“Remember that hummingbird UAV our friends at DARPA announced in, what, 2011, 2012?” When I nodded, Bug said, “Well, they’ve taken it a step further. Several steps, including taking it operational. CIA’s using them all over the Middle East, where houseflies are as thick as mosquitoes on a Louisiana bayou.”
I couldn’t resist. “How many of them have been swatted in the line of duty?”
“Only one so far,” Bug said, “when it literally got in the face of its intended target.”
That explained the random jerkiness of Dweeb’s videos. I guess that was the price we’d have to pay for up-close-and-personal imagery intelligence.
“Here you go, Cap,” Bug said. His face filled the massive telecom screen on Church’s office wall. “First feeds from Al-Raqqah Technological Research Facility.”
Bug’s face blinked out, to be replaced by… a bug’s-eye view of a surprisingly modern laboratory.
“The fly’s eyes are the camera’s lenses,” Bug said as our pest-sized drone made an initial reconnaissance loop around the spacious room. It jinked like a fighter pilot with pursuers on his six, and careened toward a turbaned man with a neatly trimmed beard.
The target absently waved our bug away with a hand bearing several heavy gold rings, and it swooped in toward a top-of-the-line, secure computer setup parked on a desk in a windowless corner.
“Indistinguishable from the real thing,” Bug said from offscreen. I didn’t miss the grin in his voice. “That’s our lead scientist it just buzzed.”
“Skip the sales pitch, Bug,” I said, “and cut to the chase.”
“Right.” The screen blanked for a few seconds, then lit up with an over-the-shoulder view of our scientist at his computer. Metadata in the video’s lower corner showed a time-hack a couple of hours after the opening recce shot. A log-in box, labeled in Arabic, glowed on the monitor, while lean, gold-ringed fingers darted across a keyboard. When one hand rose in a shooing motion near the guy’s ear, the drone skated clear, maintaining its view of the hardware.
“Did you capture that?” I asked Bug when the log-in screen yielded to an austere email in-box, also in Arabic.
“Sure we got a freeze-frame,” Bug said. “I gained access to our terrorist’s system a few minutes after he walked away. His whole email account and the contents of his research files are now being analyzed and translated by our Arabic section. We should have results for you first thing tomorrow.”
I nodded, and suddenly got a nervous feeling, as if someone were training a sniper rifle on the back of my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that… something was coming soon. “Get it to me sooner,” I said. “Tomorrow might be too late.”
I didn’t even make it as far as my office before Church waved me into his. “Our friends lit up an embassy in Pakistan an hour ago.”
“Their objective?”
Church’s brows furrowed in an uncharacteristic way. “That, I’m not sure. I think it was just a field test, to see what they can do.”
“I got a bad feeling about this,” I said. “They’ve got a bigger game in play.”
Church nodded in agreement. “First load from the translators just came in,” he said. I hadn’t heard that deep of a rumble in his voice or seen that hooded narrowing of his eyes since the second airliner hit the World Trade Center on 9/11.
“That bad?” I returned. I took a gulp from my coffee mug and swallowed before he said something that might prompt me to spray it all over his office.
“They’ve uncovered a veritable Encyclopædia Britannica,” Church said, “but only two points matter to us. The ISIS bomb-makers are getting their driving robotics from a small company in Freiberg, Germany, and they’re planning a massive attack in London.”
“London?” A number of potential targets crossed my mind. Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey. “Do we know where?”
“The State Opening of Parliament,” Church replied.
Good thing I’d swallowed my coffee.
“Are they hoping to take out the queen?”
“And as many members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, and civilians as they can. They’re calling the operation Carmageddon.”
“Lovely sense of humor,” I growled.
Church gave a stiff nod. “They’re planning to position large, self-driven trucks loaded with explosives close to Buckingham Palace and Westminster Parliament, and along the queen’s route from one end to the other, and detonate them all at once.”
“Holy shit!”
The State Opening usually takes place in May. I’d been in London for it once. I still remembered Londoners pressed six or seven deep against police barriers, children in front, of course, dressed in their Sunday best and waving miniature Union Jacks as the queen rolled by in her horse-drawn carriage. I had watched the parade under the keen eyes of British troops, and bobbies mounted on leggy bay horses. It looked as if the whole city had turned out.
I shook my head against horrific mental images. “Has the British government been informed?”
“Through appropriate channels,” Church confirmed. “In the meantime, Captain, our jet is being prepped at BWI for a flight to Germany. Takeoff is four thirty this afternoon. You’re to put a stop to this.”
No guidance. Pretty much carte blanche. Church preferred it that way. If necessary he could fall back on the Sergeant Schultz defense: “I know noth-ink.”
“I’ll start packing,” I said, “once I’ve called in a strike on that research facility.” I considered some options. An MQ-9 Reaper carrying a couple of five-hundred-pound GBU-12s or GBU-38 JDAMs should do the job.
I’d want to hit them in the evening, light up the sky — shock-and-awe style.
DMS personnel don’t use commercial airlines when we’re on a mission. Ghost, my combat-trained white shepherd, dozed at my feet while I reviewed Ashley’s info packet on the little company I’d be checking out in Freiberg.
Established five years ago by a former nun named Frieda Stoltz, Assistenzdienst, (Assistance Services, in English) designed and produced equipment and software apps to assist people with various disabilities, everything from blindness to quadriplegia. Sounded innocent enough. But was the company only a front? Did Fräulein Stoltz have ties to terrorism herself? Or were her products being used in ways she wasn’t aware of?
In spite of the airport’s spacious, modern terminal, all glass and steel with a high-speed tram, history loomed around me like the usual winter overcast as I disembarked from the jet.
Private jet or not, I still had to deal with Customs. I used my tourist passport to stay low-profile, though I’d brought my “official” one just in case. I flashed Ghost’s equivalent of a passport, too, which identified him as a service dog. The chipper young official didn’t ask what kind of service he provided, which was fine by me.
I could read a little German, better than I could speak it, so I picked up a map along with the keys to a brand-new, shiny black Porsche 918 Spyder. With 887 horses under its sleek hood, I couldn’t help wishing I had time to put it through its paces on the autobahn.
I opened up the throttle when I found surprisingly little traffic for a dreary workday morning and just enough chilly rain to necessitate windshield wipers. The Spyder purred like a kitten and responded to my touch like an experienced dance partner.