Game of Drones by Rick Jones, Rick Chesler Read Free Book Online Page A

of gyrations, the airliner nothing but a useless, metallic hazard falling to the Earth from an altitude of seven miles.
    Seconds before his consciousness succumbed to the g-forces and sudden lack of cabin pressurization, Senator Houseman flashed on the fact that his candidacy for the presidency would never be realized, a thought that competed for attention--and, oddly enough, won--with the knowledge that he was about to die.
    In the last few split seconds he closed his eyes, hoping to relive the positive milestones from his life that he would leave behind as a lasting political legacy. But no such pictures emerged. In fact, behind the closed lids of his eyes just before they left this world, he saw nothing but a parade of petty schemes masquerading as significant events cloaked in the historical reputation and stature of his office. In the very end, he saw only darkness. I helped people...didn't I? Surely I--
    When the plane impacted, Senator Paul David Houseman, along with his aide and 164 other souls, perished onboard Flight 2194.
    There were no survivors.
    #
    Shazad’s team watched everything play out on the monitors as Naji navigated the drone from the northeast to its designated intercept point of the senator’s plane.
    It had circled like a true predator, examining its prey with the unblinking eye of its high definition lens, before taking up position next to the flight deck. For a long moment the Reaper kept pace, its lens zooming into the cockpit to spy on the captain, and then it peeled back, adopting a trailing trajectory behind the commercial airliner.
    Naji then tapped digits on a keypad and directed the joystick. When his intuition told him, now , he pushed the red button, firing off the first of two Hellfire missiles. Through the electronic eye they watched the missile spiral away from the undercarriage and head for the plane, which was beginning to bank hard to the right. The missile matched the Boeing's maneuvers, but missed its intended target as it passed within feet of its underside.
    Naji quickly regrouped and repeated his actions to prepare the missile for firing.
    Then he depressed the button once again, the missile leaving a wispy contrail in its wake as it zeroed in. The airplane tried to move left, then up, but it was too big, too slow, the vehicle entirely without any true elusive skills as the missile impacted with its tail end, causing the airliner to go into a death roll.
    Naji fell back from the podium and smiled while Shazad and his team clapped and cheered.
    Game over!

CHAPTER SIX
    Onboard Marine One
1015 Hours
    Marine One is the presidential helicopter transport to locations with minimal landing areas in close proximity. The current version is the VH-71 Kestral, a state-of-the-art mobile air unit that has a service ceiling of 15,000 feet and travels at a speed of 192 miles per hour, with a range of 863 miles.
    Its interior featured two presidential Captain’s chairs, three couches, matching drapes and plush carpet. It also served as a small communications center with fax, phone and satellite Internet. Sitting inside the chopper’s bay was President Carmichael, Chief Advisor Simon Davis and Attorney General Steven Cayne. As they waited for the rotors to achieve liftoff acceleration and for the FAA to provide prohibited airspace clearance--they needed to fly through a specified corridor two hundred feet above ground--they pored over recently obtained documents and transcripts regarding the senator’s downed aircraft. Latest information put the wreckage at approximately 180 miles due west of Dulles.
    The attorney general led off. “Radio transmissions from the pilot of Flight 2194 to Dulles air tower, Mr. President, confirm that the pilot did see what he believed to be a Reaper drone circling the aircraft moments before it fell back and initiated target acquisition."
    The president read over the transcribed documents. The interaction between the pilot and the tower clearly indicated that a