An Armageddon Duology by Erec Stebbins Page A

footage from numerous cameras. There seemed little relationship between the locations, angles, or time the video was captured. Lightfoote stared at one intensely and then hit a key, freezing the playback.
    “There. See, that’s Anna Moss, right there, backpack, ponytail. She usually takes this route on Wednesdays. This is footage from two weeks ago. Look there,” she indicated on the screen.
    Savas squinted. A dark blur was above and behind the student, but he could not make out what it was. “What is it?”
    She stared at him with her eyes angled upward, nearly rolling them. “Watch.” Frame by frame, she advanced the footage. The Moss daughter moved jerkily as if caught by a strobe light, pedestrians and cars around her as well.
    And so did the blur. Savas felt his pulse quicken. “It’s tracking her,” he whispered. “It’s a drone.”
    Lightfoote smiled. “He can be taught! Watch closely. It shadows her up the street and then, there , lifts off into the air and is gone. We’ve got hundreds of hours of footage of the sisters. That let us catch the drones in ten or fifteen events. No doubts, John. We’ve tried to use image enhancement but didn’t get much. We’re also taking known drone models and creating cross-sections at different angles and using image recognition software to score similarity. But whatever the models, these women are being stalked. By drones.”
    “That’s it, then,” he said. “Imagine the kinds of photos you could get with these things. The kind of photos that when sent to a parent with the right note attached would petrify them.”
    Lightfoote nodded. “And you don’t even have to put organic assets in play or touch the ground around the targets.”
    “Wouldn’t someone notice these things?”
    “Probably, but what would they think? There are kids’ toys as big as some of these, and in several states law enforcement groups are beginning to use drones. And whoever is behind this isn’t stupid. They don’t hang around long. So, somebody sees one? Then what? Before they can do much it’s gone. Not much to report without sounding like a UFO nut.”
    “No wonder she jumped when I asked about drones. She’s a smart woman. She would have connected the bombing and these drones shadowing her daughters. And it’s almost a certainty that Craig from Goldman was calling her about her vote flip-flops. If it hadn’t been for the other CEO murders and kidnappings, I might have thought he was killed for that.”
    He stood up and placed his hands on his hips. “That’s great work, Angel. You’ve linked the killing to the threats on Congress. With the meltdown there yesterday, it looks like she was the canary in the coal mine. We can use this to pressure the rest, make them open up about the blackmail.”
    “You’d think that the victims would have noticed their peers’ behavior. Teamed up. Gotten some crowd bravery and brought the blackmail to the attention of someone by now.”
    Savas nodded. “Maybe. But it just happened. They probably thought they were the only ones, working in a panic, tunnel visioned and focused on whatever personal nightmare was threatening to consume their life.”
    Lightfoote stood up as well, continuing to stare at the blurry drone images on her monitors. “Drones of all sizes exist. Some able to handle large payloads. Some able to be mounted with weapons. And they’re invisible to radar. They could fly right up to the president with a bar of Semtex strapped to them. Or pop over to the Indian Point nuclear plant. They can go anywhere, John. They can photograph people’s bedroom windows, follow their kids, spy on the routes of world leaders. I’d be worried if I were you.”
    A chill ran through him. “I am, Angel. I think we need to find out who is making drones in this country, what they’re making, and who the hell they are selling them to. Look for patterns in purchase and shipment. Anything .”
    “Already beginning that search. What I’m