by Dale Brown
“So even if we turn on the beacon and move the drone away, it can still be hit by another plane?”
“Unlikely . . . but yes, it . . .”
“Masters, I think the odds of something happening are much lower than you’re telling me,” Chastain interjected. “The drone is out in the middle of nowhere, more than a hundred miles from the nearest city; people aren’t flying anyway because of the shitty economy; and even if they were, the odds of two planes being at the same spot at the same time are astronomical. You people that whine all day about safety, safety, safety drive guys who are trying to get the job done, like me, absolutely crazy. Now quit your damned bitching and orbit that compound.”
Jon finally gave up, and he nodded to Jeff to have the Sparrowhawk orbit the ranch. “Make the altitude seventeen thousand feet,” he told his technician. “If they’re on an IFR flight plan, they’ll be at either sixteen or seventeen, so we should be able to see them on the FAA feed.”
“Is that too high?” Chastain asked. “I want detailed imagery of that compound.”
“The sensors on the Sparrowhawk are optimized for ten thousand feet aboveground, which is fifteen thousand feet above mean sea level,” Jon said, “but the resolution is perfectly fine at—”
“Then put the damned drone at fifteen thousand,” Chastain said. “Why in hell would you have it fly higher?”
“Because . . .” He was going to say, It’s safer, but it was obvious that Chastain didn’t much care for the “safety” argument. Jon turned to Jeff. “Put Sparrowhawk at fifteen thousand,” he said. “Let’s notify Oakland, Seattle, and Salt Lake Centers of the altitude change.”
“Do what?” Chastain asked.
“We coordinate all flight activities with Seattle, Oakland, and Salt Lake air traffic control centers,” Jon said. “They don’t disseminate the information without telling us first, but we have to tell them. They can see most primary-target traffic on radar so they—”
“Primary targets?”
“Radar returns that don’t have transponder data such as altitude and identification codes.”
“Speak English, would you please, Masters?”
“It’s important we coordinate with them,” Jon said. “If they’re in radio contact with other traffic, they can advise them of the Sparrowhawk’s position so they can help them avoid it.”
“Fine, fine,” Chastain said dismissively. “As long as they don’t interfere.”
This was incredibly risky, Jon thought, but he issued the orders to put the Sparrowhawk at fifteen thousand feet, then put in a call to air traffic control facilities in Sacramento and Salt Lake City, advising them of the Sparrowhawk’s orbit.
Jon was soon able to relax as the day went on. It looked like Chastain was probably going to be correct: there was very little traffic in the Sparrowhawk’s orbital area. Only once did they have to steer the unmanned aircraft off the airway for a bizjet descending into Reno, and the two aircraft passed well clear of each other without the bizjet’s crew having to turn to avoid the UAV.
They were getting excellent images of the suspect’s entire desert facility, and it was indeed very impressive. It resembled a medieval town, with crop circles and groves of fruit trees in the outlying area, stockyards and maintenance buildings inside that, a variety of housing units from cabins to tents next, then a tall chain-link and stone fence surrounding the main compound. Inside the main compound were several houses, barns, warehouses, storage tanks, and an outdoor meeting area large enough for perhaps five hundred people. They saw several small sheds that many persons walked in and out of, way out of proportion to its size—that had to be entrances to an underground facility.
“All of that activity is being recorded and analyzed by our computers,” Jon said. “Then over time the computers will compare activity at certain times in different locations. If there’s a change in activity—a sudden marshaling of vehicles, or a large movement of people that’s out of the ordinary—the computer will alert us.”
“My agents have been doing that for decades, Masters—it’s called ‘police work,’ ” Chastain said dismissively, taking a sip of coffee and carefully studying the monitors. “Again with the sales pitch. Do you mind? We’re trying to work here.”
Jon held his hands up in surrender and departed.
Andorsen Park, Battle Mountain
Later that afternoon
Talk about coming down from an extreme high, Bradley thought: this morning I was soloing a high-tech turboprop airplane—now I’m scrubbing toilets for six dollars an hour, and thankful I’m doing so.
Brad picked up his cleanup kit and headed out of the men’s room at the city park’s rest facilities. It was still very warm, so the park was empty, but closer to sunset, folks would come out to barbecue or hang out. Brad was a sort of part-time security guard as well as janitor and maintenance man: if there were any problems, such as drug, alcohol, or hooker issues, his job was to call the police and get help; otherwise, his job was to clean the johns and urinals, empty the trash bins, and wipe down benches. After finishing the men’s toilets, his job was to scrub the women’s toilets, so he put out all the “Cleaners Working” and “Use Caution—Wet Floors” signs on his way to mucking out the ladies’ room.
A few minutes into his labors, he heard a voice say, “Hey, I know you.” He turned and found Department of Homeland Security special agent Cassandra Renaldo alone in the bathroom with him.
“Hello,” Brad said. Jeez, he thought, she looked hotter than ever. “What a . . . surprise.”
“Why, it’s Cadet Bradley James McLanahan, the Civil Air Patrol rescue hero,” Renaldo said. “Fancy meeting you here. Remember me? I’m Cassandra. Cassandra Renaldo.”
Oh yeah, I damn well do remember, he thought, checking out her breasts once again. He could see her hard nipples through her thin blouse from all the way across the bathroom. “I work here,” was all Brad could say, swallowing hard.
“You do?” Renaldo said.
“Just part-time.”
“Why, I think that is very diligent of you,” Renaldo said. “What a weird coincidence. I was heading out to Salt Lake City for a staff conference tomorrow morning, and I left the base without . . . you know, without stopping, and I spotted the park and decided to stop here. I was thinking of you. I thought, you are such an impressive young man. And suddenly poof, here you are, all by yourself, in the flesh. How lucky can I get?”
“Uh-huh,” Brad heard himself say.
“I think it’s so incredible that young men like you step up and get the training and perform the services you do in the Civil Air Patrol,” Renaldo said. “The whole world is changing, and young men like you are taking the lead in protecting your country and saving lives. You are so incredible, Bradley. Thank you so very much for your service.”
“You’re welcome.” He couldn’t seem to manage to get more than two or three words out at a time.
“So,” Renaldo said, putting her hands together, “are you . . . going to be done soon?”
“Oh!” Brad said, looking at the scrub brush and the gloves on his hands as if he forgot he had them on. “I’ll just get on out of here and wait . . . until . . . you know . . .”
“Okay.” As he walked toward the door, she put out an arm to stop him. “Brad? Can I call you Brad?”
“S-sure.”
“And you can call me Cassie.” She lowered her eyes. “I have a confession to make.”
“W-what?”
“I didn’t just happen to stop here on my way to Salt Lake City,” Renaldo said, looking deeply into his eyes and taking a deep breath, which only accentuated her breasts even more. “I knew you were going to be here.”
“You did? How?”
“It’s my job to find out things like that,” she said. “But the thing is . . . I learned that not because of business, but because I wanted to see you.” She lowered her eyes again. “I could lose my job if anyone found out.”
“Found out what?”
> “That . . . that I’m turned on by you,” Renaldo said. “You’re a hardworking, dedicated guy, but”—she put a hand on his chest—“but you’re also great-looking, and you have this hard young body, and I’m just plain turned on by you. I know I could lose my job if anyone ever found out I followed you here, but right now I don’t care. And I saw the way you looked at me back on that first day in the hangar. I was flattered. That makes me even hotter for you.” She stepped closer to him. “Brad, can . . . can I kiss you?” All he could do was stand there and sweat. “I know you just turned eighteen today, so you’re a man, and that turns me on even more. I love hard, strong young men.” And she lightly touched his lips with hers, with the very tips of her nipples pressing against his chest.
“I knew you would have soft lips,” she murmured. “Hard-body guys always have soft lips.” She backed away, her eyes still closed, and she smiled when she opened them and saw Brad frozen like a statue in front of her. She pressed a card into his hand. “Call me sometime on my cell when we can . . . be alone,” she said. “And please, Brad, keep this a secret. My career depends on your discretion.” And she turned and walked out.
Brad stood there, still frozen, until he heard Renaldo’s car door slam and the engine start up . . . and when he was able to move, he found his legs as weak and rubbery as straws.
How in the world, he thought after a long breathless moment, am I going to get anything else done today . . . with no damned blood above my waist?
Joint Air Base Battle Mountain
Four days later
“I’d say that was a very successful first deployment,” Jon Masters said. He had just ordered the first Sparrowhawk remotely piloted aircraft back to base, and the second was en route to take up the surveillance orbit. “Almost five straight days on station, and we gathered a ton of useful data on the routine in that compound.”
“But we don’t know anything more than we did five days ago,” Special Agent Chastain grumbled.
“We know a lot more,” Jon said. “If there’s any meaningful change in the routine, we’ll know about it right away, and we can launch a Sparrowhawk to follow up. Any change in the number of residents, new vehicles, large meetings, new construction, any new fortifications, even changes in temperature of individual buildings—the computer will notify us.”
“I wish we could identify some of those individuals down there,” the agent named Brady said.
“We’re working on face-recognition capabilities for some of our remotely piloted aircraft,” Jon said. “Ten thousand feet and overhead is not a good position to get a good shot of a face, but an unmanned plane at a lower altitude and standing off would have a better angle at a face. After that, it’s just biometric comparison done by computer—we’ve been doing that for years.”
“You’re always with the damned sales pitch, Masters,” Chastain snapped, “but we’ve been sitting here for four damned days and we haven’t seen a thing that helps our investigation.” He studied the laptop monitors. “If we flew the drone lower, we’d get better resolution on these pictures, right?”
“The sensors are optimized for ten thousand feet aboveground,” Jon replied. “The resolution will always be better the lower you go, but usually we go for the best resolution at a higher altitude, not lower. The lower you go, the more likely it is for your target to spot the aircraft. We also have problems with data transmission and interference from local radio and TV broadcasts, not to mention having to think about terrain and obstacle avoidance. We usually—”
“I’m not interested in what you ‘usually’ do, Masters,” Chastain said. “I’m only interested in results. Fly the drone at ten thousand feet.”
“But . . . that’s less than a mile aboveground,” Jon said. “Most folks can see large aircraft quite easily if they’re less than a mile up.”
“No, they can’t.”
“And ten thousand is the minimum en route altitude for the Victor-113 airway,” Jeff the aircraft control technician chimed in. “Any small aircraft flying the airway heading southwest will pick ten thousand feet.”
“We’ve been flying the drone right on the damned airway for five days and we’ve had to move it . . . what, twice?” Chastain argued. “And even if we didn’t move the drone, it would’ve missed the other traffic by miles. There’s no traffic up there we need to worry about. Fly the drone at eleven thousand.”
“That puts it right at the altitude that northeast-bound traffic flies,” Jeff said.
“Then add five hundred feet, or six hundred, I don’t care, just do it!” Chastain snapped. “I’m tired of you eggheads arguing with me. Change the altitude, and do it now, or I’ll recommend to Washington that we get someone else to do the job.” Jon nodded to Jeff, who put in the commands on the laptop. “When does the first drone return to our airspace?”
“In about twenty minutes.”
“Make sure the airspace is closed down again, and fly the thing so it stays away from populated areas,” Chastain said. “We’ll have it orbit inside protected airspace until dark, then land it.” Jeff selected North Peak, about fifteen miles west of Battle Mountain and clear of all airways, to orbit the Sparrowhawk, and he was careful to turn on its transponder beacon to help air traffic control steer other aircraft away from it. Jon contacted air traffic control and advised them of the orbiting unmanned aircraft.
Time passed much as it had done the previous four days. With both Sparrowhawks flying, Charlie Turlock was able to use the interior of the hangar during the daytime to help Agent Randolph Savoy train in the Cybernetic Infantry Device robots, and as she expected, he was a very fast learner; at night, they trained outdoors. Wayne Macomber watched, but kept to himself most of the time, using rubber cables to keep up with his rehabilitation exercises. “Any questions, Randolph?” Charlie asked after their last session ended.
“None,” Savoy said. “You were right: it’s pretty intuitive and straightforward to learn how to pilot these things.” The other agents looked over and shook their heads at the sight of the two massive mechanical humanoids conversing in electronic voices, as if they were acquaintances who had just met on the street.
“The whole idea was to issue CID robots to young, qualified soldiers right out of basic training, so it had to be easy to learn,” Charlie said. “Combat training is a whole different story: the basic combat course is two months, and each weapon backpack is another two weeks, plus range time. But if we had the funding, we could field an army of CIDs.” She stepped over to the storage container, climbed out, then initiated the refolding and stowage sequences, and Savoy did likewise. “Now I guess we wait to see what they find at that Knight compound.”
The images from the second Sparrowhawk orbiting at the lower altitude were indeed much better, and now the federal agents crowded around the wide-screen laptop, studying the compound carefully. “Look at the heavy weapons those guys have in there,” the agent named Brady said, pointing at the screen. “There’s at least four machine-gun squads right there.”
“Looks like they’re getting ready for something,” Chastain said. “Looks like we might need the robots after . . .” Just then, the image went blank. “What happened?”
“I told you that might happen,” Jon Masters said. “The lower altitude means more interference.” They waited, but the image did not reappear.
“Jon, we might have a problem—I’m not getting flight data from Sparrowhawk Two,” Jeff said. “We might have lost satellite contact.”
“What the hell does that mean, Masters?” Chastain asked impatiently.
“It’s no big deal,” Jon said. “It’ll orbit the area until satellite contact is restored. If it’s not restored within two hours, it’s programmed to return to the airport.”
“Send the other drone back over the compound,” Chastain said. “The Knights looked like they’re getting ready for something—I need to know what’s going on.”
“It’ll have to fly higher than ten thousand.”
�
�But we were getting great shots at ten thousand,” Chastain said.
“We don’t know where the second Sparrowhawk is,” Jon said. “We can’t fly it at the same altitude as the first.”
“Then fly it at nine thousand.”
“That’s only four thousand feet aboveground!”
“I don’t care. Just do it.”
“It can’t stay on station for very long,” Jeff reminded them. “It’s already been airborne four days.”
“How long can it stay?”
Jeff turned to the first Sparrowhawk’s flight-data screen . . . and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Uh, Jon . . .” Jon looked . . . and found the flight data on the first Sparrowhawk blank as well!
“What the hell happened?”
“Not now, Chastain,” Jon said, pushing Jeff out of the way and frantically typing instructions into the laptop. He waited for a few moments, then pounded the desk in frustration. “Get Bidwell and Henderson out there to check the satellite uplink and network connectivity, now,” he shouted, jabbing a finger at Jeff. “If they don’t find anything wrong, have them hardwire the computer interfaces with the uplink and antenna instead of using the wireless routers. Reboot the computers and run the network and I-O diagnostics before reinitializing the software. Call Las Vegas and have the entire staff stand by—no, better yet, have them send the entire Sparrowhawk team up here.”
“Masters, what’s going on?”
“We’ve lost contact with both Sparrowhawks,” Jon said, staring at the blank data readouts in complete bewilderment. “Losing one is bad, but it happens—losing both at the same time is a freakin’ disaster.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve got two hours until they start heading back to base. Make sure the airspace is clear. I’ll talk to air traffic control and see if they have primary radar hits on either one of them.”
The next two hours was a flurry of activity inside and outside the hangar. As they got closer to the arrival time, Patrick drove Jon and Special Agent Chastain in the airfield operations truck to the taxiway intersection closest to the approach end of the arrival runway and started scanning the sky for the Sparrowhawks. It was not yet sunset, but the eastern sky was dark enough to prevent seeing any aircraft unless its position and landing lights were on. “What did air traffic control say, Jon?” Patrick asked.
