Drone Command

SIXTY-ONE

A vintage American muscle car rumbled up to the poorly lit side gate of the JMSDF naval base. Only one guard was on duty. He stepped out of his guard shack and leaned into the driver’s open window. Two men dressed in black tactical gear were crammed inside the two-door coupe. The driver gave the password, slipped the guard a wad of cash. The guard waved them through.

Pearce and Dr. T. J. Ashley, a colleague and UUV expert, worked feverishly on the last assembly. They had just twenty minutes to finish up and get everything loaded on the fast launch if they hoped to meet the rendezvous at sea on time. Pearce’s Bluetooth rang.

“Are you watching your monitor?” Ian asked.

“Kinda busy.”

“You’ve got company.”

“So take care of it.”

“On it.”

“But I want them alive.”

Ian hesitated. “If you insist.”

The two-man sniper team set up on the rooftop of the nearest building just two hundred yards away from the Vietnam-era Quonset hut where Pearce and Ashley were working. The spotter had Pearce and the short-haired woman in his scope inside the building. He whispered the exact distance to the shooter, lying prone on his belly and sighting his rifle.

“Can’t miss,” he said, adjusting the scope one click.

The spotter glanced down around the perimeter one last time through his scope. Didn’t see anything.

“All clear. Fire when ready.”

The shooter smiled. His left hand was missing a finger but his shooting hand was intact.

“Ready.”

The shooter slipped his shooting hand toward the trigger guard. Two flash-bangs bounced on the asphalt roof between the shooter and spotter. Ian’s whisper-quiet quadcopter sped away. Before either man realized what had happened, the flash-bangs exploded.

The yakuza awoke, his face slapped hard by a big hand.

He blinked his bleary eyes furiously against the fluorescent lights blazing overhead. He attempted to move his hands to shield his eyes but couldn’t. A thin plastic cable tie bit into his wrists behind his back so tightly his shoulders ached. He hardly noticed this because of the screaming headache hammering inside of his skull.

The big American lifted him up by his tactical shirt and pulled his face close to his, shouting. But the Okinawan yakuza didn’t speak any English and he could hardly hear him anyway through the shrill whine in his aching ears. He glanced over at the shooter, who lay on the floor, arms cuffed behind his back, blood trickling out of his ears and nose. His shirt had been ripped away, revealing the brightly colored yakuza tattoos adorning his chest and arms.

The spotter began to panic. If he looked as bad as the shooter did, then he was truly fucked.

The American let go of the spotter’s shirt and he thudded back to the floor. His eyes followed the American’s combat boots as they trudged toward a worktable in the center of the room. The spotter saw the short-haired lady carrying a big sealed plastic case out of the Quonset hut. She seemed entirely unconcerned about the situation. Her indifference terrified him even more.

The American turned around, holding a pair of yellow-gripped wire cutters in his hands. The spotter’s heart raced. The American marched over to the shooter and rolled him onto his stomach, exposing his cuffed hands pinned behind his back. The American was shouting again and kneeling on the shooter’s spine, holding the shooter’s left hand and tugging on the stubbed finger cut off from an earlier failure.

The shooter screamed, tears streaming down his face, utterly panicked. The spotter didn’t need to speak English to know what the American must have been threatening. The American shoved the shooter’s index finger between the razor-sharp cutting blades and began to squeeze the grips. That crazy American was going to cut off all the shooter’s fingers if he didn’t talk — but the spotter knew the shooter wouldn’t. Then the American would come after him—

“Oshiro! Oshiro!” The spotter shouted his boss’s name over and over. What else could the American want?

The big American turned his cold-blooded gaze toward him. Shouted something again. The spotter couldn’t make it out.

The spotter saw his friend shouting at him, face twisted with rage. He couldn’t quite hear him, but the way his mouth formed the words it looked like he was screaming for him to shut the fuck up.

The American dashed over to the spotter, pushing the wire cutters into his face and shouting again. The spotter felt his bladder give way, hot piss welling up inside of his pants. What did this crazy bastard want now? To say the name again?

“Oshiro! OSHIRO! O-SHI-RO!”

The American’s livid scowl softened. He stood, touched his earpiece, then spoke. A moment later, the spotter barely heard the American say, “Oshiro.” The spotter sighed with relief. He’d guessed right. The American had wanted to know who had sent them. Oshiro-san was his oyabun, the boss of his gumi.

The American tapped his earpiece again, tossed the wire cutters onto the table. He grabbed something and turned back around, marching over to the shooter.

Oh, shit.

The American shoved a clear plastic bag over the shooter’s head, whipped out a long white plastic cable tie, and ripped it around the shooter’s neck, zipping it tightly.

The shooter panicked, screamed. When he inhaled, the plastic bag sucked partway into his mouth, which only made him panic more. He exhaled until he out of breath inhaled again, and sucked the bag back into his mouth. The cycle repeated. The American watched emotionlessly. The breaths came shorter and shorter. The bag fogged.

The American stood and turned his withering gaze at the spotter. He stepped slowly over to him, knelt down. Held another plastic bag and zip tie in front of the spotter’s face. Leaned in close. Spoke, moving his mouth slowly.

The spotter squinted, trying desperately to hear the words.

“Ya-ma-da? Ya-ma-da?” the American asked.

“Hai! Yamada! Yamada!”

A slew of words vomited out of the spotter’s mouth, explaining that his oyabun Oshiro-san had ordered the attack at sea on the American Yamada, using one of his own fishing trawlers but making it look Chinese, just like he’d ordered. It was just a job. Nothing personal. Him? He liked Americans. Even drove an American—

A plastic bag snapped over the spotter’s face, clouding his vision. He kicked and twisted as hard as he could, but the American planted a heavy knee into his chest, pinning him to the ground. A moment later, the zip tie cinched around his neck. He tried not to panic, tried to take small, measured breaths. Felt more than two hundred pounds lift off his chest as the American stood and stepped away.

The spotter rolled over just in time to watch the American jog out the door. He shouted for mercy through the fogging bag. The last thing he saw was the American’s hand hitting the light switch, throwing the room into an eternal black.