CyberWar: World War C Trilogy Book 3, Page 4

  One gunshot echoed dully. A second later, another.

  Then nothing.

  Except the sound of the chopper on the TV in the kitchen.

  “Ricky? Johnny?” Archer yelled out tentatively.

  No reply from beyond the walls of the garage.

  My brain circled back on itself and rechecked my family. Luke was right behind Lauren, holding onto her leg. I checked Olivia again. She was shaking, but looked unhurt. She had stopped screaming, but now sobbed in my arms.

  Damon was to my left, standing next to a black limousine. He had a backpack on. Archer stood in front of the senator, using himself as a shield. The man had a submachine gun in his right hand, a backpack on, and a tactical vest strapped around him.

  Chuck was at the top of the stairs, beside Lauren.

  “Make certain it’s locked,” Archer said.

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  I said, “You think those things can open doors?”

  “Grab those pallets”—Archer indicated along the back wall—“and stack them against it. Then take that metal shelving and pile it up. Make sure nothing gets through there. And somebody secure that outside entrance.” He pointed to the only other door at the end of the garage.

  “We need to get my mother,” Lauren whimpered.

  “Ma’am. We cannot do that. We cannot open that door.” He gently but persistently tugged Lauren back.

  I did a quick head count. Eight, including my kids. None of the Secret Service had made it in with us. “How many agents do we have outside? How many other people were in the house? I saw two gardeners out there, did anybody else see them?”

  “We need to secure the perimeter,” Archer said. “Make sure none of those garage doors can open.” He pointed at me, then past me. “Mr. Mitchell, please, can you do that? And Chuck, move that workbench on the far wall against the exterior door.”

  My eyes followed where his jabbing finger had indicated.

  There were three garage doors, all metal and all shut, but each of them attached to automated openers. There was only one car in the three bays, the limousine that Damon stood beside. I squeezed Olivia’s hand, whispered to her to stay put, then ran to the first garage door, grabbed the manual handle, turned, and banged the lock into place.

  I kept turning back to keep an eye on Olivia and Luke and Lauren.

  Chuck gently eased my wife farther away from the door. I heard him telling her we would go out there if we could, that help was coming, that we needed to protect the kids. My wife whimpered her mother might need help. I’m sorry, I heard Chuck say.

  He let go of her, double-checked she didn’t bolt, then ran to the small door that led out into the garden. He yelled at me to help. By that time, I was at the last garage door, so I jumped over to help him haul the wooden workbench, filled with tools, partway across the door. I ran around the other side of it to push it fully in front of the entrance.

  I went back to the garage bays and checked the locks again, then stopped to scan the room myself.

  No windows.

  The only entrance to the house was the one we’d come through. Sheet-metal door. One exit this end to the garden. Three metal garage doors. Twenty-foot ceilings.

  “Can we get to the safe room in the basement?” I asked.

  “No chance,” Archer replied.

  He had stacked more pallets against the interior door.

  Luke was crying but did his best to keep one arm around his mother’s waist.

  Rain drummed against the roof over our heads. The noise of the chopper rumbled on the TV in the kitchen. It had to be connected to an emergency power source. Which could mean we weren’t cut off entirely.

  No other sounds from inside the house.

  Except a low whirring buzz. No mistaking what that was. Those little killing machines.

  After a beat I asked, “Is someone coming? Did we get an emergency call out?” That had to have happened, right?

  “We need to keep moving.” Archer stacked another pallet against the door.

  Senator Seymour had his arm tight around my wife now, and Olivia and Luke hugged each other and grabbed onto the two adults’ legs.

  Damon wasn’t helping stack anything against the door but was opening backpacks on the hood of the limousine. Chuck and Archer had grabbed each end of the ten-foot metal shelving unit by the wall and hefted it up, walked back a dozen paces, then turned sideways to let it slam against the pallets and door.

  “Did we see who’s attacking us?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Pretty sure I’ve got a good idea who the assholes are,” Chuck replied.

  “All I saw were those miniature drones,” Archer said.

  He backed away from the door, submachine gun slung across his back, firearm in his right hand. He spoke into his wrist mic. “Richard?” He paused. “Agent Dumont?” He turned and continued whispering urgently into his mic trying to raise someone.

  “There’s gotta be a team controlling those things,” Chuck said.

  Damon said, “We fly drones over Afghanistan from trailers in Utah and Nevada. And they didn’t look like they were under manual control.”

  “You know what those are?” Archer asked. He kept whispering into his wrist mic.

  “Ornithopter bots,” Damon said. “The way those are acting, those are fire and forget. Autonomous control, at least in close quarters.”

  “You sure?”

  “As I can be.”

  “Enough to bet your life?” Archer holstered his handgun and checked the magazine on his submachine gun.

  “But somebody’s controlling them, right?” I asked.

  Archer said, “I counted two dozen or more hovering outside the windows. As many buzzing inside before we locked ourselves in here.”

  “What are our options?”

  “They’re changing behavior,” Damon said. “I think they went from personality kills to signature. Soon their behavior will probably change again. They seem to be swarming. The element of surprise is gone, so we have a few minutes to breathe before tactics change, but I agree with Archer. We need to get out of here, keep moving. Maybe we can use these?”

  Damon held up his backpacks. He still had three drones left from our previous misadventures.

  “Are they weaponized?” Archer squinted, his eyes scanning back and forth across the walls as he hunted for threats.

  Damon shook his head. “Maybe I can lead some of them away. With three drones sent out in different directions, we could create some confusion.”

  Archer muttered into his wrist mic, paused, and then swore. “I can’t get anyone on any channel. Whatever confusion you want to create, Damon, get it done soon. Can someone try their phone? Did anyone get a call out? 911? Anything?”

  Senator Seymour had his phone in his hand. “I’ve been trying. The house’s internet is down. And there’s no connection to any outside meshnetworks, nothing to anyone.”

  “The rain is getting harder,” Damon said. “That’ll make it more difficult for those miniature drones to fly and process. They’re small.”

  “Which makes me think something bigger is coming,” Archer said.

  “They can’t have much battery power. Maybe single use? It’s been at least ten minutes.”

  “That was just the first wave. We need to move.”

  “Out there?” Chuck pointed toward the garage doors. “As far as I can tell, everybody out there is dead.”

  “You got a better idea? One way or the other, worse is coming—”

  “Or help is on the way,” I said.

  “You want to bet your family’s life on that?”

  Damon tossed me a backpack. He walked over to the first garage door, stopped at the bags of leaves, and picked one up. “I have an idea.”

  Chapter 5

  “WHY DON’T WE get in the limo?” Chuck said. “That thing’s got bulletproof windows, right?”

  The senator flicked his chin at a set of hooks by the stairway going up. “Key
s are up there on the wall.”

  “Bingo.” Chuck piled anything and everything he could find against the door leading out to the garden. He pulled out two fake Christmas trees and threw them on top of the growing mess.

  Rain thumped on the roof of the garage.

  My stomach in my throat, my heart hammering. Face covered in a slick sweat.

  Luke pulled on my shirt and I bent over to take hold of him. He wrapped his arms around my neck, his legs wrapped around my waist. Lauren had Olivia tight to her, my little girl’s face pressed into her neck. She was crying. They both were.

  I realized I was as well.

  My breaths came in catching sobs. My hands shook.

  “I can’t get anyone on the comms inside or outside the house,” Archer said. “Whoever sent those drones has got to be waiting for us. On every road in and out. And in the surrounding forests.”

  “Do you know that, or do you think that?” I asked. Did he see something on a monitor or get word from the men out there?

  Archer replied, “That’s what I would do if I were them. This is a well-planned attack.”

  Damon opened the sack the gardeners had left in the garage, and multicolored oak and beech leaves spilled onto the cement. “We use these.”

  “Against what?” Archer asked.

  “Against what’s out there.”

  Archer said, “Explain.” His eyes scanned back and forth across the three garage doors, up and down, his weapon ready. “They know we’re trapped. Those things have to be relaying video back to whoever is operating them.”

  “Not necessarily,” Damon said.

  “We need to go back and get my mother,” Lauren said between sobs. She gripped Olivia, the knuckles on my wife’s hands white as her fingers clung to our daughter’s blouse.

  I stepped to her, put my right arm around her, wincing as I felt my injured ribs, and whispered, “We can’t do that, honey.” My voice tremored as I said it, realizing the finality and dreadful thing I was saying to my wife, the mother of my children, who had just lost hers.

  “There might not be any human operators,” Damon said. “Those things aren’t exactly Predator drones. Miniature ornithopter slaughterbots, more like.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like them,” Archer said.

  “I’ve seen a lot of experimental—”

  “These are more than experimental.”

  “Who has hardware like that?” Chuck asked.

  “Anybody with enough cash,” Damon said. “Never heard of someone using those operationally, but you should—”

  “Whatever they are,” I interrupted, “they’re not going anywhere, and I think more just arrived.” My arms a vise around Luke. He squirmed and I released pressure.

  Like giant mosquitoes, the hum and buzz of the tiny killer machines grew just beyond the walls, the sound rising above the thrumming rain.

  “Go on,” Archer said to Damon. “You’re the genius, right? You said they were changing behavior.” He swept his weapon to follow a cascading clatter rolling down the roof.

  We all held our breath. Had to be a branch?

  Chuck peered through a gap in his barricade through the window of the exterior door, then quick-walked back to us around the limo. “I can see some hovering outside. They look like they’re waiting.”

  Waiting? For what? I said, “Damon, you said something about signature versus personality?”

  “When that first one hit the glass, it was clear it was heading straight at Senator Seymour. Then the second and third ones hit. Their image recognition system had to be keyed to him. The Secret Service agents were trying to fire at them, but when the controlling system realized it had failed with the initial attack, it switched to signature.”

  “Signature of what?”

  “A personality attack is when a drone hunts for a specific person. Signature attack is when they look for an activity, not a specific person. The algorithm must have switched tactics.”

  “What other tactics might they have?”

  “I’m afraid we’re about to find out.”

  “We’re sitting ducks,” Chuck said. “We need to move.” He stepped past Lauren and grabbed the limo keys from a set of hooks on the wall by the stairs.

  “Hold on,” Archer said. He held one hand out at Chuck. “Damon, you think this could help us somehow? That they’re autonomous? What was your idea?”

  “These things operate using image recognition. They’re guided by AI, especially in swarms in tight quarters. Probably not human-operated. Maybe the fleet of them is being guided remotely, but not individually.”

  “You’re telling me there’s nobody out there?” Archer said.

  “I’m saying a little camouflage might go a long way if we’re going to go out there.” He kicked the gold-and-red leaves across the cement floor. “This close to Washington? I don’t think our attackers have any overflight capability. This is highly controlled airspace, even with what’s going on.”

  “So, there’s no Predator drone with Hellfire missiles hovering above us?” Chuck said, the keys in his hand.

  “Only ours, if there are.”

  “The Chechen terrorists seemed pretty good at owning our assets last time,” I pointed out.

  “That was a sneak attack. A sucker punch. And they didn’t own military assets, just some commercial ones. Big difference.”

  Archer said, “GPS and overwatch satellites might be out, but our military still has radar. The 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base is right around the corner, and they scramble whole fighter wings when a flock of birds paints a blob on their screens.”

  Chuck nodded. “And there’s gotta be an AWACS orbiting over Washington.”

  “English, please?” I said.

  “He means,” Archer said, “our military has aircraft up there watching. Even right now. Whoever is attacking us is keeping low to the ground. Small radar signatures.”

  “The whole military is still on DEFCON 2,” Chuck said.

  “And yet they just attacked us here,” I said, my voice rising. “Again, and we were defended to the teeth.”

  Chuck said, “Only small drones? Is that what you’re saying?” He walked around in circles, his mind obviously going in them as well. “What we need is a diversion, then get the hell out.”

  I said, “We cover ourselves with leaves? Walk out of here? Is that your plan, Damon?” It sounded idiotic and suicidal.

  “You go out there first,” Chuck said to Damon. “Proof of concept.”

  Damon ignored him. “Image recognition keyed to human forms and faces will be fooled by simple camouflage. Enough that they won’t target lock. The rain will help. It’s our best shot.”

  “I say our best shot is inside this bulletproof tank,” Chuck said. He still had the limo door open.

  I asked Damon, “But you just said they might change behavior?”

  “They will. That much I’m certain of.”

  “You think we can fool them with leaves? Those things just killed an entire platoon’s worth of Secret Service in minutes flat.” I trusted Damon on technical stuff, but he was asking me to trust my entire family’s life on his guess. “You said you’ve never seen anything like these?”

  “Not operational, but—”

  “Why don’t we burn the damn house down? I’ve never liked it much, anyway,” the senator said.

  He was in a corner that held gardening equipment. Beside a big mower sat two red gas canisters. He picked one up and the liquid in it sloshed around. “Send out a smoke signal. Phone lines and the internet and meshnet might be down, but there’s no way anybody out there is going to miss this house going up in flames. Even in this rain.”

  I said, “What if someone is still alive inside?” Even as extreme as this situation was, this seemed callous to throw out so suddenly. I glanced at Lauren. Her mother was on the other side of that door, but I was certain she hadn’t survived.

  “Nobody is responding,” Archer said. “There were dozens o
f those things in there. Everybody inside is dead. I guarantee that.”

  “We’re still alive,” I pointed out. He could guarantee it?

  “I’m calling out on all frequencies. No response.”

  “It’s okay,” Lauren said quietly. “We need to do whatever we have to, to save the kids.” She gripped Olivia tight. “If there is anyone alive in there, they’d be able to get out—”

  “Not if they’re injured,” Damon said quietly.

  “Trust me, if anyone was alive, they would be responding,” Archer repeated.

  “And whoever comes, those drones will kill any first responders,” Chuck said. “Or whoever’s waiting for us will kill them on the way in. You think those Chechen terrorists aren’t out there? That they’re still on that ship?”

  We hadn’t seen the end of the show. The TV had gone silent now. Had the emergency power been cut as well? We had no idea if they found anyone on that freighter or not.

  “One way or the other,” Damon said. “The Chechens are definitely targeting Senator Seymour. This is the second attack on this house in almost as many days.”

  “They might not be targeting Senator Seymour,” I mumbled.

  “Why do you say that?” Archer said.

  “I killed her brother.”

  Silence as the words sunk in.

  Tears streamed down Lauren’s face. “Was Terek really her brother?”

  “That’s what Russian intel confirmed,” Archer replied.

  Chuck stopped circling. “We need to move. Now.” He walked to the limo and clicked the key in his hand. The lights blinked and the door locks clicked open. “I say we get everybody in this thing and drive hard and fast—”

  “They scouted this place,” Archer said. “They know the limo is in here.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Aren’t you a restaurant owner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, not a tactical strategy expert. If there is anybody waiting, they’re blocking the roads. Snipers in the trees. Someone or something is out there. We need to do what they won’t expect. Senator, you sure you want to burn this place down?”

  Chuck had the door of the limo open. “What about first responders?”