“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.