Drone Threat

60

Pearce returned to his hotel apartment in D.C., still exhausted and sore from the kidnapping ordeal. He reminded himself again that he was getting too old for this shit.

He called Stella Kang, his senior security operative, and gave her a heads-up about the Tamar situation. The two women were close. Stella was glad to be part of the search. He took a long, hot shower and scrubbed off as much of the tattoo gel as he could, then grabbed some grub before heading out. He met Stella two hours later at the Pearce Systems hangar in Manassas, Virginia, with tactical gear and weapons for the op.

He piloted the two of them in the company HondaJet directly to Cheboygan County Airport. It didn’t have a tower but it did have one four-thousand-foot runway, which was just enough to accommodate Pearce’s aircraft. They landed and rented the only available car, a white four-door Chevy Impala, and drove into town.

On the flight over, Pearce finally managed to speak with Myers and found out that she was not only okay but boarding a nonstop Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to D.C. that evening and would arrive at Dulles the following morning. He filled her in on the big picture but left out the minor detail of the savage beating and near-death experience with al-Saud. It was easy for him to say yes to her proposal that they get away for a few days. Pearce was grateful to the Man Upstairs for sending Margaret into his life.

Stella didn’t plug the Cheboygan addresses they were checking out into the Chevy’s onboard GPS. Ian warned them repeatedly against the hackability of modern cars, especially systems that utilized Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and satellite connections. Their own secure phones used Google Maps anyway, so the Chevy’s navigation system was easy to avoid. In fact, Ian remotely hacked the Chevy’s onboard computer and took the car offline so that even the rental agency couldn’t trace their movements while they were in the area.

The thin file that Werntz sent over on Norman Pike didn’t contain much information, but the fact that he had been an IT contractor in Iraq for one of the big multinational security firms suggested he had the skills to break into something as simple as a rental car if he was so inclined. More disturbing, Ian was unable to hack Pike’s late-model panel van, which likely meant that Pike had taken similar precautions. Even if Pike wasn’t guilty of criminal activity, he was behaving as if he had something to hide.

“It bothers me that some of Pike’s file has been redacted,” Kang said, scrolling through her tablet once again. “Why doesn’t Werntz want us to know why they were chasing him?”

“Why do you think?”

“We won’t like the answer.”

“Bingo.”

Pearce agreed with Kang’s assessment — it bothered him, too. The Israelis were running ops on American soil — not an unusual practice. The United States spied on its allies, too. The NSA first hacked into Angela Merkel’s phone in 2002, partly because of her membership in the East German Communist Party in her youth. It was part of the great game they all played. Pearce wondered if the damage done to relations between the allies was worth the scant information they actually managed to glean from tapping into the personal and professional lives of Western leaders. Not only were such activities illegal but they violated the trust that was the foundation for all economic and political transactions in liberal democracies. It didn’t really matter what he thought. They were going to do it anyway, even if it didn’t make any sense.

Pearce and Kang pulled into the marina parking lot and drove past the fish-cleaning house and parked, then walked over to the slip where Pike’s charter boat was permanently docked. They were surprised to discover the ship had been sold to a woman who owned a small fleet of charter boats. She hadn’t seen Pike since the sale and wasn’t sure how to find him. They showed her pictures of Daniel Brody and Tamar Stern, but she didn’t recognize either of them.

Pearce and Kang then visited a local pub where Pike was known to hang out, but he wasn’t there. A suspicious bartender with biker tats and a bad attitude loosened up when Pearce slipped him a fifty-dollar bill. He knew Captain Pike, sure, but hadn’t seen him for a few days and, no, he didn’t recognize the people in the two photos Kang showed him. A lewd comment regarding Tamar’s sexual desirability almost got the bartender’s teeth knocked out, but Pearce had better things to do than spend the rest of the day in the county jail, so they pushed on. Two more stops were equally frustrating.

The last stop was Pike’s house on Black Lake.

Pearce and Kang assumed that their inquiries into Pike’s whereabouts could have been passed along to Pike himself, since he was a local. That was fine by them. They were shaking the bushes as much as they were searching for him. It would be that much easier if Pike decided to come and find them. They were ready.

It was possible that Pike had disappeared entirely, but it was just as likely that the people they’d spoken to had simply lied to the two strangers searching for one of their own. If Pike were still around, he might be holed up at his home, as obvious as that was. After all, the FBI and Tamar had already come calling there. Pike would know that another inquiry would lead to his place. What better location to set a trap?

Or he was long gone and the house was empty.

It was their last shot for the day, either way. They drove to Pike’s place from Cheboygan and arrived less than half an hour later.

The house was situated on Black Lake on two heavily wooded acres that butted up to the two-lane county road. They parked their rental car off the road and made their way by foot to the edge of the property. It didn’t take much effort to locate the security cameras directed at the long gravel driveway leading to his house or on the house itself. Ian was tracking their progress via their cell phones remotely from his office in San Diego. Ian was also busy hacking as much of the house as he could.

“Troy, hold on a minute. Can you shoot a pic of one of the security cameras?”

“Sure,” Pearce whispered in his comms. He zoomed in as best he could on the closest security camera with his smartphone, then forwarded it to Ian. “That work?”

“Wireless. Interesting.”

Pearce heard Ian’s keyboard clattering.

“Do you see any kind of antenna or satellite dish on the house?”

Pearce took another look. Pike’s house was still some distance away but there was definitely a satellite dish on top. “Yeah.” He shot a photo of that, too, and forwarded it to Ian.

“Thanks. Carry on.”

Pearce wondered what to do about the security cameras. He brought along a silenced .22-caliber pistol for the express purpose of knocking out impediments, such as cameras and lights. But Pike was still only a suspect and a law-abiding citizen as far as the local authorities were concerned. If Pike were in fact innocent, there was no point in destroying his property. He hoped there might be another way to avoid detection.

Pearce glanced at Stella but she had already read his mind. She pulled out a small surveillance drone and launched it. She guided the vehicle above the tree line and took the time to study the house and property, carefully picking her way around to get a three-sixty view of the place. The extra effort paid off. The drone showed that the camera over the front entrance facing the lake appeared to be disconnected. Strange that Pike, who seemed to be a thorough and cautious man, wouldn’t have fixed that issue immediately, Pearce thought. Sometimes Murphy’s Law works for you, he reminded himself. Not often, but sometimes.

Pearce and Kang worked their way through the trees, careful to avoid the sight lines of the cameras. With any luck they were triggered by motion detection and were not on continuous surveillance mode. Once they reached the edge of the trees, Pearce signaled for Kang to stay put and remain hidden while he moved forward toward the front of the house.