Kill Decision

CHAPTER 7

At some point McKinney became aware that she was strapped into an airplane seat, a stethoscope pressing against her shirt.

A man’s voice close by: “Breathing normal. Pulse steady.” The stethoscope went away. “Blood pressure one-seventeen over seventy-six.” The sound of Velcro tearing and she felt pressure release from her left arm. “She’s stable.”

Another man’s voice. Deeper. “Thanks, Mooch.”

McKinney saw she was now wearing a gray flight suit, but she focused on her wrists. She was literally strapped into an airplane seat-her hands secured to the armrests by plastic zip-ties. The dull roar of turboprop engines throbbed around her. The window shade was down, so she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. She gazed forward at the dimly lit cabin. A couple of empty rows ahead of her, then a bulkhead. She sat in the aisle seat on the right side. An asymmetrical layout-two seats right of the aisle, one seat on the left. Some sort of commuter plane. The height and dimensions of the cabin seemed familiar. Before she realized it, she heard her own voice say, “A Twin Otter.”

That deep voice again, somewhere close by. “You know your bush planes.”

She was still fuzzy, answering the unknown voice reflexively. “We used to jump from DHC-6s.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“I promised my dad. After Mom died.” McKinney’s eyes wandered to the seat just across the aisle to see a trim, well-proportioned man sitting there. He had gray-blue eyes with a sun-worn face partly concealed by a Red Sox ball cap and a long black beard and mustache. The hat made him look like a rookie trade from the Taliban league. Otherwise, he was dressed in faded jeans with a weathered cameraman’s vest overrun with pockets. The man looked vaguely Mediterranean… or perhaps Central Asian? Or maybe he was just really tanned. It was hard to tell. His accent was perfect Midwestern American.

Oddly, he was now whispering soothing words to a large raven that stood on an armrest next to him. The man carefully removed a small transponder from around the raven’s leg as he spoke to it. The bird responded with soft keek-keek sounds and fluffed its throat and head feathers into punk-rocker spikes.

Woozy as she was, McKinney suspected the bird to be a hallucination, so she focused on the bearded man. “What happened? Has there been an accident?”

He glanced at her as he stroked the raven’s head. “No, everyone’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“I remember an explosion.” She winced and grabbed her side. “Why am I in so much pain?” There was a stabbing sensation in her ribs. In fact, her whole body felt bruised.

“That’s the Naloxone-it blocks opioid receptors.”

“Nalox… why was I… what…?” She was having trouble thinking.

“It was necessary to counteract the sufentanil. You’ll be sensitive to pain until it wears off.”

She shook her head in an attempt to wake up and finally succeeded in focusing her vision on the raven. The large black bird was apparently real, and it was studying her right back. The memory of the raven outside her window returned to her.

“I remember a bird. And an explosion.”

“That was Huginn you saw. This is Muninn.” On her confused frown he added, “Norse mythology. The god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn-‘thought’ and ‘memory.’ They flew across the land bringing him news of the world of men.”

“And they do that?”

He opened his hand to reveal a tiny transponder bracelet. McKinney could see what appeared to be a grid of copper leads on the surface of the device.

“Plenoptic camera. Called a ‘computational’ camera in the trade-lets us change the focal length after an image is taken, remove occlusions through synthetic aperture tracking. Lets us clearly view surveillance subjects through light cover-window screens and foliage.”

“How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to know you wouldn’t hesitate to help Adwele.”

“Your raven manipulated me.”

“Huginn saved your life. Spotter drones can be difficult for us to detect, but he has a knack.”

“Spotter drones? Who are you?” She tugged at her restraints. “And why the hell am I strapped into this chair?”

“You call me Odin.” He spoke next to the raven. “Muninn, eat. Go on.”

The bird caw ed, and hopped away toward the back of the plane.

McKinney gave him a look like she’d entered a madhouse.

“Your restraints are a precaution. Some people react badly to the drugs. Get hysterical. Never a good thing on an airplane.”

She tried to keep her voice calm, despite her mounting temper. “I’m not hysterical.”

He studied her, then cast a look at someone behind them. “Mooch.”

She heard movement, then the swip of steel being drawn as a handsome, neatly groomed man in his twenties with cocoa brown skin leaned over her. He looked of South Asian/Indian descent, and wore a crisp white galabia and white taqiyah skullcap. A stethoscope hung around his neck. He deftly slipped a razor-sharp killing knife through both her wrist straps. In a moment she was free, rubbing her wrists as “Mooch” disappeared again behind her.

McKinney looked around the whole cabin now that she could turn around. Half the interior was cargo space packed with metal cases and electronics equipment. Another bearded man, with pale skin and wild brown rock-star hair, sat one row back. He looked possibly Albanian or Russian with a soft, slightly rounded face and wide-set eyes. He wore faded jeans and a heavy metal band’s T-shirt covered with Arab script. He also had tattoos of horses and fiery skulls running the length of both forearms. He was unaccountably tuning a kora-a traditional West African stringed instrument. Behind him sat a rather plain, olive-skinned woman in a maroon hijab and sari. She was holding a copy of Small Arms Review but had looked up to meet McKinney’s gaze. The woman nodded and went back to reading.

Beyond her was a twentysomething Eurasian kid with hipster glasses and a soul patch. He wore khakis and a dark green pullover, along with a headset and mouthpiece. He was busy at an electronics console in the cargo area.

“Who are you people? Where is this plane headed?”

Odin extended his hand to the row behind him. “Foxy, pass me the Rover.”

The Albanian man sighed and set aside the kora to dig through a satchel on the floor. “Take it easy on her, boss.”

“The Rover, please. Thank you.” In a moment Odin came back with a ruggedized computer tablet. He tapped the screen a few times, then held it up for McKinney to see. The device was already playing what appeared to be black-and-white aerial footage, a view from a thousand feet up, orbiting a jungle village.

McKinney recognized it. “The Marikitanda Research Station.”

“FLIR imagery taken from an MC-12 about twenty minutes ago.” He pointed with his scarred, calloused hand. “See this?”

“My cabin.”

“Right. Watch.”

McKinney saw a luminous human form run from her cabin. This was apparently infrared imagery, highlighting heat sources. She watched herself sprint into the jungle, where she was soon lost beneath the dense canopy. Moments later an object streaked into the frame and impacted on her cabin-whiting out the screen.

She looked up at Odin. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“You were the target of a drone attack tonight, Professor McKinney.”

“A drone attack-wait, you know my name.”

“We know everything about you. Age thirty-two, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, undergraduate degree in evolutionary biology, UCLA, masters and postdoc work in entomology, Cornell University. Recently acquired a full professorship and a research grant for your work modeling Hymenoptera social systems. You’re a Bills fan. You hate peas. Shall I go on?”

She stared blankly at him.

Foxy was again tuning the kora as he muttered, “Social media’s a bitch…”

McKinney was now fully awake. “You said a drone attack.” She narrowed her eyes at Odin. “How were you… why were you here?”

“Like I said, we’ve been surveilling you for several days.”

“But why?” McKinney then shouted, “And why the hell didn’t you warn me? I could have been killed!”

“Calm down.”

“I’ll calm down when someone explains to me what the hell is going on. Why was I drugged and kidnapped?”

Odin spoke in soothing tones. “The research station has armed security, Professor. What would have happened if you called out for help? Innocent guards could have been hurt trying to defend you.”

“Who are you people? Why would a drone attack me?”

He held up a calming hand. “We’re here to help you.”

“Then you should have warned me instead of-”

Odin shook his head. “This is a secret operation, Professor. I needed to be certain they were targeting you. We had to wait until the last possible moment.”

“That who was targeting me?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Odin turned the tablet screen back toward him and started tapping at it again. “Until tonight we haven’t been able to predict the target of these drone attacks in advance. But you solved that for us.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Let’s take it one step at a time.”

“Why would someone send a drone after me? I study ants.”

“Here…” He turned the Rover back toward her.

McKinney could now see a close-up infrared view of her own bungalow and its corrugated tin roof. There, hovering around her window, was a dimly visible object. A pizza-pan-sized four-rotor flying… thing. She could barely make it out as it moved from window to window with the thoroughness of a bee at a flowering bush.

She stared at the screen in disbelief. “None of this makes any sense.”

“Looks like a modified Chinese F50 airframe, but that doesn’t really tell us anything about its firmware or who sent it. I could buy a hundred of these off the back of some truck in Dubai or Moscow.”

She was still watching the evil-looking insect float outside her living quarters, her own glowing heat signature visible in bed through the window.

“As near as we can tell, the parent drone sniffs out its victims by their IMEI.”

McKinney still watched the screen. “I don’t know what that is.”

“International mobile equipment identity. Every mobile phone has a unique number burned in at the factory. That ID can be used to pinpoint the location of a specific phone anywhere in the world within fifty meters.”

McKinney had a vivid image of her iPhone charging next to her bed.

“But that’s not accurate enough to deliver ordnance. So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches to confirm the presence of the target. The spotter descends, and we think it searches the vicinity, looking for the victim’s face-probably uses a cheap pocket camera face-detection chip to make a list of human faces that it compares with target photos it already has in memory. We’ll know more if we can catch it.”

“Where would it get my photo?”

“Facebook, LinkedIn, university profile. That’s a trivial problem.”

She watched in horror as the spotter drone suddenly projected a grid of hundreds of infrared dots across the interior of her cabin-across her very body-in a light spectrum she hadn’t seen as she lay in the darkness.

“Registration grid. Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack. That’s how we knew when to make our move.”

McKinney saw her own form shining an LED flashlight beam out her screen that didn’t show up in infrared, but the video focused on the quadracopter spotter drone, which floated away. A bright light blinked rapidly on its back in a complex sequence.

“The spotter then moves to a safe distance to film the strike, confirm detonation of ordnance, fatalities, so on. ELINT suggests that it then connects to the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot it can hijack to upload the video to a predetermined Web domain before the spotter also self-destructs.” He looked to the back of the plane. “Did we stop that video upload, Hoov?”

The Eurasian guy at the electronics console answered. “We did. There was a connection to our open Wi-Fi access point just before the attack. It performed a test upload-which I let past-and afterwards a large encrypted file was transferred… which I trapped.”

“Bingo. That means they don’t have shit. No damage assessment.” Odin handed the ruggedized tablet over to her, but his gaze stayed on Hoov. “What else do you have for me?”

Hoov was studying several screens of his own. “Judging from the impact radius, I’d say it’s another fifteen-kilo laser-guided fuel-air bomb.”

“Foxy, we’ll need to insert a mop-up crew into the TPDF to get the bomb fragments.”

Foxy answered. “Already in the works.”

“And the parent drone-please tell me we got clear video for once.”

Everyone turned to face Hoov expectantly.

Hoov milked the pregnant silence, then smiled. “Channel Two.”

Odin clapped once and grabbed the Rover. He tapped the screen for a few moments as the others crowded around him, looking over his shoulder from the seat backs. It was obvious that they’d been trying to get a look at their quarry for some time. Their eyes went wide and they nodded in satisfaction.

Odin looked up. “Goddammit, good job, Hoov. There’s our enemy, people. At long last we meet.”

The woman in the hijab poked her ringed index finger. “South African Bateleur?”

Foxy shook his head. “Not with that wing configuration. Looks more like a Rustom-H to me. Or maybe an Indian Aura.”

Odin was shaking his head. “No, it’s another knock-off. Maybe built with stolen tech.”

He turned the Rover to face McKinney. “Here’s what would have killed you tonight, Professor…”

She studied the black-and-white image. It was like seeing footage of Bigfoot; a vaguely familiar drone shape-straight wings, with canards, and a rear-facing propeller. It was filmed off to the side and from below, where a bomblike object was visible on a hard-point on its belly. The perspective of the image was changing slowly, as though taken from another aircraft that was moving in a different direction.

The rest of the group seemed pretty satisfied, but McKinney grimaced. “Why didn’t you shoot it down before it attacked me?”

“Not the plan. It’s important that they don’t know we’re tracking them. Not yet, at any rate. And by intercepting their spotter’s video upload, they won’t know whether you’re alive or dead.”

“Can’t you trace it”-she rolled her hand in thought-“by radio signals or something? Find out who’s controlling it?”

Odin looked grim. “That’s the problem: No one is controlling it. These drones are autonomous-programmed to find and kill their victim, and then to self-destruct. So far it’s been impossible to get a good look at one, much less capture it intact. But we’re working on that last part, and thanks to you we made some progress tonight.” He turned back to Hoov. “When did we lose it?”

“Disappeared from the radar screen nine clicks south of Target One at an altitude of twenty-two thousand feet.”

Foxy murmured, “Figures.”

Odin didn’t seem surprised either. “Any luck catching the spotter?”

“Negative. It flew off after the bomb strike. Tin Man and Smokey are beating the bush trying to find it, but all hell’s broken loose at the research station. Armed guards are running around with flashlights.”

“Pull ’em out. See what our operatives can find tomorrow. In the meantime upload everything to the gateway, and tell Expert Four I want a written assessment by the time I return.”

“Will do.”

McKinney was still trying to process the insanity of her situation. “Let me get this straight: Someone tried to kill me with a self-piloting suicide drone?”

“I know this must all seem very strange.”

She looked at him like he was certifiably insane.

“Okay. Maybe it is very strange. But now there’s a tool to cheaply eliminate people without facing consequences. That means this is about to spread.”

McKinney was still trying to grapple with it. “But… I’ve seen documentaries on plane crashes-can’t you go through the wreckage and find out-”

“What? That the parts were made in China? Everything’s made in China. Whoever’s doing this is using off-the-shelf components-the same chips and circuit boards used in computers and game consoles. What we need to do is get ahold of the firmware that runs them-their brain. But immediately after they attack, these drones climb to about twenty or twenty-five thousand feet-then self-destruct. And when I say ‘self-destruct,’ I mean they shred themselves. Explosive residue on the few pieces we’ve found shows it’s pentaerythritol tetranitrate-Primacord-basically explosive rope. Used for cutting steel.”

Foxy twanged the kora. “What the Finnish army calls anopin pyykkinaru — ‘mother-in-law’s clothesline.’” Another twang for emphasis.

Odin cast a look at him, then turned back to McKinney. “A chemical trace dead-ended to a batch of det-cord stolen from a demolition project in Cyprus two years ago-no suspects. The explosive cuts the drone into confetti, and at that altitude the wreckage spreads across twenty square miles. What we’ve found so far wouldn’t fill a garbage bag.”

Hoov called out from the back of the plane. “No suspicious radio traffic during the event.”

“As expected.”

McKinney held up her hand to silence them. “What. The. Hell. Is going on? Why is someone trying to kill me?”

The Albanian guy named Foxy raised his eyebrows. “You really don’t know?”

“Because I’m an American? Because of the Karbala attack? If that’s the case, you need to evacuate the entire research station.”

Odin drummed his fingers on his armrest. “Unfortunately it’s more personal than that. Someone is targeting you specifically, Professor McKinney.”

She was utterly at a loss. “I study ants.”

“That is the reason someone’s trying to kill you. Because of your particular expertise.”

“My expertise…” McKinney leaned back in her seat and just stared at him for a moment. “Who the hell are you people?”

“We’re with the U.S. military.”

“The U.S. military.”

“Yes.”

She eyed them. “You don’t look like U.S. military.”

“Well, that’s kind of the whole point.”

“I want to see credentials. Now.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Well, it’s how I work. I’m sort of funny that way.”

“We’re the people who just saved you from certain death. That’s all you need to know about us.”

“As far as I know, you kidnapped me, blew up my cabin with a stick of dynamite, and put together some drone highlight reels.”

Odin looked back at Foxy.

Foxy shrugged. “She’s got a point.” He lowered the kora and dug into his bag. In a moment he produced a folder, which he passed forward.

Odin took the folder. “I don’t have any latitude to tell you who we are. That could put our mission in jeopardy.” He withdrew a document, glanced at it, and then passed it along to her. “Are you familiar with any of these people, Professor McKinney?”

Still irritated, she hesitated before accepting the piece of paper. It was a printout of the front page of The New York Times, just a few days old. The headline read SIX DIE IN STANFORD BOMBING. The names of several of the victims had been helpfully highlighted in yellow by someone: Lei Li, Vijay Prakash, Gerhard Koepple…

“God, there’s been a bombing at Stanford now too?”

“Were you familiar with these researchers or their work?”

“No. I’ve never heard of them.”

“You’re sure, Professor? Never bumped into them at a conference? Never read any of their academic papers?”

“No, I haven’t. I’m sure.”

Odin took the printout back. “You have one thing in common with these researchers, Professor. Both your work and theirs was found on a file server in Shenyang, China. Part of a cyber espionage pipeline that was spiriting advanced technology out of the West. At first we suspected North Korea’s Unit 121, a cyber warfare group, but that’s not where the trail led us.”

She was speechless.

“The people who stole the Stanford researchers’ work also made a point of taking yours.”

“But my research isn’t secret. I make it available to the entire scientific community.”

“Well, they had your work and your tools before you published. Which means they broke into Cornell’s network. Which means you were one of only two researchers in the world they were interested in. We have people searching for the network breach at Cornell, but what I’m concerned with is what knowledge you have that they wanted. And now that they’ve tried to cover their tracks by killing you, we know it’s important to whatever they’re planning.”

“This is insane. I study insects.”

“You develop behavioral computer models as part of your research.”

“Yes. Simulations-modeling the social systems of certain insects.”

“In fact, you’re currently developing a computer model that simulates the swarming behavior of weaver ants.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And that’s what they’re after?”

“Your work has direct application to a strategy being pursued by America’s enemies. I came here to brief you, Professor McKinney.”

“What do you mean ‘brief me’? Brief me about what?”

“About the terror bombings in the United States.”

“What about them?”

“They’re not terror bombings.”

She stopped short and looked around. No help.

“Over the past several months someone has been carrying out drone strikes in the continental United States. They’re not intended to terrorize. They’re targeted assassinations, meant to eliminate specific people. This is next generation warfare, Professor, and we’re facing a very sophisticated adversary. Someone who’s trying to remain hidden-and who thinks you know too much about their systems.”

Again she was speechless.

He stared back at her, unreadable.

She finally nodded her head ruefully. “Did you really think we could just fire missiles into other countries, assassinating people from the air, without it coming back to haunt us? You flouted international law, and now you act amazed that-”

“Be that as it may-”

“I appreciate you rescuing me, but I don’t appreciate you involving me in your… war, or whatever it is. I perform basic research on the natural world.”

He turned more serious. “As one human being to another, I’m asking for your assistance.”

“I turned down all military-funded research grants for a reason. I want no part of this ‘permanent war’ you people are selling. We should be investing in education and health care, not war.”

He flipped through the folder in his hand. “You contribute to human rights groups and antiwar organizations.”

“And I suppose you think that makes me some sort of traitor.”

“No. It gives me hope that you’ll help us.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does.” He leaned close to her. “We have reason to think these enemy drones might be using a software model based on the behavior of weaver ants. A model developed by you.”

She felt the warm surge of adrenaline. “My God…”

He started dealing out full-color photographs into her lap. Photos of carbonized and torn bodies, maimed and injured people at bombing scenes-some of them children. “Scores of innocent people are dead. Politicians, scholars, human rights activists, business leaders, students. Someone has bypassed America’s defenses to kill these specific people. And more die every week. What you need to do is tell me how to stop it.”

She searched for anything to say as she gazed in horror at the images. “But I don’t… I have no idea how my work could-”

“Tell me why someone would choose to imbue a machine with the mind of a weaver ant. What’s so special about them? Why weavers?”

She felt nauseous, on the verge of tears, looking at the photo of a dead child. A twisted and burned stroller lay nearby. “Because the weaver ant is quite possibly the most warlike creature on the face of the earth.”