Drone (A Troy Pearce Novel)

by Mike Maden

  Myers sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, indeed. She would bury her son in the family plot outside of Denver next to his father, John Martinez, with no one to stand beside her.

  —

  The steward reappeared in the empty conference room with a tray carrying the club soda on ice and a brand-new bottle of aspirin. He set the tray down on a small table and began to leave, but something in him made him pause. He knew she had a terrible headache. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in the room with her only child. Myers hadn’t told him she wanted to be left alone. And she needed the aspirin. So he stepped over to the aft door.

  Just before the steward knocked, he paused. He heard a sound. He leaned his ear as close to the door as he dared and listened.

  Myers was weeping.

  The steward stepped softly away from the door and headed back down to the galley.

  4

  Idaho Falls Airport, Idaho

  The sun had just crept up over the horizon.

  Pearce kept his hands thrust in his jeans against the chill as he stood near the tarmac. He watched the Pearce Systems HA-420 HondaJet touch down effortlessly, its wheels kissing the asphalt without a sound. Crisp sunlight glinted on the gray and white carbon fiber composite fuselage as the unusual over-the-wing pod-mounted engines began to cycle down. The sleek corporate jet taxiing toward Pearce reminded him of a completely different plane on a distant tarmac in a previous life he wished like hell he could forget.

  Baghdad International Airport, Iraq

  March 5, 2004

  “What kind of name is Pentecost anyway?” Early asked. Like Pearce, he was dressed like a local and wore a three-day growth of beard on his chin beneath a bushy black mustache. He and Pearce leaned against a Humvee as they waited for the big C-130 to cut its engines in the predawn light.

  “Beats me.”

  “Sounds religious. Tongues of fire and all of that.”

  “You should ask her,” Pearce said. “Maybe she’s a fanatic.”

  “Don’t need any more of those around here,” Early grunted. “What else did Connor say about this hotshot?”

  “Straight off the Farm but first in her class. A premium Core Collector by all accounts.” The air was cool. The slight breeze coming out of the south put a chill on him.

  “Is that why she rates her own plane?”

  “Connor said she was eager. Wanted to get deep in the shit fast.”

  “She’s probably a Poindexter with a pocket protector.”

  “Connor knows what he’s doing,” Pearce said.

  The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) had authorized a special task force to deal with the recent wave of devastating IED attacks by Iraqi insurgents around the country. Connor had picked Pearce to lead a small hunter-killer team in Baghdad. Pearce chose Early, a first-rate gunfighter from the 10th Special Forces Group he had met during Operation Viking Hammer in 2003, along with an S-2 from Early’s unit. But after the intel officer was killed by a sniper, Connor selected Pentecost to fill the slot.

  The big four-bladed props on the C-130 finally spun down and the rear ramp lowered.

  “Here she comes,” Early said.

  The woman coming down the ramp could have stepped out of a recruiting poster for Southern California surfer girls—lean, blond, and blue-eyed. But apparently she’d swapped out her flip-flops and bikini for combat boots and black tactical gear on the ride over.

  Early’s jaw dropped. “Whoa.”

  “You must be Early.” She stuck out her hand. “Name’s Pentecost. Annie Pentecost.” She smiled. “Connor described you perfectly.”

  Early grinned, not sure if she was complimenting him or not. “Mike Early. Real nice to meet you, too.”

  Annie turned toward Pearce. Looked right through him.

  Those eyes.

  “Troy Pearce,” he said, offering his hand.

  She had a firm grip. Held his hand just long enough to feel the heat. “Annie Pentecost.”

  “Welcome to the shit,” Early said, trying to get her attention.

  “I think he meant ‘team,’” Pearce corrected.

  “Thanks. I’ve heard good things.”

  “So have we. How was the flight?” Pearce asked.

  “Hard seats, cold coffee. The usual. The pilot just told me another IED ripped inside the Green Zone an hour ago.”

  Pearce nodded. “Police station. Three Iraqi policemen killed. One of our guys wounded, too. A contractor. Critical.”

  “We’re supposed to find you a hot and a cot.” Early yanked open the rear Humvee door. “We can check it out first thing tomorrow.”

  “It already is tomorrow,” Annie said. “Let’s go find us some bad guys.” She tossed her duffel through the door and climbed in after it.

  Pearce and Early exchanged a glance. Maybe Connor was right about this one.

  And those eyes.

  Idaho Falls Airport, Idaho

  Pearce made his way into the state-of-the-art cockpit and dropped down into the plush leather passenger seat and buckled in. With the HondaJet’s flat-panel displays and touch-screen controls, Pearce felt like he was trapped inside of a video gamer’s wet dream instead of an actual airplane.

  Pearce pulled the headset on and adjusted the mic.

  Judy Hopper sat in the pilot’s seat with an unreasonably radiant smile for such an early morning. “Fresh coffee in the thermos,” she whispered in his earphones. She was a decade younger than Pearce, with a plain, honest face and clear eyes. She kept her hair pulled back in a ponytail and never wore makeup.

  “Good flight over?” Pearce asked.

  “Easy as pie. You ready?”

  “Let’s go. Sooner we get there, the sooner I can get back to the fish.”

  “ETA to Dearborn, ten-fifteen, local,” Judy said. Their cruising speed was close to five hundred miles per hour.

  Judy reached over and tapped the brightly lit glass touch screen in front of Pearce, part of the Garmin G3000 avionics package. The only thing analog about the glowing digital cockpit was the faded Polaroid taped to the instrument panel. It was ten-year-old Judy flying her father’s missionary bush plane. She claimed it was her good luck charm.

  After confirming GPS coordinates, weather patterns, and nearby traffic, Judy radioed in to the tower. She was cleared to taxi back to the runway for takeoff. The flat panel in front of her displayed a 3-D graphical terrain rendering and a simulated cockpit view. Pearce Systems had purchased one of the first HondaJets to roll out of the North Carolina assembly plant earlier that year.

  There was no airport traffic that morning so Judy was able to taxi quickly into position. In a few minutes, they stood poised for takeoff. Judy quickly ran her preflight checks, then pointed at the yoke in front of Pearce. “You want to give it a whirl today?” she asked.

  Pearce wasn’t rated to fly the twin-engine turbofan jet, but he’d practiced on the simulator a half dozen times. He was also pretty good at flying single-engine props and had gotten better at it thanks to Judy’s patient instruction. But he didn’t have a fraction of the natural skill that Judy possessed.

  Judy sensed his hesitation. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay. She’s a handful, for sure.”

  “Just like every other woman in my life,” Pearce said. He knew it was foolish to not let the far superior pilot take control of the aircraft, but Pearce couldn’t resist the rush of controlling a four-thousand-feet-per-minute climb. Besides, it was his damn plane. “Let’s rock and roll.”

  Judy winked. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” She called in to the tower one last time. They were cleared for takeoff. Pearce fired up the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” on the comm, then slammed the throttle home, rocketing the HondaJet down the tarmac. The plane leapt off the runway, blasting into the crisp morning sky like a mortar round, grins plastered on both
of their faces.

  Pearce Systems Research Facility, Dearborn, Michigan

  Pearce’s main research facility was located in an abandoned Mercury auto plant just south of I-94, a stone’s throw from the General George S. Patton memorial. Pearce and his mysterious investing partner had purchased it just after the ’08 crash to house their expanding research operations, which provided a significant revenue stream for the company beyond the various civilian and security services they provided.

  For most of his missions, Pearce purchased off-the-shelf operational systems from legitimate vendors, often modifying them to his own specs. If particular drone systems weren’t available for purchase, he was able to emulate their capabilities by manufacturing his own either by original design or by purchasing widely available airframe, power plant, and avionics components.

  But Pearce Systems was also pioneering some of the latest drone technologies by partnering with or building upon the efforts of other bleeding-edge research organizations. Pearce and Judy had made the flight to the Dearborn lab that morning at the fevered request of Dr. Kirin Rao, the head of the research division.

  “Thank you both for coming,” Rao said. “Please follow me.” With her long legs, soft curves, and cloying eyes, Dr. Rao looked more like a Bollywood movie star than a Ph.D. in robotics engineering. Pearce and Judy followed her to one of the computer labs.

  “This is Jack,” Dr. Rao said. She pointed at a Rhesus monkey seated in a miniature pilot’s chair, nibbling on an apple slice. A square of hermetically sealed titanium was attached to the top of his skull—a brain-machine interface (BMI) device hardwired into his cortex. A large LCD TV was on the wall three feet directly in front of him, but no picture was present.

  “Is that the wireless BMI?” Pearce asked.

  Dr. Rao nodded enthusiastically. “Three months ahead of schedule.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Rao said.

  The door swung open.

  “Ian. Good to see you,” Pearce said. They shook hands. The wiry Scot had a kind, expressive face beneath two high arching eyebrows and a great shock of hair. Dark eyes betrayed his fierce intelligence.

  “Come here, you,” Judy said, wrapping Ian in a bear hug. They were close friends, though Ian preferred something more.

  “I see you’ve all met our wee friend Jack.”

  “How are the legs these days?” Pearce asked.

  Ian lifted one of his Genium bionic legs. His own legs had been amputated above the knee after he was cut down in the 2005 7/7 bombings in London. The new high-tech knee joints were controlled by a microprocessor that allowed for nearly perfect mobility. “Never better. I’ll be sword dancing before too long.”

  “Shall we begin?” Dr. Rao shut the lights off. Instantly, the LCD panel lit up with a computer program.

  “Looks like a flight simulator,” Judy said.

  “It is,” Rao said.

  “Where’s the joystick?” Judy asked.

  “There isn’t one,” Ian said.

  A wire-framed Predator was centered in the screen, swooping low over a vast virtual desert, following a black ribbon of asphalt highway.

  “Jack’s flying it with his mind,” Pearce said to Judy. “Dr. Nicolelis did something similar to this a few years ago.” He tried to hide his irritation. He could’ve watched this demonstration from the comfort of his cabin instead of flying all the way here. In fact, he’d seen Nicolelis’s work on YouTube months ago after Rao sent him a link.

  “Similar, but not exactly the same,” Rao said. “Watch.”

  Moments later, an animated flatbed truck with a mounted machine gun appeared on the highway, surrounded by three other unarmed cars. The armed truck began firing at Jack’s drone. Jack swooped and swerved to avoid the antiaircraft fire.

  “Dr. Nicolelis’s monkey could only track targets with his mind. Jack can avoid being a target. He can also do this.”

  The truck continued firing, but the other three cars fell away. Suddenly, a missile shot out from beneath the drone’s wings. A moment later the truck disintegrated in a ball of digital fire, leaving the three other cars unscathed.

  Rao beamed. “I bet my monkey can blow up his monkey.”

  “And you’ll notice, little Jack isn’t just using his motor skills to track a single target. He’s making target choices,” Ian said.

  “How?” Pearce asked.

  “We hacked into the deeper cognitive functions of his cortex,” Rao said. She turned the lights back on, ending the game. “So what you’re seeing is not only a brain-machine connection, but also a true mind-machine interaction.”

  Pearce nodded. It was impressive. One of the biggest challenges to achieving true autonomous drone capacity was artificial intelligence programming. If a computer program could ever simulate a sentient brain—and there were plenty of arguments against that eventuality—it would still be years away before that goal would be achieved. But why try to emulate a human brain with software if an actual brain could be used instead through BMI?

  “Can you imagine the possibilities? Artificial limbs, exoskeletons, blindness . . . the medical applications are endless,” Ian said.

  “So are the military ones,” Judy said. A rare scowl.

  “Do you understand now why I wanted you to be here in person?” Rao asked. She had just made Pearce Systems one of the most important players in the field of neuroprosthetics.

  Pearce nodded, trying to hide his excitement. “If you really want to impress me, next time have Jack fly me up here himself.”

  “Then what will I do?” Judy asked.

  Pearce shrugged. “Sit back and enjoy the ride, I guess.”

  5

  Isla Paraíso, Mexico

  César Castillo’s Roman villa–styled mansion stood at the peak of the six-hundred-meter mountain in the center of his private island ten miles east of the Baja California Peninsula. Locating his palatial home on the highest point had certain strategic disadvantages, certainly, but it was his dream of witnessing the ineffable beauty of the daily rising and setting of the sun that had caused him to build it there. He had not been disappointed with his decision.

  Castillo stepped out of the civilian MD 500 helicopter onto the helipad almost before the landing skids had hit the ground. He made a beeline for the house. His security chief, Ali Abdi, waited for the pilot to land before jumping out and scrambling to catch up with his boss. As usual, the Iranian wore a brimmed hat and dark sunglasses in order to keep his face hidden from the ubiquitous American electronic surveillance devices that might be circling overhead. He hadn’t survived this long without taking extreme precautions.

  César stormed into the courtyard with the massive pool complex. The architect had replicated the expansive marble-and-tile Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle. But César had added Greek and Roman statuary depicting various gods and heroes with tridents, swords, and spears to stand guard around the crystal-blue waters of the Olympic-size pool. The face of Zeus bore an uncanny resemblance to César’s with its fierce, cruel eyes and wicked grin.

  Stretched out on chaise longues near the pool were his two strapping twin sons, Aquiles and Ulises Castillo, who were even more sculpted than the statues. Naked and tan, their muscled bodies glistened with sweat. Each was six foot three inches tall, nearly a foot taller than their father, who was a squat, barrel-chested man with enormous hands attached to abnormally long arms. César was built exactly like his father, Hércules Castillo, a Sinaloan tomato farmer long since dead. Hércules told his teenage son that God must have designed the Castillos to pick tomatoes since he gave them such long arms that they barely had to bend over to gather the fruit up. César Castillo had built the world’s most powerful drug cartel just to prove both God and his father wrong.

  Without a doubt, the two young men in their early twenties had emerged from the deep end of their
mother’s gene pool, an Argentine beauty of German, Italian, and Spanish descent. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, green eyes, and long, thick chestnut hair made the twins irresistible to women. Men, on the other hand, either admired or feared them. The few who had ever crossed them had long since disappeared.

  “Who ordered the hit in El Paso?” César demanded as he stormed into the pool area. Ali had finally caught up. He took a position in the shade underneath the portico, a short but discreet distance away. Acoustical guitar music poured out of the hidden speakers located around the pool area.

  Neither Aquiles nor Ulises stirred from beneath their Ray-Bans. They were fanatical sun worshippers.

  “Welcome home, Father. How was your trip?” Aquiles asked.

  César whipped around and snapped his fingers at Ali. The Iranian found the remote control and killed the music. A .40 caliber Steyr printed against Ali’s back beneath his Cuban guayabera. Dark-haired and olive-skinned, the brown-eyed Iranian was fluent in Spanish. He shaved his beard but kept his mustache and easily passed for a Hispanic anywhere he traveled in Latin America or the United States.

  “Answer my question.” César stood directly over his naked son.

  Ulises lifted his sunglasses. “You’re blocking the sun, Father.”

  Aquiles laughed. How could such a short man block anything, let alone the sun?

  “Why are you laughing?” César asked.

  “No reason, Father. I’m sorry. It just struck me as a paradoxical thing for Ulises to say.”

  “‘Paradoxical.’ That’s a big word. I suppose that’s why I paid all of that money to send you to university, so you can use big words with me, eh? Put some clothes on, both of you. You should be ashamed to lie around here like a couple of putos.”

  Ulises’s green eyes, which had been mockingly coy until now, flashed with rage, but only for an instant. “Yes, you’re right. We should dress.” Ulises stood up from the lounger, towering over his diminutive father. He yawned and stretched his muscular arms high over his head, fully displaying his powerful physique. It was a threat display worthy of a silverback gorilla.