Dragonflies: Shadow of Drones (7 page)

Raina pulled out a blank business card with only her name and temporary cell phone number written on it in black ink. There was also a web address for a secure message board.

“Here,” she said, handing it to Hutchinson. “This is my contact information. The cell phone number won’t be any good after the next two days. Please call us and let us know what you decide by tomorrow. And if you ever need to reach me in the future, you can always leave a message for me on this web message board. Anytime, day or night.”

Hutchinson took the card from her. “So you’re planning to show what you showed me to Derek tomorrow, right?”

“Yes. And hopefully elicit a confession from him. You and your parents need to decide whether you want us to take this to the police.”

“Tomorrow’s Halloween.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Some holiday, huh?” The girl rubbed at her red-rimmed eyes. “Trick or treat.”

13

It had already been dark for a few hours. Raina had to wait until Tye returned to his own apartment to go to bed before calling Lance Murnell at the number he’d given her.

“I thought you were going to leave me at the altar,” the scientist joked.

“Is it too late to start on some training?”

“Not at all. We’re open twenty-four/seven over here.”

Wherever “here” was. Raina had decided she owed it to herself, not to mention Tye and Williamson, to find out as much as she could about what Murnell and DHS were up to with their own MAVs. Murnell obviously knew about Williamson and the drones she’d been flying. For all she knew, maybe DHS was aware, if not intimately familiar, with their overall mission, although she doubted the department would ever officially be in favor of, let alone somehow involved, with what she and Tye were doing. Worse case scenario, she and Tye might even be on the wrong side of some sort of internal civil war. Either way, covering up a rape could never be justified–in anybody’s book.

Twenty minutes later, she sat in the darkened back of a government sedan with a hood pulled over her head again, hearing the sounds and feeling the vibrations of the car moving along a major highway, then smaller roads with turns, a few potholes, crossing what even seemed like several sets of railroad tracks.

She wasn’t fond of the hood, but her hands were free and at least she could breathe.

She felt little fatigue. She’d eaten dinner after Tye left, and was still raring to get some work done learning more about the technology Murnell had shown her that morning. But a part of her couldn’t help but feel like she was sneaking out on Tye after their confrontation earlier about her initial mysterious disappearance. She’d sensed a tension between them all afternoon that hadn’t been part of their relationship before. Was it because of her own doubts or because of his toward her? She wasn’t sure, but she owed to herself to at least follow things through with Murnell, to find what he and Homeland were offering. As exciting and attractive as it was working with Tye and Major Williamson, she still felt like she was out on a limb with the things they were doing. Exploring what Homeland had to offer couldn’t hurt, and maybe she wouldn’t have to choose one way or another. She could help Tye and Williamson complete the mission and maybe move on to something even bigger.

They paused for a moment and it sounded like they were passing through some kind of checkpoint, and then it seemed like they’d entered some kind of garage, the sound of their tires echoing off pavement and concrete. The car rolled to a stop and one of her escorts shut down the engine and climbed out while the other opened the back door for her and gave her a hand to help her stand.

The hood was removed. She blinked in reaction to the bright light and saw that she was back in the same indoor parking area from which they’d transported her, after hooding her, from the facility earlier in the day.

“Welcome back, Ms. Sanchez. You made the right decision.”

She looked up to Murnell, looking as handsome as ever, this time dressed more like the casual scientist in blue jeans and a sweater, approaching her from the landing above while her two guards a pair of men dressed casually undercover in blue jeans and jackets–melted into the background and disappeared through a side entrance.

She hadn’t really thought through, until now, how skillfully and effectively Murnell had baited the trap, whetting her appetite to work with all of his gee-whiz techno-toys. But seeing the facility and him in person all over again put her on her guard. She wondered if, in addition to whatever technical work he was doing for Homeland, he’d had psychological operations training. He certainly had a knack for timing and for doling out the selective information.

“I’m ready to get to work.” She told him the truth.

“Good. So glad to hear it. Can we get you anything to eat or drink before we start rolling?”

“Nope. I’m good to go. Let’s saddle up the ship.”

“Spoken like a true pilot.”

He led the way back down a series of corridors, passing two different pairs of armed guards along the way, to the same cavernous, empty room she’d seen several hours before. It looked no different now than it did then. The outside world could have been eating lunch at noon or sleeping at midnight–to the room and the sphere it was all the same. Once inside, the only reality existed on the screens, in the virtual environment, a full immersive world. Raina suddenly realized why such a thing appealed to her, drew her even. It was a chance to really feel like she was climbing back into the cockpit again, even more than she did with the dragonflies. She knew she missed flying her helicopter in person. She just hadn’t processed how much.

“She’s all yours,” Murnell told her as he helped guide her into the chair inside the sphere. She also couldn’t help noticing how his hand seemed to linger under her arm a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

For the next couple of hours, under his guidance and patient instruction, she learned how to control and manipulate a series of apparently different MAVs via multiple MAV-generated images. She loved the freedom Murnell’s drones seemed to give her, the sensation of the craft in her hands, responding instantly to her control as if she were actually on board. But the amazing thing was the vision. The information these drones provided was astounding, as close to being there as she could imagine. She wasn’t even sure what the drones she was flying looked like, except for his occasional reminder that there was more than one, all working in concert, from the desert in Nevada to the desert over Baghdad, from a city in Northern Africa to the mountains of Pakistan, eventually even, a live feed of a downtown section of Beijing, in all its splendor and smog, not too far from the Forbidden City.

It was exhilarating, empowering, even a little frightening. While she sat in the near midnight darkness of Northern Virginia, on the opposite side of the globe hazy lunchtime sunshine filtered through a busy urban neighborhood.

“Don’t the Chinese know we have this technology?” Raina asked.

“Oh, they know,” Murnell said, “At least in principle. But for now we’ve managed to keep the details away from their prying eyes–no easy task, I can tell you, given the persistence and prowess of their cyber-snooping. To the rest of the world, most of these toys are years from being operational.”

Yet here he was handing the keys to the kingdom to a disabled, retired Chief Warrant Officer. Raina wasn’t stupid. Something didn’t add up.

“Why me?” she asked him again. “Why recruit me to fly these things?”

“Because you fit the profile.” He shrugged, offering an impish grin. “We don’t normally like to work with former pilots. We’ve found they too often come with detrimental ingrained habits from logging too many hours in the air. But you’re a quick study, and–if don’t mind my saying so, CWO Sanchez–you come with the whole package.”

She felt his eyes on her again, as if they were undressing her. It made her feel vulnerable. Not that having some guy hit on her was any kind of new experience–she just hadn’t allowed it to go on like this since Afghanistan. Was it only the flying and the rush of incredible technology she was after?

“In fact.” His voice jolted her back to reality. “I think you’re about ready to solo.”

His shadow moved away from the chair.

“What?” She’d trained on a simulator under Major Williamson’s guidance for days before starting to work with the MAVs.

“It’s all right.” He was already moving toward the door. “I’m going to step out of the sphere and leave the room for a few minutes, but don’t worry, I’ll still have an eye on you and you’ll still be able to hear me talking. Go ahead and try some different venues on for size.”

“Different venues?” She wore no headset or other communications gear. “But how–?”

She turned to look at the door, but Murnell had already exited through it.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” he said matter-of-factly. “Can you hear me okay?”

“Roger.”

“Good.” The voice seemed to come above. “Now just relax.”

The images surrounding her still put her on the street in Beijing. But now, at the edges of the street scene on all sides were a collection of other, smaller screens, showing different video from different parts of the globe. She feathered her fingers across the control pad and took control of whatever it was she was flying. It shocked her to realize that whatever form these MAVs took, their existence seemed to disappear from her consciousness. The drones were nothing more than a means to an end: secretly placing her in the heart of a foreign nation.

“Fly straight along the street for a bit. Let’s see how you do.”

So Murnell, wherever he’d moved off to, was seeing everything that she saw. Maybe there was another sphere or some kind of a master display where he could track her movements in real time? There seemed to be so much information pouring into her own environment, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to manage an even larger array.

She did as he instructed and the images began to change, slowly or rapidly, depending upon how fast she slid her fingers. She could walk, she could run, she could zoom upward to fly. She wondered, if she decided to dive headlong into the pavement, if she could even crawl–maybe the drones under her control were so advanced they possessed such capabilities. But she was too new at this type of flying to make such a potentially risky move.

“Excellent,” Murnell encouraged her. “Two streets ahead, you’ll be turning to the right.”

“Copy.”

After two more blocks the street opened into a wide intersection where it crossed a busy boulevard jam-packed with buses, bicyclists, and cars. She was high enough in the air to avoid hitting anything, but did no one take note of her presence? Were the MAVs she was flying virtually invisible like the tiny hover angels she’d been deploying with Tye?

“Okay,” Murnell said. “We’re going to try something different. Remember, this is just an exercise…I want you to cross this intersection and once you reach the other side move to the sidewalk on the right hand side of the street. You’ll need to watch out for the buildings to your right. They’re taller here.”

“I can see that,” she said.

“Stay focused.”

She flew as he directed over the intersection, entering a residential street lined with multi-story apartment buildings on either side. Swerving a little to the right, she began moving over top of the sidewalk.

“Nice,” he said. “If you look ahead of you, you’ll see a man walking with his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. Look even more carefully and you’ll notice they’re being flanked discreetly on all sides by secret police. Those are the guys doing their best to try to look like businessmen or tourists in dark suits.”

“Who is the man with the family?”

“For now let’s just say he’s a very high-ranking Communist party official. If you zoom in for a close-up, you’ll notice a seventy-thousand dollar Jaeger LeCoultre watch strapped to his wrist.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She could make out the middle-age man approaching her on the sidewalk ahead, tall for an Asian, in a dark, expensive looking suit. The woman next to him was beautiful. The children were dressed like American prep school kids. They were laughing, as kids often do, especially the boy, but they remained a respectful distance in back of their parents.

“All right.” Murnell’s voice seemed to drop an octave. “Weapons going live.”

“What?” For a moment, Raina thought she must have been hearing things. “Are you insane?”

“Relax, Chief. Remember, this is only an exercise. Focus on your flying.”

No time to play twenty questions. Unless she was being bamboozled by some elaborate video game, this was as real as it gets. Like what she’d heard Predator pilots and sensor operators experienced, weapons hot, tracking a moving target–times ten. She nudged her drones a little to the left to avoid a building overhang.

“Stay on target.”

“You are certifiable, Murnell. Putting a newbie into a situation like this.”

“It’s not a situation, Sanchez. As long as we don’t get caught. And you’re no newbie. Show me what you can do.”

“What kind of weapon am I supposed to be carrying?”

“That’s classified. But I will tell you it’s miniscule in comparison to the hellfire missiles our military drones are using. Every bit as deadly. Just a lot more surgical.”

“Surgical. You mean as in assassination.”

“Focus, Sanchez. The target is the tall man in the suit.”

“What about his wife next to him and the two children?”

“Do your job and they’ll all be mourning at his funeral.”

An orange dot appeared in her field of vision.

“You see the target finder?”

“Got it.”

“Move it left or right a little, but not too much. The computer is doing the heavy lifting. You’re there for the fine tuning.”

Fine tuning, all right. Fine tuned to a kill.

“Who’s making the call on the shot?”

“That’s above our pay grade. Fifteen seconds out.”

“But am I in the kill chain?”

“Not yet. Keep the orange dot on the man in the suit.”

The family filled the screen directly in front of her now, the dot jumping and darting with the micro-motions of the MAVs. Even the slightest movement of her fingers caused her to move slightly off target, but she focused all of energies on the man’s face, and it seemed to be working. Was she starting to get the hang of it?

“Five seconds.”

The woman was saying something in what Raina assumed must be Mandarin Chinese to her husband, the words faint but audible. She wore a tasteful pearl necklace and dark suit jacket over a stylish pencil dress, stockings, and high heels. Raina felt like an invisible murderer, walking right up to her husband with an invisible gun. She was so close she could see lines in the man’s face and the subtle pink shade of the woman’s fingernails.

But just before she passed over top of the target, everything disappeared.

Raina blinked and found she was staring through the glassine surface of the sphere into the dark emptiness of the surrounding space. She looked around the chair and ran her fingers back and forth across the touchpad, trying to bring the images back, all to no avail.