Page 30 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

Agam watched the drone turn into a speck in the distance, then come racing back as he controlled it with his smartphone clipped

into a plastic harness. It zipped overhead and began hovering directly above them, the camera on the drone showing their bodies

on the screen. Kamal could see he was really enjoying the technology.

Kamal said, “Can you reach the Taj from the old fort?”

Agam continued focusing on his phone screen, manipulating the drone and saying, “Watch this. I can plot a grid and get it

to fly there without doing anything.”

He pushed an icon on the phone and the drone zipped off overhead like an angry bumblebee, soon lost from sight. Agam said,

“See the target out there?”

Kamal looked out at the field and saw a section of a cardboard box painted white with a red crosshair on it, standing in the

field like a scarecrow.

Agam said, “This is how we’ll attack the Taj Mahal.”

He manipulated the screen again, setting some other parameters, then used his thumbs on the joysticks of the controller. Kamal

saw the drone fly away, then come back at incredible speed, slamming into the target in a spray of plastic and metal.

Agam shouted, enthralled by the display. He turned to Kamal and said, “This stuff is top-notch.”

Kamal, much calmer, repeated, “Can you hit the Taj Mahal from the fort?”

Adam bent over to the ground and began preparing another of their test drones, saying, “Oh, yes. That’s easy. Like I said,

I can set a grid and just let it fly. I don’t even have to be around for the fireworks. Aim it at a minaret, and then hit

the street while it does the work.”

Kamal nodded, but said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to watch it fly.”

Agam quit fiddling with the next drone and looked up. He said, “You told Manjit no unnecessary deaths. You said that hitting

the building itself would cause the necessary police response.”

“I know what I told Manjit, but he doesn’t understand. We need the deaths to get the police to overreact. Just hitting the

building will generate interest, but nothing like killing some tourists visiting. Tourists from as many countries as we can.

We need a complete lockdown of the Taj. We need everyone focused on that attack while we do our own.”

Agam, always the loyal follower, took that in and said, “Are you sure? You want to step across that line? Become Hamas?”

“We’re going to become Hamas at the Jaipur party. That’s a foregone conclusion. If we aren’t willing to commit... if we

do half steps while the government responds with full force, we’re going to lose.”

“But the wedding party is full of Thakkar’s people. This will be complete innocents just visiting the Taj.”

Kamal nodded and said, “That’s true, but the Taj Mahal represents the Indian state. It’s necessary.”

“Have you told Manjit this?”

“Of course not. He will follow his heart. I just need to make sure he believes his heart is pure. There’s no reason for him

to know.”

Agam said nothing, getting the next drone ready and launching it. He began to control the flight, this time with less enthusiasm. He said, “Are you sure we’re on the right path here? I trust you, but I need to know.”

Kamal said, “Yes. You see what the prime minister is doing. You see how he’s crushing any dissent. It’s not only the Sikhs.

He does it to anyone who’s not a Hindu. That needs to be stopped, and we have the means to do it.”

He put a hand on Agam’s arm and saw regret in his eyes. Kamal said, “I’m sorry for the deaths to come just as you are, but

it’s necessary. By visiting the Taj Mahal, they are supporting our persecution. Remember that.”

Agam nodded, then raced the drone into the target again, shattering it in a small hurricane of plastic and metal. He turned

to Kamal and said, “I’ll do my part, but don’t let it be in vain.”

Kamal smiled and said, “It won’t be, as long as you’ve fixed this watch problem.”

Agam bent down for the next drone, saying, “It was actually easy. The watches are tied into our phones. Right now, he’s seeing

four men here instead of just two.”

“How is that? What did you do?”

“I slaved all of Mr.Chin’s phones to mine through the Garmin app. It was easy once I did a jailbreak on the phone and got

to the root of the app. The watches talk to that app alone, and all I wanted to do was make sure that data was sent to my

phone first, before anyone accessed it. I’m sure Mr.Chin is watching my phone, but what he doesn’t know is that he’s seeing

all of our watches through my phone. Where I go is where you go.”

“What about the health reports? The heartbeats? I mean, the watch is transmitting how many steps I take.”

“I couldn’t do anything about that. All I could do is spoof the location. Your steps and your heartbeat are still transmitted, albeit to my phone, so I suppose he could say that you took more steps than were shown in the history of my geolocation, but he’s not looking at that. As long as your heart is still beating, it’ll show him you’re wearing the watch. It just won’t show him where you are.”

“So he thinks there are four of us in this field right now?”

“Yes. Unless Manjit and Randeep have a heart attack, they’ll show up as living and breathing right here.”

Kamal considered that, then said, “So when you do the attack tomorrow, it’s going to look like all four of us are at the fort?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know. He might become suspicious if we travel in a group for the next day. Sometime, somewhere, we’d separate.”

“I can turn it off when Manjit and Randeep come back. Revert it to individual use.”

“They aren’t coming back. They’re getting the launch point in Jaipur and talking to the security people.”

“What security people? The ones on Thakkar’s detail?”

“Yes. Apparently, our little team has grown. Thakkar has twelve on his security detail. Six are Sikhs, and four have now joined

our mission.”

Agam said, “What about the men controlling us? The Chinese? Do you really think they’ll let this happen?”

“They will, because they do not know what we have planned. They make the mistake of assuming we’re just vassals for them to

manipulate. Just like the Hindu state. We will prove them all wrong.”

“And the Americans? What about them?”

“The Americans? What do you mean?”

“The ones who stopped the assault at the resort. Mr.Chin thinks they did it on purpose. I could tell by the way he reacted.”

Kamal scoffed and said, “They were just lucky. America has no fight here.”