Page 71 of Into the Gray Zone

“Nope.”

I looked back at the helicopter and saw a group loading.Maybe he’s going to miss.

The rotors spun back up and the helicopter lifted off the ground, retracing its flight path over the fort. It came across the roof of the palace across the courtyard, zooming just above it, and I saw a man appear out of one of the decorative towers, watching it go by.

It flew over our heads, across the river, and was a speck in the distance in seconds.

Brett said, “Looks like mission accomplished without any drama. Wherever he is, he missed. Maybe the drone malfunctioned.”

I returned to the man on the roof and saw him go back into the tower, disappearing from view. He came back out, but this time he had something in his hands.

A drone.

What the hell?

At first I thought Brett might be right: he was the terrorist and his drone had failed, and now he was just trying to escape the scene. Then he went to the edge and placed the drone on the roof before fiddling with something in his hands.

Jesus Christ. He’s going to launch, after Thakkar’s gone.

I said, “Brett, the roof. Look at the roof.”

He did and said, “Holy shit, let’s go!”

We raced back toward the stairs at the tourist tower, then took them two at a time to the base of the wall. We reached the bottom and sprinted across the courtyard, ignoring the attention we were drawing. We leapt from the grass to the low parapet, me shouting, “Find a way up. I’ll take the right side.”

The palace was a rectangle with a cavernous anteroom, then a single hallway stretching the length of it. Brett took the hallway to the left and I went right. I jogged down the corridor, slowing at each opening, finding room after stone room with various artifacts scattered within and tourists milling about, but no stairs. I heard Brett shout and raced back to the center, then ran down his hallway. He pointed up and jumped over a rope, disappearing into an opening.

I reached the stairwell just as he cleared the top, a few seconds behind him. I leapt over the rope, scrambled up the steps, and broke out on the roof, seeing Brett with his pistol out, shouting at the man with the controller.

I ran around to the far side of him, seeing the drone crossing the gap between us and the Taj Mahal, the grounds now teeming with people. It looked like a pregnant bumblebee, and I knew the bottom of the drone was an explosive charge.

The man was tall and gangly, and was focused on Brett, a look of shock on his face. He didn’t even realize I was there until I shouted, “Bring it back, or you’re dead!”

He whipped his head to me and I thought he was going to faint. Instead, he ignored me, staring down at the camera feed and manipulating the controls.

More calmly, I said, “Bring it back, now.”

He shook his head, said something in Hindi, and I saw his hands shaking. I went back to look for the drone, but could no longer findit. I figured I had about ten seconds. I took two steps forward, taking the slack up on my trigger. He caught the movement, saw the death in my eyes, and fell to his knees, letting out an anguished shriek. He said, “No, no. I’ll bring it back.”

I eased off the trigger and Brett said, “It’s coming back. I can see it now.”

I said, “Good man. Good. Just land it here nice and soft.”

He nodded again, the tears running from his eyes. He returned his gaze to the controller and I saw his face grow rigid, a snarl coming out. Brett said, “Pike, that thing is hauling ass right at us.”

I said, “Slow it down! Now!”

He looked up at me and I saw what he intended. I pulled the trigger twice, hitting him in the chest. He fell, the controller underneath him, but the drone kept flying on its last trajectory, heading straight at us. I shouted, “Go!” and took off running toward the stairwell, praying the device had no shrapnel built into it.

Brett was in front of me and made it into the stairwell just as the drone slammed into the stone roof of the minaret. My peripheral vision saw the light from the explosion, like a strobe had gone off, then I felt the blast pressure, the wave flinging me into the opening behind him. I hit the stone steps and tumbled twice before being grabbed by Brett, still upright, protected from the blast by the stairwell.

The echo of the explosion rolled across the valley and I stood up a little unsteadily, checking my limbs, my ears ringing. Brett said, “You okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“We need the phone in that controller.”

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