A white Toyota 4Runner pickup trimmed with years of rust rolled slowly down the scarred slope and carefully came to a stop. Common to this part of Afghanistan, the truck had tinted glass — probably the only luxury the Taliban allowed in their trucks — and behind the windshield sat two figures. The shadowed faces had long beards and one wore a cloth robe, yet it was clear they were both Americans. The passenger-side individual wore a dusty and wrinkled oxford shirt and he signaled to the driver to cut the engine. Now both men waited in silence broken only by an occasional, muffled transmission emitted from the desert-brown backpack resting between them.
After thirty minutes or so, “Oxford” stepped out and came around to the back of the vehicle. The truck bed had been modified in a haphazard fashion with sheets of plywood laid across the open cargo area to create a platform. Upon the platform, and cabled to the four corners of the bed, was a dark black, carbon-fiber dome which, apart from the color, resembled an igloo. The driver, who minutes earlier had initiated communications on his secure satellite phone, abruptly terminated contact and stuffed the handset into a pouch in his khaki cargo pants beneath his robe. He then jumped out and they both began to loosen the cables holding the dome in place.
The man in the oxford shirt spoke first and firmly said to the other, “Work with me and follow everything I’ve shown you; there is no room for mistakes.”
The man in the robe nodded and released the dome from its shackles by twisting the dust-coated turnbuckles in succession. Finally, with both men’s combined effort, they lifted the dome, careful not to hit it against the side of the device inside.
“Once this mission’s over, no one will doubt the effectiveness of this new technology,” “Oxford” said, leaning underneath the drone. “Help me with the bolts holding down the legs and be careful not to hit the imaging device in the center.”
“Major Craig, I hope you’re right. I’d hate to think we dragged our sorry asses out here to play with RC helicopters on steroids, sir.”
Craig nodded, all business and now too busy to speak as they worked to free the dark, imposing aircraft.
Two days earlier, Craig had arrived in Kandahar after more than thirty hours of travel. Hanging in webbed jump seats, he was shuttled halfway around the globe in the freezing cargo hold of a massive C-5 Galaxy transport. Forty-eight hours prior to that departure, the call had come informing him of his mission. His first directive was to travel to Aberdeen Proving Ground, south of Baltimore-Washington airport, conveniently located between Fort Meade, or “The Fort,” as it was known, and National Security Agency Headquarters — two hotbeds of U.S. national intelligence and security.
After arriving at and driving onto the Army post, Craig located the building he sought —a bland brick warehouse. As he pulled in front of its loading dock, he hoped he had followed the directions correctly, or he’d feel like an idiot when the overhead door opened only to see cartons of barracks toilet paper or bags of laundered uniforms stacked to the ceiling. But Craig’s self-doubts were always fleeting. He prided himself on being flawless in the execution of anything he undertook and continually improved his clandestine survival skill sets, ever striving to better himself and maintain the edge needed to survive. I’ll die when and where I choose, or when the Sweet Lord decides, but then again, only when I give him permission.
He knew they had selected him to fulfill today’s mission because of his measured ruthlessness, as well as his broader scientific understanding of the bleeding-edge technology he was now sworn to protect. And they knew he would die to keep its secret.