Dragonflies: Shadow of Drones (14 page)

28

The construction company pickup wasn’t the fastest thing Tye had ever driven, but it was fast enough. After belting in and starting the engine, he threw the truck into gear, turned the wheel and gunned the accelerator to carry the vehicle, which had been facing in the opposite direction, in a tight arc back toward the entrance.

The first shots from the two guards flew wide of the accelerating cab, but soon one struck the back pillar just aft of Tye’s window. He returned fire out the window with his left hand as he came around, not really expecting to hit much of anything, the black weight of the Beretta jumping against his palm. He kept the accelerator to the floor and the tires of the pickup began to lose grip, causing the truck to fishtail, but he corrected with his free hand. All he needed to do was reach the alley.

The male agent broke cover, attempting to make it back to the alley entrance before Tye did. Tye took a firm grip on the gun with as good an aim as he was able to muster with his off hand, and lead the running agent by a step. He squeezed the trigger, putting the guy down with a hit to the neck.

“Lucky shot,” he said to himself.

More bullets came whizzing in from the remaining shooter. One shattered a headlight, another struck the passenger door, and yet another the front fender. He continued to gun the engine and three or four seconds later sailed into the front of the alleyway, swerving around the big construction dumpster.

The alleyway was less than a block long. He crouched as low as he could, peering over the dash to see where he was going and seeing the remaining agents, apparently not expecting to be ambushed and still trying to figure out what was going on, scrambling for cover with few options left to them in the narrowness of the alley than their own vehicles and the van.

More shots rang out. A round blew out most of his windshield. But the speeding truck was the major weapon in play now, which his adversaries had been too slow to appreciate.

Tye wrenched the wheel to the right, sideswiping the first of the sedans, catching one of the remaining agents with his front fender, the guy’s body bouncing with a sickly thud against the side of the truck. Another agent stood directly between him and the van, firing off more rounds into the windshield and grill. Gutsy.

Tye plowed into him head on and the truck bucked and the wheel was almost jerked from his hand with the impact.

In the next instant he slammed into the back of the van with a loud bang. Bodies flew, there was a crush of metal and glass, and Tye was thrown hard against his belt, the airbag exploding in front of him. Momentarily dazed, he managed to unbuckle himself, wrench open his door and drag himself out onto through the opening. He kept a firm hold on his gun as he tumbled out into a pile of twisted metal and shattered glass and dove toward the pavement.

A bullet kicked up a chuck of concrete and blacktop right in front of him. He raised into a crouch, returning fire in the direction from which the shot had come, the one remaining intact sedan down the alley. Keeping low, he made a quick survey of the wreckage and spotted the bloody remains of an agent who must have been unfortunate to have been trapped between the alley wall and the van. Counting the one they’d sideswiped and the one he’d just plowed through, that meant three more down, which left only two, the one shooting at him from within the alley and the female agent still approaching from outside. Tye still had more than a half dozen bullets left in the Beretta. The odds may have improved, but they had him in a pincer. One of his two remaining adversaries had to be put down before they could begin to capitalize on their position.

No time like the present. He rose into a shooter’s stance, laying down fire and advancing straight toward the remaining sedan. The agent who was hunkered down behind the fender seemed to panic, starting to return fire before diving beneath the bumper, not realizing he was leaving his head exposed as Tye was closing in. Tye simply shot the man dead with a bullet to his skull.

But as if on cue, the female agent appeared, edging up the wall at the end of the alley and firing her weapon. Bullets sprayed around him, one grazing his jacket, and he scrambled over for better cover behind what was left of the wreckage between van and truck.

He soon lost sight of the woman for a moment, but she must not have lost sight of him. The shooting went on for several more seconds with one large caliber bullet coming so close to Tye’s ear that the concrete wall exploding behind him sent fragments knifing into the side of his head. Wiping them away, he paused to switch clips.

The shooting stopped for a moment. The woman must have been doing the same.

A moment later, it was her turn to advance. She bent into a crouch along the wall and moved straight toward him, sending a hail of fire into the wreckage all around him.

Tye didn’t flinch. He ignored the bullet strikes and took a bead on her. Pity. His rounds were dead on target.

The woman tried to return fire, but Tye had the angle on her and she was struck in the arm and mid-torso. She crumpled to the pavement, her gun spinning away and clacking to the ground. Tye stood and sprinted forward. Keeping his weapon trained on her as he reached her, he kicked her gun away down the alley.

She was still alive. She’d managed to pull herself up a little, with her upper back braced against the wall, blood already soaking through her clothing.

He leaned over her. “Where’d the other car go?”

She winced in pain, looking up at them with glassy eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There was another car here earlier, a white sedan. I need to know where it was going.”

He pointed the gun at her head and fired a bullet into the wall just above the woman’s scalp. Dust and concrete splattered all over her. She blinked several times and her eyes teared.

He pointed the gun at her head again.

“No. Wait.”

One part of him wanted to pause to consider just where his actions might be leading him, what kind of divine sense of justice all this might be fulfilling–maybe ending with his imprisonment or a life on the run, a deliberate death by lethal injection–but another part still wanted to put a bullet in her brain. He could see that her wounds weren’t necessarily fatal, at least if treated properly. He was also beginning to understand just how closely he’d become tied to Raina, if not yet by love or something akin to it, at least to a shared outlaw sense of morality.

“Where’d the white car go? I won’t ask again.”

She blinked once more and her turned her head to look at the still intact sedan. “Over there in the car,” she said. “GPS.”

He thought about what she was trying to tell him. “Is the last waypoint, the one where you came from...is that where they’re taking her?”

The agent nodded.

Tye lowered his gun and wiped the sweat and grime from his forehead. He could smell the blood and cordite now, the all-too-familiar remnants of battle.

He went over to one of the dead agents and stripped the sweatshirt and pants off of him. He pulled out his knife and cut the cloth into long strips, went over to the woman and began to bind up her wounds.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask who you work for.”

The woman spat out a sarcastic half cough. “Forget it, dirt-bag.”

“You know I could just leave you to die out here.”

“Why don’t you then?”

“Believe me, I’ve been seriously considering it.”

Minutes later, he was driving along a dark suburban road in the sedan with the official, government-looking plates. Before leaving, he’d pulled the wounded agent to the end of the alley and set fire to what remained of the van to make sure any trace of digital evidence was incinerated. He’d taken a phone from one of the dead agents and used it to make an anonymous 911 call, giving the location of the woman and the fire, before slowing down momentarily to heave the phone out the window into a passing pond.

Tye’s own phone went off in his pocket. He took one hand off the wheel, pulled it out and looked at the display. Williamson.

He pushed the button to answer.

“About time.”

“Yeah. Sorry. We saw what you did at the construction project. Got there too late to intervene. That fire you set’s got every cop and EMS person in the area headed over there.”

“What kind of thing are we into? Those men we killed weren’t your run of the mill Homeland agents. Not even sure they were Homeland at all.”

“Still working on that.”

“Wonderful. Must be some heavy hitters we’re up against to slow you down like that.”

Williamson said nothing.

“Have you got a bead on me now?”

“Stay on the phone and we will in a couple of seconds.”

“We got set up back at the Kurn kid’s frat house. His old man must have been on to us.”

“We figured something like that must have happened. Probably the victim’s parents’ lawyer again.”

“What if we just uploaded what we have to
YouTube
or something?”

“It would be taken down in a hurry if it even made it online at all. Plus, from what I gather, you didn’t exactly get as positive an ID of the Kurn kid on the film as you’d hoped.”

“What about the cops? I talked to this one detective who seemed like a straight arrow.”

“We could try, but the chief wouldn’t take my call when I tried to reach him an hour ago. Kurn must have gotten to him.”

“So we’re screwed.”

“Not exactly. You forget we still have considerable assets and connections. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. You and Raina have really been proving yourselves. That’s some good news, at least.”

“We need to sit down and have a real long talk after we get Raina back.”

“Agreed. But right now it looks like you’re going to need our help.”

Tye glanced at the reverse directions on the GPS display in the car’s dash, which told him he was less than a than five minute drive from whatever it was he was walking into.

“Good,” he said. ‘Cause I’ve got a bad feeling about where I’m headed. I’m going to need everything you’ve got.”

29

Raina was in the seat of the sphere again, only this time things were different. She found more controls on the armrests, including some marked in red. Still nothing in front of her, so she had a virtually unobstructed, three-hundred-and-sixty degree view in all dimensions. She was a virtual flying creature, as if she were some kind of a drone herself.

“You understand the additional instructions I’ve given you?” Murnell asked.

“Got it.”

“I know you’ve been in this situation before, but you need to understand the significance of what we’re dealing with. You’ll be weapons hot from here on out. Practice is over.”

“Guess it’s a good thing I’m a quick study then.” She tried to keep from coming off as too sarcastic. They must really need her on some mission right now, whatever it was. She couldn’t think of any other reason why she was still alive and why they’d be going to all this trouble.

“Yes. Well, this time, I’m also staying with you. I’ll be right here next to you the whole time if we get into any kind trouble.”

She liked the training wheels his presence provided, but another part of her resented his being there. Did they want a pilot or not?

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

Sitting in the chair as the screens came up carrying her into her virtual world, she was struck again by how much she was drawn to the experience. The sphere seemed to have a seductive power all its own.

She’d met a few Air Force fighter pilots in her time, mostly egomaniacs. But one of them, whom she’d actually liked, tried to explain to her once what it was like to perform a high g barrel roll at the speed of sound. The guy was so excited he almost couldn’t put his feeling into words. She’d felt what she knew were somewhat similar notions at times when flying helicopters or even with the hover angels she was flying now, but nothing like what he’d been describing–and nothing like she was feeling inside the sphere. She wondered if all of these images she was seeing could be processed with planes flying at higher speeds.

“Here we go,” Murnell said, reaching to push some sort of button behind the chair.

The screens jumped to life. Not Beijing this time, but mountains spread out to all sides of her, instantly recognizable, the Hindu Kush. Raina snickered to herself. It figured they would transport her back to Afghanistan. Maybe the test was to see how unnerved she’d become, if the fevered memories and sweat-laced dreams of the crash and other missions had taken too big a toll on her.

“You know where you are?”

“Oh, please. Of course.”

“I told them you would. Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She’d flown enough missions over Afghanistan to feel comfortable enough. Being in the sphere was much more akin to flying the Kiowa, with an even better view, in fact, and she couldn’t help but recognize the lay of the land. Memories clawed at her, but she’d be okay as long as she stayed focused on the mission at hand.

“I still don’t know what I’m flying except that it must be some kind of micro air vehicle,” she said.

“Like I said before, better that you don’t.”

“But you’re telling me I have a weapon’s payload?”

“Yes. And I can tell you it’s comprised of a tiny amount of liquid explosive and blasting cap. It requires an up-close delivery.”

“How close?”

“About as close you got the other day on that street in Beijing.”

She tried to wrap her mind around what he was saying. “This whole thing must really be miniscule though to be able to get that close without being detected.”

“Mmmm. Think of it as a personal land mine. You’re also armed with a dart tipped with neurotoxin.”

“We’re talking about targeted assassination tools.”

“Precisely. Think of a sniper or any other type of high value target.”

“Think of the head of the Chinese Politburo.”

Murnell said nothing.

“You realize the kind of thing we’re talking about here, Murnell? I mean, you’re a scientist...”

Murnell still said nothing. She turned her head slightly to look at him, but he avoided making eye contact.

“All right,” she said. “Forget it. So I’m flying.”

“That you are.”

She was over a narrow valley, with a river meandering along its base and peaks on either side and. Ahead in the distance sat a small village.

“I take it someone in the town is the target.”

“Affirmative.”

“Am I killing someone today, Lance?”

It was the first time she’d used his given name, hoping it would shake him out of the obtuse funk which seemed to have frozen him into minimal interaction.

“We’ll see,” he said in non-answer.

The continued evasiveness didn’t exactly give her the warm-fuzzies.

Though it was the middle of the night in Northern Virginia and broad daylight in Afghanistan, she was amazed at how crisp and seamless the overall image was. She had to be commanding a small swarm of micro drones, she guessed, processing information from multiple different angles. The fact that they could do so with minimal delay meant they’d evolved exponentially beyond her hover angels. She’d loved to get hold of one of whatever it was she was flying, to examine it, tear it apart and see what made it tick. Would she somehow find a piece of her own heart there, the soul on the other end of the drones’ all seeing eyes?

Don’t be stupid, Raina. Just keep your focus and see what they want they want from you for this job.

“Stay at the same altitude and along the heading you’re on now,” he said. “You’re doing just fine.”

“The town looks familiar for some reason.”

“Not all that surprising. Maybe you’ve flown here before.”

“Is this another one of Bin Laden’s old cronies we’re still looking for?” She figured it had to be some kind of high value target like that.

“You’ll see.”

The jagged horizon dipped a little as she slid her fingers across the control pad, maneuvering around a cliff outcropping. The village appeared close up on her screen, directly ahead and to the right.

“Keep going?”

“There is a house in the middle of the village, blue tarp covering part of the roof. You see it?”

“Got it.”

The village, she could see now, was little more than a cluster of cinderblock and irregularly shaped plaster houses that looked as though they’d somehow mysteriously sprouted from the rugged landscape, like rock flowers blooming from the granite ground.

“Come in on the roof of that structure.”

“You want me to land on it?” She was incredulous. She had no idea what she was even piloting–a fixed wing or rotor. Or was it something in between?

“Just move in on the house and hold in position directly above it.”

“Someone’s bound to spot whatever it is I’m flying.” The Afghanis and the Pakistanis knew what it was to live under the specter of drones.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But I’m sure they must have weapons down there.”

“Just keep going.”

She did as he instructed. After several seconds, she was hovering in position directly over the blue-roofed house. A mud-splattered soccer ball stood beside a pine crate in what looked like a small courtyard. Otherwise, she saw no signs of movement or life.

Moments later, one edge of the tarp moved as if someone were folding it to the side. Two figures appeared, a man and a small boy. They were both dressed in traditional Pashtun garb of Partoog-Kortehs, a
pakul
, or Pashtun hat for the man, and a smaller
topi
for the boy. They stooped to bend over something on the ground. Raina couldn’t see their faces.

“Recognize them?”

“No. Am I supposed to?”

“Patience. Hold on.”

In the corner of her eye, she noticed Murnell watching her closely.

The man in the sphere’s image stood to his full height, and, shielding his eyes against the glare from the sun, turned to directly face her. He made no sudden movements or sign of recognition, simply looked directly at her cameras, and she could clearly see the discoloration along the side of one cheek.

“I don’t believe it,” she said.

“Recognize him now?”

She nodded.

It was the same man with the brown-bearded donkey beyond the stone wall she’d seen years before from the cockpit of her Kiowa brutally beating his own daughter, the man who’d waved at her so callously she’d wanted to kill him. She and Captain Skyles had written him up in their reports.

“One of the two red buttons on your left sends in the package. The one on top for explosive, the bottom one for neurotoxin.”

“But the boy....” Her hand wavered over the two buttons.

“Use the dart,” Murnell said. “The boy shouldn’t be harmed.”