“We’ll certainly take into consideration your current pay scale at Best Buy when determining our offer, Mr. Fenton. We might be able to do a little better.”
“Excuse me, but can we get on with the task of saving the country from a horde of bloodthirsty extremists?” Xander asked. When no one else interrupted, he continued. “Thanks to Mr. Hall and the people at DARPA, we have a small fleet of highly-advanced prototype drones to send up against the attacking units. Also, his people have found a way to neutralize killboxes, so we’ll only have to go up against RPAs. Since it appears most of the major, coordinated attacks have been carried out mainly using killbox-equipped drones the terrorists may be unprepared for the loss of such a substantial amount of their force. Also, many of the opportunists jumping on the bandwagon are using remotely-controlled UAVs, yet they aren’t that sophisticated. These units can be easily jammed since few are equipped with RFGs. The bottom line: once we deploy the number of units we’ll have to engage should be drastically reduced. Now, the drones you’ll be flying are called Goliaths. They are the largest, most advanced combat drones ever built.”
“Is anyone else here getting a hard-on?” Hugh asked.
Karen raised her hand. “I’m not.”
Xander just shook his head and looked over at Billy and the silent Tiffany Collins. “You can dress ‘em up, you just can’t take ‘em anywhere.”
“We get the idea, Number One,” Curt Tharp said. “This is serious, and we’re the team of superheroes brought in to save the day. So where are these superdrones that we superheroes get to play with?”
“Follow me,” Nathan Hall said. “And don’t touch anything that says ‘Don’t Touch.’ It might explode.”
Chapter 21
The man in the yellow vest looked up from the pile of debris and frowned when he noticed the letters emblazoned across the breast pockets of the black jackets the six men were wearing.
Derrick Howard could almost hear the man thinking, What the hell is the EPA doing here?
Howard flashed his ID at the man. “How’s it going? We’re here to help.”
“Help? How is the EPA going to help sort through this mess?”
Derrick smiled. “Well, help might not be the right word. We’re here to monitor the release of toxic gases within the ruins, specifically mercury and asbestos. Is this the Communications Building — or what remains of it? We need to get down to the equipment bays.”
“Yeah, it is. There’s another group of techs down below. There’s an access over by the yellow tape. Good luck, though, not much survived. Those fucking drones…”
“I hear ya. Every last one of them should be banned.”
“You got that right. Watch your step going down. Most of the overhead is unstable.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
Derrick nodded to his team and they set off along a cleared path within the massive pile of rubble where a five-story building had once stood. They found the yellow tape and the surviving metal steps that led underground. Before descending, each man placed a white surgical mask over his face.
Below ground the damage wasn’t as bad as on the surface, but it was still a mess. The shattered remains of dozens of plastic drones lay everywhere along the wide corridor. Once the batteries had drained, the survivors of the RDC had emerged from hiding and systematically bashed the inert UAVs to pieces. The process was cathartic to a point, yet it did pose a problem for the forensic teams that came in afterwards, looking for serial numbers and other identifying markings.
Three floors down, the damage was even less, although it was apparent the killer drones had reached the main communication rooms for the Center. Here, strategically placed missiles, bullets and bombs had ripped the huge banks for sophisticated equipment to shreds. Add to this the complete destruction of the topside communication dishes, and the RDC had been effectively cut off from the outside world.
Yet this was just the exposed part of the comm center. Embedded within walls and floors, before running far below ground in fortified concrete tunnels, the main feed lines still survived. Some ran to power sources outside the Center, while others led to the graveyard of shattered satellite antennas and dishes.
Air Force techs had set up portable relay equipment outside, with a new arrangement of nine interlocking dishes pointing into the sky. Once-severed comm lines had already been reconnected to this temporary setup. Now all that remained was for the team below to finish their work before the array could be lit up.
In the underground comm room, eight Air Force techs were in the process of tracing broken coax cables, ethernet lines, and thick fiber-optic bundles, looking to make contact with the equipment on the surface. To help with the task, they’d brought in their own version of miniature mainframe computers, towers of server-holders rolled in on six-foot-long metal carts.
Two other airmen stood around the huge room holding M27 rifles and looking bored. They perked up momentarily when Derrick Howard and his group entered.
“Damn, the EPA,” said an airman whose name patch read G. Garner. “That’s a new one. We’ve had FEMA, the CIA, FBI, even the NTSB down here, but not the EPA.”
“Derrick smiled at the young man. “The Environmental Protection Agency is everywhere,” he said menacingly.
“So it seems. Just stay out of the way of the techs. They’re a touchy group when it comes to their equipment.”
“Don’t worry, we brought our own, air sniffers and such.”
“Dang, you mean you’ll be able to detect the tacos I had for lunch?”
Derrick frowned and wrinkled his nose under the white mask. “Man, that’s disgusting. Let’s hope not.”
His men retired to a vacant corner of the room and began to open their heavy black cases. All the equipment was battery-powered and contained within the boxes. Switches were flicked as lights and screens came to life.
A few of the Air Force techs looked over at them and frowned, but soon returned to the tedious work of tracing orphan wires for their source and purpose.
Derrick walked up to a group of them on their hands and knees at what looked like a small crop of thin wires growing out of the floor. “How’s it going? You guys making progress?”
“Fuck it!” said one of the men without looking up. “This is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
The man next to him looked over his shoulder at Derrick and took in the EPA label on his jacket. His breast tag read D. Grissom. “Don’t mind him, we’re doing fine. We should have a preliminary link up in a few minutes. Should we be wearing masks or something?”
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea, at least until we’re done with our air samples. We brought down a supply of them just in case.”
One of Derrick’s men passed out the masks to all the other people in the room, and then the team huddled together, having pulled up broken equipment supports to use as chairs.
Derrick sat next to Steve Vasquez. “Are we syncing?” he whispered.
“Piece of cake,” Vasquez answered. “Still, this is a lot of data to upload in only forty-five seconds. I think they’re being optimistic. And then the carrying capacity of the connections may not be all that high.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“That we may need a lot more time for the upload than forty-five seconds.”
Derrick pursed his lips in frustration. He knew Almasi was waiting halfway around the world for the moment the upload was complete. He would know it at the same time Derrick and his team knew the link between Las Vegas and Karachi was solid and verified.
He carefully watched the techs across the room. Derrick was sure there would be some indication from the workers when connections were established, even though the equipment in the cases would know as well. Originally, the plan had called for the team to access the room after the link had been established. Even if all the RDC drones were accessed at that point, the operation called for the existing codes to be overridden by the ones Almasi would provide. That would have involved a hard tap on the lines, yet without so many people in the room.