Mike Maden - Drone

“I don’t understand,” Simone whispered to herself. “You’re not the vice president.”

“Maybe I’m wearing a disguise,” Pearce offered.

“What’s the matter?” Hank asked Simone.

“A glitch. Let me try something.” Simone turned to Pearce. “I’m sorry, but this will take a few moments.”

“We’re already late, Simone,” Early said.

“The president will have to wait a little longer, sir,” Hank said. He glared at Pearce. “You need to step back.”

Pearce smirked. “I’m fine right here.”

Hank took a step toward Pearce.

“Oh, Jesus,” Early whispered. He knew Pearce wouldn’t back down. But Simone saved the day.

“Ah. The system’s back up. Please, sir. Once more, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Pearce put his hand on the glass for the third time.

Simone frowned. “Your name isn’t Elvis Presley, is it?”

“Afraid not,” Pearce said.

Alarms rang on Simone’s computer. The monitor snapped to black.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Simone hissed. She tapped keys furiously.

“Your system just crashed,” Pearce said.

Early’s eyes screamed a question at Pearce. What have you done?

Pearce shrugged.

“Told you it wasn’t a good idea.”

Hank grabbed Pearce by the shoulder.

Big mistake.

The President’s Dining Room, West Wing, the White House

“Sure you don’t want anything to eat, Mr. Pearce?” Myers asked. She was just sitting down to a couple of poached eggs and a cup of black coffee.

“No, thank you. We ate on the plane,” Pearce said. He sipped his green tea.

“MREs,” Early grumbled. He was working on his second cup of coffee already.

“Mike tells me you’re quite a fisherman. You ever fish salmon?”

“Only every chance I get.”

“I had the hardest time learning to tie the Jock Scott. My husband had the patience of Job.”

“They say that the hardest flies to tie are your first one and your last one,” Pearce said.

She took a bite of egg.

“That was quite a little show you put on downstairs. I see why Mike puts such faith in you.”

“One of the reasons I get hired is that I don’t leave any footprints behind.”

“You mean, besides the one you left on Hank’s face?” Early grinned.

“From what Mikey tells me, it’s probably best for all concerned that I was never here to begin with.”

“Technically, you broke the law when you tampered with our security system, but I’m the one who called this meeting, so this one’s on me, Mr. Pearce.”

Pearce took another sip of tea.

“That’s where you say something civilized like ‘Thank you, Madame President,’” Early said.

Pearce ignored him. Early was still fuming over the embarrassment Pearce had caused him at the security desk.

Myers leaned back in her chair. “I understand you’re reluctant to accept the assignment I have for you, even though you don’t know what it is.”

“Let’s just say I have trust issues,” Pearce said. He glanced around the room. It was well appointed with period-style furniture. His eyes fixed on a large oil painting of Lincoln and his war cabinet. “It’s the decisions people like you make in rooms like this that cause most of the suffering in the world.”

“I have trust issues, too,” Myers said. “But I still think you’re just the man I’m looking for.”

“How do you know that? Mike’s an old buddy, but even he hasn’t kept up with me for the last few years. And as you’ve seen, nobody else has, either.”

“I usually make up my mind about a person in thirty seconds, and I seldom change it.” Myers smiled over the edge of her coffee cup.

“Let me see if I can change it, then.” Pearce pulled out his smartphone and tapped on the photo gallery icon. He slid the phone over to Myers. She glanced at the first photo. Her face darkened.

“Royce Simmons. The man who killed my husband.”

“DUI. Three priors. Driving with a suspended license the day he plowed into your husband’s Lexus. Increasing the DUI penalties in Colorado was what got you into politics in the first place,” Pearce noted.

“That’s old news, Mr. Pearce. What’s that got to do with us?”

“Slide it to the next photo.”

Myers stiffened for a moment. She wasn’t used to being told what to do, but she complied.

Pearce saw her eyes light up for a moment, then dim again. “Mr. Simmons in a morgue. Broke his neck in a fall, I read.”

“Mike, you mind giving us a second?” Pearce asked.

“Sure. I need to call the hospital and check up on Hank anyway. I’ll send him your love.” Early turned to the president. “Call me when you need me, ma’am.” Early closed the door behind him.

“I take it there’s another picture you want to show me?” Myers asked.

Pearce nodded.

She flicked the touch screen. A man’s face.

“Cliff Calhoun,” she said.

“Tell me about him.”

Myers set the phone down and glared at Pearce. “What do you want me to tell you that you don’t obviously already know? When I learned Simmons was due for early release, I hired Cliff to follow him. And I gave Cliff the order to kill Simmons if he caught him driving drunk again.”

“How soon before Calhoun caught him drinking?”

“The first night he was released. He was in a bar, celebrating. Cliff said he knocked back a half dozen whiskey shots and as many beers in less than an hour. Got up, stumbled out to a borrowed car. No license, of course. Bastard was going to drive home. Sidewalks were slick with ice. Cliff broke his neck. Made it look like Simmons slipped and fell. Nobody cried for the son of a bitch, not even his own mother. I hope your intel told you that, too. As far as I’m concerned, it was a public service. If Simmons hadn’t gotten drunk again, he’d be alive today, or at least, he wouldn’t have been killed by me.”

Pearce thought about her answer. He could put her in jail for twenty-five to life with that confession. The only problem was, Pearce hated drunk drivers, too.

“Did I pass your test, Mr. Pearce? Can we quit playing games now?”

“Still not interested.”

“Why? Because I hired a man to kill a drunk before he could kill somebody else’s husband and father? I’ve never talked about it because I didn’t want to go to jail. Calhoun’s been dead for years, so I don’t even know how you could have possibly found out. But if you’re asking me to apologize, I won’t.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m a businessman, not a therapist. I don’t do personal vendettas. It doesn’t fit the company mission statement.” Pearce stood to leave. “You need to find somebody else.”

“Sit down,” she said.

Pearce ignored her.

“Please.”

Pearce hesitated, his hand on the doorknob.

Baghdad, Iraq

August 21, 2005

“Dick holsters. All of ’em.”

Annie stood in front of Troy’s steel desk reading the airstrike request denial again. She gripped the paper so hard her hands trembled.

It was only the two of them in the spartan operations office that morning. Troy sat and listened to Annie rant, but he was focused on the ring in his pocket. He’d been carrying it for a week, waiting for just the right moment to ask her. Somehow that moment never seemed to arrive, today included.

IEDs had been cutting down American soldiers and Iraqi policemen for months now, and slaughtering innocent civilians, too. Instead of chasing the bombers, Annie decided it was smarter to find the source of the remote-controlled bombs.

Ba’athists and Iraqi insurgents—many of them former Revolutionary Guards—had enough technical know-how to set off crude timed charges. But the Iranians had been supplying IEDs with sophisticated timers and remote-control detonators, many of which, ironically, were manufactured in the United States and smuggled via Singapore into Iran. The Quds Force operators were also particularly adept at fashioning shaped-charge IEDs, the kind of munitions that could even punch holes through the thick steel hull of the mighty Abrams main battle tank.