by Mike Maden
Mann cursed. “They shot down the Switchblade earlier, so I didn’t spot him, either.”
“Ian? You see anything?” Pearce asked in his mic.
“Sorry, nothing.”
“Can you take the others out?”
“I can try. But I only have two shots left. Good chance I’ll miss them while they’re on the move.”
“You saw the Hummingbird wreckage?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do you have a backup plan?”
“That was the backup plan.”
“It’s turning into a Hungarian cluster fuck down here.”
“Fortunately,” Ian said, “I have a backup plan for the backup plan.”
—
The sky flashed like lightning.
A second later, a thundering boom vibrated the air.
Pearce felt it in his chest. A flower of smoke petaled high in the sky, like a Fourth of July firework.
“Ian! Did you see that? Ian? Ian?”
Karem Air Force Base,
Niamey, Niger
“Log the incident.”
The Blue One flight engineer, Captain Pringle, had given the self-destruct order. Having lost control of the Reaper thirty minutes earlier and unable to regain control or force a return to base, the operational protocol was to hit the self-destruct switch. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he’d get blamed for it anyway. The Air Force was funny in that regard. Destroying a fourteen-million-dollar airframe, no matter the justification, was generally frowned upon by the comptrollers in blue suits.
It was a lousy way to end a lousy mission, but better than letting the MQ-9 get hijacked and parted out. If Pringle was lucky, he’d only get a reprimand and a notation in his service jacket. If he had let that Reaper fall into enemy hands, he would’ve been busted out of the service for sure. Maybe even court-martialed. Too many American RPVs had been stolen in recent years. Several nations had built their drone programs primarily from stolen American and Israeli technology.
Pringle wished to God he hadn’t pulled this second shift. He knew better than do to favors for anyone, let alone volunteer. Life had proven to him once again: No good deed goes unpunished.
Oh well, he said to himself, and shrugged. He’d been thinking about separating from the service anyway. Try to land some cushy civilian contractor job back in the States.
—
Didn’t see it, exactly.” Ian’s brogue got thicker with his growing fatigue. “My screen went blank. Near as I can tell, they hit a self-destruct switch.”
“I bet the bad guys saw it, too,” Pearce said.
“Count on it.”
Pearce worried. He figured the only reason the DPVs hadn’t attacked again was that they were afraid of the Reaper overhead. If they knew it was out of action, he could expect trouble soon.
“I need eyes on the ground, Ian.”
“What about your Switchblade?”
“Shot down earlier.”
“Then you’re fecked.”
“You just figured that out?”
CRACK!
The sound exploded in Pearce’s earpiece.
“Ian! You there?”
Pearce Systems Headquarters
Dearborn, Michigan
The flash bang burst two feet from Ian’s workstation. The exploding light stabbed his eyes and the concussive blast knocked him out a second later, blood pouring out of both of his ears.
The FBI SWAT team had disabled the building’s security system with a chemical EMP grenade detonation and easily disarmed the three lightly armed security guards on the property, not at their sharpest just after four in the morning.
Earlier that morning, the special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI field office had received an emergency request from Washington to immediately assault Pearce Systems headquarters and seize all evidence and persons. Credible intelligence indicated that an AQ-affiliated cell located there was about to commit a terrorist act with a weapon of mass destruction.
The all-volunteer SWAT team, headed by an assistant SAIC, deployed to Dearborn within thirty minutes of the request. Thirteen minutes later, Dr. Rao, Ian McTavish, and a half-dozen other Pearce Systems employees on the premises were in plasti-cuffs, hooded and loaded into security vans and whisked away to a secure location while other specialist teams began searching for hazardous materials and WMDs. Once the all clear was given, an intel team seized computers, phones, hard drives, and other storage devices. Before the sun rose at 6:07 a.m. that morning, Pearce Systems would be completely shut down and its personnel quarantined, all thanks to a bogus emergency command issued by Jasmine Bath through a back door in the FBI’s Washington Bureau server.
Troy Pearce was on his own now.
Pearce’s cabin, near the Snake River
Wyoming
Skeets received the go signal from Jasmine Bath at exactly 2:13 a.m. local. He knew that meant the FBI had just launched its assault on the Dearborn facility. His mission was to take out Myers and anybody else he might find in the cabin. The two attacks had to be perfectly coordinated. Bath couldn’t afford for Myers to warn McTavish or vice versa.
“Skeets” was a nickname, of course, one of the ridiculous monikers that soldiers picked up while in service, especially in special forces units. A fourth-generation coal miner, the steely West Virginian had escaped black lung and double-wide-trailer payments by enlisting in the U.S. Army. He tested off the charts and could run for miles without winding. But what brought him to the attention of the NCOs was his preternatural sharpshooter’s eye and dull moral conscience. Killing came easy for Skeets, and without regrets. PTSD was for pussies.
The Army had been good to him. Fed him well, trained him better, even knocked some of the hillbilly out of him. He traded his thick regional accent for the clipped staccato cadence of Army patois. The war had been fun, and getting paid to hunt people even more so. But three tours of yessirs and nossirs and bullshit regs and ROEs were quite enough, thank you. He had the good sense to take online college courses in business in his downtime. Discovered he was a laissez-faire capitalist. Decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur.
So he quit Uncle Sam’s Army and joined the ranks of private security contractors at five times his annual salary as a sergeant. He quickly earned a fearsome rep in the merc community and was soon invited to join the CIOS corporation.
CIOS was generous with its cash offer, and selective in the targets he would be sent to assassinate. Jasmine Bath, the corporation president, had personally assured him that only America’s worst enemies would ever be targeted, and only those that could not be legally arrested or killed but otherwise posed an immediate security threat. Skeets told her she was lying and that he didn’t give a rat’s ass who the targets were, guilty or not. Bath hired him on the spot and his income doubled.
Skeets had kept the cabin under surveillance from a distance for the last four hours but hadn’t seen or heard anyone on the property.
He disabled the surveillance cameras mounted high in the trees with a silenced .22 semiauto firing subsonics, then burst into the cabin, 9mm pistol drawn. Found nobody. As instructed, he searched for computers, phones, and storage devices—anything that might identify more links in Pearce’s network. But the place had been cleaned out. Skeets called it in to Bath. She told him simply, “Burn it down.”
He did. The old cabin went up faster than dry kindling, the fire ignited by a timed charge. He watched the towering flames lick the early-morning sky in his rearview mirror as he sped away.
Skeets felt no remorse. Pearce was a target. So was the former president. It was a job. Nothing more.
Aéropostale Station 11
Tamanghasset, Southern Algeria
The situation was static, which was fine by Pearce, because that meant he was still alive to know the situation was static, and that the rest of the
caravan wasn’t dead, at least not yet.
Ian was offline, Judy was incarcerated, and the tangos out there hadn’t opened fire since Early’s death. Ian’s stolen Reaper had pushed them way back, but the DPVs were still in control of the field with three of them remaining. The DPVs mounted automatic grenade launchers that could fire five hundred rounds a minute up to six hundred meters effective range, and the 7.62mm machine guns were almost as lethal.
If Pearce and the others tried to make a run for it on the camels they’d be run down and cut to pieces. But staying in the sweltering hangar reeking of camel piss indefinitely probably wasn’t a viable option, either. It would only be a matter of time before the DPVs lined up across the hangar and unloaded their arsenal into them. At least the big animals had calmed down and were kneeling quietly in the back again.
“The explosion. Your drone?” Mossa asked.
“Not my drone, exactly. My man stole it. But it looks like it was destroyed.”
“Too bad. It was useful.” Mossa was staring at the burning wreckage of the two DPVs blasted by the Reaper.
“That sniper out there might be on the move, too. I didn’t see the shot, but given the angle I’d say he was somewhere in that direction.” Pearce pointed toward the northeast.
“If I were him, I would move,” Mossa confirmed. “We could hunt him, but then his friends would hunt us.” He looked up into the sky. “Without your friend up there, they will attack soon.”
“You said something about the cavalry not arriving in time?”
“I radioed one of the local chieftains. He said he was on the way.”
“Any idea when he will arrive?”
Mossa shrugged. “Abdallah Ag Matta is a good man, but he is an Imohar, and our sense of time is not like yours. He will get here as soon as he can.”
“Let’s hope it’s soon enough.”
58
In the air over the Sahara
Southern Algeria
15 May
Phoenix-Zero, this is Juliette Niner-Niner. Come in, please.”
It was Judy’s third attempt to reach Pearce. He wasn’t responding on this channel. She was worried sick. She was an hour late for the pickup. Was Pearce lying dead in the sand somewhere because of her?
Aéropostale Station 11, Tamanghasset
Southern Algeria
The three DPVs skidded to a halt on the far side of the runway some five hundred yards opposite Pearce’s position. The loose sand south and east beyond the cracked tarmac was flat for as far as the eye could see. They had a clear line of sight if they wanted to lob grenades and hot lead into the hangar.
Pearce’s earpiece crackled again. “It appears as if you’ve lost your drone protection, Pearce. I should kill you all right now, but I have orders. I will make the offer one last time. You and bandit Mossa surrender, and I will let your other friends live.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are, asshole, or how you’re gonna pay for my broken helicopter.”
Guo laughed. “Your friend’s head exploded like a balloon.”
“You motherfu—”
“Yours will, too.”
Machine guns opened up. An RPG rocket whooshed past the DPVs, its crooked plume trailing behind it. The big bulbous HEAT round exploded in the sand thirty feet behind the vehicles.
Mossa laughed and slapped Pearce on the back. “You see! Abdallah Ag Matta has come!”
Mossa’s walkie-talkie crackled. A Tamasheq voice shouted over the tinny speaker.
Pearce shook his head. “Tell them to back off. Those DPVs will cut them to ribbons.”
“Too late.”
The DPVs gunned their engines, wheels throwing sand. They spun hard right in a synchronous turn, racing back toward the advancing Algerian Tuaregs.
“Troy!” Mann pointed at the sky. “Look!”
It was the Aviocar, about a mile distant.
“Is that our ride?” the German asked.
“I don’t know.” Then he remembered. “Shit!” He’d switched channels when his line was tapped by the shitbird with the sniper rifle. Pearce switched back to Judy’s channel.
“Judy, that you?”
“Yes! I’ve been trying to reach you. Are you all right?”
“Switch to the other channel. Hurry.”
The DPVs opened up, firing their machine guns and grenade launchers at the Tuareg fighters.
Judy came back on. “What’s the situation down there?”
Mossa ran back to the camels, shouting orders to his men.
“It’s a Class Five shit storm down here. Hold off. I’ll get back to you.”
Pearce ran back to Mossa and his men. “You can’t go out there.”
“I must. My people will die.” Mossa mounted his camel. So did the others. Mossa and Moctar held their rifles high; Balla gripped an RPG.
“You’ll die,” Pearce said.
“Inshallah!” Mossa laughed. He yanked his camel’s bridle, and the big beast rose, as did the others.
Pearce’s camel began to rise out of habit, even though its saddle was empty. Pearce knew it would quickly follow the others.
He leaped on.
Mossa shouted his own war cry and sped out of the hangar, Balla and Moctar right behind him. Mann was throwing a long leg into his saddle. Pearce barked at him. “No! I need you here.” He pointed at Cella.
The German gritted his teeth. He wanted to fight. But he understood authority, knew the woman wasn’t safe by herself. He nodded curtly and dismounted.
“Thanks,” Pearce said, urging his camel out the door and into the harsh light. Pearce’s animal caught up to the others quickly. The four men galloped abreast, racing for the battle raging ahead.
Thirty camel-mounted Algerian Tuaregs charged in a line toward the airstrip, desperate to save their Tuareg headman, Mossa, cursing the devils and firing their rifles. They’d managed to close quietly within a hundred yards before opening up, completely surprising the DPVs. Abdallah Ag Matta waved his takouba high above his head. If he was going to die, he wanted to die like his fathers of old.
He did. An armor-piercing round tore out his throat and threw him from the saddle.
Several more Algerian RPGs were loosed, smoke trails twisting in their wake. Exploding warheads rocked the speeding DPVs, but the Chinese sped onward, closing the gap. They opened fire.
The first 35mm grenades exploded, throwing murderous shrapnel. Camels screamed as hot steel shards ripped into their hides. Torrents of lead ripped open their bellies, spilling their guts, spewing blood and fat. The wounded animals tumbled forward on their crumbling legs, tossing their riders, some already dead in the saddle. The smaller, faster war camels Pearce and the others rode had recovered their nerve now that they were out in the open and charging into battle. Pearce couldn’t believe how fast they moved and how smooth their gait was. It was easy for him to fire his rifle—far easier than if he had been on a horse at full gallop. Six long days on the back of his animal had produced both a bond and a knowing skill—good enough that riding the camel felt like second nature now.
The four of them closed the gap on the unsuspecting Chinese from behind. As Pearce had predicted, the charging Algerian Tuaregs were getting mowed down by the automatic-weapons fire, especially the grenade launchers. One of the DPVs peeled off to chase a knot of Algerians in full retreat—but Pearce guessed the Tuaregs were just trying to lead the vehicle into a trap. Pearce followed behind the Chinese, putting the gunstock to his cheek and firing controlled bursts. The DPV gunner’s helmet cracked open and the man tumbled out of the speeding vehicle and into the sand.
Pearce shifted his aim and fired again. Armor-piercing rounds tore into the hood, causing the driver to twist the wheel violently—too violently—cartwheeling the DPV in the softer sand where the Tuaregs had led him. The driver was tossed in the air but fell
clear of the tumbling vehicle, only to catch a hundred rounds of volleying fire in his chest as the cluster of Tuaregs wheeled their animals around and emptied their guns into him.
The blue-turbaned Tuaregs glanced up at Pearce and waved their rifles high in the air. It suddenly occurred to Pearce he was wearing a tagelmust, too, and must have looked just like them. All warriors share a bond, even enemies, but at that moment Pearce was a Tuareg. Pearce shouted his war cry and urged his camel after the other DPVs still chasing the few remaining Algerians, now in full retreat, turning in their saddles and firing their guns in vain.
WHOOSH! Balla fired his RPV in full gallop. It smashed into the rear of the nearest DPV, blasting it into a cloud of fiery metal. Pearce cheered along with the others riding beside him. But their joy was premature. The final DPV’s launcher erupted, still chasing the other Algerians. Dozens of grenades exploded beneath the feet of the fleeing camels, breaking them open, spilling their intestines, snapping their legs in half. The last Algerian Tuaregs and their animals died screaming in the reddening sand.
And then the DPV wheeled around, guns blazing.
Pearce felt the 7.62mm slugs pounding into his camel’s chest and the great beast lunging downward. Pearce jerked as hard as he could out of the saddle to leap clear, but the fifteen-hundred-pound animal collapsed, landing on top of Pearce’s leg. Searing pain jolted though his knee and up his thigh.
Instinctively, he knew it wasn’t broken. The soft sand had saved him. So had the dead camel as more rounds pummeled into its corpse, now shielding Pearce from the DPV. Pearce glanced up just in time to watch Moctar and Balla charge.
Moctar’s belly crimsoned and his upper body fell away. The lower half stayed in the saddle, hot blood geysering onto his galloping camel.
Balla shouted and fired his weapon, but he aimed too high and missed. Bullets pounded his chest like angry fists and threw him to the ground.
Mossa charged madly at the DPV, flinging his AK aside and raising his takouba high in the air. The faceless gunner turned his gun but held his fire—waiting until Mossa had closed within inches. The gun erupted. Mossa’s upper body disintegrated in a hail of fragmenting grenades. The DPV gunned its engine and sped away toward the north.