Chapter 349

I helped carry all the freight down to the basement floor in the crew quarters. I watched as Andy and his guys began to assemble all the pieces together.

I checked out the other two drones that were already assembled on the floor. Both cameras - one regular and one infrared - had been mounted on the underside supports. Antennas for the wireless image feed were fastened to the top side as well as provisions to mount extra batteries to keep them flying longer.

As I watched the work, I started loading the belt with the rounds. The belt clips had come loose in packages of 500. Each clip had to be placed by a mating clip and the bullet pushed through to fasten them together in a belt of ammo for the gun. It was a good thing the speedy tool came with the kit; it would have torn my hands all to pieces working with all the spring steel clips.

At Andy’s instruction I made several 10 round belts for test firing after everything was assembled

Andy and his helper fashioned a tray out of Lexan - a clear plastic more durable than Plexiglas. The tray had to be wide enough for the loaded belt to be stacked in a back and forth pattern and deep enough to hold several hundred rounds in the belt, yet allow the belt to be easily pulled out from the top by the gun’s auto-loading mechanism without hanging up.

There were other limits that had to be dealt with; it could not be any lower than the stands that supported the drone and the entire package could not be more that the 100 pound limit of the drone.

Paul was filing the sear to modify the unit from semi-auto to full automatic. The trigger of the gun in the semi mode had to be pulled every time a bullet was fired. This was impossible to do while navigating the drone from the joystick control; it was just too much distraction. The trigger on the controller operated the solenoid to fire the gun.

The operator would be flying the drone by looking at the video on the laptop from the go-pro camera mounted on the unit.

Another challenge was to align the camera with where the bullets would be hitting while in flight. Andy said that was easy. Simply use a laser sighting tool and then paint a cross-hair on the camera lens and adjust the intersection of the two at the distance we wanted. A lot easier said than done, I thought.

I showed Andy the photos that Kevin had sent to me today versus the ones taken yesterday. Apparently in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting, the grove help were being sent away for security. Yesterday there were a dozen working the mangrove orchard; today there were only two. It did look like there were 4 security positions set up on each corner of the 5 acre orchard surrounding the villa.

At two everything was ready for a field test. Andy and the seven OPS guys took the four drones and test ammo out in the country for a test. I, on the other hand, called Robert and Burt for an update.

The update was the one I was looking for. The prince had filled a flight plan for his private jet to leave Riyadh and land in Rabat at 10am tomorrow. The plan was still on schedule and in more detail.

The meeting at the villa was to bring together his four terrorist groups under more control along with solidifying targets and funding. The top two leaders of each group were to be there. That meant that there would be at least 20 terrorist connected individuals there.

I also looked at all the state department activity reports for the area. No news was good news again and I wondered how the prince and four terrorist groups could be meeting and not a hint from the state department, after all the information I gave them.