Predator One by Jonathan Maberry
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.
“See? See?”
“Yes,” said the Gentleman. “I see.”
He was pale beneath his burns. His hands shook with palsy and spit glistened on his lips.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
The burned man was impotent and crippled, disfigured and incontinent, but in that moment there was such heat in his eye that even Pharos recoiled. Never once in his entire life had he ever seen such malevolence, such fundamental hatred in the eyes of another man. In the eyes of another person. The looked that flared in the Gentleman’s eye rivaled the inhuman hatred and contempt of the freak Nicodemus.
Or … maybe in some impossible, unnatural way it was the evil priest himself staring out of that one baleful eye. That single orb was like a hole burned through the floors of this world from the ceiling of hell.
That was the thought, the startled reaction that filled Pharos’s mind.
And in that moment the color of the Gentleman’s eye seemed to change. To metamorphose from a human blue to a swirling mélange of colors. Feces-brown. The mottled green of toad skin. Jaundiced yellow.
Pharos felt himself leaning too far back, sliding from the chair, falling onto the floor. That
So familiar.
“I see,” said a voice that was not at all the voice of the burned man. “I see very well.”
Pharos scuttled backward, a small cry bursting from his throat.
“Dear God!”
“I see,” said the voice. Then, in a voice that was filled with the promise of pain and horror, he said, “Now show me more.”
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-four
Air Force One
In Flight
April 1, 2:09 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
Bain, the national security advisor, took a call on his reserved line. When he stiffened and went white with shock, everyone else in the conference room fell suddenly silent. Bain instantly began snapping his fingers for his aide.
“Channel nine, channel nine!”
The aide snatched up a remote and began punching buttons to reach the channel, which was one of four secure feeds from the Department of Defense. The big screen on the wall burst with sudden color and movement.
“What is it?” demanded the president. “What’s happening?”
“There’s been another incident,” barked Bain.
“No,” said the president very softly. “No more. No more.”
“It’s the base commander at Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, California,” said Bain. “They’ve been testing the QF-16Xs out there, and two of them have gone rogue.”
The president bristled. “What do you mean ‘gone rogue’? I ordered that all drones with Regis be grounded.”
On the screen, a satellite was tracking the flight patterns of two jet fighters traveling at thirteen hundred miles per hour. Fifty nautical miles behind them was a pack of other fighters.
“Mr. President, these drones aren’t using Regis. They have a different software package. Something new. Nothing that connects them to anything Davidovich worked on.”
“Christ,” said Brierly, “they’re heading toward San Francisco.”
The jets were blurs as they tore across the screen.
“What’s our response?” demanded the president.
“We scrambled four F-18s from Vanguard Group. They’re in close pursuit. Permission to—”
“Granted,” barked the president. “Shoot them down before anyone else gets hurt. Don’t let them reach the city.”
One of the generals spoke into a phone. “This is Air Force One to Vanguard Group, do you copy?”
“Copy, Air Force One. We are forty miles back and closing.”
“Permission has been given to go weapons hot. Vanguard, you are cleared to engage. Repeat, you are cleared to engage. Put them down.”
“Roger that,” said a voice that, typical of fighter pilots, was calm despite the circumstances. Brierly thought that level of calm was admirable but unnerving.
“This is Vanguard Two, fox one,” said a second pilot, and everyone tensed as they waited for the AIM-20 AMRAAM missiles to burst from beneath the wing and drill their way through the air toward the rogue drone at Mach 4.
The moment stretched.
Nothing happened.
“Vanguard One, I detect zero missiles fired. Confirm.”
The radio was silent.
“Vanguard Two, do you copy?” yelled the general.
Silence.
Then …
“Air Force One, we are experiencing—”
The voice vanished.
A moment later, another voice cut in, clearly from the tower at the airbase. “Vanguard One, I am reading a system malfunction. Confirm status.”
As if struck by a harsh sideways wind, all four of the pursuit craft shuddered, their tight formation wobbling. The operator of the satellite video feed tightened the focus to show thin streamers of smoke or steam whipping backward from the cowls of each jet.
Then the tower voice was back. Yelling for each of the pilots to respond.
The jets flew on, still gaining on the two drones.
But no one was answering.
The president turned to Church. “I don’t understand. What’s happening? Why aren’t they responding?”
Church set down the water glass he had lifted to his lips. “Dear God,” he said.
“What? Will someone please tell me what just happened?”
Mr. Church said, “The eject controls of all four pursuit craft have been activated.”
“What? Where? I didn’t see anyone eject.”
“In order to safely eject the cockpit, cowling has to be removed. It’s done by firing explosive bolts.”
“But—”
“Those bolts never fired. The cowling is still in place.”
“But the pilots…?”
“The pilots are dead, Mr. President,” said Linden Brierly.
“Jesus Christ! Is this Regis…?”
No one answered.
“Is this fucking Regis,” screamed the president.
“No, sir,” said the air force general. “We scrambled jets that did not have the Regis upgrade.”
“Then how—?”
“Solomon,” said Church. When the president turned to him, the DMS director looked as stricken as everyone else in the room.
“Yes,” said the general. “They were part of the first test group for Solomon.”
“Oh my God,” said the general, but it was not in sympathy with the president’s words or in mourning for the dead pilots. Everyone turned back to the screen and watched in absolute horror as all six jets—the two drones and the four pursuit craft—fired their missiles.
Each of them.
Missile after missile.
The weapons flew from under the wings at four times the speed of sound. They streaked across the sky above the California landscape. Flying straight.
And true.
Toward a giant of steel that stretched its arms from Marin County to San Francisco. Steel that glinted gold in the light.
No one spoke.
No one could.
As the missiles slammed into the vast span of the Golden Gate Bridge and blew it into fiery dust.
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-five
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 3:29 P.M.
We went in like silent birds.
Like the ghosts of some great old predators of the air.
Echo Team riding the breeze, coming through slanting rain out of a leaden-gray sky, carrying within us an even deeper darkness in our hearts.
The TradeWinds MotorKites were something Church had commissioned from a company that made ultralight aircraft. The frame was made from a new aluminum-magnesium alloy that was lighter than a lawn chair but far stronger. Big silk bat wings filled the frame and extended beyond it, ribbed with flexible polymers. The motors were tiny two-strokes built for stealth rather than speed. Virtually silent.
No one heard us coming.
And unless they could make out shadows against shadows, they couldn’t see us.
We wore a new generation of combat sealskin that had a network of cooling wires to keep the surface temperature of the suits in harmony with the air around us. Our own thermal signatures was masked. The rain helped with that, too. It was a dreary April morning. No one would be outside looking up.
I led the way, with Bunny riding shotgun on my left. Top was on my right, and his kite pulled a second machine from which Ghost was suspended. He was in a close-fitting dog-shaped outfit that hid him as effectively as ours did. The motor of his kite was synched with Top’s, and the fur monster had been well trained for this kind of landing. Ghost loved the kites. Unlike his pack leader, who hated heights.
Brian Botley brought up the rear.
We were all still reeling from what was going on in San Francisco.
The Golden Gate Bridge? Gone? And all those people.
&nbs
More proof that we were losing this fight to the Seven Kings.
Who even knew if Tanglewood Island was the right target? If it was, did that mean we had our first real chance? If it wasn’t … then what?
Really. Then what?
I would have liked to have had a bigger team in case this was the big play, but this is what we got. Odin and Java Teams were on their way down to San Francisco to help with the disaster and offer support to Homeland. We had a SEAL team inbound, but they wouldn’t be here for nearly an hour. I didn’t think we had that much time. No, check that, I couldn’t risk wasting that much time.
Ten miles over the horizon, our launch ship rocked on the waves. Not a military ship. No one trusted any of them right now. No, we commandeered a fishing trawler. Not much of a ship. It had engines and not much else. We didn’t need much else.
In my ear, I heard Nikki’s voice. “We have an Osprey in the air with an E-bomb.”
“A trustworthy Osprey or—?”
“They pulled all of its computers.”
“Welcome to the world of the Luddites,” I said.
We sailed closer and closer to Tanglewood Island, our kites and gear invisible against the storm clouds. The winds were steady but not heavy. No gusts—and the rain was a relentless drizzle rather than a crushing downpour. We had our Google Scout goggles on, and telemetric feeds projected onto the lenses gave wind speed, altitude, angle, pitch and yaw, distance to the island, and other data.
“Okay, listen up,” I whispered. “We go in exactly as we rehearsed.”
I thought I heard a soft grunt from Bunny. Our rehearsal had been all of twenty minutes. That had been all the time we could spare. It wasn’t much, and I prayed that it was enough. The smallest mistakes could cost lives. Not just among Echo Team, but across the nation. We needed those reset codes. If we bungled the landing, if we failed to take the island, if we couldn’t gain access to the chamber of the Kings, if, if, if …