Sting of the Drone

17

“We had been following the truck for four days, since it crossed the border from Kenya. Kenyan police gave us a tip,” Erik spoke, looking into the video camera in Las Vegas. His image appeared on the central screen of the Policy Evaluation Group’s conference room wall.

Raymond Bowman sat in the conference room where “Wild Bill” Donovan had met every day with his deputies during World War II. Donovan had run the first real American intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services, from the same building. Back then it took hours to send a cable to an office in Europe. Ray and Sandra had driven straight down Constitution Avenue, from the Capitol to Foggy Bottom’s Navy Hill at the end of that broad boulevard, in less than five minutes and were now sitting in Donovan’s old OSS conference room watching a live image of a truck near Mogadishu, Somalia. Erik Parsons in Vegas was on a screen-in screen.

“Then we lost it two days ago,” Erik continued. “Just found it again yesterday, close to Mog.”

“How the hell did we lose it?” Sandra Vittonelli asked. She sat next to Ray looking at half a dozen flat screens beaming in images from UAVs and from the operations centers of other U.S. departments and agencies on the videoconference call.

“We think they did a switch on us when it stopped for the night at one of the Shabab rebel camps. We followed the wrong truck when it left in the morning,” Erik admitted.

“What makes us think it’s a truck bomb?” Ray asked.

The face on the screen showing CIA headquarters fielded the question. “The Kenyans raided a warehouse up near the Somali border, found it full of bomb-making material. One of the Shabab guys they arrested gave up about the truck, ah, under questioning. Gave us the plate and the names of the drivers. Two of them, alternating.”

The red light came on next to the Justice Department screen. Ray hit the control so that the lawyer from Justice could be heard next by everyone on the videoconference. “That’s not going to be good enough for us. You admit you have a confusion about which truck is which. Besides, we are just not sure over here how this qualifies. There is no HVI identified as a driver or passenger of the truck. We don’t see how destroying the truck would irreparably harm the Shabab.”

“It qualifies,” Erik responded from the Global Coordination Center in Las Vegas, “because it is an imminent terrorist attack. They didn’t pack that truck full of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to heat their house or fertilize a field.”

The one-star General at the Pentagon signaled he wanted to contribute. “We have a JSOC team in Mog advising the Ugandan Army peacekeepers from the African Union. The Ugandans snuck a guy into that camp last night and he swiped the truck with a kit that our guys gave him. Came back this morning, definitely a truck bomb. This truck that we are looking at, no confusion with some other truck, this one that is on the screen now.”

The State Department member of the meeting wanted to ask a question. “If we got somebody inside who confirmed that it was a truck bomb, why didn’t he leave a timed charge on the thing to blow it up after he got out of camp?”

“Collateral damage,” the General replied. “You see where it is parked now. That may be a pro-Shabab village there on the outskirts of Mog, but it is a village. With women and children and possibly noncombatant adult males. We can’t strike while it is in the village.”

“I don’t understand something,” the Justice Department lawyer said. “Why are we talking about using a Predator strike? Why don’t you shoot the tires out? Why don’t we just tell the Ugandan peacekeepers or the Somali government forces to go get the thing or set up a roadblock?”

“Our estimate is that if the drivers think that they are about to be stopped, they will detonate. If we ask the Ugandans to shoot at it, the thing might go off. That would wipe out the troops at the road block and probably everything else around,” the General answered. “That’s why we want to wait until it is back on a road and then strike it when it is in the middle of nowhere.”

Ray and Sandra were examining a hard copy map of the area around the war-riddled Somali capital of Mogadishu. They had found the village where the truck was about fifty kilometers outside of the city. “Looks like there is a fairly open stretch of highway between the village and where the urban sprawl begins,” Sandra observed.

“That’s where we suggest you hit it,” the General replied.

As they watched the screen, the truck was clearly visible in the early morning light. It began to move out of the village and onto the road. In front of and behind it were open pickups. “Erik, zoom in on the pickups,” Sandra ordered. Everyone on the conference call was watching the same video feed, which was being sent to all of the departments on the Kill Call.

“Oh, shit,” Sandra said into an open microphone. The image on the screen was of a flatbed truck filled with at least four women and perhaps as many as eight children. As the image panned to the lead vehicle, they saw an identical image, a dozen more civilians.

“Can’t hit that,” the Justice lawyer announced. “If that truck bomb is as big as you think, if you hit the truck, it’s taking out all those civilians in the trucks in front and behind it.”

“He’s got that right,” Ray said to Sandra with his microphone on mute so that the other sites could not hear him. “Looks like the bad guys have figured out our rules and are using human shields.”

The small convoy turned onto the main road for Mogadishu and began to pick up speed. “We’ve only got about twenty minutes or so before they get into built-up areas. If we are going to hit it, we need to do so when it’s on this road,” the General announced.

With the microphone still off, Ray said, “We better call Winston.” He picked up a handset and hit a button for the office of the National Security Advisor. Sandra saw his expression change when someone at the other end answered. “Then could you please ask him to step out of the dinner for a minute. We’re on a Kill Call.” He hit the Speaker button so that Sandra could hear when Dr. Burrell came on the line.

“Ray, I hear you two got slaughtered this afternoon at hipsy. Not good,” Burrell began. “We better be extra careful on these strikes. What’s this one look like?”

Ray let the remark about the House Intel Committee go, for now. “We have a large truck bomb on the road into Mogadishu. It was made by Shabab, the local al Qaeda affiliate. In a few minutes it will be driving into a built-up area where we won’t be able to take it out without causing all sorts of collateral damage from our missile and the truck bomb itself going off as a secondary explosion.

“Right now it’s on an open road in the middle of nowhere, but the trouble is that it’s being escorted by two trucks, each of which has about a dozen women and children.”

“Well, sounds like you are out of Schlitz, Ray,” Burrell replied.

“Well, sir, it’s a matter of what is worse, killing people who seem to be escorting this bomb to its destination or allowing it to go off and killing maybe ten times more innocent people,” Sandra interjected.

“Yes, but it won’t be us who will have killed the people when the bomb goes off and it would be us if we strike the truck. And after the orphanage fiasco…” Burrell replied. “Besides, it doesn’t sound to me like there is an imminent threat of a terrorist attack against Americans.”

“There is a UN compound at the other end of this road,” Ray replied. “You remember how many people were killed at the UN headquarters in Baghdad by a truck bomb just like this. Not sure how we explain that we just sat by and watched. May even be some Americans there. There’s also the African Union compound and the Somali government buildings, a big marketplace, lots of possible targets.”

“Ray, I have to get back to this dinner with the Israelis. Here’s what I suggest, you warn the UN and the others and suggest they evacuate possible targets. You do what you think best after that, but under no circumstances are we using the Predators in any strike that kills civilians. Not now. It’s getting way too hot. Gotta go.”

“Schlitz?” Sandra asked when Burrell had signed off. Ray rolled his eyes. He hit the microphone on button. “We’re back.” He glanced up at the image of the trucks moving down the road. “Doesn’t look like anything has changed. CIA, State, DOD, can you all go through your channels to warn the UN, Somalia, African Union? We are not authorized to fire because of the risk of the civilians being killed. Anybody got any ideas?”

The conference link was silent except for the humming from the microphones’ static. “If we don’t do something, some of the guys on our side of this fight are going to get killed pretty soon. I don’t know that they can evacuate everything that is a possible target, not fast enough,” the General replied.

The red light came on next to Erik Parson’s screen. Ray hit a button that connected his audio feed from Las Vegas to the group. “I want to confirm my orders,” Erik began. “I am not authorized to fire where there is a risk of hitting civilians?”

“That is correct,” Sandra answered.

“Is there any rule against scaring civilians or bombing dirt?” Erik asked.

“Nice,” Ray replied. “No, Colonel, you may scare civilians and you may bomb nothingness. Just do not strike anywhere that could cause civilian casualties from our missiles.”

In the GCC, Erik Parsons walked about five meters from the videoconference site to the cubicle in which Sergeant Rod Miller and Major Bud Walker were flying the two Predators over Somalia. “Sergeant, step aside. Let me fly that baby for a minute,” Erik said, replacing the pilot. He grabbed the joystick and put the first Predator into a steep dive from ten thousand feet. The image on the screen showed the ground rushing up at the camera. Then the road quickly appeared on the screen and the three-truck convoy ahead. The Predator flew low over the convoy and banked right. The faces of the women and children on the truck showed clearly in high definition, faces of surprise and horror. “Christ, Colonel, you got that sucker down to one thousand feet off the ground. They’ll shoot you down,” Sergeant Miller said from behind him.

“Can’t shoot me down. I’m not in Somalia. I’m in Vegas,” Erik replied as he hit the toggle switch on the side of the joystick to arm the Hellfire missiles on the Predator. “Bud, look at the image from Bird Two. What’s in front of these three trucks?”

Bird Two was the second Predator, operating as a reconnaissance spotter, flying at twelve thousand feet, above Stinger range. Major Walker panned the camera out ahead of the convoy. “Nothing on the road this early. I can see three or four clicks ahead. Nothing on the road or on either side of it but dirt, sir.”

Erik quickly brought the Predator around for a second pass. The trucks had stopped. People were jumping out, running. Four men were standing still shooting rifles, probably AK-47s, up toward the incoming Predator. Erik hit the Launch button on the joystick once, moved the Predator slightly left and fired again, again to the left and fired, and a fourth time. He then pulled the joystick back hard, forcing the Predator into a steep upward climb to the right of the road.

“Give me the video feed from Bird Two on the Big Board!” Erik yelled.

The image on the screen showed four smoke trails as Hellfire missiles from Bird One streaked over the convoy. In seconds, the missiles hit less than a kilometer ahead of the trucks. Two hit the road, two others hit just off the pavement, one on either side. A wide wall of brown smoke and dust rose up across the path of the convoy. Erik brought Bird One around and began another dive toward the now stationary trucks. It was out of missiles as it passed overhead, this time at fifteen hundred feet. The camera showed that the trucks in front and back were empty of their earlier passengers. What looked like as many as eight men were shooting upward, but even they were running away from the road as they shot. The images from Bird Two showed a cluster of people, the women and children passengers from the trucks, hunkering down in a dry river bed about four meters below the level of the road and about six hundred meters to the north of it.

In Washington, Ray watched with a broad smile spread across his face. He turned to the Pentagon screen. “Are those people, those civilians now a safe distance away from the target, General?”

“Safe enough for us to strike? I don’t think we need to. That road ahead is so badly cratered, that truck isn’t going to get through. Besides, when we told the African Union about the convoy just now, they dispatched a squad on a Hip helicopter. Now that the bad guys have abandoned the trucks, the Ugandans ought to be able to land nearby and render safe the bomb.”

As the General spoke, the camera from Bird Two zoomed out toward the horizon and focused in on a helicopter moving slowly toward the scene of the explosions. The armed men running from the trucks heard the noise of the old helicopter and also looked in its direction. One of the men stopped running, took a small black box from his backpack, and lay down in the dirt. Erik was bringing Bird One around again to further scare the shooters away from the vehicles, as the truck bomb detonated, sending an orange flame and then a thick black column of smoke rushing into the air above the convoy. On the two screens showing images from the two Predators, one at two thousand and one at twelve thousand feet, the explosion erupted violently, silently.

Erik struggled to pull the Predator up quickly enough that it would not fly into the concussive wave sweeping out from the truck. The aircraft rocked violently, but began to climb. Then it shook and dove quickly down and to the right. “I think you lost a chunk of the left wing, sir,” Sergeant Miller said. “Going down.”

Erik still had video feed and he looked ahead of the path of the aircraft, hoping to bring it down where the impact would do no damage to anyone on the ground. There was nothing but sand and rock in the view screen. A lone tree stood in the distance, but the aircraft was not going to make it that far. The camera showed dirt rising up quickly just before the screen went blank.

Erik stood up and turned to Major Walker. “Bud, blow up my aircraft, or what’s left of it.”

On the Big Board, there was now only one image, from Bird Two. What it showed on close up was that Bird One had had a rough landing, with both wings breaking off, but remarkably, the fuel tank had not yet exploded. Then the image zoomed out. A Hellfire zoomed off the left wing of Bird Two, soaring ahead of the Predator, the smoke briefly clouding the image from the camera. In seconds, the wreck of Bird One exploded, leaving nothing large enough to salvage, nothing of value to anyone trying to learn about the aircraft.

“Well done, Colonel,” Sandra’s voice from Washington boomed over the speakers in the GCC. A cheer rose up from the twenty pilots on the floor.

Erik had walked back to his desk and placed the conference call headset back on. He spoke into it. “Kill Call Closed.”