The anchorwoman spoke over the video: “… time in the heart of America’s defense sector close by the Pentagon. The bomb claimed the lives of Alerion Aerospace CEO Brad Oliphant Jr. along with several board members and executives. As a parts supplier for several Pentagon drone aircraft programs, security analysts speculate that Alerion was targeted by extremists intent on exacting revenge for the recent Karbala shrine attack, despite new evidence supporting an American denial of responsibility. Although al-Qaeda and other terror organizations have voiced support for today’s attack, authorities confirm that no credible group has yet to claim responsibility for-”
Click.
Another cable news station. An inset photo of the same burning office building next to the anchorman, who was in midstory. “… explosion could be heard throughout the capital city and, for some, brought back awful memories of 9/11. It is a city under siege this hour, as residents cope with the realization that they now live in a combat zone.”
Click.
Another news channel. Images of the injured being rolled on gurneys to waiting ambulances. Fire trucks. The anchorman’s voice authoritative: “Parts of D.C. are in lockdown as investigators comb through the scene, reviewing surveillance videos for some clue as to how the bombers were able to bypass security.”
McKinney nodded to herself. A smart bomb doesn’t go through security. She wondered if this was a planted story or whether most government officials really didn’t know the truth either.
Click.
More news. Same story.
Click.
News again. Was that the only thing on this damned system? Weather and news?
Click.
News commentary. Several pundits sitting across from each other at a desk that would look at home on the Starship Enterprise, weighing in on recent events. A bald man with a crooked tie was talking fast. “.. ourselves is why, after over a decade in the War on Terror, literally trillions of dollars and thousands of American dead and tens of thousands of injured-after all that blood and treasure-and literally hundreds of thousands of civilian dead overseas, why are we now as helpless against these terrorists as we were on 9/11?”
Another pundit: “That’s not the big issue here, Howard. I mean, given all the privacy and civil liberties that we’ve given up, we now effectively live in a surveillance state-cameras on every street corner, in every place of business and office building, mass wiretapping-and yet the government is no closer to finding these terrorists. You look at the Spanish train bombings, the London Underground bombings-they had surveillance video in a matter of hours that led to the perpetrators. Yet here it’s been months and nearly two dozen attacks-”
The host interjected, “Well, there have been arrests.”
“But the bombings continue, and we’ve had no convictions. We’ve had several suspects released, in fact.”
The host changed direction. “ Instead, word on Capitol Hill is that House and Senate intelligence committees are examining an emergency defense appropriation reported to be in the tens of billions of dollars to create a drone air defense system, which makes me wonder how much more we could possibly spend on security that isn’t-”
Click.
The Weather Channel again. McKinney tossed the remote onto the nightstand and collapsed onto the bed, listening to the soothing voice of the weatherwoman…
“… scattered showers across much of southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago. While a high-pressure system eases down over the Kamchatka Peninsula…”
CHAPTER 13
Linda McKinney exited her room to the sound of arguing. As she rounded the corner, she came upon Foxy and Singleton squared off again, while two large ravens squabbled over the wreckage of Singleton’s hunter vehicle on the floor in the middle of the hallway. The birds were using their thick black beaks to tear wires out of the autonomous vehicle’s central circuit board. Pieces of plastic littered the floor.
“When is Odin going to get these flying rats under control?”
“You know they like to wreck things. I can’t keep windshield wipers on the trucks when they get bored. Besides, I thought your ‘hunter-killer’ could look after itself.”
“It’s idiocy having these birds flying around down here. They steal chips and components.”
Foxy and Singleton both turned to see McKinney. Foxy nodded. “Morning.”
“Morning.” McKinney looked down to see the ravens flapping their wings, caw ing loudly as Singleton tried to move in to salvage his machine.
Foxy thumbed down the hall. “Team room’s that way. You’ll find breakfast there.”
“Thanks.” McKinney nodded and stepped past, trying to stifle a shared grin with Foxy as the birds snapped at Singleton’s fingers. He tried to shoo them away.
Like the rest of the underground offices the brightly lit team room was new enough that it still smelled of fresh paint. However, it didn’t have a drop ceiling; instead exposed limestone stood three times McKinney’s height above. The scoured and striated rock was painted white and crisscrossed by fire sprinkler pipes and bright fluorescent work lights. The work area was huge. A dozen people in jeans and variously colored Ancile Services polo shirts sat around a series of large tables that had been pushed together to create a broad and long work surface littered with thousands of documents, photographs, and blueprints, as well as machine-milled foam models of what appeared to be unmanned aircraft and machine parts. There were also diagrams of corporate and residential buildings detailing explosive damage, dotted with callouts and captions unreadable at this distance. A dozen identical laptops were open and running with people clicking away at keyboards. Half a dozen more people sat or stood at tables running along the room’s perimeter. The walls were hung with large plotter-printed diagrams, maps, and blueprints depicting the United States, maps of commercial flight paths, radar and military installations, and printouts of surveillance imagery. There were also silhouettes of hundreds of drone aircraft pinned to the walls-way more, in fact, than McKinney had known existed. The silhouettes were categorized by country: Argentina, Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK, the U.S.-and on, and on. There were hundreds of drones on the walls.
Clearly thousands of man-hours had already been expended on this project, and everyone seemed to be busy working their portion of it.
Odin stood at the head of the table with his arms crossed. He nodded silently to her as she examined the team room.
Among the other team members it was impossible to tell who was military and who was civilian. Long hair and beards certainly didn’t indicate a civilian background, since Odin and Foxy had both.
There was a plump forty-something Asian man-Korean, she guessed-conversing with a lanky blond guy who, although boyish, was probably in his thirties. She exchanged nods with him as she laid her assigned laptop on the table and took an open seat. There was lots of room.
Glancing along the table she saw a pear-shaped African-American man in his thirties gesturing to a laptop screen, while another Asian man listened in, slighter in build and more fair-complexioned-most likely Japanese. The Japanese man gave McKinney a knowing, sympathetic nod. Two other individuals at the edge of the room-a Caucasian man and a Latina in their early twenties-were arguing about something involving radio signals. A collection of computers and signal processing equipment lined their workstation.
The last team member at the table, a sophisticated-looking African-American woman in her late twenties or early thirties, with short hair, smiled in greeting. Her eyeglasses went way beyond functional into stylish-expensive territory. “Have you had breakfast yet? There’s food just beyond the pillar.”
McKinney shook her head. “No, I’m fine, thanks. Not much of an appetite.”
