Chapter 63
The Maghreb
Al-Jaghbub Airfield
For six and a half seconds the drones tumbled through the sky like darts tossed into the air.
Their flight-control software and propellers remained inactive.
The delay in power-up was intentional, allowing for natural aerodynamic stabilization.
Once slowed, and more or less righted, their quad-engine propulsion systems unfurled and kicked to life.
Propellers spun and AI software took command.
Immediately the swarm began coordinating.
There were eighteen drones in two variants. The larger, six in all, were the “lookers” of the package. With high-resolution cameras and advanced processors, they served as coordinators of the strike—in essence, commanders of a tiny digital platoon.
The lookers oriented themselves over the target area, photos of which had been hastily uploaded into their onboard databases before launch, and then dispersed over the airfield.
Coordinating on a frequency-hopping data link, they arranged themselves in a hexagon formation.
This allowed the swarm to evaluate all potential targets from multiple angles.
If any of the six drones were shot down or suffered a malfunction, the survivors would reposition to compensate.
Feeds from six low-light cameras were automatically relayed via satellite to a command bunker at Sixth Fleet headquarters in Italy. Operators there could intervene to make adjustments, but tonight none did so. At least, not yet.
The swarm was perfectly capable of making its own decisions.
A flood of imagery processing began. The lookers easily distinguished dozens of human forms across the airfield.
Some lay motionless, implying they were out of the fight, although the algorithms kept an eye on them—soldiers playing dead was as old as warfare itself.
Once all potential targets had been logged and prioritized, the assassins were dispatched.
The remaining twelve drones had hovered above the fray.
These were the hunter-killers, the miniature kamikazes.
They were roughly the size of a man’s hand, and a much simpler design than their brethren performing overwatch.
Flight body, camera, processor, one projectile.
Every component was an off-the-shelf acquisition—albeit a shelf in DARPA’s lethal black closet.
The twelve drones coordinated, dispersed, and descended, each beelining toward a different potential target.
They approached to within three meters of the human forms, then transitioned to a hover at eye level and attempted to make an identification.
Their rules of engagement were programmable, and tonight had been set, again prior to launch, to the least restrictive criteria.
Any human within the eight-square-mile footprint of Al-Jaghbub Airfield whose facial profile was not confirmed as being one of ten friendlies—Task Force 99, two pilots, and Gunther Klaus—would be immediately engaged.
As the hunter-killers went about their deadly business, the operator in Naples made his first adjustment.
He commanded two of the lookers to fly to the hangar and try to find a way inside.
Penetrating buildings to conduct room-to-room surveillance was well within Hyperion’s skill set.
The pair flew to the corrugated building and began circling its exterior like hunting dogs in search of a scent.
So far, Hyperion was working precisely as DARPA’s designers had envisioned: a technical marvel with lethal efficiency. A weapon as dispassionate as it was relentless.
To those on the ground, it was something else entirely.
—
For reasons he had never understood, and in spite of a lifetime of exposure to the extreme decibel levels of combat—gunfire, explosions, jet engines—Ding Chavez still had remarkably acute hearing.
More than once it had saved his life. Which was why, as he lay on the warm dirt searching, sighting, and firing, he suddenly froze.
In modern warfare, there was no sound a soldier wanted to hear less than the one that caused Ding to go motionless.
Stock-still behind his glass, he tuned out the crescendo around him and focused on one narrow frequency band.
He heard no change in pitch to suggest acceleration.
No Doppler shift to indicate relative motion.
Only the high-pitched buzz of a drone hovering behind him.
Not good.
Ever so slowly, he turned and saw the source.
Directly in front of him was a drone the size of a softball.
Its whirring propellers seemed unusually quiet—engineers, he knew, were getting better at reducing acoustic signatures.
Poised like a flying omen, one red LED light blinked near its cyclops camera lens.
Beneath the lens was an even more terrible sight.
A steel cylinder the size of a lipstick tube.
A projectile barrel.
It wasn’t lost on Ding that the drone had paused the perfect distance away. Far enough that he couldn’t club it with his rifle. Close enough that the operator couldn’t miss if he chose to take the shot.
If there even is an operator…
It took every bit of resolve, all the steel he had in him, to remain motionless. He recalled what Clark had said minutes earlier. No face coverings of any kind.
Was this why? Would the drone identify him as a friendly?
Is it even one of ours?
Ding held still. It was trust at its most visceral level.
The tiny aircraft hovered for a solid ten seconds, it’s red light blinking like a heartbeat. Then in a flash, it pivoted, the engines revved, and it disappeared into the ebony sky.
Ding exhaled.
He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped breathing.
—
Clark had watched it all play out.
He low-crawled over to Ding, and said, “One came and looked at me as well.”
Both men ventured a cautious look over the crest of the berm. They saw a swarm of the tiny assassins swooping earthward.
“I wonder how many there are?” Ding asked.
“Hopefully enough.”
The incoming fire began to ebb. A man screamed in the distance, then was suddenly silenced.
“Are you seeing this?” Hyori called out from his perch behind the Gulfstream.
Everyone was. From their cover positions, fingers went motionless on triggers. A man in the distance start running, only to be cut down.
Ding said with surreal detachment, “This is some scary Terminator-level shit.”
Clark sometimes recoiled at Ding’s crude analyses—but in this case, he couldn’t have put it better. “Yeah…it really is. I’m just glad these bots are on our side.”
It was over in less than a minute. All incoming fire stopped.
Still, Clark wasn’t completely convinced. “Eyes sharp,” he called out. “We need to check out that hangar, but there could still be threats.”
After five minutes of silence and watchfulness, he decided it was time to move.
He instructed Sesniak to stay behind with Hooper, whose condition hadn’t improved.
He also noticed that Charlie had taken a hit just above her right elbow.
She’d rolled up the sleeve of her shirt and packed in gauze beneath it as a makeshift bandage.
“You okay?” Clark asked.
“Happy as Christmas, boss. A fragment of some kind, but the bleeding’s stopped. I can move and shoot.”
Clark took her at her word. The team emerged from behind the berm in spread formation, ready and alert. Klaus joined them, staying at the rear.
They encountered the first bodies near the hangar.
Some the team had taken out themselves, but the drone’s victims were easily distinguishable: one clean round to the head delivered with machinelike precision.
The fifth lifeless body they came across was splayed on the tarmac behind a utility wall, a neat hole in the forehead.
Clark recognized the face from their briefing package.
He motioned Klaus over. “Is this Andrei Malenkov?”
Klaus, who had clearly never been on a battlefield, recoiled at the terrible sight. He confirmed it was Malenkov.
“I wish we could have talked to him,” Ding commented.
Clark bent down and regarded Malenkov more closely. He went through his pockets and came up with a phone. He tapped the screen, and when it popped to life Clark held it in front of Malenkov’s mostly undamaged face. It unlocked, and he went to the call log and studied it.
“Anything worthwhile?” Ding asked.
“I don’t know.” He pulled out his own phone, took a picture of the screen, then pocketed both handsets.
Clark stood and they moved to the next body a few steps away. The man was small and thin, Middle Eastern features. “This guy familiar?” he asked Klaus.
The banker shook his head. “I have never seen him before.”
“Doesn’t look like an operator,” said Ding.
“Because he’s small and skinny like you?” Wu quipped.
“No, because he doesn’t have callouses, scars, and a nose that’s been broken five times like you.”
Wu pointed out a small wafer clipped to his shirt pocket. “That’s a film badge dosimeter. I’ll bet he was brought in to handle the material.”
Klaus said, “I remember now…Malenkov mentioned that one of his technicians was a physicist. I think his name was Qasim, a Druze.”
Before Clark could respond, Hyori, who was standing watch, announced, “Squirters!”
Clark half turned, his weapon up and boresighted to his gaze.
He saw two men running toward the distant fence line like scorched rabbits.
They were more panicked than any kind of threat and neither was carrying a weapon.
In a perfect world, Clark would have sent someone to chase them down for questioning. In this world he had other priorities.
“Let ’em go. It’s the last of the hired help making a run for town.”
The team pressed forward and stopped in front of the massive hangar doors.
The doors were closed, and a sudden gust of wind caused them to shiver.
Overhead, two drones, larger than the ones that had been decimating the enemy force, hovered patiently.
If Clark wasn’t mistaken, they were waiting for the doors to be opened.
How freakin’ weird is that? he thought. He ignored a mischievous urge to wave to the cameras.
“Think the doors might be booby-trapped?” Ding asked.
Clark looked at them cautiously. “Doubtful. If there’s actually radioactive material inside…it wouldn’t need that kind of protection.”
Ding frowned at Clark’s logic.
“What we could really use is a Geiger counter,” said Hyori.
Clark made a flicking motion at the doors with his fingers.
Two team members shouldered up to each one, took a solid grip, and began pushing them apart.
They gave way slowly, the metal wheels beneath each door squeaking in protest. Everyone’s attention was rapt, as if they were opening Aladdin’s cave.
What they saw inside was a bitter disappointment. There was an aircraft tug, workbenches, industrial hardware. Crates, gas cans, and fans. But not a Shahed drone in sight.
“Dammit!” Ding said. “We’re too late!”
A tirade of muttered invectives was interrupted when Hyori said, “Boss, possible threat!”
Weapon barrels rose and fingers came off trigger guards. Based on where Hyori was looking, everyone made themselves small. Some went low; others moved behind the hangar doors.
“Posit?” Clark queried, having taken a knee.
“The Ilyushin. I saw a strobe from the cockpit…like a flashlight beam sweeping.”
Ding trained his scope on the aircraft, which was roughly a hundred yards away. Unlike the bullet-pocked, and very un-airworthy Gulfstream, the Ilyushin seemed to have survived the battle unscathed.
“I’ve got movement inside,” Ding said, referencing his optic. “Doesn’t look like a threat. Probably the crew trying to stay out of the fray.”
A larger gust of wind snapped at everyone’s clothing. The hangar was enveloped in a cloud of brown dust.
“Yeah, chances are they’re just hiding,” said Clark. “Or…”
He began issuing orders. While the team dispersed, Clark looked high in the hangar bay. In the cavernous upper reaches the two large drones were flying around at a leisurely pace, their cameras rotating on gimbals to uplink the scene.
He had a pretty good idea who was on the other end of that feed. A room full of people in the White House basement. People who were probably wondering the same thing he was.
Where are those drones now?