access point just before the attack. It performed a test upload-which I let past-and afterwards a large encrypted file was transferred… which I trapped.”
“Bingo. That means they don’t have shit. No damage assessment.” Odin handed the ruggedized tablet over to her, but his gaze stayed on Hoov. “What else do you have for me?”
Hoov was studying several screens of his own. “Judging from the impact radius, I’d say it’s another fifteen- kilo laser-guided fuel-air bomb.”
“Foxy, we’ll need to insert a mop-up crew into the TPDF to get the bomb fragments.”
Foxy answered. “Already in the works.”
“And the parent drone-please tell me we got clear video for once.”
Everyone turned to face Hoov expectantly.
Hoov milked the pregnant silence, then smiled. “Channel Two.”
Odin clapped once and grabbed the Rover. He tapped the screen for a few moments as the others crowded around him, looking over his shoulder from the seat backs. It was obvious that they’d been trying to get a look at their quarry for some time. Their eyes went wide and they nodded in satisfaction.
Odin looked up. “Goddammit, good job, Hoov. There’s our enemy, people. At long last we meet.”
The woman in the hijab poked her ringed index finger. “South African Bateleur?”
Foxy shook his head. “Not with that wing configuration. Looks more like a Rustom-H to me. Or maybe an Indian Aura.”
Odin was shaking his head. “No, it’s another knock-off. Maybe built with stolen tech.”
He turned the Rover to face McKinney. “Here’s what would have killed you tonight, Professor…”
She studied the black-and-white image. It was like seeing footage of Bigfoot; a vaguely familiar drone shape-straight wings, with canards, and a rear-facing propeller. It was filmed off to the side and from below, where a bomblike object was visible on a hard-point on its belly. The perspective of the image was changing slowly, as though taken from another aircraft that was moving in a different direction.
The rest of the group seemed pretty satisfied, but McKinney grimaced. “Why didn’t you shoot it down before it attacked me?”
“Not the plan. It’s important that they don’t know we’re tracking them. Not yet, at any rate. And by intercepting their spotter’s video upload, they won’t know whether you’re alive or dead.”
“Can’t you trace it”-she rolled her hand in thought-“by radio signals or something? Find out who’s controlling it?”
Odin looked grim. “That’s the problem: No one is controlling it. These drones are autonomous-programmed to find and kill their victim, and then to self-destruct. So far it’s been impossible to get a good look at one, much less capture it intact. But we’re working on that last part, and thanks to you we made some progress tonight.” He turned back to Hoov. “When did we lose it?”
“Disappeared from the radar screen nine clicks south of Target One at an altitude of twenty-two thousand feet.”
Foxy murmured, “Figures.”
Odin didn’t seem surprised either. “Any luck catching the spotter?”
“Negative. It flew off after the bomb strike. Tin Man and Smokey are beating the bush trying to find it, but all hell’s broken loose at the research station. Armed guards are running around with flashlights.”
“Pull ’em out. See what our operatives can find tomorrow. In the meantime upload everything to the gateway, and tell Expert Four I want a written assessment by the time I return.”
“Will do.”
McKinney was still trying to process the insanity of her situation. “Let me get this straight: Someone tried to kill me with a self-piloting suicide drone?”
“I know this must all seem very strange.”
She looked at him like he was certifiably insane.
“Okay. Maybe it is very strange. But now there’s a tool to cheaply eliminate people without facing consequences. That means this is about to spread.”
McKinney was still trying to grapple with it. “But… I’ve seen documentaries on plane crashes-can’t you go through the wreckage and find out-”
“What? That the parts were made in China? Everything’s made in China. Whoever’s doing this is using off- the-shelf components-the same chips and circuit boards used in computers and game consoles. What we need to do is get ahold of the firmware that runs them-their brain. But immediately after they attack, these drones climb to about twenty or twenty-five thousand feet-then self-destruct. And when I say ‘self-destruct,’ I mean they shred themselves. Explosive residue on the few pieces we’ve found shows it’s pentaerythritol tetranitrate-Primacord- basically explosive rope. Used for cutting steel.”
Foxy twanged the kora. “What the Finnish army calls anopin pyykkinaru — ‘mother-in-law’s clothesline.’” Another twang for emphasis.
Odin cast a look at him, then turned back to McKinney. “A chemical trace dead-ended to a batch of det-cord stolen from a demolition project in Cyprus two years ago-no suspects. The explosive cuts the drone into confetti, and at that altitude the wreckage spreads across twenty square miles. What we’ve found so far wouldn’t fill a garbage bag.”
Hoov called out from the back of the plane. “No suspicious radio traffic during the event.”
“As expected.”
McKinney held up her hand to silence them. “What. The. Hell. Is going on? Why is someone trying to kill me?”
The Albanian guy named Foxy raised his eyebrows. “You really don’t know?”
“Because I’m an American? Because of the Karbala attack? If that’s the case, you need to evacuate the entire research station.”
Odin drummed his fingers on his armrest. “Unfortunately it’s more personal than that. Someone is targeting you specifically, Professor McKinney.”
She was utterly at a loss. “I study ants.”
“That is the reason someone’s trying to kill you. Because of your particular expertise.”
“My expertise…” McKinney leaned back in her seat and just stared at him for a moment. “Who the hell are you people?”
“We’re with the U.S. military.”
“The U.S. military.”
“Yes.”
She eyed them. “You don’t look like U.S. military.”
“Well, that’s kind of the whole point.”
“I want to see credentials. Now.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Well, it’s how I work. I’m sort of funny that way.”
“We’re the people who just saved you from certain death. That’s all you need to know about us.”
“As far as I know, you kidnapped me, blew up my cabin with a stick of dynamite, and put together some drone highlight reels.”
Odin looked back at Foxy.
Foxy shrugged. “She’s got a point.” He lowered the kora and dug into his bag. In a moment he produced a folder, which he passed forward.
Odin took the folder. “I don’t have any latitude to tell you who we are. That could put our mission in jeopardy.” He withdrew a document, glanced at it, and then passed it along to her. “Are you familiar with any of these people, Professor McKinney?”
Still irritated, she hesitated before accepting the piece of paper. It was a printout of the front page of The New York Times, just a few days old. The headline read SIX DIE IN STANFORD BOMBING. The names of several of the victims had been helpfully highlighted in yellow by someone: Lei Li, Vijay Prakash, Gerhard Koepple…
“God, there’s been a bombing at Stanford now too?”
“Were you familiar with these researchers or their work?”
“No. I’ve never heard of them.”
