Piranha (12 page)

Panama City, Florida

It was the first time Major Norm Miller had seen every single pilot station occupied inside Tyndall Air Force Base's Gulf Range Drone Control System facility. Most of the time, only one target drone was being flown, but this morning was the final test flight before the actual mission the next week. Everything had to go perfectly or the demonstration could be scrubbed. Miller had no intention of letting the slightest detail be overlooked, not with his promotion to lieutenant colonel on the line.

“Give me system status,” he said, and each station responded that all systems were operating in the green and ready for takeoff.

“Excellent. Then let's begin. Quail One, radio the tower for clearance to taxi.”

Miller, a former fighter jockey with sunbaked skin and thinning hair, drank a Diet Coke while he watched the drone's camera feed as it eased toward the runway. He didn't have a chair in the room, preferring instead to spend his time moving between the stations to keep tabs on the operators. Each of the six simulated cockpits was occupied by a two-pilot team to handle the increased mental workload imposed from the lack of tangible feedback that an onboard pilot would experience. Normally, the computer, preset with the mission parameters, flew the plane, with manual backup ready to take over in case the computer malfunctioned. The ultimate fail-safe was the detached warhead of a Sidewinder missile installed on the drone. In the event contact was lost, the unmanned aerial vehicle would self-destruct.

The lead drone taxiing on the tarmac turned so that the camera on the following drone got a good side view. It was a modified F-16 Fighting Falcon, now called a QF-16 to distinguish the sleek fighter as a target drone destined to be destroyed someday by another plane or ship. Its tail and wingtips were painted a bright orange, and an external fuel pod was slung under its belly.

Miller never could get used to seeing a plane that had been designed for a human pilot take off with an empty cockpit, but that's exactly what Quail 1 did now, its afterburner spewing a glowing red tail behind it. Quail 2 continued the procession. Circling above were two manned F-15 Eagle chase planes armed with air-to-air missiles. They would act as escorts during the mission for observation purposes and as a final backup in case something went wrong with one of the drones.

This mission was not the typical flight out over the Gulf of Mexico test range. The eight planes—six drones and two escorts—were part of a live-fire drill for the UNITAS joint combat exercise carried out annually by nations in the Western Hemisphere and select NATO countries. Surface ships from the U.S., Great Britain, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and a dozen other navies would be converging in the Caribbean southeast of the Bahamas in a few days to simulate war games and undergo training on how to cooperate as a multinational task force. The highlight of the exercise was a live gunnery and missile drill against surface and aerial drones.

The QF-16s were to make a precision flyby to demonstrate their pinpoint navigation and handling prowess. Then one drone would peel away and serve as an elusive target for the Aegis guided missile destroyers in the fleet. The goal of Miller's team was to keep the drone flying for as long as possible before it was brought down. He aimed to make it a long day for the swabbies.

Today, they were simulating the long duration of the mission by flying the same course, but over the Gulf of Mexico. Everything went smoothly until an hour in.

“Major,” Quail 4's lead pilot said, “I've got something odd here.”

Miller answered. “What is it?”

The pilot hesitated and looked at his copilot before responding. “It seems we lost the link to the plane for a few moments.”

“It
seems
you did? Did you lose telemetry?”

“No, the telemetry was nominal. But I could have sworn I saw the plane waggle its wings.”

“‘Waggle its wings'? Weren't you on autopilot?”

“Yes, sir. That's why I don't understand it.”

“You're sure?”

“I was moving my eyes to the camera feed when I saw it.”

Miller frowned and turned to the copilot. “Did you see the plane execute any unplanned maneuvers?”

“No, sir. I was checking the GPS data at the time.”

Quail 4 was the rearmost plane in the formation, so none of the other drone pilots would have been able to see it. Only the leftmost chase plane would have a view of it.

Miller radioed the pilot. “Chase One, we have a report of an unintended maneuver on Quail Four. Did you see anything unusual?”

“‘Unusual,' Tyndall Base? Like what?”

“Like a . . . waggle. It's wings waggling.”

Miller heard a chuckle on the other end. “No, I didn't see a waggle.”

“Roger that, Chase One. Out.”

Quail 4's pilot had heard the exchange and tried to laugh it off. “Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.”

Miller patted him on the shoulder. He knew how tedious it was to man a station like this. “Just keep an eye on it,” he said, “both of you. If you see anything like that again, you let me know.”

“Yes, sir,” they both replied, but Miller didn't think he'd be hearing from them again during the flight, and he didn't expect to see anything strange in the postflight telemetry data, either.

Miami

Brian Washburn winked at the barista who took his coffee order. The pretty, twenty-something blonde turned red and grinned at the special attention, a response he was used to. It was the “Washburn charm” the newspapers had attributed to his winning election twice as Florida's governor.

Now that he was back in the private sector, he took care to cultivate the persona of a regular Joe, despite the wealth that the Washburn Industries conglomerate had given him. Nothing could better help him connect with voters than showing that he was willing to do his own daily errands and rub elbows with the ordinary people at the local coffee shop. It was his best chance of ever sitting at the desk inside the Oval Office.

Every time he had to stand inside this grubby little place, he stewed about the man who had defeated him in the primary and then chosen James Sandecker as his running mate just because he needed Sandecker's reputation in the Navy and at NUMA to distract from his own lack of military experience. Washburn was forced to influence the political sphere with his money instead of standing front and center at the podium where he deserved to be.

He didn't betray any of that discontent when his name was called by the barista. He gave her a warm smile and took his coffee outside and around the side of the building, where he climbed into the backseat of a black Cadillac Escalade. Two blocks away, the driver let him out at the oceanfront high-rise where his company was headquartered. His cell phone rang as soon as he reached the privacy of his palatial penthouse office. The screen showed the contact listing for his attorney.

“What is it, Bill?” Washburn answered as he tossed the unfinished coffee in the trash and picked up the china cup of rare St. Helena coffee that his assistant had brewed for him. “I don't have much time before my first meeting with the board.”

“This isn't William Derkins,” an unfamiliar voice said. “But I do have some information that you will be interested in.”

Washburn was startled and looked at the phone's display again. It was definitely showing the number for Bill's personal cell, and only a handful of close friends and advisers had Washburn's number.

He went to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the Atlantic and took a sip of his coffee. “How did you get Bill's phone?”

“I didn't. It's a technique called spoofing. I won't bore you with the details. You wouldn't understand them anyway. This was the only way I knew you'd take my call. Sit down.”

“What?”

“You're going to want to sit down to hear what I have to tell you.”

Washburn laughed. “How do you know I'm not sitting already?”

“Because you're standing next to your window.”

Washburn froze with the cup halfway to his lips. He scanned the water for any sign of surveillance, but the array of boats dotting the water below him were too far away to make out details. He moved away from the window until he couldn't be seen from the water.

“Okay,” he said, playing along, “I'm sitting now.”

“No, you're not. You're standing by your extremely expensive pot of coffee, flown at a cost of a hundred dollars a pound from the island where Napoleon was exiled. I hear it's quite rich, no pun intended.”

Now Washburn was truly alarmed. He was in the tallest building on Miami's coast, so there was no way anyone had a view from the outside this far into his office. He looked around the office wildly, searching for the hidden spy gear.

“How did you plant a camera in my office?”

“I didn't. I see everything.”

“Who are you?”

“You can call me Doctor for now. If everything goes well, we may meet in person in a few days. Now, take a seat at your computer. I have something to show you.”

“What if I call the police?”

“Then I will have to tell them what you did to poor Gary Clement.”

At the mention of Clement's name, Washburn's knees weakened. To his credit, he recovered and said, “I don't know who you're talking about.”

“I know that you
do
and I'll prove it. Check your email.”

Washburn straightened up, walked slowly to his desk, and opened his laptop. He put the phone on
SPEAKER
and set it on the desk.

The most recent email was from Washburn's own address. The subject line read “From the Doctor.”

Washburn was aghast at the breach in his security. “You broke into my email?”

“I thought the attached video was better coming from yourself than from my email address. You'll know why when you see it.”

Washburn took a deep breath and clicked on the attachment. When he saw the first image, he was glad he was sitting down because he nearly fainted.

The video showed him and Gary Clement, a squat, balding man, sitting on the deck of Washburn's yacht. Other than the bright lights of the boat, it was pitch-black. Washburn would never forget the evening three months ago. They were forty miles off the coast, a location specifically chosen for its privacy. No other boat had been within ten miles. It was just the two of them on the boat.

Yet it looked like the camera filming the scene had been on board the yacht with them, cutting back and forth between close-ups of each of them. Even the audio was flawless.

“I can prove you falsified those reports,” Clement said in his nasal whine. “I made copies when we were auditing your books. You may have destroyed them since then, but the discrepancies are clear. You shipped that body armor to Afghanistan even though you knew the manufacturing process had rendered it brittle and inadequate against the firepower they were facing. Hundreds of soldiers were killed and wounded because of you.”

Washburn had to admit Clement had the leverage. Not only would the explosive allegations end his political ambitions but the subsequent investigation would send him to prison for a long time if the real data surfaced. He would lose his company, his reputation—everything.

“What do you want?” Washburn replied coolly.

“You're not even going to try to deny it?”

“Why should I? You showed me what you have, which is why we're out here. I thought you wanted to negotiate.”

Clement smiled. “Then I want ten million dollars.”

Washburn nodded, as if he'd expected such a figure. “And next year?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, whatever number we settle on, you will always be out there lurking with the Sword of Damocles.”

“If you give me ten million dollars, I guarantee I will never talk about this again.”

“I think I'm the one who can make that guarantee,” Washburn said. He pulled a Smith & Wesson revolver from between the seat cushions and shot Clement in the chest.

As Clement gasped for air, Washburn said, “I found your files before we came out here. Not much of a backup plan.”

Clement sighed a death rattle and slumped in the chair. Washburn tossed the revolver overboard and disappeared from the picture for a minute. He came back holding four diving weight belts. He tied one to each of Clement's wrists and ankles and heaved the body over the side. After scrubbing away any traces of blood with the bleach he'd brought with him, he tossed that over as well. No one knew there was a connection between the two men, let alone that Clement had been on his boat that night. At the time, Washburn thought it had been the perfect crime.

Now as he stopped the video, he knew this Doctor could ask for anything and he would have no choice but to give it.

“I would delete that immediately, if I were you,” the voice on the phone said.

Washburn did as instructed, his hand shaking as he worked the trackpad.