Blue Warrior

“Illegal in Mali, technically, since that’s where the violation occurred. I don’t suppose you have jurisdiction over there, do you?”

“And did you make any unauthorized or unscheduled stops on the return flight?”

Judy had to think about that. Technically, her flight to the Niamey civilian airfield was both authorized and scheduled, just not with the United States Air Force. “No.”

“Look, Ms. Hopper, I’m not trying to disrupt or interfere with your CIA op or whatever it is you guys are actually trying to do, but all I have to stand on is an extremely thin paper trail — basically, a one-paragraph order from this mysterious Colonel Sanders whom I still can’t reach — and nothing else to show for it. You were supposed to bop in and out and then bounce out of here in twenty-four hours with your man Early. Instead, there are now two Americans missing, presumably at least one of them is in Algeria, and he’s carrying a weapon stolen from a very pissed-off SF sergeant who’s about to be busted to corporal if that rifle doesn’t show up in the next twenty-four hours.” Sotero caught herself rambling. She rubbed her face to help her focus.

“So this is all about a missing rifle?”

“No, it’s not about a missing rifle. It’s about you people clearly lying about what your real mission is, and about me not being able to get independent verification that authorizes your fake humanitarian mission. I need to be very, very sure that I haven’t let a couple of bad guys onto my base. If I have, there’s a cell in Leavenworth with my name on it.”

“I promise, Captain, you haven’t.”

“This Pearce guy, he’s a friend of yours?”

Judy wanted to call him a first-class jerk for the way he’d been acting lately, but now was not the time for a Dr. Phil moment. “Yes, he’s a friend. A very good friend. A decorated veteran, too.”

“I’m glad to hear that. So you’d vouch for him?”

“Of course.”

“And you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him, right?”

“Not at all.”

“Straight up?”

“Word of honor.”

“Well, since you’re being perfectly honest with me, let me be perfectly honest with you. I just got word that a strike mission has been set for that dickhead I was telling you about, that Mossa character? Reaper, missile, you get the picture. If your friend Pearce is with Mossa, your friend Pearce is going to die.”

“Oh my word. When?”

“You tell me where Pearce is, I’ll tell you when the strike is.”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Do you know somebody who does? Because if you do, you’d better give me his name.”

Judy knew somebody, all right. Ian could still locate the tracker in Troy’s body. She also knew Ian had just eavesdropped on their entire conversation. She just prayed that he could do something about it.

He couldn’t.

CIOS Corporate Offices

Rockville, Maryland

Jasmine Bath listened in on the entire interrogation, too. She already knew Mike Early was a former close associate of Margaret Myers. When Sotero had initiated a query on Early and his status in Mali earlier, two of Bath’s algorithms tripped and he was flagged. She traced back the query to Sotero’s tablet and immediately hacked it.

Bath had always admired Pearce, if for no other reason than she had been able to acquire so little information about him. Either he or someone working for him was very good at keeping him out of all of the known databases and obliterating his digital shadow. There were thousands of “Pearce-shaped holes” everywhere she looked, as if someone was going in after Pearce whenever he popped up anywhere and erased any data relative to him and his company, Pearce Systems — one of the few organizations in the world she’d never been able to hack. This all just confirmed what she learned earlier from her hacked phone call between Zhao and Anthony Fiero.

Today’s interrogation now also confirmed for Bath that Pearce and Early were both in Mali at the same time as Mossa, and Myers had initiated Pearce’s mission into Mali, presumably to rescue Early. And yet Early was never rescued, nor did Pearce return. In fact, thanks to the RFID chip tracking on Captain Sotero’s hacked tablet and its ridiculously childish security system, Bath now knew where both Pearce and Mossa were located in Algeria.

That was all information that Fiero would desperately want in light of the concerns raised by Zhao. Information that Bath passed on immediately to Fiero before she herself succumbed to the pressure to torpedo it. Bath hated the idea of Pearce getting killed before she could meet him and figure out how he had managed to remain such a mystery to her. But Fiero was still paying the bills. Her curiosity about Pearce would have to remain unsatisfied.

No matter. Bath knew she would find greater satisfaction in her newfound knowledge that connected Zhao Yi, the Fieros, Pearce, and Mali. Knowledge she could use to finally untangle herself from the violent web she had been spinning all these years.