Kill Chain (2 page)

A buzzing sound started
almost immediately.

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s
that?”

“Bees!”

The three men sprinted
from the container as she backed away, she taught to remain calm around the
insects.

But it wasn’t bees.

It didn’t sound right.

Something moved inside
the dark container and her heart leaped. The humming sound was extremely loud now,
as if thousands of massive winged creatures had awakened and were ready to erupt
from their prison.

Something shot out toward
her and she dropped to the ground, covering her head as the swarm emerged in a
single mass, passing within inches of her shrinking form. She opened her eyes
to see what was about to attack when she gasped.

Drones!

She slowly rose as
hundreds if not thousands of serving tray-sized drones rushed past her then
over their humble factory and out of sight, leaving everyone in stunned
silence.

What just happened!

Noksapyeong
Road
Seoul, Republic
of Korea

This
is sooo boring!

Nancy Starling leaned her
head on the bus window, the gentle vibration comforting in this still strange
new role thrust upon her over the past year. Her mother was dead, and her
father still had a hard time letting her out of his sight, despite it a
necessity most of the day. She had school, and he was busy being President of
the United States. But now that she was old enough, and her mother was gone,
she was his “plus one” whenever there was some affair of state that demanded
his attendance.

Like this week.

A G20 conference in
Seoul, South Korea.

She liked seeing the
world, though now that she had a boyfriend—a secret boyfriend—she’d rather be
at home where she could at least see him at school. Instead, she was stuck on
the bus with a couple of dozen people, mostly spouses of other world leaders
and their translators, while one of their South Korean hosts droned on about
the sights they were seeing as their fully automated bus took them on a tour.

Her assistant, for lack
of a better word, had been sent on ahead to finalize lunch arrangements with Nancy’s
father, he sneaking out of the conference to spend some time with her. It meant
she was unaccompanied at the moment, yet hardly alone. Though there were no
American personnel on the bus, there were Korean security officers at the
front, and there were two police vehicles escorting them with Secret Service
agents in the back of both.

Her assistant, Jenn, had
been disappointed to miss out on experiencing the automated vehicle, but those
were the breaks when juggling the schedule of the most powerful man in the
world so he could dine with his only child. Nancy had been disappointed as
well, she actually liking Jenn, though it had given her an opportunity for some
surreptitious texting that would have been otherwise impossible under the
woman’s watchful eye.

A robot bus. That part’s
cool.

Her boyfriend, Jeff, had
definitely been excited about it. He was a bit of an über dork when it came to
technology, he and his friends creating some sort of hacker collective
recently, inspired by Anonymous. They were harmless, she was sure, otherwise
the Secret Service that seemed to vet every part of her life would have had him
transferred to another school. But it did make him a bit of a rebel, someone
with a slightly shady side that she found oddly compelling.

And keeping the
relationship secret from her dad made the whole thing even more exciting.

Though she did hate lying
to him.

It’s not lying if you
don’t say
anything.

And she didn’t tell him
anything about Jeff. He was the one thing in her life that she felt was her
own. At school, the kids now seemed used to who she was, and pretty much
treated her like everyone else, except for the fact she was never invited
anywhere. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been to a birthday party,
the security screening necessary just so much of a hassle for everyone else,
that after the first time, no other family had been willing to go through it.

She closed her eyes,
gripping her phone, waiting for it to vibrate with another message from the
only person she could talk to on the entire planet. She used to tell her dad
everything, though after her mom died, that had all stopped. He had his own
problems. He had the
world’s
problems. He wasn’t over her mother’s
death, and with his job, he had never really been given the time to mourn in
private. Their family’s grief had played out for the world to see, the state
funeral after the events in Mozambique large, emotional and completely
impersonal.

When they had gone home,
to the privacy of the West Wing, they had cried in each other’s arms for what
felt like hours.

Then barely spoke of it
again.

I miss you, Mom!

Her memories of that time
flooded back and she felt her body tense. The plane crash, the gunmen, her
mother’s suffering.

And the cute Asian Delta
Force guy.

Niner!

She felt her stomach flip
for a moment.

Sooo cute!

She smiled.

And funny!

He and the others had
saved their lives that day, but no one could have saved her mother. She
realized that now, though there was still plenty of blame she could toss
around. Her mother died because of what happened in the air, not on the ground.

She opened her eyes and
stared out the window.

Mom would have loved
this.

Her mother had been
fascinated by all things Asian, loving the trips to China and Japan, South
Korea on her “bucket list”, whatever that was. Jeff said it was a list of the
things you wanted to do before you died. It sounded morbid to her, though maybe
when you were old like her parents, those types of things were considered normal.
She wondered what else was on her mother’s bucket list that she had never had
the chance to complete. She wished there actually was a list, a real list,
written down somewhere, that she could try to complete for her. She believed in
Heaven, that her mother was watching over her, that someday she’d see her
again, and if she could see and do the things her mother had wanted to do, then
that would mean her mother was also experiencing those things.

She sighed and stared at
the front of the bus. A tastefully dressed Korean woman was standing there,
describing in English what they were passing, several translators quietly doing
their jobs, most of the dignitaries already speaking English fluently.

The only men on the bus
were two Korean security personnel seated at the front, and the German
Chancellor’s husband, a man her mother probably would have described as
“charming”, though she wasn’t entirely clear on what that word actually meant.
When she thought of someone as “charming”, she thought of someone who was
trying to get in your pants.

Ewww!

She glanced over at him,
listening attentively to the tour, he not requiring a translator, his English
flawless with an interesting accent.

He
is
nice.

He had been particularly
excited about the driverless aspect of their bus, it a prototype showing off
the Korean’s technical prowess. He seemed as excited as Jeff had been when he
found out. Apparently, the vehicle was bristling with sensors and computers
that could react to any type of situation. Her dad’s security people had been
hesitant about letting her on board, it only allowed when they promised to keep
the bus under thirty.

Security wasn’t the
issue, but no-driver-safety was.

Something caught her attention
and she glanced out the window, her eyes widening slightly.

Is that a drone?

She watched as it slowly
passed her seat at window height, it not occurring to her at first how
dangerous that could be.

It could hit another
car!

She frowned, slightly
angered at the irresponsibility of whoever was flying it.

There ought to be a
law!

She smiled.

I sound like Mom!

Another drone passed her
window and she felt her chest tighten.

Okay, something weird
is going on.

She glanced toward the
security guards at the front, debating on whether she should mention something,
her father’s voice echoing in her head.

No matter how trivial,
if you see something, you tell your guards.

“Oh my God, something’s
happening!”

She looked at the
Canadian Prime Minister’s wife who had leaped from her seat, pointing ahead. Nancy
stood to get a better view but was blocked by the Chinese translator. She
leaned out into the aisle and gasped as she saw one of the police cars
accompanying them slam into a fuel truck, a massive fireball erupting, thick
black and orange smoke rushing in all directions before sucking back in on
itself, the raging flames reaching toward the sky as traffic veered ahead of
them and brakes screeched.

And the bus continued
forward, no one at the controls.

“How do you stop this
thing?” shouted someone, who she didn’t know, the sight of the second police
car that had been following them distracting her as it raced by.

And slammed into the
already raging fire.

Oh my God!

Everyone was out of their
seats, panic setting in as the security guards got on their radios. Something
was wrong. Terribly wrong.

And it was only going to
get worse, the bus guiding itself through the chaos, no human to tell it to
stop.

Her phone vibrated in her
hand and she glanced down to see a grinning picture of Jeff. She quickly typed
a reply.

Something’s wrong.
Help us!

COEX
Convention & Exhibition Center
Seoul, Republic
of Korea

This
is sooo boring.

Command Sergeant Major
Burt “Big Dog” Dawson stood against the wall of the large meeting room, the
center occupied by an oval table with nineteen seats hosting the leaders of the
G20, nations representing the most powerful economies in the world—Russia
boycotting due to continued economic sanctions. To his right stood the muscled
Sergeant Leon “Atlas” James, two other members of his elite Bravo Team, part of
America’s secretive Delta Force—officially 1st Special Forces Operational
Detachment-Delta—were outside the room, keeping an eye on things from a
different vantage point.

They were supplemental
security, President Starling personally requesting Dawson, a bond of trust
formed in the jungles of Mozambique after the downing of Air Force One by
terrorists. Dawson’s biggest regret of that mission was the loss of the First
Lady. Many had died that day, it a miracle any of them had survived, today’s
sedate mission something he would never trade for the more exciting horrors of last
year.

The nation had all died a
little, the news of the entire family’s death, followed by the startling revelation
there were survivors of the crash, had kept the world on the edge of their
seats.

Then word of the First
Lady succumbing to her wounds tore away part of the nation’s soul, the country
coming to a standstill during her funeral, as for the first time in modern
history, a President grieved while the nation watched, a brave teenage girl
trying to be strong for her father as the weight of the world’s problems
continued to demand his attentions.

No one should have to
go through such a tragedy publicly.

Time had marched on, the
events pushed to the back of his mind and that of the nation, but whenever he
saw Starling, there was a silent acknowledgment of that day, though
no words ever said.

It’s too painful.

He had wondered why the
President continued to request his unit for these assignments; it had to be a
constant reminder of what had happened. If he wanted Delta, there were hundreds
of other operators that could do the job, but his Commanding Officer, Colonel
Clancy, had pointed out something to him that he hadn’t realized.