SIA HEADQUARTERS, ABU DHABI, UAE—17:50 / 5:50 P.M. GST
Her soapy hands had just gone under the bathroom faucet when Nicole’s cell phone rang.
Seriously? Quickly, she rinsed, then lifted the phone with her wet hand. It took three stabs with her dripping finger to answer.
“This is Nicole,” then, “Hello? Hello?” The lock screen on her phone showed a missed call. Aggravated, she dropped the phone on the counter. The paper towel dispenser was empty, so she dried her hands on her pants.
When the phone rang again. She slid the green dot to the right and answered the call. “This is Nicole.”
“We’ve figured it out.” Liora sounded excited.
Adrenaline raced through her body despite the tremendously vague statement. She hurried from the bathroom toward her temporary office. “What part?”
“We’ve figured out how to find the drones. Well, actually, Lahav figured it out. He’ll need to explain it to you, so you better sit down and get comfortable.”
“Hey, that’s kind of rude,” she heard Lahav say. Then, “How’s it going, Nicole?”
She could picture them all sitting around the conference table—Liora and Dafna on one side, Yossi and Lahav on the other, and the Wookie standing across the room.
“It’s good. Thanks, Lahav. Now, with the utmost succinctness, please let me know what you discovered.” She dropped into her desk chair and slid a pen and pad close.
“Okay, so you know I’ve been splitting my time between drones and Dubai—which, by the way, we still need to look at. I don’t know how, but I really think Dubai will fit in somehow.”
“Cow, cow,” she said, realizing as soon as the words left her mouth that the English translation of para para just didn’t have the same feel. Judging by the groans coming from the other end of the phone, her misgivings were well-founded. “Sorry, guys. Bad case of trying too hard. Lahav, one thing at a time.”
“Whatever.” His voice resonated with disappointment. “Okay, so did you ever wonder how people control their drones?”
She hadn’t, but she played along. “Sure. Isn’t it with controllers? Sort of like a fancy RC car.”
“Exactly. It’s all radio controlled. Smaller RC cars typically run a frequency of around 27 MHz. Sometimes higher. Now, when you get to RC planes and boats, the frequency range is typically much higher, usually around 400 MHz or 900 MHz, even up to 2.4 GHz.”
One day Lahav would begin a conversation and then get right to the point and Nicole would fall backward off of her chair. Obviously, today was not that day. “Okay, kind of interesting so far. Let’s skip over RC helicopters, rockets, and UFOs and get right to UAVs.”
“Okay, UAVs. For basic drones, the frequency range falls around that same 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz. The 2.4 G is usually for more complicated drones or ones that are videoing or taking pictures. Those sometimes run up to 5.8 GHz. For instance, the Draco drones Royal Falcon uses for their shows have to be super precise, so they run at 5.8 GHz.”
“Where is this leading, Lahav?” Nicole was getting antsy waiting for the punch line.
“If we can track down the controller’s radio signals, we can find the drone and the operator.”
Nicole sat up, her heart racing. “Can we do that? I mean, is there a way to track down the radio signals?”
Lahav was in his element now. She could hear pride in his voice, and it was obvious that he loved having a captive audience. “So there’s something called a Radio Frequency Sensor, or an RF sensor. The controller and the drone send what are known as data packets back and forth. The sequence of these packets is called a protocol. The RF sensor sits and listens for radio frequencies around certain bandwidths. When it detects the signal, it analyzes the communication protocol.”
“The point, Lahav! Please, get to the point!”
“I was trying. In short, by analyzing communication protocols, the RF sensor can determine the brand of drone, the GPS coordinates of both the drone and the controller, the speed of the drone, its altitude… Really, any information you want.”
Nicole was back on her feet. Then a thought hit her. “But aren’t millions of radio signals passing through the air all the time? How can we nail down the one signal we want?”
Dafna jumped in. “Sorry, Lahav. We need to finish this sometime before the polar ice caps melt and we’re all drowned with the polar bears. So, Nicole, we have two huge advantages. First, we know the range of frequencies we’re looking for. Second, we aren’t just trying to nail down one signal. Think about it. This is a drone show with hundreds of drones. We just need to have an RF sensor looking for this massive block of matching radio signals. When we find that, we can find our villains.”
Nicole was elated. “You guys are brilliant! Get Nir on the line and fill him in on—”
Liora interrupted. “Hold on, Nicole. It’s not all duckies and bunnies. We’ve got three big problems.”
Nicole deflated. Those were not the words she wanted to hear. Her backside found the chair again, and she said, “Okay, let’s hear them.”
“First, hacking the communication protocols is illegal in most countries.”
“Um, we’re the Mossad. Second problem?”
“Second problem, the RF sensor is a specialized piece of equipment. You will not be able to pick it up at the corner RF sensor store.”
That was huge. What good is a plan if you don’t have the equipment to implement it? “Okay, so give me your solution to problem two.”
Lahav spoke up. “First, it’s possible that the UAE police or military might have an RF sensor. If not, I know a guy… Actually, I know a guy who knows a guy. He lives in the UAE and deals with, let’s say, the shadier side of import/export, particularly black-market tech. I would be surprised if he didn’t have an RF sensor lying around somewhere since it’s an up-and-coming technology.”
Nicole’s heart started lifting again. “Awesome, Lahav. I keep forgetting you’re a criminal. Just doesn’t match your personality.”
“Aw, thanks, Nicole.”
“Achi, you’re blushing,” Nicole heard Yossi say. “You’re actually blushing.”
“I am not.”
“Okay, let’s not lose track,” Nicole said. “Liora, problem three.”
“The RF sensor will read the radio signals of the controller to the UAV and vice versa. So that means…”
Nicole thought for a moment, then the realization hit her. “It means they’re already flying. You’re saying we can only stop the attack once it’s launched.”
“Exactly.”
Nicole tilted her head back and covered her eyes with her free hand. “So we need to be ready for the drones to launch, which will be around 20:00 if they keep to the same schedule. Once we catch the signal, we track it, swoop in, and take out the bad guys controlling the show.”
Yossi said, “Actually, the show will already be programmed. The controllers are what need to be destroyed. The people are extraneous.”
Dafna jumped in again. “I need to say one more thing. It’s really bugging me, and you probably won’t like hearing it, but these are show drones. Small drones built for aerial precision, not for payload. At most, maybe you could strap a rusty nail to the bottom of each, crash them into the onlookers, and hope everyone dies of tetanus. I think there’s more going on. I have a feeling these little ones are either a decoy or just there to draw people into the open. We need to have the UAE police checking out the typical view sites around Yas Marina for bombs or some sort of ground attack. Meanwhile, we have to be looking for more than just the show signals. I think there might be more drones out there.”
It made perfect sense. Take out the purveyors of the usual show and launch your own. That way you can ensure the timing and eliminate the possibility that the show would be canceled for some particular reason. By the time any regular watcher noticed the difference, it would be too late. Pretty lights in the sky would draw people out in the open, where you could hit them while they were congregated. A nasty, horribly brilliant plan.
“Okay,” Nicole said. “I’ll talk with the Emiratis. Lahav, get hold of your criminal friend. Offer him as much money as he wants; these guys here are sheikh-level rich. Liora, fill Nir in. It’s 18:05 now. Time is running. Let’s go.”