Drone Command

Bright light exploded in Pearce’s eyes beneath the hood. An illusion. The second strike against his face in as many seconds. The hand was soft, but heavy, like a dead fish. It belonged to the shouting woman hitting him. He couldn’t see her but he sure as hell could smell her.

WHACK!

Another blow, more lights. He assumed the flashing lights meant his retinas were detaching.

“C’mon, lady. That all you got?” Pearce shouted, almost grateful for the beating. He needed the distraction. He was half out of his mind with claustrophobia beneath the hood.

Someone snatched it off. Pearce blinked. Wanted to cry out of sheer joy. He hadn’t seen real light since he’d been cuffed and tossed into the back of that truck. His eyes adjusted as he squinted. A big Mongolian goon stood off to the side, the hood in his hands, a pistol on his hip. Feng stood back, smiling, smoking a cigarette. The woman looked familiar. She had been at the test facility. Wasn’t wearing a lab coat now. A lady’s peasant coat, like Feng’s, but not tailored. She looked like Chairman Mao with small breasts, only uglier. Now she stood just a foot away from him, leaning over, red faced, squawking in Mandarin.

“Zhao! Zhao!”

“Sorry lady, me no hablo Esperanto.”

Another slap of her hand.

Pearce shook it off. Swore he felt his brain knocking around in his throbbing skull. He already had a headache from dehydration and lack of sleep. The pounding from the angry lady was only making it worse.

“What’s her problem?” Pearce asked.

Feng blew out a long, thoughtful cloud of smoke as he twisted the cigarette in his fingers. “She hates you.” He took another drag.

“If she only knew me. Then she’d really hate me.”

WHACK!

“Guo? Zhao!” the woman shouted.

“Shit! Lady, seriously?”

She raised her hand again. Pearce stiffened for the blow. Feng spoke a single word. Her hand stopped in midair. She muttered curses under her breath.

“So what does she want from me?”

“She wants to know if you knew two men named Guo and Zhao.”

Pearce had to decide what cards to play. He knew he was seriously hosed and it worried him. He tried to calculate the speed of the truck and the time he spent riding in the back of it from the moment they tossed him into it, but for all he knew, they could have been driving in slow circles around the base. The only thing he knew for sure was that once they arrived wherever they were they descended forty-two steel steps that clanged beneath his boots. The descent spiraled in a long, slow circle, and the air was cooler. But that was about it.

In Iraq he’d been in some bad places in the hands of some real shitbirds, but what kept his spirits up back then was knowing that even badder friends with evil intent always came to rescue him. Pearce knew nobody was looking for him now, at least not on the ground.

He could try talking his way out of this thing but that was a long shot at best. He didn’t have any leverage, and the only Mandarin he knew were the menu items at the Chinese buffet near his condo in Coronado.

The only real question in Pearce’s mind was: How much damage was going to be inflicted, and could he keep his wits about him in order to keep from revealing Myers’s real mission? No telling, especially if they resorted to chemical interrogation or something even less civilized. His only hope was that they would knock him unconscious or, better yet, beat him to death before he accidentally spilled the beans.

Pearce shrugged his aching shoulders. His hands were still cuffed behind his back. The only time he hadn’t been cuffed in the last few hours was in order to relieve himself, but that had been a while ago.

Here goes nothing.

“She said Guo? Zhao?” Pearce asked, frowning at Feng through a swelling eye.

Feng nodded. “Yes.”

The woman stared daggers at Pearce, listening intently.

“Hard to say. I’ve killed a lot of Chi-coms in my day. You kinda all look the same to me.”

The woman slapped him three more times. One of her jagged fingernails scraped across Pearce’s cheek, drawing blood. Her face was so close to his he could smell her rancid breath.

“Crikey, lady. Ever heard of Listerine?”

“Have you ever heard of manners, you filthy white bastard?” she asked in faultless English.

Pearce was shocked. Should’ve guessed she was bilingual. “What?”

WHACK!

The hulking Mongolian goon laughed at Pearce, muttered something in Mandarin.

Pearce tasted copper. He spit. Bloody drops hit the cement floor. He turned to the goon. “What’s so funny, numb nuts?”

“You,” Feng said. “He thinks a middle-aged woman is going to beat the big American to death with her bare hands. He’s probably right.”

Pearce flashed a bloody grin. That’s the idea.

The woman got in Pearce’s face and screamed, clenching her fists. Veins bulged in her forehead as flecks of her spittle splattered on his chin. He stared at her crooked yellow teeth with an insolent smile.