Suddenly, the chains on the massive, loading dock door began to clang against the walls of the building after someone within pushed a button. Behind the industrial opening stood four soldiers, shielding their eyes as the setting sun shone into the dimly-lit warehouse. Craig couldn’t help thinking, Christ, they’re all blind. If I was an adversary, they would all be dead now.
Entering the building, he went at once to the igloo-like dome which housed the device he and Sally had field-tested months ago in Southern California. The drone was sitting on a large table and he immediately recognized it was much different in size, weight and sleekness compared to their first prototype. I hope to God they hardened this beast for some of the worst conditions on the planet, he thought. The Mojave was a picnic compared to the mountain range along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The next stage of his assignment was to transport the advanced, unmanned aerial system to its departure point, and protect it along the way. Looking at the machine, Craig shouted to one of the privates, “How the hell do you expect me to put this on my BMW?”
With a smile, the soldier pushed a button and the steel rolling door, adjacent to where he now stood, rose up to reveal a brand new Ford Diesel 350. The truck sported a raised windowless bed enclosure, which offered plenty of space to house and hide the equipment for the second leg of his journey to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Once he reached Bragg, he was to link up with a Special Forces team to load all but the truck into the C-5 transport standing by at the former Pope Air Force Base, Bragg’s nearby service airfield. From there they would fly directly to the western edge of Afghanistan.
Even though he offered his ID, before the soldiers would load him up, they ran him through a number of identification protocols including eye scans, fingerprint confirmation, and a new one where they took a spit swab for DNA identification. Hell, he thought, he knew every way to beat these tests. Besides, they might not take themselves so seriously if they knew the very device they’re about to load up will make all these bullshit protocols obsolete.
Nonetheless, when they were satisfied Craig was who he was supposed to be, the soldiers followed Craig’s orders to secure the payload in the back of the truck. Craig realized, while this was not the most strategic package he had ever transported, it was definitely the most expensive, so he continued to bark orders at the warehouse team thinking that he didn’t need it broken before it even got on the truck. Damn, he thought, can’t wait to hit the Beltway with the morons and potholes after I leave here. He had no solution for those world problems.
Craig returned the soldiers’ salute and bid farewell, noting several more reasons why they would be dead now due to their slackness.
Craig then settled into his five-hour drive to Fayetteville and began to visualize every step of his plan for the week to come. He peered and peeked behind the hidden recesses of his mind, searching for flaws, any number of which could compromise his mission. One thing for sure, while he never doubted his own abilities, it never hurt to stack the deck and have Delta Force, the most highly-trained, field-effective U.S. Special Operations team at his side. They would eliminate all obstacles and ensure every opportunity for success by taking control of the surrounding countryside so Craig could identify, obtain and extract the most dangerous terrorist in the world.