Mike Maden - Drone Command

She nodded her thanks and prayed it was enough. In twenty-two hours, she’d know for sure whether or not Pearce had pulled everything together and what stuff Lane was actually made of.

Tanaka’s cell phone vibrated in his trousers while he was still applauding Ito’s decision. Ito was soon surrounded by the other ministers who bowed and shook his hand, congratulating him. Tanaka slipped out of the room into the hall in the confusion, heading for his private offices.

Ito’s decision to give the Americans another twenty-two hours was craven. The Americans would never risk a war with China on Japan’s behalf. Why couldn’t he see that? Like so many Japanese, Ito had become a willing participant in his own debasement. The whole country was suffering from a collective Stockholm syndrome. The Americans had killed millions of Japanese during the war, subverted the emperor’s divinity, and imposed pacifism on Japan by force of arms. And yet they acted as if America were some kind of benefactor. Japan must stand on its own two feet and assume its rightful role in the world. Only a nuclear-armed Japan would be able to do so. China, Russia, and the United States only respected force. Even backward North Korea had nuclear weapons — and look how the United States feared them!

Of course, Ito disagreed with his views. At least Ito was willing to consider conventional rearmament and amending the Constitution. But it wasn’t enough. Ito was the head of the nation and yet he had no martial spirit. That made him not only weak, but also a traitor to his culture and his people. Tanaka prayed Ito would have the guts to follow through on his promise to attack the Chinese fleet if the Americans failed to keep their promise, but he doubted it. Fortunately, Tanaka had a few reliable allies in the naval and air branches of the JSDF. If Ito wouldn’t pull the trigger, they would.

Safely behind his locked office door, Tanaka checked his text message. Finally, good news. His friend at the Naicho had, in fact, been able to locate Pearce through a mutual contact in the maritime service. The American was definitely up to something. The former CIA officer was mounting some kind of operation, no doubt directed at disabling Japan’s ability to defend itself against the Chinese. Like Myers, Pearce was an arrogant gaijin . He was also dangerous. Now that Pearce had been located, he could be dealt with. Tanaka messaged back to his friend at the Naicho to send his men home, then forwarded Pearce’s location to another number. He also called his JMSDF contact and told him to alert his men to the pending action.

Unlike Ito, Tanaka wasn’t afraid to shed blood in defense of the homeland. Especially American blood.

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?