Dan Fesperman - Unmanned

Cole shrugged again, uncomfortable with the drift of the conversation, but Sharpe didn’t take the hint.

“What does it do to you, flying these things, day after day? Up here, I mean.” He tapped a forefinger against his bony head. “I know you fell off the edge for a while. From all the deaths, I figured. But even before that, how were you handling it—the sense of power, of being God, choosing when to bless and when to damn? You’d watch all those lives up close for hours at a time, and then manage their fates for them. It has to fuck with your mind, even when things are going splendidly.”

“What about for you, designing the damn things?” Cole’s voice had an edge. “Making them better and better, a little more godlike every time they roll out of the hangar? Or down somebody’s chimney, six at a time?”

“You don’t have to get angry about it.”

“I’d just like to hear you take some ownership. You act like it’s all our doing, the damn pilots. Or the Agency, the Air Force, the so-called powers that be.”

“They’re the ones abusing the power.”

“And you’re the one who gave it to them.”

“Fair enough. But if I hadn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah. If you hadn’t, then someone else would’ve. I could’ve said the same thing after Sandar Khosh, but it wouldn’t have made me sleep one bit better. So who let you off the hook? Or do you just never think about it?”

“Why do you think I’m out here, ready to take action, fighting fire with fire?”

“Guilt?”

“Or just plain old foolhardiness.”

“For thinking you really can put it back in the bottle?”

“Or at least rub my own lamp. How ’bout if I go pee now.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

Cole waited, staring at the blank screen. He heard the toilet flush down the hall, then the running of water from the tap. Sharpe brought him a full glass of water, which he downed in seconds. He felt depleted, wrung out, the same way he used to feel after about six hours in the saddle at Creech. It would be a relief to get this over with, but they were making progress, moving closer, even though he still couldn’t make sense of an end.

“The transcript says this was a recon of Charwala,” Sharpe said.

“That was the nearest village. The house with the bogeys was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and most of our recon was to secure the perimeter for an ops team setting up for a raid. Zach and I lost our focus and almost missed some other bogeys who came into the area. A firefight started before we could get our shit together. Then we put an IR beacon down on them and the whole thing was over pretty fast.”

“The God light?”

“Yeah.”

“Love that name.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Any particular place you want to begin?”

“Toward the end. End of the firefight, not the raid. I want to hear some of the audio. I was in touch with the unit by voice pretty much throughout. The ops CO seemed like regular Army, all the usual protocols and radio behavior. Very correct. His call sign was Gray Goose. Mine was Redbird. Then his second in command took over for a while, and I remember it feeling kind of skeevy. His handle was something like Duckhead, but it was more a matter of style. Like some dude who was used to things being a little more relaxed. I’m not a tight-ass so I let it go, but it was still odd. That’s also when Lancer chimed in, I think. I just can’t remember what he said.”

“Here we go, then.”

They sat through the tail end of the firefight like they were watching a movie. Shaky infrared images and bright green streams of gunfire. There was a cacophony of voices, picked up by the CO’s headset, and Cole called out a command from time to time.

“Redbird, I’m going to recon the area immediately forward of our position, up where my guys are securing the prisoners and collecting the wounded. So for the time being I’m shifting radio control to my second, Duckhead.”

“Affirmative, Gray Goose. Standing by for further contact from Duckhead.”

A few minutes later a new voice came onto the air.

“How we looking up there?”

“Still clear. Is this Duckhead?”

“You got it.”

“Quiet in all directions on your perimeter.”

“Cool. How’s the, uh, house looking? This place we’re hitting?”

“All quiet there as well, Duckhead. Lights remain on, no sign of movement.”

“In there watching Leno and Letterman, huh?”

“Sure thing.”

“Dude, it was a joke.”

“I figured as much, Duckhead.”

“Gotcha.”

Lancer then popped up on the chat screen.

(LANCER) Is that Chuck on audio?

“Uh, Duckhead, we have a chat correspondent Lancer who asks if you happen to be Chuck?”

“What’s Lancer’s real name?”

(LANCER) all i needed. thanx. tell him its all tight.

“Uh, Lancer says it’s all tight, Duckhead. No further ID forthcoming, though.”

(Laughter). “Got it, man. I know who it is. Keep it tight.”

That was the last transmission from either Duckhead or Lancer.

“I see what you mean,” Sharpe said, as the video played on in silence. “You get a decent look at any of the ops guys?”

“Nothing up close. Once they started their raid we were too busy watching for squirters, and threats on the perimeter. Why?”

“Those irregular units can look pretty unorthodox. Beards, nonregulation uniforms. Hats and bandanas when they’re supposed to wear helmets. Personal shit all over their flak vests.”

“Bickell said there were a lot of those types, half official or completely unofficial. Green badgers, sheep-dipped, he had all kinds of names for ’em.”

Sharpe shook his head.

“So who were the guys you helped them whack?”

“They were supposedly insurgency guys. Taliban types, I guess.”

“Because if Lancer was willing to rub out an Overton source, and this time Wade Castle wasn’t even involved, then it might have been just about anyone, don’t you think?”

“I suppose. Yeah.”

“And with you guys providing an eye in the sky for them, with the full backing of your unit CO.”

“And his CO.”

“All the way up to Hagan and beyond. Pretty good taxpayer-financed backup to have in your hip pocket, especially if this turns out to be some little episode of private enterprise.”

Silence, while they let that sink in.

“Okay, then,” Sharpe said. “Nothing left but the final act. Let’s finish it.”

Cole nodded, already bracing himself.

“Ready when you are.”

WITHOUT ASKING, SHARPE MOVED the playline up to only a few minutes before the missile strike. It was an act of mercy. Cole wasn’t sure he would have been able to bear a long buildup. Even with only a few minutes to endure, he had to force himself to hold his gaze. Everything on the screen looked as fresh to him as if it had taken place the day before.

And then there it was—the white Toyota truck—arriving on the dirt road that led into the village, the cue for all the action that followed.

“Fuck. Freeze it!”

“Why?”

“Just fucking freeze it!”

Sharpe obliged him.

“Look at the markings. Mansur’s truck, the one we saw earlier. It was white with orange stripes down the hood. Two of them. Look at this one.”

“One stripe.”

“It’s not him.”

“Then who is it?”

“Could be anybody. An old man and his wife. More women and children, even. We couldn’t see them unload. One fucking stripe.”