by Kirk Russell
“I found one already. So. How can we protect them? How can anyone unless they’re put someplace secure?”
She looked over at him. He didn’t have an answer. No one did.
54
August 16th
We left Tonopah heading south before dawn with a full tank of gas and paper cups full of coffee. The outside range of the missiles was seventy-five miles, so in some ways it made the most sense to stay in Las Vegas. The city of Tonopah was a little over two hundred miles to the north, so farther away, but after we studied the unpaved desert roads we planned to get on, Tonopah had made more sense. We drove south on 95 until exiting and following GPS onto a dirt road headed east.
Overhead there was starlight but along the horizon the sky lightened with the new day. My gut said we needed to find them today. It made me hyperaware and nervous. We drove east toward sunrise watching for recent tire tracks and referred often to the list of locations aerial surveillance had flagged.
It was all open desert country with dry mountain ranges and few buildings. Among the rock abutments and narrow canyons were places capable of hiding a portable missile launcher. The site would likely be camouflaged, so we had to be cautious. We bounced and tossed on the rough, unused roads. Some were no more than long-abandoned tracks, and others had crossings washed out by flash floods where we needed to navigate through strewn rocks and soft sand.
As the sun rose further, we were visible from a long distance away with a plume of dust rising behind us. We were a target slowly crossing empty desert plains and conscious of it.
I drove, and Jace scanned ahead with binoculars. We checked in with the command center by cell and then radio as we entered the circumference of the missiles’ range. If access to an area looked unused or the road to it washed out by a flash flood, we crossed that site off our list. We kept in constant contact with spotter planes as satellites and drones also scoured from overhead.
But most of all we watched for recent tire tracks. Approaching the seventh location in barren country where the white baked hills were streaked with mineral deposits and dotted with alkaline volcanic rock, we found new tracks below a rock abutment.
“Cover me, and I’ll walk up the road past that higher outcrop,” I said.
“Okay, but we switch up on the next one.”
My gear was a floppy desert hat with a wide adjustable brim, sunglasses, a bandanna, and a desert-camouflage coat of the type desert rats wear loaded with gear no matter how hot the sun is. There were mineral hunters out here too, and I looked enough the part of either, not that anyone guarding three missiles would bother to check.
A third of a mile up an unpaved road, the new tracks ended. I saw where they’d turned around at a building half buried, much like Indie, with yellowed concrete walls, a metal door and roof, a Cold War relic. The driver who’d left the tire tracks was just up here having a look, I decided, but we logged coordinates and took photos before heading to the next possible site.
We moved and moved again, and we were near the edge of the seventy-mile missile radius when I scanned with binoculars a rough road across a flat plain in the distance that disappeared into low, rounded hills. I handed the binoculars to Jace.
“It’s hard to picture anything carrying missiles up that wannabe road,” Jace said.
“Yeah, and it would take us a while to get there.”
“Part of the road looks blocked.”
“Let me have a look again,” I said then focused in on a white object. I handed the binos back to Jace and pointed. “I think I see the back end of a vehicle. It’s white.”
“Oh, yeah, I see that,” she said and asked, “What’s that doing there?”
“Could be anybody or anything, but I think we check it out.”
As we got closer, we realized there were more tire tracks, so we called in a spotter pilot. My heart rate picked up a little. There were tracks that looked recent and ran along the road into the hills. Jace got on the radio. I focused on two straight lines where it looked as if a helicopter had landed. With the naked eye, the marks were barely visible but easy to see through binoculars.
I handed the binos to Jace and said, “Off to the left just past that tallest red-gray rock. Tell me what it looks like to you.”
She said, “Well, if I don’t overthink it, I’d say they look like helicopter skids.”
“Could be mineral exploration or something, but that’s what I see too. Which would be the way to get people and whatever else ferried up. Let’s get closer but put on our vests and check our guns first.”
“I’ll cook to death with the vest on.”
“Let’s do it anyway. This one is a possible.”
The pilot’s estimate for arrival had been twenty minutes. It took us fifteen minutes to drop down and drive across the valley. We moved closer to the hills and saw more tire tracks and drove past cactus and climbed through dead mesquite whose hardened branches clawed paint off the Suburban. We came up over a soft rise and went left around rocks, then bang, a heavy slug with a loud, hard sound punched a hole in our bulletproof windshield.
Another went through just left of my head, and we got out and down fast behind the back of the Suburban. Two more bullets tore through then lesser gunfire, an automatic weapon with a shooter advancing as I pulled out a shotgun and shells from the rear of the Suburban.
The shooter kept at it, so they made the mistake of giving away their position. When we had the shooter placed, we worked sideways to a rock outcrop. Jace radioed for help, and I watched and waited for a clean shot. Problem was I could hear another vehicle coming out of the hills. More reinforcements. More shooters. We wouldn’t have much time.
Then the initial shooter stepped into view. He was much closer than I’d guessed and still targeting the Suburban. He was dark haired, tall, and looked experienced to me. He was watching everything everywhere and knew how exposed he was.
In a low voice Jace talked to the spotter pilot, giving coordinates. “You’ll spot a Suburban. We’re in the rock outcrop to the left about fifty yards.”
I heard a crackle and the pilot asked, “Can you move farther away?”
“No,” she said. “We have multiple assailants on the move toward us. We need firepower. And we need it now.”
The car engine noise died, so there was a good chance more shooters had arrived. A moment later the dark-haired shooter came into clear view. I waited with my left knee in rocky sand and my weight on my right ready to stand. He’d pivot as soon as he saw movement. I might only get one chance. I saw him spot Jace first and bring his rifle up as I yelled, “FBI, drop your weapon!”
Without hesitating he swung toward me and fired. I reacted almost as fast but missed him with the first blast of the shotgun. My second round hit home as his fire sprayed rocks near me. I saw him jerk sideways, half turning, blood spraying from his neck, his weapon falling with a clatter as he slumped to the ground.
The new shooters, and there were at least two, were putting out more rounds than I could count, but they didn’t have a good angle, and I heard the jets before I saw them. We saw white streaks in the sky and heard the whistling. An explosive concussion vibrated the air seconds later. Smoke rose and another missile hit, and I heard multiple explosions and saw a tall plume of black smoke rise back higher in the hills then a much louder, heavier explosion.
No more shots came our way. We watched the fighter pilots climb and turn and heard their turbo whine. Two more missiles hit in the same area in the hills above and a black pickup roared down and out into open desert after it appeared the fighters were flying away.
They got a third of a mile out before being struck by something powerful enough to toss the pickup burning and tumbling, its fuel tank exploding, the remains a ball of flames as it landed. Overhead a third fighter circled as we talked with the FBI spotter pilot.
An hour later helicopters and com
bat soldiers in Humvees arrived. After the road was cleared, we drove up and through the spotter pilot communicated with Mara that we were looking at the remains of three missiles. Later, we headed out to the highway with two soldiers following in case our shot up FBI Suburban stopped cold. We’d needed to switch out vehicles then resume searching, but we were ready to go. We were upbeat, almost euphoric, knowing we got three of twelve missiles and were still alive.
When we reached the highway and had cell coverage I listened as Mara asked Jace for details of the shooting and the man I killed. When he told Jace he’d call back soon, I knew something was up.
“Wait at the highway,” Mara told me ten minutes later. “I’ll send a tow truck for the Suburban, and we’ll pair Agent Blujace with another team. You stay there, Grale, and I’ll send a DT squad agent to pick up Blujace. There’s an agent within ten miles of you. Grale, you’ll go back out with two other agents and do a shooting report.”
“A shooting report right now?” Jace mouthed. “That’s crazy.”
“Grale, are you hearing this?” Mara asked.
“Yes.”
“We can’t stop for a shooting report,” Jace said as I put him on speakerphone. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s nuts.”
“Watch yourself, Blujace,” Mara said.
Smoke was still rising into a clear sky when I returned to the missile site with the two agents to do the report. I didn’t say anything unless asked. But, in truth, I understood, and they were efficient and thorough. That the shooting got such weight when it was clearly defensive—and I doubted anybody questioned that—was because it was my fourth career shooting resulting in the death of a suspect. That stat put me among a small percentage of FBI agents. A decision was made years ago to scrutinize more closely agents falling into that category. It was automatic that a shooting report would be initiated the same day.
I’m sure Mara was against and chafed at the absurdity but wasn’t going to risk defying that.
“Did you yell a warning to the shooter?”
“I yelled, and he fired.”
“He shot first?”
“He did.”
I’d already showed them the rocks hit by his sprays of bullets, and they’d already seen the Suburban.
“He shot at you, and you then returned fire?”
“Yes. I missed with the first shot but the second took out half of his neck, so that was good.”
“Good?”
“Okay, it was great.”
“You liked killing him?”
“I like living.”
One smiled.
We started the slow ride back along rutted road, stopping at the burned carcass of the pickup, which smelled heavily of burned plastic and melted rubber. The bodies of the two men were broken and torn and separated by about forty yards. Both were facedown in the desert and not yet bagged. We rolled them and took photos of their faces with the hope we’d be able to identify at least one of them.
Another crew was on the way with body bags and went past us before we reached the highway. I called Jace from there. By now it was late afternoon. She was with a team of agents a hundred miles to the south acting on a credible tip that might lead to another of the missile launch sites.
The agents I came out with had driven separate Bu-cars. They gave me the keys to one and said good-bye with an apology about the forthright questioning.
They got in their car and waited for me to go first. I called Ralin as I drove and checked text messages Mara sent hours ago, after assuming the shooting report was finished. His string of text messages became more urgent when I’d failed to respond.
I typed, Shooting report just finished and back to the highway. Missed your messages, no phone coverage. I wrote, Heading your way. Then I erased that and sent no reply. I’d call Mara but not yet. I took the exit for Independence Base and called Ralin instead.
55
At the guard gate, as I waited for Ralin, I called Steve Akaya, who said, “I’m not really a tactical guy, but I can tell you what I’d do after losing three out of twelve missiles. I’d launch the remaining nine missiles ASAP and do it first from one site then wait for the defenses to focus on those missiles before launching the rest. A twenty-five percent loss says your defenses and tactics for hiding aren’t up to the task. I’d launch everything.”
“That’s the bottom line, launch everything?”
“Yes.”
As the call ended, I saw Ralin get out of a military vehicle near the guard booth. He looked thinner, his face gaunt, eyes shadowed with fatigue. He spotted me as I got out and walked toward him.
“I’ll give you a ride to wherever you want to go,” I said.
“I don’t know where to go.”
“Then let’s drive and talk. Where’s Indonal? Is he still at the Indie building?”
“He’s finishing something up, but he’ll be out soon and off the base. Indie has one hundred percent control.” After a deep breath he added, “I’m very nervous. Everyone is.”
“Let’s drive to where we can get an overview,” I said and took us up Highway 157 toward the mountains and then out to Desert View Point.
We were there at sunset when two missiles came in from the east. At first they appeared as bright objects, high enough to catch sunlight, and then we saw the exhaust trails. Less than a minute later the southern sky lit up as five missiles rose. We watched their arcs climb and bend and the red and green trails they left as they streaked through the sunset sky above Las Vegas. Two more came from the northeast.
One of the northeast pair exploded near the eastern spine of the mountains bordering Indie, then one of the southern missiles veered off and exploded. Fragments from it glowed as they fell.
“One gone,” I said.
“And three arcing down,” Ralin said softly as the missiles to our right from the south began their descents. Simultaneously, bright sparks lit as missiles rose from behind the building housing Indie.
“Go, go, go,” Ralin whispered, as multiple launches, almost too many to count, came from in and around the Indie building. One of the incoming southern missiles exploded with a bright flash and a dull roar. In the last of the golden sunlight, glittering drones enveloped the Indie building.
“They’re making the building seem larger,” I said and handed him binoculars. “Take a look. Will that matter if they’re tracking on a GPS heading?”
Ralin waved away the binos. “I don’t need to see; I know what it looks like. The drones will also broadcast electronic chaff.”
“What does that do?”
“The missiles may read the drones as part of the building. That’s the hope, but we’re about to find out. Here we go.”
A missile struck the building, and seconds later another made a partially deflected strike at the southwest corner. Through my binoculars it appeared vehicles parked near the building took the brunt. The remaining missiles flew through the drone cloud then struck the desert behind the building.
And just like that it was over. We stood in darkness listening to civil air-raid sirens sounding in Vegas, and Ralin told me what he couldn’t say earlier.
“Indie has replicated itself as a defensive measure. It hijacked computers and created a copy.”
“One or more than one?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“It didn’t manage to do that on its own, did it?”
“No, we gave it what it needed then let it replicate.”
“How long did it take?”
“Six hours or less.”
“Shut it down.”
“There’s a conversation about slowing down until all the implications are understood, but if you’re reading something nefarious in the speed of replication, you shouldn’t—it’s actually a great step forward. It’s another defense. If missiles had destroyed the building, Indie w
ould still have survived.”
“Great step forward toward what?”
“Whatever we want to do with it. The issue isn’t the speed of replication. The issue is our ability to keep up without ceding chunks of programming control to the AI.” He glanced over at me and started to say more but checked himself when he saw my face. On the drive down we talked very little after word came that there were casualties. Ralin was unable to reach Indonal.
I thought of the red exhaust trails streaming in the sunset and what Jace had said about the murmurations of starlings the first time we saw the small drones in formation. Indie taught itself that. Indie saved the building tonight. But Indie was self-replicating itself, albeit in a slower form as it strung together computers across the world. I didn’t believe that was a good thing, although admittedly I didn’t know. I didn’t like how it felt.
Nor did I like the idea of dropping Ralin at the Independence Base guard gate. I tried to talk him out of it. Rather than argue with me, he made a call and confirmed two DoD agents were waiting at the gate for him.
“They’re going to take me someplace secure.”
When he got out of my car, he leaned back in and said, “In the end, AI will be a force for good. In the end, it may save us. But nothing has turned out as Eric, Alan, or I hoped. This is a nightmare, but the potential . . .”
“I’ll look forward to that day,” I said and got a sad smile from him.
For my own reasons, I thought it unlikely our paths would cross again. Mara was narrowing the scope of what I investigated and worked on. I could see where that was going. I reached across and shook Ralin’s hand. He was a complex man driven by inner winds.
“Make time for your kids, Mark.”
“I plan to.”
“Make it happen.”
He let the door fall shut, and I waited until the DoD agents got out of their car and guided him over.
My phone rang as I pulled away.
“I’m with Agent Blujace. We’re on our way to Boulder City,” Mara said. “There’s a credible tip that helicopters—possibly three of them—flew below radar down the river south of Boulder City. All air traffic was grounded right after the missile launches, but these helicopters flew anyway. If it’s an actionable tip, and it appears to be, Blujace and I will get on an FBI helicopter there. We’ve got twenty agents in the area and more coming.”
