by Mike Maden
“Drunkard! Get up, or I’ll have you whipped.”
The man moaned, barely stirring.
The policeman kicked him harder. The bum groaned, sat up, rubbed his face. He seemed too well dressed to be a drunk.
“Where am I?” His voice sounded strange, like he had a cold.
“You’re going to jail if you don’t stand up and start walking, now.” The policeman grabbed him by the nape of the neck and yanked him to his feet.
“Let go of me, fool. Do you know who I am?” The man blinked hard against the harsh morning light. His head ached, and his sinuses were packed. Was he sick?
“You are Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi back from the dead for all I care.” The policeman grabbed the man by his rock-hard bicep. The policeman frowned. What kind of derelict had an arm like that?
Ali broke the policeman’s grip and shattered his jaw in a lightning-fast strike. The cop crumpled to the alley pavement, knocked out cold.
Ali checked his watch. He needed to reach President Sadr with Myers’s amazing offer as quickly as possible. He just hoped he could find some aspirin before then. That Sunni pig Khan said the headache would only be mild, but the effects of the anesthetic were excruciating. If I ever find him, I’ll cut off his hands, Ali promised himself.
—
Two hours later, Ali sat in a chair in the president’s office, the headache roaring in his head. He rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers to try to alleviate the pressure.
A male aide rushed in with a glass of water and a couple of Tylenols and set them on the president’s desk.
“That will be all,” the president told his aide. The man departed quickly and silently.
Sadr crossed from behind his desk, picked up the glass of water and the two tablets, and handed them to his most trusted Quds officer. He leaned in close.
“Here, my friend. Take these. They will help.”
—
Sitting at his tiny metal desk just outside of Sadr’s door, the aide heard a sharp crack, like a firecracker inside of a tin can. He flinched, then leaped to his feet and dashed into the office. A dozen armed guards thundered in close behind him.
Ali’s headless corpse still sat in its chair, slumped slightly to one side.
Sadr lay on his back on top of his desk, his arms extended like a crucifix. A bone shard from Ali’s skull had driven itself through Sadr’s left eye socket into his brain, killing him instantly.
Tamar had been able to time the detonation visually through one of Dr. Rao’s micro cameras attached to Ali’s numbed scalp. Unfortunately, the camera was destroyed in the blast.
Pearce knew that if Sadr was dead, the secretive mullahs wouldn’t confirm it for weeks, but he sensed that the gamble would pay off. Dr. Khan and his surgical team had implanted four ounces of CL-20 in Ali’s sinus cavity while he was knocked out on the jet ride over, enough high explosive to blow up a car. The average human skull was an excellent source of organic shrapnel containing twenty-five separate bones. Pearce savored the irony. He had turned Iran’s most dangerous terrorist into a living IED. It wasn’t as satisfying as killing the bastard Ali with his own hands, but letting Tamar take him out along with the maniac Sadr was at least some small measure of retribution for his murdered friend.
“Thank you, Troy,” Tamar said from her Tel Aviv apartment. Pearce had arranged for her to remotely detonate the charge he’d so carefully arranged.
“It doesn’t bring Udi back,” he said.
“I know. But it was a gift. Udi would be glad that I was the one to push the button.”
Washington, D.C.
The rotors on Marine One cycled up slowly as the engine spun to life. Myers climbed the steps for the last time. As always, she wore smart but sensible shoes. She stood at the top of the steps and waved good-bye to Jeffers and the other loyal members of her cabinet who had gathered to watch her go.
Only Jeffers, Pearce, and Myers knew the real reason she had resigned. Her enemies on the Hill assumed it was because she was afraid that she would have lost the impeachment battle. They were wrong. Politics was the last thing on her mind now. Her soul ached. Everyone she had ever loved had been taken from her. What was there to be afraid of anymore?
Myers’s prayer now was that no one on Titov’s side of the table would leak the details of their deal. Otherwise, everything was back in play and the country she loved so deeply would fall into harm’s way. The Russians had withdrawn from Azerbaijan on schedule, and Myers had resigned as promised—Titov’s proof of her sincere desire to avoid a shooting war—but not before securing blanket amnesty for Pearce and his team, along with Mike Early and all the others who had participated in her scheme. It had been a classic queen sacrifice, a device that more than one chess master had used to win a desperate game.
The press cameras whirred and flashed as the chopper gently lifted off. She hoped that President Greyhill was up to the job.
She, for one, was glad to give it up. It was time to go home to Colorado and grieve for her son properly.
FEBRUARY
EPILOGUE
Moscow, Russian Federation
It was a particularly miserable February in Moscow. Heavy wet flakes of snow swirled in a freezing arctic wind. Thick ice blanketed everything. In this punishing environment, exposed human flesh blistered instantly; moments later, it began to die.
It was the kind of weather that had beaten the invincible German Wehrmacht, Britnev reminded himself as he stared out of the sliding glass door of his penthouse suite. Ironically, his towering high-rise was kept deliciously warm by an HVAC unit manufactured in Frankfurt.
Now retired from the diplomatic service, Britnev was the newest board member of the third-largest oil and gas conglomerate in his country, a newly formed joint Russian-European venture. He was thoroughly enjoying the perks of his largely ceremonial position this evening and reveling in his good fortune after the debacle of the Myers affair. In the old days, he would have been marched down to one of the basement cells in the Kremlin, tortured, and then eventually shot in the base of the neck with a small-caliber pistol.
But the new Russia was full of surprises. Connections, bribes, and useful information greatly enhanced life expectancy these days. He was still of some use to Titov, as it turned out. His connection to Vice President Diele had proven to be the ultimate life-saving grace.
Britnev admired the sparkling skyline as he took another long drag on his beloved Gauloises. He relished the burn of the harsh tobacco. Britnev first learned to love the thick filterless cigarettes as a young diplomat in Paris.
Vivaldi played on the surround-sound stereo. Britnev checked his Movado watch. It wouldn’t be long before the girls he’d ordered earlier from his favorite escort service would be arriving, a pair of Eurasian sisters he’d had his eye on for a while.
His cell phone rang. The number was unlisted. It was probably the girls trying to get past the airtight building security. He crushed the cigarette butt in a crowded ashtray and picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Konstantin Britnev. Do you know who I am?”
The Russian paused. He could scarce believe it.
“Pearce. How did you get my number?”
“Turn on your television set.”
“What?”
“I’m doing you a favor. Trust me.”
Britnev crossed over to his glass-top desk and picked up a remote control. A big eighty-inch Samsung LCD popped on. Pearce’s face filled the screen.
“I should ask ‘how’ you are able to do this, but I wouldn’t understand the technical aspects anyway. And ‘why’ probably won’t bring me any satisfaction, either,” Britnev said.
“You already know ‘why.’ The only question you should be asking is ‘when’?” Pearce’s voice boomed through the television speakers.
“Soon, I imagine.�
�� Britnev felt the sweat running down his back. How did this maniac find him?
“There are two ways to play this. The first way is for you to walk back over to that sliding glass door, step out onto the balcony, and throw yourself off the building. If the asphalt doesn’t kill you, the traffic will. That would be the easy way.”
“What’s the other option?”
“I kill you with my bare hands.”
“There’s a third option. I call security and leave.” Britnev punched in the three-digit emergency number on his phone. It rang twice. Someone picked up.
“Hello, scumbag,” Pearce answered on the other end.
Britnev glanced up at the television. Pearce wagged his cell phone at the screen. “Your security team isn’t available tonight. Neither are the hookers. It’s just you and me, babe.”
Britnev killed the call and marched toward the front door.
“You’re making a big mistake, Britnev. I’d take the balcony option if I were you.”
Britnev turned around and faced the television.
“What are you being paid to do this? I’ll triple it.”
“This isn’t about business. It’s personal. A favor for a friend of mine.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Neither did Ryan Martinez or those kids your men slaughtered.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger. There’s no blood on my hands.”
“Take the jump, Britnev. You’ll be glad you did.”
Britnev turned on his heel again and raced for the door. His leather shoes clopped on the polished marble floor. He reached the door, unbolted the locks, and flung it open.
Pearce stood there, smiling.
Pearce jabbed a laser-pulsed drug injector against Britnev’s neck before he could scream, paralyzing him. He pushed the Russian back inside the apartment, kicked the door shut, and guided the whimpering, gurgling man onto a modular white leather sofa.
Pearce snicked open a spring-loaded blade. The razor-sharp steel gleamed in the light.
Terror flooded the Russian’s face, his eyes bulging wide like dinner plates.
Pearce had been right, Britnev realized.
Perhaps even kind.
The balcony would have been a much better option.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A tumultuous sea stands between a first draft and a published novel, but my journey was eased by the sure hands and stout hearts at G. P. Putnam’s Sons. My amazing editor, Nita Taublib, steered a wise but gentle rudder; her dexterous assistant editor, Meaghan Wagner, showed me the ropes, literally; and eagle-eyed copy editor David Hough spied out the hazards of my own folly. Thank you all. I can’t wait for our next adventure together.
David Hale Smith at InkWell Management is both my agent and my secret weapon, and his team over there has kept a careful watch. Thank you.
I couldn’t have made it this far in life without comrades-in-arms like Martin Hironaga, Mark Okada, Steve Miller, and Scott Werntz, along with too many others to name. My oldest friends, Vaughn Heppner and B. V. Larson, first suggested I take up the challenge of writing a book not too long ago, something they each do more often than anybody else I know, and they do it well.
This past year Anthony V., my reading/math study buddy at Wilson Elementary School, reminded me what hard work really looks like and why books matter. And a shout-out to Ivan Sanchez and the other ’tenders at the tequila bar at Mi Dia in Grapevine, Texas. Research never tasted so good.
I am constantly inspired by my family in ways they will never fully realize, but my wife, Angela, is the person I most want to be like in the world. She is a fixed and constant grace to those around her, me most of all.
ADDENDA
Nikola Tesla was both a scientific genius and a humanistic visionary, perhaps one of the greatest minds in human history. His technical achievements were both prodigious and unprecedented and yet his accomplishments remain largely unknown to the general public. I’ll refer you to the work of Tesla scholars and advocates for further explication of this tragic conundrum.
In 1898 Nikola Tesla won the world’s first patent for a radio-controlled device, which he termed a “teleautomaton.” In my book, that makes him the father of all remotely piloted and autonomous vehicles, which would surely include drones but also missile and robotic systems. Even the Mars rover “Curiosity” bears the imago Tesla.
Now nineteenth-century observations about the teleautomaton’s possible twenty-first-century applications are, typically, both anachronistic and prescient. Here is an excerpt from his patent:
Be it known that I, Nikola Tesla a citizen of the United States, residing at New York, in the county and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful improvements in methods of and apparatus for controlling from a distance the operation of the propelling-engines, the steering apparatus, and other mechanism carried by moving bodies or floating vessels, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the drawings accompanying and forming part of the same . . . The invention which I have described will prove useful in many ways. Vessels or vehicles of any suitable kind may be used, as life, dispatch, or pilot boats or the like, or for carrying letters, packages, provisions, instruments, objects, or materials of any description, for establishing communication with inaccessible regions and exploring the conditions existing in the same, for killing or capturing whales or other animals of the sea, and for many other scientific, engineering, or commercial purposes; but the greatest value of my invention will result from its effect upon warfare and armaments, for by reason of its certain and unlimited destructiveness it will tend to bring about and maintain permanent peace among nations.
From: “Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 613,809, dated November 8, 1898.” The full original text and diagrams can be found at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website: http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00613809&SectionNum=1&IDKey=CC2FD2DDACBB&HomeUrl=http://pimg-piw.uspto.gov/ If you use a Mac, however, you’re out of luck. You can still view it through another fantastic website, Free Patents Online: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/0613809.pdf
In an article published thirteen days later in The Sun (New York) newspaper, Tesla expanded upon his thoughts concerning both the fascinating origins and unexpected ramifications of his marvelous invention. Here’s an excerpt:
Referring to my latest invention, I wish to bring out a point which has been overlooked. I arrived, as has been stated, at the idea through entirely abstract speculations on the human organism, which I conceived to be a self-propelling machine, the motions of which are governed by impressions received through the eye. Endeavoring to construct a mechanical model resembling in its essential, material features of the human body, I was led to combine a controlling device, or organ sensitive to certain waves, with a body provided with propelling and directing mechanism, and the rest naturally followed. Originally the idea interested me only from the scientific point of view, but soon I saw that I had made a departure which sooner or later must produce a profound change in things and conditions presently existing. I hope this change will be for the good only, for, if it were otherwise, I wish that I had never made the invention. The future may or may not bear out my present convictions, but I cannot refrain from saying that it is difficult for me to see at present how, with such a principle brought to perfection, as it undoubtedly will be in the course of time, guns can maintain themselves as weapons. We shall be able, by availing ourselves of this advance, to send a projectile at much greater distance, it will not be limited in any way by weight or amount of explosive charge, we shall be able to submerge it at command, to arrest it in its flight, and call it back, and to send it out again and explode it at will, and, more than this, it will never make a miss, since all chance in this regard, if hitting the object of attack were at all required, is eliminated. But the chief feature of such a weapon is still to be told, namely, it may be
made to respond only to a certain note or tune, it may be endowed with selective power. Directly such an arm is produced, it becomes almost impossible to meet it with a corresponding development. It is in this feature, perhaps, more than its power of destruction, that its tendency to arrest the development of arms and to stop warfare will reside.
From: The Sun, November 21, 1898, page 6. You can read the entire article online at the Library of Congress: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1898-11-21/ed-1/seq-6/