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“It looks like they’re stopping in Ismailly,”
Frank said as he pulled the CIA’s RV over to the side of the road, “Are you getting any video from the predator yet?”
“I’m going to reduce the altitude and take the predator under the cloud cover,” Leslie said, “We’ll be able to get a clearer image in a view seconds.”
Leslie typed in some commands and focused her attention on a video monitor as the four men gathered around the console to watch. The monitor displayed nothing but a white screen. The predator was still locked onto the transponder that Frank planted on the terrorist truck, and Leslie slowly dropped the plane down from 2000 feet until it got below the cloud cover that was drying out from the morning sun. In a few seconds, the white cloudiness was cleared on the monitor and the town of Ismailly was visible. Leslie leveled off the predator and engaged the automatic pilot to put the plane in a tight quarter mile circular pattern 1800 feet above the terrorist’s blue truck.
After the predator settled into the flight pattern, Leslie typed in a command to lock the predator’s camera onto the truck.
“I believe that is what you’re looking for,” Leslie said as she adjusted the camera’s zoom and focus to clearly display the truck on the monitor that made it look like they were only about two stories above it.
“Fantastic,” Hoskins said, “Look, one of the men has left the truck and is going into that building.”
Abdula Nassir got out of the truck and entered a small building that looked like an abandoned service station on the side of the main road on the outskirts of Ismailly. Soon after he went into the building, an armed guard in a camouflage uniform came out and walked around the blue truck like he was inspecting it.
“Could we pick up any audio?” Frank asked.
“No, but that that sure would be nice,” Leslie said.
“What kind of uniform is that guard wearing?” Hoskins asked.
After Leslie adjusted the camera controls to display a close up of the guard, Frank said, “There’s no name tags, or insignias, my guess would be that they’re not Azerbaijani national army. Besides, I doubt that the regular army would be hanging out at that dump of a building talking with terrorists.”
“Are you’re telling me that we may be up against a private militia?” Hoskins asked.
“Even that jeep over there on the side of the building is unmarked,” Frank said, “But, it’s still to early to see who we’re dealing with here.”
The group in the RV continued watching the monitor as Abdula Nassir exited the building with another uniformed guard. Abdula was seen on the video monitor throwing his arms up and gesturing violently.
On the ground, Abdula ranted madly to the guards, “We had an agreement that I would make my delivery to this building and get paid in full upon arrival, and now you’re telling me that I can’t even trust my own people to keep their end of the deal?”
One of the young guards tried to calm Abdula down and followed the instructions that he was given.
“Tariq said that he wants you to go into town and enjoy yourself for a few days, I think you will find the accommodations at the Talystan Motel much to your liking,” the guard said as he held out the thin money envelope that Abdula purposely ignored.
“What the hell is this? He thinks I don’t have anything better to do than to hang around here and wait for him, no, I want to see him now,” Adula yelled at the guard.
“If you insist, I’ll take you up there right now,” the guard said.
Abdula continued to curse in Arabic and the guard became insulted.
“You’re cursing us, when half of your people were captured in Batumi, how do we know that you haven’t been followed here? I have a family, I’m sure as hell not going to prison because of you.”
The guard stood his ground and stared down the arms dealer.
“I told you we weren’t followed,” Abdula yelled. Do you think this is the first time I’ve done this? I was smuggling arms before you were born.”
“Look at it from our position, why the hell would we give you money and have you drive off and then have the military come in here and take the goods and arrest us? We’re not fools,” the guard said.
“No, and you should know that I’m not a patient man,” Abdula said, “Take me to Tariq now.”
The young guard gave Abdula a look that could kill, but managed to control his temper.
“As you wish, but first have your men put your truck in the garage behind the building.”
“The hell I will, my men will stay right here and watch the truck.”
“Suit yourself, come with me.”
The Soldier and Abdula hop into the jeep that is parked on the side of the building and drive off.
In the CIA’s RV, the group was monitoring the proceeding on the video screen.
“The man talking to the soldier is obviously in charge, let’s get the best picture of him that we can and send back to HQ,” Hoskins said as he pointed to Abdula Nassir on the video monitor.
“I’ll have that for you in two minutes,” Leslie said as she began typing commands on the keyboard to transfer a still shot close up of Abdula to a file. She then e-mailed the file via satellite link to in-house agent Donald Nelson at CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia.
“This is like one of those one-hour photo shops,” Brad said.
“It’s easy, when everything is right at your fingertips,” Leslie said, “I just got a receipt, Jack, they should have the pictures.”
“Just in time, the two men just got into a jeep and are driving away,” Hoskins said, “Can we keep the camera on both the rental truck and the jeep?”
“Sure, we have two recon camera’s, we’ll gain some more altitude and see how things look,” Leslie said as she took the predator up to 3000 feet and leveled it into a 1000 foot circular pattern.
She typed in some more commands and said, “Okay, monitor A is the rental truck and it looks like they are staying put for now, and Monitor B is where we will try to watch the jeep with the two men.”
Leslie directed David and Brad’s attention to monitor A and some nearby console controls, “You guys could keep a close eye on the rental truck, this button is for focus and this small joystick is for vertical and horizontal camera movement. Jack and I will monitor the two men in the jeep.”
“Let’s do it,” Hoskins said.
The predator was barely visible from the ground as it flew in a steady banking turn like an eagle hovering over its prey.
“The thing to keep in mind, is that the predator is circling at 45 miles per hour, so it is giving you one real time shot and then updates the picture each time it circles and refocuses on the target that it has stored in its memory. At that speed, it is probably updating every twenty seconds give or take,” Leslie said.
“So based on that, we should lead the camera slightly ahead of the target to compensate for the fact that the target is moving when the camera isn’t focused on it,” Hoskins said.
“You catch on quick, Jack.”
“Does the predator make any noise that could be heard from the ground?” Frank asked.
“They designed it to be quiet, and if we stay above 2500 feet, we should be okay.”
“How big is the engine?” Brad asked.
“It’s a good four cylinder engine, you need some power to keep a half ton of machinery flying.”
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