Blue Warrior (7 page)

“Will Americans be there as well?”

“Perhaps. Until then, remain focused on the task at hand. Drones are the future of warfare and China must have them, but our nation still needs soldiers like you to acquire them. Don’t disappointment me again.”

“I won’t.”

10

Avenida Martires de Inhaminga
Maputo, Mozambique

5 May

T
he elephant stared at him.

“Hold?”

The baritone voice slapped Pearce’s fogged mind back to reality. His bleary eyes switched from the dusty elephant head looming over the polished mahogany bar to the man in front of him. Thousand-dollar suit. Million-watt smile. Forty-five caliber, short-barreled chrome pistol in a shoulder holster. Not that the Australian needed it. He outweighed Pearce by fifty pounds, all muscle, straining against the fine Italian silk suit.

Peace glanced at his cards again. Hard to focus after three days of drinking. After loading Johnny’s coffin on a commercial flight home, he headed for a familiar dive in the old port district, a crumbling relic in the part of town where tourists and police both feared to tread.

Hammered as he now was, he still couldn’t dull the image of Johnny’s slaughtered corpse in his mind.

Or the guilt.

“C’mon, Pearce. Quit playing the stunned mullet.”

Pearce tossed three cards on the felt. “Hit me.”

Pearce scanned the room as the Australian dealt. The two Iraqi bodyguards were slumped in their chairs, suits crumpled and stained,
bored out of their minds. The ancient barkeep was stocking liquor. No other patrons.

“Well?” The Australian nodded at the three dealt cards on the felt.

Pearce picked them up. Glanced at the pile of cash on the table, along with a large leather pouch and his own holstered pistol. He was all in now.

Yup. Everything.

Pearce squinted at the blurry numbers on the cards.

“Don’t like what you see?” The giant Aussie smiled.

“Hey, boss.” A familiar voice.

A soft hand fell on Pearce’s shoulder. He turned around.

“What are you doing here?” Pearce asked.

Judy Hopper smiled softly, lowered her voice as if she were speaking to a dim-witted child. “You haven’t picked up your phone for days.”

Pearce set his cards on the table and patted himself down, face screwed with confusion. “Guess I lost it.” He glanced back up at her. “How’d you find me, anyway?”

“Ian.”

Like every other Pearce employee, Troy had a proprietary tracker installed in his body. Judy was already in Africa a few borders away, which meant she was closest to him on the ground. That wasn’t saying much. Traveling in Africa was always difficult. Ian explained the situation, sent her the coordinates. She came as fast as she could.

The bodyguards eyed Judy, but not for weapons. She wore her mouse-brown hair in a ponytail and no makeup on her plain, tired face, but she was easy on the eyes, especially at this hour.

“Not your first card game, is it?” Judy asked. “Or your first stop.”

“I thought you quit,” Pearce said. “You said you quit.”

“Miss, we’re in the middle of a hand. If you don’t mind—” The Australian’s deep voice was kinder than she’d expected.

“Just a moment, I promise,” she said with a polite, earnest smile. She stepped closer to Pearce. One of the bodyguards sat up, the chair scraping on the old stained floor.

“I didn’t quit. I took a leave of absence. That’s different.”

“How?”

“You’re still paying me.”

Pearce shrugged. “But you still quit on me.”

“I didn’t quit on you. I just needed time away. Spent it with some friends in Kenya.”

“A vacation. Sounds nice.”

“Miss?” The Australian’s tone sharpened.

“It was a refugee camp. No canoes or S’mores, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

“Looks like you quit them, too.”

Judy wanted to cry. Or scream. She’d never seen Pearce this wasted before. “Yeah, to find you, you . . . drunkard.”

BAM!
The Australian’s hand slapped the table. “Are we going to finish this game or not?”

“WE’LL FINISH THE FUCKING GAME!” Pearce roared.

“Whoa. What’s this?” Judy picked up the leather pouch on the cash pile. Unbuttoned it. Rifled through the neatly folded documents. She found the title to the Pearce Systems Aviocar, still parked at the airport. “You’re betting my plane?”

“Your plane?” Pearce asked.

“Why am I arguing with a lush? What time is it?” Judy asked.

Pearce checked his wrist. Nothing.

The Australian pulled back his suit sleeve. Shoved the military-style watch in Pearce’s face. Pearce’s watch. The one Annie gave him years ago.

“Two . . . eighteen?” Pearce finally said, squinting.

Judy pointed the pouch at Pearce. “You can’t bet the Aviocar.”

“Sure I can.”

“Of course he can. He did.” The Australian pointed a thick finger at the pouch. “Put it back. Please.”

“We’re gonna need that plane,” Judy said to Pearce.

“I don’t need it anymore. And you quit, remember?”

“Well, I’m here now. We’ve got to go.” Judy tucked the pouch under her arm and grabbed Pearce’s shirt collar.

The Australian whipped out his chromed .45 pistol and held it to Pearce’s temple. Both bodyguards were on their feet now, pistols drawn.

“Pick up your damn cards and play your hand.” He waved the gun barrel at Judy. “And put those papers back.”

Judy sighed, frustrated. Tossed the pouch back on the table.

The Australian pointed his pistol at Pearce’s chest. “Mr. Pearce, last warning.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Boss—”

“Shhh!” Pearce held a finger to his lips to quiet her. “The man just wants to play a hand of cards. No harm in that.” He glanced at the Australian. “Right? Everybody calmed down now?”

Pearce tossed off a glass of vodka in a single throw and slammed it back on the table. “Now, where were we?”

“Cards!” the Australian blurted.

“Boss, it’s important. Really important.”

“Then you should’ve called sooner,” Pearce said.

“I did. Like, a hundred times,” Judy said. “So did she.”

“PLAY, God damn you!”

“She?” Pearce asked.

“Yeah. An old friend has been trying to reach you.” Judy punched a speed-dial button on her smartphone.

“I don’t have any old friends.” Troy laid his cards down in a crooked fan.

The Australian leaned forward to look at them. He howled with laughter. Fanned his own cards on the table.

“Sorry, Mr. Pearce, but three of a kind beats none of a kind.” He reached for the pile.

Judy handed Pearce her phone. “It’s for you.”

He frowned. Took the phone. “Pearce.”

“Troy, it’s me. Margaret Myers.”

The Australian stacked the bills on the table, smiling and counting. Pearce listened intently.

“Right away.” He tossed the phone back to Judy. Stood. The bodyguards rose, too. Pulled their guns.

Pearce pointed at the pile of winnings. “Gonna need that plane after all, friendo.”

11

Founders’ Plaza
DFW Airport, Grapevine, Texas

5 May

T
he American and Texas flags snapped in the crisp noon breeze.

The small plaza was a favorite hangout for locals and tourists who came to watch airplanes from all over the world make their north–south landing approach. It was a gift to the public by DFW Airport, the scene of last year’s murderous mortar attack by Iranian and Mexican cartel terrorists.

A small crowd had gathered for today’s announcement. A news van from a local ABC affiliate was there to broadcast the live event. The camera operator checked her sound levels against the aircraft noise while the on-air reporter checked her makeup.

“How’s my hair look?” the young reporter asked, worried about the wind.

“We’re live in three, two, one.”

David Lane (D–24th District, Texas) approached the music stand serving as his podium. Forty-four years old, boyishly handsome, and tall, Lane had the confident, well-earned swagger of a former Air Force MC-130 Talon pilot who flew SOF operators in and out of hot spots all over the world. Lane’s chief of staff, his wife and three kids, and his parents stood beside him. He carried no notes.

“My name is David Lane and I have proudly served the 24th district
for three terms, working on both the Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs committees, sitting on a variety of subcommittees, including Border and Maritime Security, Intelligence, and Counterterrorism. It has been an honor and a privilege serving my constituents and the nation on these committees.

“As I promised when I ran six years ago, I would limit my service in Congress to just three terms. I will therefore not be seeking reelection to a fourth term next year. In this current era of mistrust of government, it is especially important for elected officials to keep their word. I also want to set an example for my three young children, who are watching me like hawks.”

Lane turned and smiled at his twin first-grade daughters and pre-K son, who was squirming in his mother’s grip.

“At the urging of friends, family, and constituents, I am also here to announce my candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

“I’m making this announcement today despite the reality that I have very little chance of winning. Money dominates every aspect of government today, including election cycles. The fact that it will be hard for me to win is the reason why I need to run. Our system of government is broken. I intend to fix it.

“Today we live in an entitlement society, where everybody wants all of the privileges but none of the responsibilities of citizenship. Too many Americans who want to work or start a business are thwarted by federal policies from both parties that favor Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. Worst of all, to remain in office decade after decade, our career politicians keep giving away benefits we can’t afford to supporters who haven’t earned them by borrowing money we don’t have from children who haven’t been born yet. That’s a recipe for disaster. It’s also just plain wrong.

“Most people in my district probably don’t even know my name. Even fewer in the state know who I am, and I’m hardly a blip on the national radar. If you want to know who I am and what I stand for, I guess the best way to describe me is as a Kennedy Democrat, just like
my father, a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran, and my mother, a retired schoolteacher.

“I’ll be posting all of my policy positions on my website, but all of my ideas for future legislation and policy initiatives can be summarized in the great words of President Kennedy: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ It’s not an original campaign theme, but it’s the most necessary one I can think of. It applies to every American citizen, but it should apply to our politicians, too. Me most of all.

“Thank you, and God bless America.”

Lane’s mother whooped with pride, and the rest of his family clapped.

“Better go grab that interview,” the camera operator said to the reporter. “He’s leaving.”

The reporter rolled her eyes and whispered, “Boring.”

The camera operator shrugged. “I kinda like what he said. He’s right, though. He hasn’t got a chance in hell.”

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Hart Senate Office Building, Room 412, Washington, D.C.

Senator Barbara Fiero was neither the chairman nor the highest-ranking majority member of the Senate’s intelligence committee, but she had arranged for this closed-door, classified intelligence briefing on al-Qaeda in Africa. She did it for her own personal benefit, but not her knowledge—she could’ve given the briefing herself to her octogenarian colleagues. What mattered is how she performed during the briefing and the relationships she could further cultivate afterward. How the meeting came to be scheduled, and others canceled or rearranged to accommodate this one, would never be discovered by the chairman or his staff, only that it had magically appeared on the digital calendars that dictated everyone’s schedule both on Capitol Hill and over at Langley these days.

Fiero always had objectives in mind when she attended these briefings. Today she had three.

Fiero always arrived early and left late for the closed-door meetings just for the chitchat. She’d found over the years that it was in those small, human moments that unsuspecting minds were changed and alliances formed. Just this morning she had stood in the soaring sunlit atrium of the Hart Building, exchanging pleasantries with today’s CIA briefing analyst, when she learned that his daughter was struggling to get into NYU’s graduate film school. “My husband is a member of the Dean’s Council for Tisch. I’m certain he can make a call on her behalf.”

“You’d do that for her?”

“It’s nothing, really.” And just like that, she turned a disbelieving smile into another indebted ally. Her life was seemingly filled with such coincidences.

Amazing coincidences. Almost unbelievable.

And those coincidences could always be turned into favors, favors Fiero collected like buffalo-head nickels, never to be spent, but always traded up when something more valuable came along.

Fiero was also funny and personable in a disarming way; the self-deprecating charm and razor-sharp intelligence behind her bright, alluring eyes attracted most men, even ones half her age. Not that her age mattered. She was fifty years old but had the body of a much younger woman, thanks to exercise, nutrition, and cosmetic surgery. Like most beautiful older women, she practiced the simple secrets of looking younger. The first, of course, was having the right parents—DNA went a long way. But perfect, blazingly white teeth (Lumineers), regular professional hair coloring to keep out the gray, and a simple but modern fashion sense made all the difference. At five-eleven she was strikingly tall, but she never used her size for intimidation. She was a master of the comforting touch and the firm but not-too-confident handshake, both equally necessary in the world of fragile male egos.

Fiero also carried an intoxicating aroma about her, the most aphrodisiacal scent of all: money. She was the richest woman in the Senate,
with an officially self-disclosed net worth of between $7 and $180 million, thanks largely to her husband’s consortium of international investors. In reality, if one ignored the accounting gimmicks but included the deferred-compensation packages and offshore assets, she and her husband were worth triple the latter figure.

That kind of cash left a scented pheromone trail all over Wall Street and Washington that drew insatiable suitors to the queen’s hive, where deals, votes, and alliances were fervently consummated.

The irony, of course, was that wealthy people like Fiero never had to spend their own money. It was the lesser people desperately seeking their favor who wound up spending their own cash to win her patronage. People all over town were desperate to get into a relationship with Barbara Fiero, who everybody knew would win her party’s presidential nomination the following year.

“AQ in Africa has been relegated to the villages and hinterlands,” the CIA analyst summarized. “Particularly in Mali, where French and ECOWAS troops were able to push back rebel groups, including the MNLA, Ansar Dine, and AQ Sahara last year.”

“Weren’t those rebel groups fighting each other as well?” Fiero asked. Despite their mutual hatred of the corrupt Mali national government, the rebel groups were bitterly divided among themselves over political aims, ethnic rivalries, and religious doctrines.

“Yes they were, but in that struggle, each was also occupying strategic villages and towns in the resource-rich areas of the north which threatened the sovereignty of the weak national government. It was necessary for West African and French forces to intervene in order to stabilize the new government by pushing al-Qaeda Sahara out.”

“By ‘new government’ you mean the one which had overthrown the previous government because it couldn’t contain the Tuareg uprising, correct?” Fiero asked. She smiled coyly at her new CIA friend.

“Exactly, Senator. You certainly know your African politics.”

“Oh my gosh, the teacher’s pet is showing off again.” The old man harrumphing was Senator Wallis Smith, a staunch Republican ally of
President Greyhill, which naturally made him an enemy of Fiero. The room ignored the snarky comment, but Fiero didn’t. She’d just been called out as smart by the ranking Republican in the room.

First objective accomplished.

“And how would you characterize the new Bamako government? I mean, the one that just replaced the one that replaced the one just before it.” She said it in such a comical, offhanded way that the entire room chuckled, even Smith. What Fiero was referring to was the messy succession of incompetent, corrupt Malian governments. The thoroughly corrupt Touré regime had been overthrown by a military junta in 2012 led by an unremarkable American-trained army officer who, in turn, relinquished his temporary government to a French-approved civilian who, in turn, stepped down six months ago in favor of the new president, Ali Kouyaté, who had known ties to the Chinese government.

“I would characterize the Kouyaté regime as somewhat more competent and somewhat less corrupt than all previous administrations, and therefore, probably the brightest hope for Malian stability over the next few years.”

“Why the brightest hope?”

“The French are exhausted, politically and economically. They have vested interests in the uranium mines in Niger, but little in Mali. They’re pulling back everywhere they can in Africa right now to consolidate their diminishing resources, including Mali. China, however, recently took an interest in Mali, and President Kouyaté enjoys Beijing’s favor, along with Beijing’s considerable resources.”

“That would seem to pose a problem, wouldn’t it?” Fiero said. “We don’t want China gaining another foothold in Africa.”

“Why not?” Smith interrupted. “Let the goddamn Chi-coms wrestle with that mess for a while. We could use some consolidating of our own.”

“They’re already all over Africa, Barbara. Maybe they’re too spread out. Let them get swallowed up in that godforsaken hellhole. No point in us jumping in after them.” Senator Anne Coates was a Democrat from Ohio. Her state had lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs to the Chinese over the last two decades. She was a commonsense moderate,
not an ideologue, but she could always be counted on to vote the straight Democratic party line when it mattered.

“I’m not certain why the Greyhill administration wants to cede vast portions of the globe to our biggest geopolitical competitor, particularly when it comes to strategic, resource-rich areas like the Sahara,” Fiero insisted. The heads of the chairman and the other neocons around the table nodded in agreement with her.

Second objective accomplished.

“What invaluable resources are you referring to? Sand? Who the hell needs sand?” The skin around Smith’s jowly neck flared red. Like his ally, President Greyhill, Smith was committed to the Myers Doctrine: no new American boots on the ground anywhere until America’s fiscal house was put back in order.

“Not just sand, Senator,” the CIA analyst said. He was actually the CIA’s Africa strategic-resource specialist, which was why Fiero wanted him to brief the committee. “We know there are significant uranium deposits in the region, particularly Niger, which both the French and Chinese have exploited, particularly the French in support of their extensive domestic nuclear reactor program. Unlike the Germans, who have committed to dismantling all of their nuclear reactors, the French remain committed to their nuclear industry. It not only produces seventy-five percent of their domestic electricity supply, but France is also a net exporter of electricity, which earns them over three billion euros per year.”