Mike Maden - Drone

Pearce grabbed the company car—an unmarked sterling gray 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500—out of its designated parking spot and took up station at the shuttle drop-off ten minutes before the shuttle was due while Hopper waited for him to radio her.

At the San Diego shuttle drop-off, Ali grabbed a taxi that jumped on southbound I-5. Pearce trailed Ali in his Mustang as Judy kept tabs on both of them by helicopter. A few minutes into the ride, she called Pearce.

“He’s heading for Petco Park. That’s got to be his target.”

“Agreed,” Pearce said.

“We’d better grab him before he gets in. The Padres game is sold out. I heard it on the radio.”

Pearce knew that if Ali really did have access to a bomb or some other WMD, Petco Park would be the perfect venue to set it off—live on national television. Pearce weighed the arguments raging in his head. Ali was probably wearing a suicide vest under that zippered jacket and was probably smart enough to load it up with glass marbles and some kind of detonator that kept him from being caught by any of the metal detectors he’d already passed through. If the Iranian had booked his reservation for the seventy-two-virgin hotel, a mass murder at Petco Park was the perfect place to check in.

But something still didn’t add up. Ali had practically begged to be discovered and followed. He made no attempt to hide his face with either a hat or sunglasses, let alone engage in the tricks every junior field operative employs to avoid detection by electronic surveillance. Ali wanted to be discovered and followed. Why?

“Stay close, Judy. I might need you. How far away are Johnny and Stella?” Pearce had had Judy contact them as soon as Ali hit the freeway.

“Twelve minutes, tops.”

Ali’s cab dropped him off at Petco Park just in time for the start of the second inning. The sellout crowd of over forty-five thousand people roared as some sort of a play was made inside. He picked up a ticket at the will-call booth for the sold-out game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and dashed inside.

Pearce dropped his car off at the valet service and ran up to the only open ticket window, desperate to find a way into the sold-out game without setting off alarm bells. Before he could concoct a cover story, the ticket seller asked, “You Troy Pearce?”

“Yeah.”

“Some guy just left this for you.”

The ticket seller slid a ticket under the glass. Pearce snatched it up. The Iranian had style.

Pearce raced through the casual stadium security with a flash of a fake CIA identity card and made his way to a third-floor Premier Club suite right behind home plate. He pushed through the unlocked door.

Ali stood at the bar and poured himself a club soda. His windbreaker was off. No suicide vest. Not even a gun or a knife.

Pearce unholstered his .45 caliber Glock and marched straight at the Iranian, shoving the muzzle tip against the side of Ali’s head.

Ali didn’t flinch. He held up the glass with the fizzy water and said, “Cheers,” lifting the drink to his mouth. Pearce batted it away.

“You Americans. No manners.”

“I’m two heartbeats away from blasting your brains against the wall. Tell me why I shouldn’t?”

“Because if it was a good idea, you would have already done so. Why haven’t you, Pearce?”

Hearing the Iranian pronounce his name chilled him. The Quds Force was a serious organization with world-class intelligence-gathering capabilities, but it was more likely that Ali had gotten his name through the torture he’d put Udi through. Pearce’s grip tightened on the pistol.

“No answer? Let me help you. Is it A, because you don’t know why I went to all the trouble to arrange this little meeting? Or is it B, because you don’t know what might happen if I don’t come out of this suite alive? Or is it C, because you sense there is something else at work behind the scenes that you still have not figured out?”

“All of the above, ass wipe.”

Ali smiled. “Honestly, I’m surprised. Now lower your weapon, or I will signal my man to fire his SA-7 at your helicopter and kill your friend Judy.”

Pearce’s eyes narrowed. How does he know about Judy?

“I’ve been monitoring your comms since Union Station.” Ali pointed at his Bluetooth earpiece. “We have scanners, too.”

The SA-7 was the Russian version of an American shoulder-fired Redeye antiaircraft missile, perfectly capable of taking out a thin-skinned civilian helicopter. When Libya fell, dozens of SA-7s fell into Iranian hands, though they had plenty in their arsenal already.

Pearce lowered his pistol. “Start talking.”

Ali tapped his earpiece, shutting down the comm link. He didn’t want his associates to hear the proposal he was about to make to the American.

“You are a businessman, so let me get down to business.” Ali motioned to a chair. Pearce refused. Ali took a seat anyway, putting his feet up on a nearby table.

“I need safe transportation to Tehran.”

Pearce laughed. “Oh, really? Well, I have a need, too. A powerful need to throw your ass through that plate-glass window and watch you break your scrawny neck on the dugout railing. You tortured and murdered one of my friends and I mean to pay you back with interest.”

“You mean the Israeli spy who came to Mexico to capture me? Don’t be such a child. His duty was to capture me; my duty was to kill him. I did my duty, he failed his. For soldiers such as ourselves, it is as simple as that, is it not?”

Pearce clenched his fists. He was definitely going to enjoy beating this cold-blooded bastard to death with his bare hands.

Ali leaped to his feet and kicked his chair aside.

“If you think you have what it takes to kill me, I welcome the battle. In fairness, I should warn you: if I don’t win and you emerge from this suite without me, a thousand people will be killed in this stadium by explosive charges. Is that price too high to pay for you to get your vengeance?”

Pearce inwardly raged. There was no question he could take the Iranian out. But Ali had beaten him at every turn so far. Better let this thing play out.

“Why don’t you let the Mexicans ship you out?”

“We are no longer on friendly terms.”

“Because you were the one behind the Bravo attacks here in the States.” Pearce grinned. “The Mexican government must be pretty pissed off at you.”

“You have a gift for stating the obvious. They are as eager to kill me as you are.”

“What do I get in exchange for transporting you in one piece to Tehran?”

“Information of the highest order. Information that affects the vital national security of your country. It’s far more valuable than my worthless skin.”

“What’s the information?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“If the information is solid.”

“It is, I assure you.”

“And if I don’t agree to this deal?”

“Then I walk out of here, and when I am in a secure position, I will remotely disarm the wireless detonators, and no one need die today, and I will find another way home.”

“How do I know you’ll actually disarm them?”

“You don’t. The only thing you can be certain of is that if I don’t leave here under my own power, the explosives will be detonated.”

What would Myers say? Should he try to contact her first? Pearce was completely off the reservation now—maybe too far off. Letting Ali go posed significant security risks that he wasn’t authorized to incur. But Pearce was the one who had boarded this runaway train. It was up to him now to decide when and where to get off.

“We have a deal. Now quit jawing me to death and tell me what you know.”

Ali nodded, satisfied that he’d finally set the hook. He crossed back over to the bar, opened up the fridge, and found another cold club soda and poured himself one over ice. As he poured, he nodded at Pearce. “You might want to pour yourself a whiskey. You’re going to need it.”