A Time for Patriots

“Send the other drone back over the compound,” Chastain said. “The Knights looked like they’re getting ready for something — I need to know what’s going on.”

“It’ll have to fly higher than ten thousand.”

“But we were getting great shots at ten thousand,” Chastain said.

“We don’t know where the second Sparrowhawk is,” Jon said. “We can’t fly it at the same altitude as the first.”

“Then fly it at nine thousand.”

“That’s only four thousand feet aboveground!”

“I don’t care. Just do it.”

“It can’t stay on station for very long,” Jeff reminded them. “It’s already been airborne four days.”

“How long can it stay?”

Jeff turned to the first Sparrowhawk’s flight-data screen… and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Uh, Jon…” Jon looked… and found the flight data on the first Sparrowhawk blank as well!

“What the hell happened?”

“Not now, Chastain,” Jon said, pushing Jeff out of the way and frantically typing instructions into the laptop. He waited for a few moments, then pounded the desk in frustration. “Get Bidwell and Henderson out there to check the satellite uplink and network connectivity, now, ” he shouted, jabbing a finger at Jeff. “If they don’t find anything wrong, have them hardwire the computer interfaces with the uplink and antenna instead of using the wireless routers. Reboot the computers and run the network and I-O diagnostics before reinitializing the software. Call Las Vegas and have the entire staff stand by — no, better yet, have them send the entire Sparrowhawk team up here.”

“Masters, what’s going on?”

“We’ve lost contact with both Sparrowhawks,” Jon said, staring at the blank data readouts in complete bewilderment. “Losing one is bad, but it happens — losing both at the same time is a freakin’ disaster.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve got two hours until they start heading back to base. Make sure the airspace is clear. I’ll talk to air traffic control and see if they have primary radar hits on either one of them.”

The next two hours was a flurry of activity inside and outside the hangar. As they got closer to the arrival time, Patrick drove Jon and Special Agent Chastain in the airfield operations truck to the taxiway intersection closest to the approach end of the arrival runway and started scanning the sky for the Sparrowhawks. It was not yet sunset, but the eastern sky was dark enough to prevent seeing any aircraft unless its position and landing lights were on. “What did air traffic control say, Jon?” Patrick asked.

“None of your business, McLanahan,” Chastain growled as he swept the sky with binoculars. Jon lowered his binoculars, looked at Patrick, and shook his head. “How much longer, Masters?” the FBI special agent asked.

“Any minute now.”

Chastain’s cell phone rang. “Chastain.” He listened for a few moments, his eyes growing wider by the moment. “Oh, shit . I’ll be right there… find a TV.”

“In my office,” Patrick said.

“What happened?” Jon asked.

At first Chastain wasn’t going to say anything with Patrick there, but he decided Patrick was going to find out soon anyway: “There are news crews at the Knights’ compound,” he said. “The drone crashed.”

“What … ?”

“There are pieces of another plane out there too — they’re saying there was a midair collision,” Chastain said. “It’s all over the damned news.”

They raced back to Patrick’s office and turned on the television. They expected to see pictures of the crashed drone, but instead they were looking at what appeared to be a large area of scorched desert just south of a multilane divided highway that appeared to be Interstate 80. “What is this ? They’re reporting on a brush fire?” Chastain asked.

They found out soon enough: the caption on the bottom of the screen read: Scene of the second unmanned aircraft crash near Battle Mountain, Nevada.

“What in hell … !”

“ Both Sparrowhawks crashed?” Jon Masters said in a low, stunned voice, almost a whimper. “My God…”

Chastain’s cell phone was in his hands in a flash. “I want those crash sites cordoned off and all news helicopters kept away,” he said.

“I’ve got to get out there,” Jon said tonelessly, his eyes wide with disbelief and despair. “I’ve got to find out what happened.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Masters,” Chastain said, putting a hand over his cell phone’s microphone. “This is still a classified operation.” He turned back to his cell phone. “Jordan, Chastain here. I want…” He fell silent, listening, then veins started to pop out on his forehead. He jabbed a finger at Patrick, then at the door, silently ordering him to get out. After Patrick departed, Chastain yelled, “Get HRTs Four and Five loaded up and on their way out to that compound now . I’ll get Los Angeles and Seattle to send their teams.”

“What happened?” Jon asked.

“The damned Knights are dragging pieces of the drone inside their compound,” Chastain said. “The news crews are going in with them. They say they’re expecting the government to respond with force, and they say they’re going to defend themselves and repel all attackers.”

“You mean they’re stealing my Sparowhawk ?” Jon cried out.

“Shut up about your damned drones, Masters,” Chastain said. “They’re evidence, and I’m going to get them all back, you can count on that .”

“Send in the Cybernetic Infantry Device robots,” Jon said. “The robots will get them back.”

Chastain thought for a moment, then redialed his cell phone. “Richter, I’m going to brief you and Savoy on a mission. Meet me at the drone control desk. We’ll deploy by helicopter in fifteen minutes.”

They drove back to their hangar, where they met Jason Richter, Charlie Turlock, Wayne Macomber, and FBI agent Randolph Savoy at the Sparrowhawk control center. “Flip back to the last images of the compound,” Chastain ordered. He waited until the right images were displayed. “Okay, here’s where the drone crashed, about two hundred yards outside the main fenced part of the compound, at the edge of one of their crop circles.” He pointed to the machine-gun squads. “Here’s where the terrorists are setting up machine-gun nests, behind cover of these buildings outside the fence. It’s been more than two hours since these pictures were taken, so we’ve got to assume they’ve moved some of these nests closer to the crash site.” He turned to Richter. “Can you pull the wreckage away from the compound?”

“I’m sure we can,” Jason said. “But if the terrorists are armed with machine guns, we’ll be going into a combat zone. Randolph’s not trained for that, and we have no defensive weapons. Charlie and I will do this mission.”

“You’re not supposed to have any weapons, Richter,” Chastain said. “First of all, this is an FBI operation, so Savoy goes. That’s what he’s been training for.”

“Let me go in,” Whack said.

“Get out of here, Macomber — this isn’t for you,” Chastain snapped. Whack backed up a step; Chastain was going to order him out, but one look at Whack’s dark scowl made him decide to just turn and ignore him.

“I’ll go in the second CID,” Charlie said. “Randolph and I have been working together all this time — it’s best to keep us together.” Jason thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Second, I don’t want you to engage with them,” Chastain said to Charlie. “What I’m asking is: Can the robots provide you with enough protection from machine-gun fire to allow you to get in there and drag the wreckage away from the compound so those terrorists can’t take all of it?”

Charlie thought for a few moments, studying the frozen Sparrowhawk images. “What kind of guns are those, Whack?” she asked.

“They look like M60 machine guns,” he said after studying the screen for a few moments. “I see a couple others that might be M16s, but bigger. AR-18s on a bipod, maybe.”

“Well, Turlock?” Chastain urged.

Charlie turned to Savoy, a look of concern on her face. “The CIDs can take 5.56- and 7.62-millimeter fire at all