Richard Clarke - Sting of the Drone

“Yeah, not much to add yet, but the kidnap was definitely about drones. It wasn’t some former patient.”

Sandra adjusted her terry cloth robe with one hand, her mobile in the other. “What did they do to her,” she asked Ray Bowman.

“One bad guy that she saw. Made her watch video of drone damage and said—”

Sandra cut him off. Thirty-three floors above the Vegas Strip, Sandra Vittonelli walked past the floor-to-ceiling windows in her living room. She paused at the door out on to the tiny balcony she used to grow some herbs. The peripheral vision in her left eye saw movement and she turned. “What the fuck? There’s a B-52 coming straight for my—”

At first it seemed like the B-52 was some distance away, but her brain quickly flashed to the conclusion that it was just outside the window, a miniature B-52. In the nanosecond that her conscious mind understood what was happening, she saw a metal rod extending from the nose of the aircraft smash through the floor-to-ceiling glass window. As glass crashed into her suite, the B-52 erupted into a fireball that chased the glass inside, flash-burning everything in the room.

Raymond Bowman heard her say “B-52” followed by a loud noise. Then the line went dead. He redialed, but the call went to voice mail. He tried again with the same result. He got the number of her condo building and tried to call the concierge desk, but it just kept ringing. He called Dugout back at the Global Coordination Center. “Ask Miller to fly one of the drones over to the intersection of Flamingo and Wynn, scan the big new condo on the corner, the blue glass one, see if anything looks odd. Also scan the sky en route for a B-52 flying low.”

“You got it, boss, and by the way I think I’ll have the geocoordinates of those servers in an hour or so,” Dugout added.

Ray walked back to the Suburban. The driver was standing outside with the door open, listening to radio chatter. “Anything else going on tonight on the frequencies?” Ray asked the driver.

“Nah, not really. Lots of assault and batteries, but that’s normal. Explosion and fire in some high-rise.”

Ray’s mobile rang. It was Dugout. “There’s a fire in an upper floor in that building. Looks contained to one or two apartments.”

“Thirty-third floor?” Ray asked.

“Could be, yah? What’s in that building?”

Ray ended the call and found the lead FBI Agent. “We need to get one of those Blackhawks and fly downtown now. We can land in the street.”

Ten minutes later they could see the smoke pouring from the upper floors of the condominium tower. Ray’s heart sank. He knew Sandra’s apartment was in flames. His mind flashed to images of her there, standing naked in the dark looking out on the flashing lights of the Strip before he dragged her back into bed. As the helicopter neared the Strip, the smoke was already diminishing. He knew it was futile to hope that she had survived, but she was special, tough, creative. Maybe she had found a way.

The Blackhawk touched down in an empty, dirt parking lot across the street from her building, kicking up a dust cloud that blinded the Las Vegas police who were there waiting for them. The helicopter lifted off almost immediately, as Ray was running across the lot to the nearest police car. A uniformed officer moved to greet him. “I’m Captain Robinson, LVPD. I just got told by headquarters that you’re from Washington and I’m supposed to cooperate with you. What’s this all about?”

Ray flashed his credentials to the police captain. “There’s an important federal official who lives in this building,” he yelled over the noise of the ascending helicopter. “I have reason to believe this fire is from an explosion targeting her, maybe an aircraft of some kind.”

The captain indicated for Ray to follow and they began moving quickly toward the tower. “Well, I don’t know what happened yet, but I don’t think an airplane hit the building. The explosion was fairly contained and the FD has got the fire almost out,” Robinson said. Ray’s optimism was rising again.

The police car pulled up to a Fire Department Mobile Command Post in the middle of the street below the smoking condominium building. Ray and Captain Robinson both quickly jumped out of the car. The policeman introduced Bowman to the fire chief who was the on scene commander. “Yeah, it’s under control now. It was some sort of explosion on thirty-three. We’ve only found one fatality so far, but there may be others.”

Although he could barely get out the words, Ray Bowman asked, “Do you have an ID on the victim?”

“No, not yet, the ME just rolled with the body a few minutes ago.” The fireman consulted his iPad. “Female, badly burned. Found in the probable bedroom area in 3304. The concierge guy told us 3304 belongs to a Janet Sutherland.” Ray knew that was Sandra Vittonelli’s cover name for her life in Las Vegas. He turned away from the Fire Chief, hung his head, and pounded his fist hard onto the hood of a patrol car.

Then, slowly, he regained control. He walked back to the Chief. “I will need to see the body,” he found himself saying. The words had come out of his mouth, but his mind had frozen up. He felt himself shutting down.

He was aware that the policeman was talking to him. “I can take you over to the Medical Examiner’s building.”

With effort, he formed the words of a reply. “Yes, please.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 21

SPECIAL OPERATIONS ROOM

GLOBAL COORDINATION CENTER

CREECH AFB, NEVADA

None of them had slept. Ray had identified Sandy’s body at the Medical Examiner’s building. She had been burned badly, but was recognizable. He did not stay there looking at the charred remains, did not stand by her side and think. He left quickly before the image of her that way froze in his mind. With all of his self-control, he had decided to lock his emotions away in a corner of his brain, a corner he would revisit later when he could deal with it. Now, he told himself, he had work to do. If he let himself go, let himself feel, he would not be able to work, to finish the job. She would want him to finish it. He had to find her killers. He had to kill them.

Erik Parsons had taken his wife to the Emergency Room, where she had been examined and found to be dehydrated, but otherwise fine. They had urged her to spend a day under observation in the hospital. Her hospital room was protected by an FBI Agent and a local policeman. She asked for an Ambien and told Erik to go get some rest. He went back to the GCC.

Dugout had never left the drone operations center. When Ray reappeared at the Operations Room it was three thirty in the morning. His suit had ash and dust on it. His pants were dirty at the knees. His tie was off and his hair was unkempt. He carried a coffee.

“Don’t say anything about her. Not yet,” he said to Dugout and Erik. “Ask your Big Data Analysis thing to find connections between what we have been looking for and model airplanes, radio controlled, big ones, custom. Add model B-52s as a subset.”

He then placed a secure call to White House Signal, the Army-run communications room for the classified networks serving the President and his staff. He asked to be put through to the National Security Advisor. Before Winston Burrell could say anything about Sandra Vittonelli, Ray got down to business.

“Win, we have a tough decision to make and we have to make it now. We have every reason to believe that there is an active plot to conduct bombings in the U.S. in the next forty-eight hours. We don’t know where, but we believe it could involve subways, possibly including Boston’s. If we issue a vague national warning, some people will panic needlessly, but if we say nothing and it happens…” He let the implications of that course go unsaid.