Blue Warrior

The HQ didn’t hesitate. It raced another thousand feet higher, paused at the apex, then dove headlong toward the clueless sniper, exploding on impact. Five pounds of ultra-high-explosive material vaporized the shooter. The “suicide” drone had worked perfectly.

Pearce scooted back over to Mossa and Early. “All clear, but keep covered up. There might be another one.”

“Not likely,” Mossa said. “Look.”

The three men surveyed the battlefield. The two BTRs were long gone, while the third still roared with flames, black smoke boiling into the morning sky. The few survivors on the mountainside were badly wounded, clutching their guts, moaning, bleeding, dying.

Another goddamned killing floor, Pearce thought, and there he stood in the middle of it. Again.

Pearce glanced up into the sky. Those birds circling high up on the thermals had seen it all before, too. Thrived on it. He’d seen them everywhere he’d ever been in a fight. Maybe they were following him, like gulls after a fishing boat.

Pearce had no idea how right he was.

38

Adrar des Ifoghas

Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali

9 May

What Pearce failed to notice was that not all of those birds circling overhead were the same.

One of them belonged to Guo. It was a hawk drone, covered in lifelike plastic feathers. An amazing example of bio-mimicry at its best. The hawk drone’s high-resolution cameras had captured the entire battle, as well as the men who had fought it. The Tuaregs, of course, had their faces covered by their distinctive indigo tagelmusts, but the hawk’s cameras had captured parts of the faces of two guılaos. The images were being fed into JANUS, DARPA’s latest facial-recognition software, recently stolen from the Americans. JANUS focused on facial and skull morphology — pieces of faces, or faces contorted by smiles, shadows, frowns, et cetera — rather than on perfect full-face captures. It took only a few moments for the software in Weng’s computer to identify Troy Pearce and Mike Early.

Suddenly, Guo’s mission had become exceptionally interesting. He called in the failed battle and the discovery of the two Americans to Zhao, still in Bamako.

Zhao residence

Bamako, Mali

Zhao thanked Guo for his report and the two formulated a revised plan. With any luck, it just might work.

Unfortunately, Zhao didn’t believe in luck and he couldn’t afford to take any more chances. Failure was not an option. An avid martial artist, Zhao studied the greats. One of his favorite fighters, Mike Tyson, once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Zhao felt like he’d been punched by Mossa in the face now. Twice.

He picked up his secure phone and called an old friend in the United States, a very well-connected man who could help him solve his problem — for a price. A man who was in desperate need of something Zhao could offer him. A man who preferred to be called The Angel.

L’Argent Bar

Washington, D.C.

Jasmine Bath played dumb. Funny how easy it was to do. A change of tone, a furrowed brow. A lie becomes the truth. And the truthfulness of the liar, once established, never questioned. People wanted to trust her, to believe she was on their side always. She was happy to oblige.

No, of course I will never monitor your calls. Your privacy is important to me. Trust is important in this business. You know that. Without it, we’re both dead.

That’s how the first meeting always went with a new client, even one as powerful and savvy as The Angel. But that had been a while ago. They hadn’t had a face-to-face since then, so when he called and asked for a meeting, she obliged. It would go one of two ways, and one of them might prove fatal to her.

The Georgetown bar he picked was one of the oldest in town, and one of her favorites. Low light, high-backed leather chairs, wood walls, and superb yet unobtrusive service. It was a public meeting in an intimate, exclusive setting. That was a good sign.

Jasmine sipped her WhistlePig straight rye on the rocks, listening attentively. She pretended she hadn’t parsed every syllable of Zhao’s recorded phone call to him demanding to know why Americans were protecting the Tuareg terrorist Mossa. Pretended that she hadn’t recorded his postcoital bedroom chat with his wife, asking her who Troy Pearce was, what Pearce Systems was all about, and why Pearce was in Mali. Bath just smiled and nodded and sipped and listened. Waited before asking the obvious questions.

“And what did your wife say about Pearce? I mean, who is he, really?”

“She pled ignorance because she really doesn’t know anything about him. She tried to explain Pearce’s connection to Myers, which, frankly, I never fully understood.”

Neither did Jasmine. Pearce was an open secret, hiding in plain sight. The few times she tried to access data on him, she was either shut down or sidetracked. At the time, it was interesting but not important.

“It’s a damn shame we never got to those impeachment hearings on Myers. Probably a lot of things got swept under that rug,” he said.

“No doubt.”