Kill Decision

by Daniel Suarez

  The team moved out onto the debris-strewn beach, weapons ready, and taking different paths around piles of detritus. Inch-thick pieces of rusted steel were everywhere, cut cleanly into squares.

  Even with the breeze, McKinney was suddenly getting a hundred and fifty parts per billion of perfluorocarbon—nearly three times what she was getting inside the warehouse. “It’s going up dramatically now. . . .” She ignored the constricting black bag she was wearing and focused on the detector as she walked on sandals across the beach toward the grounded freighter. “It’s coming from the ship.”

  Foxy pointed down as they moved across the hard-packed sand. “Strange tracks here, boss.” He nudged a booted foot at what appeared to be striation patterns pounded deeply into the sand.

  “Professor, let us take point.” Odin edged ahead of McKinney as he climbed a toppled section of hull as a ramp to get onto the keel of the broken ship. The others were close behind, staring into a dark maw that led into the darkness of the one remaining hold.

  McKinney ran her hand along the inch-thick steel edge of the hull. A clean, straight cut. “Doesn’t look like someone did this by hand.” She gestured to the ruler-straight cuts, and then out to the men spraying sparks in the distance as they cut the hulls. Those silhouettes looked far more irregular.

  “What do you think, boss?” Foxy inspected the edges. “Ship-cutting drones?”

  Odin looked back at them, shining his Maglite into the darkness from the edge of the doorway. “I don’t want us all in the hold at once. Bullets will ricochet off this steel like tennis balls. You guys follow when I give the all-clear.” Odin stuck the duct-taped end of the Maglite into his mouth and moved into the opening.

  McKinney watched him go. “Be careful.”

  He mumbled something around the flashlight in his mouth, and then disappeared into the blackness.

  The rest of the team raised their weapons, watching his light beam scan about in what, judging from the echoing, was a cavernous space.

  After a tense minute or so they heard a shout. “Clear! Get in here!”

  The team exchanged looks and hurried into the darkness. Foxy and Mooch turned on Maglites of their own. McKinney followed on their heels, and soon she was at the bottom of a huge cargo hold that was partially illuminated by bright shafts of light coming in from a series of holes cut farther up in the hull and the deck overhead. It was easily over a hundred feet to the top, with chains hanging down and water dripping into pools on the rusted steel floor, but the cut patterns in the walls were just as symmetrical as those on the hull outside.

  McKinney glanced at the reading on the detector. It was now up to a thousand parts per billion. “Good Lord. Judging from the pheromone readings in here, we’ve entered the colony itself.”

  “You mean what was the colony.”

  McKinney looked up to see the team assembled around some sort of broken machine the size of a dog lying on its back on the floor. She walked up to them. “What is it?”

  Odin and Foxy stepped aside to reveal what looked to be a metal armature—obviously not a complete machine, but the base of one. “Broken. Looks like it has magnetic feet.”

  “Careful.”

  Odin pointed. “Disassembled—the top’s been taken off. There’s no motor. No circuit boards.”

  McKinney leaned close and pulled off her veil to get a better look. The device looked like the articulated legs of a weaver ant on a central frame—with what appeared to be magnetic pads for feet. The upper portion of the machine was missing. She tried to raise it and was surprised it lifted off the metal—and it was lighter than she expected.

  Odin examined the pads of the feet, tracing wires that led up the frame. “Electromagnets. They could switch off the magnets on each foot to provide traction and leverage for movement.” He flexed the leg and found it springlike, with plastic rods rooted in place like tendons. “I’ve seen this before. Electroactive polymers. They contract like muscle tissue when subjected to electrical current. No moving parts needed.”

  McKinney’s hands came up greasy. She wiped them on her black robe, then ran her hands along four aluminum canisters similar to the pheromone dispensers on the quadracopter drones they had encountered in Colorado—only, these containers were liter-sized. “Look. A similar configuration of four pheromone dispensers.”

  “But five times larger.” He gave her a look of recognition for her earlier prediction.

  She waved the detector over them, and above one it went up into the tens of thousands of parts per billion. “The mother lode. We should take these with us.”

  “Leave the pepper pheromone behind. They’re angry enough already.”

  “We should take everything.” She started unscrewing the canisters from the frame. “Why would they bother with this? A ship-based drone colony. I don’t see how these would be better than what we’ve already seen.”

  Foxy nodded back behind them. “There was that wing section back there. You think these things fly?”

  “A flying ship-cutter.” Odin kicked the device over with his boot. “We’re not seeing the whole picture.” He stared up at the cuts made in the side of the hull—square holes. “Shipbreaking drones.”

  McKinney stood. “But why bother with that? Why not simply swarms of drones with bombs or missiles?”

  Odin shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know that swarms of steel-cutting drones could play hell with shipping, radio towers, railroads, and bridges. Someone is building an integrated autonomous war machine, with varying types of drones that can work in concert with each other. Each with a specialized job to do.”

  McKinney nodded. “Like the polymorphism that ants exhibit.”

  “Right. We need to stop them before that integrated system is complete. We know that a few thousand barrels of those precursor chemicals were shipped here, and now they’re gone—along with just about everything else that was here. And it looks like they loaded it all into shipping containers. Foxy, ask Azeem if he still has a contact in customs in Karachi.”

  Foxy nodded.

  “Pack up those canisters. We need to find out where those containers went.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Brood Chamber

  Linda McKinney stood at the bow of the surging workboat as humid tropical air rushed past her. She was happy to be back in Western business casual clothing. Alongside her Odin gazed through binoculars at a row of massive blue loading cranes running in a line that extended halfway across the horizon. The land ahead was essentially a concrete island edged by massive pilings and a black-and-yellow warning strip. The scale of the Chiwan Container Port boggled the mind. Onshore workers looked like specks moving among the multicolored shipping containers that rose like a Lego mountain range as far as the eye could see. Monstrous container ships rested up against the island’s geometric flanks, while high- speed cranes thirty stories tall loaded them like children stacking blocks.

  A young Chinese man in a hard hat, rumpled shirt, and slacks stood some ways behind them, chain-smoking near the wheelhouse of the boat. He was looking a little sick as Evans lectured him about something in Chinese—how to avoid seasickness, possibly.

  McKinney shouted in the wind to Odin. “Evans knows Chinese?”

  “He had business here back in the day.”

  “Your other friend doesn’t look like a sailor. Who is he?”

  Odin spoke while still scanning the horizon. “Shipping agent. Old smuggling contact. We used to help his father avoid tariffs in exchange for letting us know if certain materials were moving in their ships.” He lowered the binoculars. “We scratch each other’s backs for paperwork-free favors.”

  “What does he think we’re looking for?”

  “Radiological material bound for the U.S.”

  “Nuclear bombs.”

  “Dirty bombs.”

  McKinney unzipped a backpack on her shoulder that contained the pheromone canisters from Gaddani as well as the jury-rigged detector. She lifted the detector up
so Odin could see. “You think he’ll notice this isn’t a Geiger counter?”

  “Wun isn’t a technical guy. He’s a shipping agent. It’s his connections I need, not his grasp of nuclear physics.” Odin turned to the wheelhouse and motioned to the left.

  The pilot nodded and started turning the wheel.

  Odin called out, “Wun! Hey, Wun!”

  The Chinese man looked up.

  Odin gestured to the docks, and Wun nodded, heading up into the boat’s wheelhouse.

  Before long they were cruising along the concrete coast. It was a wall twenty feet high with stone pilings every ten yards or so, faced with thick rubber stanchions laced with chains. There was no apparent way to get up to the level of the container yard. But as she looked ahead, McKinney could see a smaller dock at water level linked to the island by gangways leading up. Several men in shirtsleeves, ties, and hard hats were waiting there, waving.

  Before long the engine of the workboat roared into reverse, kicking up turbulent brown water, and the pilot brought the boat skillfully to a stop inches from the dock. The waiting men were fiftyish Han Chinese, with moles and jowls, smiling and nodding as the Americans came ashore. Apparently they didn’t know a word of English, because the lead one merely extended visitor badges and gestured for them to clip them to their lapels. Another handed them hard hats and motioned for them to follow him up the aluminum gangway. Evans went first, then Odin, and McKinney followed, looping her arms through both backpack straps to be certain it didn’t fall into the water.

  She glanced around and spoke sotto voce to Odin as they walked in single file up the ramp. “What if the authorities show up?”

  “These are the authorities. Unofficial arrangements are a national sport in China.”

  When they got to the level of the shipping yard, McKinney got a full appreciation for just how vast the place was. Interlocking flagstones stretched away in two directions to a vanishing point. The yard was a hive of activity: Vehicles and people rushed to and fro, signaling as they guided crane clamps down onto the containers, and truck tractors roared around with and without loads.

  Their hosts had a white compact car with a driver ready for them. The Chinese writing on the side was a mystery, but it had a circular logo identical to one on the massive cranes looming above them. McKinney and Evans took the backseat, while Odin got in on the passenger side, nodding good-bye to Wun—who waved enthusiastically.

  The driver was a grim-faced, rail-thin man who could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty years of age. He looked more Vietnamese or Laotian than Chinese.

  Odin looked in the rearview mirror. “Evans, tell him to just drive around from lane to lane. Let’s open all the windows.”

  Odin and McKinney started rolling window handles, while Evans leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

  “Dài qù . de kàn huòguì .”

  The driver nodded and got them in motion, racing around despite all the truck traffic.

  Evans made a steering wheel motion with his hands. “Hey, pal. Let’s not get us killed, okay?” He pointed. “ xiàng gè

  !”

  The man laughed but didn’t change his speed.

  McKinney held the pheromone sensor up to the cross-breeze. “If there’s any perfluorocarbon here, even in low concentrations, this should find it.”

  The driver brought them for miles along narrow lanes dangerous with trucks racing around blind corners. McKinney wondered if the copious diesel fumes would ruin their sampling, but on they went for the better part of an hour. The team was weary by the time the car emerged at the end of the container yard to a stretch of open pavement extending several hundred yards along the sea. The damp outlines where containers had been were evident in neat rows on the stone.

  As the driver turned the car to circle back, the LED counter on the detector started racing upward from zero to several hundred parts per billion.

  “Whoa! Wait a second.”

  Odin motioned to the driver. “Stop!”

  The car stopped.

  The LED leveled off at three hundred twelve. Odin gestured back to the open stretch of pavement. “Go back. Over there.” He pointed.

  The driver shifted into reverse, turned around, and then headed out into the open area. Almost immediately McKinney watched the detector readout race up past seven hundred.

  “It’s getting stronger.”

  Indeed, McKinney could already smell the familiar peppery scent. “That’s with nothing physical left behind. Whatever was here must have been bigger than what was in Gaddani.”

  They were driving along the empty dockside now. Odin looked to her. “They must have just loaded it. If we find out where that shipment was going, we might be able to intercept it. Jot down those bay numbers, Mort. And tell the driver to bring us to the shipping office.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later they were standing in a tiny cubicle in a grungy office that smelled of cigarettes and cheap aftershave. They were crowded around Wun’s dusty computer screen, looking at a map of the vast container yard with thousands of little squares moving on it.

  Wun changed some dates on the edge of the screen, and the pattern changed.

  Odin pointed. “They were in Bays three thirty-six through five fifty-two.”

  Wun spoke with a thick accent. “Container IDs?”

  “No container IDs, Wun. Just give a printout of all the containers that went on that ship—and the name of the ship. That’s all we need.”

  “Probably more than one ship.” Wun swept his hand across the yard map. “Big area.” He clicked through a few command menus, and then snorted. “Ah . . . big ship too.”

  “Big ship—you mean they all went on one ship?”

  Wun nodded. “Fourteen thousand two hundred forty-two container.” He held up his index finger. “One ship. Ebba Maersk—biggest ship there is.” A printer somewhere started spitting out paper.

  McKinney leaned in. “The Ebba Maersk. That’s the name of the ship?”

  Wun nodded. “Big, big ship. Half kilometer long.” He then scrolled through the list of containers in the manifest, shaking his head. “Different companies, same product and same weight. Machine tools. Six thousand two hundred three container machine tools.”

  McKinney was puzzled.

  Odin pointed at the description line: Machine Tools. “Kind of unusual to have so many of one thing from different companies, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Never see before.”

  Odin narrowed his eyes. “Where’s the ship heading?”

  Wun ran his finger along the screen, then stopped on one line. “Singapore.”

  “You have Internet access?”

  Wun rolled his eyes and gave Odin a dirty look.

  “Okay, fine, Wun. Can I use this for a second?”

  Wun pushed back and Odin leaned in to open a Web browser. He quickly typed into the URL line as McKinney and Evans watched.

  She leaned in again. “What are you looking for?”

  “Commercial marine traffic is carefully tracked. Retailers and other clients need to gauge arrival times.”

  Evan pushed in as well. “Ah, cool, what do you use?”

  “Marinetraffic.com.”

  Odin entered the name Ebba Maersk in the ship name box, then clicked SEARCH. Moments later a Google map appeared showing a line of waypoints leading away from Hong Kong and forging out into the center of the South China Sea.

  Odin stared at the screen without moving for several moments.

  McKinney watched him. “What’s wrong?”

  “The route.” He stood up, looking straight into McKinney’s eyes.

  She stared back. “You think all those containers are carrying ship-cutting drones.”

  “Eighty racks per container. Six thousand two hundred containers. What is that?”

  Evans answered with a nervous laugh. “That’s nearly half a million drones, Odin.”

  “Okay, so, what if they don’t all contain
drones? What if some contain fuel or pheromone chemicals, weapons—whatever; that could still leave a hundred thousand or more ship-cutters.”

  “But what would they be cutting? The Ebba Maersk?”

  Odin shook his head. “It didn’t make sense until I saw this.” He pointed at the map. “Heading through the South China Sea.” Odin opened another browser window and Googled the words U.S. aircraft carriers South China Sea.

  Wun threw up his hands. “Why you search on my computer, asshole?”

  Moments later the search results came up and Odin clicked on the first link from a recent article on the BBC News website. It was headlined, U.S. AND VIETNAM STAGE JOINT NAVAL EXERCISES.

  Odin stood up. “USS George Washington carrier strike group out of Yokosuka. They’ve been operating here for a while. Joint naval exercises with Vietnam and the Philippines just south of the Paracel Islands. It’s a geopolitical chess game with the Chinese.”

  “But why would China attack a U.S. carrier? It would start a war.”

  Wun looked up at her, both shocked and offended.

  Odin paused, grabbed the thick stack of printouts from the printer, and then nodded to Wun. “Thanks a lot, Wun. We’ll find our own way back to the dock. Give my best to your dad, okay?” He pulled McKinney away and started heading to the exit.

  Evans was close behind. “Hey, later, Wun. Good luck with the smuggling.”

  Wun looked after them suspiciously.

  Odin spoke softly as they headed down a box-lined hallway. “I’m certain the Chinese wouldn’t attack a U.S. carrier group—but with drones no one would be able to tell who attacked it. Let’s face it: We don’t know either.”

  “But why would someone want to precipitate a crisis?”

  “You remember the Cold War? Lots of unquestioned defense spending. Don’t underestimate the tensions around global shipping lanes and energy, Professor. China is facing what they call the ‘Malacca Dilemma.’ Over three-quarters of their oil imports go through the Straits of Malacca—then up through the South China Sea. That gateway is currently dominated by U.S. naval power in the form of carrier strike groups. Which means we theoretically have a knife against their jugular—just like they do against ours. But if someone disrupts that balance . . .”