A Cold Day In Mosul (21 page)

She continued to guide him like that for the next several minutes, keeping just out of sight of the black Land Cruiser.

"They just sped past a checkpoint," Sam said. "I want you to floor it, Maaz. And when you reach the checkpoint, force your way in near the front of the queue."

Maaz slammed the accelerator to the floor and weaved between the traffic. As he closed upon the checkpoint he slowed down, momentarily swerving into the oncoming lane to pass the queued cars, then squeezing the Rio into a small gap near the front of the queue. The driver whom he cut off honked angrily several times, but let him in.

Sam hid the laptop under her seat and thrummed her fingers impatiently on the dash. "Come on."

Their turn came, and after a quick ID check they were through.

Sam immediately retrieved the laptop. "The SUV just pulled into a gated compound."

Ethan leaned forward: on the laptop he saw her zoom the Predator's camera closer to the compound.

"Unsurprisingly, they've hung desert digital camouflage between all the outbuildings," Sam said. "I can't make out a thing."

She gave Maaz several more directions, then abruptly pointed at the side of the road. "Pull over there."

Maaz parked in front of a bright red Renault Clio. Glancing through the rear window, Ethan saw Doug's vehicle park behind the same car.

Apartment buildings lined either side of the road. However, across the street, about half a block ahead, lay the compound Sam spoke of. Islamic State standards hung limply from atop the tall cinder block walls that enclosed the location. In front of the gated entrance, three militants stood guard, wearing balaclavas and toting AKs.

Other vehicles that had been shadowing them emerged from the traffic to park along the street, congregating near the Rios. There were pickup trucks. Cars. SUVs. They took all the available spots on both sides of the road.

The resistance had come to join the party. And so far, the Islamic State guards down the street were none the wiser.

"I hate sending Kareef in there alone like that," Ethan said. "It should have been me."

Sam glanced at him. "If it wasn't for the fact that you're currently one of the most-wanted fugitives in all of Mosul, I might even have let you." She glanced at the apartment building beside the Rio. "That looks like a good spot for your overwatch point."

"On it. Maaz?"

Maaz popped the rear hatch and escorted him to the back of the vehicle. Ethan, shivering from the cold air, grabbed the backpack from the cargo area and pulled it on.

"You know," Doug's voice came over the earbud. "Looks kind of odd having him wear a backpack over an abaya like that. You never see women with backpacks."

"He's fine," Sam said.

Next Ethan grabbed one of the long, rolled-up carpets stowed in the cargo area. Maaz took another, and together the pair approached the apartment building.

There was no power in the neighborhood; without electricity, the intercom buttons beside the lobby door wouldn't work, so Ethan couldn't buzz any residents to let him in. Instead he set down the rolled carpet and retrieved his lock pick set; Maaz screened him from the street with his body, allowing Ethan to try his bump keys.

The first two keys didn't fit. The third penetrated without issue; after a tap from his smartphone, the door unlocked and he entered.

Ethan removed his veil in the lobby. Maaz handed him both rolled carpets and left to chaperon William to another position.

Ethan entered the building's stairwell and quickly climbed the steps, toting the large rugs over each shoulder, the backpack serving as a counterweight behind him. The objects weren't light.

The flights reversed directions between landings, so that Ethan proceeded toward the rooftop in a crisscross pattern. By the time he reached the third floor, he found himself panting. Well, at least he wasn't cold anymore.

He came across a little boy seated halfway up the next flight. The kid played with an illegal western toy: one of those robots that could transform into a car. Ethan winked as he passed. The boy simply watched, open-mouthed, too shocked to respond to the sinful sight of a man in women's clothes.

Ethan reached the rooftop door. Wasn't locked. Nearly out of breath, he stepped into the cold air, and the perspiration that slicked his body suddenly felt icy. The sun shone brightly overhead, but did nothing to warm him.

He made his way between the television antennas and the concrete water tanks toward the western side of the rooftop. He dropped near the edge and completed his approach at a low crawl.

Down the street, the compound was in sight, though he still couldn't see past the cinder block wall. Directly below, more resistance vehicles had double parked. He glanced at the three armed men guarding the gated entrance: none of them seemed to have noticed the glut of parked vehicles yet, or if they had, they gave no obvious indication that they cared.

"I'm in position," Ethan said into his mouthpiece.

"Launch the Hornet when you're ready," Sam said.

The PD-200 X Black Hornet was a nano surveillance drone made in Norway by Prox Dynamics. Similar in shape and function to a four-bladed quadcopter, the drone was smaller than a fist and virtually invisible to the naked eye when hovering at heights above thirty feet; also at that distance the slight hum produced by its tiny rotors was lost to background noise.

The 200 series was specifically commissioned by the DIA, and included night and thermal imaging, far better wind performance, and greater range than the helicopter-inspired 100 series. The 200 also separated the base station from the controller, allowing for a lighter radio, and hence reduced arm fatigue.

Sam had arranged for pickup of the drone earlier that day—Maaz had driven to the drop site and a deep cover Brit had joined them in the car for a rolling meeting. The MI6 operative handed over the Hornet, reviewed the "bits n' bobs" of the radio controller, and wished them "the best of British luck" when he exited the vehicle two blocks later.

Ethan produced the Hornet and radio controller from his backpack. The custom radio had a built-in display that could be used for first person view—FPV—flying. Ethan was a bit of an FPV aficionado, so he was quite familiar with the tech.

He retrieved the base station from the backpack, set it on the rooftop, and attached the long, helical antennas to a tripod. He activated the radio controller, the base station, and the drone, setting the latter down on the rooftop.

Video from the drone's camera appeared on the FPV display. The overlaid HUD provided a readout showing the Hornet's distance from the controller, its altitude, the remaining battery power, and the signal strength of the video feed and radio controller. He extended the sunscreen on the device, reducing glare, then flipped the retransmit switch.

"Getting my signal?" Ethan said into the mouthpiece.

"It's a bit pixelated, but yes," Sam returned.

The controller contained two sticks. The left stick controlled throttle and yaw, the right, pitch and roll. He launched the drone by applying pressure to the left stick. The Hornet rose at a sharp angle and nearly careened into one of the water tanks. He quickly corrected its trajectory, then applied more thrust, maneuvering the drone into the clear above the rooftop superstructures.

He released the sticks. The Hornet was supposed to autocenter thanks to the onboard IMU and then hover in place, but it drifted forward again, even though the wind was slight.

Ethan tapped the trim buttons on the controller, slowly correcting the pitch drift; when he had it hovering to his satisfaction, he steered it toward the compound.

As the Hornet approached, he wondered how much of a problem that cinder block wall would pose. There wouldn't be any metal in it to reflect the low frequency radio waves, but even so the signal would attenuate once the drone passed behind.

Keeping well above the three militants on guard, he flew over the compound and its cinder block fence. Like Sam had said, the entire inner courtyard was covered by canvases that hung between the various outbuildings. Ethan lowered the drone, aiming for a gap in the desert-colored camouflage and the wall.

As he flew underneath the canvas he made a mental note of the Hornet's altitude as displayed on the HUD. He doubted the camouflage reached to the same height everywhere in the compound, but it would aid in navigation if he ever lost visual signal.

As expected, the radio strength dipped when the Hornet crossed behind the cinder block wall. The display began to pixelate, and sections of the screen froze intermittently, but he was able to see well enough to navigate. The scene brightened as the camera sensors adjusted the ISO to compensate for the reduced light level under the canvas.

A paved road ran through the compound, connecting the buildings. He slowly advanced along it. The HUD reported his current altitude at under thirty feet—the cusp at which the drone began to lose its stealth advantage. If he went any higher, there was a chance he'd hit the canvas, and the camouflage might also reflect the sound of the rotors.

He saw a couple of militants on patrol and gave them a wide berth. He steered the drone around the edge of what he thought was the main building. A line of vehicles were parked in front of the property. Most were SUVs, and included the black Land Cruiser that had delivered Kareef. One of the vehicles was a long, old-style yellow school bus.

"Land Cruiser spotted," Ethan said.

"I see it," Sam returned. "Zoom in on the upper windows of the building."

Mindful of the two mujahadeen who stood guard near the entrance to the structure, Ethan turned the Hornet toward the windows and zoomed in. Unfortunately, the lighting conditions weren't the most conducive to peering past glass, and all he saw was blackness beyond. He moved the drone from left to right, panning the camera over other windows. None proved any better.

"Do you want me to get closer?" Ethan asked.

"Too risky," Sam sent. "Keep your distance."

He reset the camera to its default zoom, then assumed a safe spot across the road to observe the entrance, keeping the vehicles in sight at all times.

Long minutes passed without any sign of either Kareef or Al Taaraz. When the low battery alarm sounded, Ethan hastily steered the drone back beneath the canopy and over the wall.

He landed it on the rooftop with mere seconds of power to spare. Letting the voltage drop so low was hard on the battery, but there was nothing Ethan could do about that.

As he struggled to remove the tight-fitting power cell from the Hornet, Sam's voice came over the comm. "Hurry up. Al Taaraz or Kareef could be emerging even now. We have to know what vehicles they're in."

He replaced the battery, powered up the Hornet, and steered it back toward the compound. He crossed the drone over the wall and down under the canopy, nearly hitting the camouflage in his haste.

When he rounded the main building, he spotted a group of militants emerging from the entrance and walking toward the vehicles.

Ethan zoomed in. He recognized the distinctive face of the scholar among them. Beside him was Al Taaraz. The man looked exactly like his file photo, albeit older, and fatter: the spitting image of Saddam Hussein. He was dressed in combat fatigues like the militants, though he was the only one who flaunted a mustache instead of a religious beard. Both the scholar and Al Taaraz appeared to be in good spirits.

"High value in sight," Ethan said.

"Watch for the muj at the bottom of your screen," Sam said.

Ethan saw him then: a mujahid had wandered away from the others and was walking toward the drone. Ethan couldn't tell if the man was looking up at it.

He hurriedly pulled back on the pitch, bringing the drone backward, intending to move it out of sight behind the building.

The video feed chose that worst of all possible moments to freeze.

twenty-three

T
he video transmitter operated on a separate frequency from the radio control, and according to the HUD the latter was still functional. So Ethan flew blindly, still pulling back on the stick while sliding it to the right, hoping to maneuver the drone behind the building. If he miscalculated the amount of pitch and roll, he could very well run into the building, or even the ground. He applied slight throttle, hoping a gain in altitude would restore the video feed.

Come on...

The display finally updated.

Ethan released the controls.

The Hornet's fixed camera faced the brick wall of the building. He had performed the maneuver correctly, then. He swiveled the yaw to the left, pointing the camera toward the building edge, and then backed away.

So far there was no sign of the militant.

Ethan continued to move the drone backward.

The militant abruptly rounded the bend; he seemed to be gazing in the general direction of the Hornet.

Ethan couldn't be sure whether the fighter had seen it, but he released the sticks and ceased all motion, letting the mini-quad hover in place: when not moving, the drone would more easily blend into the background. He could only hope the man was far enough away.

The militant stared for several seconds, and then finally turned around, walking back behind the building.

"Close one," Sam said over the comm. "Now get me a visual on those vehicles. We need to know which one Al Taaraz gets into, if any."

Ethan accelerated toward the bend, then laid off on the throttle to slowly edge the Hornet past: the lone militant was still visible below, hurrying back toward the line of vehicles.

Beyond the man, the fighters Ethan had seen before were piling into the bus. There was no sign of either Al Taaraz or Kareef.

"Find the high value," Sam said.

Ethan accelerated the Hornet toward the vehicles. The last remaining militant hopped onto the bus.

The tail lamps of two nearby Land Cruisers activated.

Ethan magnified the display. The windows of the SUVs were tinted black, and it was impossible to see beyond them. He zoomed out just as both vehicles turned onto the service road.