But now the crazy terrorist wanted the override to happen sooner, basically in conjunction with contact being initially regained with the bunkers. It was estimated that even if the military were able to reestablish contact, this would only be the first step in changing out the transponder codes to correspond with those linked to new command centers. The old codes would have to be expunged so no conflicts would exist and then new ones loaded.
The codes Derrick carried in his equipment were ghosts of the existing RDC codes already in the flight controllers of the drones. The thousands of UAVs hidden away in hundreds of locations across the country would instantly accept the command authority of these transponder codes, even before they would allow the old ones to be dumped.
Two days from now, Derrick and his team would have had no problem overriding any new codes installed in the drones. But now the job had become trickier. The techs in the room would surely notice the presence of a second signal once the link was established. Derrick had to think of some way to keep them from noticing the ghost signal for what could amount to a minute or more.
He called over two of his men, the two who were classified as muscle on the team and not vital to the upload operation. He briefed them on his plan.
And then they waited.
A full hour later, the tech who had complained about the difficulty of the job lifted off his knees and leaned back against a side wall. “Damn, Sarge, that was a bitch.”
Tech Sergeant Grissom also climbed to his feet, along with his entire eight person team. He and two other men moved to a table that held its own array of sophisticated electronic equipment. He began to type on a keyboard. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” Grissom said. He reached under the white surgical mask and scratched his nose.
They all watched the computer readouts with rapt attention, until one of them pointed at the screen.
“Yeah, looks good, doesn’t it. Check the alignment.”
A moment later he stood back from the table and stretched his back. “Looks like we have it, strong and steady. Let the brass know, Zack.”
Suddenly a soft chirping sound arose from the other side of the room, and all eyes turned toward the source.
The EPA guys seemed agitated, and Derrick and two others rushed up to the tech team holding small readers resembling microphones.
“What’s going on?” the tech sergeant asked.
“High levels of radon have been detected. In fact, off the chart!”
“Seriously? What could cause that?”
“Is it dangerous?” another of the airmen asked.
“Dangerous? Hell yeah!” Derrick exclaimed. He looked to his other two men.
“It’s concentrated on this side of the room,” reported one of them.
“Please, Sergeant, can I get your men to move over by the doorway while we bring in fans and investigate the source?”
“Now? How long will it take?”
“Not more than a minute or two, that’s all.”
“C’mon, Sarge,” said the complainer. “I could use a break anyway.”
“We have to monitor the link.”
“Every second?” Derrick asked.
“Well, no,” relied the tech sergeant. “But we just got it back up.”
“Two minutes and it’ll be clear. Better than killing yourselves just so you can watch a damn computer screen.”
“This shit can kill us?”
“In the right concentration.”
“What about you guys?” the sergeant asked.
“We’re trained for this stuff. Now please, Sergeant, let us do our job.”
“Yeah, sure, just let me know when it’s safe.”
“Roger that.”
Fifteen minutes later, Derrick Howard and his team had left the underground comm room, having certified that the air was now safe to breathe.
In fact, they were already in a green EPA van and heading down the hill from the ruins of the Rapid Defense Center by the time Sergeant Grissom noticed something was wrong. Moments before, they’d had a solid link with the bunkers, and now, in rapid succession, the links were being lost. This was unusual, since the original link had been a blanket broadcast to all the RDC bunkers and not singling out any individual location. Now the progression was obvious and the sheer number of the bunkers they were losing was becoming evident.
By the time Grissom made contact with his superiors at Nellis, the word had already reached Washington D.C. that something wasn’t right. Contact had been established with the bunkers, and now they were losing it.
Even though a no-name general over at the Pentagon was the official head of the newly-designed Rapid Defense Center East, it was Nathan Hall who was running things on the ground. As such, he saw in real time the spread of broken contacts represented graphically on a huge monitor on the wall of his temporary command center at Andrews Air Force Base. At first he cursed the technicians — the original link wasn’t as solid as they’d reported. But then once all the bunkers were dark again, sporadic reports began to come in saying that some of the bunkers — mainly those in the D.C. area — were opening! Tech crews were inside all of them, and they backed away as dozens of combat drones suddenly sprang to life and lifted out of the silos within five seconds of activation, giving the people inside no time to react.
Nathan grew weak-kneed when he realized what was happening.
He picked up a microphone and set it to broadcast Center-wide, which in reality consisted of only two converted aircraft hangars on the base, one housing the command center and the other the control pods for the Goliaths.
“Attention, all pilots and techs, man your stations! The RDC bunkers have been activated and the drones inside are mobile, and they are not — I repeat — not under friendly control.”
He set the microphone down on the table and watched on another monitor as thirty or more military personnel in the neighboring hangar, representing every branch of the service, ran to stations and lit up screens. Then his cellphone rang.
“Hall here.”
“This is Xander, what the hell are you talking about, Not under friendly control?”
“It means the transponder codes in the bunker drones have been hijacked. Need I say by whom?”
“How many bunkers have been compromised?”
“All of them, Xander, every last friggin’ one of them.”
There was silence on the phone for several seconds before Xander spoke again. “There are over seventeen-thousand combat-rated drones in those bunkers, and you’re saying Almasi has control of all of them?”
“‘Fraid so. I’m expediting the activation of the cell towers with the killbox neutralizing signal. It’ll have the added benefit of confusing the RDC auto drones as well since it acts on the flight controller itself. But that still leaves the RPAs. How many are in the inventory? I haven’t had time to research everything the RDC had going.”
“Over three thousand.”
Nathan let out a whistle. “Well, I would hazard a guess that Almasi doesn’t have three thousand pilots sitting around somewhere ready to take control of all those units. That’s one way to look at it.”
“Probably not, but he has enough to cluster attacks just about anywhere he pleases, and then transfer his people to other locations once those raids are done. He won’t be able to recharge any of the units, so these are all use-and-discard.”