20:25 / 8:25 P.M. GST
Give me coordinates—now!” Nir yelled to Filipescu. Through his com, he said, “Nicole, get to Al Rashidi immediately.”
“He’s with me now. What’s going on? He’s not happy about you not using their RF sensor, so he’s a bit—”
“We’ve got a second wave of drones.”
“Where? How close?”
“We’re determining that. Tell Al Rashidi to have one of his corvettes ready with a missile. When I give you the coordinates, he needs to fire. No questions asked. There’s no time. Do it.”
Nir paced. “Dima, what’s he doing?”
“Patience, boss. He’s working on it.”
“There’s no time for patience.”
Al Rashidi’s voice came on the coms. “Fire a missile? Are you crazy? You are not the admiral of the UAE navy! You are simply visitors in our country!”
“Director, I don’t have time for a jurisdictional debate. Armed drones are heading for Yas Marina, and the only chance we have that might stop them is to destroy the controllers. The only way to do that is to blow a boat out of the water.”
“You are insane! Where is this boat? And what do you mean by might stop?”
Nir blew out an exasperated breath. Just do what I ask and quit with the questions. “I don’t know where the boat is yet, and might stop means just that. I don’t know if destroying their control systems will stop them. It did for the light show drones, but for these—”
Dima was waving for his attention. “Hold on.”
Filipescu was saying something to Dima, who was trying to communicate the message to Nir. But Al Rashidi’s furious yelling was drowning everything out. Nir popped the coms unit out of his ear.
“He’s found the location of the controllers,” Dima said. “The coordinates are—”
“Stop. Don’t tell me. Send them to Nicole, and make sure you have the numbers right. Show them to Filipescu before you hit Send.”
Popping his earpiece back in, he heard silence. Al Rashidi must have figured Nir had tuned him out.
“Director, are you there?”
“What?” Al Rashidi’s anger was evident.
“We have the location. Nicole is receiving it now. Please, we have no time. Hundreds if not thousands will die if you don’t act immediately. Blow up this boat.”
Al Rashidi sighed. “One moment.”
The wait was only 30 seconds, but it felt like forever. Nir was standing next to one of the Presidential Guard Suburbans with his forehead on the cool window glass.
Al Rashidi came back on. “One of our patrol boats has a fishing trawler stopped at these coordinates. They are preparing to board.”
Nir slammed his fist into the window. “No! There’s no time. Get your boat out of there and fire the missile! You have to do it now!”
20:28 / 8:28 P.M. GST
The spotlight was blinding as Razzak and his team stood on the deck with the captain and his small crew lined up next to them. The patrol boat was drifting toward the trawler, ready to tie up and commence boarding. Razzak had guns on board, but he’d decided not to use them. What good would it do? Patrol boats and navy corvettes traveled throughout these waters. They’d be caught soon enough.
Suddenly, the light turned off, and the engines of the patrol boat engaged. It made a hard port turn and raced off. His men looked at one another in confusion, but Razzak knew exactly what was happening. He smiled to himself. Finally, my rest has come.
Thirty seconds later, Razzak heard a brief, high-pitched whoosh.
20:29 / 8:29 P.M. GST
“He says the RC signals are gone,” an excited Dima said.
Filipescu was laughing and dancing. He broke into a celebratory song that sounded like it had been sung at joyous times in Romania for generations.
Relief flooded Nir. “I can’t believe he did it,” he said to Dima. “Seriously, I didn’t think there was any way Al Rashidi would fire that missile.” He was laughing now and went to join Filipescu in his dance. But the smuggler had suddenly stopped, a look of incredulousness on his face.
“Nu. Nu! Nu, nu, nu!” The Romanian began shouting something to Dima in his own language.
“Russkiy! Russkiy!” Dima reminded him. The man changed his words to Russian, and Dima’s countenance fell. Turning to Nir, he said, “There’s one signal left. One of the drones is still coming.”
20:30 / 8:30 P.M. GST
“I don’t give this number out to hardly anyone, so use it wisely and don’t share it.”
“Don’t worry, Wasaku.” Nevin brought up the electronic contact card on his phone. “I won’t share it with anybody, and I promise not to go all stalker on you.”
Wasaku laughed. “Good man. Now, if your folks give you permission, I can set you up with some guys I know down in Durham who have a good gym. They’d work you hard, but if you’re committed, you’ll do well.”
“Wow, that’d be awesome.”
“And next time the WFL is down south someplace you guys can visit, hit me up. I’ll see if I can score you some tickets.”
He put out his hand for a fist bump, which Nevin happily tapped. Behind the teen, Rick, who’d been listening in, mouthed Thank you. Wasaku smiled his response.
“What is that?” asked Terrell. For a guy who was so laid back, his voice had a concerned edge to it.
Wasaku turned and followed where he was pointing. About 30 feet away, a drone was descending. It looked bigger than the tiny show ones that came crashing down earlier. He wondered if it was a security drone or a news drone, but he couldn’t see a camera on it. The only thing visible was a block of something secured underneath with tan-colored tape.
That’s weird. He wasn’t normally skittish, but this was creeping him out a bit.
The drone continued its descent.
“Hey, everybody, I don’t know what that is, but I think we might want to get going,” he said. They all turned to go, and Wasaku was sure to put his body between the drone and his new teenage friend.
They’d taken only two steps when he heard an explosion. Everyone and everything close to them lifted off the ground and flew through the air. Thousands of projectiles rocketed into and through all that was in their paths, the staccato, metallic din of hits and ricochets coalescing into one constant sound.
Wasaku felt like a thousand punches had hit him from very tiny yet very powerful fists. He flew forward, landing on top of Nevin. Seconds later, the pain burst throughout his body as each new hole screamed for attention. He cried out, but no sound came. The air in his lungs was all gone.
Panic set in, but it was soon replaced by peace as he gave himself over to what he knew to be inevitable.