Unmanned (9780385351263) (23 page)

The plane kept circling, widening its arc, but Paul pointed the camera out toward the road, then zeroed in on a red sedan cruising past the school. You could see the driver’s face through the window, completely unaware.
Just like those Afghan dirt farmers, oblivious.

Paul punched in some commands and his drone soared higher, zooming off toward the open skies of the eastern horizon.

Over at the edge of the field Cole saw a silver BMW sedan pull into
the school parking lot and come to a stop among the other vehicles. It sat for a minute or two with no sign of movement behind the smoked glass. Then a door opened and a silver-haired guy, maybe in his fifties, got out. He wore a shiny cordovan leather jacket, unzipped, and a blue oxford shirt with the top buttons undone. He nodded toward the group, and several of them nodded back. He went around to the trunk and unloaded a drum case a lot like Sharpe’s, then wrestled it awkwardly across the grass to the edge of the dirt infield, where he set it down. He made no move to open it. Instead, he eased back a few steps, as if to say that was enough activity for now. Then he folded his arms and started watching the others.

Cole would’ve guessed he was a stranger to the group if not for the reactions of the others, who seemed perfectly comfortable with his presence. After five minutes or so, he began to find the man a little unnerving.

“Who’s the guy in the Beemer?” he asked Bert.

“Oh, that’s Derek.” He smiled, like it was some sort of inside joke.

“Man of mystery,” Stan chimed in, making Bert giggle.

“He never does much flying,” Bert said. “I think he’s too worried he’ll screw up. So he mostly just soaks up the atmosphere, watching the rest of us crash and burn.”

“But he’s got some pretty hot birds,” Stan said. “On occasion.”

“When he actually gets ’em out of the box. How many do you figure he’s actually flown down here with us?”

“Five?” Stan guessed. “Maybe six. But never for long. Hot stuff, though, like I said.”

“Payload obsessed.”

“That’s for sure.” Stan laughed.

“Payload?” Cole asked.

“Always wants to know what your stuff’s capable of carrying—weight and volume, the impact on the aerodynamics, all kinds of related shit.”

“Do his birds ever carry anything?”

Bert and Stan exchanged questioning glances.

“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Stan said.

“Leo says he’s seen him load up some stuff. Dummy weights, I think he said.”

Stan laughed again. “Typical Derek. Hey, Paul’s doing okay!”

He was indeed. Cole watched the X8 do some fairly nimble maneuvers off in the distance, out over a bare lot. Five minutes later Paul brought it back toward the baseball field. A low trajectory carried it across the chain-link fence in left field, and it zoomed down the foul line like a throw to the plate. It bounced once on its plastic wheels, then a second time, before planting nose-down in a sudden blat of prop and wing that stopped the engine and tumbled the plane onto its back about halfway between third and home.

“Out by a mile!” Stan yelled.

“Shit.” Paul trotted over, brow furrowed, expecting the worst.

“Yep. That’s a maiden,” Bert said, which triggered muffled laughter and a few gentle words of condolence.

“She’ll fly again, Paulie.”

“Duct tape, baby. Duct tape and epoxy and she’s good as new.”

Nice guys
, he thought again. Fun to be around. And he could tell Sharpe liked them, too.

But something about the setup kept him off balance, and as he looked around at the barren expanse of the dirt infield he felt almost wobbly, as if he was back in the desert, gazing up past his trailer into a threatening sky as he listening for the telltale buzz. At that moment it was easy to imagine this same crew milling around on some postapocalyptic dreamscape, scalded and empty, yet they were still chattering, pointing, playing with their winged tools of intrusion. Watching all their fellow survivors from afar.

“Wanna try ’er, Joe?”

It was Bert, snapping Cole out of his morose reverie with a welcoming grin. Cole blinked and looked around. It was a baseball field, nothing more. Fresh footprints and the chatter of humans.

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah, sure. What was your question again?”

Bert held aloft his quadcopter.

“Was wondering if you wanted to try ’er. You looked like you were feeling a little left out. And she’s practically indestructible. Has to be, the way I fly ’er.”

Cole smiled.

“Then I guess she’s the perfect one for me to try out. What’s the drill?”

In addition to an iPad, Bert had rigged up a headset control with goggles that offered a bird’s-eye view from the camera, and an optional function that let you control the flight by tilting your head. Otherwise, the autopilot did most of the work. It took Bert only a few minutes to explain it, and Cole was up and running in almost no time. He marveled at the smoothness of the setup. For probably no more than a few hundred bucks, Bert had developed a ground control station miles better than anything Cole had ever used in piloting a Predator.

“Jesus,” he exclaimed, “your GCS is better than—” He stopped himself.

“Better than what?”

“Better than, well, just about anything I’ve seen.”

“I’m still working out some bugs, but, yeah, it’s not bad.”

Cole was transfixed by the images on the goggles, which made him feel he was up there with the machine, an illusion of flight that lifted his spirits and made his stomach do little bounces and flutters with every movement of the aircraft. It felt great. He was out there over the edge of a marsh, then speeding along above farmland, the sun to starboard as he soared toward points unknown.

“Looks like there might be some sort of power plant coming up. Down by a river.”

“Oh. Better steer clear. They might not like us buzzing their stuff.”

Cole did as Bert asked, veering gracefully away from the sun toward the open water of the Bay. Bert was monitoring his progress via the display on his iPad.

“You’re good at this,” Bert said. “Instinctive. Ever done any real flying?”

“Oh …” What would Sharpe want him to say? “Just simulator stuff. I’ve thought about taking lessons.”

“You should do it. Looks like you’re a natural. Not that this is all that tough, once you’ve got the right components.”

“Do you fly?”

“Nah. Took some lessons, but it was costing a bundle and my wife hated it. Kept thinking I was going to crack up, come home in a box.
So I do this now. Gets me up in the air and I survive all the crashes. Hey, look at that guy. You see him?”

He did. Cole was back over dry land, above a fallow field. Below was a hunter carrying a shotgun, marching across the mud toward a distant blind tucked at the edge of a tree line.

“Think he’ll take a shot at us?” Cole asked.

“Hey, it happens. In Texas, anyway. But I doubt this guy can even hear us. I just installed some noise suppression gear. Plus, you’re up pretty high.”

“How high?”

“Maybe six hundred feet. That camera’s on full zoom, pretty much.”

“Oh, sorry. Isn’t there some kind of altitude limit for this stuff?”

“The FAA says four hundred feet, unless you’ve got a permit. But why bother? And way out here who’s gonna give a shit? Especially if they don’t know.”

Cole switched back to autopilot and took off the goggles, handing them back to Bert, who then took command via the iPad.

“Thanks. I enjoyed that.”

“Looked like it. So, Lenny says you’re thinking of getting into this?”

Who was Lenny? Oh, right. Sharpe.

“Maybe. Looks pretty cool.”

“As long as you don’t mind a lot of crack-ups and false starts.”

Cole glanced over to see what the others were up to, and saw Derek in his ugly leather jacket. The drum case was still locked up tight, but Derek held out a smart phone and seemed to be shooting video of Cole and Bert. Cole quickly turned away. He felt foolish for doing so, but he didn’t turn back around. No sense ending up with his face on somebody’s footage that might go up on Facebook within the hour.

When he glanced back over a few minutes later, Derek had put away his phone and was chatting amiably with Leo, both of them with their hands on their hips, at ease with each other, which made Cole feel better.

After another ten minutes, Bert brought his drone in for a smooth landing near home plate.

Sharpe walked over. “Joe? Time we got moving. We’re on a schedule today, Bert. Just wanted to give him a taste of it.”

They said their good-byes. Everyone invited him back. Under other circumstances he might even have accepted. In some ways it was the same dynamic as in the fraternity of pilots. A similar kinship, albeit without the dangers. And at least they were out in the open air, not in some damn trailer, running other people’s missions while people barked at them on a chat screen. He would have enjoyed sticking around for a beer or a bourbon afterward, although he doubted their drink of choice was Jeremiah Weed.

Sharpe loaded his gear. He had made only the most cursory of flights with his quadcopter, just enough of an exercise, perhaps, to show that they weren’t there only to gawk. Maybe he’d been too intent on watching Cole to indulge in his usual level of play. They drove out of the parking lot. Cole was about to speak when Sharpe held up a hand to silence him and said brusquely, “Open your window.”

“What?”

“Roll it down. Stick your head out and tell me what you see.”

Cole eased off on the gas and lowered the window. Glancing back, he saw one of the fixed-wing X8s buzzing angrily in their wake, maybe thirty feet overhead.

“Jesus. Who’s doing that?”

Sharpe laughed uproariously.

“Fucking Stan. Always follows the first one to leave, then stalks him back to Route 50.”

“Why?”

“To show that he can. Flip him the bird for us, they’ll enjoy it. Go on.”

Cole held out his left hand for a good five seconds while steering with his right. They heard a faint outburst of good-natured cheering. Then he shut the window. Stan’s X8 zoomed out in front of them and veered west, waggling its wings good-bye while Sharpe bent over the dash for a better view.

“Well, if you were trying to freak me out, it worked.”

“Good. Your former employers fully support this kind of thing, you know.”

“The Air Force?”

“DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The brain bin Ike created after everybody freaked out over Sputnik.”

“Shoulda known.”

“Drones are their pet project these days. A couple years ago they posted a public challenge, with a hundred-thousand-dollar reward. Lots of specs and guidelines, but basically they were asking the DIY crowd to build the world’s perfect little spy drone. Crowd sourcing. Smart move. Their way of tapping in to the wisdom of the mob, all those armchair geniuses. A thousand bad ideas for every good one, but still. Nobody met the specs by the deadline, but they picked up some good stuff along the way.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, that’s classified, of course. You wouldn’t understand half of it anyway.”

“You would.”

“Would and do. Give enough free time and resources to enough quick, creative minds and they’ll always solve some problems for you. Most of the really hot shit DIY chapters are out west or overseas—Australia, Indonesia, you name it. But this little bunch of ours has been identified as a group that can hold its own. Once that happens, you’d be surprised how many interested parties will want to tap into the brain pool.”

“Like who?”

“We had a newcomer a while back. Nice guy, kind of like you. Came for a few weekends, asked a zillion questions. Everybody liked him. I ran the tags on his car, made a few checks, but never told anybody what I found out. Turns out he was some kind of engineering supervisor with Aerostar Dynamics. And I know firsthand that other defense contractors have seeded some of the other groups. Quite openly, in some cases. Let’s face it, it can be a helluva lot of fun. And perfectly legal, of course. But you can see why I like to be careful with my name and all that.”

“What’s the story with Derek?”

“Piece of work, isn’t he? Always brings shit—good stuff, too—but hardly ever flies it.”

“He was taking video of me.”

“He seems to do that a lot.”

“Maybe you should run his tags.”

“Maybe I have.”

“And?”

Cole waited. Got nothing.

“Is Derek even his real name?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Maybe you don’t need to know everything I know.”

“So what was this little excursion really about, then? I get the whole ‘genie out of the bottle’ shit, but why did I need to see this?”

“Because another interested party who showed up in mufti a while back was a hired gun from IntelPro. Claimed he was an insurance salesman from Kent County. Ran his tags, too. And this is the kind of thing, really, that goes straight to the heart of what Wade Castle is up to. In my humble opinion”

“Drones and IntelPro?”

“Something like that.”

“But they’re not an aerospace contractor. They’re security. All they build is private armies.”

“True. But commercially speaking, this field is about to explode. Right now the FAA is choosing six nationwide test sites. Places to try out every sort of drone application you could imagine. By the end of 2015 they’ll be coming up with a whole new set of rules for what drones can and can’t be used for. IntelPro, like plenty of other kids on the block, is positioning itself to cash in. Thanks to their many friends in government they’re in great shape to do so, and Wade Castle has been one of their best friends of all.”

“But—”

“Let me finish. All that tech that’s out there on the cutting edge—the secret stuff from my shop, and yours? It’s all been thoroughly field-tested on those foreign battlefields where you used to operate, and in the nation’s best-secured laboratories. And all of that
—all
of it—has been handed to IntelPro and a handful of other firms like pieces of candy, candy they’ve quietly begun to resell, still in its wrappers, to their new friends in aerospace. So that’s one part. Down at the other end of the food chain, they’re preparing to employ every possible application for domestic surveillance and security. They want to become as big on the home market as they are abroad. Why do you think they’ve
tied themselves so closely to all the people flying Predators and Reapers overseas? Because they’d like to use the same shit here.”