Drone (45 page)

Pearce’s eyes narrowed.
How does he know about Judy?

“I’ve been monitoring your comms since Union Station.” Ali pointed at his Bluetooth earpiece. “We have scanners, too.”

The SA-7 was the Russian version of an American shoulder-fired Redeye antiaircraft missile, perfectly capable of taking out a thin-skinned civilian helicopter. When Libya fell, dozens of SA-7s fell into Iranian hands, though they had plenty in their arsenal already.

Pearce lowered his pistol. “Start talking.”

Ali tapped his earpiece, shutting down the comm link. He didn’t want his associates to hear the proposal he was about to make to the American.

“You are a businessman, so let me get down to business.” Ali motioned to a chair. Pearce refused. Ali took a seat anyway, putting his feet up on a nearby table.

“I need safe transportation to Tehran.”

Pearce laughed. “Oh, really? Well, I have a need, too. A powerful need to throw your ass through that plate-glass window and watch you break your scrawny neck on the dugout railing. You tortured and murdered one of my friends and I mean to pay you back with interest.”

“You mean the Israeli spy who came to Mexico to capture me? Don’t be such a child. His duty was to capture me; my duty was to kill him. I did my duty, he failed his. For soldiers such as ourselves, it is as simple as that, is it not?”

Pearce clenched his fists. He was definitely going to enjoy beating this cold-blooded bastard to death with his bare hands.

Ali leaped to his feet and kicked his chair aside.

“If you think you have what it takes to kill me, I welcome the battle. In fairness, I should warn you: if I don’t win and you emerge from this suite without me, a thousand people will be killed in this stadium by
explosive charges. Is that price too high to pay for you to get your vengeance?”

Pearce inwardly raged. There was no question he could take the Iranian out. But Ali had beaten him at every turn so far. Better let this thing play out.

“Why don’t you let the Mexicans ship you out?”

“We are no longer on friendly terms.”

“Because you were the one behind the Bravo attacks here in the States.” Pearce grinned. “The Mexican government must be pretty pissed off at you.”

“You have a gift for stating the obvious. They are as eager to kill me as you are.”

“What do I get in exchange for transporting you in one piece to Tehran?”

“Information of the highest order. Information that affects the vital national security of your country. It’s far more valuable than my worthless skin.”

“What’s the information?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“If the information is solid.”

“It is, I assure you.”

“And if I don’t agree to this deal?”

“Then I walk out of here, and when I am in a secure position, I will remotely disarm the wireless detonators, and no one need die today, and I will find another way home.”

“How do I know you’ll actually disarm them?”

“You don’t. The only thing you can be certain of is that if I don’t leave here under my own power, the explosives will be detonated.”

What would Myers say? Should he try to contact her first? Pearce was completely off the reservation now—maybe too far off. Letting Ali go posed significant security risks that he wasn’t authorized to incur. But
Pearce was the one who had boarded this runaway train. It was up to him now to decide when and where to get off.

“We have a deal. Now quit jawing me to death and tell me what you know.”

Ali nodded, satisfied that he’d finally set the hook. He crossed back over to the bar, opened up the fridge, and found another cold club soda and poured himself one over ice. As he poured, he nodded at Pearce. “You might want to pour yourself a whiskey. You’re going to need it.”

Pearce finally holstered his gun, then poured himself a drink.

Ali laid everything out. Iran and Russia had forged a secret alliance to dominate their relative spheres of influence—the Middle East and Western Europe. The Russians had engaged the Iranians to provoke the Americans into a ground war in Mexico in order to keep them distracted while the Russians secured the rich oil fields of the Caucasus. A second Mexican-American war would also drive up oil and gas prices, which benefitted both Iran and Russia.

“And who was the brain behind the plan?” Pearce asked.

“Ambassador Britnev formulated the original plan.”

Or at least he thought he had,
Ali mused.

“
Of course, his Kremlin masters had to approve it, and Titov himself signed off on it. The only problem with the plan is that we could never get Myers to comply with it. She is a woman of remarkable resolve, quite unlike any other woman I have ever known. I have had to improvise quite a bit.”

“And the Mexican government had no part in this?”

“Did I say that?”

“What role did they play in your scheme?”

“Since you killed both Castillo and Bravo, the Barrazas accepted my offer of protection against your government and the civil war that is about to erupt beneath their feet.”

“Then why did you attack the president at the Hidalgo church?”

“Hernán Barraza ordered the attack on his brother.”

“Why would he want you to attack his brother?”

“He wanted his brother to think that you Americans were trying to assassinate him.”

“But that drone could easily have killed the president.”

Ali shrugged. “Hernán wants to be president. He is already making plans for another attempt.”

“What proof do I have that you aren’t just making all of this up to get your dick out of the wood chipper?”

“It is normal in a business transaction to secure a contract with a deposit in good faith, particularly when one is doing business with a new partner.”

Ali reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper and set it on the bar. Pearce read it.

“I don’t believe it. The navy would have picked this thing up a long time ago.”

“Believe it. There are several Russian subs that operate with impunity in the Gulf of Mexico. You Americans are not as clever as you think you are. This submarine has been assigned exclusively to my unit for supply and transport.”

“Then why not use it to get back to Tehran?”

“I made that request. The Russians refused to allow me to ‘abandon my post,’ as they put it.” Ali was lying.

The Iranian pointed at the paper. “GPS coordinates and radio codes are valid for the next seventy-two hours, then they change again. I will not provide new ones.” He picked up his windbreaker and pulled it on as he headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Pearce asked.

“I’m leaving.” He pointed at the stadium. “Baseball bores me. I prefer American football. You are welcome to stay, of course. There is excellent room service that has already been paid for.”

“You aren’t going anywhere.” Pearce’s hand drifted toward his pistol.

“Of course I am. I told you, if I don’t leave here under my own terms,
a thousand people will die. Maybe more. If you don’t find what I promise on that paper, then you have no need to fulfill your agreement with me. But if you do find that submarine, then you contact me with the cell number also on that paper and we will agree to a meeting place and time.”

And with that, Ali left.

The Quds Force officer had him by the short hairs and they both knew it.

Pearce’s face darkened.

The Iranian was still running the show.

56

Mexico City, Mexico

U.S. Ambassador Romero sat in the office of his Mexican counterpart, the secretary of foreign affairs, along with the Mexican secretary of defense, a retired general. Heated accusations on both sides finally simmered down to a low boil.

After the meeting, Romero reported back to Myers that he was convinced that the Mexican government had, in fact,
not
ordered the attack on the
Star Louisiana
and that he accepted the Mexican theory that a rogue naval officer had foolishly taken matters into his own hands. Romero further suggested that the matter now be handled by lawyers, insurance companies, and high-level bureaucrats, rather than generals and admirals if war was to be avoided. Myers thanked him.

An emergency cabinet meeting affirmed Romero’s recommendation despite Early’s concern that it was a Bravo operation. The chief of naval operations, a four-star admiral, assured Myers that operating a modern combat vessel was beyond the skill sets of street thugs. “So is hijacking a Reaper,” Early protested. It would be weeks before salvage operations could recover any bodies for identification—if any bodies were still intact. For Myers, the question of identity was academic. All that mattered to her at the moment was that the United States and Mexico had just avoided a shooting war.

But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. Myers knew that the House
Armed Services Committee hearings would find a way to forge the tragedy into a weapon against her administration.

Gulf of Mexico

The Russian nuclear attack submarine
Vepr
was cruising at a leisurely five knots nearly three hundred meters below the surface of the gulf on a mapping exercise. No American warships were in the area. The nearest vessel was a small civilian pleasure boat on the surface four hundred meters away, according to its radar signature.

The young but professional crew was performing its duties with affable efficiency when a heavy metallic
clang
sounded against the
Vepr
’s outer hull. Everybody suddenly shut up, as if a switch had been thrown. The captain ordered all stop, fearing they’d struck something. According to their charts, an abandoned explosives and ordnance dumping ground the Americans had used for decades was several kilometers north of their position, but radar and sonar both indicated nothing of the kind close by.

Moments later, a puzzled radioman called the captain to his station and handed him the headphones.

“Hello, Captain!” Yamada’s voice blasted in the Russian’s ears.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” the captain demanded.

“Doesn’t matter who I am,
moke
. What matters is that I know who you are.”

The captain frowned in confusion. “What do you want?”

Yamada explained to the sub captain that an underwater drone had just successfully attached an explosive device to the Akula-class submarine’s outer hull and—
clang
—was attaching yet others.
There was no reason to worry
, Yamada assured the captain,
at least not yet
.

The Russian captain at first expressed doubts, but a visual confirmation by an external video camera confirmed Yamada’s claims. Both the
stealth UUV and the magnetic limpet mines attached to the
Vepr
’s hull were visually confirmed.

Clang.

The captain resorted to vile threats, but within moments he succumbed to his worst fears as Yamada explained the captain’s dire situation.

“The
Vepr
must immediately withdraw from the gulf at full speed and return to the fleet base in Severomorsk or face certain destruction.” The
Vepr
was part of the great Northern Fleet that operated out of Murmansk Oblast near the Finnish and Norwegian borders.

“This is an act of war,” the captain declared.

“I am a private citizen representing no government. Private citizens cannot wage war,” Yamada countered. Pearce had instructed him to use this precise legal language.

“You are a liar. You are an American.”

“Actually, I’m your worst nightmare. I’m a Japanese with a long memory.”

The captain shuddered. “A terrorist, then?”

“More like a contractor, terrorizing you at the moment. I am tracking your position by satellite. Failure to set course for Severomorsk and follow it immediately will result in detonation of the limpet mines attached to your hull. Once I see that the
Vepr
has returned to Severomorsk, I will contact your base commander, he will arrange to have a great deal of money transferred to an account of my designation, and then I will deactivate the mines.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Good!” Yamada laughed. “That would be a mistake. My ancestors have been killing Russians since the Battle of Tsushima. So, yes, I want you to worry about the fact that I might change my mind and blow your pig boat to pieces just for the fun of it, and I want you to sweat as you think about my finger on the button for every minute of every kilometer it takes you to get back to Severomorsk.”

Yamada laughed again and cut the link.

Sixty seconds later, the
Vepr
powered up to full speed and set a direct course for home.

But Yamada had lied. The robotic arm on his stealthy research UUV had only attached large magnets to the submarine’s hull. Pearce promised Yamada that his UUV would never be deployed in a military operation, so it took a while to convince his friend that scaring the Russians with magnets was not the same as blowing them out of the water with mines. Yamada finally yielded the point on the promise of lavish funding for his next round of whale research. Yamada was actually glad to screw with the Russians. He knew that the Soviets had killed whales illegally for over forty years, slaughtering nearly two hundred thousand of them globally and causing several population crashes. Making a Russian sub captain piss his pants seemed like a good start on payback to the idealistic pacifist.

Pearce was just as glad they were only magnets attached to the
Vepr
’s hull. If World War III was about to begin, he preferred it was someone else who started it. But he made sure that one of the magnets featured a GPS tracker with a signal that he would pass on to the U.S. Navy.

Ali had kept his side of the bargain. Galling as it was, now it was Pearce’s turn to ante up.

San Diego, California

Two days later, Ali appeared at the Pearce Systems hangar at the San Diego airport, as per Pearce’s instructions. One of Pearce’s private jets, a Bombardier Global 8000, sat in the cavernous space. Ali could see the two pilots in the cockpit window prepping for takeoff.