Yet, there they sat at the bottom of the cable ratings, getting little more than a million people in the United States in prime time. That meant three hundred and twenty million Americans watching something else, or worse yet, not watching at all, playing soldier on computer games or streaming pirated movies.

  What passed for news on the legacy networks was morning shows about diets and cooking, evening news about elderly people’s medical problems, and once a week a “magazine” show that was often indistinguishable from reality TV or Hollywood gossip. She had thought about moving to print, but the scene there was worse. Magazines were disappearing, Newsweek and U.S. News gone. Newspapers were dropping like flies and those that were left were trying to figure out how to make money online, putting things behind a pay wall that nobody was paying to penetrate.

  She looked across the newsroom, filled with a combination of grizzled veteran correspondents and editors and a bevy of young, enthusiastic twenty-somethings hoping to make a name for themselves while making the world better. Fred Garrison, the international editor, was standing, talking with the new Middle East rover kid, Brett something. She caught herself thinking that if that kid could look that sexy on camera, that would sell. She hit the intercom button to the International desk. “Fred, can you come in for a minute. And, is that Brett with you, bring him in for a second so I can just say hi to him.”

  “Hey, Karen, what’s up?” Fred Garrison said, walking into her office. “You know Bryce, of course.” He emphasized the name. “Bryce Duggan, our soon-to-be veteran war correspondent. How many combat assignments have you had in your first year on the job with us?”

  “Just three. Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” the young man beamed. He had three days of blond stubble, a build like that Olympic swimmer, and a shirt with too many buttons undone. Karen feigned disinterest. “Yes, of course, Duggan. You speak Arabic, if I recall correctly.”

  “Speak it, he majored in it at Toronto. Then a year at the Kennedy School before stringing for the FT in Cairo,” Garrison said. “He’s done great work so far. Just need to get him more airtime. And more money. He’s back for his first year review. I’m trying to find some money in my budget for a raise for him.” Duggan seemed to blush.

  “Well, more airtime we can easily do,” Karen smiled. “I’ve been thinking our viewers need to get to know our reporters better, see the same ones more regularly, build up a rapport with them. Maybe tie it in to some online stuff, like a reporter’s blog.”

  Garrison scowled. “We do have the same ones on night after night when they’re covering a persistent story, but most of the time stories only last a few days and then they don’t get back on for a couple of weeks. We can experiment with the blog thing, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of their time from the field reporting.”

  “Well, maybe a series. Get a topic, a theme, and travel around covering it from different places. Viewers could follow them, see how they have to travel, the backstory, get to know the reporter as well as the topic.” Karen was thinking out loud.

  “Got any ideas for a series, Bryce?” Garrison asked.

  “Sure, lots.” Duggan said. “How hard it is for millions of people to get drinkable water, the struggle young women are having challenging customs in the region, the growing gap in education—”

  “Hard news, Bryce, wars. We want to make you into a war correspondent,” Garrison countered.

  “Right, the next SCUD stud. Who was that guy in the First Gulf War who was always standing outside while everyone ran into the shelters when the SCUD missiles were falling all around him?” Karen said. Garrison suppressed a smile.

  “Well, we could do children made orphans by several different wars, we could try doing something on the drone strikes and how they are often counterproductive, or we could—” Bryce replied.

  “Drones, that’s it, drones. You go to each country where the U.S. is secretly flying drones. There was a great report on it from some university the other day, long thing, it’s on my desk,” Garrison said. “But, Karen, that would cost money. Eight, maybe ten, countries. Team of three, plus Bryce, some local security guys in some of these places, a little baksheesh, you know, walking-around money.”

  “I’ll find the money, including the raise. Give me a budget tomorrow morning, Fred,” she replied. “Nice to meet you, Bryce Duggan.” She kept her eyes on him as he walked back into the newsroom.

  7

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 15

  JAMSHED DISTRICT

  KARACHI, PAKISTAN

  “I hate this city,” the older Arab said.

  “You hate everything. That is why it so difficult for you to recruit new followers,” Bahadur replied.

  “We love Islam and we have no problem recruiting. We have enough people in America to do the attacks,” the younger Arab added.

  “Then why do you need us?” Bahadur answered. “If al Qaeda is still so strong, why us? Why don’t you do the attacks in America without us?”

  The older Arab looked Bahadur in the eye for a moment before replying. “We have learned not to expose our men in America. Too many have be
en lured into thinking they were talking to brothers, getting an assignment, a mission, only to be arrested by the FBI. The new people we have do nothing to risk being identified. They do not visit Islamist Web sites. They go only to the regular mosques. They buy no guns, no bomb material. They do no planning of missions. They wait. Our men will do the missions, but we need someone else to be the controllers, to set up the operations.”

  Bahadur hoped no one had followed the Arabs to this small appliance store in the Jamshed district of the sprawling city. Qazzani gang spotters were out in the neighborhood looking for signs of surveillance.

  “How did you find those people?” Bahadur asked.

  “Our friends in the U.S., the Ikhwan, they are often teachers, or bankers, or doctors. They look for young men who want to do a special Jihad. They send them out of America for vacations, never an Islamic country. Trinidad, Brazil, Mexico. There we meet them. We test them. Those who pass, we instruct on how to wait without attracting attention. Then they go back.”

  The younger man looked to the older Arab for confirmation that he could give more detail and then added, “Some of them we appoint as a cell chief. Each cell chief knows five to ten other men. The men know only their cell chief, but each one of them we give a special code word of his own. We give it when they pledge loyalty to al Qaeda. If someone recruits them to do a mission, if he does not say the code word, the men know the recruiter is FBI.”

  “We need you to build the bombs, to survey the targets, to coordinate the attacks,” the older Arab said, “but we have good people.”

  “These people, they are all Arabs?” Bahadur asked.

  “No, very few. Some are Somalis. Some Nigerians, but my friend,” the younger Arab smiled, “all are Americans. Either they were born there or they became citizens. No visas needed. They all have American passports.”

  Bahadur was beginning to think that perhaps Rashid Qazzani was right to take this contract from al Qaeda. They did need help, but not for everything. In the decade after 9/11 al Qaeda had gone underground in America. They had used good security procedures, cells in which most members knew only a few others. They were long-term sleepers who did nothing to attract attention. The Qazzanis would activate some of the networks, give them explosives, assign them targets, and leave before anything happened. For this simple task, they would get most of the special reserve fund that AQ Central had been building over the years, three hundred million euros.

  “And they will all die for you?” Bahadur asked.

  “No, most will not,” the older Arab admitted. “This is a new generation. They will not be suicides.” He lowered his head and his voice. “And they will want some money, maybe one million dollars each.”

  Bahadur smiled. “That will be in addition to our fee. Unlike you, we do what we do for money, not for Allah.” Suiciders were erratic, too much trouble, he thought. People who worked for one million dollars would be more reliable. And if they died in the blast anyway, or later when they came for the money, then that million might be something he could keep personally.

  “Very well,” the older Arab replied. “At least make zakat with some of the money.”

  “We do, but we have our own charities.” Bahadur laughed.

  The older Arab stared at him and then said, “I am told to offer you the names of some of our friends in the ISI, brothers who will assist you in fighting the drones. Some have quit the ISI, but still have connections; others are still on active service. We trust them. A few of them knew about Abbottabad.”

  He handed Bahadur a small notebook, code names and contact procedures. “Those at the beginning are the ones in the U.S. The ones in red at the end are the Pakistanis, the ISI. Loss of these names will mean men die.”

  Bahadur took the small green moleskin. “For us, this is business, but do not worry. We are very good at business.”

  8

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 14

  DEGREES BISTRO

  THE RITZ-CARLTON, GEORGETOWN

  WASHINGTON, DC

  She was already seated in the restaurant when Ray arrived, late. He had texted her to apologize that he was running behind schedule. He had left his car with the doorman, along with a big tip, and taken the big metal stairs, two at a time to the second floor. He worried she would take his tardiness as an insult. Instead, she seemed fully absorbed in her iPad, and a glass of Viognier. The bottle was on the table.

  “So sorry. No excuses,” Ray began.

  “No problem. I’m reading the new Alan Furst novel,” Sandra said, shutting down the iPad. “Hope you don’t mind I ordered the wine. I wanted something a little sharper than Chardonnay.” She poured him a glass. “Let me know what you think of it.”

  He sipped the tangy white wine and remembered why he had hit it off with her so well when they first met at a U.S.-UK intelligence liaison conference in London. She did not defer to him in the least. She did not make a point of doing things to prove she was his professional equal, she knew she was and had entirely internalized that. “So does the Agency book you into the Ritz now?” he asked.

  “Hell, no. I’ve just got so many Marriott points that I occasionally upgrade myself. The Agency had me in the Key Bridge over in Rosslyn, but this place is kind of funky. Red mood lights, high ceilings. Feels like a movie set from Batman or something. Big redbrick factory.”

  “It was a giant trash incinerator building that they, ah, repurposed as a hotel,” Ray explained. “Hence the name of this restaurant, Degrees. It used to get very hot in here.”

  “So, is it really getting very hot in here, in DC, for the drone program? You’re the big shot Washington insider,” Sandra said with a smile. “So maybe you can answer a question that has been floating around in my head as I try to fall asleep at night.”

  “This doesn’t sound good,” Ray replied.

  “No, really, it’s about work. It’s this: behind all the politicians posturing, why do you think so many regular Americans have a problem with drones? Because I just don’t get it. They’re just airplanes after all.”

  “Well, look, they aren’t really just airplanes. They’re different. I think they are less likely to hit the wrong guy or create a big blast on the ground, but people see them as Flying Killer Robots,” Ray said. “And people have a deep fear of armed robots.”

  “Well, yeah. Terminator. Who saw that movie and identified with the Schwarzenegger character? No one. We all wanted the human to beat him,” she said.

  “Right and no one rooted for the Borg bots in Star Trek. They were terrifying and seemed unbeatable. There are a dozen or more movies over the decades, all of which have conditioned us to fear killer robots, and now you get told that the U.S. has Flying Killer Robots?” Ray was on a roll. “There are all sorts of legitimate concerns about our drone policy being counterproductive or precedent setting, but at root, for a lot of people, there is a subconscious fear of armed robots going crazy and killing humans.”

  Sandra shook her head in a combination of disgust and disbelief. “Well, let me assure you that my drones do not have minds of their own. They’re not going to all gain consciousness one day, like in The Singularity, and start flying themselves and picking out their own targets.”

  “Maybe not, but I happen to know DARPA is funding some initial work on unmanned fighter planes that would shoot down enemy fighter planes with no human in the loop. Also bombers that would seek and destroy enemy tanks and missiles. Not quite minds of their own, but closer,” Ray said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “I’d have a real problem with eliminating the human in the loop,” Sandra replied.

  Ray chuckled. “That’s because you’re that human who’s in the loop. You just want job protection.”

  In an ever so delicate way, Sandra smiled and shot Raymond Bowman her middle finger.

  Ray laughed. “Do we always have to talk about work?”

  “You should talk,” Sandra replied. “Mr. Workaholic. Speaking of which, I heard you split up. I’m sorry. Permanent?�
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  Ray nodded affirmatively. “Afraid so, but it wasn’t just me who was more married to the job. She was always running off to refugee camps. First, it was the Horn of Africa, then Jordan. Last I heard from her she was in Chad. That’s where she was when she signed the divorce agreement. Almost a year now.”

  “First year’s the worst, trust me,” she said. “Frankly, I am a workaholic and I admit it. It’s what gives me pleasure. So without having to worry about Josh, I am a much happier little spook.”

  They were halfway through the main course when she realized they had emptied the bottle of white. She signaled to the waiter. “Can you bring us a bottle of the Papapietro?”

  “Italian?” Ray asked.

  “Yes, I am. Can’t you tell? Vittonelli. But the wine is from the Russian River. Sorry, I should have consulted you.”

  “No, no. I defer to you. You seem to know about wine. I’m forty-three-years old and still into beer. Arrested development,” Ray replied.

  “Shit. Are you really only forty-three? And now that Schwartz is retired you’re running the PEG? Maybe I’m the one with the arrested development,” she said, as the waiter brought the Pinot Noir.

  “And you are an old lady at forty-five? Running the joint DOD-CIA coordination center for all drone flights? Pretty damn important job. Better than station chief in Tunis.”

  Sandra Vittonelli stared into the deep purple fluid as she rolled it around in her glass. Still looking at the wine she said, “So you know my age and the job I was scheduled to take. Mr. Bowman, have you been illegally reading my personnel file?”