Drone Threat

10

Pearce gunned the motor again, flipping the paddles on the steering wheel, pushing the tachometer into the red again. The pit of his stomach dropped as the Mini Cooper S convertible went slightly airborne over the sudden dip in the paved two-lane road. The rental bounced on its stiff, sporty shocks when it landed and Pearce downshifted into a sharp hairpin curve. He knew he was driving way too fast on a road with too many blind curves. He didn’t care. He was having fun.

He loved this part of the country. He’d been here only once before a few years back, but it was beautiful here near the Smoky Mountains, and the people he met were great.

The road wound through rolling, grass-covered hills dotted with variegated greens of pine, maple, hemlock, and several other species he couldn’t identify. It was farm and ranch country with houses and outbuildings to match. But there were long stretches of road blemished by broken-down trailers or ancient barns crumbling into ruin, too. They weren’t much for building codes in this neck of the woods, and pride of ownership was optional. Around here he saw mostly cattle dotting the steep pastures, but he knew that farther east there were a knot of apple orchards, and the fishing was pretty good on Douglas Lake — not that he’d have the time to dip a line this trip.

The next curve jumped up on him like a snake out of a hole and he turned hard into it, downshifting fast and letting up on the gas. The centripetal force threw him against the shoulder belts, but the sturdy little car gripped the asphalt like a Formula One racer. The road dived violently down and then took another hard blind curve. He punched the gas anyway and geared up, turning the wheel hard, but he was moving too fast and the car crossed the faded yellow line—

A step-side Chevy pickup blared its horn and swerved hard out of its lane and into the soft gravel shoulder. Pearce barely missed sideswiping it by inches. He caught a quick glimpse of the driver, a thick lump of chaw pouching his cheek, his mouth open in a cursing scream. Pearce downshifted and slowed enough to check his rearview mirror. The truck was throwing dust as it skidded to a stop just inches from a rocky outcrop. Relieved, Pearce punched the gas again and raced ahead.

The GPS map flashed when he arrived at the address twenty minutes later. Good thing. He nearly sped past the weathered hand-painted metal sign that read Goose Gap Farm. He turned in toward the shuttered steel gate and stopped. An incongruous security camera was perched on one of the gateposts. A blinking red light finally turned to a solid green and the steel gate swung open. Pearce nudged his car forward past the security camera and over the thumping cattle grate before his tires began crunching on the gravel road. The narrow track headed straight toward a steep hill, beyond which stood his destination. He punched the gas again and the tires spun. Pearce felt the rocks spanging against the undercarriage and no doubt stripping off some of the paint. He didn’t care. The rental was fully insured.

To hell with it.

Pearce stood by the half-ton Ford flatbed pickup, faded red and rusting. GOOSE GAP FARM was stenciled in white letters on the battered driver’s door.

“Good to see you, Virgil,” Pearce said.

“Same, for sure.” The two men shook hands. At least his grip is still strong, Pearce thought.

At nearly six foot six, the sixth-generation Tennessee native seemed even thinner and more gaunt than Pearce remembered him. He assumed it was the chemotherapy. The drooping Hickory shirt and baggy overalls added to the effect. The skin beneath Dr. Virgil Ponder’s neck was loose and his bald head was flaking badly beneath the stained orange-and-white UT Vols ball cap. Behind the thick lenses of his Soviet-styled frames, his big brown eyes seemed larger than normal. Other than the crazy glasses, Pearce thought Ponder could have been the stern-faced farmer in Grant Wood’s famous American Gothic painting. All he needed was a pitchfork to complete the ensemble.

Pearce saw that Ponder was irritated.

“Sorry I’m late. Got held up.”

“Time’s a scarce commodity these days.”

“I know. I blew it.” He nodded toward Stella Kang, his Korean American security officer. “I see you’ve already met Stella.” Stella was ten yards away, directly behind the flatbed, fiddling with a radio-controlled transmitter in her hands, its lanyard looped around her neck. A homemade radio-controlled Styrofoam airplane with a six-foot wingspan lay in the grass in front of her. The rear-mounted pusher-styled airframe featured a double tail and a boxy front fuselage that held the engine and electronics. Ponder had built the drone entirely from sheet insulation from Home Depot for about ten bucks. It was meant for function, not beauty.

Ponder grinned. “Stella’s a pistol, all right. Where’d you find her?”

“On my island of misfit toys.” Pearce had recruited Kang years ago, straight out of the army, where she’d flown Raven surveillance drones, and she’d since become the mainstay of his personal security team. But she was still a helluva drone pilot.

“Well, I supposed we’d best get after it,” Ponder said. “Time’s a wastin.’”

“Show me what you’ve got.”

Ponder waved Pearce toward the back of the flatbed. Pearce followed.

He’d first met the towering physicist at Operation Black Dart several years before. The Pentagon’s annual anti-drone exercise lasted two weeks and only select corporations and government agencies were invited to participate. The event was designed to showcase advances in anti-drone technologies and tactics. The Pentagon understood that both advances and failures at Black Dart could provide useful information to America’s enemies in the looming drone wars, so the results were kept secret from the press.

Failure at Black Dart was not only expected but encouraged. The anti-drone technologies still lagged behind the galloping progress of military and civilian drone advances. If participants believed that failure might lead to a loss of a potentially lucrative DoD contract, they might not bring their latest and greatest “bleeding-edge” systems to the anti-drone game. Pentagon simulations at the event provided participants with real-world and real-time scenarios — the perfect venue to test and improve new designs. Black Dart had seen successes from mundane approaches like snipers in helicopters to more extreme ones like suicide drones. But the most exotic solution, and the most promising, was the laser.

After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a BS in physics, Ponder went on to earn a PhD from MIT. He later worked briefly for MIT’s prestigious Plasma Science and Fusion Center before striking out on his own and starting his own company, specializing in antimissile laser technology. He invested heavily but lost out on a bid for developing the U.S. Navy’s Laser Weapons System (LaWS), which was first deployed in the Persian Gulf in 2014 on board the USS Ponce. Laser shots to knock out missiles and aircraft cost less than sixty cents each, and the laser “ammo” supply was infinite so long as the ship’s power plant was intact. Standard antiaircraft missiles cost tens of thousands of dollars each, were finite, and, like other kinetic systems, had to be manufactured, transported, resupplied, and reloaded.

Starting from scratch, Ponder set out to construct a viable anti-drone laser system. The one Pearce saw demonstrated at Black Dart impressed him, but it was too large and expensive. Two years ago he put up venture capital for Ponder’s new company, Goose Gap Photonics, in exchange for first right of refusal for a smaller, portable version of his modular laser system. Ponder wanted to sell his entire operation to Pearce Systems. His health was failing and he wanted to leave a sizable inheritance to his seven grandchildren.

Ponder pointed at the old flatbed. “I call her the War Wagon. You know, after the John Wayne movie.”

“That’s it?” Pearce asked as he climbed onto the truck bed. There were four separate modules, each self-contained but linked to each other with a single connector. All four modules could be packed up in hard plastic shipping cases for transport, each light enough to be carried by one or two people. Three of the modules were long, rectangular shapes. The third was a mounted tripod with a gimbaled head, its legs fixed to the truck bed.

“The War Wagon ain’t much to look at now. I designed everything so that you can shove all of this gear into a Humvee and mount the beam director on the roof like a machine-gun station. Completely self-contained. Only thing is, I don’t have an extra Humvee lying around to fix up or I’d have shown it to you.”

“I can get you a surplus Humvee if you want one. No charge.”

Ponder nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”

“System weight?”

“Six hundred and fifty pounds, total.” Ponder pointed a large, bony index finger at each module. “That’s the power source, a battery — rechargeable, of course. Next to it is the water-cooled chiller. And that one there is the actual fiber laser.”

“The fiber is infused with rare-earth elements, right?”

“Right. It’s the latest and greatest. A lot of advantages over the solid-state units.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Pearce had boned up on REEs after his adventure in the Sahara. China still controlled nearly 90 percent of all rare-earth element exports, and 100 percent of those used in high-tech military manufacture.

“You mean the Chi-coms? I don’t think so. This is a standard industrial single-beam unit. Completely off-the-shelf. Plenty of them around and more where they came from.”

“How powerful is the laser?” Pearce read that the laser on board the USS Ponce was 30 kilowatt. It was meant for anti-drone, antimissile, antiaircraft, and even small antiship deployment. It would eventually replace the navy’s 20mm chain-gun Phalanx cannon system.

“Ten kilowatt.”

“What does that mean?” Pearce knew that General Atomics — the company that invented the iconic Predator drone — was trying to mount a 150-kilowatt laser on board the jet-powered Predator C (Avenger). Pearce thought the rigged Avenger looked like something out of a sci-fi flick. It was yet another technological answer to the enduring question: How can America find security in this highly insecure world? Pearce built a company on cutting-edge drone technologies, but he also knew that every war his country had lost had been to technologically inferior opponents.

“Have you ever heard of a cement drone?”

Pearce chuckled. “Not likely.”

“Good, because even if you did, I got it covered. They use five-kilowatt lasers to drill through cement, and we’re double that.” Ponder patted the laser module with his large, spotted hand. “We can punch through sheet aluminum, carbon fiber, you name it, with this little wonder.”

“Range?”

“Twenty-two miles. Units like this have been used to knock down mortar rounds and missiles. A drone won’t be a problem.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Pearce pointed at the tripod. On top of the tripod was a device that looked like a projector with a huge glass eye. “Is that the beam director?”

“My own design. The lightest unit of its kind. You can make all of your money back just selling those to the Pentagon.”

“Are we ready to rumble?”

“Been ready. Been waiting for you.” Ponder’s stern farmer’s face almost broke into a smile.

“One sec,” Pearce said. He leaped down off the flatbed. He pulled a four-inch magnetic square out of a jeans pocket and slammed it against the driver’s-side door with a thud. It was a red bull’s-eye target.

Ponder harrumphed. “What’s that for?”

“You’ll see.”

The lanky physicist flicked a switch and the laser unit engaged. The beam director shuttered briefly as it aligned itself. He climbed down uneasily from the flatbed, refusing Pearce’s offer of help with a dismissive grunt. The two of them took up position by the back bumper. Ponder flipped open a laptop. The laser’s gun-sight reticle was centered in the middle of the monitor.

“Let ’er rip,” Pearce said.

“Your gal there will need some help with the launch.”

“Right.” Pearce jogged over and picked up the Styrofoam airplane. Despite its massive wingspan and overall size, it was surprisingly light.

Ponder raised his fingers to his mouth and let out a shrieking sheep whistle.

Stella frowned, holding up the transmitter. “This is really old-school. We should’ve linked one of our tablets.”

“Next time,” Pearce said. “Did you bring our little friends?”

“Of course.”

“Did he see you?”

“I used to shoplift, remember?”

“And your army career began the day after you got caught.”

She laughed. “No worries.”

Pearce grasped the fuselage in one hand and held the aircraft back behind his head, as if he were throwing a javelin. “Ready to launch.”

“Aim for the far end of the valley!” Ponder shouted. “Nice and straight!” Low hills on either side of them stood a quarter mile apart, and shouldered for more than half a mile due north. Plenty of room for Ponder to land his ancient Piper Cub on the grassy airstrip.

“Fire in the hole!” Stella flipped the throttle switch. The airplane’s powerful electric motor fired up.

Pearce ran a few feet and tossed the gangly plane into the air toward the far end of the valley. The plane wobbled as it came out of his grip but quickly righted itself.

Pearce jogged back over to Ponder’s laptop. Saw the reticle tracking perfectly with the airplane.

“Push the F1 button when you’re ready,” Ponder said.

Pearce pushed it.

The laser fired. It made a Star Trek—style phaser beam sound.

The beam locked directly onto the engine in the Styrofoam fuselage. The plastic blades melted instantly as the engine coughed and then died two seconds later. The rest of the plane broke apart and tumbled to the ground.

The old farmer’s face finally cracked into a wide grin. “So, whaddya think?”

“Not bad, so long as the bad guys are invested in Styrofoam platforms.” Pearce scratched his chin. “What’s with the crazy sound that thing makes?”

“The laser is completely silent. I added sound effects so that an operator would know it was firing. You’ve got ten more sounds to choose from, if that makes a difference.”

“You never know,” Pearce said. “Some of my clients like that kind of thing.” He cast a glance back at Stella. She nodded and pulled the transmitter from off her neck.

“Seriously, Troy. What’s the verdict?”

“It’s damn impressive. But you had Stella fly in a straight line and it’s still a slow-moving target.”

“Like I said, this system uses the same components the Pentagon deploys to shoot down mortars. I just made it extremely portable. Targeting drones won’t be a problem.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Pearce pointed at the laptop. “That thing still ready to go?”

“Yup.”

“You got a ‘laser blaster’ sound?”

“You mean, like Star Wars?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.” Ponder ran through a pop-up menu. Made a selection. “All ready, Boba Fett.”

Pearce turned to Stella. She had a tablet in her hand. “Go.”

Stella stabbed at the tablet. In the distance, small motors whined to life.

“What’s this?” Ponder asked.

“I guess they’re like Remotes.”

“Huh?”

“Star Wars reference. Never mind.”

The laser gimbals twitched as the onboard radar searched for targets. The monitor image shifted back and forth, almost randomly.

Pearce pointed toward the tree line on the far hill. “Here they come.”

Ponder squinted. “I can barely see them. Three of ’em, I think.”

“Four. They’re cheap, palm-sized quads I bought on Amazon. Dr. Rao rigged them with a simple homing device.”

“The target you put on my War Wagon.”

“Yup.”

Seconds later, the four drones buzzed clearly into view. They rotated in circles around each other in a randomized swarming dance as they plowed toward the truck.

The laser snapped into position, pointing high into the sky.

A laser blaster sound echoed.

A scream.

A large black crow exploded in feathers. Its smoking corpse tumbled into the grass a thousand yards away.

“Darn,” Ponder said. He pulled off his ball cap and scratched his flaky scalp. “I figured you’d try something like this. I narrowed the filter to try and pick up smaller targets.”

“You succeeded. Sort of.”

Four sharp bangs rattled the truck door as the four screaming drones slammed into the magnetic target one after another. They broke apart on impact.

“And just like that, we’re a smoking hole,” Pearce said.

Ponder sighed as he tugged on his cap. “I guess this means no sale.”

Pearce patted the older man’s shoulder. “You guess wrong. It’s a helluva system, Virgil. Exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. But it’s the really small drones I’m worried about. The hobby-sized stuff. Ten pounds or less.”

“Target acquisition is the hardest part. If you set the filters too small, you start targeting everything that moves.” Ponder glanced at the dead crow. “Maybe we should call the Duck Dynasty fellas.”

“How much more time do you need to get it right?”

“I’m not sure how much more time I have,” Ponder said. His voice trailed off.

“What can you do for me in thirty days?”

Ponder approached the laptop. Tapped a few keys. His eyes brightened. “I might be able to pull a few tricks out of my bag by then.”

“Do what you can. We’ll figure something out.”

Ponder turned to Pearce. “It’s not about me, you know. It’s about my grandkids.”

Pearce saw the anguish in the old man’s eyes. He understood it, but in a different way. In his heart of hearts, Pearce wanted to sell his own company and get the hell out of the game and leave it all behind. Take Margaret on a trip around the world, maybe hole up in Bora Bora or Fiji and just let the rest of humanity slip away into its own madness.

“I know. It’s just not quite there yet. Keep pushing.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You need us to help you pack up or anything?”

“Nah. I just need to rest awhile and think on a few things.”

Pearce and Stella shook hands with Ponder and drove off in separate rentals, heading for a plate of pulled smoked pork at a little joint Pearce remembered just up the road. He hoped the old man would figure out the laser problem. But the clock was running out on the cancer.

And maybe the nation, too.