Drone Command

“It matters because she’s a close friend of President Lane’s. My sources tell me she helped him win power. That means she has influence over him.” Sun leaned forward. “And she wants an apology from you, Feng. A personal apology.”

Feng was lost in thought. It suddenly occurred to him that Myers might be his best option yet. “If you were certain that the Americans would not oppose us, would you support the continued drilling at Mao Island?”

“Do you take me for an idiot? Of course I would. The amount of oil and gas located there would virtually guarantee our energy independence in the coming decade,” Sun said. “But you can’t guarantee the Americans won’t attack us.”

“Myers said the Americans don’t believe the Wu-14 is operational. You also said she has influence over Lane. If I can convince Myers the Wu-14 exists, she’ll convince Lane. And if Lane believes we have it, the U.S. Navy will, and the U.S. Navy will never risk an aircraft carrier, especially for the sake of Japanese oil interests.”

“Vice Chairman Feng is exactly right,” Admiral Ji said.

Feng relaxed, knowing he’d already won. “So let me propose this. I’ll invite President Myers to meet me in person, and I will apologize to her face-to-face.”

“Where and when?” Sun asked.

“At Admiral Ji’s headquarters,” Feng said. “Where the Wu-14 is currently located.”

President Sun unfolded his hands and leaned back in his chair, thinking.

“Yes, that might just work.”

“I’ll make the arrangements immediately,” Feng said.

Once Myers saw the Wu-14 in person, the Americans would be convinced of its existence. China might just win this war without firing a shot.

“Do so, and keep me informed,” the president said, picking up a phone. He waived a spotted hand, dismissing the two men.

“As you wish,” Feng said.

Feng glared at Sun’s flaking scalp. He made a mental note as he left. The first thing he’d do when he took over this office was to have it thoroughly disinfected.

TWENTY-NINE

THE MOOSEHEAD BAR

WILSON, WYOMING

FEBRUARY 1993

A curtain of heavy snow fell in thick flakes. Troy slammed the brakes in front of the bar, nearly plowing into the back of a familiar custom pickup, a ’66 Chevy 4x4 painted midnight black with orange flames raking the hood.

Troy leaped out of his own beater truck, leaving the motor running and windshield wipers slapping. He dashed through the front door just in time to see his dad smash a man in the mouth with his hammering fist. A gout of blood spewed out of the taller man’s bearded mouth as he howled in pain. There were two other men on the floor already, one crawling toward a table, the other out cold. Troy prayed he wasn’t dead. The air was hot and fetid and clouded with blue smoke. A honky-tonk steel guitar wailed on the jukebox.

“I’m calling the cops now, Troy,” the barkeep hollered. He slammed a rotary phone on the bar. Started to dial. “Get your old man outta here.”

A towering bear of a man shouted at the barkeep, six-foot-six if he was an inch and three hundred pounds. Big gut, bigger arms. Steel-toed boots and an ugly pockmarked face. “Fuck that. He started it, I’m gonna finish it.” He grabbed the rotary phone off the bar and yanked it hard, pulling the cord out, and tossed it across the room. The bell rang when it smashed against the wall.

“I shit bigger ’n you, you fat fuck,” Troy’s dad slurred. He was nearly a foot shorter and half the weight of the hulking brute. He started coughing fiercely.

“Fuck him up, JoJo!” A heavy woman in leathers horse-laughed, a cigarette dangling in her blistered mouth. She was perched precariously on a bar stool beneath a crumbling beehive of bleached purple hair matching the color of her lipstick and fingernails.

“That’s the idea, honey.” A wiry man with bad teeth and biker tats grabbed a pool cue.

“Put that down,” Troy growled. He’d grown in the last two years. Six-foot-two, two hundred pounds of hard ax-swinging muscle.

“You gonna make me?” the wiry man asked.

“Are you shitting me? Put that damn thing down or I’ll shove it up your ass.”

Troy’s dad wobbled on unsteady feet. “I don’t need your help, son. Get out!”

“Yeah, get out, son. Get out!” JoJo mocked, belly laughing. So did half the barflies crowding around the edges. JoJo reached into his oil-stained Levi’s. Pulled out a quarter and tossed it at Troy. “There’s a pay phone across the road. Call an ambulance. Your daddy’s gonna need it.”

The quarter hit the cigarette butt — littered floor at Troy’s feet.

“Idiot.” Troy picked up a chalk-stained cue ball from the pool table. Held it like a baseball. Pointed at the wiry biker. “Put that stick down now. We’ll clear out.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Troy’s dad glowered at him.

“Only to the morgue, little man.” JoJo stepped closer.

“You tell him, JoJo!” the purple-haired woman bellowed, hoisting a beer.