minutes ago. I thought you’d been told.”
Top waved him away. “Assuming the vessel maintains current speed, when does the enemy enter the mined portion of the river?”
“Two hours, perhaps less.”
“Track his speed. Any change, let me know.”
Suddenly, Khan’s hand was on his shoulder and his lips were close to his ear. “I think you should take him out with attack drones,” Khan said softly, eyes up on the screen. “Take him out now, my brother, and be done with him.”
Top’s eyes flashed. “Did you not hear what this man just said? He’s got a missile defense system! The acoustic mines will protect us from this mosquito. Nothing could survive that stretch of water.”
“With all due respect, my dear brother, I imagine we have more drones than he has missiles. His is not a warship, after all.”
“You imagine! What if you’re wrong? What then? I’m left defenseless.”
“Muhammad, calm yourself. We’ve been at this too long without sleep. I’m going to rest in my quarters until the final hour approaches. Please let me know should anything develop that requires my immediate attention.”
Without another word, the robed man strode toward the elevator at the back of the darkened room. Top watched him leave with some satisfaction. He had no need of him now. Destiny was in his hands alone.
“Any word from the Xucurus?” Top asked the room.
“Nothing yet,” a controller murmured, afraid to look up.
Before reaching the small elevator, Khan paused at the last row of flat-screen monitor workstations. Each workstation was a semi-enclosed pod and comprised a small, virtual-reality environment for the controllers. The key components were screens displaying live streaming video from the trailer trucks en route to Washington.
Once the trucks resurfaced inside the cartel-owned garage at Gunbarrel, Texas, they had been driven northeast by diverse routes to the American capital. Live video superimposed upon 3-D situation maps using satellite photos, made the controllers work possible. GPS coordinates and a multidirectional live video feed from each vehicle were fed to a COMS satellite positioned over the East Coast of the North American continent.
Inside each monitor pod sat a controller and a sensor operator. The man on the left actually drove the vehicle; while the other monitored every kind of road, traffic, and weather condition. He ensured all traffic laws were strictly obeyed. In combat, he would also provide constant battleground feedback, giving second-by-second direction to the controller. These were the men who actually operated the remote machines, using a large joystick resembling something in an arcade.
“I’d mind your trucks if I were you, Muhammad,” Khan said, just loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room. “One of them appears to be lost.”
“What?”
“See for yourself, my brother,” Khan said, tapping the monitor in question. “This one appears to be lost in the snow.”
Khan stepped aside for Top who peered intently at the image. There was so much snow whirling around the camera lens that it was difficult to see what was being broadcast. “You’re lost?” he said to the young curly-haired controller, whose name was Yashim.
“Only momentarily, God willing,” Yashim said.
“Shit. Police. Two of them. How did this happen?”
He leaned in to scrutinize the scene. Two uniformed officers could now clearly be seen standing at the rear of the truck. Both were looking up at the rear door. One appeared to have some sort of battering ram in his hands.
Khan said, “The truck was stopped by police? Why? And you alerted no one?”
Yahshim trembled visibly and said, “I am most sorry, sir. In the storm, we lost the route through the park. A wrong turn perhaps. The snow. I thought I could find it again. But, then I—”
“Where is the truck located?” Top shouted, “Now! Put up the GPS map! Show me!”
“Here, sir. In Rock Creek Park,” the sensor operator said, his voice shaky. “About three miles from its rendezvous point in this heavily wooded area.”
“What’s this large building? The one here?”
“Walter Reed Hospital. Veterans’ facility.”
“Blow up the truck,” Top said evenly. “Use the anti-tampering explosive device in the trailer.”
Each truck was equipped with an anti-tampering system that could be triggered remotely. Or, in the event that the primary contents of the truck were in any way disturbed, the explosive package would destroy both the vehicle and its contents automatically. So far, the police had only broken a window in the cab. It had not been enough to trigger the automatic explosion.
“Now?” Yashim asked.
“You’d like to wait for the two policeman to discover the contents and alert their superiors? Yes, now. Do it!”
The controller pushed a button marked FIRE and the resulting violent explosion instantly caused the screen to go black.
“Your mission is complete,” Top said to the man seated before him. He put the muzzle of his pistol to the back of the controller’s head and fired one round into his brain. The sensor operator seated next to him screamed and shoved his chair back, struggling to get to his feet.
“Yours, too,” he said to the second man before he killed him, putting the muzzle to his chest and pulling the trigger.
Top made his way to the front of the room, every eye glued to him.
“That was unfortunate. But, necessary. Victory is near. I assume there will be no further trucks lost in the snow. Correct?”
“God willing!” the controllers all shouted in unison. It was standard Arabic courtesy to give God the benefit of the doubt.
“God willing you will all be alive to share the fruits of our victory in a few hours. Now, get back to work. All trucks should be at their designated rendezvous locations and unloading their precious cargo in the next hour. Does anyone in this room see a problem with that? Tell me now.”
Silence.
“Good. Let it be.”
“A thousand pardons, sir,” a technician in the front row said, breaking the silence.
“Yes?”
“Hawke’s vessel has stopped. Here. At an abandoned village called Tupo.”
“How long has he been there?”
“Just pulled in. There’s a dock. Could be loading or unloading.”
“Tanks nearby?”
“One, sir.”
“Send it to the location. And order four drones up. Attack drones. Perhaps Dr. Khan is right. Nevertheless. I want to sink that sitting duck. Now.”
Khan smiled and slipped quietly from the room.
An old song popped into his head and he sang a lyric softly as he entered the elevator.
Send in the drones…
75
THE BLACK RIVER
B rock was late for his scheduled river rendezvous with Alex Hawke. He’d been making his way through the jungle to the outpost at Tupo when he got into a life or death race with some tanks. He’d accidentally tripped a sensor and a whole squadron of Trolls had been sent out to find him. He seemed to have confused most of the joystick jockeys when he’d crossed a wide ravine, deftly tightrope-walking a fallen tree to the other side. Now he realized another of the little bastards was still on his butt.
