Cyberstrike, James Barrington [short story to read .TXT] 📗

Sadir felt his mouth go dry in anticipation and took another sip of his Coke. This truly was the endgame. Nothing could stop him now.

Chapter 63

Fairview, Harford County, Maryland, United States of America

Morgan, Rogers, Gordon and the special agent commanding the SWAT team crowded around the Panasonic Toughbook rugged computer, all staring intently at the screen which was displaying the live video feed from the surveillance drone, thanks to a Bluetooth connection. The device was being controlled by another SWAT team member, using a small panel fitted with a CCTV screen which was supported on a nylon harness around his shoulders. He was steering the drone in a wide circle above the target property, keeping it at a height of around a hundred feet where it should be inaudible to anybody on the ground below, and using the zoom feature on its camera to closely inspect the exterior of the building.

They’d been picked up by one of the SWAT team’s Suburbans and driven the short distance from Forest Hill to Fairview, where they’d parked on a patch of open ground about a hundred yards from the target house. When they’d arrived, the drone was already in the air and in transit, the team having been briefed by Gordon even before the Bell helicopter had landed.

What was puzzling all four of the men was the fact that the building appeared to be completely deserted, although there were two vehicles parked outside it. The SWAT team had already run the plates and the local DMV, the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles in Glen Burnie, not far from Fort Meade, had supplied the names and addresses of the registered owners. Neither of the names on the titles was Sadir, and neither listed address was the property that was under surveillance.

‘You quite sure that’s the right place?’ Gordon asked, saying exactly what the others were thinking.

‘That’s the closest property to the geographical coordinates that the GCHQ intercept flagged up of the target mobile,’ Morgan said, trying to inject his voice with more confidence than he was actually feeling. ‘The problem is that we’re kind of out in the sticks here, so the triangulation is based upon a smaller number of cell phone towers, so the location can’t be quite as accurate as it would be in a built-up urban area.’

The drone passed behind the property and overflew the rear yard. An oblong area came into view, largely surrounded by what appeared to be established hedges. For a brief moment, Morgan thought it looked like a vegetable patch, though he had no idea whether or not American properties would incorporate such a feature, but then his attention was drawn to a roundish white object at one end of it.

‘We need to take a closer look at that,’ he said.

‘It’s a satellite dish,’ Rogers said, stating the obvious.

‘I know what it is,’ Morgan replied, ‘but what I want to know is where it’s pointing.’

‘Gotcha,’ Gordon said, and told the SWAT team leader to zoom in on the dish.

On the screen of the Toughbook, the picture wobbled slightly and then seemed to accelerate directly towards the dish. Then it stabilised so that they were looking down at it from above, the tripod of metal arms holding the LNB, the low-noise block downconverter, at the apex.

Morgan looked at the compass heading on the screen, showing the direction that the drone was pointing, and then quickly worked out the approximate direction that the satellite dish was facing.

‘Most of your American satellite television companies use birds that are located down to the south-west,’ he said, gesturing at the screen. ‘That dish is pointing somewhere east of south, and that’s the bit of sky where most of the communication satellites are located, birds like the Intelsat and Inmarsat vehicles. So whoever’s in that house isn’t sitting there surrounded by empty beer cans and watching old reruns of Bonanza or I Love Lucy. He’ll have something very different on the screen in front of him.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ Gordon said. ‘Time to kick the door down.’

Chapter 64

Fort Drum, Jefferson County, New York State, United States of America

‘Can I assume this is not some kind of a joke?’ Major Oscar Paulson asked.

‘Damn right you can.’ The caller had introduced himself as Colonel David Moore and had stated he was calling from Hancock Field at Syracuse, and that was the first problem the major had had with the conversation.

‘Then why, sir—’ the man had sounded official and senior and angry, and so Paulson was hedging his bets until he found out more ‘—are you not calling on an official line?’

‘I say again, Major, and please listen carefully, because we have very little time, I cannot call on an official line because the fucking things have all been fried. Some terrorist detonated an EMP weapon on the airfield boundary and we lost the lot: radios, radar and telephone lines, including mobiles. But none of that’s important. What is important is that we had a fully armed MQ-9 Reaper airborne when this happened, and we’ve got reason to believe that a terrorist group has hijacked it.’

Major Paulson opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and instead said: ‘Please go on.’

‘We don’t know where it is or what these terrorists intend to do with it, but it’s got bombs and Hellfire missiles on it so they could do a hell of a lot of damage in New York or Washington or wherever. We could be looking at another nine eleven, in spades. So what I’m ordering you to do is get your GCS manned like right now and find this fucking drone. And when you do, just get the thing on the ground, anywhere. Preferably at Fort Drum or Syracuse, but any airfield would do at a pinch. Any questions?’

Paulson had been suggesting and rejecting scenarios in his mind while he listened to what the caller was saying, and in the end he decided that manning the