Mike Maden - Drone Threat

“Are you threatening me, Troy? The sitting vice president?”

Pearce heard the mocking tone in Chandler’s voice.

“No threat, Mr. Vice President. Just conveying my fervent hope and prayer.” Pearce hung up to the sound of Chandler’s laughter.

Fuck Chandler , Pearce thought. Let him play his stupid games. There were more important things to do.

He knew he could still try and persuade the president to call off the bombing and maybe even the war after Lane’s meeting with President Sun. Equally important, there was still a lone wolf on the prowl whom he had to find. Whoever he was, he was dangerous as hell and was roaming free. It didn’t matter to Pearce if he had stopped operations for al-Saud. The man was guilty of committing crimes on American soil and he needed to be brought to justice. Pearce had to find him.

But how?

Chandler turned to Grafton. “You heard all of that, Vicki?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your read on Pearce?”

Grafton had been listening in on Chandler’s phone call with Pearce but her mind was elsewhere. She was on cloud nine. A woman totally in the flow of her own giftedness and power. She was sitting next to the second most powerful politician on the planet and he was seeking her counsel, but she hardly cared — like a tenured postal worker who just won the Powerball. Ilene Parcelle had called earlier that morning, congratulating her first for landing her “big fish” and, subsequently, her reward. Grafton was now a junior partner at the Seven Rivers Consortium. Another long and costly Mideast war would replenish the coffers of SRC’s international clientele. But there were formalities to satisfy, Parcelle said, and Grafton’s official duties wouldn’t begin for a few weeks. Ilene advised her to stay put and keep her hand on the tiller and her ear to the ground for as long as possible.

“Vicki?”

Grafton snapped out of her trance. “Pearce sounds like he’s out of control. Do you think he’ll change his mind about going to the press with all of this?”

Chandler chewed on his lower lip, a childhood habit. “I really don’t know. He’s a very smart man, but he’s prone to rashness. If he falls into some kind of funk or rage, who knows what he’ll do?”

Grafton shifted uncomfortably in her chair, trying to decide what to tell her boss. “If he does go to the press, what damage do you think could actually be done?”

“Can’t you imagine the headline?”

“You mean, ‘One crazed Saudi conspires to launch a series of frightening but essentially nonlethal attacks to get us into a war we should’ve been fighting anyway’?”

“You never wrote newspaper copy, did you? That headline wouldn’t fit if you folded the paper sideways,” Chandler said, smiling at his own joke. “The headline I fear is, ‘Saudis manipulate U.S. into another pointless Mideast war.’ That’s the one that will turn this administration upside down, and not a few careers will get poured out into the gutter, yours and mine included.”

Grafton’s green eyes narrowed, studying Chandler’s face. He was scared. That surprised her. She’d always known him to be a decisive and ruthless decision maker. She’d never seen him clutching his pearls before. “You knew Pearce was dangerous. Al-Saud was about to do you a favor. Why did you intervene?”

“Pearce’s man Ian alerted me to the situation. That means he was a witness. If al-Saud had killed Pearce, then we’d be in a world of hurt, possibly even planning the invasion of Riyadh right now. Believe me, if I could’ve let al-Saud dispatch Pearce without getting caught, I would have been in the front row, cheering him on.”

“Pearce is a man with a violent history,” Grafton offered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from his past finally caught up with him.” She had a few resources at her disposal now, including Tarkovsky’s connection to the SVR hit teams. Pearce was already on their list. Once she was fully on board at SRC she would have access to their private mercenary army to draw upon as well. Pearce was a bleeding wound that needed to be cauterized. That would put Chandler in her debt forever.

“What are you suggesting, Vicki?”

Grafton saw the hope rise in his round, piggish eyes. She’d seen that look before. She was used to being the object of desire, especially for men, and she enjoyed it. The male desire for sexual satisfaction was a powerful weapon in her arsenal, particularly when that satisfaction was first withheld, then granted. But the look in Chandler’s eyes was even more desperate. The expectancy of a drowning man the moment before his rescue.

She was about to jump in and pull him out but she stopped. A small voice in the back of her mind warned her that drowning men usually pull down the people trying to save them. Arranging for Pearce to be killed would solve a lot of problems for everybody, but the risk of being discovered for having done so was even higher. What did she care if Chandler went down? She was standing on the high, rocky shores of the SRC. She was invulnerable now.

Or was she? If the war suddenly stopped and the Saudi conspiracy was revealed, she might get swept up in the undertow of the sinking Lane administration. After all, she was in the room when the decision for war was made. She was sitting right next to Chandler. If he became radioactive, so would she by virtue of her proximity. Would the SRC terminate her partnership to avoid the scandal? More important, her value to the SRC was tied directly to her access and influence with a successful Lane-Chandler administration. Her fate was now inextricably bound to theirs.

Dealing with Pearce suddenly seemed a lot less risky. There was one other option.

Grafton reached down into her turquoise Brahmin handbag. “I have something that can help you with your problem.”

Chandler brightened, curious. “I like surprises.”

Grafton held out her hand. Chandler opened his. She placed Tarkovsky’s thumb drive into his soft palm.

“What’s this?” Chandler asked.

“A gift from a friend. Now it’s my gift to you.”

“I should still be mad at you for abandoning the Russian option.”

“I didn’t abandon it. Just changed the batting order.” She nodded at the thumb drive. “You should open that.”

“I was taught that regifting was bad manners.”

Grafton suddenly wondered if she’d been played by her Russian lover. If so, it didn’t matter now. “Maybe it was always meant for you.”

“How delightful.” Chandler grinned, intrigued. He fingered the drive. “What’s in it?”

“Pearce’s head. On a great big silver platter.”

Pearce had given the order to his crew to take off. No point in hanging around. Al-Saud was in protective custody.

At least for now.

Once they’d reached cruising altitude, Sarah Swift unbuckled from her seat and reappeared. “Time for that checkup.”

Pearce started to protest but stopped. His headache throbbed so badly he thought there might be a slug lodged in there. Despite the pain, his mind didn’t stop racing as he tried to come up with a solution to the problem at hand — how to find al-Saud’s operative.

He told her about the headache and she checked his eyes again for dilation and concussion symptoms. Swift was fast but thorough. While she kept checking and recording his vitals, they swapped stories about Afghanistan. The Canadian former combat medic was a thirty-six-year-old blonde from Vancouver with a spray of freckles across her California surfer-girl face. She reminded him a little of dark-eyed Cella, the Italian doctor he had met and fallen in love with during his time in Afghanistan. According to Ian, Swift was just as brave and every bit as talented as Cella in the field. In fact, Swift had been wounded in battle and received both the Sacrifice Medal and the Star of Courage for her service. She was a great asset to the team. Pearce Systems was a civilian contractor specializing in drone applications across a wide spectrum of economic activity, but the company had been born out of security operations. Even with drone ops, human lives were at risk in the field. Swift was part of that team but in between assignments. He was glad to have her on board tonight.