Without remorse - Tom Clancy [29]
'Yes!' the Major shouted, loudly enough that the sergeant-controller to his left looked up in irritation. You were supposed to keep things quiet here. He keyed his mike to speak to red crown. 'Cody-one-niner-three is bingo.'
'Roger, copy bingo on one-niner-three,' the acknowledgment came back. It was a false use of the 'bingo' code word, which ordinarily meant an aircraft with a low fuel state, but it was a term so commonly used that it made a more than adequate disguise. The Navy enlisted man on the other end of the circuit then told an orbiting helicopter crew to wake up.
The drone cleared the coast right on schedule, keeping low for a few more miles before going into its final climb, down to its last hundred pounds of fuel as it reached its pre-programmed point thirty miles offshore and began circling. Now another transponder came on, one tuned to the search radars of US Navy picket ships. One of these, the destroyer Henry B. Wilson, took note of the expected target at the expected time and place. Her missile technicians used the opportunity to run a practice intercept problem, but had to switch off their illumination radars after a few seconds. It made the airedales nervous.
Circling at five thousand feet, Cody-193 finally ran out of fuel and became a glider. When the airspeed fell to the right number, explosive bolts blew a hatch cover off the top, deploying a parachute. The Navy helicopter was already on station, and the white 'chute made for a fine target. The drone's weight was a scant fifteen hundred pounds now, barely that of eight men. Wind and visibility cooperated this day. The 'chute was snagged on their first attempt, and the helicopter turned at once, heading for the carrier USS Constellation, where the drone was carefully lowered into a cradle, ending its sixty-second combat mission. Before the helicopter could find its own spot on the flight deck, a technician was already unfastening the cover plate on the photo compartment and yanking the heavy film cassette from its slot. He took it below at once, and handed it over to another technician in the ship's elaborate photo lab. Processing required a brief six minutes, and the still-damp film was wiped clean and handed over yet again to an intelligence officer. It was better than good. The film was run from one spool to another over a flat glass plate under which was a pair of fluorescent lights.
'Well, Lieutenant?' a captain asked tensely.
'Okay, sir, wait one ...' Turning the spool, he pointed to the third image. "There's our first reference point... there's number two, she was right on course ... okay, here's the IP ... down the valley, over the hill - there, sir! We have two, three frames! Good ones, the sun was just right, clear day - you know why they call these babies Buffalo Hunters? It's -'
'Let me see!' The Captain nearly shoved the junior officer out of the way. There was a man there, an American, with two guards, and a fourth man - but it was the American he wanted to see.
'Here, sir.' The Lieutenant handed over a magnifying glass. 'We might get a good face off of this, and we can play with the negative some more if you give us a little time. Like I said, the cameras can tell the difference between a male and a female -'
'Mmmmm.' The face was black, meaning a white man on the negative. But - 'Damn, I can't tell.'
'Cap'n, that's our job, okay?' He was an intelligence officer. The Captain was not. 'Let us do our job, sir.'
'He's one of ours!'
'Sure as hell, sir, and this guy isn't. Let me take these back to the lab for positive prints and blowups. The air wing will want a look at the port shots, too.'
'They can wait.'
'No, sir, they can't,' the Lieutenant pointed out. But he took a pair of scissors and removed the relevant shots. The remainder of