World War Drone, Page 3

  “You can talk to me,” I said.

  “Yeah. Thank god. I don’t know what I’d do if...” she trailed off. “I mean, imagine if I couldn’t talk to anyone about this. Imagine if I kept this bottled up inside. I’d have gone bat shit insane by now.”

  I remember thinking there’s no risk. Not to us. Not while we sit in a trailer on the other side of the world.

  If we lose the drone we are piloting we are not hurt. We are not killed.

  There’s no risk.

  But there is.

  It’s the only one.

  The only risk is that you go insane. And we were half way there.

  “Hey, I’m here for you,” I said, acting braver and more courageous than I am or ever was. “I will always be here for you.”

  I looked up to the clear blue sky and I saw a contrail from a passenger jet on its way to Los Angeles.

  “So what happened?” I asked. “With the strike…”

  “It was so fast. I think I almost forgot how fast it can happen. We haven’t taken a shot in over a month. We’ve just been on these recon missions. And why the hell do they need to take fully loaded Reapers and Predators on recon missions? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, there were two groups. They were armed. We were ordered to fire on the first group. Three men. All carrying AK – 47s.”

  She clenched her fists and then unclenched them.

  “I take the shot,” she continued. “The missile launches. Breaks the sound barrier. One of the targets hears the sound of the rocket blast. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from. You can tell he doesn’t really know what’s happening. He runs towards the other two guys, tries to push them down,” she shakes her head, like she’s still trying to make sense of what she saw. “I guess he was trying to take cover, trying to get everyone to take cover. It’s no use. Splash. The Hellfire impacts. The smoke clears. There’s a crater. Body parts everywhere. The guy who ran forward, he’s still alive somehow. His legs have been blown off. He’s basically been cut in half by the explosion. The Reaper circles around. We watch.”

  Another deep breath.

  “We watch this guy bleed to death. In heat vision. Watch the blood cool and turn the same color as the ground. From white hot, to cold grey. And then we watch his body cool and turn the same color as the ground.”

  I could picture everything she said so clearly. I have seen this as well. Drones operate in infrared. Body heat. It’s an amazing technical advantage. We can have eyes on the ground at night or in bad weather. It doesn’t matter. We can see it all. Like a god.

  “I mean, what’s it all for?” she asked. “I’ve heard rumors about a secret war. An unknown enemy conducting drone strikes.”

  “Yeah, we’ve all heard those rumors. It’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit. Why do you think we’ve spent the past month doing recon? We’re all over the place. Not just Afghanistan or Pakistan. But everywhere. All over the Asian continent. And Northern Africa. The government, the CIA is scared. They know something is wrong.”

  The rumors and chatter were all about drone strikes by unknowns. They were small attacks with relatively small targets, like random cars and buses. Small buildings. All targets had been within hot zones.

  Initially they were thought to be car bombs and roadside IED’s. But there was never any evidence of a detonated IED. There were limited bomb parts or no bomb parts. No wiring and hardly any shrapnel. The explosions and the damage and the craters looked more like something caused by a missile strike.

  But how?

  The conspiracy theorists jumped to conclusions. The enemy or someone had stolen an attack drone. Or someone had reverse engineered an attack drone and was now operating it on their own. Maybe someone had bought one on the black market. Or stolen one.

  I shook my head. I didn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

  And I didn’t know it at the time, but I wouldn’t see Melanie for a long time after this. She had been offered a job with the CIA. She had been offered the job because she was one of the best. Better than me. Smarter than me. She took the job because she needed the money like I needed her. At first I was mad, but then I realized that she was struggling just as much as I was. Probably more so. She was sinking and falling. I like to think that she moved away and left my life because she didn’t want to drag me down with her. I don’t know. I would’ve fallen with her. I would’ve tried to save her. I hope she knows that. I hope she knew. But yeah, it was hard for her. She was about to break. I couldn’t hold her together. And the truth was, I could barely hold myself together.

  CHAPTER 6

  Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood

  “There was a new sector,” I said to the reporter. “They were recruiting specialized pilots.”

  “For the swarms?” he asked.

  “Yeah. The powers to be had decided that drone pilots were different from regular pilots. And that a pilot in charge of a swarm was different yet again. They needed to be better, more attentive, able to multi-task. They had to be really, really, really smart.”

  “You didn’t qualify?”

  “No.”

  “Melanie did.”

  “Yeah. Top of her class. Top marks across the board. She was smart. And she was driven. She had the mental determination and the motivation to prove herself. These qualities, they separate the good from the great. The smart from the genius.”

  “What was the program?”

  “It was a training program for the new swarm technology. New facilities. Underground. Deep underground. State of the art. No more trailers.” I shook my head. “Fighting a war from an air-conditioned trailer half a world away from the battlefield. It’s a kind of madness really.”

  “Some people agree with you,” John said. “Some people think that it is unethical to use drones in warfare. What do you think?”

  I don’t know why he asked this question. Maybe he was just curious.

  “If it, the machine, the vehicle was an actual drone, a full on autonomous killer robot, then yeah, I would agree with the ethical concerns. But they’re not really drones. They’re just unmanned vehicles. We’ve just put distance between our troops, our pilots and the battlefield. It’s always been the goal. Save lives. Reduce casualties.”

  “It seems like the perfect solution,” he said.

  “It’s just a natural evolution of warfare. A natural evolution of this particular war.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we have absolute air superiority. Our current enemy does not have the capabilities to fight a war in the air. So basically we can do whatever we want.”

  “Like fill the sky with drones.”

  “Exactly. It’s not like Al Qaeda or the Taliban or ISIS has the ability to take them out. They don’t have an Air Force. They don’t even have sustainable ground to air weaponry. So we can do whatever we want. The drones don’t have to be fast, they don’t have to be particularly maneuverable and they don’t need stealth capabilities. It’s come to a point where, even if people were worried, even if people thought the use of drones was unethical, it’s come to a point where the use of drones is so successful, nothing is going to stop the program. Nothing is going to stop the funding. There are now more drone pilots than fighter pilots. The cream of the crop used to go into F-15 or F-22 training. Now they go to the drone program. The swarm program.”

  “And the pilots who train to use the swarms, they are separated from the other pilots?”

  “Correct.”

  “Have you spoken with any of them? Have you been in contact with any of them?”

  “Only Melanie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He asked this question because he wanted to tie up any loose ends. I have no doubt in my mind, that if I had spoken with someone else, anyone else, they would’ve gotten a visit from John as well.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Like I said, no one talks.”

  “So why did you and Melanie talk?”

  I shrugged my shoulders
. “I was a guy. She was a girl. Simple. At least it was in the beginning. But soon after, we came to depend on each other. At least, I depended on her. Like a drug. I needed her. I needed to talk. Melanie was one of the best pilots. She was better under pressure. She was better in the line of fire. It was only once she left the battlefield that the reality would hit her. She was smart. And so after the fighting, after her shift, she would think about everything. She would feel it all. It was too much for her. And then eventually, she knew something bad was about to happen. She knew they were losing drones. She knew everything.”

  “How? How did she know? With no proof? Why was she so certain?”

  “Like I said, she’s smart. She would think about everything. She pieced it all together.”

  “And you have no idea where Melanie went? You have no idea where the new pilot training program is being conducted?”

  “No. I only know that it’s underground somewhere. Could be anywhere, really.”

  “And when Melanie left for this new program, you never saw her again?”

  “About a month ago. Just before the media got wind of the drone strikes.”

  “What happened? What did she say?”

  “She was pale. She didn’t look well. I knew something was wrong.”

  CHAPTER 7

  One month earlier...

  I had received a text from Melanie. It was completely out of the blue. She wanted to talk. She wanted to catch up, to meet somewhere public. She wanted to meet on the strip.

  Somewhere with lots of people.

  Somewhere with lots of noise.

  She wanted to meet on the strip in front of the Bellagio, in front of the fountain.

  We met in the afternoon, just before the three o’clock show.

  The crowds were gathering and she was nervous. She kept looking around. Looking over her shoulder. Looking up at the blue desert sky.

  Despite everything, her new job, the stress, the fact that she looked sick, she was still beautiful. And I was drunk. I tried to hide it. Tried to act like I was doing good. Tried to act like I wasn’t suffering.

  I don’t know if she knew. Maybe she did. Maybe she was too freaked out to care.

  “Hey, it’s good to see you,” I said. “I’ve ah... I’ve missed you.”

  She didn’t reply with the usual polite small talk. She got straight down to business. “I need to talk to you. To someone.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. She was on the verge of tears. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m crazy. I don’t know if I’m seeing things.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “I’m paranoid. I know that. I am definitely paranoid. But I think it’s warranted. I think. I don’t know.”

  “Just tell me what’s wrong. You can talk to me. You know you can.”

  A jet stream of water shot into the air. A rocket. The noise made her jump. She looked around. All around. Eventually she calmed.

  The fountain was warming up for the show.

  “You can talk to me,” I said. “Is it the stress? PTSD? Dreams? Day dreams? What?”

  She was silent for a while. Staring at the fountain. The water was bubbling just below the surface. Ready to explode. “It’s this new program. The training. Something’s not right.”

  “What’s not right? I’ve never seen any training exercise that you haven’t aced.”

  “It’s not my performance. It’s hard to explain. They’re supposed to be simulations. But I don’t know. It’s... they’re so real.”

  “Well, the training programs have improved a great deal over the past few years. You know that. You personally gave feedback to the programmers and the IT techs on how to make the training simulations more lifelike. More combat realistic.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just that... it’s hard to say. Hard to articulate.” She paused. Made eye contact with me. “You can see why I think I’m losing my mind.”

  Her eyes were green and glazed over with tears. But she held them back. “They lock us up underground. We can’t leave. Not unless we request time off. It’s a new policy. New company. Private sector.”

  They were already gearing up for the war. Keeping their pilots underground. Keeping their assets safe.

  “New systems,” she continued. “No co-pilot. We control a swarm. We control the drone and the weapons systems. So much is automated. We lose the connection link more frequently.”

  I’m starting to realize it was a perfect storm.

  “We tested overseas,” she said. “In Africa. The Middle East. Places they weren’t supposed to test. We lost a lot of vehicles.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve lost drones. We’ve been hacked. The system has been compromised. There was a cyber attack, a major cyber attack. In just under a week we lost over half the fleet. We don’t know who’s responsible. We don’t know.”

  “Lost? What do you mean? Like, lost as in shot down?”

  “No. I mean, lost. As in never to be seen again. Stolen.”

  “Wait, what are you saying? We’re losing drones?”

  She nodded her head slowly. “I don’t know how. It has to be the new system. So much is automated. It has to be. And now all we do is look. Search. It’s all we do. And we’ve found nothing. No sign of the missing drones.”

  She looked around again, made sure no one was eavesdropping on our conversation.

  She lowered her voice and said, “Well, there is one sign.”

  “The attacks,” I said. “You think the bombings that have been happening all over are being carried out by our missing drones?”

  “Yeah. The simultaneous bombings. Whoever is responsible is using the lost drones.”

  I shook my head. “That can’t be right. There’s no way. I mean, they would need a satellite connection, or they would need to hack into our satellites.”

  “I don’t know how they’re doing it. But it’s the only explanation I believe. It’s the only possible explanation. The bombings are all simultaneous. They happen within seconds of each other. The bombings are precise. Accurate. Laser-guided accurate. This isn’t the work of a car-bomb or IED. There’s no way.”

  “So you really think we’ve been hacked?”

  She leant against the railing of the fountain and lowered her head. “Yes. I know we’ve been hacked. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She opened her mouth but no words came out. She didn’t want to say it. Couldn’t say it. But eventually she said, “I tried to abort the missile. A child came out of nowhere. I tried to guide the missile to a clear area. There was no response. The missile adjusted itself. And readjusted. For ten seconds I tried to steer this missile away. A lifetime. It homed in on the target. A small mud hut. The child had no idea. Didn’t hear the missile. Splash. No discrimination. Automatic killing.”

  “Are you sure it was a child?”

  “I don’t know. But… I do know.” She turned her head so she didn’t have to look at me. “Even though I was never able to check. I asked to review the footage. I wasn’t allowed. My monitors all went black. They locked me inside the control room. I wasn’t allowed to leave until the end of the shift. I sat in the dark for ten straight hours. I was kept there like a prisoner. I don’t know why.”

  “And you think that someone from the outside hacked in and took over your controls? Took over the missile?”

  She couldn’t answer me because she didn’t want to say it out loud.

  “You don’t have to do this anymore,” I said. “You can quit. You can start over. I’ll help you. I’m here for you.”

  “I don’t know how much time we have left.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the new programs, the swarms, they have been compromised. We have been hacked time and time again. We’ve lost so many UAV’s.”

  “How many?”

  Melanie was silent. If I had to guess, I’d guess that she didn’t want to
think about how many drones we’d lost. She didn’t want to think about how many drones could now be used against us.

  “How many?” I asked again.

  “Too many,” she said finally. “I have no idea of the exact amount. But I know we are responsible. I do know that. It’s the only thing I know for certain. We are responsible.”

  “Responsible? For what?”

  “For the war.”

  I wasn’t following.

  “There is a war coming,” she whispered. “A drone war. It’s coming. And it’s all our fault.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Present time. Vegas.

  So there is a war coming. Melanie knew. And now I know. I know for sure. The mysterious attacks. The multiple, simultaneous bombings. It’s all over the news. The writing is on the wall.

  The war is coming.

  I want to warn everyone.

  But I’m not going to get a chance to warn everyone.

  Or anyone.

  Somewhere high above the Las Vegas lights is a drone. Most probably an MQ1 Predator drone.

  It has been watching me. Probably for days. Probably for weeks. A month.

  Ever since I spoke with Melanie.

  This guy, the Spymaster, the academy award winning actor, has told me that I know too much.

  He said that they don’t want to cause a panic.

  He has a gun pointed at my head in the form of a laser guided missile.

  I am too drunk for this.

  “So you know that someone has been capturing US military drones,” I say. “Attack drones armed with Hellfire missiles. You know we’ve been hacked. You know all about the cyber attacks. You know we’re in big trouble.”

  He nods his head slowly, reluctantly. “Yes, we know.”

  “But you don’t know who’s responsible.”

  He is silent. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to admit ignorance.

  “You thought that maybe I knew,” I continue. “And that’s why you interviewed me. You thought I had some magical, missing piece of the puzzle. You thought I had answers.”

  “Information was a secondary objective.”

  “Secondary? And what the hell was your primary objective?”

  I ask this question because I am drunk and stupid and no one wants to think about how other people are planning your death. You don’t want to think about how someone, somewhere, was calmly and methodically thinking of a way to end your life.