Because something like this would eventually come out. Surely.
Hopefully, Reid was overthinking the situation. Losing a top secret UAV would certainly be enough to circle the wagons.
And just because he couldn’t find any approval in the system for the assassination didn’t necessarily mean there hadn’t been one.
“Ma’am?”
Breanna looked up at the tech sergeant, standing in the aisle next to her seat.
“Got you your bagel,” he said, smiling as he handed her a tray. “I have to ask you to buckle your seat belt.”
Chapter 5
Li Han circled the wrecked aircraft. It was worth even more than he’d thought at first glance. It was unique, far more advanced than anything he was familiar with. Granted, he wasn’t an expert in UAVs, but he knew a great deal about computers and processing technology, and what he saw here was truly impressive.
The building in Duka hadn’t changed at all since he’d been there last. Nor had Duka itself — still a sleepy backwater occupied by tribesmen barely removed from the medieval ages. The people walked around in a mixture of modern and ancient dress, and were armed with AK-47s and the like, but they still thought the way people thought in the Stone Age. If he had been a sociologist, he’d have found it fascinating.
But he was not. He was a scientist, and not even that.
His escorts were all sleeping upstairs, even the two men who had been posted by the door as guards. Just as well.
While the locals posed no threat, Li Han knew the Americans would be looking for the aircraft. Embedded in its skin were two devices sending repeater-type radio beacons, obviously intended for tracking. One of them had been damaged in the crash, but the other was still working. Carefully removing them, he’d placed them into the back of the truck, covered them with a tarp, and had the Brothers drive them to another building a kilometer away. It was an elementary ruse, but at least he’d have some warning if the Americans came.
He put his knee down on the dirt floor as if genuflecting before the marvel in front of him. The airfoil was made of carbon-fiber and metallized glass, with a few titanium elements. The manufacturing process was so advanced he doubted it would be of interest to any Third World country, even the Iranians. The Russians might not even be able to duplicate it.
The Chinese, of course, would be highly interested, but they were the one country he could never deal with. Not even on this. The ministry considered him a traitor, and would pay any price for his head.
Selling the engine would be easier. It was a downsized turbine, nothing particularly fancy or difficult to copy. The Israelis were very much interested in lightweight engines for their own UAVs, and they paid extremely well. But being that this was American technology — markings indicated at least some of the parts had been manufactured by GE — it was possible, perhaps even likely, that they already had access to it. They might even have helped develop it.
As far as he could tell, the optical sensors were trashed beyond use and even recognition when the aircraft crashed. The same went for the infrared sensor, though in that case he thought some of the parts might be salvageable and potentially salable to Iran for their own research. The price wouldn’t be high; it was more likely something he could throw in to make a larger deal.
The weapons system was a straight Hellfire missile setup. He could get about three thousand dollars for the salvageable mount and related electrical parts — not even pocket change. The missile itself would have fetched much more, but part of the propulsion system had shattered on impact and appeared irreparable.
And then there was the computer and guidance system, which looked to be the equivalent of a mainframe computer stuffed into a box no bigger than a woman’s purse.
UAVs were essentially radio controlled aircraft. Their “brains” received radio signals, then translated those inputs into electrical impulses that guided the throttle and the various control surfaces. In truth, it wasn’t all that complicated — children’s toys had been doing something similar for decades. The circuitry for sending flight data and information from the other sensors was trivial.
But this UAV’s brain was far different. It had six processor arrays, all clearly custom-built. This suggested a parallel computing architecture that would be overkill for even the most complicated aircraft. Not only could you fly a Boeing Dreamliner with this much power; you could fly an entire fleet of them.
And still have plenty of processing room left for a championship game of chess.
The obvious conclusion was that the computer flew the aircraft without the help of a ground pilot. But what else did it do?
Li Han was determined to find out. His only problem was to do that without destroying the programming.
And to do it here. It seemed safer to hide out in Duka than attempt to return to the Brothers. But that meant limited power. The electricity in the house worked only a few hours a day, and he didn’t want to attract attention by getting a gas generator like some of the locals. He had battery lanterns, and his laptop was extremely powerful, but there was no mistaking the musty basement for a Shanghai computer lab. He was lucky to even be in a building with a basement, as crude as it was.
The overhead light flickered as Li Han leaned over the computer box. There were two network interface plugs, the standard 5E receptacles used by local area networks around the world. There was also a pair of much larger connectors that looked to Li Han like specialized optical cable receptors. These were irregularly sized, larger than the thumb-sized hook-ins one would find on advanced audiovisual equipment in professional studios or similar applications.
Clearly, the 5E connectors were his way in, but he didn’t have any 5E wiring.
Could he find it here?
There was a sound outside, upstairs — an engine. Li Han froze. For a moment he expected the worst: a missile crashing through the roof. But the noise was just a truck passing on the road.
He took a deep breath and began thinking about where he might find a computer cable in this part of the Sudan.
Chapter 6
It was well after 2:00 a.m. by the time Jonathon Reid got home. The house was quiet, his wife sleeping. It was a modest house by Georgetown standards — three bedrooms, a bath and a half, no granite or marble on the property, and the only thing “faux” was the fake flower on the kitchen windowsill. Reid or his wife cut the small lawn themselves. But the house felt like an immense place tonight. He walked through the downstairs rooms quietly, absorbing the space and the quiet. Thinking.
Possibly, he was making too much of this. There was always that danger when you only saw parts, not the whole.
Reid slipped quietly into the master bedroom. He took off his clothes and reached to pull the blanket down. But as he started to slip into bed, he realized there was no way he would sleep. He looked at his wife, her face turned away from him. As good as it would feel to curl his body around hers, he didn’t want to wake her.
He left the room and walked to the far end of the hall, to the guest room. It had been his oldest daughter’s room years before. Repainted several times, it bore no visible trace of her, but to Reid it still felt as if she were there. He could remember setting up her bed the first night they moved in. He’d sat here countless times, reading her stories.
He could close his eyes and imagine himself on the floor next to her bed, telling her while she slept that he
