by Mike Maden
—
Pearce, Early, and Mossa lay flat on the crest of a dune next to the scout, a young Nigerian Tuareg named Iskaw. Towering chimneys of granite loomed a half mile ahead. The dunes were like waves of a rolling sea of sand washing up against the rocks.
Mossa held a pair of mil-spec binoculars to his eyes. He conferred with the scout in whispered Tamasheq, then handed the binoculars to Pearce. “Take a look. Just inside the rocks.”
Pearce glanced through the glass, but he hardly needed to. The small flickering campfire was easily seen by the naked eye. The firelight danced off of the tall stone columns above, almost like a strobe.
“Do you see him?” Mossa asked.
Pearce adjusted the focus. Now a shadow came into view. It stood in front of the fire, its back to Pearce. Couldn’t see his face. He wore Western clothes. Definitely not a Tuareg.
“A European,” Mossa said.
“I can’t make him out.” Pearce thought he saw a beard on the man’s face.
“The scout saw him clearly earlier. Swears he is a European. Tall, bearded.”
“Anyone with him?”
“No. By himself, out here. Very strange.”
Pearce handed the glasses back. “Can we go around him?”
“No, our camp for the night is just past his position.”
“Why there?”
“Water.”
“We can take him out,” Early said.
“But he may be innocent,” Mossa said.
“Out here? Maybe.” The big former Ranger wasn’t into taking chances these days.
“Only one way to find out.” Pearce rose. “You three wait here. If he cuts my head off, he’s probably a bad guy.”
51
Tassili du Hoggar
Tamanghasset Province, Southern Algeria
12 May
Pearce crept to within ten feet of the man by the campfire, his back still toward him. The air was sweet with the tang of burnt camel dung crackling in the flames.
“I thought you were a cautious man,” Pearce said. “I’m surprised you let me sneak up on you like that.”
August Mann turned around, a cell-phone-sized monitor in his hand and a grin on his dark, bearded face.
“No surprises. I’ve been tracking you with this SPAN. You can tell all of your friends to come out now.” Mann’s German accent punctuated his faultless English.
SPAN was a self-powered wireless ground sensor network. Mann had scattered the tiny sensors like seeds all around the area. Anyone who came near enough to one of the sensors lit up on his monitor, which was linked to a portable sUAV Mann had deployed overhead.
“Just you?” Pearce asked.
“One war, one German. What else do you need?”
Pearce laughed. The two old friends shook hands, grinning, warriors in the field together again. A brilliant engineer and a fearless fighter, Mann was Pearce Systems’ very first hire and now headed up their nuclear deconstruction operations in Europe deploying unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). It was good to have him here. The lanky German came from a long, proud line of military men. His grandfather had commanded a PZKW IV in Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Mann served briefly as a tanker with the Federal Republic’s Bundeswehr, too, before helping to develop their first combat UGVs.
“I assumed you’d bring some friends along,” Pearce said.
“I did.”
“Where are they?”
Mann pointed in the distance. “Out there, lurking in the gloom, keeping an eye on things.”
Like Pearce, Mann preferred the civilian side of drone operations these days, but when wet work was necessary he was the first to answer the call, usually relying on a cadre of trusted East European operators to assist him.
“How many?”
“Six.”
“How good?”
“Untested. But reliable.” Mann glanced at his monitor again. “How many with you?”
“Thirteen, plus one extra camel. Yours, as per your request.”
Mann showed him the monitor. “There are fourteen persons out there.” One blip was far from the others.
“Looks like we have company.”
“Problem?” Mann asked.
“Nothing but.”
Mann tapped his screen. A moment later, a shotgun blast echoed in the night. Mann smiled. “No more problems.”
“Reliable, and now tested.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for coming, August. No telling what’s waiting for us up ahead.”
After Mossa had laid out the route from the Adrar des Ifoghas to the airstrip, Pearce was able to pass along the GPS coordinates to Ian, Mann, and Judy along with an estimated schedule of arrival times—just in case they lost radio communications. Mann had promised to arrive here at the Tassili du Hoggar with whatever reinforcements he could bring. He and his team had parachuted in just hours before. Judy was still scheduled to pick them all up in the Aviocar three days from now.
Pearce whistled in Early and the others out of the dark. Mann was introduced to Mossa and the rest of the caravan, along with the unburdened camel that had been brought along for him. One of Mossa’s men checked the corpse in the sand. He brought back an assault rifle and a pair of night-vision goggles smeared with blood to Mossa.
“He says it was an Arab,” Mossa said. “No stone.”
“What does that mean?” Mann asked.
“Shi’a pray with a stone,” Pearce said. “Sunnis don’t. Neither do Salafists. AQS is Salafist.”
They all pushed on toward the oasis farther into the narrow granite canyons, their tall spires scraping against a luminous moon. Soon there would be food and water, and then they could all bed down for the night. Mann’s aerial drone and ground team would keep watch over the caravan.
Pearce was exhausted, mostly from the heat. For the first time in his life he felt like he was getting too old for the field, but there was nowhere else he’d rather be, trudging through the desert beneath a canopy of stars in the company of brave companions.
52
Tamanghasset Province
Southern Algeria
13 May
The kneeling camels were bedded down for the night, as were the weary Tuaregs. A small campfire had burned itself down to red embers, but the air was still warm in this part of the desert. They were far enough out in the wilderness that there wasn’t much chance of encountering anyone else. Only someone who knew exactly where they were could possibly find them.
Unfortunately, someone had.
Karem Air Force Base
Niamey, Niger
The ground control station was a windowless air-conditioned trailer parked near the hangar where Judy’s Aviocar was secured.
Inside the GCS, an Air Force captain sat in the pilot’s seat scanning six separate video monitors. In the seat next to her, a sensor operator. Together, the two of them were flying an MQ-9 Reaper twenty thousand feet above the Sahara Desert, silent as the stars.
The drone’s onboard sensor had located the RFID tracking unit embedded in the M4 rifle Pearce had stolen earlier from AFB Karem, where this Reaper had been dispatched from.
“Confirmed?” the pilot asked.
“Confirmed.” The twenty-year-old sensor operator was an airman just out of training at Holloman AFB. It was, in fact, his first combat mission in the field. In addition to the RFID signal, he had an infrared visual on the sleeping camels and Tuaregs.
The pilot confirmed with the CIA deputy director at Langley in charge of the mission. Diele’s handpicked appointee had access to the Reaper’s video feeds, too.
“Cook them all, Captain. We want to be sure.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said. She’d been trained to avoid collateral damage wherever possible, but these were all tangos as far as they could tell. She looked at her sensor operator. Saw the l
ook in his face. A flicker of doubt. Suddenly this shit was real, not a video-game simulator like he’d been training on back in New Mexico. Today he would play God, tossing lightning bolts out of the blue, dealing fiery death.
“Light ’em up, son.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Four Hellfire missiles were loosed, guided by the airman’s hand.
Tamanghasset Province
Southern Algeria
The Hellfire II AGM-114N was designed to kill human beings in confined spaces like tunnels, caves, and buildings, but it was also an effective antipersonnel weapon in open areas. Each AGM-114N carried a thermobaric warhead combining PBXN-112 explosive fill and fluorinated aluminum powder. The bursting fill container created a cloud of oxidized fuel ignited by an explosive charge, resulting in a massive, fiery blast. The fiery blast, in turn, created an enormous vacuum that produced a crushing and sustained high-pressure wave.
The first Hellfire exploded three feet above Pearce’s weapon just before the other three lit up their targets as well, all perfectly aimed. The resulting pressure waves ripped camels and men apart like claws from an invisible monster. Those not immediately atomized or incinerated had their lungs crushed by the vacuum and their internal organs liquefied by the force of the pressure blast.
Death for the entire caravan was instantaneous, or nearly so.
The Reaper’s infrared camera recorded the explosions as brilliant flashes of light, and picked up the glowing heat signature of the white-hot craters and smoldering fragments of bone and metal scattered across the cooler sands a thousand feet away. The Reaper’s video camera verified that there were no survivors. The deputy CIA director voiced his approval and commended the operators, promising a unit citation along with a solemn reminder to immediately erase all video and audio recordings of the mission. The hard drives were wiped before the deputy director ended his call.
Pearce Systems Headquarters
Dearborn, Michigan
Ian wanted to scream. He’d never been so frustrated in his life. Pearce had told him not to intervene under any circumstances—even if it meant Pearce’s own death.
Ian complied.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep an eye on things. Thanks to Judy’s quick thinking during her interrogation by Captain Sotero, he knew a Reaper strike against Pearce was imminent. Ian broke into Karem AFB’s mainframe and was able to monitor and record the Reaper’s mission.
Ian hated terrorists. He’d lost both of his legs in the infamous London 7/7 bombing years before and had dedicated his life to fighting them. He understood the need for drone strikes and antiterror operations, but he’d also seen the mistakes that could be made, and the wrong lives taken, just like on this mission. That didn’t help win the war on terror. Far from it.
The only consolation was that he now had another link in the chain of damning evidence against Senator Fiero.
Tassili du Hoggar, Tamanghasset Province
Southern Algeria
Pearce checked his watch. Just an hour before sunrise.
It had been hours since he awoke from a dream of distant thunder. Only, it hadn’t been a dream.
The camels bleated nervously, too, as he glanced around. They quickly settled back down. He tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t despite his exhaustion, or maybe because of it. He never slept well in the field anyway, but even within the confines of the tall rock walls of the oasis he still felt naked and vulnerable, especially to an air strike. He remembered the sound now. Muted but echoed in the narrow chamber of rock where they camped. There had been several, nearly simultaneous claps. No telling how far away. Might as well get up.
Pearce reached for his M4 carbine but remembered he’d traded it with the Nigerien camel driver before they parted ways. Mano and his men were radioed by friends that a Niger army unit was harassing a Tuareg village on the other side of the border. He asked Pearce again for a trade. Pearce understood. Mano wanted a good weapon if he was going into battle. Pearce explained he had only one mag for the M4 and one grenade for the launcher, but Mano didn’t care. He traded Pearce his good Russian-made AK-47 and five full mags. The trade made for good diplomacy. When the Nigerien Tuaregs departed for home, Mossa thanked Pearce for relenting. Pearce knew it was impolite in many Mideast cultures to refuse an offer of trade. The gun really wasn’t his to begin with, but the Air Force had plenty more of them so he was glad to do it. He hoped it gave Mano an advantage.
Pearce finally rose and quietly stepped over to the cool green waters of the narrow oasis farther into the canyon. The sharp moonlight lit the wavy gray and brown rocks ringing the small pool of greenish water. He was afraid to drink it but glad to splash it on his face and the back of his neck. He probably stunk to high heaven, but he couldn’t smell it anymore. Soldiers in the field got used to their own stench and the rank odors of their comrades. Sweat, urine, cigarettes, cordite, diarrhea, and wood smoke wrecked any possibility of olfactory sensitivity. Men at war reeked, but if everybody and everything did, who noticed? He checked his watch again. It was around midnight tomorrow where Ian was. Might as well see if he was awake and get a sitrep.
Pearce’s cabin
Near the Snake River, Wyoming
Myers woke with a start. Someone was definitely outside.
She threw back the heavy green woolen blanket and stepped onto the wood floor in one seamless move. She picked up the old .410 double-barreled bird gun she’d found in Pearce’s bedroom closet and made her way toward the kitchen without turning the lights on. She’d been in his cabin long enough to have a good sense of the layout. The only thing she’d ever shot with a .410 before was white-winged dove in Uvalde, Texas, one hot September, but she figured the small-gauge rounds were good enough to at least scare the hell out of her would-be assailant, and maybe even kill them outright with a shot to the face. She wasn’t scared so much as angry. How had they managed to find her?
She heard another noise in the kitchen. The sound of a closing door. Coming in or going out? Didn’t matter. Had to find out who was wandering around out there.
Myers let the shotgun barrel lead her into the kitchen, when the lights suddenly popped on. She remembered what her husband had taught her—keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. The lights startled her and she mashed the trigger, but thankfully her finger only pulled on the trigger guard.
“Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to wake you.” An athletically built young Asian woman stood next to the light switch. She wore Nike printed tights and a top, along with a windbreaker that barely covered her shoulder-holstered pistol.
Myers lowered her shotgun, relieved. “You’re one of Pearce’s people, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. Stella Kang.” She extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Stella was a Korean-American from Los Angeles who picked a career in the Army over jail time for a crime she committed while attending USC. She accidentally chose the Army’s drone program and learned to fly Ravens. After one tour over in the Sand Box she returned home and eventually wound up at Pearce Systems as one of his field operatives specializing in drone ops.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Myers checked her watch. “And at this ungodly hour?”
“Ian sent me.”
“What for?”
“He’s a big believer in backup systems. I guess I’m your backup, especially since you ditched your Secret Service detail after you resigned.”
“Ian is a worrywart.”
“He thinks you’re being monitored out here. He’s concerned about your security situation.” She nodded at the small-gauge shotgun. “No offense.”
Myers patted her gun. “If I’m attacked by a flock of pigeons, I’ll be fine. You hungry? All I have is Spam around here.”
Kang brightened. “Are you kidding? I grew up on Spam. Some tea would be great, too. We still have time.”
&nbs
p; Myers propped the shotgun in the corner. “Time for what?
“Ian wouldn’t give me all of the details, but he wants to put some other pieces into play. We’ve got to roll.”
“Where to?”
Stella shrugged. “No telling, but I’d pack light if I were you.”
Tassili du Hoggar, Tamanghasset Province
Southern Algeria
The camels drank their fill again while the rest of camp packed up their few belongings. They had all dined on the cold Turkish army rations Mossa and his men had hauled from the caves in Adrar. They wanted to get moving fast before the heat stole away the better part of the day.
Mossa approached Pearce, a small leather bag slung over his shoulder. His tagelmust hadn’t been wrapped around his face yet. Pinpoints of silver dotted his unshaved skin.
“Today you will enter the Sahara as you Westerners imagine it. It is more beautiful and more terrible than you know. I should like to give you something to help you survive the journey.” Mossa reached into his leather bag and set something into Pearce’s hand.
“A date?” Pearce asked. The fruit was small and hard.
“It is God’s survival pack. If you get lost out there, this date will allow you to survive for three days. The first day you eat the skin, the second day you eat the meat of it, and the third day you suck on the seed to generate water in your mouth.”
“And the fourth day?”
“If you have not found water by the fourth day, you are dead.” Mossa reached into his leather bag and tossed Pearce another date, laughing. “Here’s three more days.”
Pearce smiled, examining the dates. “Better than MREs, probably.”
“One more thing. Give me your hat. It’s ridiculous.”
Pearce had been wearing his sweat-stained floppy boonie hat since Mozambique. It had done a pretty good job keeping the sun off of his face and neck, but it screamed to the world he was a Westerner, probably a soldier. He handed Mossa his hat. Mossa tossed it to the ground and pulled something else out of his pack.