She cast a dark look at him.
“What?” He shrugged. “It’s not the first time the U.S. has bombed the wrong people, Marta. This is a big mistake, but it’ll blow over.”
“No. This time is different. . . .” She clicked the remote to surf news channels, from Al Jazeera to Russian English-language television, then to American cable news. Coverage of the attack was everywhere. Shots of injured being rushed to hospitals in Red Crescent vans. Screaming women and children. Most of America had not yet woken up to its latest public relations disaster. “U.S. Reaper Drone Massacres Shiite Pilgrims” and more crassly: “The Empire Strikes Back.”
One looped video sequence showed drone wreckage raining down in fiery pieces over the city, the reporter in midsentence: “. . . above the city immediately afterward by an enraged Iraqi military.”
She nodded to herself. “Destroyed, of course. Pieces paraded by civilians on TV. The chance of getting that wreckage back: slim to none.”
He sighed. “It’s a terrible accident, but we’ll get past it.”
She muted the television. “It wasn’t an accident. This was an attack on the United States.”
Clarke frowned in confusion.
“It wasn’t our drone, Henry.”
He sank into a wing chair. “What do you mean it wasn’t ours? Who else has Reaper drones? Britain?”
“I mean it wasn’t a friendly Reaper drone.” She narrowed her eyes at the screen. “I’d be curious to know how they got it past our radar. I suppose they could have launched it from a nearby desert road. Gorgon Stare would have been useful here. That’s a funding angle we should pursue in committee. Make a note of that.”
Clarke glanced around for a pad of paper but almost immediately gave up and frowned at her. “You’re saying someone copied a Reaper drone?”
“It would hardly be necessary to ‘copy’ one. Nearly half of them have been lost in action—crashed or shot down. Not all of them recovered. Parts and pieces moving through the black markets of Central Asia.”
“Seriously?”
“Technology spreads, Henry. That’s what it does. That’s why constant progress is necessary. Why we must always stay one step ahead. This is a teaching moment for those willing to learn.”
He nodded toward the news, which now panned across screaming, injured children in a hospital ward. “This could be very bad for Brand America.”
“Yes, and that’s why it’s critical we encourage these older drones to proliferate. Otherwise whenever there’s a drone strike—like this—the world will blame the United States. That must change.”
He watched the muted television for a moment—the looped replay of the mystery drone launching its missiles. “Do you think this attack is related to the terror bombings here in the States?”
She ignored the question and instead presented one of her own. “How does this disaster affect our clients?”
Clarke grimaced. “It’s not good. It’ll damage public perception of unmanned aircraft.”
“Unless we successfully deflect responsibility.”
“With powerful visuals like this circulating, that’ll be a tough sell.”
“You leave that to me. Just make sure your people are ready to work their mimetic magic.”
They both stared at images of tiny, shroud-wrapped bodies being carried through an angry crowd.
CHAPTER 2
Warning Order
A black MH-47 Chinook helicopter raced in darkness along the slopes of a steep valley lined by snowcapped mountains. Pale moonlight reflected off the peaks and silhouetted the large chopper momentarily before it nosed steeply into blackness, descending rapidly in a combat landing. As it continued its erratic maneuvers, blinding green-white flares spat out of its tail every few seconds. Soon the pilot pulled the nose of the chopper up, bringing it down toward a blacked-out forward operating base studded with satellite dishes and radio antennas. The chopper rotated in a cloud of dust, then deftly touched down on a gravel landing zone.
As the turbine engines wound down, the rear ramp descended, and a dozen heavily armed U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers in black body armor and face masks emerged, pulling along a hooded prisoner wearing a mud-spattered shalwar kameez and chapan—his hands secured behind his back with PlastiCuffs.
One of the soldiers shouted, “Paatsezhey!” and shoved the prisoner along.
The group moved swiftly past concentric rings of HESCO bastions toward the heart of the camp, where a forest of antenna masts stood next to prefab structures. As they passed, indigenous workers in green smocks looked up from their duties building new fortifications, leaning on their shovels to steal a glance at the knot of soldiers.