Free Drone by Mike Maden Page B

growing impatient. He wanted to see the video.
    “I’m afraid it’s not like the movies, sir,” Navarro said. “Most cell phones utilize poor-quality plastic lenses with a fixed focal length and no shutter, and this particular video was shot in extremely low resolution, only 480 dpi, probably because the cell phone was low on memory. The true cost for the whole camera on these phones is less than forty dollars, usually. So the overall image quality we have is very poor. I cleaned it up as best I could, but there just isn’t enough data there for us to enhance the image any further at the moment.”
    “That’s unfortunate,” Greyhill said. “Maybe we can send the video onto the FBI lab and see what they can do with it.” He saw Director Madrigal tense up at his suggestion. “You DEA guys have enough on your plate without going into the video business.”
    “I think we should see the video now,” Jeffers suggested. He dimmed the lights with a remote control. Jackson hit the play button on his video controller.
    Everybody in the room turned their focus to the far wall screen. A title card read REAL TIME , and then the clip began. The clip started with the Hummer already parked. The doors burst open immediately and the two killers leaped out, each cradling a shoulder-harnessed machine gun. The death-metal music blared in the room’s flush-mounted ceiling speakers.
    The assassins advanced in lockstep, shouldered their weapons, took aim, fired. The machine-gun barrels flashed in controlled bursts. The speakers roared overhead so loud it was jarring.
    “Sorry,” Jackson whispered in the dark as he thumbed the volume control down.
    The cell-phone video camera had been in wide-shot mode. It caught the death of the first victims on the porch, the exploding plate-glass window, the house getting shot up. The camera tracked the killers marching onto the porch, then firing through the broken window until they were out of ammo, then high-fiving each other. The video clip cut to black. Total playing time was sixteen seconds and two frames.
    Another title card appeared: HALF SPEED—MOS . Jackson froze the frame.
    “In this clip, I would ask you to please observe the precision of the two shooters. Note the way they move, their target selection, their rate of fire.”
    Jackson hit play again. The second clip started with the Hummer already parked, but this time the doors burst open in slow motion. The sound was cut out in this clip because the slow-motion effect distorted it too badly.
    The two killers exited the Hummer as if they were stepping out of aspace capsule into a weightless void that made the flickering, grainy images even more gruesomely surreal. The slow-motion flashes exploded out of the machine-gun suppressor ports like flaming stars, bursting and collapsing and bursting over and over again. The assassins’ slow, mechanical march toward the porch took forever, as did the emptying of the last rounds into the window. The video clip finally cut to black. Total playing time was thirty-two seconds and four frames.
    “Mr. Jeffers, if you don’t mind,” Jackson asked.
    The lights flicked on. Jeffers set the remote back down.
    Jackson began to speak, but he noticed that the room sat in stunned silence. He realized this was the first time that any of them had seen the tape. He’d already reviewed it over a dozen times before the presentation so it no longer had an impact on him. He glanced around the room. It suddenly hit him.
    He’d just forced the president of the United States to witness the murder of her own son. Twice. And in slow motion.
    Jackson glanced over to his boss, Nancy Madrigal, for reassurance, but her eyes were focused on her hands clasped in her lap.
    Myers stared at the blank screen. Her mouth was a thin scar on her emotionless face. Jackson saw the muscle flexing on her jaw line.
    The other people around the table glanced mindlessly at their iPads, took sips of water, or pretended to take