“You should do it. Looks like you’re a natural. Not that this is all that tough, once you’ve got the right components.”
“Do you fly?”
“Nah. Took some lessons, but it was costing a bundle and my wife hated it. Kept thinking I was going to crack up, come home in a box. So I do this now. Gets me up in the air and I survive all the crashes. Hey, look at that guy. You see him?”
He did. Cole was back over dry land, above a fallow field. Below was a hunter carrying a shotgun, marching across the mud toward a distant blind tucked at the edge of a tree line.
“Think he’ll take a shot at us?” Cole asked.
“Hey, it happens. In Texas, anyway. But I doubt this guy can even hear us. I just installed some noise suppression gear. Plus, you’re up pretty high.”
“How high?”
“Maybe six hundred feet. That camera’s on full zoom, pretty much.”
“Oh, sorry. Isn’t there some kind of altitude limit for this stuff?”
“The FAA says four hundred feet, unless you’ve got a permit. But why bother? And way out here who’s gonna give a shit? Especially if they don’t know.”
Cole switched back to autopilot and took off the goggles, handing them back to Bert, who then took command via the iPad.
“Thanks. I enjoyed that.”
“Looked like it. So, Lenny says you’re thinking of getting into this?”
Who was Lenny? Oh, right. Sharpe.
“Maybe. Looks pretty cool.”
“As long as you don’t mind a lot of crack-ups and false starts.”
Cole glanced over to see what the others were up to, and saw Derek in his ugly leather jacket. The drum case was still locked up tight, but Derek held out a smart phone and seemed to be shooting video of Cole and Bert. Cole quickly turned away. He felt foolish for doing so, but he didn’t turn back around. No sense ending up with his face on somebody’s footage that might go up on Facebook within the hour.
When he glanced back over a few minutes later, Derek had put away his phone and was chatting amiably with Leo, both of them with their hands on their hips, at ease with each other, which made Cole feel better.
After another ten minutes, Bert brought his drone in for a smooth landing near home plate.
Sharpe walked over. “Joe? Time we got moving. We’re on a schedule today, Bert. Just wanted to give him a taste of it.”
They said their good-byes. Everyone invited him back. Under other circumstances he might even have accepted. In some ways it was the same dynamic as in the fraternity of pilots. A similar kinship, albeit without the dangers. And at least they were out in the open air, not in some damn trailer, running other people’s missions while people barked at them on a chat screen. He would have enjoyed sticking around for a beer or a bourbon afterward, although he doubted their drink of choice was Jeremiah Weed.
Sharpe loaded his gear. He had made only the most cursory of flights with his quadcopter, just enough of an exercise, perhaps, to show that they weren’t there only to gawk. Maybe he’d been too intent on watching Cole to indulge in his usual level of play. They drove out of the parking lot. Cole was about to speak when Sharpe held up a hand to silence him and said brusquely, “Open your window.”
“What?”
“Roll it down. Stick your head out and tell me what you see.”
Cole eased off on the gas and lowered the window. Glancing back, he saw one of the fixed-wing X8s buzzing angrily in their wake, maybe thirty feet overhead.
“Jesus. Who’s doing that?”
Sharpe laughed uproariously.
“Fucking Stan. Always follows the first one to leave, then stalks him back to Route 50.”
“Why?”
“To show that he can. Flip him the bird for us, they’ll enjoy it. Go on.”
Cole held out his left hand for a good five seconds while steering with his right. They heard a faint outburst of good-natured cheering. Then he shut the window. Stan’s X8 zoomed out in front of them and veered west, waggling its wings good-bye while Sharpe bent over the dash for a better view.
“Well, if you were trying to freak me out, it worked.”
“Good. Your former employers fully support this kind of thing, you know.”
“The Air Force?”
“DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The brain bin Ike created after everybody freaked out over Sputnik.”
“Shoulda known.”
“Drones are their pet project these days. A couple years ago they posted a public challenge, with a hundred-thousand-dollar reward. Lots of specs and guidelines, but basically they were asking the DIY crowd to build the world’s perfect little spy drone. Crowd sourcing. Smart move. Their way of tapping in to the wisdom of the mob, all those armchair geniuses. A thousand bad ideas for every good one, but still. Nobody met the specs by the deadline, but they picked up some good stuff along the way.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, that’s classified, of course. You wouldn’t understand half of it anyway.”
“You would.”
“Would and do. Give enough free time and resources to enough quick, creative minds and they’ll always solve some problems for you. Most of the really hot shit DIY chapters are out west or overseas — Australia, Indonesia, you name it. But this little bunch of ours has been identified as a group that can hold its own. Once that happens, you’d be surprised how many interested parties will want to tap into the brain pool.”
“Like who?”
“We had a newcomer a while back. Nice guy, kind of like you. Came for a few weekends, asked a zillion questions. Everybody liked him. I ran the tags on his car, made a few checks, but never told anybody what I found out. Turns out he was some kind of engineering supervisor with Aerostar Dynamics. And I know firsthand that other defense contractors have seeded some of the other groups. Quite openly, in some cases. Let’s face it, it can be a helluva lot of fun. And perfectly legal, of course. But you can see why I like to be careful with my name and all that.”
“What’s the story with Derek?”
“Piece of work, isn’t he? Always brings shit — good stuff, too — but hardly ever flies it.”
“He was taking video of me.”
“He seems to do that a lot.”
“Maybe you should run his tags.”
“Maybe I have.”
“And?”
Cole waited. Got nothing.
“Is Derek even his real name?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Maybe you don’t need to know everything I know.”
“So what was this little excursion really about, then? I get the whole ‘genie out of the bottle’ shit, but why did I need to see this?”
“Because another interested party who showed up in mufti a while back was a hired gun from IntelPro. Claimed he was an insurance salesman from Kent County. Ran his tags, too. And this is the kind of thing, really, that goes straight to the heart of what Wade Castle is up to. In my humble opinion”
“Drones and IntelPro?”
“Something like that.”
“But they’re not an aerospace contractor. They’re security. All they build is private armies.”
“True. But commercially speaking, this field is about to explode. Right now the FAA is choosing six nationwide test sites. Places to try out every sort of drone application you could imagine. By the end of 2015 they’ll be coming up with a whole new set of rules for what drones can and can’t be used for. IntelPro, like plenty of other kids on the block, is positioning itself to cash in. Thanks to their many friends in government they’re in great shape to do so, and Wade Castle has been one of their best friends of all.”
“But—”
“Let me finish. All that tech that’s out there on the cutting edge — the secret stuff from my shop, and yours? It’s all been thoroughly field-tested on those foreign battlefields where you used to operate, and in the nation’s best-secured laboratories. And all of that—all of it — has been handed to IntelPro and a handful of other firms like pieces of candy, candy they’ve quietly begun to resell, still in its wrappers, to their new friends in aerospace. So that’s one part. Down at the other end of the food chain, they’re preparing to employ every possible application for domestic surveillance and security. They want to become as big on the home market as they are abroad. Why do you think they’ve tied themselves so closely to all the people flying Predators and Reapers overseas? Because they’d like to use the same shit here.”