DRONE (3 page)

He swiveled the camera to his right. Not twenty feet away, just a little behind, was a drone of the same type.

He turned the camera left. A much larger drone carried
three
weights beneath its landing gear. There were supposed to be at least nine
Brothers of the Faith
 — in vacant lots, at a local school playground, on the tops of nearby buildings. He could hear the other drones through the camera. It was like being there.

He looked up from the screen.

Like ducks headed the wrong way for the time of year, Shalik’s flock flew
north,
in a loose, wide, V.

Half a mile ahead, in the dim evening light, Shalik could see their quarry turning crosswind. The drones slowed, waiting, hovering in formation, as the big jet made its second turn — onto final approach. Straight for them.

*

Lieutenant Matt Bailor was on the last screen in the long double row inside Andrews Air Traffic Control. Everything was pretty typical tonight. Except for the new POTUS — due in any minute. Otherwise, routine.

A blip appeared on the corner of Bailor’s screen. A radio call came in on his headset.

“Andrews Tower, this is Boeing November-Oscar-Seven-Four-Niner. We’re two miles out for final.”

“Come to one-niner-zero, Oscar-Seven-Four-Niner, for Runway One-Niner-Right,” Bailor radioed. To the Colonel in charge, “I’ve got the President-elect’s plane three-four-zero from the North.”

“Sounds good.”

Yup. Routine.

A voice, about an octave higher than usual, but one Lieutenant Bailor recognized as belonging to a Second Luey three screens down, shouted suddenly, “I’ve got — radar, on
six 
— no
seven,
bogies! Headed
north!
Moving about ten knots.”

“
Shit!
I’ve got four bogies from the east!” shouted a third man.

“Birds?” The Colonel asked.

“I-I don’t think so.
Fuck no!”
said the third man. “Not unless you know of a goose that can hover. These guys aren’t moving! They’re just sitting there. Right in the final approach lane!”

*

Slightly higher!
Shalik thought.
The angle looks a little off!

Shalik compared his camera view. It was still too far away to show on his tiny monitor. Not yet . . .

There!

The plane’s lights flashed in the display.
Directly
ahead.

As if reading his mind, the V closed up tighter as the other drones followed the leader and rose another fifty feet.

*

On Lieutenant Bailor’s screen the tiny blips merged, one group joining the other — into a tight V formation, then headed straight for the incoming airliner.

Bailor was already on the jet’s frequency. Before he could get a word out, a voice came over his headset. “Andrews Tower! This is Oscar-Seven-Four-Niner! We’ve got balloons or small aircraft or
something,
dead ahead! Dro —”

Bailor cut in, “Seven-Four-Niner, pull up! Pull up,
goddammit,
Seven-Four-Niner!
Pull up!”

*

Not too high, now!
Shalik thought. The jet was making a very short approach, coming down fast.

Suddenly, its nose rose. It pulled up, planed out.
Perfect!

The big jet, the drones, moved toward each other with frightening speed — something over two hundred miles an hour. The sound of the big jet roared,
screamed,
in Shalik’s ears.

COLLISION!

BANG!

Flash of blue light!

Several of the drones missed completely. Three more bounced off the starboard wing. Shalik’s was sucked straight down the inboard engine’s front intake. Another drone hammered in, right on his tail. He could hear the crunch in his earbuds — but not what happened next.

A jet engine is a pretty solidly built structure when it comes to
birds 
— ducks, seagulls, pigeons. Whole flocks have been known to hit a plane, more than one individual bird making it all the way through the engine without necessarily resulting in catastrophic failure. Intake fins get a bit mangled — roast duck shoots out the exhaust. Big jets are designed to handle engine impact with as much as a four pound bird.

That isn’t always what happens, though. Enough birds can take down an airliner. More than two hundred people have been killed in crashes by what bird DNA-typers call “snarge”  — a combination of bird
snot
and
garbage 
— roast duck puree that destroys the engines.

But bird bones are thin, light and hollow.
One thing
the intake fins of a jet engine
definitely
aren’t designed to handle is collision with a five-pound ring of solid steel. In this case, the response was immediate.

Sparks — a bright flash!

Inside the engine Shalik hit, pieces of jet intake fans broke off, shot through the rest of the engine along with the five pound dumbbell weight.

EXPLOSION! —
a second
BOOM! —
as the fuel in the wing ignited and the outboard engine, too, disintegrated. The wing went to pieces, tearing up the fuselage.

What was left of the big plane rolled immediately onto its left side and dropped through the air, pieces raining down on a forward angle.

Shalik was supposed to be back in his car, making his getaway.

He couldn’t move. He was frozen, truly fascinated, by the spectacle of the airliner crashing into the surrounding neighborhoods, a rapidly growing fiery conflagration.

*

Much of the President-elect’s plane fell as one crumpled flaming mass on the north end of Runway One-Niner. But big chunks of it didn’t make it that far, scattering across the highway — pieces smashing into roofs of cars; an eighteen-wheeler jackknifed, fell over, and crushed a Porsche pinning the driver’s legs. He was still alive. The plane’s tail section fell into an industrial park — mostly businesses that were already closed for the day. It landed on a green Prius in the middle of the abandoned parking lot.

But a section of Osborn’s right wing fell through Cathy Morgan’s living room ceiling killing Micheal, Jr., her two-year-old toddler. Fortunately for Cathy, before she could even begin to grieve, the house burst into flames. A superheated jet-fuel fire that sucked out every molecule of air from inside, burning her alive, killing her almost instantly.

Unfortunately, her husband Michael, Sr. watched the whole thing from their car on his way back from the Seven-Eleven where he’d gone to buy a pack of cigarettes.

*

Forty miles away, the big man who’d gotten the call from the short man with the bulldog neck about Shalik’s practice session looked at his watch, grabbed his television remote and, liking what he saw, turned up the volume on the CNN Special Report:

“Twenty-five minutes ago, at five p.m. this evening, Eastern Standard Time — on final approach, landing at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. — President-elect Osborn’s plane caught fire. No definite cause has been confirmed, but eye-witnesses say the right wing seemed to explode, then collapse, causing the plane to plummet from the sky.

“Speculation ranges from a missile attack to sabotage to mechanical failure. Terrorism has not been ruled out. Robert Osborn has been particularly tough in his stand on Muslims attempting to immigrate to the United States.

“The polls are not yet closed anywhere yet, but it appears Robert Osborn is on track to become the country’s next President. There is no word of survivors from the crash at this time, but unofficially police officers at the scene are doubtful.

“If the new President-elect has been killed, clearly this leaves the country in a state of crisis. Since the Electoral College has not yet voted to confirm the President-elect, nor Vice-President-elect Christopher Wall, some political leaders, Speaker of the House Tom Tulmore in particular, are already saying if Osborn does not survive, his opponent Wen Carter should be confirmed as President in his place.

“We go now to onsite Washington correspondent Sheila Koontz.

The big man listened as the frizzy-haired field reporter, a woman he hated, screeched into her microphone for a minute or so as the flames behind her grew brighter. She was so
fucking
annoying.
Always sticking her nose somewhere.

Two hours later the big man checked the gold watch on his wrist and smiled. None of the news programs were changing their predictions.
It’s too late! The polls are closing. California in a couple more hours! Who cares about Hawaii or Alaska? What are conservative voters going to do, elect a Democrat?
With the way the economy’s taken a dive in the last four months, Republicans aren’t going to vote for Wen Carter even if it means electing a corpse.

The big man nodded. Turned off the screen. And went to tell his boss.

Chapter
7

Geraldo Rivera, Stone
Phillips, Sheila Koontz and Anderson Cooper all called it a Constitutional crisis. James Whitmore, head of the Democrat Party, called it an opportunity.

Three days later Whitmore hosted a private dinner at his house in Palm Beach. Twelve people were in attendance including failed Presidential candidate Wen Carter.

For Whitmore, the election wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. Ma was still in play. There was still a way to make her President after all. A way to win.

With the economy in the toilet, in casting its votes for the legislature the population had fallen under Osborn’s spell and gone for a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. In two short months the Democrats would lose control of Congress. They’d be out on their ear.

Anticipating what the now Republican-dominated-Electoral College would do, The Chairman of the Democrats told his dinner guests his plan. They would let the Electors be.

At first his guests were outraged.

Then Whitmore explained.

The next day he flew to Washington. To meet with as many key members of the Senate as possible.

*

At JFK, Shalik Sarram smiled his way through U.S. Customs on his way back to Delhi. No manufactured smiles this time. He was very happy. In a week he would travel by bus to Turkey where he was scheduled to take on another job. Something to do with a big ship.

Chapter
8

On the Thirteenth
of December, the first Monday after the second Wednesday of the month, in each state the country’s Electoral Delegates got together and voted. The number of delegates was one Electoral Member for each US Senator, one for every Representative, and three for Washington D.C. Five hundred thirty-eight Electors in all. A clear majority required only 270.

The ballots were sealed and sent to Washington, Certified Mail, to the President of the Senate — the current U.S. Vice-President.

The ballots were opened and counted.

With two exceptions — both Republicans out of New Hampshire who’d switched their votes to the Constitutional Party — the electors had all voted for the candidates they’d been originally appointed to represent.

Totals: 272 votes for Osborn, 264 for Carter.

It looked like Robert Osborn, of whom the military had recovered his charred remains, matched by dental records, had won. Christopher Wall, the Republican, was elected Vice-President.

But Democrat Party Chairman Whitmore had been busy. Based on a very thin precedent from the 1872 Presidential Election — where the loser Horace Greeley’s three electoral votes had been disallowed — the Senate voted up a resolution; sixty-one to thirty-nine, to toss out any votes cast for a deceased candidate. All of Osborn’s 272 Electoral votes were declared null and void.

For the first time since the days of Abraham Lincoln, the offices of President and Vice-President would be split — two different parties. Wen “Ma” Carter, the losing Presidential candidate, who hadn’t gotten a majority in either popular vote or Electoral Delegates, a Democrat, was declared the winner, the next President of the United States.

The winners were announced on all the networks. Partisans took to the streets. Democrats to celebrate, Republicans to protest. Nobody cared about the Constitutionals.