[b][center]Chapter 1 Ride of the Valkyries [/b][/center] [b]Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters Langley, VA 1152 Local Time [/b] "Operation: Dagger Steady is go," The young intelligence officer in the trailer parked outside Langley leaned forward in his chair and pushed the joystick in his hands down. On the screen in front of him, the broad and rocky landscape of Yemen appeared through the clouds. The view on the screen was provided by a small camera mounted on the back of an MQ-1 Predator Drone, the joystick in the young man's hands controlled the Predator. Since 2001, the Predator and it's sister drone, the Reaper, were the main weapons the US intelligence and military complex used in the war on terrorism. The Predator could move in and out of countries quickly and quietly stay in the air for fourteen hours at a time before delivering its payload of two Hellfire missiles at the chosen target. It wasn't as risky as sending in special operators in a covert mission, nor was it as messy and as loud as any other ground forces. Afghanistan and Iraq had been invaded with battalions and thousands of men, war there being fought the way of the sledgehammer. The war in Yemen was being waged with Predators and Reapers and precise surgical strikes, the way of the knife. The CIA's knife this day was pointed in the direction of Abu Al-Hammani. Hammani, an upper level member of the Wahhabi terrorist group the Sixth Pillar, was on their list because of the Brits. MI6 wanted him dead due to masterminding an attempted suicide bombing in Kenya three years ago. Hammani had fled, but kept plotting more and more Jihadist plots. Eventually, law of averages of stated that he would get one right and kill countless human lives. Because of that, and because of MI6's dispatching of a CIA double agent last year, the Agency had Hammani in their sights as a favor to their sister intelligence service. The younger officer pressed a button on the iPod beside him and Wagner filled the small trailer, [i]Ride of the Valkyries[/i] blasting from the small speakers mounted inside the mobile home. Felix Leiter was the supervising agent in charge of Dagger Steady, and he watched almost stoically from behind the drone operator. When the song came on, he couldn't help but crack a small smile at the choice of music. "That was done in sarcastically, you know," he said with his long Kentucky drawl stretching the words out. "In [i]Apocalypse Now[/i], they used that song to make you wanna identify the US with the Nazis, not for you to get all pumped up for killin'." "Never seen the movie," the young man said. Leiter rolled his eyes and checked a computer next to the monitor displaying the drone's progress. A satellite in orbit above Yemen had a bead on Hammani's cellphone. The satellite relayed coordinates to the mobile station in Langley and the drone operator followed them towards their end goal. "I've got eyes on a vehicle," the drone operator said excitedly. "No, three vehicles... black Land Rovers." Leiter leaned forward and furrowed his brow. That didn't match up with what Six had on Hammani. Their intel said he would be riding in a beaten white utility van. From the look of the Land Rovers on the screen they were brand new and part of a convoy or entourage. "I'm aborting this," said Leiter. "Pull off and start in a circling pattern, and for God's sake turn off that damn music..." The loud operatic thundering of Wagner disappeared in an instant. The operator pulled back on the joystick before he tried again, this time harder and more urgent. He looked back at Leiter with a panicked look on his face. "It's not responding... I can't... I can't control it." "Pull it off right now," Leiter snapped. "Do it or so help me--" "I can't! It's going on it's own!" Both men looked on in horror as the drone flew in closer and closer towards the speeding convoy of cars. A signal flashed on the screen that the Predator's safety was off and it was ready to fire. On its own, the drone shot its two Hellfire missiles out at the fleeing cars. the first destroyed the lead Range Rover in a ball of flames, the second hit between the second and third cars and blew them off the road and into flaming wrecks. The two stunned on agents watched as the drone dove down into the ground. The feed crackled with static and a message written in bold letters. THE PRICE FOR FASCISM IS ETERNAL ENSLAVEMENT I KNOW ABOUT SMOKESCREEN AND SOON, SO WILL THE WORLD "What does that mean?" the young officer asked Leiter. "I have no idea... except I do know one thing. We're both fucked." ***** [b]London 1831 Local Time[/b] Tara Chace opened the door to her apartment with one hand while her other hand balanced two boxes of Chinese food on her palm. The bag carrying the takeout had ripped in the parking lot, so she had to make due with carrying the hot food in her hands. She closed the door with her hip and nearly lost the top container of pork-fried rice. Even though Tara could field-strip an Glock blindfolded and hanging upside down, sometimes her balance acted out to the point to where it made her question those abilities she had. With the food safely in hand she plopped them on the kitchen counter and removed her coat. It had been so long since she had the takeout at the Blue Butterfly that she was very much looking forward to it. Two months since she came back to England from that mission in Italy, and only God knew how long until Chace had to be whisked out again in the name of queen and country. Going on two years as a 00, and she had to learn to enjoy the simple pleasures when she could. And while these moo goo gai pan wasn't an equal substitute to a stiff drink and an even stiffer man, it was good enough for right now. She finished her food standing at the kitchen counter and headed into the living room to stretch out on the sofa. The cell in her pocket chirped as she sat down on the sofa and turned on the television. An encrypted text message made her stomach do backflips. A message sent through that channel meant it had to be important enough not to wait for the morning. She opened it up while the BBC newscaster droned on in the background and felt her stomach pulse again. RETURN TO STATION, it read. CODE BLACK. A code black was the worst of the worst. "And our breaking story from this hour," the newscaster said loud enough for Chace to look up at the screen. "Reports coming from Yemen are that Yemeni president Abd Abdullah Hadi was killed earlier this evening in an explosion. As we just reported earlier, Yemeni officials are saying that it was an American unmanned drone strike that killed the president." "Bollocks," Chace said softly to herself.