Predator One (53 page)

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-two

Beale Air Force Base

Marysville, California

April 1, 1:58
P.M.

The demonstration of the new generation of QF-16X Pterosaur superdrones was delayed by the news about the
Jimmy Carter
. However, after the initial shock, that same news galvanized everyone into action.

Unlike the other jets in the new tactical-combat-drone program, the Pterosaurs did not run
on the Regis software. The team at DARPA had wanted to try something newer and better. The Pterosaurs were pure Solomon.

The advisor from the congressional oversight committee, Senator John Langan, had been a champion of the Solomon package. It had no commercial version, and it had never been in the hands of Aaron Davidovich. It was clean. And it was, in many ways, his. He had spearheaded the
approval for the new project, and he’d made sure it was funded and watchdogged. No leaks of any kind.

He was here in Marysville to see the drones in action. Until a few minutes ago, this test had been on the verge of being canceled because of the national emergencies. Now it was more important than ever. Solomon was easier to install than Regis, and it could be used to replace that other corrupted
package in almost twenty percent of the infected ships and twenty-eight percent of aircraft. Langan felt like a hero. Anything with Solomon was going to be part of saving the whole damn country.

He was absolutely sure he would be able to ride that wave out of the Senate and into the Oval Office. Oh hell yes.

If the North Koreans, Russians, or, more likely in his view, the Chinese, tried anything
during the scramble to pull Regis and upload Solomon, then Langan was going to help the military kick ass and take names.

The other men and women in the stands here in Marysville were probably thinking similar thoughts. They were all, to one degree or another, part of Solomon. They would all stand between America and those Seven Kings parasites and whoever wanted to exploit the Regis vulnerabilities.

Langan genuinely thought it would be the Chinese who would jump.

Bloody Chinese were waiting for something like this.

Langan did not consider himself a racist by any stretch, so it was nothing against the Chinese people. But the government? They were the most ruthless political force he had ever encountered, and he thought they were the most dangerous force on earth. Look at how they treated
their own people, not to mention the things they did to the rest of the damn world. And they were hypocrites while they were at it. The core of the People’s Republic didn’t care a single speck of dog shit for anything Marx had to say. That wasn’t communism. They hid behind the “dictatorship of the masses” bullshit and used it as a platform for establishing a tyrannical empire larger than any the
world had ever seen. Financially canny, merciless, built on misinformation and disinformation, and hungry for conquest.

No, Langan was not a fan of the Chinese government. If there was a government behind the Seven Kings, he would bet it was China. If he ever made it to the White House, then maybe China’s communist government would be to him what the Soviet Union had been to Ronald Reagan.

On the dais in front of the stands, General Dearborn stepped up to the microphones. His face was grave for about a millisecond.

“Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished members of Congress, our friends in the press,” he began in a stentorian voice that, when amplified by the speakers, sounded like the voice of God. Langan knew that Dearborn was aware of the effect. The general had white hair and bright
blue eyes and looked like central casting had sent him to play the Lord of All Creation. “Tragedies like what has happened in Philadelphia and in Puget Sound are proof that our nation is not as safe as it should be, not as safe as it needs to be. We live in an age where our enemies are dangerous, and they are devious. They hide in the shadows, they strike without warning, they fight without
honor. And they are many.”

He paused; the sea of faces on the bleachers were all turned toward him. Langan knew they were all eating out of his hand.

“Here in the twenty-first century, we have fought two terrible wars,” continued Dearborn. “One of which was the longest in the history of this great country. It was one where we suffered great losses and constant threats. Our brave men and women
in Afghanistan not only had to deal with the Taliban, they were frequently betrayed by members of the Afghani military—by spies hidden within that military. Lives were lost that should never have been at risk. That is the nature of the twenty-first-century terrorist. They hide in plain sight. They do not and cannot put an army in the field. They know that in a stand-up fight they can’t hope to defeat
American power, and so, like the cowards and bullies they are, they set bombs and take cheap shots.” He paused for effect. “This, my friends, is the war we are forced to fight.”

Another, longer pause.

Senator Langan covertly glanced around, noting—as he had at other times—how completely Dearborn owned this audience. Langan knew that the invitation list to this event was a careful job of crowd
seeding. Many of these people were already supporters of Dearborn, and the others were those who had known interests in the drone programs. Manufacturers and designers, researchers and developers. Even the members of the press in attendance were science writers of the kind who typically broke stories in support of advanced weaponry systems.

For his part, Langan was ambivalent. He was all in favor
of what UAVs, properly managed, could do. They reduced risks to American lives, and that was always at the top of Langan’s personal agenda. But he did not believe they were the surgically precise instruments they were touted to be. The disaster at Eglin Air Force Base showed that. Langan wanted this technology to go through many more months of field-testing. General Dearborn, on the other hand,
was lobbying to become the “Drone General,” as some of his pet reporters had already begun labeling him. Dearborn wanted the history books to remember him as the man who reduced the military human element—and its associated human danger—to less than forty percent. To take the soldier out of the field and out of the cockpit. Even, if he had his way, out of the driver’s seat in most of the submarine
and surface fleets.

That was what Langan expected Dearborn to say today, and the general went in exactly that direction. Langan listened to him rattle off impressive statistics, cite case studies, quote remarks—often taken out of context—by eyewitnesses to drones in combat.

The general’s remarks went on and on, very nearly to the point of tedium. But the general stopped short of actually boring
his own packed crowd. He gave another of his dramatic and, Langan had to admit, effective pauses, and then he turned to the field that stretched out, broad and green beyond the stands. Thousands of acres of grass bisected by asphalt runways. A control tower stood like a lighthouse on the far side. Above the field, a few puffy white clouds sailed through the endless blue, all of it providing a
picturesque backdrop to what was about to happen.

General Dearborn nodded to a lieutenant, who in turn spoke into a small mike.

Within seconds, there was a screaming roar as a flight of six jets swept into view.

Each sleek smoke-gray aircraft had crimson wingtips and tail fins—a different color scheme than the charcoal and orange used on the QF-16 aerial-target drones. These were not targets.
That’s what the general told the crowd.

“Welcome to the new age of aerial combat,” announced Dearborn with obvious pride. “The QF-16X Pterosaur is a true variable-use combat aircraft that can be remote-piloted by two qualified ground-based pilots, or, at the flick of a switch, they can become fully autonomous fighters. That means that in the event of an interruption of power or a disruption in
communication with ground support, these aircraft will continue to carry out their missions against preselected targets. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are switching to autonomous flight. Let’s see how these babies can perform with no one but a computer at the joystick. Prepare to be amazed.”

The Pterosaurs flew at one thousand feet above the grass, soaring straight and true above the ground,
then they split apart, with two peeling off high and left, two going high and right, and the remaining two curving directly upward. Then each pair of fighters began a difficult maneuver, rolling as they climbed so that they moved around each other like two moons in an orbital dance. The jets rose and rose until they were black dots. Then they turned and split apart once again so that all six arched
downward toward the field, like the petals of some vast flower. Their vapor trails chased them down, down, down. When it seemed like they were far too low to possibly avoid crashing, the jets turned with incredible precision and perfect synchronicity, leveling off less than five hundred feet above the deck.

As Dearborn had promised, the crowd was, indeed, amazed. The jets circled and turned,
flew at each other and passed so close it looked like they must have scraped paint off each other’s wings. They swept apart, came together, made shapes in the air, and even buzzed the grandstands. It was all great theater. The crowd oohed and ahhed at all the right moments.

“And now,” said the general, “let me show you why American air superiority will remain unchallenged despite adversity, despite
treachery, despite attacks by terrorists and world powers. This will be a live-fire exercise—but don’t worry, it’s all going to happen up there in the wild blue yonder.”

There was another growl of heavy engines as four more jets flew over the stands. Langan recognized them as F-18s. Very fast, very reliable jets on the cutting edge of air combat.

“We have teams of pilots operating the four F-18s.
These pilots are all experienced, and they are the best of the best. Let’s see how they stack up against our Pterosaurs and the latest generation of the BattleZone tactical combat system.”

The F-18s flew over the field and then, just as the QF-16Xs had, they split apart and rose into individual climbing turns, racing toward the four corners of the field. The Pterosaurs were circling high up now,
and suddenly four of them broke off and blew off into wide circles that would bring them into direct opposition of the F-18s. Like four mirrored images of the same encounter, the superdrones zoomed toward their enemies at incredible speeds.

Air-to-air missiles burst from beneath the wings of all eight aircraft. Instantly, the Pterosaurs banked and dropped. The F-18s were a second later in breaking
away from their flight paths, but they did, each of them accelerating to shake the computer locks in their heat signatures.

Missiles flashed across the sky.

Boom!

One of the F-18s transformed into a glowing orange fireball as an AIM-7 Sparrow punched into it and detonated. The blast was six miles up and out, but the sound of it came rolling and tumbling across the field to buffet the crowd
in the stands.

“Shit,” muttered Langan, though not loud enough for anyone to hear above the roar of engines, the echo of explosions, and the sound of delighted gasps.

A moment later, two more of the F-18s blew up.

“Shit, shit.”

The fourth F-18 slipped the missile that had been fired at it and began a series of very deft, very clever maneuvers. Langan could imagine the ground-based pilots trying
every trick they’d learned from their own combat missions to slip the punch of these new superdrones. He was impressed. This was superb flying, even if it was remotely done.

But it couldn’t last. The drone that had targeted it was now joined by the three that had destroyed their targets, and, like a flock of flying monsters, they pursued the F-18. The four Pterosaurs belched out a collective
sonic boom as they throttled high and broke the sound barrier. Langan had to squint into the distance to see the smoke as two of the craft fired simultaneous Sidewinders.

It took a long time for the explosion to roll all the way to the stands.

The crowd sighed with an almost orgasmic release as the last of the four F-18s fell like fiery rain to the ground far below. Langan sagged back, blowing
out his cheeks, knowing full well that this demonstration was far too perfect for him to be able to offer any objections. All four F-18s had been taken down in seconds.

Seconds.

From start to finish, the whole dogfight—if such an antiseptic slaughter could be called that—took nineteen seconds.

“Holy mother of shit,” he mumbled.

Then he heard someone say something that snapped him instantly
out of his own political musings and fully back to the moment.

“Where are the other drones?”

He turned to the man who’d spoken, the junior senator from Ohio.

“What—?”

The Ohioan pointed to the empty sky beyond where the four Pterosaurs were regrouping. “The other two drones. Where are they?”

“Maybe they landed,” said another congressman.

“No,” said a fourth, pointing. He had a good pair
of binoculars and held them to his eyes. “There they are. Way over there.”

Langan borrowed the glasses to take a look. Indeed, the two remaining Pterosaurs were up there, but they were no more than dots, fading quickly into the distance. Heading northwest at high speed.

“That’s weird,” he said, then turned toward Dearborn. The general was also looking off to the northwest. He was no longer smiling.
His face was cut by a deep frown of confusion.

The general suddenly bent and said something to the lieutenant, who apparently repeated it into his mike. The lieutenant didn’t look confused. He looked frightened.

No … “frightened” was wrong. It was too weak a word, and Langan knew it.

The man looked absolutely
terrified
.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-three

Tanglewood Island

Pierce County, Washington

April 1, 2:04
P.M.

Doctor Pharos turned to the burned man.