Pearce had to make it right. Had to make the last person pay in full.
Jasmine Bath had to die.
But she’d been too clever. Covered all of her tracks, burned all of the bridges. Couldn’t be found.
Until now. Because Ian was better than Bath.
Ian called, said he had found Bath, gave him the details. Pearce worked out a plan, but not just to kill her. That was too easy. Wanted her to suffer, and worse. He knew that was wrong. He didn’t care, or couldn’t. The rage consumed him.
Hi-def and infrared cameras along with audio mics embedded in the drone’s head recorded every moment of Jasmine Bath’s raging, terrified misery. Pearce wanted her dead, but he needed to see her die. Badly.
She didn’t disappoint. She put on quite a show the deeper she went. Thrashing and screaming in a hail of bubbles until the last one dribbled away, the light dimming in her panicked, bloodshot eyes until she finally let go.
But the drone didn’t. It swam deeper still.
Bath’s limp arms trailed above her head, hair braids pluming in the frigid water as the blackening deep swallowed her up in silence.
“She’s dead, Troy,” Yamada said. “You can release her now.”
Pearce wanted to, but couldn’t. Couldn’t shake the image of Early’s head exploding in front of his eyes.
Drowning Bath wasn’t enough, terrible as that was. He wanted to drag her down to crush depth, watch her body erupt in a pink, gory cloud.
Wanted to drag her down to hell.
But Yamada was right. The woman was dead. The debt paid.
Pearce released his grip on the controller. Let her go. Watched her corpse drift away into the fathomless dark.
His rage, too.
He was free.
66
Pearce’s cabin
Near the Snake River, Wyoming
1 December
The night was cold and clear, the Milky Way a vast gauzy film across a moonless, blue-black expanse. Snow-heavy pines creaked in a light breeze.
Pearce stood on the porch, pistol on his hip, coffee in hand. He thought about Daud.
He’d rebuilt the cabin all by himself. Taken him months, but it was worth it. Time to get sober again. Time to process everything, especially what Mossa had said back in the desert. The old man was right. Pearce was a masterless warrior. Useless.
The bright halogen lights of an SUV bounced into the tree line, inching its way along an unlit path in the snow. Pearce couldn’t be sure who it was from here. Bath had a network of wet-work operators. Even dead, she could get her revenge if she was vindictive enough and had signed the right kind of contracts.
Pearce had gone completely off the grid at the cabin, no electronics of any kind, including surveillance. After Ian had filled him in on all the details of his hacking op against Bath and the others, Pearce decided it was time to go back to basics, at least out here. Fireplaces, axes, well water, dried fish. He went completely off the grid at the cabin, no electronics of any kind, including surveillance. Connectivity meant vulnerability. He preferred the sound of chopping wood to laser printing anyway. He had all of the electronic gear he needed in the RV, and at his condo in Coronado, not to mention Pearce Systems headquarters in Dearborn. But out here was his solitude and silence. This was his desert.
The SUV cleared the tree line and approached the cabin. Pearce squinted in the harsh lights. Tossed his coffee and set the cup down on the rough-hewn table. The SUV lights snapped off.
Heavy doors slammed shut. Two figures in hooded parkas exited the SUV. Dark shadows crunched in the snow, trudging toward him. A figure emerged into the firelight from the window flickering in the snow. She pulled down her hood.
“Troy.”
Pearce nodded. “Glad you made it.”
Myers looked good. Radiant, actually.
Pearce stepped off the porch and gave her a hug. Myers pointed at the man standing next to her.
“Troy, this is Congressman David Lane.”
“Just Dave,” Lane said, shaking Pearce’s hand.
Myers trusted Lane. That was good enough for him.
It was time to serve again.
Time to get back in the fight.
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
ABU: Airman Battle Uniform (Air Force “fatigues”)
AFRICOM: Africa Command
AFB: Air Force Base
AMF: Aviation Mission Fellowship (fictional)
Ansar Dine: “Defenders of the Faith”
ANT: Advanced Network Technology [a division of the NSA’s TAO]
AQS: al-Qaeda Sahara (fictional)
BDU: Battle Dress Uniform (Army “fatigues”)
BMI: Brain Machine Interface
BOQ: Bachelor Officer Quarters
COMPASS: Chinese version of GPS
CTD: Counterterrorism Division (FBI)
CXS: Communications Exploitation Section (FBI CTD)
DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (US)
DDoS: Denial-of-Service attacks
DNI: Director of National Intelligence
DPV: Desert Patrol Vehicle
FAE: Fuel-Air Explosive
FAV: Fast-Attack Vehicle
GAD: General Armament Department (a PRC/PLA version of DARPA)
GCHQ: Government Communications Headquarters (the British version of the NSA)
GCS: Ground Control Station (drones)
GPS: Global Positioning System
HSD: High Speed Data
HFT: High Frequency Trading
JDAM: Joint Direct Attack Munition
JTRIG: Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group, the GCHQ’s anti-hacktivist division
LARs: Lethal Autonomous Robotics
LS3: Legged Squad Support System
MAST: Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology
MAV: Miniature Air Vehicle
MGV: Miniature Ground Vehicle
Mil-Spec: Military Specifications
MNLA: National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad
MSS: Ministry of State Security
NSA: National Security Administration
OPSEC: Operational Security
PDB: Presidential Daily Brief
PLA: People’s Liberation Army
PRC: People’s Republic of China
PROCEED: Programming Computation on Encrypted Data
REE: Rare Earth Element
RPV Remotely Piloted Vehicle
SAD/SOG: Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group [the CIA’s special forces unit]
SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SPAN: Self-Powered Ad-hoc Network
sUAV: Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
STOL: Short Take Off and Landing
SVR: Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service)
TAO: Office of Tailored Operations (NSA)
TERCOM: Terrain Contour Matching
UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UDC: Utah Data Center
UGV: Unmanned Ground Vehicle
USAFE-AFAFRICA: U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa
VPN: Virtual Private Network
VTOL: Vertical Takeoff and Landing
DRONE AND OTHER SYSTEMS
| DRONE SYSTEMS | TYPE | MANUFACTURER, AGENCY, OR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN |
|---|---|---|
| A-160T Hummingbird | UAV (transport) | Boeing Advance Systems |
| Bio-Bot | Living organisms fitted with hardware and software for automated control | North Carolina State University |
| Hybrid Quadrotor | UAV (attack) | Latitude Engineering |
| LS3 | Legged Squad Support System (transport—for now) | Boston Dynamics |
| Naro-tartaruga | UUV (research) | ETH (prototype) |
| Silent Falcon | sUAS (surveillance) | UAS Technologies |
| SmartBird | UAV (surveillance) | Festo |
| Snake | UGV (surveillance) | Tohoku University (prototype) |
| Switchblade | UAV (surveillance) | AeroVironment |
| Wraith | UGV (attack) | United Drones |
| OTHER SYSTEMS | DESCRIPTION | MANUFACTURER, AGENCY, OR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN |
|---|---|---|
| AGM-114N Hellfire II | Air-to-ground missile, thermobaric munitions | Lockheed Martin |
| Botnet | A network of hijacked computers used to perform automated tests over the Internet without the owners’ knowledge or consent | Worldwide |
| BTR-60PB | Personnel carrier | USSR |
| DROPMIRE | Surveillance hardware | NSA |
| FN SCAR-H CQC | Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle (Heavy, 7.62mm) Close Quarters Combat version | FN Herstal |
| HEADWATER | Software backdoors | NSA |
| JANUS | Facial recognition software | DARPA |
| JETPLOW | Firewall firmware | NSA |
| LOUDAUTO | Surveillance hardware | NSA |
| M-25 grenade launcher, “the Punisher” (formerly XM-25) | Laser-guided, programmable, automatic air burst grenade launcher | Heckler & Koch, Alliant Technologies, L-3 IOS Brashear |
| M58/59/MICLIC | Mine Clearing Line Charge | American Ordinance |
| MC-130 Talon | STOL special operations military transport aircraft | Lockheed Martin |
| PHOTOANGLO | Surveillance hardware | NSA |
| Satis | Bluetooth-activated robo-toilet with automated flush, spray, music, fragrance release, and data record features | Lixil Group |
| SOMBERKNAVE | Wireless Internet traffic rerouting software | NSA |
| SPAN | Self-Powered Ad-hoc Network, a wireless ground sensor | Lockheed Martin |
| WP | White Phosphorus | Worldwide |
| XKEYSCORE | Surveillance software | NSA |