The Drone Incident

By: Martin Kaynan

Narrated by: Ellery Truesdell

The Drone Incident centers on two men - miles apart geographically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally - whose lives collide in a dramatic confrontation.

Fighter pilot Tom (Iceman) Belton is coldly indifferent, even when killing hundreds in the first Gulf War. It isn't until witnessing the birth of his son that he is able to feel, or to show sensitivity and compassion. A decade later in Kansas City, after seeing leukemia take his wife's last breath, he reverts to cold-hearted indifference - at his son's expense.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City, 18-year old aeronautical engineering student Juan Vasquez is guilt-ridden after being involved in an automobile accident that leaves a five-year-old dead. Vasquez grudgingly lets his brother persuade him to convert to Islam. He finds peace - until the love of his life and his brother are slaughtered in a drone attack in Pakistan. Juan Vasquez becomes Abdul Mansur, a vengeance-besotted killer, vowing to use his skin color and Spanish heritage as camouflage.

The lives of the two personality-conflicted men intersect when Captain Belton discovers the autopilot, not the crew, is controlling his NFL charter flight bound for Washington D.C. He learns that Vasquez/Mansur has reprogrammed the plane's autopilot to crash into the National Security Agency and destroy its eavesdropping capability. Fighter jets and the programmed flight path directly into a violent electrical storm add to the tension.

The Drone Incident is a fast-paced tale of courage versus human frailty.

©2009 Martin Kaynan (P)2013 Martin Kaynan