Sting of the Drone Read Online Free Page B

And again, why can’t the Mexican authorities get them? Or do you have an ultrasecret source you can’t tell us or the Mexicans about there, too?”
    “Good questions,” Burrell commented. “CIA, Dr. Kaplan?”
    Todd Hill replied instead. “I’ve got the brief on this one. Hezbollah has approached both the Martinez and the Montevilla drug gangs. The leaders of both groups, Mister Pike and Mister Pickerel, have agreed to smuggle terrorists into the United States in return for a lot of money from Hezbollah, meaning ultimately Iran. Hezbollah is also on the list of terrorist groups we can peremptorily attack.”
    Liz Watson returned to the fray, on behalf of the State Department. “So, since you can kill Hezbollah guys if they are planning to kill Americans, therefore Hezbollah guys being smuggled into the U.S. are automatically assumed to be planning to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Mexicans who have agreed to help them with the human trafficking are therefore assumed to be affiliated Hezbollah terrorists and subject to death by drone. And the reason you can’t tell the Mexicans is again some sensitive source bullshit?”
    “No, Ms. Watson,” Todd Hill began slowly, “we actually have told the Mexicans. They asked us to use UAVs against these two gentlemen because the Mexican authorities said that they are too well guarded for the Mexicans to arrest or attack, even if they used the Mexican Marines.”
    “Have we used drones in Mexico before?” Ron Darden asked.
    “Homeland does, but they are unarmed,” the Admiral chimed in.
    “Now may not be the time to open up another theater of operations for lethal drone attacks, particularly so close to U.S. territory,” Winston Burrell noted, sitting up straight and folding his fingers together on the table, forming a little tent above his papers. “Seth, Todd, maybe you could come back to us with an alternative to the Hezbollah Mexican human trafficking caper?”
    The two Intelligence Community men nodded.
    “Anything else for the good of the order?” Burrell asked. “Good, then we are adjourned.”
    As he left the Situation Room and walked down the hall to the take-out window of the White House Mess, Burrell wondered how it had happened. He had just signed the death certificates for sixteen more men, plus however many others who would have the misfortune of standing nearby them. On average that number was four. So, he had just ordered sixty-four executions and, he thought, he wasn’t even the Governor of Texas.
    He ordered a large coffee, black, from the young sailor at the take-out window. It would take a while, he knew, maybe a few months, but based on past practice, the targets would all be found at a place and time when they could be killed without unacceptable collateral damage. Some would probably die tomorrow. How had he ended up doing this? When they had started using the drones to kill, right after 9/11, it had seemed like a welcome way of finally stopping terrorist attacks on Americans. Somehow, it had grown into an industry, and he was the CEO of the industry leader.
    Burrell looked up and saw Raymond Bowman exiting the Situation Room with Admiral Johnston. He signaled Ray to join him upstairs.
    *   *   *
    “Well, you too are now indictable by the War Crimes court,” Burrell started when Ray walked into the National Security Advisor’s office carrying his own large coffee. Burrell dropped into a large, wing-backed chair. Ray sat in another one opposite him.
    “That’s what I was just thinking,” Ray replied. “Why me?”
    “Who else? You saw the way they are all playing their games down there. I need somebody I can trust, somebody with no agency agenda,” Burrell said. “You realize, of course, that the Mexican thing was a ruse. They nominate a few every month for me to reject. Makes the other agencies think I am being tough on the CIA.”
    Ray laughed. “I thought that might be happening. And the Austrian thing. Think the