Mike Maden: Drone

Myers’s hand stroked the brushed-aluminum casket, but she was so lost in thought she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.

The mother of one of the slain students handed her a slip of folded paper scrawled with a recipe for chile rellenos. “Señor Ryan asked me all the time for the recipe, but I never got around to it. He said it was his favorite. Lo siento mucho, señora. ”

Myers thought Ryan didn’t like chile rellenos. Maybe he still didn’t like them. Maybe he was just being nice to this lady. Or maybe he really did like hers. Or maybe he did like chile rellenos. Maybe it was tamales he didn’t care for. She wasn’t sure now. They hadn’t had a sit-down meal together for quite a while now. Years, actually. Myers was never much of a cook. Never had the time. Too busy building a business, then too busy running a state. She accepted the recipe from the grieving mother. “Thank you,” Myers told her. “I’ll have to try it sometime myself.” But she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t like Mexican food at all.

Myers sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, indeed. She would bury her son in the family plot outside of Denver next to his father, John Martinez, with no one to stand beside her.

The steward reappeared in the empty conference room with a tray carrying the club soda on ice and a brand-new bottle of aspirin. He set the tray down on a small table and began to leave, but something in him made him pause. He knew she had a terrible headache. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in the room with her only child. Myers hadn’t told him she wanted to be left alone. And she needed the aspirin. So he stepped over to the aft door.

Just before the steward knocked, he paused. He heard a sound. He leaned his ear as close to the door as he dared and listened.

Myers was weeping.

The steward stepped softly away from the door and headed back down to the galley.

Idaho Falls Airport, Idaho

The sun had just crept up over the horizon.

Pearce kept his hands thrust in his jeans against the chill as he stood near the tarmac. He watched the Pearce Systems HA-420 HondaJet touch down effortlessly, its wheels kissing the asphalt without a sound. Crisp sunlight glinted on the gray and white carbon fiber composite fuselage as the unusual over-the-wing pod-mounted engines began to cycle down. The sleek corporate jet taxiing toward Pearce reminded him of a completely different plane on a distant tarmac in a previous life he wished like hell he could forget.

Baghdad International Airport, Iraq

March 5, 2004

“What kind of name is Pentecost anyway?” Early asked. Like Pearce, he was dressed like a local and wore a three-day growth of beard on his chin beneath a bushy black mustache. He and Pearce leaned against a Humvee as they waited for the big C-130 to cut its engines in the predawn light.

“Beats me.”

“Sounds religious. Tongues of fire and all of that.”

“You should ask her,” Pearce said. “Maybe she’s a fanatic.”

“Don’t need any more of those around here,” Early grunted. “What else did Connor say about this hotshot?”

“Straight off the Farm but first in her class. A premium Core Collector by all accounts.” The air was cool. The slight breeze coming out of the south put a chill on him.

“Is that why she rates her own plane?”

“Connor said she was eager. Wanted to get deep in the shit fast.”

“She’s probably a Poindexter with a pocket protector.”

“Connor knows what he’s doing,” Pearce said.

The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) had authorized a special task force to deal with the recent wave of devastating IED attacks by Iraqi insurgents around the country. Connor had picked Pearce to lead a small hunter-killer team in Baghdad. Pearce chose Early, a first-rate gunfighter from the 10th Special Forces Group he had met during Operation Viking Hammer in 2003, along with an S-2 from Early’s unit. But after the intel officer was killed by a sniper, Connor selected Pentecost to fill the slot.

The big four-bladed props on the C-130 finally spun down and the rear ramp lowered.

“Here she comes,” Early said.

The woman coming down the ramp could have stepped out of a recruiting poster for Southern California surfer girls—lean, blond, and blue-eyed. But apparently she’d swapped out her flip-flops and bikini for combat boots and black tactical gear on the ride over.

Early’s jaw dropped. “Whoa.”

“You must be Early.” She stuck out her hand. “Name’s Pentecost. Annie Pentecost.” She smiled. “Connor described you perfectly.”

Early grinned, not sure if she was complimenting him or not. “Mike Early. Real nice to meet you, too.”

Annie turned toward Pearce. Looked right through him.

Those eyes.

“Troy Pearce,” he said, offering his hand.

She had a firm grip. Held his hand just long enough to feel the heat. “Annie Pentecost.”

“Welcome to the shit,” Early said, trying to get her attention.

“I think he meant ‘team,’” Pearce corrected.

“Thanks. I’ve heard good things.”

“So have we. How was the flight?” Pearce asked.

“Hard seats, cold coffee. The usual. The pilot just told me another IED ripped inside the Green Zone an hour ago.”

Pearce nodded. “Police station. Three Iraqi policemen killed. One of our guys wounded, too. A contractor. Critical.”

“We’re supposed to find you a hot and a cot.” Early yanked open the rear Humvee door. “We can check it out first thing tomorrow.”

“It already is tomorrow,” Annie said. “Let’s go find us some bad guys.” She tossed her duffel through the door and climbed in after it.

Pearce and Early exchanged a glance. Maybe Connor was right about this one.

And those eyes.

Idaho Falls Airport, Idaho

Pearce made his way into the state-of-the-art cockpit and dropped down into the plush leather passenger seat and buckled in. With the HondaJet’s flat-panel displays and touch-screen controls, Pearce felt like he was trapped inside of a video gamer’s wet dream instead of an actual airplane.

Pearce pulled the headset on and adjusted the mic.

Judy Hopper sat in the pilot’s seat with an unreasonably radiant smile for such an early morning. “Fresh coffee in the thermos,” she whispered in his earphones. She was a decade younger than Pearce, with a plain, honest face and clear eyes. She kept her hair pulled back in a ponytail and never wore makeup.

“Good flight over?” Pearce asked.

“Easy as pie. You ready?”

“Let’s go. Sooner we get there, the sooner I can get back to the fish.”

“ETA to Dearborn, ten-fifteen, local,” Judy said. Their cruising speed was close to five hundred miles per hour.

Judy reached over and tapped the brightly lit glass touch screen in front of Pearce, part of the Garmin G3000 avionics package. The only thing analog about the glowing digital cockpit was the faded Polaroid taped to the instrument panel. It was ten-year-old Judy flying her father’s missionary bush plane. She claimed it was her good luck charm.

After confirming GPS coordinates, weather patterns, and nearby traffic, Judy radioed in to the tower. She was cleared to taxi back to the runway for takeoff. The flat panel in front of her displayed a 3-D graphical terrain rendering and a simulated cockpit view. Pearce Systems had purchased one of the first HondaJets to roll out of the North Carolina assembly plant earlier that year.

There was no airport traffic that morning so Judy was able to taxi quickly into position. In a few minutes, they stood poised for takeoff. Judy quickly ran her preflight checks, then pointed at the yoke in front of Pearce. “You want to give it a whirl today?” she asked.