Glenn Shepard
The Missile Game
CHAPTER ONE
The decision to operate on Elizabeth Keyes was a mistake.
She refused Propofol as her anesthetic because it killed Michael Jackson, then turned down the use of the second best medication, Versed. At the end, she said she wanted an older style of anesthesia, Valium and Demerol, but in reduced doses. She claimed that she was sensitive to all sedatives.
Sure enough, it took only 2 mg of Valium and 50 mg of Demerol to knock her out. Most people required 10 mg of Valium and 100 mg of Demerol, with a little extra if they begin to wake up during the operation. Not so with Elizabeth Keyes. She slept soundly.
And kept on sleeping…
I stood over the operating table, looking at her, waiting for her to wake up, then asked, “Why’s it taking her so long to recover from the anesthetic?”
Dr. Boyd Carey, my anesthesiologist, looked over his half-frame glasses and said, “If you hadn’t bowed to Keyes’ ridiculous demand for a particular sedative, this would have only taken forty-five minutes.”
Dr. Boyd Carey was a thin vegan who probably would’ve been happier if he ate a burger once in a while. Fine wrinkles in his 45-year-old dark skin made him look 60.
“Come on now, Boyd. Relax.” I arched my back, stiff from bending over so much. After yet another twelve-hour day, I was exhausted. I’d just hit 40 and I was really starting to feel it. “Hey, at least we aren’t working in the tobacco fields.”
“Oh God, you’re not going to start in again on your stories of slaving away in the fields to pay for college—”
“I could if—”
“Please, spare me.”
I removed my surgical gown and gloves, then took off my surgical cap and finger-combed my hair. Dr. Carey looked at the patient for a minute, and then said, “No. She’s still sound asleep. We should have given her Propofol, like we do with all our patients. She’d be awake by now. But no. You always grant all your patients’ every wish and kiss their surgically-raised asses.”
That’s not exactly true. Each day I look out on a waiting room, and when I see broken pieces, I try my best to put them back together. I grew up on a farm, working in the fields. Now I am the founder of a surgery center for craniofacial reconstruction, with an emphasis on facial deformities, such as cleft lips, deformed mandibles and maxillae, and orbits that are too widely separated, or compacted.
In other words, I fix people’s faces.
Dr. Carey growled, “She hasn’t had enough sedation to hurt a fly. You should just go home. I’ll watch her until she wakes up. At least one of us should be able to enjoy this evening.”
“No. I’m not leaving until she’s awake. I’ll be in the waiting room. Call me and I’ll be back in a second if there’s a problem.”
I left the operating room to look for Anna Duke, the friend who was supposed to pick up Elizabeth Keyes after surgery. Keyes was my office manager—another reason why operating on her was a mistake — but I didn’t know Anna Duke, and there was no one in the waiting room. We had no information on her in our records, either, which was strange.
I made a quick phone call to my wife, Alicia, telling her that Keyes hadn’t awakened from surgery yet, and it would be another hour before I could leave my surgery center. “Alright,” she said, “do what you have to. But there’s always something to keep you there late. The boys wanted to see you and — I’ll put the boys to sleep and keep the casserole hot in the oven,” she sighed as she continued, “again.”
Just as I hung the phone, I clearly heard a thump. I was still in the waiting room. I ran down the hall to the OR, opened the door, and saw Dr. Carey lying there. With blood on his neck. His eyes and his mouth were open like he had tried to scream, but he was frozen, paralyzed.
I checked on Keyes — EKG, pulse — saw she was still sleeping, then went to work on Dr. Carey. I got on my knees next to him and checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one. I jerked the stethoscope out of his jacket and listened to his chest. It was very faint, just a feeble bump, bump, bump. I started chest compressions. I gave him six compressions and two breaths. His heart sounds were slow and distant. I grabbed the phone and dialed 911. I said, “A man’s been stabbed. He’s dying. I need help. Please send an ambulance STAT.”
As I waited for them to come I kept working on Carey. Within just a moment, his heart sounds were basically gone. Silence.
I remembered my stash of Valium. I had a huge quantity of Valium, over a hundred vials of liquid, plus a large number of ten-milligram tablets. Valium had been so popular as an anesthetic and the drug salesman had given me such a good price on it at the time, that I had stocked up.
But such a quantity was going to look bad when the medics got there. I had to hide it. I grabbed the stash of Valium. For the first time in my entire surgical career, I was panic-stricken: Valium everywhere and Boyd Carey on the floor, dead, with two needle marks in his jugular.
What just happened? I was only gone for a few moments.
CHAPTER TWO
Ever since he was seven years old, Charlie played video games. He had mastered the games almost immediately, having innately good reflexes and hand-eye coordination. He also lacked moral qualms… about anything. After winning several gaming competitions in his late 20s, he was contacted by the Central Intelligence Agency, and accepted their offer to move from murdering virtual foes to slaughtering real ones.
The CIA granted Charlie access to a new program which involved piloting drones. Charlie learned, very quickly, to operate the robot aircraft as well as the Air Force’s best pilots. His penchant for video games made his skills exceptional, and these gaming talents readily transferred to drone operation. Charlie had even proven himself to be brilliant under pressure, and once he’d tasted actual combat, he’d gained a voracious appetite for it. The thrill of killing a virtual terrorist couldn’t compare to the rush of killing one made of flesh and blood.
“Alpha Charlie” was now a CIA-paid civilian contractor whose mission in Afghanistan was to control pilotless aircraft, and destroy enemy targets. He had spent the last four days glued to the monitors in the control center, even as the other eight members of the Air Force forensics team took brief meal and sleep breaks. Ninety-six hours earlier, just before he was scheduled to return to his civilian job in America, Forensics had identified the Al Qaeda leader Muhammad Bin Garza. He was only 230 miles away, in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan. Charlie canceled his flight home. He wanted blood.
Alpha Charlie was stationed in one of two identical Quonset huts, spaced roughly fifty meters apart, on the air base. The U.S. Air Force forensics team was housed in the other hut. Their function was to get the drones airborne, to locate and identify targets, and to land the vehicles when their missions were completed.
Alpha Charlie spent most of his time sitting alone inside his own hut. He did not sit in an ordinary chair. At the end of each armrest were two joysticks, one for each hand.
“Alpha Charlie, Alpha Charlie, get ready for action. The target’s on the move.”
The words vibrated in Charlie’s earpiece as he bolted upright and flexed his 220 pound, six-foot, two-inch frame.
It had been two years since they’d had a positive ID on Bin Garza. The notorious Al Qaeda leader was responsible for the suicide bombings in Mumbai, Amman, London, and Somalia, and had connections to the World Trade Center attack in New York. Now he was a sitting duck. He had been spotted while entering a complex of tents and adobe houses adjacent to the mountains. He would be leaving any moment now. This was the one and only chance Alpha Charlie would ever have to eliminate Bin Garza. Bin Garza’s death would be the ultimate notch in his gun barrel. His job back home could wait. He had taken out terrorists before, but Bin Garza was the trophy he had been training for his whole life.