Free Game of Drones by Rick Jones, Rick Chesler Page A

specialized unit.
    And he gave that unit a fitting name: OUTCAST: Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats.
    One year after being railroaded out of the FBI, Tanner Wilson was commanding his own dedicated outfit.
    It was all he could ask for as he stood before the bathroom mirror shaving. With careful strokes he trimmed his face to smoothness. When he was done, he washed away the leftover foam and looked directly into two eyes of differing color reflecting back at him. Tanner was born with a condition called heterochromia, in which one eye was so pale blue it nearly matched the white of its surrounding cornea, while the other was so black that it appeared without a pupil, so dark was the iris. Despite the opposing colors, they were the perfect reflection of Tanner as a man. The pale-blue eye connoted him as a person of deep compassion and kindness, a person of light. The dark eye, however, represented the side of the man who was also capable of great violence when pushed beyond his limits. But Tanner Wilson wasn’t torn between two worlds. He knew exactly who he was. He was a man who stood for everything that was right, and a demon to those who wronged him.
    He heard his phone start trilling out in the living area. When he walked into the room, he called out, “Phone on,” to the voice-commanded receiver.
    On the other end was Director John Casey of the FBI, the only man who supported Tanner during his alleged misconduct. In the end, they remained the best of friends.
    “What do you want, you old goat?”
    Casey chuckled from his end. “You might be glad to hear that I’ve just been told to use whatever ungodly resources I may have at my disposal to achieve our means.”
    “And of course you thought of me?”
    “No joking, Tanner. This is big.”
    “How big?”
    There was a slight pause. “Coming from the highest level,” he told him. That’s how big.
    “From the 'highest level’ meant one thing to Tanner: that the orders were coming directly from the Commander-in-Chief. “From the POTUS?”
    “This is attached to the JBAB . . . And to the downing of Senator Houseman’s plane. They’re connected, Tanner.”
    For a long moment Tanner was at a loss for words, his mind trying to wrap around the connection. “How are they linked?”
    “You hearing the news?”
    “I’m hearing unfounded speculation from the media, nothing that isn't quickly followed by ‘this has yet to be confirmed.’”
    “Some of those speculations are turning to facts."
    “Are you telling me that this was a coordinated terrorist attack?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
    “By who?”
    He told him about Shazad and Naji, their backgrounds, American upbringing and military service within elite programs; how everyone else in the pack was faceless and had no identities—not yet, anyway.
    “We trained these people?”
    “As far as we know, only Shazad and Naji.”
    “It doesn’t matter if it’s two or a hundred and two. The fact is, we’re dealing with people who have insight into our tactics.”
    “I won’t argue with you there, Tanner. But they’re American-born nationals who share the same constitutional rights regarding religious freedoms as everyone else. We cannot hold every one of their faith responsible for the actions of a few. You know that.”
    Tanner frowned because Casey was absolutely right. In fact, the OUTCAST unit was created to protect the freedoms of everyone. So he shelved his positional thinking and became open-minded to what Casey was telling him. For the next several minutes he was briefed on al-Zawahiri and the subsequent attack on the JBAB. He was also informed of the modified MQ-10s and MAUVs taken from the base.
    “These things are demons in the sky,” said Casey. “Their stealth technology is strictly Top Secret and known only by the Joint Chiefs and the engineers who created them--and even most of those guys worked in a compartmentalized fashion so that they