by Mike Maden
They arrived at the end of the hall and stopped at the last closed door.
“He’s expecting you,” the nun said. “He has only twenty percent lung capacity. Please don’t be long. He’s very tired.” She instructed them to use the antibacterial hand sanitizer as often as possible to help avoid infection, nodded her condolences, and left.
Pearce laid his hand on the door. “Thanks again for doing this with me.”
Myers smiled. “Of course. But maybe you should go in by yourself.”
“No. I want you to meet him. He’s like a second dad to me.”
“Okay.”
Troy gently opened the door. He nearly lost it.
He’d been around death for most of his adult life, but seeing the shell of a man he’d once known as larger than life was harder than he thought possible. The adjustable bed was upright. Will was nearly skeletal, his flesh translucent and gray. His mouth was wide open, taking in short, shallow breaths. The skin around his mouth was nearly white. A hissing oxygen tube snaked from the wall behind his bed to his nose. Will’s thick silver hair was now blindingly white and wispy thin. The flesh around his eyes had shrunk, making the orbs appear huge in the sockets, but the green irises still radiated his penetrating intellect.
“How . . . the hell . . . are you . . . kid?” He clumped his words together, exhaling them out between breaths. He held up a large but emaciated hand. Pearce touched it gently, afraid to hurt him.
“Doing good. But look at you laying out. Isn’t there a junta you should be organizing somewhere?”
“Working . . . on . . . one . . . now. Gonna . . . take over . . . this place. More booze . . . less bingo.” He turned his head with effort. “Who’s . . . the pretty . . . lady?”
She laid a hand on his. “Margaret. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“You . . . with . . . him? Or does . . . a fellah . . . like me . . . still have . . . a chance?”
“Soon as you’re out of here, call me.” She winked and mimed a phone receiver to her ear.
A croak escaped Will’s throat, a laugh. And then a long bout of coughing, phlegmy and painful. He leaned forward, face reddened, choking.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” Myers snatched up a plastic sputum tray and held it beneath Will’s mouth. He coughed up yellow mucus tinged with blood, his eyes tearing from the effort. It dribbled on his lip and he spit, trying to clear it out of his mouth, and swatted at it clumsily with his hand. Will was a lifelong smoker and the cigarettes were finally killing him in the worst way. COPD was a bitch, like drowning in slow motion in a puddle of his own mucus.
Troy reached for a sanitary wipe and cleaned away the string hanging between his mouth and the tray. When he got it, Myers pulled the tray away and dumped it in the wastebasket, then pulled the basket over for Troy to toss the wipe. Myers grabbed two more wipes and cleaned off Will’s face and hands. Troy had only known a proud man, strong as an ox, but Will was beyond shame at this point. His eyes were grateful for the care.
“Never thought . . . I’d have . . . a president . . . wipe . . . my ass . . . for me.”
Myers squirted antibacterial into her hands from a bottle on the table. “So you knew who I was, did you?”
“I’m . . . a spook . . . I’m . . . supposed . . . to know . . . these things.”
Myers beamed. “Our country owes you a lot, Will. Thank you for your service.” Pearce had told her some of his storied exploits. Will was an old-school cold warrior and a fierce patriot. She fought back tears as Pearce squirted sanitizer into his hands.
“Just . . . keep . . . an eye . . . on this . . . guy . . . and . . . we’ll . . . call it . . . even.”
“That’s a deal.”
Will’s eyes turned toward the far wall, focusing on the large crucifix in front of him. Pearce watched him labor to catch his breath, finally calming down. A few minutes later, he turned back to Pearce.
“How . . . was . . . China?”
“How did you know?”
Myers swatted Pearce playfully. “He’s a spy, remember?”
“Everything worked out fine.”
“Then why . . . do you . . . look like . . . shit?” Pearce’s face still hadn’t fully healed from the beatings he’d received.
“You should’ve seen the other guy.”
Will nodded. “That’s . . . my boy.” His eyes searched Pearce’s face. He gathered his strength. “So why . . . the visit? Come . . . to see . . . an old man . . . die?”
“Yeah. You know any?” Pearce said.
Will’s eyes misted. “I . . . missed you . . . sport.”
“Me, too. Sorry I haven’t been around.”
Will smiled. He lifted his hand, made a weak sign of the cross in Pearce’s direction. “Te . . . absolvo . . . the priest . . . says that . . . a lot. I think . . . it means . . . dinner’s . . . at five.”
“I brought you something.” Pearce reached carefully into his shirt pocket.
“A new . . . pair of . . . lungs . . . I hope.”
Pearce held out a black-and-white photo, wallet-size and worn. A pretty young Vietnamese woman. ALL MY LOVE, 1965 written in a lovely feminine hand on the back.
Will’s big hands trembled as he took the photo. Brought it close to his face. His eyes widened. Stared at it as if he were looking into the face of God.
“How?”
“I’m a spook, too. Remember?”
Will’s face beamed as if he were a monk witnessing a miracle.
Maybe it was a miracle, Pearce thought. He couldn’t believe it when a package from Hanoi arrived at the embassy just hours before he left for Hawaii. Dr. Pham had promised Pearce she’d pull a few strings to honor his request back on that helicopter. She said it was the least she could do for the man who had saved her brother’s life, as well as her own.
Pearce knew that when Will and his dad were captured by the Viet Cong they would’ve been stripped of all of their personal effects for intel, and then those items would’ve been shipped off to central headquarters for analysis and, later, storage. Communists were mostly evil shits, but they were fanatical about storing and organizing the things they stole from other people. Knowing Will was with the CIA probably gave his Hanoi case file even greater importance. Pearce hoped Dr. Pham could find Will’s case file, along with his dad’s. Apparently, she had.
“Your wife?” Myers asked.
Will smiled with his eyes. Nodded.
“And then there’s this.” Pearce unfolded a piece of tissue paper. A small silver crucifix was inside, heavily tarnished. Will reached for it. Took it in his long fingers. Tried to open the delicate clasp.
“Here.” Myers took the chain and opened it as Pearce helped Will lean forward. She draped it around his withered neck and fastened the clasp. Pearce helped him lie back down. Will fingered the Christ, hardly believing his good fortune.
“Still fits,” Myers said, patting his other hand.
“I . . . converted . . . to marry . . . her. She . . . insisted. Her father . . . too.”
Will shut his eyes, mouth open in a loose smile, lost in a memory.
“God bless you,” Myers said. She stroked his weary head and whispered a prayer. She hadn’t been to confession since she was a child or Mass since high school. But old habits die hard.
Moments later, his smile disappeared and his mouth opened wider. His breaths were short and shallow.
“I think he’s asleep. We should go,” Myers said.
“Yeah. We’ll come back tomorrow.” He took her hand in his, and they slipped quietly out of the room.
They returned the next day. Will had died during the night, taking last rites with a priest, clutching his wife’s photo and the crucifix as he prayed. The nun said he went peacefully.
They drove back to the hotel in silence.
At his suggestion, Mye
rs picked up the phone to order room service while Pearce headed for the shower. She worried about him. A lot had happened in the last few days. He’d lost people he’d loved and took the lives of many more. Not many men could handle that.
She wasn’t sure how he liked his steak, so she hung up the phone and stepped into the steaming granite-and-glass bathroom to ask. He was curled up on the shower floor, weeping like a child, scalding water blistering his skin. She rushed in, slammed the shower off, gathered him up in her arms, and lay on the wet stone floor with him, holding him until his sobs gave way to a fitful, trembling sleep.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE, JAPAN
29 MAY 2017
Pearce and Myers flew a JAL Sky Suite 777 nonstop from San Francisco to Tokyo to meet up with President Lane and his mission to Beijing. But when they touched down, Pearce informed her that he wouldn’t be attending the summit. “I’m no politician” was his excuse, and when that failed, “I’ve got some Pearce Systems business to attend to.” Myers was clearly disappointed but said she understood and flew to Beijing on Air Force One without him later that afternoon.
Pearce called August Mann from the airport and confirmed that he had landed. Mann reported that everything was still running smoothly at the site and that everything was on schedule. Pearce arrived the next day.
The giant tsunami that struck the facilities at Fukushima had slammed the Unit 4 building particularly hard. The reactor had already been shut down for repairs before the deadly tidal wave hit, but it was still a nuclear catastrophe waiting to happen. The American-designed facility was particularly problematic for an area of the world prone to both earthquakes and tsunamis. One of its most distressing features was an elevated cooling pool storing more than fourteen hundred spent nuclear fuel rods that contained nearly forty million curies of deadly radiation. Exposing those fuel rods to the air, some scientists argued, would be an environmental holocaust. Now, several years after the tsunami, Unit 4 was sinking into the ground, threatening to collapse the building and destroy the pool.
August Mann ran the nuclear-deconstruction division of Pearce Systems, and he and his unmanned ground vehicles had been contracted to help remove the contaminated debris that humans couldn’t touch. But once his automated systems were in place, TEPCO found other useful work for them to carry out, including tackling the Unit 4 building problem. Because of the hazardous radiation in and around Unit 4, it was impossible for anything but remotely controlled robots to work in the area for any length of time. Mann and his drone team were attempting to stabilize the foundation of the Unit 4 structure to keep it from sinking farther into the water-soaked soil in order to avoid the building’s collapse and the resulting catastrophe.
Mann’s remotely piloted tracked vehicles had carried hundreds of heavy steel rods and large metal cylinders across the irradiated mudscape over the last few weeks. There were so many problems at the Fukushima facility and its other reactors that Mann and his team were left largely unsupervised by the overworked, understaffed TEPCO managers.
Pearce and Mann were in one of Pearce Systems’ off-site control stations a safe distance from the radiation poisoning the air, soil, and water in and around Unit 4. Pearce sat at the control station running one of the Pearce Systems tracked robots that was carrying yet another metal cylinder in its hydraulic claws as it lumbered toward the sinking foundation.
Pearce’s cell phone rang. He tapped his Bluetooth. It was Myers.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Better than expected. President Sun was surprisingly compliant.”
“Why are you surprised?” Pearce knew the Chinese respected force, and the sinking of the Liaoning alone would have been more than enough to convince Sun it was time to deal honestly with the Americans, for whom they’d lost respect over the last two decades.
“He not only agreed to the new security arrangements we’ve been discussing, but he’s eager to reassess his country’s predatory trade and currency practices.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You sound like you’re busy. Did I call at a bad time?”
“No. I’m almost through here. Go on.”
“Sun said that fair and balanced trade benefited everybody, his country most of all. He even acknowledged China’s role in helping to create the imbalances that currently exist, especially the trade deficits. He clearly understands that stability means security in both economic and military matters, for his country as well as ours.”
“Sounds like a home run. Congratulations.”
“It’s not a home run yet.” She explained that Lane was going to have hell to pay as he tried to rein in the legions of former congressmen and generals who staffed the big lobbying firms swarming all over Capitol Hill. They were the ones perpetuating the current crony-capitalist system beggaring the country and profiting most from China’s rapacious trade policies.
“That’s why I don’t do politics,” Pearce said. His construction drone was nearly in position.
“Do you have any more thoughts about the president’s offer?” Myers asked.
“What offer?”
“Drone Command. He still hopes you’ll take it.”
“Jury’s still out on that one. Can’t imagine myself setting up another government bureaucracy.”
“I’d hope not. New wineskins and all of that.”
“Look, I’m sorry to cut you off, but I’ve got to go.”
“Sure. I’ll be at the hotel by six o’clock tonight. Can you meet me there?”
“Try and keep me away.” Pearce could feel her smiling on the other end of the phone.
She rang off.
Instantly, Pearce’s face hardened with resolve.
Mann stepped closer. The lanky German fingered his beard, worried. “You sure about this?”
“Never more sure of anything.”
“Ja. I believe you.”
“Do me a favor and go grab yourself a cup of coffee. I don’t want you in here.” August was one of Pearce’s oldest friends and the first man he hired into Pearce Systems. Pearce wouldn’t allow his loyal friend to bear witness to an event that could land the German in prison if things went sideways, especially with a wife and two young kids at home.
“You’re the boss.”
“Maybe get a donut, too. Take your time.”
Mann sighed with relief. “Thanks.”
The trailer door shut behind Mann. Pearce gripped the joysticks and maneuvered the drone into its final position over the deep hole, then activated another set of controls and lowered the cylinder into the contaminated water. Once it was fully submerged, he turned on another monitor and punched a few keys. An LED light popped on inside the cylinder.
Tanaka’s panicked, hyperventilating face filled the fish-eye camera. His desperate breathing rasped on the monitor speakers.
“Your breath-stealing gods must be smiling now,” Pearce whispered. He punched another key, snapping off the LED light, throwing Tanaka into soul-crushing darkness. Frantic screams poured out of the monitor speakers.
Pearce punched another button and silenced the speaker, leaving Tanaka to his fate, buried alive beneath a nuclear shroud. In a few minutes, the remote-controlled cement truck would appear and seal him in his tomb forever.
His phone buzzed. A text message from Myers. “Forgot to tell you. Lane has another job for us.”
“What job?” he texted back.
“We can talk about it later. Stay safe.”
“Okay.”
She sent another. “Can’t wait to see you tonight.”
“Same here.”
And then she sent one more. “You okay?”
Pearce stared at the text. He wasn’t sure.
He wondered what she’d think of him if she knew what he was doing. She deserved
better.
He stared at the blacked-out monitor. Imagined Tanaka’s breathless hell. Felt his own claustrophobia closing in. A nightmare. Guilt whispered somewhere deep inside but Yamada’s mangled corpse shouted it away.
He needed a drink. Reached for Mann’s pack of smokes instead but held off, remembering how Will had died. He settled for a stick of gum. Texted Myers.
“Yeah. Doing okay.”
And he was.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thanks to my new editor, Sara Minnich. You couldn’t have made the transition any easier and your notes were spot-on. I’m thoroughly indebted to the entire team at G. P. Putnam’s Sons for their invaluable support, particularly Ivan Held’s steadfast commitment to the series.
My literary superagent, David Hale Smith at InkWell Management, is still on point, cutting fresh trails and kicking down doors for me and the Pearce Systems crew. It doesn’t get any better than that. Stay tuned.
One of the joys of writing novels is the opportunity to meet the hardworking bookstore owners, managers, and staff around the country who sell them. I was particularly well cared for by Barbara Peters (The Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale), McKenna Jordan (Murder by the Book, Houston), Bob White (Sundog Books, Seaside), Amy Harper (Barnes & Noble, Lewisville), Michelle Abele (Barnes & Noble, Knoxville), and Gordon Brugman (Books-A-Million, Sevierville). Thanks again to you all—hope to see you soon.
I rely on the keen insight of friends and family on the first drafts of every novel, including this one. My first and best reader is always my remarkable wife, Angela, who apparently missed her calling in the literary world. I am especially grateful this go-around to Robbie D. Scruggs, U.S. Navy Captain (Retired) for our Drone Command correspondence and distant friendship. Martin Hironaga, as always, gave me a close and insightful reading. Of course, mistakes in the manuscript, fictional or otherwise, are entirely my own.