Chapter 9

9

The Island of Sorrows

The Celebes Sea

The privately owned island sat seventeen miles southeast of the southernmost tip of Mindanao in a part of the world some people consider to be a tropical Eden. But the miserable rock looming out of the sea had well earned the name "Island of Sorrows."

The eight high-speed electric motors of the octocopter chirred like an armored insect from a hellish dream as it hovered over the open pit, a mini chain gun slung beneath its frame.

The drone's optical and heat sensors scanned the tangle of bloated uniformed corpses below for signs of life as its targeting reticle raked a red laser slowly over each pale, unblinking face.

Onboard infrared sensors detected the wavelength emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide—proof of postmortem decomposition, which proceeded rapidly in the island's high heat and humidity.

Chang! A single bullet from the mini gun plowed into the chest of a bearded soldier. The corpse had shuddered slightly as fermenting gases inside the body suddenly expanded and released. The drone's onboard AI sensors mistook that movement as a sign of life and acted to terminate it immediately as per the Vendor's algorithm. The additional release of decompositional gases resulting from the new bullet wound plumed in the drone's infrared sensors.

The drone hovered for a few moments more. Sensing neither increasing body heat nor movement, its targeting algorithms sent the octocopter racing off in a burst of speed in another direction in search of the final, elusive target. In moments, the din of its screaming electric motors gave way to the sound of the pounding surf a hundred meters away.

The corpse that had been shot stirred again. So did the bald one next to it. A third wriggled awkwardly before its blood-matted chest tumbled over.

A fourth form arose from beneath the pile.

Like all of the other soldiers in the pit, Guevara wore a generic camouflage uniform without unit patches or national identity. His shirt and pants were smeared with blood and gore—but not his own. Unlike the others, his uniform had no bullet holes in it.

Confident he had eluded the hunter-killer drone, Guevara climbed out of the pit, stepping on the bodies to reach the top until he could finally scramble over the rocky lip. He didn't bother looking back. These men had been comrades only in death, not life—all of them strangers thrown together in a nightmare of slaughter.

He was the lone survivor.

Finally topside, Guevara raced in a crouch beneath the jungle's heavy fronds and spreading leaves, hoping to evade whatever surveillance devices might be deployed. He finally reached the end of the embankment and leaped into the water, his combat boots splashing in the brackish lagoon fronting the cave. He ripped away the fronds covering the rubber boat tied up inside, climbed into it, and yanked on the starter cord.

Nothing.

He yanked again. It stuttered, but didn't start. In his panic he had forgotten to open up the gas valve and to prime the engine. He did both, and yanked the cord again. The motor coughed into life. He gunned the throttle and the small boat charged forward into the surf.

The rubber dinghy braved the crashing waves, its flat, wide bottom slewing sideways in the frothing white surf, but still scuttling forward until he finally cleared the breakers. As the boat raced down the back of the last roller, Guevara laughed for the first time in what seemed like years, sensing he had finally escaped the gravitational pull of the island of death. He turned his dripping-wet face to a warm and forgiving sun, cleansing him of his unspoken sins, or so it felt, as relief washed over him in a wave of delirious joy.

His eyes didn't catch sight of the flock of seagulls hovering high overhead, nor of the single gull whose unblinking gaze had fixed on the small black boat far below in the crystal-blue waters.

The gull retracted its wings to its sides, increasing its aerodynamic profile and thus its speed. It flew like a god-thrown spear toward the little boat in an unforgiving arc that ended in Guevara's fiery death.

★

Aboard the Izanami

The Indian Ocean

A thousand miles away from the Island of Sorrows, the Vendor studied the shattered wreck of the burning rubber boat on a single view screen. It was one of an entire bank of monitors tracking his other activities around the world.

A separate bank of monitors displayed the operational departments on his largely automated manufacturing vessel—one of several in his fleet—allowing him to run it from his command center.

The Vendor's long finger brushed a touchscreen control panel, shutting the island view screen off. He sighed, deeply dissatisfied.

He leaned back in his chair, contemplating his next move. The big diesel engines thrumming belowdecks drummed a tattoo inside of his aching skull. He rubbed his throbbing temples for relief, but got none.

Guevara's death was a foregone conclusion even before the gull drone snuffed out his pathetic life. He gave the man credit for his ability to elude a wide variety of fixed and aerial sensors for a few days, but he never had any hope of escape. It was bad enough that Guevara and the other men recruited for this test failed to put up a credible defense. But their inability to mount a viable offense was catastrophic for both them and the test. An effective offense could have provided them a slim hope of survival. It also would have proven the combat effectiveness of his new weapon system.

Despite the fact his new technologies had achieved the desired outcome, the Vendor knew his clients were unimpressed. After all, remote killing had been going on since the first human had discovered how to bash another man's skull with a thrown rock.

His clients were seeking an entirely new class of weapons technology. If the Vendor offered a new demonstration with a similar group of guinea pigs, the same outcome would result and his clients would no doubt accuse him of stacking the deck in favor of his drone-based systems.

What could he do?

The Vendor needed a more robust test to thoroughly convince his clients that a genuine "revolution in military affairs"—the jargon du jour—was at hand. Nothing short of a revolution could hope to unseat the United States as the world's premiere military power. And until that power was wrested from the hated Americans, Washington, D.C., would continue to dictate the world political and financial order under which his brooding clients were subject. That was why they paid him so very well.

The Vendor swiveled his large frame around in his chair, tugging on his silvering beard. His dark hooded eyes stared into the bulkhead with a deep intensity. How could he improve the test?

It seemed obvious now. He needed to provide a genuine combat team, not just warm bodies with guns.

To be combat effective, such a team would require a brief period of training. And he needed to recruit something better than the riffraff he'd hustled off the streets.

What he needed was a group of the world's best warriors—ex–special forces operators. But they had to be men without countries; men who would neither be missed nor mourned and all highly skilled in the arms that he would supply.

But how to find such men?

The edges of the Vendor's dark eyes crinkled as he grinned to himself.

Of course. Something his grandfather had once told him.

The sweetest jar of honey attracts the angriest hornets.