Drone Threat

65

It was only the third flight of the recently delivered Saudi Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone and it was already routine. It could fly continuously for fourteen hours fully armed but it had been in the air for only eight on today’s mission, keeping watch over the Kingdom’s eastern shoreline on the Persian Gulf. The Reaper ran a continuous circuit from the border of Kuwait in the north all the way down the coastline to Bahrain in the far south and back again.

The nearsighted Saudi captain piloting today’s mission sat in an air-conditioned ground-control station parked at King Abdulaziz Air Base, just north of the bustling port city of Al Khobar. He was as newly minted as the Reaper he was monitoring, having just graduated from drone pilot training with the 9th Attack Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The mission had been routine so far. In fact, it was mind-numbingly dull thanks to the vehicle’s autopiloting capabilities, just one function of the most advanced navigational software and avionics package available, designed and built by an American company.

The captain stifled a yawn. His sensor operator had stepped outside for a smoke, leaving him alone in the GCS. He thumbed through a well-worn Victoria’s Secret catalogue he’d found in the officers’ lounge. He succumbed to a second yawn as he flipped to a dog-eared page, struggling to see in the dimly lit room.

The Reaper’s direction suddenly turned away from the coast and headed inland. No alarms sounded. The captain was too preoccupied to notice the change until it was too late.

But it wouldn’t have mattered if he had.

A doe-eyed Qatari girl from the royal house of Al-Thani swam naked in the vast blue pool inside the expansive stone courtyard.

Al-Saud leered at his newest and youngest wife from the shade beneath the portico and sipped on a minty mojito, his favorite cocktail. She was already pregnant, another sign of favor from Allah, whose blessings were as heavy and real as the thick rope of golden chain around his neck. His villa near the coast was a pleasure palace he had purchased just for the two of them with the dowry he had received from the girl’s father.

Life was good, and al-Saud was filled with the gloating satisfaction of all patriots on the winning side of a war. A war he had helped orchestrate. Thanks to him, the Americans were providing the drones his country required for fighting Daesh and keeping the filthy Persians at bay. Victory was certain.

But al-Saud’s thoughts turned inward. He sighed. House arrest was, literally, a gilded cage. But it was still a burden. His desperate desire was to be back in the good graces of the king. He would be now if it weren’t for Pearce. Pike’s new contract to assassinate the American was paid in full, a wedding gift to himself. He prayed it would be completed soon.

His mood began to sour until he remembered the comforting admonition of his uncle. “The Americans have long arms but short memories.” The old sheikh was right, of course. He would be back in service to his family and his nation eventually. He only needed patience, and a good word from Chandler at just the right time. Until then, he would be forced to endure the sensate life of a pampered Saudi royal. He laughed.

C’est la vie.

Al-Saud drained the last of his glass and slipped off his swimsuit. It was time to pleasure himself again with his young wife in the pool’s cool salt water. He padded over to the gold-tiled edge in his bare feet and called out to the girl. She laughed and waved him in. He felt his manhood swelling as he gazed upon her bright and eager face.

A glint of sunlight caught his eye. He glanced up into the pale blue vault. He sensed more than saw the blinding fury of two erupting Hellfire missiles, cutting off his scream in the scalding fire that burned away his world and everything he loved.

Sitting in his own GCS in San Diego, Ian turned the Saudi Reaper toward Iranian airspace. With any luck the Saudis would think it was Tehran that had managed to pull off the hijacking instead of him. Thanks to the Reaper’s navigational software and avionics package — designed and built by a subsidiary of Pearce Systems — Ian had taken effortless control of the drone and piloted it toward al-Saud’s private residence just five miles off its preprogrammed route.

The Reaper’s onboard facial-recognition software confirmed al-Saud’s identity before Ian launched the Hellfires and the high-powered optical camera captured the astonished look on the prince’s face just moments before he and his compound were vaporized.

Too bad about the girl, he thought to himself. But as his nana told him years ago, You sleep with the Devil in a bed of your own ashes.

Monitoring the communications channels of the Royal Saudi Air Force, Ian knew that two fourth-generation Boeing F-15SA strike fighters had been dispatched, just as he assumed they would be once the Reaper was discovered off course. Equipped with the AN/AAS-42 infrared search-and-track system wedded to the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, the Saudi pilots would easily find and destroy the slow-moving turboprop Reaper with or without help from Saudi ground-control radar. No doubt they would completely destroy the aircraft along with its black box. But Ian was a cautious man and put a worm in the drone’s CPU that already destroyed any evidence of his activity just in case the black box was recovered.

Ian tapped an encrypted message on his console.

“14Gipper.”