Drone Warrior Read online

  That feeling got me up in the morning now. It felt bigger than myself. In the long run, we even saw the possibility of making some money. Drone feeds streaming to classrooms back home the live migrations of elephant families. Educating others on the opposite side of the world about wildlife conservation and the lasting effects of environmental crimes.

  It was at Lewa that I saw one of the last northern white rhinos in the world. The owner of the conservancy, Batian, was trying to breed them, to save what was left of the species. Batian told me that this one had come to them from a zoo in the Czech Republic a few years ago.

  When I walked up, the rhino didn’t move away from me. I touched the rhino’s back and the skin was thick and rough, like what I imagined a dinosaur’s skin might feel like. I’d never seen or felt anything like it before.

  Batian told me the rhino was one of only two breeding male northern white rhinos left in the world. There were only four females left.

  That was one of the last times anyone would see that rhino. Not too long after I flew out of Kenya, he died. Another female died months later. Now there were only four left in the entire world.

  THE DAY WAS COMING TO A CLOSE. WE SAT ON THE GRASS AND WATCHED THE SUN as it fell across her land, shadows stretching oblong from trees. The sun seemed gigantic, all yellow and red. We’d been talking for hours and I could see how passionate Kuki was about doing something to protect these animals. As far as she was concerned, the dying animals were one of the greatest threats to the world. She had spent a lifetime trying to save them.

  As the sun disappeared finally beyond the horizon, we sat there in silence for a stretch. Sitting there, overlooking the breathtaking landscape, I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect. Everything I had done in my life up to this moment had led me here. This was what I was born to do.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There were many people who played a role in the making of Drone Warrior, and they deserve my utmost gratitude. It’s hard to know where to start. What began as something that I thought could be written in just a few months, turned into a nearly three-year exhausting endeavor. The idea for the book was brought to me while I was working in Somalia by a highly regarded Wall Street Journal investigative reporter I came in contact with. My apprehension to talk about my experiences at the time couldn’t be overstated. I first told him absolutely not. It’s tough for someone like me that worked within the special operations community to speak on the intimate subject, let alone to believe his story is worth telling. We are taught quite the opposite in fact. You simply don’t talk about fight club.

  What finally did it for me was driving past the headquarters of the CIA months later in McLean, VA, only to find hundreds of protesters outside hoisting up fake Predator drones on their shoulders and carrying signs that said things like “when drones fly, children die!” and “drones equal war crimes.” How wrong they are, they couldn’t be more ignorant about the truth. The men and women behind America’s drone program are the utmost professionals, doing this work every day to protect American lives. They don’t ask for credit, but I can assure you that each of them understands the great importance of what they do and the trust the American government and the American people have placed in their hands. Those men and women don’t take any decisions lightly, every decision that is made behind closed doors is carefully considered. There is no secret agenda to assassinate random civilians, political opponents, or to purposely hurt women and children as some try to allege. We go to great lengths often to ensure innocent women and children are not injured in the process, even to the point of allowing the actual targets to get away so as to protect them. So while this book is written by me, it’s actually about their sacrifices and the others behind this work. Thank you to all those still serving in various intelligence and operational capacities required to ensure the drone program’s success.

  To the operators, words can’t describe how honored I am to have supported you downrange. You put your lives on the line every day and go violently into the line of fire while I sat back behind a computer in the safety of the Box, none of what I did was possible without you. There is no other band of soldiers in the world I would want kicking in the door, the American public has no idea. Thank you to all of the military officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen from the various units I had the pleasure of serving with over time. To the unit for shaping me into the man who I am today. To my mentors and other intelligence analysts I worked with, names I can’t release because most are still involved in this work, you know who you are. I am forever in your debt. I know that members of my old team there are still downrange, hunting the enemy like ISIS every day, never letting them sleep. Don’t let up, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his ISIS henchmen are still out there afraid of you, he knows you are inching closer every day. I’m confident you will find him soon, and he will die at the hands of American forces just like all the other leaders who came before him.

  As for the many people and organizations behind the physical making of this book’s success, I couldn’t ask for a better team. Thank you first and foremost to Christopher S. Stewart, my co-writer, for convincing me and others that my experiences were worth telling. Thank you also for not getting me killed that one time chasing your story outside Mogadishu, although it probably would have made for a good time. Thank you to my agent, Eric Lupfer, formerly of WME and fellow MBA classmate, for your guidance through the process and unrelenting support to get this book published. To my agency, William Morris Endeavor (WME), we have had an incredible run. You’ve taken Drone Warrior to another level, and I appreciate how so many people at the agency have gotten behind the project. Big shout out to Ashley Fox, formerly of WME for getting Hollywood excited and securing the movie rights to the book. To Anna DeRoy of WME, for her continued work from the movie side and wisdom navigating the entertainment world.

  Thank you to Paramount Pictures and Michael Bay, Matthew Cohan and their team at Bay Films for optioning the movie rights to the book, can’t wait to see this come to life on the big screen.

  To my editor Julia Cheiffetz and the Dey Street / HarperCollins team for seeing the vision and the potential of what this book can become. Also, thank you for letting me fly drones inside your office in NYC. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was a first for the both of us.

  To my lawyer Alan Enslen with Maynard Cooper & Gale, your guidance on legal and national security matters and perseverance working with the Defense Department’s security review office deserves a ton of credit for making this book see the light of day and for making it legally possible for my story to be told. Your background as a former Special Forces Officer with 10th SF Group goes to show I had the right man behind me trying to tackle this tedious job. Thanks for navigating the DOD’s exhausting security review process and keeping up the constant pressure over the past years so we could finally receive approval from the (last time I counted) thirteen separate government organizations that had to officially sign off (including the Special Operations Commands, my former unit and all the intelligence agencies I worked with that were required to see the manuscript prior to publication).

  While the government review took nearly a year and a half longer than expected, the process is necessary and important to protect national security; that being said, I should also thank the security personnel at the various agencies for their time spent reviewing this book. I appreciate you allowing me to talk about my experiences even at all especially knowing the special programs I took part in.

  Finally, to my family back home in Texas and elsewhere. I’ve spent too many years overseas without contacting you, I hope to change that going forward and be the family member I should have been. Thank you for always being there for me. Especially to my mother, Kathleen Zaccaria, you are kind, beautiful, and raised me to be who I am today. I hope this book makes you proud of me. My friends back in Katy, “the Herd,” thanks for keeping me humble and being the same down to earth group every time I come
back to visit.

  Most important, to my wife Joyce. My mother once told me that when you find a woman better than you, marry her. So I did. You have always been my biggest supporter and sounding board, not sure what I would do without you next to me. Can’t wait to grow old with you.

  It feels a bit odd to write a memoir at my age. I’m thirty-three now and feel like I’m just getting started with my life. I know many more adventures await. This is only the beginning.

  APPENDIX

  THE ARSENAL

  I have seen nearly every drone in the U.S. government’s arsenal. I used a lot of them—and had access to pretty much any one I wanted. These are the models my team controlled the most—that I can talk about.

  MQ-1 PREDATOR

  For most of my time in special operations, this was the team’s go-to drone. I saw one for the first time on my first deployment to Baghdad. It had wide wings (48 feet) and a narrow, startlingly black body.

  The Predator is a single-engine, medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV capable of long-term surveillance. It’s equipped with 2x AGM 114 Hellfire missiles, the warheads varying based on the target. You can remove the Hellfire missiles to get a few more hours of time in the air.

  The bird is a day/night camera capable of allowing it to use its sensors to loiter over our targets even when there is no light around. The MQ-1 is outfitted with an electro-optical (daytime) sensor in the nose fuselage that is mounted in a forward-looking fixed position, which essentially is the view you’d see from the cockpit on an airplane.

  The UAV is capable of flying a max of 25,000 feet. With a flip of a switch, the camera can be toggled between day and nighttime views. Often we’d use the infrared camera during the day because it provided a different perspective on the target and the surrounding area. The infrared camera is also better for following targets when they go dynamic, or move.

  The MQ-1 is slow, which may be surprising to some people. UAVs are not fighter jets; they are there to provide us with a persistent surveillance capability first and foremost. The MQ-1 typically orbits at a speed of 70–80 knots—about 80–90 miles per hour. The MQ-1 has a twenty-hour max endurance. The launch/recovery element location and the drone’s proximity to the targets we followed determined how long we had the UAV over our targets, what is called “on station” time.

  MQ-9 REAPER

  This bird is an advanced version of the Predator. At a cost of close to $15 million, it’s also the most expensive UAV on this list. It looks similar to its older brother—with a few major upgrades. It can operate at a higher altitude, watch a target longer, and its speed is nearly double the Predator’s, at about 300 miles per hour. Its payload is also gigantic and can rain down all kinds of godawful force if needed: four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombs. In this way, the Reaper is probably the deadliest in our arsenal. It was also the most highly sought after when I was deployed. There were too few to go around and typically they were reserved for agency missions in Pakistan. There weren’t many when I was in Delta, but now the Reaper is basically all they fly.

  RQ-11 RAVEN

  When I first joined the Army, there were very few Ravens in the military. Typically they were only handed out to special forces teams in the field, mainly in Afghanistan and Iraq. But by the time I left that had changed. It became the most widely distributed handheld bird in the U.S. military. Most combat units had them. Even the infantry teams used them.

  I almost always had two of them with me wherever our team set up the Box. It is handheld—the size of a toy glider you had when you were a kid. Ravens are very lightweight and fly at low altitudes; they are ideal for the battlefield when you need real-time situational awareness. You throw it up and you can see your enemy hunkered down across a clearing and make better decisions about how to attack.

  Even though our team had the Raven on hand at all times, I didn’t use it a lot over the years. The video from the cameras is shaky, and the winds blow them around. The aircraft was designed to break apart upon recovery and essentially crash land, which meant that it was constantly in the repair shop.

  The Raven wasn’t ideal for most of my situations—long-term surveillance in particular. I never used it to follow around bad guys because it has a 60–90 minute flight duration, a typical operating altitude of 100–500 feet, and a very short range from its launch station—no more than six miles. At that max range we sometimes lost our link to the UAV, losing it forever to the unknown. It just disappeared.

  Plus, you can hear the Raven’s persistent buzzing coming from miles away. I saw Ravens shot at during battle because the enemy knew that it was swarming above them like an army of bees.

  PUMA

  The Puma is one step up from the Raven, but in my opinion a completely different aerial platform altogether. It is one of the better tactical UAVs I used: handheld, one man operated, and waterproof so it can fly in both land and maritime environments.

  The bird has a flight endurance of nearly three hours and its optimal operating altitude is anywhere from 500–1,000 feet. At such altitude the Puma can barely be heard by those on the ground. When we didn’t have a long-endurance asset such as a Predator at our disposal, the Puma was a good alternative for surveillance or to assess battle damage after a suicide bombing. Its main limitation was its eight-mile range, which meant that it couldn’t go too far from the control station.

  On a few occasions, I used it to follow me around a city as a force protection measure—like a guardian angel. It watched me and if something happened there were silent eyes that could alert the others to come in force.

  There were few Pumas in the military during my time. While the Raven cost about as much as an entry-level BMW, the price tag on the Puma was north of $100,000.

  I-GNAT

  The i-Gnat is the same class as the Predator, but has a longer endurance and higher operating altitude. The i-Gnat that I used actually had better optics and was closer to silent than the Predator. We flew it at lower altitudes because it was also smaller than the Predator and had a lower signature to the enemy. The difference is that the i-Gnat isn’t armed, making it simply a solid reconnaissance bird. We only had one of these in our arsenal, but I could call in an extra from the agency when we needed an extra set of eyes. They were best for cities. I used them in Baghdad a lot because they could be flown at a lower altitude than the Predator without the enemy seeing or hearing it.

  THE SHADOW

  The U.S. Army has employed the Shadow for more than a decade and it was one of the original surveillance drones procured to support U.S. forces in multiple combat theaters, from Iraq to Afghanistan. This platform was typically used to support as a kind of cover over more conventional military forces, such as an infantry brigade.

  The Shadow is a capable surveillance aircraft. It has an endurance time of approximately nine hours, a typical cruising speed of 80 miles per hour, and max range of approximately 70 miles from base. The platform requires a significant amount of personnel to operate it and the data systems that go along with it. When it lands, the platform needs a runway and is caught by a wire, similar to how a fighter jet may land on an aircraft carrier. These UAVs were housed out of the larger U.S. bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. As I was on my way out of special ops, there was talk of arming this aircraft to give it strike capability.

  SCAN EAGLE

  The Scan Eagle is a gasoline-engine, medium-altitude UAV with a typical cruising speed of 50–60 knots. It is relatively small in size compared to UAVs with similar endurance (about 20 hours) and altitude (2,000–3,000 feet) capabilities. We kept a few of these parked at our larger bases in Iraq.

  One of the great things about the Scan Eagle is that it doesn’t need a runway. It launches out of a pneumatic catapult called a SuperWedge and is recovered by a skyhook system, which basically reaches up and grabs the drone in midair.

  The big problem with this bird is the unexpected crashes. One time we lost a satellite link to one and it went nosedivi
ng into a police station in Mosul. Luckily the police knew it was ours and gave it back before it could be sold off to the highest bidder.

  Most times it was a backup for us when another Predator was on a higher-priority mission or being serviced. I didn’t like to rely on it fully without the help of another drone because it failed us on a number of occasions when tracking vehicles.

  During one mission, three mornings in a row, the Scan Eagle lost sight of a vehicle in heavy traffic—something we referred to as going “nadir.” That happened when the drone camera was zoomed in on a vehicle and, just at the right angle, the camera would begin to malfunction, spinning around.

  RQ-4 GLOBAL HAWK

  The Hawk is the unmanned version of the U2 plane. It doesn’t kill. It doesn’t have any bombs. It is pure spy craft: capable of providing reconnaissance at an altitude of up to 65,000 feet, endurance of about 35 hours, a range of nearly 1,000 miles, and a cruising speed of over 300 knots.

  It is the second-largest drone in history, only to be outdone by the Heron, the Israeli equivalent. We didn’t use the Hawk like we might use a Predator or Scan Eagle to follow bad guys around all day with full-motion video. We deployed the Hawk to take snapshots of huge swaths of territory we deemed of interest to a mission, similar to a satellite photo but a lot faster. For example, we used the Hawk to take photos of training camps in Africa, just to see if they were still occupied by extremist groups.

  So while a single Predator takes a while to look at specific locations on the ground that are spread across an entire country, the Hawk can simply snap photos of all those locations within minutes. If we wanted to find a needle in a haystack, the Hawk could see the entire haystack.