Then on the small screen revealing what the nose camera in the missile was viewing, the image faded as it headed into overcast. He was flying blind.

“Jesus Lord…”

Words that Barry Shales, who attended church every Sunday with his wife and young sons, did not use lightly.

“Three Nine Seven, this is Texas Center. Please advise.”

He thought angrily: I’m advising you to go fuck yourself.

The haze broke for a moment and he saw that the missile was heading right for a residential development.

No, no…

A tweak of the trackball changing the course farther west.

The haze closed in again.

A glance at the radar. The terrain was mapped out but it wasn’t a satellite image, merely a traditional map, and gave no clue as to what was on the ground ahead of the Hellfire.

Only seconds remained until the propellant was gone and the deadly tube would come to earth. But where? In a child’s bedroom, in a hospital, in a packed office building?

Then an idea occurred to Shales. Releasing the missile trackball for a moment, he typed fast on the computer keyboard in front of him.

In the information monitor in the upper left-hand corner, Firefox popped up. This was completely against procedure. You couldn’t go online with a commercial browser in a GCS while a drone was operational. But Shales could think of no other option. In an instant he’d called up Google Maps and clicked on satellite view. A photo image of the ground around Reynosa popped up, houses, foliage, roads, stores.

Looking back and forth from the radar panel to the map, lining up roads and other landmarks, he estimated the Hellfire’s location.

Christ! The missile was right over another residential subdivision northwest of Reynosa. But according to Google, to the west was a large empty area of beige-and-yellow desert.

“UAV Three—”

Shales ripped off his headset and flung it away.

Right hand back to the trackball.

Gently, gently—man, it was easy to oversteer.

Looking from radar to Google, he saw the Hellfire’s path veering away from the houses. Soon the direction was due west, toward what the satellite map promised was nothingness. The nose camera in the missile still showed only haze.

Then the altitude and speed began to drop fast. The propellant was gone. There was nothing more Shales could do; he’d lost control of the missile. He sat back, wiped his hands on his slacks. Staring at the monitor of the view from the Hellfire’s nose camera. He could see only overcast.

The altitude indicator showed: 1500 feet.

670.

590…

What would he see as the Hellfire crashed to earth? Empty desert? Or a school bus on a field trip? Farmworkers staring in horror at what was falling toward them?

Then the haze broke and Shales had a clear view of the missile’s destination directly ahead.