Read Game of Drones for Free Online Page B

were trained American soldiers who had gone AWOL.
    “How could this happen?” he wondered, looking over documents emailed to him on his laptop. The entire first-class section was cordoned off for him and his staff. “How can a group of people--I don’t care how polished they are as soldiers--just go in and take more than a hundred million dollars worth of taxpayer-funded military assets?” He fell back into his seat. “This country’s been in decline for a while now,” he said. “And I’m just the man to see that this never happens again!” He pounded the armrest to underscore his empty point.
    “Senator.”
    Houseman turned to his aide. “What is it, Thurman?”
    Physically, Howard Thurman was the complete antithesis of Senator Houseman. While the senator was an aged and overweight man with shock-white hair, Houseman was razor thin with a hawk-like nose and eyes set too close together beneath wispy black locks, perhaps what some would call weasel-like in appearance. He tapped keys on his laptop while he addressed his boss.
    “Senator, I’m sure you see the value of this development,” he told him.
    “Of course I do.”
    “Today you’re the Senate Majority Leader . . . Tomorrow, the president.” Houseman couldn’t help the preamble of a smile that surfaced on his face. Since Carmichael was on his last term as president, this was certainly feasible. He just needed to incite the Senate and the House.
    “When we get to Washington,” he started, “I want you and the rest of the—”
    Something passed by the aircraft-left window with amazing speed, something that caught both their attention.
    A drone.
    From its outline and form, Houseman knew it to be a Reaper, or perhaps a Predator? He wasn't sure what the hell they were using these days, but what difference did it make? All of them were deadly beyond measure when facing a commercial jet. Oh, my God!
    It maneuvered with poetic ease and fluidity, the craft working as if it had a life of its own, something that was predatory and possessed a dark inclination to hunt and kill.
    Its wings seesawed from left to right, as if waving, before it peeled away and took to the rear of the jet.
    Senator Houseman tried to look back as far as he could from his portal window, but the drone had disappeared from sight.
    His mind reeling, the senator made his way to the cockpit and pounded on the door.
    Suddenly, the plane banked hard to the left, knocking the senator to the floor.
    #
    The airliner pilot first saw the Reaper as a white speck in space that was closing fast from the northeast. Within moments it began to take on definition, including the unique bulbous nosecone and the undercarriage that held two Hellfire missiles. Mounted on its back were two additional pieces of equipment that the pilot did not recognize—yet they appeared similar in design to the main drone, even down to the canisters that comprised their own payloads.
    After the drone circled the plane as if sizing it up, it sidled up to the captain’s side window, about thirty to forty meters away, and kept pace.
    “You seeing this, Joe?” he said to his co-pilot.
    The co-pilot leaned forward to grab a view. “It’s a drone.” And then with a questioning look, he asked, “Are those missiles?”
    “Hellfires.” The pilot had worked up close and personal with military hardware, especially with drones, after a stint flying for the Air Force.
    The Reaper continued to shadow the plane for several seconds before its wings began to seesaw, and then it fell back behind the jetliner.
    The pilot flipped a toggle switch and spoke into his lip mike. “There shouldn’t be exercises going on so close to D.C.,” he said more to himself. Then: “Flight 2-1-9-4 to Dulles.”
    “Base.”
    “Dulles, do you know if the military are conducting aerial exercises at the current coordinates?”
    “That’s negative, 2-1-9-4.”
    “Dulles, there’s a Reaper drone trailing and keeping pace. Any