“How are your men holding up?” Malenkov asked.
“It’s been two months,” the security chief said. “They keep asking to go into town so they can drink and screw.”
“In a tiny village full of Muslims?”
The Serb might have smiled. “They don’t want to go to Al-Jaghbub. Tobruk is on their minds.”
“Tobruk is a ten-day hike across the desert.”
“It’s only grumbling. Soldiers aren’t soldiers if they’re not bitching.”
“Their contracts will be complete soon. Next week, they can drink and screw until they pass out. Until then, they’ll keep doing what they’re paid to do.” Malenkov let his eyes drift to the distant fence line. “Have there been any security problems since my last visit?”
“Nothing I would call a problem. A couple of kids came on bicycles. They stood outside the southern fence line and gawked. They were harmless.”
Malenkov’s eyes went to lasers. “No one is harmless! Were they confronted?”
“Of course. A couple of my men waved them away.”
“Waved? Next time shoot!”
“Shoot kids? That would create more problems than it solves.”
“I didn’t sayhitthem. Fire into the dirt next time to send a message. Something they will tell their friends.”
“Understood.”
“Let’s hope.” Malenkov turned toward the hangar.
He went through the side-entry door and paused. The air inside was twenty degrees cooler, big air handlers humming away in the background. They’d brought in a half dozen portable air conditioners, although not for the comfort of the workers; certain delicate circuitry had to be protected.
He picked out Gamling at a workbench on the far side of the cavernous hangar. He was hunched over a glowing laptop. Malenkov barely remembered his real name—as so often happened, a nom de guerre adopted during wartime had taken supremacy, all but wiping out his previous existence. Malenkov had been told the nickname was drawn from a character inThe Lord of the Rings, and alternately that it translated to “old man” in Icelandic. Either provenance fit.
Gamling was thirty-one years old, but looked closer to fifty. Perhaps it was the Ukraine War, or simply damnable genetics, but his posture was stooped, and his flyaway hair had gone prematurely gray. At the outset of the war, he’d been a postal worker in Volgograd, a faceless minion in one of Russia’s most enduring bureaucracies. Two years later, he was something else entirely. The transformation had to do with his hobby. Gamling had long been interested in drones, and for years had been president of Volgograd’s club for enthusiasts. Six months into the war, as it became clear that drones were morphing into game-changing weapons, the Russian army began scouring the country for expertise.
Gamling was “recruited” by two armed men who came to his door. They told him his skills were critical to Russia’s special military operation. Gamling was intimidated, but also intrigued. His job at the post office was mind-numbing, and he couldn’t deny a pang of patriotism for Mother Russia. A friend from high school had volunteered early on, only to return two months later in a wooden box under a flag. His brother-in-law had taken a big signing bonus and come home missing an arm. Gamling signed the recruiters’ papers without complaint, and the next day he packed a bag.
They had promised Gamling he would be posted far behind the front lines. It was true for a time, but as the war degraded, his work took him closer to the shooting. From an ever-changing series of barns and basement workshops, he assembled drones and flew them into an apocalyptic sky.
Strike models were his specialty, a blend of his most passionate pursuits—flying UAVs and first-person shooter video games. The fact that his targets were flesh and blood was blurred by the ceaseless volume of work. Drones were shipped to his unit by the hundreds, then the thousands, each model more capable than the previous. Greater range, better electronic countermeasures, more lethal munitions. He learned a great deal from others in his unit, in particular the engineers who struggled to dominate the most important aspect of all—the radio-frequency spectrum. Frequency-hopping algorithms, fiber-optic wires, autonomous endgame capabilities. The skies above Ukraine were a storm of electronic noise, signals and jammers vying for superiority. Countermeasures, and countercountermeasures. The only constant was change, new systems appearing weekly.
Gamling showed a flair for the electronic gamesmanship, and within six months he was a lead technician in Rubicon, Russia’spremier drone unit. He ended up serving three tours in Ukraine, and when Malenkov began searching for a man with such talents, Gamling’s name was invariably the first mentioned. Malenkov did have reservations about hiring a Russian citizen—much as had been the case when he’d headed up the SSD—yet having a handful on the team was acceptable. Allowances had to be made for talent.
Malenkov had found his man.
He tracked him to a shed behind his family farm outside Volgograd: newly divorced, war-weary, and clearing out the closets of his recently deceased father. Malenkov knew going in that Gamling was financially distressed, and so money was part of the pitch. Yet he couched the offer more as a challenge, a new frontier for the application of his admirable talents. And an alternative to returning to a life of civil service surrounded by gray-scale careerists. Or as Malenkov had termed it, “barnacles who clung to their paychecks without caring where the ship was headed.”
It turned out to be the perfect play—the postman had chosen adventure.
“Have you solved our problem?” Malenkov asked as he approached over the brushed concrete floor.
The engineer looked up from his screen. This was the label that stuck in Malenkov’s mind: engineer. The man had never attended any recognized university, but the depth and currency of his frontline expertise were worth more than any advanced degree.
“Which problem are you referring to?” Gamling responded.
“The incompatible circuit boards.”
“That was weeks ago. We acquired a new tranche, built in Taiwan, and routed them through Italy. They are working as advertised.”
