Mike Maden - Drone Threat

Grafton’s flesh tingled. “What about dinner?” She reached for his belt buckle. He answered with a lingering kiss.

They ate later.

Much later.

Pearce decided to spend the night at his corporate hotel suite. He couldn’t bring himself to get drunk at Myers’s place for the same reason he would never bring another woman into her home and violate the sanctity of their shared bed. What he was about to do felt like an even worse betrayal than that.

He put up a good fight, at least for a while. When he arrived at the lobby he checked in with the concierge for mail and messages, then picked up the house phone and ordered a steak dinner from the room service menu.

On the long ride up the elevator with the wide glass wall and spectacular view of the city, Pearce suddenly realized the anniversary of his dad’s death had passed him by again. The weeds around the old man’s lonely grave on the side of the hill in Wyoming would be three feet tall by now. He should’ve been there to trim them back down and clean the stone.

By the time he unlocked the front door and kicked off his shoes in the foyer he gave in to his lesser, fallen angel. He called the rooftop bar and ordered a bottle of his dad’s favorite, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7. It arrived on the room service cart with a sizzling porterhouse and fries. He cracked open the bottle first and poured himself a tall one. He drank it standing up. It went down fast with a familiar burn. It knocked him sideways, just like he hoped it would. He filled his glass again and shoved a few salty fries in his mouth before draining it and then poured another and headed for the sofa.

He never got around to that steak.

Three-quarters of the way through the bottle, his iWatch alarmed. It was a text. Bleary-eyed and flushed, he picked up his phone and read it. “Package in the lobby. Marked urgent. Thx. Management.”

What could it be? Pearce ran through the possibilities in his fogged mind but couldn’t settle on anything definite. Why bother trying? Just go down and get the damn thing , he told himself.

He pulled on a pair of Vans and grabbed his pass key and headed uneasily for the door. He tried to be quiet. It was late and the guests in the neighboring suites were probably asleep, and the management was fussy about noise.

It was hard for him to hold a straight line down the long hallway and he brushed against the walls a few times. He finally arrived at the elevator and pushed the button. He stood there, wobbly, waiting for the stainless steel doors to open. It took forever. He leaned against the wall. His eyes were heavy. He closed them. The world spun on a nauseating axis but he was too tired to get off.

The elevator ding startled him.

The doors slid open but all Pearce saw was the massive fist slamming into his face. The force of the blow whipped him around. The pain in his jaw woke him up as he crashed down onto the carpeted floor. Before he could lift himself up to throw a punch, a heavy knee jammed into his spine and a pair of thick hands pinned his shoulders and head to the ground, pressing his face against the carpet. A needle stabbed his neck and a moment later he was gone.

The air buzzed with flies. Hundreds of them, thick as thumbs.

Pearce stared at the corpses, their faces covered by swarms of bluebottle flies already eating away at the soft tissues, laying eggs in the moist cavities of mouths, noses, and gaping wounds where the skulls had been broken open by the bullets.

The twenty-four Shia recruits lay in a rough line along the low, blood-spattered wall, their fresh uniforms smeared in gore and dust.

Pearce, Early, Luckett, Rowley, and Tariq had pulled up their shemaghs , covering their own mouths and noses against the stench. Their weapons were unslung.

Pearce knelt down next to the young Shia lieutenant and brushed the flies off his face with a gloved hand. The Iraqi soldier was just a few years younger than Pearce. They’d grown close over the last few months. He told Pearce he wanted to be an architect but decided to serve his country instead. “All because of you brave Americans. You gave us hope.”

Pearce pulled off one glove and laid it across the lieutenant’s half-eaten eyes, his lifeless face turned toward heaven.

“Damn flies always show up out of nowhere,” Early said.

Pearce rose, wanting to say something smart-ass, but couldn’t. He stood, frozen and numb. He glanced over at Tariq. The hardened Kurd’s glaring eyes were wet.

“They were lined up and shot, execution style,” Rowley said.

“It’s a low wall. Made them kneel down first,” Pearce said.

Early shook his head. “Poor bastards. I liked ’em.”

Pearce said. “Good men, bad war.”

“Who did it?” Luckett said, scanning the low roofs.

“Who do you think?” Tariq’s wet eyes blazed.

Pearce thought he should pray or something but he didn’t have the words. “Let’s pull tags and cover them up, then haul ass. We’re nothing but targets out here.”

The empty 6x6 cargo truck pulled out of the wide warehouse door and sped away. Two of Majid’s foreign mercenaries, the Brit and the South African, stood outside, guarding the entrance.

A Humvee raced past the 6x6 in the opposite direction, heading straight for the warehouse. Luckett was driving and Pearce was riding shotgun. Luckett stomped the brakes and skidded to a stop just feet from one of the scowling mercs.

Pearce turned toward the others in the Humvee. “Wait here — and stay frosty.” He looked at the open machine-gun cockpit, then at Tariq. “Stay off that fifty unless I whistle it up. Understood?”

“Let me go with you. I translate.”

Pearce grinned, shaking his head. “You’re a hothead. I need you to stay put.”

“You need me in there. I fight with you.”

“Trust me, I know when I need you. Not now. Later. Got it?”

Tariq nodded reluctantly. “Got it.”

Pearce and Early exited the Humvee, leaving their rifles behind but not their holstered pistols. They nodded at the merc standing closest to them. The South African looked them up and down, ignoring the gesture as he lit a cigarette.

Early grinned wide and pointed a thick finger in the merc’s direction. “Fuck you too, buddy!”

The South African shrugged dismissively as he took a long drag.

Pearce marched into the cool, dark air of the massive concrete warehouse recently built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. General Majid stood in the center of the floor, watching a forklift carry a loaded pallet toward him. The forklift driver was one of the two Russian mercs in Majid’s employ. The leader of the mercenaries, a short and wiry Aussie, stood next to Majid. When he heard boots clomping behind him, he turned around. He lowered his rifle down to his side in a non-threatening gesture but stepped toward Pearce and Early.

“State your business, gents.”

Early turned to Pearce. “You want me to toss this shrimp onto his barbie?”

“Ha, ha. Like I haven’t heard that one a million times,” the Aussie said. His unshaved face wasn’t smiling.

The Russian lowered the pallet down right in front of Majid, then killed the forklift engine and jumped off.

“Need a word with the general,” Pearce said.

The Aussie shrugged. “As you can see, he’s a little busy at the moment.”

Pearce stepped into the man’s face. “Won’t take long.”

“Mr. Pearce! Come!” General Majid smiled and waved them over.

“Sorry, Barbie,” Early said, bumping into the shorter man as he pushed by, following Pearce.