Sting of the Drone

3

It was a summer rain, from clouds that had moved quickly across the plain and then hit the foothills, dropping a cooling spray on the stones and asphalt of the old city on the Donau.

The black BMW had been maneuvering through a series of narrow side streets, known well to the driver who also served as a concierge at the palace hotel. He edged the car onto the slickened Ringstrasse, across the wet trolley tracks, and then turned in to the tree-lined road. The short street was blocked at the end by the stone ruins of the city’s old wall. Rising out of the remnants of that battlement, a modern glass facade reached up for three floors. Above and behind the glass and stones were the whitewashed walls and windows of the eighteenth-century Palais, now one of Vienna’s most exclusive hotels.

The passenger emerged from the back seat of the car under an umbrella held by one of the hotel’s doormen. Another doorman took his bags. The guest appeared to be perhaps a wealthy Italian, Greek, or Spaniard, in a fine dark suit. The gray speckles in his hair suggested he was in his late forties or early fifties. He looked up at the grand façade of the yellow and white Palais, lit by a string of flood lamps on top of the high, gray rock wall in front of it. Between him and the old town wall was the lobby of the hotel, a large expanse enclosed in glass. Inside, he could see a bar area and a grand piano and lights shining up at the rocks and stones that had once defended this old city from the men on horses who came from the East, from lands near where his people now lived.

Once inside, a doorman led him to a modern leather seat in front of a low registration desk.

“Coffee, sir?” the Registration clerk asked.

“Ja, inder Tat. Einen grossen schwarzen, bitte,” the man replied with a Berlin accent, Hochdeutsch, not the lilting Viennese version. He passed the clerk a Turkish passport. “Mustafa Gulkkon.” He checked his watch, which was made from a reddish gold. Then he switched to English. “My office made a reservation for two nights, I believe.” His English sounded British accented, perhaps slightly Indian.

The thick Viennese coffee appeared quickly from the Lobby Bar. “I have it here, mein Herr,” said the clerk. “A beautiful suite on the fifth floor. You will be staying with us for two nights, yes? And, let me see here, I also have a message waiting for you from your colleagues; they are up in the Cigar Bar. If you like, we can have your bags taken up to the suite and I can have Wilhelm show you to the Cigar Bar.”

Led by the young bell clerk, Herr Gulkkon walked through a glass door in part of the stone ruins and up a glass, spiral stair. The indirect lighting made the ruins’ stone walls seem warm and comforting. The Cigar Bar, a small room on the second floor, had a large window that looked across a narrow corridor to the outer glass wall. The bar’s door was covered by a black shade on the inside. A small sign hung on a chain outside, GESCHLOSSEN.

Wilhelm was not deterred by the “Closed” sign. “Your colleagues have reserved the Cigar Bar for just themselves this evening, yes?” he said in American-accented English. As he pushed open the door with his right hand, Herr Gulkkon slipped a five-euro note into his left.

“Danke, mein Herr. There is a bar set up, but if there is anything else you would like, please just ring the Lobby Bar.”

Now there were three men in the dark, wood-paneled room. Like Gulkkon, they were clean-shaven, in expensive, dark suits, probably from Saville Row. They sat in large, red leather chairs around a low table. Only one man was smoking a cigar, but that was enough to fill the small room with the rich fragrance from Cuba. Behind glass doors on the walls, boxes of many varieties of Cuba’s crop were on offer. On the low table in the middle of the armchairs were half-empty glasses and opened bottles from three of the Permanent Member states of the UN Security Council, Cristal champagne from France, Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch whisky, and Kauffman vodka from Russia. All that was missing, Gulkkon thought, was baijiu and bourbon. This was his version of Islam, one modified by years living in Canada and Europe.

The three men, who had been seated, stood and shook hands warmly with Gulkkon, who appeared to be somewhat older than the others. “Perhaps we could raise the curtains,” he suggested. “Meeting with them down looks suspicious and we are, after all, just businessmen with nothing to hide.”

As the curtains were raised, Gulkkon fiddled with his mobile, quickly removing the back panel, pulling the battery, and slipping them both into a side pocket of his jacket. The others had already done the same. “So, now we are all good here, yes?”

The men nodded. The youngest looking of them offered, “I have been here three days. No problems, no sign of interest from anyone.” Gulkkon noticed that the line leading into the telephone on the bar had been unplugged. “And we reserved this room just an hour ago and then went right into it, so no time for anyone to leave anything behind,” the younger man said.

“Good, then let’s discuss the state of our project,” Gulkkon began. “As you know, our organization has been hired by our friends to run it, since they themselves now have little infrastructure and staff left in Europe.”

Before he could continue, he was interrupted by the man to his right. “Omar … I am sorry, I mean Mustafa … if we do this project, it may be very hard for us to sell our product in this market for a while. It will be very hot here. The people who take our gifts now may no longer be able to continue to look away.”

The man who now called himself Gulkkon twisted in his chair. As he poured from the Johnny Walker bottle, the room was silent. Then he looked to the man on his right. “Our leader knows the risks. Believe me, we are being very well paid for this project, very well. Our friends must have many sheiks behind them.”

Outside the Palais, the rain was letting up, passing to the west. In the dark, above the building across the street, the small, black object hovered quietly, emitting only a soft humming. Without the interference caused by the falling rain, its invisible laser could now beam through the glass outer wall and through to the glass interior window of the Cigar Bar. The laser beam could now carry an uninterrupted audio signal from the vibrations on the window of the Cigar Bar.

“… the U-Bahn in Munich, the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn here and in Berlin, all at the same time.…”

On the hovering black oval a lens whirred, refocused, clicked, and moved slightly to the left, zooming in on the face of the man next to Gulkkon.

Bruce Dougherty heard the voices from the Kill Call in his earpiece, coming from Washington, Virginia, Maryland, and Germany. “Positive facial ID on number four,” said the voice from Virginia. “True name Omar Faqir Nawarz, traveling on a Turkish passport as Mustafa Gulkkon.”

“Roger that,” a voice in Washington replied. “That gives us positive audio and facial on all of them.”

Dougherty was sitting in a smaller room, down the corridor from the GCC Operations Center from which he normally flew his aircraft. The sign outside said simply ROOM 103. Inside was a second door, on which a red sign said RESTRICTED ACCESS AREA. Around the GCC, Room 103 was known as Spook Ops, the place from which special CIA missions were managed. Bruce Dougherty did not want to read too much into it, but he had been chosen by Erik and Sandra not only to fly a Spook Ops mission, but also to do so with two new CIA-only stealth mini-drones. He was feeling good, but he also knew a lot of high-level eyes were on him tonight as he flew their first European mission, the least of whom were seated next to him, Erik Parsons and Sandra Vittonelli.

“Collateral check?” another Washington voice asked.

“Collateral good. Just the four targets in the room. No one else within the planned blast range,” Erik Parsons responded.

“Bird Two check?” Sandra Vittonelli asked.

The images on the screen were of the Palais Hotel, seen from several different angles, from traffic cameras across the street, security cameras in the lobby, and on the hovering oval above and across the street. This was Bruce’s first operational mission with the small hover-capable drone. The Agency called it the Hummingbird. Tonight, he had designated it simply Bird One, the little one that listened and watched while its bigger brother waited to strike. Bruce was also piloting the armed drone, another new, covert, short-range model. They called it the Myotis, the bat.

Now it was Bruce’s turn to speak. “Bird Two is circling two blocks away over the Hotel Imperial. All systems nominal.”

He looked up at Colonel Erik Parsons and Sandra Vittonelli standing just outside his cubicle. They both had headsets on, listening to the conference call. Erik raised a thumb. Sandra spoke into her headset for the benefit of the others on the call. “Bring her in. Clear to strike, repeat clear to strike.”

“Roger, clear to strike,” Bruce replied.

The Red Army had been headquartered in the Hotel Imperial during the Allied Occupation that ended in 1950. Its now elegant white and gold façade was bright and looked cleansed by the rain. Two hundred feet above a black triangle lurched quickly forward, banking left, and proceeding west above the Ringstrasse, picking up speed. Myotis, the black triangle, was three meters across at its base and two meters long on its sides. The back corners curved slightly upward, making it seem almost like a piece of paper folded into the shape of a paper airplane.

Fans spun on the bottom and rear of the triangle, providing lift or forward motion. The entire triangle was made of material that would quickly incinerate, leaving only black and gray ash. It turned off the Ring into the airspace above the trees on the block-long Coburgstrasse.

“Target acquired,” Bruce spoke into the mouthpiece of his headset.

“Target confirmed,” he heard from Erik Parsons.

“Switching guidance to the laser designator from Bird One,” Bruce replied.

“Roger, laser designator.”

In the Lobby Bar a zither player was setting up, unrushed. There were only two couples on the couches, only three men sitting at the bar rail. Maybe more people would stop in later, the zither player thought, now that the rain had passed by. Twenty-five feet away the clerk at the registration desk waved over the bell clerk. “Wilhelm, please bring Herr Gulkkon his room key and return his passport. Tell him his bags have all been brought up to his suite, 593.” Wilhelm Stroeder dropped his medical textbook on the bell desk and strode quickly across the lobby for the key and passport and then began with his long legs to take the glass stairs two at a time.

The black triangle stopped in midair, vibrating slightly up and down as it hovered.

“Booster check?” Bruce heard Erik in his ear.

He looked down on his virtual control panel. There was the indicator for the small, solid fuel packs that, when initiated, would briefly propel the triangle forward at a speed greater than Mach 1, the speed of sound. The fuel would burn fast, but enough would be left when combined with the plastic explosives along both sides of the airframe to cause a miniature fireball that would totally destroy any trace of the black triangle. Sitting just above the long tubes of explosives were the little pieces of razor sharp steel that would act as antipersonnel shrapnel, slicing everything and everyone for twenty-five to thirty feet. The indicator light on the booster was green.

“Booster good,” Bruce said.

“Engage booster.”

“Engaging booster, aye.”

The triangle had been blending into the black sky. Probably no one would have seen it had anyone on Coburgstrasse been looking up. No one was. But they could have seen the brief orange flame when the booster initiated, then maybe have seen the blur of black streaking forward and down. No one did.

A few people heard a bang, when the triangle hit Mach 1, but it was so soon followed by the crash of the glass façade when the triangle hit it, and then by the muffled thump when the triangle exploded in the Cigar Bar. Wilhelm actually saw the triangle as it came through the outer glass façade, less than a second before it went through the Cigar Bar door where he was headed. His eyes registered the flash of light when the triangle exploded in the bar, but his brain did not have enough time to process what his eyes had seen before the steel shards sliced his eyes and his brain and all the rest of him into a bloodied pulp on the burning carpet.

The visual feed from the Myotis triangle, Bird Two, had looked blurred, incomprehensible shapes on the screen as the aircraft had hurtled toward the narrow laser beam projected from Bird One. Then the camera feed from Bird Two, the black triangle, had stopped.

“Target hit. Warhead ignited. No secondary. Fire seems contained,” Bruce reported into his mouthpiece after he turned his attention back to the image from Bird One.

“Fire alarm has gone off in the building, automatically signaling to the Feuer Brigade around the corner,” said a voice from Maryland.

“Zoom Bird One’s camera in on the room, please,” someone in Virginia said, and Bruce adjusted the view. “Thanks. Not much left there.”

Bruce switched the camera back to wide angle and the image on the screen showed the hotel guests filing out of the front door in orderly fashion, guided by hotel staff, as two fire trucks rolled to a stop at the curb.

“Congratulations. This has been a team effort, HUMINT, SIGINT, and the kinetic element, identifying and stopping an advanced plot.” The voice was from Washington. “You are all reminded that this was structured as a Special Op, so it would be completely deniable. No evidence of drone usage. Let’s keep it that way. No bragging. No spiking the football. No leaks.”

More fire trucks and ambulances appeared on the live image of the Palais projected on the screen.

Bruce felt Erik’s hand clamping on his shoulder. “Nice work, Major. Now let’s fly Bird One to the Safe House and call it a day.”

The small black oval stopped its hover, gained altitude quickly to four hundred meters, and headed out toward the Wiener Wald at the edge of the city. There, in a clearing on a wooded estate, a team waited for Bird One to gently set down on the grass. They would then pack it into a truck and drive it to Germany and a U.S. Air Force base.

The bird was on autopilot until it got near the Landing Zone. Then Bruce took control and, using a joystick in his right hand and a sliding throttle in his left, he delicately brought the aircraft down in the clearing for a soft impact touchdown. He had stopped listening in on the Kill Call conference bridge.

The voice from Maryland came over the speakers, “Wien Feuer Brigade Zwei commander reporting to his headquarters five bodies recovered, a few minor injuries from flying glass. Fire is out. He’s thinking someone placed a bomb in the bar.”

Sandra Vittonelli and Erik Parsons left Spook Ops and moved back to her glass-walled office just behind the row of pilots in the GCC Operations Room. Erik was seated on the couch looking out at the Ops Floor, at the images pouring in from above five countries. Sandra was getting two bottles of Pilsner Urquell from her mini fridge in the closet off her office.

“Well, you were right about Bruce,” she called out. “The first time we fly the new stealth, covert birds in a real operation and he did it like a pro. I just wish those new birds had longer loiter, longer range.” She looked at Erik, who did not appear to be listening to her. “Hey, Colonel, wake up. We just got Omar Nawarz, the head of the Qazzani narcoterrorist group’s European operations, plus three of his lieutenants.”

Sandra was looking for the beer bottle opener inside the cooler. “And, while I am not supposed to tell you this, the reason for this as a Special Op was that we had a sensitive HUMINT source inside al Qaeda, one we could not share with the Austrians or anybody else. So we could not tell the Austrians to pick these guys up. The Stapo would want to know why, they’d want to see some evidence.”

She had popped the beers and was walking back into her office. “If we told the truth, that these guys were going to bomb subway systems in Vienna and Germany, that word would leak out fast. And our guy on the inside in AQ would get discovered and killed. So, as far as the Austrians will know, this was a bomb planted by a rival drug gang.

“Hey, you listening, Colonel? We just stopped another 7/7 attack, only bigger. Well done.” She thrust out her right arm toward Erik, with the open bottle of Pilsner.

Erik did not take the beer. “NSA said the fire chief reported finding five bodies. Who was number five?”