Unmanned

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nelson Hayley Sharpe rubbed the bumps on his shaved head and considered his options.

He could shut the gate and activate the lock, so they’d have to get out of their car and walk the last half mile. Or, as always, he could let them drive straight to his door, clomping into the house with their lawyerly warnings and institutional arrogance, hiding behind aviator shades as they pawed through his papers and clicked at his mouse, searching for God knows what sort of bullshit.

Choosing the former would make them more ornery than usual, but he’d at least have the satisfaction of watching them stumble and swear as they worked their way uphill through the stubble and cow patties. Because lately they were really pissing him off. They’d even started poking around among his clients, issuing vague warnings and generally endangering his ability to make a living. Three customers had already cancelled. Even Stu over at Whitethorn, who never let anything rattle him, had begged off.

“Nothing personal, Nellie. Ingenious stuff, as always, but I can’t have the feds breathing down our necks, know what I mean? Maybe later, when you’re not such a hot commodity.”

And so on, until the flow of checks dwindled to almost nothing and the bills began to pile up.

His finger hovered above the mouse as he continued to deliberate while watching their progress on the desktop screen. The government-issue car bounced slowly in the ruts, field sparrows fluttering from its path. A few seconds later they passed through the open gate, deciding the issue for him.

“Fuck,” he said to himself. “This is getting really old.”

He knew what had brought them here — a statement he’d made yesterday to CNN. The reporter had interviewed him for twenty minutes. The irony was that he’d talked mostly about how the drones were a good thing. Compared to the so-called surgical bombings of the past, drone combat was far more efficient, and despite the occasional mistake, it killed far fewer civilians, largely because it allowed you to be more deliberate and precise in your targeting. He was proud of that. But those weren’t the quotes they used. They seized on his final comments, when he sermonized briefly about how recklessly we were forging ahead with drone technology, making up the rules as we went along — if indeed there were any rules — heedless of the toll on our privacy, not only in war zones but potentially in every nook and cranny of our own country. Except that he forgot to say “potentially.” The quote the Pentagon probably would have hated most had, of course, been the one CNN liked best, and the reporter used it not only in the news segment but also in the promotional tease at the top of the hour: “What should really scare you is that right now they’re employing only a fraction of their capabilities. Soon they won’t just be looking down your chimney. They’ll be flying down it, too, with aircraft the size of hummingbirds, or smaller. I know, I helped develop them, at a testing ground right around the corner from where the Wright Brothers used to work.”

So here they came, to tell him yet again in their own by-the-book fashion to please shut the fuck up, as specified in his severance agreement. Or else he’d pay a price. As if he wasn’t already.

He stood, waiting for the door to open. He was a craggy monolith of a man whose angular peaks and hollows had grown more pronounced with age. Shaving his head had only made his big brown eyes look bigger. He could’ve passed as a distant cousin to those bug-eyed space aliens depicted in so many wacko fantasies.

They knocked. Progress of a sort. Then they opened the door before he crossed the room. No matter. He had already taken the usual precautions. It’s why he had posted so many sensors and security cams outside, a whole alarm network monitoring every approach to his house. Advance warning gave him time to activate the software he had designed himself. Within seconds it cloaked, and in some cases erased, whatever work was likeliest to draw their unwanted scrutiny, while simultaneously disabling the passwords for his desktop, his notebook, and his smart phone. They hadn’t yet wised up to the trick, which told him once again that the Pentagon’s security experts weren’t half as skilled as the ones earning the big bucks in the private sector. To his mind, that illustrated one of DOD’s biggest blind spots: If they thought their new technology was devastating in their own hands, just wait until they started sharing it on the outside, with people who in some ways were far better equipped to exploit it.

“Welcome, gentlemen, as always.”

He stood with his arms crossed. The two men, familiar by now, actually seemed a bit sheepish this time. The first one, taller and older, always did the talking.

“Should I read you the usual warning, Mr. Sharpe?”

“I’m aware of my obligations. Tea? The kettle’s still warm.”

“No, sir. We should only be a minute.”

Maybe they, too, were tiring of the charade. Probably acting under orders issued more out of pique than practicality. And they hadn’t yet come up with a damn thing. He looked around the place with a hint of embarrassment. His house had always been a bit of a dump, ever since his last daughter moved out in ’91. But this morning it was particularly messy. Books and magazines everywhere, empty Chinese takeout boxes still on the coffee table, dishes stacked in the kitchen, clothes strewn on chairs and doorknobs, outdated and oversized stereo components coated with dust, cables everywhere. Was he becoming a hoarder, one of those lonely old misfits you always saw on TV? At least he didn’t own any cats. No smell of urine or stale beer. Just garlic from the Chinese, the herbal rot of wet tea leaves, the ticklish funk of dust, the leaden silence of too many hours alone. The shorter fellow sneezed as he began sorting through a stack of papers.

“You went through those last week. Not that it makes any difference.”

The man didn’t even look up.

“Got any more interviews scheduled?” the taller one asked. Sharpe didn’t even know their names, their ranks, anything about them.

“None presently. They’re good marketing tools for my business, that’s why I keep doing them. I’m entitled to promote my business, you know.”

“And we’re entitled to keep letting your clients know of the restrictions you’ve agreed to operate under.”

So they weren’t even going to try to hide their recent meddling.

“I really don’t want to get lawyers involved.”

The shorter one spoke up for the first time ever, stopping what he was doing and looking Sharpe right in the eye.

“Then don’t.”

Sharpe took a step toward him, caught himself, and silently counted to ten. They’d be gone soon, back out on the highway and headed for the Capital Beltway. And he still had other ways of fighting back, ways that would piss them off even more if they ever found out. Foolhardy, probably, to try such things, but maybe it was inevitable once you got your back up.

“Okay, then.” The taller one again. “I’ll leave the paperwork.”

“Don’t forget to check the mailbox on the way out.”

“Already did. Publisher’s Clearinghouse thinks you may be their next lucky winner.”

This drew a smarmy grin from the shorter one. Sharpe held his tongue, barely.

Within seconds they were out the door, shuffling off like a pair of missionaries who’d failed to win a convert. He listened to the engine turn over, and then the creaking of the car as it bounded down the drive toward the bypass. Then he got to work.

First he pulled his keys from his pocket. Attached to the key chain was a cigarette lighter, or so it appeared. It had taken him an entire Saturday afternoon to produce the likeness. It was actually a flash drive, containing the software he always used to protect his data during these inspections and, just as important, to restore it once the coast was clear.

He plugged it in to let it work its magic, which included the random selection of a dozen new passwords for various accounts that he used. Then he pocketed the flash drive, printed out the list of the new passwords, examined it just long enough to commit the list to memory — which for him took only about twenty seconds — and then incinerated the printout in his pellet-burning woodstove.

Sitting back down at his desk, he used one of the new passwords to sign on to his email account, which he’d been using just before the alarms went off a few minutes ago, alerting him to the arrival of his visitors. Now a new message was waiting for him, from someone he’d never heard from before, although he recognized the name of the sender. One of the pilots at Creech. A bit of a malcontent, he remembered now. Or at least he hadn’t been afraid to ask a provocative question. And now he wanted to meet.

But Sharpe also remembered hearing that this fellow had gotten himself into trouble, after a raid that ended badly. Just the sort of fellow, in other words, who might get him into even deeper trouble than he was already in.

Sharpe sighed and typed a curt reply, feeling a bit cowardly as he did so.

Yes, I remember you, and wish you good luck with whatever you’re pursuing. But meeting with you wouldn’t be in my best interests right now.

He was about to send it when the alarm sounded. He clicked to his security camera, and there they were again, coming right back up the driveway, this time at twice the speed, and having already cleared the gate, as if they’d finally figured out how he was outsmarting them and were trying to return before he did it again.

He slipped the flash drive back into the slot and activated another shutdown. To buy a few extra seconds he ran to the door and slammed home the deadbolt and security chain. No sooner had he finished than they were turning the knob, then pounding their fists. He slowly backed up, all the way to the kitchen door.

“On my way!” he sang out, with one eye on his computer screen as it worked through the final stages of the shutdown.

“Open now or we’re breaking in!”

He grabbed clumsily for the flash drive disguised as a lighter as the screen went dark, then shoved it into his pants pocket just as the door crunched open, the frame splintering against the lock.

“What the fuck! Forced entry now? I was two steps away, assholes!”

The shorter man pinned him against the wall and pulled back his arms, binding his wrists with a plastic restraint. The taller one scanned his desktop, feeling the console for warmth as he scowled at the darkened screen.

“Where is it?” he shouted.

“Where’s what?”

“Whatever piece of shit software you’re using to shut this thing down.”

“Hell, I didn’t even have time to log back on!”

“Check his pockets! Check up his ass for all I care!”

The shorter one emptied his pockets. The key chain with the lighter fell out along with some loose change, a handkerchief, and a stubby pencil.

“Nothing!” the shorter guy said. “Maybe he really didn’t have time.”

“You saw the signal. He’s lying his ass off.”

“Maybe the signal was bad. You know sometimes in the tests—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

So they had a new weapon now, some sort of sensor that showed when he was online, although Mutt didn’t seem to trust it, and now it looked like Jeff wasn’t so sure.

“You bring my Publisher’s Clearinghouse entry?” Sharpe asked. “It’s the only shot I’ve got at any income if you guys keep this shit up.”

“You know where the mailbox is,” the taller one answered. He sounded discouraged, the zeal gone out of his voice. Without a further word the men left, climbed back into their car, and drove slowly down the driveway. Sharpe tried closing the door, but it wouldn’t latch on the shattered jamb. The strike plate was dangling by a single screw, and there was a pile of splinters on the floor.

“Shit! There goes another fifty bucks.”

He went out to his workshop to see what he could find for repairs.

Two hours later, after a half-assed fix, a long walk to cool his temper, and a cup of tea to clear his head, Sharpe logged back on to his computer, re-upped his passwords and regular software, and then checked the view on his security cams to make sure no one was lurking within immediate range of the house or driveway.

Finally satisfied that, at worst, he had a few minutes to work with, he went back into his email account. There was one new message. Yet another client, one of his best, was asking for a meeting at his earliest convenience “in order to re-assess our current working arrangement.”

Another one bites the dust. At this rate he’d be out of business by the new year. Fortunately, he had another iron in the fire that even the Pentagon didn’t yet know about.

Sharpe noticed the email from the pilot again, and reconsidered his answer. Yet another lonely rebel, discarded by the powers that be. Well, fuck it. How much more trouble could he get into than he was already in? This fellow at least deserved the courtesy of a sympathetic ear. If he’d make the effort to visit, then Sharpe would make the effort to hear him out. If he turned out to be a plant from those assholes at the Pentagon, Sharpe would know soon enough. And if he was legit? Who knew? He might even be useful, a valuable tool for one of his new ventures. He typed a reply that was even briefer and more cryptic than before.

8 a.m. tomorrow, McDonald’s, Bingham Ferry Road, Leesburg. Use the drive-through window.

He had some valuable allies, but it was time to start recruiting a few more, and maybe this fellow was a good place to start. If his enemies wanted to up the ante, so would he. Maybe, as the Mafia liked to say, it was time to hit the mattresses.

He sent the message. Then he retrieved the flash drive from his pocket, shut everything down, and went upstairs to pack a bag.