Sons of Valor Read online

  Watts is not going to be happy with me, he thought as he photographed the other two tangos. Looks like we did it to her again.

  “Facial recognition is unlikely from this mess,” Edwards said, standing over the body of another man. “Sorry about that, bro. Want me to get a DNA sample?”

  “Yeah,” Chunk said, and Edwards quickly took a smear of blood onto a cloth, put it into a zip-lock bag, then grabbed samples from the other guys. Meanwhile, Riker swept phones and laptops into a cinch sack.

  “Grab everything of potential value—notes, scraps of paper, anything Mother can use,” Chunk said as he scanned the room for useful bounty. “Out of here in four minutes.” Then he switched off vox, but keyed his mike. “Mother, One—I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we got no crows for you. Just electronics. The target is definitely not a nerve center for operations like we’d hoped. Just a standard safe house. Looks like we’re gonna need to keep digging.”

  CHAPTER 27

  serena hotel

  officers colony road

  mingora, pakistan

  0205 local time

  Loud pounding on the door woke him.

  Qasim sat up in bed, disoriented and unsure where he was.

  “Qasim,” a familiar voice shouted. “Qasim, wake up.”

  He glanced at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand, as his brain tried to claw its way out of the REM abyss he’d been swimming in. He remembered reclining on the bed, fully clothed, intending to relax before showering, but apparently he’d fallen asleep. The blurry green numbers on the clock came into focus: 02:05.

  “Just a moment,” he called.

  “Hurry, Qasim, we have to go right now!”

  The urgency in Hamza’s voice sent a jolt of adrenaline through his veins. He swung his legs off the side of the bed and stumbled in the dark to the door. After fumbling with the latch, he got the door unlocked and opened. A pale-faced Hamza grabbed him by the upper arm.

  “Did you bring anything with you? A bag, a computer, anything?” Hamza asked.

  “No, nothing but my phone,” Qasim said, “which is in my pocket.”

  “Okay, we’re going,” he said and jerked Qasim into the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” Qasim asked, jogging to keep up.

  Hamza ignored the question and just kept striding toward the stairwell. He rapidly descended to the first floor and pushed his way out a side exit door, where a car sat idling at the curb with the rear driver’s side door open. Hamza jumped into the back seat and Qasim followed, and the driver peeled away before he’d even gotten the door shut.

  Qasim tried again. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ve been compromised. The Americans are here. They’re coming for us.”

  “Is it because of Mohamed?”

  “I don’t know. But what I do know is that Mohamed knew the location of the hangar. Whatever he told ISI, we have to assume the Americans know, which means we have to get the drone in the air immediately.” Hamza turned to look at him. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, of course. I completed all the preflights yesterday. The satellite link was good. Assuming our network incursion hasn’t been detected we should be fine . . .”

  Hamza nodded and glanced nervously over his shoulder out the rear window.

  “Where’s Eshan?” Qasim asked. “Shouldn’t he be with you?”

  “He’s indisposed,” Hamza said, then turned his attention to the driver. “Go faster.”

  The driver nodded and pressed the accelerator. He piloted them through the darkened streets of Mingora, then over Airport Road Bridge across the Swat River, weaving at a lunatic pace east of the airport, around the airfield to the warehouse where the drone was housed. When they arrived, Qasim was surprised to see a flurry of activity. A large flatbed truck was backed up to the open hangar, while three other trucks were already loaded and idling. At the loading bay, men were winching the GCU onto the back of the truck. Qasim then noticed that the other three trucks appeared to have GCUs strapped to their beds already.

  “You have multiple GCUs?” he asked, surprised.

  “Yes, the other unit has been in storage. Contingency options and redundant resources are the two hallmarks of successful strategic planning.”

  “But I count four.”

  “Two are decoys. I had them made from shipping containers and modified to look like the actual thing,” Hamza explained.

  “So they’re empty?”

  “Not exactly.” Hamza gave a grim smile and got out of the car. “Time to go. We’re riding on the second truck in the primary GCU, the one you’ve been using.”

  “Hold on a second,” Qasim said, but Hamza had already slammed the door. Qasim climbed out the other side and chased after him. “Wait,” he said as he caught up. “How am I supposed to pilot the drone while the GCU is in transport? It needs power.”

  Then, as if the universe were answering his question, a diesel generator fired up on the idling truck. “Portable power,” Hamza said. “Once loaded, you’re looking at the world’s first fully functional and truly mobile drone control unit.”

  “That’s bloody brilliant,” Qasim gasped in awe.

  He trotted after Hamza and climbed onto the bed of the truck, where the workers had just finished securing the GCU and were now connecting the power cable. Hamza opened the door to the unit and gestured for Qasim to go inside.

  “I have to direct traffic out here for a few more minutes, but then I’ll be joining you. Take the pilot’s seat. I ordered the drone pushed out on the runway while I was en route to pick you up. If it’s not in position already, it will be any minute. As soon as it’s ready, start the engine and get it into the air. Don’t wait for me. You have full unrestricted authority over the drone.”

  Qasim stepped inside, nodded once, and said, “I understand.”

  Hamza slammed the door, and all the shouting and frantic commotion outside instantly disappeared, leaving him alone inside the sound-insulated command station. The air inside had grown warm and humid during the time the GCU had been offline, transitioning from grid to generator power, but cool air from the AC unit was just beginning to circulate. In their haste to relocate, whoever had disconnected it before loading had not performed a proper shutdown sequence, instead opting for simply tripping the master breaker. The GCU’s battery backup—an Uninterrupted Power Supply rated for twenty minutes—had managed to weather the transition, and Qasim was elated to see that all systems were still online.

  He slid into the pilot’s chair and donned his headset. The Pterodactyl’s chin-mounted FLIR camera system was streaming in night vision on the primary monitor, showing a long, unimpeded stretch of gray runway ahead. He flipped a switch to transfer camera control from the sensor operator chair to his station and rotated the gimbal-mounted camera in a slow, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree arc to make sure the drone was clear before starting the engine. As he swept through the port forward quadrant, he saw two figures standing side by side, looking at the camera. One of the men extended a thumbs-up at him. Qasim paused the pan momentarily in acknowledgment, then resumed the sweep until he was looking down the runway again.

  He successfully started the drone’s engine, quickly completed his preflight checklist, then did something he hadn’t done in a very, very long time . . . He prayed.

  Allah, I know you see all—past, present, and future—but I am just a man. I know you have a plan for me, and that taking my sister was somehow part of that plan, but it has been very difficult for me to accept this. You know I carry great pain, and you know that I have been lost in that pain for many years. Over these last few weeks, I have started to walk a new path and I don’t know if it is the right one or not. All I ask of you now is that you give me the wisdom and courage to make the right choices, so that I might fulfill my destiny and make you proud. Please guide my hand and heart and know I am forever and always your faithful servant . . .

  He exhaled, opened his eyes, and placed his hands on the pilot’s controls.

  The door to the GCU swung open and Hamza stepped in just as he engaged the throttle. Qasim did not turn to look, just kept his focus attuned to the task at hand. The video feed streaming from the drone started to shake as the UCAV accelerated. The runway soon blurred as the drone gained speed. At the same time, the pilot’s seat jerked and wobbled as the truck carrying the GCU began its journey. The combination of the drone’s projected movement and the truck’s actual movement messed with his sensory proprioception, and for a moment he had the distinct impression that he was sitting in an actual aircraft taking off. He pulled back on the control stick and the Pterodactyl nosed up into the night sky.

  “Good job, Qasim. Very, very good,” Hamza said and clasped a hand on his right shoulder.

  He nodded, checking the drone’s flight dynamics instrumentation. “Five hundred meters and climbing . . .” Hamza settled into the sensor operator’s chair beside him. Over the past few days, Qasim had been training him on all the GCU’s systems and how to pilot and operate the drone. “Would you like to take her up the rest of the way?”

  “Yes,” Hamza said and placed his hands on the control stick and throttle in front of him.

  Qasim flipped a switch that swapped flight control to the other chair and sensor operations to his. He watched as Hamza maintained the aggressive climb rate he’d been using until the drone gained the necessary altitude to safely clear the mountains for the transit over the Hindu Kush and into Afghanistan.

  “Your next heading is two-eight-one,” Qasim said, after checking the NAV screen.

  “Change of plans,” Hamza replied. “I want
to keep the drone in Pakistani airspace. Find me a new valley in the Khyber.”

  “Why? We have satellite control now. We don’t have to worry about line of sight anymore.”

  “I know,” Hamza said. “But the Americans will think twice before entering Pakistani airspace to shoot down the drone. They do not own the skies like they do in Afghanistan. Loitering on this side of the border increases the drone’s survival probability.”

  “Okay, give me a minute,” Qasim said, scanning the topography. Eventually, he found a promising valley south of Ghochhar Sar mountain. He gave Hamza the new heading and watched him expertly steer the drone onto the new course.

  “You seem to be a natural at this,” he said as he watched Hamza fly.

  “A good leader is capable of competently executing the tasks he delegates to others. How can I accurately assess your performance if I don’t have the knowledge to do so?”

  Sage words, Qasim thought.

  “I don’t want to crash into a mountain. What altitude do you recommend?

  “The highest mountain in the Khyber is Tirich Mir, and it is seven thousand seven hundred and eight meters tall. We aren’t going that far north, but I recommend taking the drone up to eight thousand meters, just to be safe until we reach the target valley,” Qasim said as he entered a new waypoint on the nav screen.

  Hamza nodded and maintained the ascent until the drone reached eight thousand meters, at which point he leveled off and said, “Okay, Qasim, you can take the controls back.”

  Qasim flipped the switch to swap the controlling station back to his chair, then engaged the autopilot, which would fly the drone to the waypoint. Once on station, Qasim would spiral the drone down to a radar-evading altitude in the valley and turn donuts in the sky until Hamza chose the target. Only then would they reposition the drone.

  “Have you decided on a target?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Hamza said, getting to his feet. “We’re going to hit Kandahar Air Base.”

  “Kandahar? But that’s seven hundred kilometers away. Depending on how long we loiter, fuel could be an issue. Also, that is a lot of distance to cover without being detected.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe our chances will be better if we target Jalalabad,” Qasim said, confused by Hamza’s selection. “It’s very close to the border.”

  “No. Kandahar will be our next target, because Kandahar is the heart of the American and British drone operations for the entire region. A successful strike on Kandahar will cripple the Americans’ capabilities. Also, this might very well be our last chance. After this sortie, the Americans will figure out how we’re controlling the drone. They will put pressure on the Pakistani government, and they will start patrolling the skies for enemy drones. We’ve already lost the element of surprise. They’re hunting us as we speak.”

  Dread washed over Qasim at this last statement. Now that the drone was airborne and the adrenaline of the escape had worn off, his brain began to contemplate the danger he was in. Like an annoying pop-up window in his mind, he suddenly understood just how tenuous his situation was. He was—or at least this GCU was—the Americans’ primary target. Mobile or not, an American drone carrying Hellfire missiles might be locking on to them at this very moment.

  “And Eshan?” Qasim asked. “Are we going to pick him up, or has he already disappeared into the night?”

  Hamza sniffed once and fixed his gaze on Qasim. He said nothing for several long seconds, before pulling his mobile phone from a pocket and cuing up a video clip. He handed the phone to Qasim, a grave expression chiseled on his face.

  “What is this?” Qasim said, taking the phone.

  “Just watch.”

  Qasim pressed the triangle icon on the media player and a grainy grayscale video began to play. Qasim quickly deduced he was watching security camera footage recorded from a mount in the upper corner of a living room. The space was furnished with two long sofas, a desk, and a dining table with chairs. Three men were asleep in the room, one man on each sofa and a third on the floor. Nothing was happening . . . then the door on the opposite wall was blown off its hinges. Something arced into the room and a brilliant flash of light washed out the picture. After a second, the feed refreshed and Qasim watched in horror as three operators, dressed in tactical gear and wielding assault rifles, entered. The three men who had been sleeping were up now. Two of them scrambled for AK-47s, while the third man—who Qasim now recognized as Eshan—reached for a pistol. The infiltrators opened fire, with each shooter using an identical pattern: two rounds center mass, followed by a single round to the head. Qasim watched Eshan get shot in the chest and look down, almost in surprise. Then the back of his head exploded. He collapsed face first onto the floor and did not move again. In less than four seconds, it was over and the operators advanced out of frame.

  A lump formed in his throat, and he felt like he’d just been punched in the stomach.

  “I’m sorry, Qasim,” Hamza said.

  “Was that . . . was that Eshan?” he asked despite knowing the answer.

  “Yes. The Americans hit the safe house less than one hour ago. I would have been there, except I had decided to . . . it does not matter. Allah intervened to change my path tonight, just as he did for you,” Hamza said.

  A crushing weight descended on Qasim, and he was suddenly finding it extremely difficult to breathe. “I . . . I . . . can’t breathe.”

  “You’re hyperventilating,” Hamza said. “Put your head between your knees and try to slow your breathing.”

  Qasim swiveled the pilot chair ninety degrees and did as Hamza instructed. Panic morphed into fury as he slowly recovered from the shock of what he’d just watched. Then, he felt Eshan’s ghost and heard his best friend’s parting words in his head:

  “Your fate was decided the minute an American drone pilot decided to squeeze the trigger on your sister’s wedding night. Hamza is not your enemy. I am not your enemy. We are your brothers, Qasim . . . Someday, I hope you’ll understand that.”

  A dark switch flipped inside him.

  Why had it taken him losing everything before he finally accepted his fate?

  Because I am a fool.

  “I’m going to kill them,” he seethed. “I’m going to burn the flesh from their bones for this.”

  He felt a hand come to rest on his back as he stared at the floor, consumed with rage.

  “Allah will see it done, my brother,” Hamza said, his voice as flat, cold, and self-assured as Qasim had ever heard it. “And we’re going to do it together.”

  CHAPTER 28

  improvised toc

  relax hilton palace hotel

  mingora, pakistan

  0220 local time

  Whitney sat on the edge of the bed, pulled her headset off, then collapsed on the mattress. “I don’t know about this,” she murmured, looking up at the ceiling.

  “You don’t know about what?” Yi said.

  “This,” Whitney said, waving her arms in an all-encompassing gesture.

  “You mean this hotel?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. “I mean deploying with the unit, being Mother on this op. Maybe I made a mistake joining the Tier One. I’m an analyst. I’m good at analyzing stuff, not calling the play-by-play in some makeshift Tactical Operations Center. This job has me dead.”

  “What are you talking about?” Yi said, collapsing on the bed beside her in solidarity. “You did amazing.”

  “No, I didn’t. The second I open my mouth, Chunk gets irritated. I don’t even have to see his face—I can tell from the sound of his voice. I think you should be the radio talker from now on. I’ll be your support.”

  “You have to understand, when these guys are on the X, if they could execute the mission with only hand signals and telepathy, they would. They don’t want to hear opinions or concerns or questions from us. They only want what they need,” Yi said.

  “What does that mean—they only want what they need?”

  “Imagine you’re a race car driver, and you’re driving two hundred miles an hour around some twisty track. If you lose concentration or get distracted and take your eyes off the road for even a millisecond, you’re guaranteed to crash and die. That’s what it’s like for them. They’re like race car drivers. They don’t want some Chatty Cathy in the passenger seat talking about stuff they can plainly see with their own two eyes, and they don’t want a backseat driver telling them how to drive the car. All they want is pertinent information—information which they don’t have access to—conveyed in a timely and succinct manner.”