Point of Contact

The pilotless plane had no cockpit, of course. Its wingspan was about sixteen feet, and the fuselage about half of that. It had a six-bladed propeller. Singh pointed at the glass-orbed housing on the belly. “Our camera, sensor, and communication payloads are mounted in here. Optical, infrared, night vision, laser rangefinder, GPS — you name it — everything can be interchanged. They’re all modular and designed to fit in the unit.”

“What kind of runway length do you need to launch?”

“None.” Singh nodded toward the corner. Four lengths of aluminum pipe were welded together with smaller, thinner pieces, forming a ten-foot-long piece of scaffolding. “That’s a spring-loaded catapult. It launches the Steady Stare into the air, so no runway is needed.”

“What if you don’t have the catapult?”

“Then I’d go get it. Right now it’s not equipped for a conventional takeoff, but it’s designed to attach landing gear. We didn’t see any advantage to doing that over the catapult.”

Jack tapped on the fuselage with the tip of his finger. It was hollow.

“The fuselage is made of carbon-fiber composites. Super-strong and lightweight.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m trying to find another word besides ‘impressive,’ but I can’t. I’m sold on the concept. It looks as easy to use as you say, and I’ve seen what the cameras and software can do. What are the downsides to this system?”

“High winds will ground the system, and night flying is only possible if the operating and backup batteries are fully precharged. Of course, you can always deploy the auxiliary internal combustion engine if needed.”

“I only see one problem, and I don’t know how you overcome it.”

“What’s that?” Lian asked.

“In the United States, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits warrantless searches, and I know that some legal scholars would consider continuous surveillance like this a violation of civil rights.”

“Our sales team has encountered this issue on several occasions in the States, but American cities keep finding out about us and still contact us,” Singh said. “You’re right, it’s still a contested legal issue, and we suspect that our American operations won’t really pick up for another few years. But until then, Asian police departments have shown a tremendous interest in our product, and my best guess is that Western governments won’t be far behind. After all, they already deploy closed-circuit surveillance cameras everywhere, don’t they? That’s just an inefficient version of what we offer, and it fails to deliver our nearly perfect results.”

Lian added, “Police departments are our first target market, but any government agency that needs to track the movement of people — polluters, poachers, illegal immigrants, pirates — will all demand a system like this.”

Singh nodded in agreement. “We also believe there will be an even bigger market for private companies. For example, trucking firms that want to track their delivery vehicles or auto insurance companies that want to determine the actual cause of car wrecks.”

Terrorist groups and crime syndicates would love to “time travel,” too, Jack thought. So would outfits like The Campus.

“If history teaches us anything, it’s that human morality follows technology, and not the other way around,” Lian said. “It’s only a matter of time before your crime-infested urban areas come around to our way of thinking.”

Jack agreed. He understood all the advantages of this kind of program, and it made sense for governments to deploy it on behalf of their citizens’ safety.

But he couldn’t help wondering, What happens when a government can’t be trusted? Dictators and tyrants would definitely use this kind of technology against their own people. But even in the United States, lone wolves in federal agencies like the IRS, the FBI, and even the CIA used their power to persecute domestic political enemies.

Jack glanced up into the hazy sky. He couldn’t see the Dalfan drone circling overhead, but he knew it was there, and he hated the idea that it was watching him. It was irrational, he knew, but it was already changing the way he was thinking about himself and his personal security — and he wasn’t one of the bad guys.

He ran a hand over the smooth fuselage again. It seemed just like an ordinary airplane, but today’s demonstration proved it was anything but ordinary.

“Have you seen enough, Mr. Ryan?” Lian asked.

“Yes, thank you. Quite enough.”

At least for now, Jack told himself.

This was just the kind of dog-and-pony show Gerry Hendley had warned him about. There was something more they weren’t talking about, but he sure as hell was going to find out what it was.

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