Authors: Daniel Suarez
“Well . . .” Jordan gestured up to the carnage on the big screen above them. “There’s your benchmark. Start talking.”
Lazzo smacked the sheet of paper. “AWACS is tracking a gopher south of Karbala. They want us to get eyes on.”
Jordan’s fingers clattered over his keyboard. “Send the bogey dope, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“It’s the Day of Ashura, Lieutenant.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
Lazzo sighed the sigh of the knowledgeable underling. “A million Shiite pilgrims on foot commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala. The pilgrimage has been attacked by Sunni militants in the past, and we’ve got an unidentified aircraft inbound.”
“Ah . . . right . . .” Jordan frowned as he finished typing a reply to a military intelligence unit. “What are we looking at?”
“First showed up three clicks west of Al Hiyadha. Altitude two zero, speed two hundred knots. Heading three-five-zero.” Lazzo studied the printout. “A single-engine plane, maybe. Smugglers or local VIPs. But then again . . .”
The civil affairs folks had briefed Jordan on the sensitivities of his sector. He recalled that the shrines of Imam Husayn and Al Abbas at Karbala were among the holiest sites to the Shia Islamic faith—that is, to about a quarter billion people.
Lazzo offered the printed report again. “According to Geeks, you’ve got the closest tail, sir.”
“Okay, I got it. I got it.” Jordan grabbed the printout and clicked on one of the three LCD monitors on his desk. He brought up GCCS, the Global Command and Control System that tracked the real-time location of all friendly forces in the field.
He scrolled the map view of his sector and noted the tail number of his Predator drone nearest the radar contact. He then clicked through another screen to establish an encrypted satellite radio link to the drone operators in Nevada. “Kodar Tree, Kodar Tree. We are tracking a gopher, slow and in the weeds. I need tail one-zero-seven to come off current target and move south. Check your feed. MCR. Out.” He typed the AWACS info and destination MGRS coordinates into a chat window directed to the pilot’s handle. He waited several moments.
“Copy that, MCR. Proceeding to grid tree-eight, sierra, mike, bravo, one-two-tree-niner-zero-eight-zero-eight.”
Jordan and Lazzo looked up at the large screen above them as the image switched from the car bombing to another scene entirely—a tan, flat horizon. It was eight hours later in Iraq, midmorning, and the horizon leaned right as tail one-zero-seven yawed over the brown, ancient city of Karbala at an altitude of nine thousand feet. At that height the drone would be inaudible and all but invisible to casual observers on the ground.
Each Predator system consisted of a pilot, his sensor operator, and a set of four separate Predator drones that they controlled from inside an air-conditioned military shipping container—in this case at Creech Air Force Base, near Las Vegas, Nevada. They pulled twelve-hour shifts there in what were called “reachback” operations, and then went home for breakfast in the suburbs. Jordan sometimes suffered the same disorienting effects the Predator teams reported from remote operations. It made it hard to keep up a battle rhythm when you found yourself in a convenience store buying a Slurpee an hour after ordering the deaths of five insurgents half a world away. It was easy to forget this was all very real somewhere and not just a super-high-res game. There was counseling for that, but he didn’t think it was a good career move to take advantage of it.
Jordan continued to monitor the contents of several screens at once.
“SO, we’ve got forty degrees more of heading.”
“Sensor copies.”
A voice from higher up the command chain suddenly broke in on the radio.
“Kodar Tree, this is Sentinel. Request weapons load-out.”
Others were listening in, then. It underscored to Jordan the sensitivities of operations above the masses of Shia pilgrims moving through Karbala. U.S. combat forces had officially left the country—a pronouncement that seriously pissed off the U.S. troops who were still there. These drone flights were overhead to look for trouble and pass intelligence to the Iraqi army. And Lazzo was right; the Ashura festivities had been attacked by militant Sunnis before.
“Sentinel, we are Winchester.”
Unarmed. This close to the shrines, he damned well better be Winchester.
“Kodar Tree, you may proceed. Sentinel out.”
“Copy that, Sentinel. MCR, we are on-station, heading one-seven-eight. Pilot out.”
They watched for several moments as the optics package zoomed in along Route 9, the wide, gritty boulevard stretching cracked, sun-blasted, and arrow-straight south through the city. Lined with run-down housing blocks, the road was packed with tens of thousands of pilgrims moving on foot. Jordan whistled. “That’s quite a crowd.” He keyed his mic. “Pilot, keep tracking south, and you should intercept that gopher momentarily.”
“Wilco.”
“There.” Sergeant Lazzo pointed up at the screen with a pocket laser pointer, but it was already obvious to them all.
“MCR, we’ve got a visual on that gopher. It is a cyclops—repeat, cyclops—heading tree-fife-eight. Probably has a bent parrot.”
Jordan saw the unmistakable outline of an American drone as it motored north at barely two thousand feet altitude.
What the hell?
“Kodar Tree, copy that cyclops. Designate cyclops Target One. Shadow Target One, and get me its tail number.”
Lazzo raised his eyebrows.
“Pilot copies.”
“Sensor copies.”
Lazzo shrugged. “One of our drones with a malfunctioning transponder, then.”
Jordan studied the screen. “But how the hell did it get there? And why isn’t there a record in Blue Force Tracker? I mean, that’s a Reaper.” Jordan stared at the high-def video of a gray American MQ-9 Reaper drone, still tracking north above the highway. Visually similar to the smaller propeller-driven MQ-1 Predator, the Reaper was half again as large, and capable of carrying far more weaponry. This one was flying lower than any drone—especially a Reaper—should. Was it having engine trouble?
“MCR, Target One has stars-and-bars, but no visible tail number. Repeat, no visible tail number.”
“Copy that, Kodar Tree.” Jordan changed radio channels. “Sentinel, MCR, heads up. We have a visual on MQ-9 cyclops with bent parrot and no visible tail number over Karbala, slow and in the weeds, heading tree-fife-fife. No record of this flight. Please advise.”
Radio and instant message chatter swelled in response, and Jordan muttered to Lazzo as he dialed an extension on his phone. “I thought CIA had stopped this cowboy shit.”
Lazzo was still squinting at the screen. “But AWACS would have checked with JSOC before calling us.”
Jordan held a finger to his headset switch, waiting for an answer. “Well, it’s somebody’s goddamned drone, and it couldn’t just wander into the neighborhood without anyone knowing about it.”
“That thing’s loaded for bear.”
As the optics zoomed in on the Reaper, Jordan could see the hard-points on the wings bearing a full complement of fourteen AGM Hellfire missiles. In the background below it, thousands of black- and white-robed pilgrims pointed up as the shadow of its wings passed over them.
“This is one hell of a Charlie Foxtrot.” He could see pilgrims in the crowd filming the drone with video cameras and cell phones. “You watch, that’ll show up on Al Jazeera later.”
Just then a tall, stern-looking air force colonel wearing ABUs marched into Jordan’s workspace. “What the hell’s going on, Lieutenant?”
Jordan stood and saluted along with Sergeant Lazzo. “Colonel, sir. Unidentified Reaper above Karbala. No IFF. No tail number. We’re still trying to ID it.”
The colonel pointed at Lazzo. “Get CIA on the line, and find out why the hell I didn’t know about this.” He then gazed up at the screen as several other techs were now doing. “Christ on a cracker, this breaks half a dozen airspace restrictions, and I’m not about to take the heat for it. Where is it now?”
“Roughly three clicks south of the Imam Husayn and Al Abbas shrines.”
“How did it get this far undetected?”
“No idea, sir. AWACS only alerted us a few minutes ago.”
“Find out who’s controlling that drone.”
Jordan grabbed a phone and glanced at Lazzo, who simply shrugged in confusion as he manned a phone as well.
As the colonel and other nearby airmen watched the screen, the view rotated. Their Predator was falling behind the faster, more powerful unidentified Reaper drone. Up ahead, they could see the golden domes of the twin shrines gleaming in the sunlight. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims filled the open squares around them. The Reaper was silhouetted, coming in low, like a spiked hornet against the city.
The Predator pilot’s voice came over the intercom.
“MCR, heads up. Target One appears engaged offensive. It’s sparkling the shrine. Repeat, cyclops is sparkling the shrine.”
Now everyone was standing up, gazing at the overhead screen. Jordan lowered his phone receiver. “Which shrine is it lasing?”
“It could be prepping for a missile launch.” The colonel turned on Jordan and Lazzo. “Give me that goddamned phone!”
Lazzo shook his head. “CIA says it’s not their drone, Colonel.”
“Bullshit!”
Just then a Hellfire missile burst forth from the left wing of the Reaper in a puff of smoke, screaming skyward in an arc. A whole section of DCGS-1 staff gasped as the missile continued its trajectory, rising, and then suddenly arced straight down above the Imam Husayn shrine. By then two more missiles had launched and were beginning their upward arcs as well.
“MCR, heads up. Ripple!”
Lazzo called it out. “We’ve got multiple missile launches.”
Jordan was stunned by the magnitude of what he was watching. As his eyes went wide, the Predator’s optics focused in on the packed crowd in the square. The first missile impacted, spreading a visible shock wave through the air—quickly followed by a sustained fireball that in turn sent an even more powerful shock wave through the crowd—disintegrating them. Pieces of human beings flew in all directions.
“Lieutenant!” The colonel turned to Jordan. “New picture. Shoot that drone down! Take it down!”
Jordan came back to his senses and immediately got AWACS on the line. “Bandsaw-one-six. Bandsaw-one-six Sprint! Sprint! Sprint!”
As he spoke, he could see the remaining missiles roaring forward from the hard-points on the Reaper wings, raining down in a broad pattern among the pilgrims.
The colonel and most of the staff stared in disbelief. They had seen horrible sights on “Death TV” before, but this one was off the chart.
Lazzo stared at the explosions silently blasting holes into the dense crowds. “The bastards are using thermobarics. How could they just . . .” His voice trailed off as several technicians around him covered their mouths in horror.
The Predator’s optics played across the huge crowds roiling like ocean waves as they fled from the gore in the square between shrines, trampling each other in terror. Some of the DCGS staff actually howled in outrage.
“MCR, recommend Target One be destroyed immediately.”
The colonel looked truly livid—his face red, his eyes blazing.
“Sir, we have Falcons inbound. ETA three minutes.”
“Well, the damage is goddamn done already, son! I want that drone tracked, and I want to know who’s operating it! Get me some goddamned ELINT, and find out where it’s being controlled from.”
As the smoke and flames rose above the city, they could see the Reaper banking away and descending even farther—having let loose every missile it had.
“MCR, Target One turning to new heading . . . two-one.”
“Kodar Tree, MCR copies.”
They could now see the silent flash of small-arms fire from the crowds below. Their vantage point was still over a mile above the mystery Reaper—most likely their own Predator was still unseen by the crowd below, but the Reaper was in full view of hundreds of thousands of people.
“MCR, I’m seeing SAF from the ground. Looks like IA is having a go.”
Suddenly, above the narrow streets of Karbala’s old quarter, the Reaper exploded—blasting into fiery pieces that spun downward across a dozen city blocks, trailing streamers of smoke into the narrow-alley neighborhoods around the shrines.
The colonel turned to face Jordan. “What the hell just happened?”
Jordan shook his head. “It wasn’t us, Colonel. The F-16s are still inbound.”
The colonel kicked a chair, sending it spinning away. “Goddammit!” He turned quickly. “Call off the jets. The last thing we need is more armed aircraft over this disaster.”
Jordan called off the strike and hung up the phone. He then gazed up at the screen like everyone else in the place—staring in mute shock at the magnitude of the carnage.
The Predator’s optics panned across the thousands of wounded and dead, pilgrims in bloody clothing, Iraqi soldiers rushing forward to carry away wounded. People weeping and tearing at their clothes and hair as dead or dying relatives were pulled from their arms.
Jordan sat back down. Numb. “There’ll be hell to pay for this. . . .”
* * *
H
enry Clarke awoke
facedown and still dressed in a black Castangia pinstripe suit. Splayed diagonally across his bed, he groped for a phone as it chimed somewhere in the soft glow of LED charging lights. “Dammit, where the . . .” He finally saw his cell on the nightstand, its front panel glowing through a cocktail napkin with a cell number and lipstick smeared across it. He swatted away the napkin and grabbed the handset. “Yeah?”
A pause.
He sat up and flicked on the nightstand lamp. “Shit. I am. Yeah. Yes.” He looked around. “Now?” He glanced at his watch, then reluctantly nodded. “All right. Fine. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Two minutes later Clarke, wearing jeans and an untucked white button-down shirt, opened his red townhome door in bare feet to reveal an austere, well-dressed woman in her fifties coming up his stone steps. A black Lincoln Town Car idled at the curb outside—double-parked on his Georgetown street. The driver and another suited man watched her go inside. She waved them off, then muttered to Clarke, “Get inside before you catch cold, Henry.”