Blue Warrior

“We could chase him,” Mossa offered. “At that speed, he will blow a radiator or a head gasket, especially in this heat.”

“He could be leading us into a trap,” Pearce said. “Let him go.”

An angry finger of smoke rocketed out of the sky. It crashed into the pickup truck in the distance, ripping it apart like a fiery fist.

Pearce glanced at Mann.

“Don’t look at me.”

Pearce pulled out his sat phone and hit the speed dial. “Must have been Ian.” The phone rang. Ian wasn’t picking up.

Base Aérienne Arlit

Arlit, Niger

Lieutenant Beaujolais stood in the air-conditioned ground control center, cheering with the French Air Force Reaper pilot and the rest of the operations crew. He had provided the final visual confirmation the commanding officer required before launching the missile. Beaujolais gladly confirmed The Viking’s identity. The Hellfire had just vaporized Al Rus. The AQS scourge of the Sahara was finally dead. Operation Dress Down Six was a success.

The purchase and deployment of American Reaper drones had already paid off handsomely for the French military, especially now that resources for their Africa operations were dwindling. But this new technology had just proven its value in spades. The ability to loiter for hours, identify suspects, and execute them with the push of a button heralded a new era in French antiterror operations in the region.

Corks popped. The commander poured the champagne himself. They raised glasses and the entire command shouted in unison, “Vive la France!”

54

Karem Air Force Base

Niamey, Niger

15 May

Judy was still confined to her quarters. She couldn’t sleep. She paced nervously in the cramped little room. She checked her watch again, as if that mattered. She was due to pick up Pearce in the Aviocar in less than twelve hours and she was still locked up in here with a twenty-four-hour armed guard stationed outside her door.

Ian had promised to call her last night but didn’t. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She fingered the copper-colored carabiner latched to her belt loop. The Security Forces guards didn’t think twice about confiscating it. They couldn’t possibly know it fired aerosolized super glue and pepper oil. Pearce had Rao make it for her, since she refused to carry a gun for self-protection. She could easily use it to disable the lone guard at the door, a really nice kid who was kind of sweet on her. But she couldn’t do it, especially to a soldier just doing his duty.

The SF guards had given her cell phone back after her interrogation. Of course, they’d bugged it, or so Judy had to assume. She’d pulled the battery and the SIM card out and stored them. Besides getting tapped, Ian had taught her that a smartphone could also be remotely activated and used for both audio and video surveillance. But the SFs hadn’t taken her analogue aviator watch, which actually wasn’t just a watch. She flipped up the face and tapped the touch screen. It was meant only for extreme emergencies. This felt like one.

Ian answered.

Judy dashed into the bathroom and turned on the shower to mask her voice from the guard outside her door. “Thank God, Ian. Where have you been? You were supposed to call me.”

“Busy, love. What do you need?”

“What do I need? I need you to get me out of here. I’m trapped.”

“I know. I’m working on it. Working on lots of things. Sit tight.”

“What about Troy?”

“Working on that, too. Bye.” Ian ended the call.

“Ian! Ian!”

Judy growled, frustrated. She thought a very, very bad word but couldn’t bring herself to say it. Her dad would have been ashamed if she had.

Malta International Airport,

Luqa, Malta

One of the smallest members of the European Union, Malta was a strategic three-island archipelago south of Sicily, some two hundred miles east of the Tunisian coast, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea. The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) was a very small volunteer force comprising land, sea, and air elements whose primary task was defense of the islands and safe-passage guarantees for the high-traffic commercial shipping lanes passing through its waters.

With a minuscule budget and few human resources, the AFM recently turned to drone technologies to enhance its capabilities. With the aid of an EU grant, the AFM engaged the services of Dr. T. J. Ashley, the former head of Drone Command during the Myers administration but now the CEO of her own private consulting firm. With the assistance of Dr. Rao and Pearce Systems, she had put together an air-sea rescue drone system package based on a highly modified Boeing A-160T Hummingbird VTOL aircraft and fitted with four external covered litters, like one of the old M.A.S.H. helicopters, just without a pilot.