Mike Maden - Drone Command

Feng snatched up the receiver. “Jianli!”

“I’m sorry, sir. My name is Liu. I’m the station chief.”

“Where’s my son?”

“He’s been sedated. Doctor’s orders.”

Feng’s grip tightened on the phone. Perhaps Jianli’s kidnapper had castrated him after all. “Was he injured?”

“Traumatized. Just crying, mostly.”

Feng winced. That wouldn’t do. But his son’s cowardice couldn’t be helped now. At least he was safe.

“Have him contact me the minute he wakes up. As soon as he’s fit to travel, he’s to return home — even if he protests. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if anything happens to him between now and his arrival, I’ll hold you personally responsible. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“To whom have you spoken of these matters?”

“No one, just as you ordered. Only one other agent was with me when we picked him up. And the doctor, of course.”

“Make sure they understand the importance of silence. If one word of this gets out—”

“I’ll be held responsible.”

“I’ll have you all shot.”

Feng slammed the phone into its cradle. The image of his naked son hanging like a pig in a slaughterhouse clawed at his heart.

He pulled his secure cell phone from his pocket and punched the speed dial for Admiral Ji. He’d teach those American bastards a lesson in humiliation. Drive it deep into their ugly round eyes like a burning spike.

The rays of the rising sun shot through the towering cumulonimbus on the horizon. A sign, surely.

Sanjuro Sakai sipped the steaming cup of tea, his clear eyes transfixed by the morning sky. The weather report said it would be a clear day, no rain, slight breeze from the west.

Another sign.

Sanjuro had lived a full and interesting life. He was eighty-nine years old and in perfect health. It was a miracle. Born in 1928, he was just seventeen years old when the war ended. If the war had lasted another day, he wouldn’t have survived it. His parents and sister didn’t, perishing in a fire set by American incendiary bombs.

After the war, Sanjuro fed himself by selling scrap metal, then he apprenticed in a small-engine repair shop. Within a decade, he owned it and began designing his own motors. He sold a patent. Married. Started a family. Started another company.

His wife gave him one son and three daughters before she passed. His children gave him ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. An unusually large family in Japan these days. His son grew the company into an international firm worth millions. His daughters all earned university degrees. His grandchildren were educated abroad. They, in turn, had grown the business even larger and diversified it. His entire family was wealthy, comfortable, and close. They worshipped the ground Sanjuro walked on because everything they enjoyed had all come from his hand.

A fine life indeed.

But his blessings didn’t end there. All of his life he loved to fly. His vision was still nearly perfect and he was Japan’s second-oldest licensed pilot. Never a crash.

And today was a good day to fly.

But Sanjuro was no fool. Life begins and it ends like the rising and the setting of the sun. He turned his attention to the ancient black-and-white photographs on the small table near his bed, a shrine of memories. Family and friends long gone. He missed them. He stroked his long silvery mustache.

Soon , he thought.

Sanjuro felt the ocean breeze battering his wrinkled face. He could smell the salt. It made him feel young again. Flying always did. The electric hangar door opened at the push of a button. His great-grandson Ikki was already inside, fixing a GoPro camera on the dashboard of the Mitsubishi A6M. The single-engine aircraft was his favorite. A classic. An extravagant gift from his son years ago.

Sanjuro walked the plane, inspecting it. It had been recently serviced and repainted. He checked the ailerons for play, kicked the tires — plenty of air. The hangar floor was clean. No leaks. The mechanic who maintained the family’s aircraft was an excellent technician. An artist with a wrench. Sanjuro expected no less than perfection from him and usually got it.

Thirty minutes later, Ikki climbed down and helped Sanjuro pull on his old flight suit, green and baggy on his ancient frame. Then he nimbly climbed the pegs in the fuselage, careful to step only on them and the pad on the wing. Once Sanjuro was inside the cockpit, Ikki followed him up and stood on the wing pad.

“You’re still spry, Great-grandfather.”

“Stretching and bending, every day!” He laughed and patted Ikki’s round belly. “Don’t forget! Or you’ll be a fat man in a wheelchair way too soon.”

Ikki explained to him again how to activate both GoPro cameras, the one in the cockpit facing him and the one on the cowling facing forward, but Sanjuro remembered everything. His mind was as sharp as his eyes. An overactive bladder was the only thing that bothered him. No matter. Today was a short flight.

Ikki pulled out his own video camera. Flipped open the screen. Held it up and hit the record button. “Ready, Great-grandfather?”

“It’s a beautiful day to fly, isn’t it?” He smiled like a child at play, a mouth full of crooked teeth beneath his mustache.

“Yes, it is.”

They chatted briefly as Sanjuro tested the stick and rudder pedals. Ikki was Sanjuro’s favorite great-grandchild, now a grown man, though he thought of him as a boy. Ikki was crazy about flying just like Sanjuro was. Sat at his feet for hours and listened to the old man’s stories, especially about the war. Sanjuro talked most about the friends he lost, much younger than Ikki at the time, loyal and brave in service to the emperor. Sanjuro was grateful that Ikki was attentive to his stories. His friends would live a while longer in Ikki’s heart long after he was gone, even if only as Sanjuro’s memories.

Sanjuro adjusted his hachimaki , then pulled on his head gear. Smiled brightly into Ikki’s camera. Ikki smiled back and shut it off.

“Good luck and good flying, Great-grandfather.” He patted Sanjuro’s shoulder. The old man squeezed his great-grandson’s hand.

“It’s an easy trip. Don’t worry.”

Minutes later, the white aircraft lifted off, captured in Ikki’s viewfinder. Sanjuro must have sensed it. He wiggled the Mitsubishi’s wings, waving good-bye.

The television screen flashed LIVE! BREAKING NEWS!

The two attractive Japanese television anchors, a man and a woman, spoke in rapid, breathless urgency. A video flashed on the screen behind them. A GoPro camera image of the Chinese oil-drilling ship as seen from above through the flickering shadow of a spinning prop blade.

The young woman announced, “Moments ago, Mr. Sanjuro Sakai—”

The drilling ship grew larger and larger as the camera sped toward the platform.

“Industrialist, family man, and Japan’s second-oldest pilot—”

The camera plunged into the drill ship’s steel deck, a last-second blur of scattering jumpsuits and steel rigging before the image cut to black.

“Crashed his aircraft today in an apparent suicide attack on the Chinese oil-drilling ship Tiger II , in the disputed waters of the Senkaku Islands.”

The television image cut away from the anchors. Ikki’s video loop filled the screen. Played again. This time with audio. Sanjuro’s voice cried out as the plane plummeted toward the Tiger II, “Banzai! Banzai! BANZAI!”