Drone Threat

58

Pearce had given the order to his crew to take off. No point in hanging around. Al-Saud was in protective custody.

At least for now.

Once they’d reached cruising altitude, Sarah Swift unbuckled from her seat and reappeared. “Time for that checkup.”

Pearce started to protest but stopped. His headache throbbed so badly he thought there might be a slug lodged in there. Despite the pain, his mind didn’t stop racing as he tried to come up with a solution to the problem at hand — how to find al-Saud’s operative.

He told her about the headache and she checked his eyes again for dilation and concussion symptoms. Swift was fast but thorough. While she kept checking and recording his vitals, they swapped stories about Afghanistan. The Canadian former combat medic was a thirty-six-year-old blonde from Vancouver with a spray of freckles across her California surfer-girl face. She reminded him a little of dark-eyed Cella, the Italian doctor he had met and fallen in love with during his time in Afghanistan. According to Ian, Swift was just as brave and every bit as talented as Cella in the field. In fact, Swift had been wounded in battle and received both the Sacrifice Medal and the Star of Courage for her service. She was a great asset to the team. Pearce Systems was a civilian contractor specializing in drone applications across a wide spectrum of economic activity, but the company had been born out of security operations. Even with drone ops, human lives were at risk in the field. Swift was part of that team but in between assignments. He was glad to have her on board tonight.

Swift told him he needed to get into a clinic for a more thorough exam and a brain scan when they landed, but for the moment she was reasonably satisfied that he suffered only a headache. She handed him a couple of industrial-strength Advil and fetched a bag of frozen peas for him to press against his bruised face while she headed for the galley to whip up something for him to eat. She explained that their flight was last-minute and they were shorthanded. Pearce complied.

The cold bag of peas felt good against his throbbing face and the Advil already seemed to be kicking in. He had twelve hours of flight time before he reached Washington, D.C., and he was pretty much out of action until he landed. But his brain, busted as it was, could still be put to use. His training as a CIA analyst would have to fill in the gaps.

All of the analytical resources of the federal government hadn’t been able to turn up anything regarding al-Saud’s lone wolf. Not one single clue. He’d been as brilliant in hiding himself as he had in the design and execution of his attacks. But there had to be a vulnerability in his invisibility shield. What was it? Forensics had crawled all over the original drone that landed on the White House lawn and didn’t find anything. The other physical devices left behind, including the water-disruption equipment at the house in Los Angeles, proved equally clean. There was absolutely nothing — not one piece of physical or digital evidence — left behind.

Except al-Saud. He was the only link. Chandler had severed that link. He needed to reconnect it.

Pearce rang up Ian again. “We need to start digging into al-Saud. He’s the chink in our lone wolf’s armor.”

“I initiated a search query as soon as I determined you were in his custody. So far, no luck. His digital shadow has been thoroughly scrubbed.”

“Stay on it. And, by the way, thanks for saving my bacon.”

“Hated to go to Chandler but I had no choice.”

“I would’ve done the same.”

“Cheers.” Ian rang off.

Swift came back ten minutes later with a microwaved entree of salmon and scalloped potatoes, along with a cup of fresh fruit. She saw the faraway look on his face. He wasn’t in the mood for company. “I’m fixing something for the boys up front. I’ll check back on you in a while or you can hit the call button.”

“Thanks. This looks great.”

“You’ve got a terrific galley back there. Beats MREs any day of the week.” She laid a hand on his broad shoulder. “Soon as you eat, you need to get some shut-eye. Doctor’s orders.”

“I’m trying to stop a war.”

“You’re stuck on a plane for twelve hours. Maybe God’s trying to tell you to take a breather. At least for a few hours.”

“Tell you the truth, I’m exhausted. But I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“For how long?”

“A couple of months.”

“I’ll get you something for that. At least for tonight.”

“Thanks.”

Swift left and Pearce cut into his salmon filet, his mouth watering. A little food would help clear his mind.

Just as he finished his last bite Swift reappeared with a couple of sleeping pills and bottled water. “Take these. They’ll knock you out, but not too badly. Just enough to get you some rest. You need it.” She set the pills in his hand.

He stared at them. “Addictive?”

“Very, if you’re not careful. That a problem?”

“Maybe.”

“Once won’t be an issue. Take them. You need it.”

“You’re the doctor.”

She gathered up his plate and silverware and left him alone. He cracked open the bottle of water and stared at the pills in his hand one last time. His headache had cleared up quite a bit, but his mind was fogged like a Swedish sauna. He needed to sleep. He popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with a long pull of water. It was entirely psychosomatic, but he already felt a little sleepy.

He leaned his business-class chair back into a reclining position, shut off the light, and closed his eyes. The thrumming turbines and cool cabin air blowing on his face calmed him down. He forced himself to clear his mind by focusing on his breathing. It worked. For a minute. Until the images flooded back. Tanaka flashed in and out of his mind, along with al-Saud’s twisted smile. Shame gripped Pearce. If he hadn’t been drunk, then al-Saud’s security team wouldn’t have gotten the drop on him. If he’d been at the top of his game to begin with, maybe all of this wouldn’t have happened. Tariq Barzani’s bald head and wild Kurdish mustache flashed in his brain. So did the infrared image of the ISIS fighters Pearce had killed in a ball of white fire on a computer monitor. It was an act of mindless vengeance. Al-Saud’s nephew died in that explosion. And now many thousands more were dying — all because of him. Who was he kidding? Chandler would be judged in the end, but so would he. Maybe he would be judged even more harshly because he knew what he was doing.

No, it wasn’t me, it was al-Saud, Pearce reminded himself. He only used Pearce’s attack to justify his actions, and to light the fuse that was setting the world on fire. Al-Saud blamed him for his nephew’s death. He used Pearce to get his vengeance on ISIS, then tried to get his personal revenge on Pearce. Why the personal revenge? Because al-Saud obviously wanted the satisfaction of executing Pearce up close and intimate instead of having his lone wolf do it for him.

Wait a minute, he thought. Al-Saud. Who else knows about him? The sleeping pills must have been kicking in. He was having a hard time holding on to a memory. It swam like a silvery fish though the fingers of his mind. Something about al-Saud. A phone call. Yeah, but from whom? Pearce rolled through a hazy Rolodex in his mind’s eye. It finally stopped. Moshe Werntz, from Mossad. That was it. He’d called Pearce and told him about the secret meeting between al-Saud and Tarkovsky.

Tarkovsky? What did he remember about him? An engineer by training. Formerly head of some department. International science and technical cooperation? Security affairs? Something like that. Drones would fit in his wheelhouse. The Russians were years behind on drone technology but coming on fast. What they couldn’t design they reverse-engineered or flat-out stole — following the Chinese model perfectly. But the stuff that was used over the last week wasn’t high-end. It was all easily within grasp of Russian technical abilities.

Could Tarkovsky be the lone wolf? Seemed unlikely. But if not him, a Russian operative connected to him? Sure. Why not?

Pearce turned and twisted the idea in his mind over and over like a Rubik’s Cube, trying to solve the puzzle. But the colors faded and the cube got smaller and smaller until the world went black and Pearce disappeared with it.