Riding the Red Horse

by Christopher Nuttall

  Tradition was always hard to overcome. But things were changing. The 111th now had 25 Reapers and 10 Grimms in the place of the A-10 Thunderbolts it had once flown, and had used them to rack up more confirmed kills in the last year than any traditional fighter wing in the Air Force. Targeted drone strikes might be considerably less glamorous than high-altitude bombing or dogfighting, but no one could deny that they were a damned sight more useful these days in light of the understandable reluctance of the Red Chinese, the Russians, or anyone else to challenge American air supremacy.

  And under his command, the 111th boasted the third highest kill rate per mission of the 72 drone bases around the country. Perhaps more impressively, his operators had only lost one bird, an old model Global Hawk that was hacked and diverted by unknown parties while flying over Ghana. Ronald assumed it was the Chinese, since no one ever took credit for the exploit and neither the Iranians nor the jihadists were inclined to keep their mouths shut whenever they seized a drone.

  “Sir, your plane is ready,” a lieutenant informed him.

  He nodded. “Remind Bart that I won't be back until Monday, Eric.” Bart was Colonel Corbett, the wing's Vice Commander and Ronald's second-in-command.

  “Will do, Colonel. Have a safe trip.” Captain Hainesworth saluted crisply and Ronald acknowledged it. He stopped by his office long enough to slip the legal pad into his attache, tucked his lid under his arm, and made his way out to the tarmac. One benefit of commanding an Air Force base, even if it was a fighter wing without any fighters, was having ready access to air transportation.

  The T-6A Texan II, one of the base's two trainers, was already warmed up and waiting for him. The Beechcraft was no speed demon, but it would get him to Fort Drum before he would even have been able to board a commercial flight in Philadelphia. His garment bag was already stowed underneath, so he gave the pilot, a captain by the name of John Hallowell, a thumb's up as soon as he was strapped in.

  Ronald would have preferred to fly himself, but these flights were too good an opportunity to see how the younger officers comported themselves to pass up. And it was nice to relax in the back seat, knowing that no one would ambush him with questions or urgent matters requiring immediate resolution. The skies were clear, the takeoff was smooth, and Hallowell proved to be pleasantly taciturn. They had barely reached cruising altitude before Ronald fell asleep.

  Fort Drum was considerably busier than Horsham and its security was much tighter. Once they were on the ground, he and Hallowell were met by a pair of muscular infantrymen, who escorted Ronald to a black Suburban that ferried him to an unexpectedly beautiful cream-colored mansion featuring four massive white pillars in the front. There he was greeted by an Army colonel, his garment bag was collected by a lieutenant, and he was shown into a well-appointed, high-ceilinged meeting room in which there were eleven officers wearing the uniforms of four different service branches.

  There were four other Air Force men, one general and three colonels, five Army generals, one rear admiral, and a short Marine general who looked rather like the bulldog that served as his Corps's mascot. He didn't recognize most of them, but he knew they were his counterparts, commanders of various drone bases from Florida to Alaska.

  “There's the man of the hour!” General William Norstad, commander of SATGO, was a tall man whose broad shoulders bore three stars apiece. “Colonel James, allow me to be the first to congratulate you. And someone get this man a beer!”

  “Thank you, General.” James smiled at the blank looks on the faces of the men from the other three forces. “We had some first-rate support from the intelligence community.”

  “Earlier this morning, a Grimm pilot under Colonel James's command terminated with what can only be described as extreme prejudice both Aden al-Muhajir and Osama al-Ansari, numbers twelve and eighteen on our priority list.”

  “Just doing our job, General.” The officers with their hands free clapped, others raised their drinks in salute. Three more officers arrived, including another Air Force general, and they, too, came over to congratulate James and shake his hand as the reason for the celebratory mood was explained to them.

  However, once all sixteen of the invited commanders were present, Norstad's face grew more serious and he urged them all to take a seat and get comfortable.

  “I'm sure most of you are wondering what the purpose of this interservice conclave is. As I expect you will have worked out by now, all of you command drone bases located on U.S. soil. As it happens, you represent sixteen of the twenty-five most effective drone commands in terms of kill-to-mission ratio. I think it speaks well of the armed forces that each branch is represented here today; it appears excellence in unmanned flight operations is not limited to the U.S. Air Force!”

  There were a few groans at this, but in light of Norstad's compliments, the officers from the other service branches were inclined to let the little dig go.

  “However, the nature of war is such that no success long goes unremarked by the enemy. As with the laws of physics, for every action there is bound to be a reaction of some kind. In the last four years, our drones have successfully targeted over fifty-six hundred enemy combatants and proven to be our most effective weapon in the ongoing effort against terrorists and militant extremists around the globe. So, it is not surprising that the enemy appears to have embarked upon a new strategy, one that involves attacking our drone pilots and sensor operators here in the United States of America!”

  There was more than a little murmuring at this, but James exchanged a glance with the Marine general, who nodded at him, his face showing absolutely no surprise. Had the Marines lost any pilots, or was this simply the Corps's storied stoicism in action?

  “In the last six months, fourteen drone pilots and three sensor operators have been found dead in circumstances ranging from deeply suspicious to seemingly innocuous. In addition, eight non-flying staff officers have either been murdered or committed suicide, inexplicably in the case of the latter. These deaths fall within the range of statistical probability, athough they are on the high side, and none of them show any overt signs of being the result of terrorist activity. Moreover, the 25 deaths were spread out among twenty different bases, which is why no one recognized the pattern until there was a reason to go looking for it.”

  “What sort of reason was that, General?”

  Norstad smiled grimly and turned to face the Army general who'd asked the question. “Two weeks ago, the National Security Agency contacted SATGO with regards to intel it harvested from a social media site. We were informed that a YouTube channel was being used by a militant branch of Parisian jihadists to disseminate coded messages in retro music videos, hiding their communications in plain sight. Apparently single frames consisting of one letter were being inserted into the videos, which were invisible at a normal 24 frames-per-second rate, but allowed the viewer to read the message when the video was slowed down.”

  “Are you're saying that a connection between some of these deaths and the YouTube videos has been established? Or is this just civilian conjecture?” The admiral from Pax River sounded skeptical.

  “All the videos associated with that channel have been analyzed. They contained direct references to eighteen of the twenty bases previously mentioned.”

  And with that, the room fell into stunned silence. Norstad nodded. “We are no longer the predators, gentlemen, we are now the prey. In consultation with the NSA and the FBI, SATGO is in the process of developing an enhanced security protocol for all drone bases, foreign and domestic, with a particular emphasis on the bases deemed to be at the greatest risk. I assume you grasp, gentlemen, that your own bases are most certainly among those most likely to be targeted.”

  “How many of those twenty bases that have already been hit are represented here, General?”

  Norstad gave the Marine general a tight smile. “Twelve of them, General. Twelve of them.”

  That provoked a mild uproar of protest and disbelief. “That's not possi
ble!” “It was a car accident!” “The coroner's report was inconclusive!” Norstad quelled them by raising his hand.

  “You see what we are up against. Even when faced with circumstantial evidence of enemy action, you find it hard to believe. Now, perhaps there are some elements of coincidence in play here, but the FBI, with the assistance of both CID and NCIS, is investigating each of the 25 cases and will do its best to either confirm or reject the apparent connection between the militants' videos and the deaths of the base personnel.”

  James was wracking his brain to see if he could recall any deaths among the service personnel at Horsham. One staff sergeant had been in a fairly serious car accident, but it wasn't a fatal one. And he certainly hadn't lost any pilots or operators, they were woefully understaffed and losing one would have not only forced him to reschedule the flight roster, but cut down on the number of missions they were flying. No, he concluded, his command was not among the twelve that had been—may have been—targeted.

  Even so, it was a frightening thought. As a consequence of viewing hundreds of hours of camera footage filmed over cities from Accra to London, he knew much better than most how the militants moved invisibly through the innocent crowds at will. And while it might be a little harder to infiltrate a predominantly white suburban community like Willow Grove than the banlieues of Paris, Willow Grove was only twenty miles away from Philadelphia and neighborhoods where an African jihadist would attract considerably less attention from the average resident than James himself.

  The rest of the conclave consisted of a brainstorming session concerning how they could beef up security for their personnel, how much information could reasonably be released to both personnel and public without causing unnecessary panic, and an idea for an interservice line of communications for reporting any incidents that might indicate militant activity was outlined. But they all knew they were doing little more than whistling through the graveyard. As the shootings at Fort Hood, Quantico, and the Navy Yard proved, it was impossible to eliminate the dangers posed by a determined killer.

  Two hours later, James was offered a ride back to his plane by General Norstad, who had his own plane on standby.

  “You kept your thoughts to yourself in there, Ron,” the general observed.”

  “It's not that I'm not grateful for the warning, General. I'm just dubious that we'll be able to do much more than pick up the pieces afterward.”

  “You're right. In fact, several members of my staff were very strongly of the opinion that we should simply leave you all in the dark. But my thinking is that if there is a solution to be found, the sort of men who were in that room are the men most likely to find it.” He met James's eyes and nodded. “I asked you to ride along for a reason. First, to tell you to call me Bill. I think we're going to be working together more often in the future and you may as well get used to it. Second, I want to ask you if you think you're ready to keep more than 35 birds in the air.”

  “Sir?”

  “Jim Cooper will be on the next general's list. He's moving on from Creech to a command in Europe six weeks from now. That means the 432nd Wing is in need of a commander.”

  James blinked, astonished. The 432nd was the Air Force's premier UAV wing, with five times more drones than the 111th and nearly 500 aircrew members. It wasn't so much a step up as a great leap forward. “You want to give me the 432nd?”

  “I think you're the man for it, Ron. However, there's just one catch.”

  Of course there was. “What's that?”

  “I want you to head up that interservice communication system we discussed. Nothing official, you understand. If we try to make it formal then it will wind up having to go through the Joint Chiefs and it will be two years before anyone can tell anyone else what he had for breakfast. But a regular flow of scuttlebutt between base commanders about any car accidents or steel-jacketed lead overdoses, with someone keeping notes, might be extremely useful if our friends at the NSA happen to be correct about the opfor bringing the battle to us.”

  James nodded. It made sense. And he understood the reason for the catch too. A pissant colonel on a National Air Guard base didn't have the juice to be at the center of that sort of informal network. But the commander of the 432nd undoubtedly did. And if he didn't screw up, there was every chance that he'd get his star sooner rather than not at all.

  He took a deep breath. “I'll be glad to do it, Bill. If you think I can do it, then I'm your man.”

  The general extended his hand and smiled. “I don't think you can, Ron. I know you can.”

  “How was your meeting, honey?” He didn't know if it was his good mood or not, but Jennifer was looking particularly vivacious in her t-shirt and jeans as she greeted him in the kitchen.

  “It was… interesting. They have unusual opinions on base housing, to say the least. How do you feel about Nevada?”

  “Nevada? I don't know that I've ever thought about it.” She frowned. Then her eyes widened. “You don't mean Creech!”

  He grinned. “That's exactly what I mean.”

  “Oh, honey!” She leaped into his arms. “That's wonderful!”

  He laughed, and carefully disengaged himself from her. “It's not official yet. And it doesn't necessarily mean I'll make flag rank.”

  “But it means you probably will?”

  “If I don't manage to screw up by dropping a Hellfire on Windsor Castle or something, yeah, I probably will.”

  “Ha!” she exclaimed and kissed him enthusiastically. “I told Bonnie you'd get your first star before Robert did.”

  “It's not a competition!”

  “Don't be silly, Ron. Everything is a competition. Especially among military wives. You have no idea how many condescending women were reassuring me after you took this command instead of staying on at Beale. What unit are they giving you?”

  “The 432nd. It has 245 birds, and 488 pilots and operators. Another 350 maintenance personnel, plus the usual catalog of contractors. It's a pretty big step up from here. Bigger than I'd anticipated, to be honest.”

  “Wow,” she marveled.” She pounded his chest with her open palm. “This calls for a celebration, Colonel James! How do you feel about steaks?”

  “I feel very strongly that they should be preceded by a bottle of beer,” he said, opening the refrigerator. “Possibly two. And, by the way, not one word to the kids, not until it's settled. I don't want to upset them in case it turns out to be a false alarm.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, “the kids! Bruce will be all right now that the football season is over, but Michaela will be devastated!”

  “She'll be all right,” James reassured her. “She's a tough kid and this is hardly the first time we've moved.”

  It was ten days before his official notification was scheduled to arrive. He and Jennifer had done what they could to prepare the children for the possibility that they would be leaving Willow Grove, but any guilt that he felt over uprooting them again was drowned out by his excitement at the challenge of overseeing up to twenty missions per day. He'd reviewed as much material from Creech as he could quietly obtain from his various connections around the Air Force, and from what he'd gleaned, both on and off the record, was that the former Colonel Cooper's methods left a good bit of room for improvement. The 432nd's kill-to-mission rate wasn't bad for such a large operation, although it was less than half that of the 111th, but it soon became clear that Cooper was a bit of a cowboy who wasn't terribly averse to collateral damage.

  James winced as he read about a school in Kurdistan, a church mistaken for a mosque in Nigeria, and a blue-on-blue incident that took the lives of three Marines in Iraq. Such incidents were tragic, but worse, they were absolutely unnecessary. It was clear that a little patience on the part of the pilot would have sufficed to avoid each of the three incidents. Such failures, he knew, were down to the commander and the atmosphere he'd constructed. And although it was painful to review the details of the various collaterals, the mistakes did give him conf
idence that he would be able to prove worthy of General Norstad's trust and improve the unit's performance.

  He was being driven home from the base by Mike Hernandez, his driver for the last three months, when he noticed that the car was not traveling on its customary route. He looked out the window, a little confused as to why the corporal had turned off the main road, and didn't recognize the neighborhood.

  “What's going on, Corporal.”

  “Traffic detour, Colonel,” Hernandez answered, his eyes never leaving the road.

  That made sense, James thought, although he hadn't noticed any of the customary orange signs. But he began to grow suspicious that something was amiss when Hernandez abruptly pulled into an elementary school parking lot without warning. The lot was empty except for a white Ford, against which a short, slender man wearing a Phillies cap was casually leaning.

  “Mike?”

  “This man wants to talk to you, Colonel. I understand it's very important.”

  “What the hell is this, Mike? I don't give a damn what he wants–”

  For the first time, Hernandez turned to look into the back seat and James recoiled from the unexpectedly arrogant look in the man's dark eyes. “Shut your mouth, Colonel. Now, get out of the car and talk to the man. He's waiting for you.”

  For the first time, James felt the cold sensation of fear enter his body. What was wrong with Hernandez? Had he been subverted? It was worrisome, but somehow, this didn't feel like an assassination attempt. He took a deep breath, then opened the door and stepped out of the car. Hernandez got out too, but he did not follow.

  The man wearing the baseball cap smiled and held up a tablet. He was dark-skinned and handsome, with hawkish features. “Good evening, Colonel. You will excuse the interruption, I hope. I have something to show you, Colonel. You will find it of interest, I think.”

  “All right. Who are you? What's your name?”

  “You can call me David.” The man tapped the tablet. “Here, have a look.”