by Dale Brown
“Yes, ma’a—I mean, okay, Ari,” Moore said excitedly. He looked like a kid again as he excused himself and headed off to get ready.
“Looks like you made his day…again,” Jason observed. “That kid has a lot of strength. You helped bring it out. He’s going to turn into a real asset.”
“You got it, J,” Ari said. They walked together to the first Humvee. Ari showed Moore how to check the CID unit’s self-test and self-repair functions by simply examining rows of green lights. “CID One is in good shape, J,” she announced.
Jason nodded, lost in thought; then: “I think I’ll take it for a spin,” he announced.
Ariadna shook her head with a smile. Jason spent a lot of free time with the CID units. She always thought it was a little creepy, like he was getting addicted to wearing the robot, or he was losing touch with humanity—maybe even reality. “You need a hobby, J,” she said to him privately after Jason and Doug Moore carried the CID unit out of the Humvee and Moore moved out of earshot.
“I’ve got all I can handle right here.”
“That Special Agent DeLaine is kinda cute, don’t you think?”
“You going to ask her out?”
“Ojete!” Ari exclaimed. “No, jerk, I mean you.”
“So that’s what you mean by ‘hobby’? You mean, I need a woman.”
“You catch on quick for a Ph.D.,” Ari said. “You do find her cute, don’t you?”
Jason shrugged. “She’s okay. But she’s not my type. We’re too different. And don’t give me that ‘opposites attract’ bullshit either.”
“Hey, I don’t believe in ‘opposites attract’ either, boss,” Ari said. “That’s why I think you two make a cute couple. You’re exactly alike.”
“Bull.”
“You’re both stubborn, you’re both pros, and you’re both married to your jobs,” she added. “You each need to find somebody to share your lives with.”
“You know, I always thought you and me would make a cute couple. What do you say?”
“What? You mean, you and me, dating? Sleeping together? No offense, J, but that would be like frenching my grandfather.”
“Grandfather…!”
“You’re a nice guy, J…”
“Uh oh—the kiss of death sentence: ‘You’re a nice guy…’ ”
“You are, when you’re not being an asshole, like now,” Ari said. “But you and I are like brother and sister. Now if we were stuck on some deserted island for, like, a year…”
“A year!”
“…and I started climbing the trees going crazy and all, then maybe I’d give you a try. But otherwise…c’mon, J, I can’t even think about it. Let’s change the freakin’ subject before I start having nightmares.”
Jason nodded toward the young Air Force tech sergeant. “What about you and Sergeant Moore?”
Ariadna smiled despite herself and shrugged. “He’s kinda cute, and innocent, and like you said I saw some strength in him this morning. You never know…”
“Why do I get the sudden image of a shark circling around a young sea otter pup?”
“Screw you, Doc,” Ari said with a smile and a laugh. “Get in and shut up, all right?”
Jason unfolded the CID unit and climbed in. After he exercised the cybernetic unit for a few minutes, Jason backed into the side of the Humvee and then stepped away moments later with the forty-millimeter grenade launcher weapon pack attached to the CID’s back. “This is the grenade launcher pack,” he explained to Moore. “The pack contains thirty-two rounds, normally eight rounds each of high-explosive, infrared marker flare, tear gas, and flechette grenades, depending on the mission; we’ve only got smoke rounds in there now for training. The firing system interfaces with CID’s laser targeting system, and rounds are selected by either voice commands or an eye-pointing menu system in the electronic visor. The barrel can swivel one hundred and eighty degrees so you don’t need to be facing the target to attack it.”
“If you’re going to fire grenades out there, sir,” Moore said, “I’ll call in for range clearance. Go out to the Charlie Range controller’s pad and give me a call. After that, you can go and do anything you want.”
“Want us to follow you out to the range?” Ari asked. “We can fire up the radar, maybe test out the datalinks?”
“Maybe later,” Jason said. “I just want to run around a bit, pop off a few grenades, clear my head.”
“Nerd,” Ari said to the man in the fearsome-looking robot before her. The robot pointed to its crotch area, then turned and ran off.
The main part of Cannon Air Force Base was typical of most American air bases, about four thousand acres in size, but Cannon was fortunate in that it had a large tract of vacant land to the west called Pecos East, or R-5104 on aviation charts, about eighty-five thousand acres total, in which Task Force TALON was located. The airspace above Pecos East was restricted from the surface to eighteen thousand feet above ground level. The Air Force performed a wide variety of training exercises on these ranges, including bombing, aerial gunnery, close-air support training, ground-based air defense deployment simulations, and joint forces operations. A number of targets had been set up throughout the range by the Air Force. Some were nothing more than large bull’s-eyes painted on canvas and supported by poles, but others were very realistic models of buildings, armored vehicles, mobile missile launchers, cave entrances, and even oil refineries.
It took about ten minutes for Jason to run the eight kilometers out to the range controller’s station for R-5104 Charlie, which was nothing more than a large concrete parking area, large enough to park two helicopters plus a number of trucks, painted Day-Glo orange and with a large black “X” on it so fighter jocks wouldn’t mistake it for a target. After checking in with Moore and getting thirty minutes’ time in the range, Jason started exploring the range area by jogging around—except in his case, he was casually “jogging” at almost forty kilometers per hour.
Okay: DeLaine was cute, for an FBI agent, he thought as he sped around the range, jumping over targets and the occasional coyote. And maybe he and Kelsey were more alike than he cared to admit. But the problem with old, established, bureaucratic institutions like the U.S. Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was they were slow to adopt new ideas and concepts. The “graybeards,” as Jason called them, liked everything neat, tidy, and under control.
How was he going to get any information on the terrorists if DeLaine was going to dig in her heels like this?
He had been jogging around the range, “attacking” targets he found with his smoke grenades and testing his jumping and vertical leaping abilities, for almost twenty minutes when he heard, “Jefferson to Richter,” on CID’s secure communications system.
“Go ahead, Sergeant Major.”
“Say location.”
He quickly checked his satellite navigation system, then responded: “Charlie Range, four hundred and seventy-five meters southeast of the range controller’s pad.”
“Roger that. Hold your position.”
He landed from his last jump and froze. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Just hold position, sir.”
A few minutes later, Jason noticed a small helicopter appearing on the horizon to the east. He switched to a higher magnification and saw that it was a sand-colored Marines Corps AH-1W Cobra gunship helicopter. “Is that you in the Cobra, Sergeant Major?” Jason asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Shall I meet you at the range controller’s pad?”
“Negative. Hold your position.”
“Roger.” Okay, Jefferson, what are you up to? he thought.
“Okay, Major, let’s see what you can do,” Jefferson radioed a few moments later.
“Okay, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded. “What am I supposed to…?” But he was interrupted…because seconds later a “LASER” warning came over CID’s threat warning system, telling him that he was being illuminated by a targeting laser. Then, moments later, ju
st as Jason was about to ask Jefferson if he had hit him with the laser, the Cobra gunship opened fire from about two kilometers away. Jason saw the puffs of smoke coming from the nose Gatling gun and felt the pounding of shells on the hard earth beneath his feet milliseconds later, and he leaped away just as the shells walked their way to the exact spot in which he had been standing just a fraction of a second earlier.
“Good move, Major,” Jefferson radioed. “Our ammunition is just plastic frangible shells and shouldn’t hurt you, but let’s pretend they’re armor-piercing shells—three hits and you’re out. There are three large ‘enemy vehicles’ marked with green Xs in Charlie Range. Find them and destroy them without getting hit by more than three shells. Let’s go.”
This is fun, Jason exclaimed to himself. He started running in the same direction as the Cobra helicopter and behind it. The desert floor was hard-baked with a lot of mesquite, snakeweed, and mesa dropweed, and he had no trouble racing through, around, or over it. As the Cobra gunship turned, he turned with it, keeping easily on its tail and away from its guns. Once the Cobra tried a steep sliding turn to reverse course, but Jason simply ran underneath it at speeds exceeding thirty miles an hour.
When the Cobra tried a hard turn to quickly spin around to bring its guns down on Jason, he fired two of the smoke grenades at the chopper. “Hey, what the hell was that?” Jefferson shouted as the rounds whistled uncomfortably close.
“You didn’t say anything about me not firing back, Sergeant Major.”
“You wanna play rough, Major? I’m your Ranger,” Jefferson said. He stood on the gunship’s antitorque pedals and accomplished a simultaneous spinning-twisting-diving turn and raked the ground with machine gun fire at where he anticipated Jason would be, and very nearly got him. But as skillfully as Jefferson made the Cobra dance, Jason made the CID robot move faster. At one point, Jason found the second “enemy” vehicle, an old World War Two–vintage American M61 tank. He fired a smoke grenade to mark its location, jumped on top of it, and leaped into the air—very narrowly missing punching the Cobra helicopter at his apogee.
The demonstration was over in less than ten minutes. He had found all three vehicles with no problem whatsoever, and the Cobra gunship’s bullets only came close. A few minutes later, Jefferson landed the gunship on the range controller’s pad. Jason dismounted from CID and was introduced to the commanding general of Cannon Air Force Base, who had been seated in the gunner’s seat. Jason fielded a few questions from the general, and then Jefferson excused himself so he could talk with Jason privately.
“Very impressive, Major,” Jefferson said after the Air Force general was back over by the chopper. “I think perhaps Special Agent DeLaine might be a little premature in her opinion of CID.”
“I agree, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded enthusiastically. “Why don’t you go back to base and tell that to DeLaine and Bolton so they’ll get off my case?”
Jefferson’s eyes turned from light blue to thundercloud dark blue in an instant, and he stepped closer to Richter so he was almost nose-to-nose with him. “I was ordered to get this task force ready for battle,” he growled, impaling Jason with an angry stare, “and if you think I’m going to let anything or anyone interfere with that, you are sadly mistaken. The safety and security of the United States is in peril, and I will not let some childish spat between two wet-behind-the-ears jerk-offs threaten my country or my government. I will crush you under my boots first before I turn you over to a court-martial.” He fell silent, scanning Jason’s eyes carefully for several long moments; then: “I think you’ve spent too much time in the lab, Major. You think you’re in control because in your little world of computer programs, simulations, and mathematical equations, you might be. Out here, you’re being nothing but an irritant.” Richter said nothing in response.
The big Ranger looked Richter up and down again, then sneered at him. “Look at you: Major What-Me-Worry. You’re a lab rat, Richter, nothing but a transistor head.” Still, Jason had nothing to say. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking, Richter? You’ve got to give a shit about something; everything around you now can’t be neat and tidy and orderly like it is in your laboratory or on your design computers. What does your finely tuned brain really want to tell me?” No reply. Jefferson sneered again. “C’mon, you’re a big tough army officer.” He glanced over at the CID unit. “Or are you? Maybe you’re not shit unless you’re humping that big hunk of metal there. Go on. Speak freely. Now’s your chance.”
Richter looked as if he might say something, but after a few moments he simply caged his eyes. “I have nothing else to say, Sergeant Major,” he said finally.
Jefferson backed away and nodded, eyeing Richter suspiciously. “Very well, Major,” he said. “You’re on the hook for this now. Mess it up, and your military career is over.” He nodded to the CID unit. “Good job with your robot, Major. If DeLaine still decides not to use it, I think it would be a big mistake. But as long as you two are working together, whatever you decide is how we’ll play it.”
“Okay, Sergeant Major.”
“But if either one of you are stonewalling or holding back, and I find out about it, there will be hell to pay,” Jefferson warned. “Those are my feelings. That’ll be all. Carry on.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded. Jefferson saluted, waited until his salute was returned, and strode to the Cobra gun-ship, and he was off minutes later.
“Are we ever going to catch a break, Troy?” Jason asked the robot as he gave the order to prepare for uploading. He climbed in and activated the unit. Power was down to about fifty percent, plenty to make it back to the task force area at full speed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico
That evening
That night, Jason and Ariadna had dinner in a mesquite barbecue restaurant at the Clovis Municipal Airport’s general aviation terminal. Because the nation’s airspace was still shut down, business at the airport was terrible—but the food there was outstanding. As they feasted on spicy ribs, enchiladas, and barbecue beef sandwiches, Jason nodded at Ari. “You look different somehow,” he said.
“Oh?”
He looked closer. “Is that an olive drab T-shirt you’re wearing under your blouse?” he asked.
“So what?”
“Where’d you get a…oh, I see. Doug gave you his T-shirt too?”
“We fired over three hundred rounds today. Doug said I shouldn’t wear nice stuff because of the oil and powder residue that comes off the weapons. He gave me a couple of his T-shirts. We’re going to practice tomorrow too.”
“What piece of your underwear did you trade for the T-shirt?”
“You’re a degenerate.”
“What kind of gun are you practicing with?”
“Forty-five-caliber SIG Sauer P220, the best semiauto in the world,” Ari said. “He showed me how to clean it, hold it, shoot it, even holster it.” She opened her blouse and withdrew the SIG from a shoulder holster, pointing it toward the wall. “Beauty, isn’t it?”
Jason’s eyes bugged out in surprise as if she had shown him a nuclear fuel rod. “Christ, Ari! You had it on you this whole time? Isn’t that illegal?”
“In New Mexico it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit as long as it’s unloaded,” Ari said. “Here.” She opened the action with a loud cha-chink! which garnered no reaction whatsoever from the diners around them, as if everyone expected to see handguns at restaurant tables all the time. She inspected the chamber. “It’s unloaded, but always check it yourself.” She handed it to Jason, who looked at the empty chamber. “No, J, never put your finger on the trigger!” she snapped as he wrapped his hand around the butt end.
“But you said it was unloaded, and I looked myself and saw it was unloaded!”
“Doug says always treat a gun like it’s loaded,” Ari said sternly. She pushed the gun’s muzzle away from her as he started to turn it toward her. “And never, ev
er point a gun at anyone.”
“But it’s empty, for Christ’s sake. There’s not even a clip in it!”
“Doesn’t matter—and it’s a ‘magazine,’ not a ‘clip.’ A clip is a device that holds a number of rounds; a magazine is a box that feeds rounds into a chamber.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Sure—like EDO and FPM memory chips are the same thing.”
“No—those are totally different.”
“You are such a nerd, Major,” Ari admonished him playfully. “We spent more time on gun safety today than anything else, and I learned so much.”
“Oh yeah? What else did Doug say?” Jason asked, emphasizing the sergeant’s name like a grade-schooler does to a friend on Valentine’s Day.
“Grow up, J. Doug says pretend there is a laser beam emanating from the muzzle at all times, and if it hits anyone they will die. If you can’t point it in a safe direction, point it at yourself. You always treat a gun like it’s cocked, locked, and ready to rock unless you personally verify it otherwise.”
“ ‘Cocked, locked, and ready to rock’—what in hell does that mean?”
“Jesus, J, I thought you were in the army! Which army might that be—Captain Kangaroo’s army? Didn’t you ever learn how to handle a gun?”
“Seven years ago at OCS, a nine-millimeter Beretta, for one week.”
“You’re pitiful.”
“Why are you carrying it around?”
“Doug said I should get used to carrying it,” Ari said. “I’m going to get my concealed carry permit for New Mexico. I spoke with Kelsey and asked her to help me get a federal carry permit, but after this afternoon I don’t think she’ll give me the time of day. I might have to go to Jefferson.”
“What do you want to carry a gun for?”
“Wake up, J,” Ari said. “The terrorist threat is the highest it’s been since 9/11, and we’re right in the thick of it. I’m surprised you aren’t carrying a weapon. You’re active-duty military—Chamberlain can probably get you authorization in a snap.”
