Drone (27 page)

Mexico City, Mexico

Levi Wolf brought more than guns to the hotel that night. He’d recruited two of the embassy security staff for the operation as well. One was already at the location to keep an eye on things.

The stolen Quds file looked legit. Udi had forwarded it to Wolf before they arrived, and Wolf had staked out the location. There was only one Iranian who regularly occupied a warehouse in the barrio known as Tepito, famous for its boxers, crime, and poverty but especially for its
tianguis
—the open-air markets that sold everything from counterfeit Chinese software to seedless watermelons to black-market weapons, if you knew where to look.

Wolf was certain that the five of them could take down the lone Iranian. His man on the scene said he was there now. If the Iranian kept to his schedule, he’d be there for another two hours. Wolf reported that the Iranian looked more like a businessman than a soldier and appeared lightly armed, if at all. No one else had entered or left the warehouse in the last twenty-four hours.

After Wolf briefed Udi on the general layout, he turned the operation over to him. Udi had kicked down more doors than anyone else on the team and there was no time to lose. The idea was simple enough. Grab the Iranian alive and haul him back to the embassy for questioning. The trick was not getting killed doing it.

—

Tepito reminded Udi of the bazaars he’d been through all over the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. Places like Tepito formed a thin, permeable barrier that allowed commerce and crime to commingle without infecting the larger society as a whole. Tepito was a city on the edge of everything civilized. The kind of place where men and women racing through the streets with guns printing beneath their civilian
shirts weren’t paid much attention to, much less bothered, especially at night.

Drenched in sweat, Udi and the team made their way to one of the back streets behind the markets to a row of crumbling warehouses. The men carried only pistols. Running through the streets with automatic rifles would draw unwanted attention, from either the police or the gangs that controlled this area. For overwatch duty, they gave Tamar the largest weapon in their arsenal, a 9mm Mini-Uzi machine pistol, just in case reinforcements did show up.

Udi couldn’t access Pearce’s drones without him knowing or use any of the other whizbang gadgets he often deployed. This operation would have to be old-school all the way. Udi even opted for hand signals rather than comms, just in case the Iranians were scanning for them.

Tamar climbed a shaky steel ladder and took her position on the roof across the street from the target warehouse. The Iranian’s big rolling steel door was shuttered tight with a rusted lock that looked like it had never been opened. A small entrance door fronted the main street, and a rear door opened to an alleyway. One of the security men was posted to the back alley exit, while Udi, Wolf, and the other security man approached the front.

After Tamar gave the all-clear sign, Udi and his men slipped quietly through the unlocked front door into the dim warehouse. There was an office with a large covered window and a closed door on a second-story landing. The Iranian’s shadow wandered back and forth across the drawn shade, hand to his head, as if he were on a phone call.

Udi led the way up the short flight of rickety stairs and paused at the closed door. An AM radio played scratchy Middle Eastern pop tunes on the other side.

When the shadow faced away from the door, he gently tried the handle. It appeared unlocked.

Udi believed in leading from the front. He signaled his men, then pushed his way inside, pistol drawn.

—

Tamar bit her lip. Wolf’s assurances that the Iranian was an easy target didn’t calm her fears. She’d learned the hard way that nothing was ever easy in this business, but she knew that her husband was a pro. The team had broken in thirty seconds ago, but it seemed like a lifetime to her because she couldn’t see or hear what was going on inside.

Then gunfire. Like hammers banging on sheet metal.

Tamar guessed fifty shots, mostly pistols, but at least one automatic rifle firing three-round bursts. As quickly as it had started, the shooting stopped, but Tamar was already sliding down the ladder fireman-style. She dropped the last four feet to the concrete and raced across the street, bursting through the entrance door just in time to see a man at the rear exit turn and open fire at her.

The door frame shattered by her face and she flinched as a jagged splinter tore into her cheek. She dropped to one knee and fired back, but the man had already fled. Something caught her eye. She glanced up at the office. Wolf’s leg had caught between the stairs. The rest of his swinging torso hung upside down off of the staircase, facing her, arms reaching for the floor, like a man forever falling, chest clawed open, face masked in seeping blood.

Tamar dashed for the rear exit, ducked low in the frame, and turned the corner, leading with her weapon.

No one in the alley. Alive.

Just the wide-eyed corpse of one of the security men, his jaw shot away, belly split open to the fetid air.

Tamar turned back and raced up the rickety stairs two at a time and dashed into the office, fearing the worst.

She found it.

Her Nikes splashed in blood. The other security man was dead on the floor, shredded by large-caliber slugs in close quarters.

But Udi was gone.

Coronado, California

It was still dark outside. Pearce could hear the waves crashing on the beach below, hissing as they raced away.

He had just put the water on to boil for his first cup of tea when his phone rang. He read the caller ID. Picked up.

“Tamar?”

Sobbing on the other end. Finally, “Troy . . .”

She filled in the details.
Couldn’t find Udi. Couldn’t call the cops. Tried everything. No one else to turn to.
“I’m sorry—”

“Forget that. Are you at the embassy?”

“No.”

“Are you secure?”

“Yes.”

“Stay put. I’ll call you back.”

“Udi . . .”

“I know.” Pearce clicked off. Speed-dialed Early. “Need a favor.”

Early knew that tone of voice. “Name it.”

Pearce named it.

Early laughed. “Is that all?”

“Since you’re asking.” Pearce named two more. Called Ian, then Judy. Texted Tamar when and where to meet him.

Prayed he wasn’t too late.

30

On board the Pearce Systems HondaJet

Thirty minutes later, Judy banked the HondaJet away from San Diego onto a southeastern course for Mexico City. Pearce tapped on the iPad he was using to zero in on his missing friend.

“So, how did you find Udi?”

“Uniquely coded carbon nanotube transponder implants. Ian’s jacked into an air force recon satellite and tracked the signature.” Pearce zipped open a small tactical pack. “I’ve implanted all of my people with them for situations like this.”

“That’s cool.” Then it hit her. “Wait, you just said ‘my people.’”

“Yes. You have them, too.”

“I never gave you permission—”

“Here.” Pearce held out a Glock 19 pistol.

Her face soured. She touched her stomach. Felt queasy, violated. “How?”

Pearce pressed the weapon closer to her. “You’re gonna need this.”

Judy pushed it away. “You know I don’t do guns,” Judy said.

“We’re not exactly going to Bible study.”

“Don’t do those, either.”

Pearce thought about pressing the issue but let it drop. Judy had lost her faith years ago, but not her moral sensibilities. Her only religion now was flying.

He shoved the 9mm pistol back in the bag. “I don’t make any apologies for protecting my people.”

“We’re gonna have to talk when this is all over.”

“ETA?”

“Ten-thirteen, local.”

Pearce glanced at the instrument panel. Judy’s Polaroid was missing. He hoped that wasn’t a sign of things to come.

Benito Juárez International Airport, Mexico City

Judy taxied to a stop inside a private hangar just as Tamar rolled up in a beater Chevy Impala with rusted Durango plates and a scorpion sticker plastered across the rear window.

“Perfect,” Pearce said. He’d trained his people to steal old cars. No GPS or OnStar systems to track them.

Judy piled into the backseat, wiping the greasy fast-food wrappers and crushed beer cans onto the filthy carpet with a sweep of her arm. Pearce tossed a mil-spec first-aid kit and a duffel bag loaded with rifles and ammo next to her. Within minutes they were on Avenue 602 heading east out of town, Tamar behind the wheel. Pearce was glued to the tablet while Judy watched Mexico City slide past through the grimy windshield. The car had no air-conditioning. It was going to be a long, hot ride.

—

Forty minutes outside of Mexico City, Tamar turned onto a rutted dirt track leading back into farm country. Against her instincts, she had to slow down as the rocks thudded sharply against the car’s undercarriage. No telling what damage they were doing. They had to roll their windows up against the clouds of dust they were throwing up.

All three of them wore ear mics, linked to one another. Pearce had other channels open, including Ian’s.

“In a hundred meters, pull off to the right,” Pearce said. “Let’s get a
visual.” The air force satellite Ian had access to was only a signals intelligence unit. It couldn’t provide video surveillance.

Tamar pulled over and killed the engine. A small berm gave them some cover from the small farm thirty meters off of the road. Udi’s signal had been flashing from there since Ian had found it earlier that morning.

They unloaded quietly and scoped out the ramshackle farm. The house was barely more than a shack. In the front, a couple of goats chewed on grass and a half dozen chickens wandered around a tractor that hadn’t moved since the Carter administration. Off the near side of the house, five huge sows shouldered against one another in a muddy pen, grunting as they fed greedily from a trough, fat stinging flies buzzing in their flicking ears. Otherwise, no other sounds or movement.

“There.” Pearce pointed at a dirt bike dropped in the grass.

Three yards from the bike, a body.

Tamar gasped.

“Not Udi. Too young. Let’s move.”

Pearce carried a short-stock M-4 carbine. Tamar gripped her Mini-Uzi. Judy hauled the medical kit.

The three of them crouch-walked past the motorcycle. Key still in the ignition. Smell of gas. They reached the body. A teenage boy, fourteen, maybe fifteen. Single gunshot to the side of his head. “He tumbled off the back and the bike kept rolling,” Pearce whispered in his mic.

Judy felt for a pulse. Knew there wouldn’t be one. “Dead awhile.” She shooed the flies off of the boy’s head wound.

“Wait here,” Pearce said to Judy. He nodded at Tamar, gave her a hand signal. Tamar sped around back, keeping low to the ground, as Pearce approached the front door.

“Another body back here,” Tamar whispered. “Probably the boy’s mother. Throat cut.”

“Bastards,” Ian hissed in Pearce’s ear.

Pearce reached the porch. The door was shut, but a front window was open.

“In position,” Tamar said.

“Hold,” Pearce replied. He pulled a four-inch-long Black Hornet Nano helicopter drone from his pocket and activated the flight software on his iPhone. The half-ounce surveillance drone featured a small camera. No telling what or who might be waiting inside. Pearce powered up the unit and tossed it through the window. Forty seconds later, the Norwegian-built drone had circumnavigated the two-room shack. No trip wires, no bad guys.

“All clear,” Pearce said. “But stay frosty. Go.”

Pearce and Tamar burst into the two-room shack at the same time. They cleared the shack.

Cigarette butts on the plywood floor, ashtrays overflowing on the card table. Dirty dishes in the filthy washtub. Christ on the bedroom wall staring down at the unmade bed tangled with bloody sheets.

Pearce pocketed the Hornet.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

Tamar’s eyes posed the obvious question.

Pearce checked his tablet. The transponder signal still flashed. It was only accurate to ten meters. “Better check outside,” he said.

He stepped off of the porch into the blinding sun, heading for the far side of the house. Clothes already sticky with sweat. Tamar took the opposite tack and headed for the animals. Judy was still crouched low by the boy, shooing flies. She’d covered his lifeless face with a square of gauze from the medical kit.

Pearce checked the side of the shack. A rabbit cage with three fat rabbits and a rusty rake leaning against the wall. Farther back, an outhouse. Flies. Stink.

A bad kind of stink.

Pistol up, Pearce opened the door. A corpse. Pants down around his ankles. Bled out. Pearce didn’t have to raise the slumped head.

Must be the dad,
he told himself.

Tamar screamed.

Pearce bolted toward her. She stood near the pig trough, clutching her horrified face in her hands.

It was Udi.

Pearce recognized the mop of hair and the thick hands, but not much else. The pigs had gutted him. Had devoured his face.

Tamar howled, crazed with rage. Her Uzi split the air, slugs slapping the huge pig bellies. The swine screamed as if possessed, charging and slipping through the mud and gore, dropping one by one, as 9mm rounds sliced through their spinal cords and brain stems.

Tamar stopped firing, pirouetted, arms flailing. The Uzi sailed through the air as she spilled into the grass, her shoulder painted red.

A shot rang out. The bullet
zoop
ed like an angry bee past Pearce’s ear. He dropped to one knee, trying to see where it came from.

Judy ran full throttle toward Tamar, despite Troy screaming in her ear, “Down, down, down!” until she dropped by her friend’s side with the med kit. She began unzipping it when a geyser of dirt leaped up between them.