Drone

With any luck, the lieutenant hoped, they’d rip the containership in half and sink her before the American fighter bombers pinging on his radar scope could stop them.

The two automatic deck guns continued to boom and roar as they fired their shells. The noise was fearsome even inside the sealed bridge. The air bore the faint copper smell of the explosives despite the air scrubbers. The big white letters on the containership were quickly pockmarked with giant shell holes and the big steel containers on deck practically melted under the stream of lead from the 20mm gun.

“One minute to target, sir!” the helmsman shouted proudly.

“Inshallah!” the lieutenant shouted back with a joyous smile.

But the lieutenant had made a tactical error. By maneuvering the Joaquín into ramming position, he put himself between the two F/A-18 Hornets and the Star Louisiana. That gave the Hornets a clear line of sight to the Joaquín. They acquired radar lock on their target, then fired four antiship missiles from twenty miles away.

Too late.

Ten seconds later, the bow of the Joaquín tore into the starboard side of the big containership, ripping a twenty-foot-tall hole in the hull and fatally snapping the ship’s steel spine.

The Iranians cheered as they were thrown against the bulkheads with the force of impact, but their victory cries caught in their throats as the four inbound missiles struck the Joaquín, vaporizing the warship in a cloud of fire and steel.

Thirteen minutes later, the Star Louisiana sank with all hands on board.

Inshallah.

55

San Diego, California

The news about the Mexican patrol boat attack on the American freighter and its subsequent sinking by U.S. Navy aircraft jammed the radio and television news broadcasts all day, but Pearce couldn’t pay attention to any of it. Pearce knew Myers would have her hands full and she’d be lucky to get out of a full-blown shooting war with Mexico before the day was over.

But that was her problem. Pearce and his team were laser-focused on tracking Ali and hell-bent on setting up a capture with zero civilian casualties, which was growing increasingly unlikely.

After arriving at L.A.’s Union Station by bus, Ali grabbed a couple of cabrito tacos from a nearby food truck and washed them down with a grape soda before purchasing a ticket with cash for a shared Prime Time Shuttle ride to the San Diego airport. What made Pearce nervous was that Ali wore a beige windbreaker that he kept zipped up at all times.

Judy Hopper flew Pearce in a company helicopter to the San Diego airport where Pearce Systems maintained a private hangar. The Eurocopter AS350 she was flying was decked out with Pearce Systems corporate logos, which wasn’t ideal, but there weren’t any other options at the moment.

Pearce grabbed the company car—an unmarked sterling gray 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500—out of its designated parking spot and took up station at the shuttle drop-off ten minutes before the shuttle was due while Hopper waited for him to radio her.

At the San Diego shuttle drop-off, Ali grabbed a taxi that jumped on southbound I-5. Pearce trailed Ali in his Mustang as Judy kept tabs on both of them by helicopter. A few minutes into the ride, she called Pearce.

“He’s heading for Petco Park. That’s got to be his target.”

“Agreed,” Pearce said.

“We’d better grab him before he gets in. The Padres game is sold out. I heard it on the radio.”

Pearce knew that if Ali really did have access to a bomb or some other WMD, Petco Park would be the perfect venue to set it off—live on national television. Pearce weighed the arguments raging in his head. Ali was probably wearing a suicide vest under that zippered jacket and was probably smart enough to load it up with glass marbles and some kind of detonator that kept him from being caught by any of the metal detectors he’d already passed through. If the Iranian had booked his reservation for the seventy-two-virgin hotel, a mass murder at Petco Park was the perfect place to check in.

But something still didn’t add up. Ali had practically begged to be discovered and followed. He made no attempt to hide his face with either a hat or sunglasses, let alone engage in the tricks every junior field operative employs to avoid detection by electronic surveillance. Ali wanted to be discovered and followed. Why?

“Stay close, Judy. I might need you. How far away are Johnny and Stella?” Pearce had had Judy contact them as soon as Ali hit the freeway.

“Twelve minutes, tops.”

Ali’s cab dropped him off at Petco Park just in time for the start of the second inning. The sellout crowd of over forty-five thousand people roared as some sort of a play was made inside. He picked up a ticket at the will-call booth for the sold-out game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and dashed inside.