Drone

Mo slapped at another mosquito on his neck and cursed as he ran another diagnostic check on the avionics package. The Chinese unit was a piece of crap, but he couldn’t risk using the American one. Either they’d track it or lock him out remotely. Both were bad news. He’d flown the Reaper with a portable ground-control station from a third-party vendor out of New York that played just like a video game, and the Israeli uplinks connected perfectly with Nasir 1, Iran’s global navigational satellite. But the Chinese unit sucked balls and made the Reaper hard to fly.

Mo’s phone rang.

“Will you be ready?” Ali asked.

“Rechecking everything now. Any luck on the Blue Arrows?”

Ali had a lead on a couple of the Chinese Hellfire knockoffs, designed for use with the CH-4, the Chinese Predator knockoff, also stolen from the U.S. arsenal. When Mo hijacked the Reaper, it only had two missiles left. Now it had none.

“They’ll arrive in three days.”

“Awesome. Then everything will be ready.”

San Diego, California

Pearce’s phone rang. It was his tech guru, Ian.

“Tell me you found him,” Pearce said.

“Not Ali. His uncle.”

“Where?”

Ian chuckled. “You’re not going to believe it.”

50

Washington, D.C.

Myers stood in the situation room of the DHS, studying the wall-length electronic touch-screen display map of the United States with Bill Donovan.

Previous attacks had been color-coded according to severity. Red markers indicated wounded; black indicated fatalities. Tapping on any of the markers pulled up a text window with all available data, including victim photos, crime scene information, agency in charge at the scene, etc.

The best shot they had to predict the future was to process the fire hose of data that was pouring in from the Utah facility as it daily analyzed petabytes—billions of megabytes—of images and data inputs it was receiving from all of the law enforcement agencies, along with the Domain Awareness Systems, which were linked to the thousands of security cameras guarding most public buildings. The only thing they were sure about so far was that the Bravos had split up their forces and spread their operations over the widest possible area. Soft targets were the norm.

Drone Command had continued to beg, borrow, steal, and lease several more drone systems as well, including the recently decommissioned Blue Devil 2 hybrid airship, which the air force had spent over $200 million to develop but had decided to mothball. The nearly four-hundred-foot-long airship was capable of carrying thousands of pounds of surveillance payloads and keeping them aloft for twelve hours at a time. Ashley had deployed the Blue Devil 2 with a Gorgon Stare wide-area surveillance package over Los Angeles just two days before the Hollywood attack and was eager to find out what evil the Mind’s Eye “visual intelligence” software had uncovered. Until they could discern an attack pattern, DHS had ordered a general mobilization of all LEO resources. State, county, and city law enforcement agencies were on high alert; police reserve units were called up; television and radio stations ran public service ads extolling citizens, “If you see something, say something. Don’t be afraid to call in anything suspicious.”

The unfortunate side effect of the extra security precautions was that the anxiety level of the average citizen shot through the roof; emergency rooms were filling up with as many heart attacks as panic attacks. Valium prescriptions were at an all-time high. Paranoia was increasing, too, and the number of concealed-carry permit applications had overwhelmed the ATF online application system. DHS urged the public to remain both calm and vigilant, but the number of cities declaring martial law rose daily. Racial and ethnic tensions were rising as well. Just like after 9/11, American flags were popping up everywhere, especially on cars. But now, so were Mexican flags, with the same intensity. Ironically, American Hispanics—many of whom had served in the U.S. military or had relatives on active duty—were flying the American flags. Mexican flags were most commonly flown on American university campuses like UC Berkeley by liberal Anglos and foreign-born nationals.

What stung Myers most was the right-wing militia and “prepper” groups harping about impending martial law. She actually shared that concern and had raised it with her attorney general. The 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (signed into law by President Bush) and the 2011 NDAA (signed into law by President Obama) gave Myers ample legal warrant to deploy U.S. armed forces in counterterror work on U.S. soil, in effect, turning them into cops on the beat.

It was getting harder and harder to tell the cops from the troops. More and more police brandished assault rifles and flash bangs, wore tactical vests and helmets, and rolled through town in armored vehicles. Civil libertarians wondered if they were local law enforcement or an occupying army.