Drone Threat (19 page)

32

BAYTOWN, TEXAS

The four-armed quadcopter hovered high above the sprawling 3,400-acre ExxonMobil Baytown complex. The second-largest oil refinery in the United States, the Baytown facility refined 573,000 barrels of oil per day and produced 7.2 billion pounds of petrochemical products annually.

The noise of the drone's whirring rotors was masked by the industrial din of the bustling, 24/7 operation. The drone's familiar mechanical shape was hardly noticeable in the jagged skyline of overhead power lines, coker units, distillation towers, and storage tanks.

Except that Willard Dynes did notice it. Leaning against the company pickup with his hands cupped around his eyes, the rail-thin security guard tracked the drone's cautious movement, threading its way between twin steel towers.

Dynes was an amateur drone pilot and sold units part-time at the local hobby shop. Just last week he made an appointment with the refinery's assistant plant manager. Dynes had observed drones being used for engineering and safety inspections by plant personnel and wanted to know if he could apply for a job like that. But the assistant manager explained to Dynes that his associate's degree in criminal justice didn't qualify him for engineering work in one of the world's most complex chemical-processing facilities.

SOL, Dynes figured.
Shit out of luck
.

Dynes was no engineer, for sure, but he had a good eye for technical gear and an even better memory. The ExxonMobil engineers flew only
DJI Phantom 3s with ExxonMobil decals. The unmarked drone he saw hovering fifty feet off the ground directly over his head wasn't a DJI Phantom 3. Not by a long shot.

He didn't know what the hell it was.

But he knew it wasn't right. And the day-shift supervisor had put out the morning notice to report any suspicious persons or any unusual drone activity.

Well, a strange, unmarked drone was unusual, he figured. Better check it out.

Dynes dashed over to the steel staircase and began the long climb skyward. He flung himself up, pulling on the metal banisters, his steel-toed boots clanging on every other step. The equipment on his belt jangled and his baton clanged against the rails as he made the turns. By the third flight of stairs he was already winded. Damned Marlboros, he told himself. Time to quit. His thighs burned like acid as he finally reached the steel deck five stories up, gasping for air. He inhaled deeply with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He felt the asthma coming on. He tried not to panic. His hands shook a little and sweat poured over his face, but he kept his eye on the drone. It hadn't budged.

Now that he was close he could see three small red lights flashing on some kind of electronic component attached as a payload. The drone was hovering near some kind of a security box that had an antenna and three green lights, all lit solid. He watched the red flashing lights on the drone turn to flashing green, and the solid green lights on the box start to flash in the same rhythm as the ones on the drone.

They were synching.

Shit!

Better call it in.

His breathing quickened. He felt light-headed. He pulled out his radio from its holster but his trembling hand dropped the unit. It clanged on the deck by his feet and bounced over the side. He leaned over just in time to see the radio hit the concrete slab and explode into a confetti of solid-state components.

Shit!

Just then, the drone began beeping.

Something told him it was about to fly away.

Dynes grabbed for the pistol grip in his belt. The drone turned ninety degrees to face him. Its one unblinking camera eye mocked him like a giant flying fish-eye cyclops. Dynes pulled the trigger on his Taser. He missed.

Shit!

The two Taser darts passed over the top of the fuselage. The drone's blades whirred faster and it bolted vertically in a flash, but the fifteen feet of hair-thin Taser wire caught up in the drone's rotors and instantly tangled around the propeller shafts. When enough of the Taser's steel wire made contact with the rest of the drone's aluminum frame, the Taser's fifty-thousand-volt charge plowed into the onboard circuitry and fried the electronics. The drone's engines froze in midair and the vehicle plunged toward the ground, dead as a doornail. Despite his shaking hands, Dynes held tight to the pistol grip while the drone hung suspended on the end of his Taser wires like a limp carp on the end of his daddy's Popeil Pocket Fisherman.

“Gotcha, you sumbitch,” Dynes said to nobody in particular. But then it suddenly occurred to him.

If this was an ExxonMobil drone, after all, he was in serious trouble.

33

WASHINGTON, D.C.

“Showered in the gym downstairs,” Pearce said.

“You need to sleep in your own bed, not the office sofa,” Myers said. “Don't work yourself to death while I'm gone.”

“Look who's talking. How'd the meeting go?”

“You mean with Herr Grauweiler? Or August? You should've told me, you know.”

“You would've waved him off if I told you up front. But when you saw him there, I knew you'd fall in line.”

“You know me that well, do you?”

“Yup.” Pearce stifled a yawn. “So how'd it go with the kraut CEO?”

“Herr Grauweiler is an interesting man. Reserved, in the extreme. Asked all the right questions.”

“But?”

“I don't know. I think I'll know more after my meeting today with his CFO and we go over all the financials.”

“Sounds boring.” Pearce took a sip of strong green tea. He had a bottle of booze in his desk drawer but didn't feel right hitting it this early, especially with Margaret on the phone.

“It is. But that's where the deal is. In the details. Speaking of which, how's the nomination coming along? Got your votes lined up?”

Pearce hesitated. He wanted to tell her what was going on but he knew if he did, she'd cut her trip short and come back as soon as she could. Better to hold off. He could fill her in after she got back if it came to that.

“Troy? You there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Still working on the votes. Grafton says we're a fifty-fifty proposition at this point.”

“She knows her stuff. Say, what was the deal with the FAA glitch yesterday? Was that for real?”

Again Pearce hesitated. He didn't want to lie to her ever, but Lane instructed the room to keep a lid on things. “Oh, it was for real, all right.” He checked his watch. “The planes should be back in the air in a couple of hours.” Or so he hoped.

“Good. Otherwise it's a long swim home.”

Pearce's desk phone buzzed on the secure line. “Hon, I've got to go. The president is calling.”

“Oh, so you're a big wheel now, are you?”

“Only because I know you.”

“Tell David I said hello.”

“I will. Take care of yourself, and call me when you can.”

“Will do.” Myers hung up.

Pearce picked up the other line. “Pearce.” The president's chief of staff, Jackie Gibson, was on the line. Told him to check his e-mail for some forwarded pictures and to please come over immediately. Pearce hung up and pulled the photos up on his smartphone as he headed out of his office, dreading what he might find when he arrived.

—

“
IT
'
S DEFINITELY
off-the-shelf technology,” Pearce said. The photos on his phone were also loaded on one of the video monitors in the Situation Room. He was glad to see that neither al-Saud nor Grafton was present.

“Just like the other attacks,” Chandler said.

“It's an Aerial Assault drone. It's used for wireless penetration testing. It's loaded with Kali Linux to test Wi-Fi networks for security weaknesses. Might even have some spoofing software on board, too, to see if they can trick a network into thinking it's a secure router so they can steal data from the user.”

“Who in the world would sell something like that?” Chandler asked.

“The good guys. There are a bunch of white-hat hackers out there trying to make networks more secure. They use tools like this the same way an air force base will ask a SEAL team to try and infiltrate to see how well their security protocols are working.”

Eaton switched the photo with a remote control. A thirtysomething bleached blonde in an orange jumpsuit pulled up. “The FBI office in Houston had a line on this woman. She's the head of a radical activist group trying to sue ExxonMobil for ‘crimes against humanity and Gaia.' They were using this unit to try and find a way to hack into Exxon's mainframe to scout out any evidence from their database they could use in a federal lawsuit they're filing against Exxon next week.”

“A private eye in the sky,” Peguero said.

“Signs and wonders,” Chandler said. “Signs and wonders.”

“What does that mean?” Garza asked.

“Something my dear old memaw used to say. We live in interesting times, for sure.”

“So the bottom line is that this isn't the other shoe we were waiting for,” Lane said. He turned to Eaton. “Still no word of any new hostile actions?”

“No, sir.”

“We dodged a bullet this morning, that's for sure,” Chandler said.

“Doesn't mean our bad guys won't try to do exactly the same thing here or at another facility,” Pearce said. “Or worse.”

“That's comforting,” Lane said.

“If ISIS managed to hack its way into the Baytown facility, it could wreck all of the control systems and shut down a half million barrels of production a day. That alone would cause a price spike if not outright panic in the oil markets. Imagine if they shut off every valve, pump, cooling system, thermostat, and heat exchanger. At the very least it would shut the entire plant down. It might take months, maybe even years, to find, repair, and replace all of the busted hardware. Worse, it could start a fire that might take weeks to contain.”

“Is that the ‘unquenchable fire'?” Peguero asked, quoting the letter again.

“Maybe.” Pearce frowned with concern. “Hell, a decent hacker could just open up all the valves and dump hundreds of tons of poisonous chemicals into the Gulf. We'd have another BP disaster on our hands.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Chandler said.

“We need to think through how we want to move forward,” Garza said. “We're going to see more and more of these kinds of protest attacks that have nothing to do with ISIS. This technology empowers everyone, including our own homegrown idiots.”

“We've raised a generation of malcontents fed on the themes of social injustice and disdain for the rule of law,” Chandler said. “We shouldn't be surprised.”

“Spoken like a country lawyer,” Peguero said. “A southern country lawyer.”

“Number one in my law school class and editor of the law journal,” Chandler said with a practiced smile.

“The
Houston Chronicle
got wind of this story. I've asked them to sit on it for now,” Eaton said.

“I think that's a mistake,” Pearce said. “Tell them to put it out there.”

“Why?” Eaton asked.

“Make the public aware that a drone was used to break the law, and that it could've caused some real damage. Maybe even cost a lot of jobs at one of the area's biggest employers. Get people pissed off,” Pearce said.

“So we can get the public to help us spot more drone activity without knowing the real reason why,” Eaton said, nodding. “Smart.”

“Bottom line is we got lucky today and we can see what's at stake. I say we call in the Russian ambassador to talk about options,” Chandler said. “We can't afford to waste any more time. It will take some planning to get everybody on the same page, let alone actually mount the operation.”

Chandler's voice was like nails on a chalkboard to Pearce. What was his angle? “I disagree. There's no point in talking about fighting a war halfway around the world when our job is to find and neutralize the drone threat right here on our home turf.”

“The war with ISIS has already started,” Chandler said. “Better to let the Russians take it to them on
their
home turf with our airpower for cover.”

“We always have the option to escalate later,” Garza said. “But I agree with the vice president.”

Chandler shifted in his chair, clearly frustrated. “What harm is there in talking with Russians? At least see what the options are?'

“Fair enough,” Lane said. “Clay, make the call.”

Chandler stole a glance at Pearce, smiled. “Will do, Mr. President.”

“If an escalated air campaign really is on the table, we need to pull in General Onstot on this,” Garza said. “But if we don't change the rules of engagement, it won't matter how many sorties we fly, they'll all come back fully loaded because the pilots are scared shitless of the JAG lawyers breathing down their necks.”

“The ROEs are meant to protect civilian lives,” Peguero said. “Indiscriminate bombing creates more terrorists than it kills.”

“Rules of engagement are for the junior cotillion, not a war,” Garza said. The Vietnam combat vet didn't suffer fools.

“Let's table the ROEs until Onstot gets here,” Lane said.

“Shouldn't we loop in the SecDef?” Eaton asked.

The president shook his head. “Not yet. This thing will gallop out of control if we get too many horses in the traces. The fewer people in the loop, the better.”

“Hate to ask it, but I'd really prefer that the White House press secretary be brought into this discussion,” Eaton said. “It's one thing for me to call a media outlet and ask them to sit on a story for a day or two, but we need a media professional to spin this stuff if we want to try and keep control of the narrative.”

“You're right. I'll call Alyssa in a few minutes. Anything else?”

Nobody responded. Everybody felt the weight of the moment. No need to add more to it. Lane looked at the clock.

“If our ISIS friends hold true, we've got just under two hours before they pull their next stunt. Let's convene back here at noon just in case they do.”

“Is there any doubt, sir?” Pearce asked.

Lane shook his head, resigned. “No, I guess not.”