Sting of the Drone Read Online Free Page A

reporting?”
    Again, the room fell silent.
    “I’ve said all I can say. We have good reason to believe the source,” the CIA man finally replied, looking down at the tabletop.
    Normally backbenchers were quiet, but the man sitting behind Winston Burrell spoke up. Raymond Bowman was the Director of the Policy Evaluation Group, a small, unconventional unit that theoretically reported to the Director of National Intelligence, but really worked directly for Burrell. PEG was his “second opinion” team, his independent, low-profile unit that trolled through the other agencies’ intelligence, but also mastered open sources. They talked to subject matter experts no one else had found, and had a track record for prediction that consistently beat the rest of the gigantic Intelligence Community. Although they all knew him, it was Bowman’s first time attending the Kill Committee, as some of the participants had taken to calling the meeting.
    “Putting aside the sourcing for the minute,” Ray began, “how exactly are we planning to fly a drone into Austrian airspace and then cause an explosion somewhere in their country without them figuring out that we violated their sovereignty?”
    Burrell intervened before Bowman’s question could be answered. “You all know Ray. I have asked him to serve as my, sort of, informal deputy on all things drones. So, in the future, when you hear from him on these issues, he is me. Good question, Ray. Goes to the operational risk assessment. Seth?”
    The two Intelligence Community men looked at each other, both clearly upset that they would now have another intelligence professional second-guessing them. Bowman’s PEG already did that to their analysis on a regular basis. Now that group of odd balls was going to start questioning their operational judgment? It seemed that neither Intelligence representative wanted to be the one to get into the operational risk details. Todd Hill from the National Counter Terrorism Center, however, grudgingly explained, “We will be using new, covert drones. They will be launched from a rural area inside Austria at night. The attack ordnance will self-incinerate, leaving no forensic signature. We will provide the Austrians with information that leads them to conclude that a rival drug gang did the attack using a hidden parcel type bomb.”
    “Oh, shit. This just gets better and better,” Liz Watson said. “I can tell you, Winston, that the Secretary of State will not support this. You are going to secretly smuggle drones into Austria. You are going to convert some Austrian farm into a secret U.S. drone base. You are going to lie to the Austrians about what happened. And you are going to blame some other group for the attack, probably leading to them being killed in retaliation for something they did not do. Beautiful, just beautiful.”
    “I’m afraid the Attorney General will join in that dissent,” Ron Darden added.
    The Admiral and the Under Secretary of Defense sat silently.
    “Well, I will have to discuss this with my boss,” Burrell said. There was no indication what he would recommend to that boss. “There are eleven more IC noms, Mackerel, Salmon, a whole sushi bar here. Has everyone had time to go over the rest? Any comments or questions on those?”
    “I do,” Ron Darden from Justice answered.
    Burrell slumped back in his chair. He had clearly been hoping that this session was nearly over. He could not help but think of himself and the others as Roman senators in purple-trimmed togas, sitting in the Coliseum and holding out their arms with their thumbs up or down, signaling which of the Christians and slaves would be killed. Only none of these victims were Christians.
    “Pike and Pickerel,” Darden began, “they are both Mexican drug kingpins. How is it that they are being put on the Kill List? I thought that the Finding only authorized us to go after al Qaeda and its affiliates. Since when is the Rico Martinez cartel an AQ affiliate?