“In terms of my scenario planning and simulations apparently I have nothing in my databases to reflect the subtleties of Russian attitude. It was, and is, a variable that we had not factored in before. Most of my combat variables relate to men of other ethnic origins. We simply did not know what we did not know.” states DARIA.
“This is a perfect example of why we run field trials prior to getting into serious large scale mission operations. However, as far as I can see our planning process and simulations were not in error. We simply had a combination of two elements that we had not had experience with before. Therefore the operational simulation and actual operation had a “soft spot” in them.” adds Frosty. “Matt is correct in that no mission can be defined exactly as there are always mission parameter variables that are impossible to predict with 100% accuracy. Therefore an effective mission plan has elasticity and tries to provide options to address the unknown or ill-defined variables.”
“Well aside from a loss of income for collecting those two assholes we are not out anything and our operation is still completely invisible.” says DARIA. “We might just call it a learning experience and let it go at that.”
It was not more than a week later that DARIA received an anonymous message at the false e-mail address that she had set up for communicating with the Police Department.
Chapter 14: The Offer
I was at Frosty’s place; he and DARIA were in discussion on some mission parameters. Meanwhile I was listening with half an ear and messing with my combat helmet.
“Well that’s interesting,” says DARIA as she checks the e-mail and its corresponding address in response to the incoming mail chime.
“What’s that?” asks Frosty.
“I have an anonymous message that has been bounced through multiple servers to get cleaned, it’s a data file with a picture, and rap sheet profile of a Mexican drug dealer. One line of text that says terminate with extreme prejudice for $100k.” says DARIA.
“How far can you trace this message back?” asks Frosty, immediately suspicious.
“It has five hops through various mail servers and anonymity scrubbers but I can tell you it originated from a government server installation.” replies DARIA.
“It looks like they are providing just enough of a trail for us to verify that it could be a valid government offer.” says Frosty. “They like doing business this way as they are very much at arm’s length with clean hands and plausible deniability.”
“Well, well, you called it D, are we prepared to be in the assassination business?” I inquire.
“I think we have reached an intersection in our endeavors and we had better have a pretty serious meeting on this possibility.” says DARIA.
“Far as I am concerned I knew we would arrive at this point sooner or later. DARIA was engineered for combat operations, regardless of who the enemy is perceived to be. So I don’t much care as my business is engineering and maintaining a very sophisticated AI system to allow for the opportunity of killing or capture.” says Frosty.
“Assassination was not my first priority when I approached both of you for help in doing bounty hunting. But I also am from the military and recognize the fact that assassination is part of that game. Not to mention that on our last rather troubled mission I wound up killing two Russian goons. So in a manner of speaking we have already crossed that line and are in the business.” I say.
“And I am an AI combat archangel system, so it is immaterial to me if it is kill or capture.” says DARIA.
“Well then, it looks like we have a new area of endeavor for more field trials.” grins Frosty. “All we have to do is be obsessively careful about our anonymous presence and our locations.”
“Yeah, put this drug dealer scumbag up on the big screens D and let’s have a gander at his profile, then maybe do a little planning scenario on how he might have a nasty accident.” I grin.
“I’m on it,” says DARIA. “Meet Miguel Alvarez of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico,”
Miguel did not look anything like a drug dealer; Miguel looked like someone’s kindly father, dark hair maintained but not hairdresser style, dark eyebrows over sad brown eyes, clean shaven, and straight lipped mouth with a determined chin. Miguel looked like a million 50 year old father/small businessmen just trying to etch out a living to support his family. Definitely a family man you could pass in a crowd and never notice him in the least.
“Doesn’t look particularly dangerous, does he?” I comment.
“Not in the least,” says Frosty, “We got the right guy?”
“Yeah we got the right guy alright. Miguel is an expert at hiding in plain sight. His front is a car dealership selling your average family automobiles. But he is very connected into the cartels. The file says he has been linked to over thirty deaths. All tortured and killed in a particular manner.” says DARIA.
“Should I ask about the “particular manner” or just leave it alone?” I ask.
“You would want to know this if we decide to take him. His torture specialty is genital mutilation while the victim is conscious of course, followed by skinning alive. The victims usually die from shock.” says DARIA
“Well isn’t that just warm and cuddly,” says Frosty, “So glad I am staying here and just maintaining the tech equipment.”
“Oh shiny,” I say. “That’s certainly motivation to not get caught, and also motivation and justifiable cause to waste this piece of shit. Any sense of how this should be done, or to put this another way, how subtle do we need to be?”
“The text simply said “terminate with extreme prejudice”, it did not say “make him disappear without a trace”, so I would recommend a not too noisy, clean kill leaving the body where it can be found.” says DARIA.
“Yup exactly,” says Frosty, “Whack him without any fuss or muss and leave him where he drops.”
“We can set up in a place I know in El Paso and I can take you into Ciudad Juarez with the quad-copter under darkness. It is only about 8 miles. The border crossing is hazardous, but I am sure I can infiltrate into their computer systems and they will overlook us. Once in Juarez stay out of sight until Miguel shows up at the auto dealership, then tap a hole in his head with the pulse rifle, stay out of site until dark and I’ll retrieve you with the copter back to El Paso.” says DARIA
“Sounds way too easy to me,” I say. “The devil is always in the details, so let’s take this down a couple of levels and see what it looks like.”
“Well as Miguel is a player in the drug cartel you know that he is going to be watched 24/7 so if you do get a shot at him you can expect that his bodyguards are going to be coming hard for you. Finding a handy place to wait until dark is going to be next to impossible. If such a place does exist it would have to be almost completely inaccessible to anyone but you.” says DARIA.
“Have we got any kind of a structure within a mile of Miguel’s dealership?” I ask. “And what range can I get from the pulse rifle and how good are the optics?”
“The pulse rifle is good for a long way, as are the optics, but getting a clear shot at him is a whole other issue as there are always people milling around him.” says DARIA. “So I think we are going to need to be pretty damn close to ensure a clean hit and not damage bystanders. Remember this is a test case and the buyer wants clean and quiet.”
“His house, while appearing modest is a veritable fortress of technology so hitting him there would be loud and messy. There is more vulnerability as he travels by motorcade to work. But an escape in Mexican traffic from his bodyguards in forward and rear armored cars is remote at best. Again loud and very messy.” says DARIA.
“How about a hit from a motorcycle on the freeway, maybe a shaped magnetic charge attached to his car while in motion? A motorcycle has the maneuverability and speed to get away in traffic.” I say.
“Still too noisy and messy and draws too much attention.” says DARIA
“OK, then let’s get me into the dealership at night and I’l
l wait for him to arrive in the morning, pop him, and lay low until dark.” I suggest.
“The obvious problem is where you going to hide for all day when the bodyguards are going to be turning everything upside down?” says DARIA. “Everyone knows everyone in his dealership community so strangers will be immediately rounded up and interrogated not so nicely. I don’t expect you would enjoy having your tingly parts sliced up.” says Daria.
“Is there a church close by Miguel’s auto dealership?” I ask.
“Santuario de San Lorenzo is one block away, why?” asks DARIA
“It would make a dandy place to spend a quiet afternoon and I’ll bet there are plenty of hiding places in the building. How long can you keep me cloaked and mostly invisible?” I ask.
“The cloaking takes a lot of power and works best when moving slowly in the shadows. Bright sunlight is not great as you look like a moving mirage.” replies Daria.
“I would bet that we could adjust those properties of the suit to cloak longer at the expense of some other aspects, like high speed running, for this particular mission.” says Frosty.
“Ok, D, let’s find the schematics of Miguel’s dealership and also of the Santuario de San Lorenzo see if we can come and go like ghosts.” I suggest.
“I’m liking this, it’s coming together,” smiles DARIA.
“Here is a dark thought,” I ponder. “Suppose once we have whacked this guy the government black ops outfit decides to tidy up the trail and this building with us in it have a nasty explosion. How are we mitigating the risk of being seen as expendable?”
“Everything we do and are is completely covert.” says DARIA. “There are no trails of any type leading back to us. We simply do not exist. I scan regularly for any indication that our cover has been compromised. Everything from the most mundane items like Pizza delivery to cash flows to inventory and supplies are washed through several false front companies. It is as good as this sort of thing can be. However, we must be aware that somewhere at some time we may have a breach of security. And that is where our backup site comes into play.”
“Really,” I say. “There is another site like this somewhere?”
“Yup, kinda,” says Frosty. “But only on a need to know bases. And right know you do not need to know. But while we have backup and are very careful to be covert, there is still a piece missing, the part that says don’t touch this subcontractor.”
“Trust us Matt, it’s a bit like you moving from Condo to Condo, we can relocate very quickly and demolish what stays here to leave no clues or evidence of what was here.” says DARIA
“Arrghhh, my headache from info overload is coming back.” I mutter.
Chapter 15: Mexico
The drive to El Paso went quickly. We were just another obscure three ton delivery van droning along the freeway. I say “we” as while I was the only human in the truck D was with me in video, voice and conversation. I seemed to forget that she was an AI system and so simply thought of her in terms of the very attractive blonde woman that was so extremely capable. I’m not sure how she perceived me though; I like to think that she was attracted to me and found me as a source of interesting human male perspective. No doubt she synthesized all our conversations into her database and thereby increased her knowledge of humans exponentially. But that was more the logical side of things. I preferred to just see her in my mind’s eye as a damn smart attractive blonde woman that I really liked. That’s the odd thing about people and their minds; they see and adjust as they want to see, reality took second place. I wanted to see her as an attractive woman, so I did. Besides who ever heard of an AI system that was more human than humans themselves? You could generally always tell if the voice on the other end of the phone was human or not. All you had to do was venture into the area of emotions and the AI system would become visible by way of absence of emotions. They just did not process such things well at all. Generally they did not need to, particularly in our line of business. But D was different, way different in a good way, and try as I might I could not trip her up with emotional references or innuendo. We would make wagers on the outcome of miscellaneous issues. If she won I had to take her to lunch, if she lost she got to clean up my condo. It was the good natured banter and chatter that occurs between co-workers everywhere. I suppose from a design perspective that ability made her far more effective because she integrated as one of the team. But I just kept seeing her as an eminently jumpable blonde woman that I could flirt with. It worked for my mind and made me feel good.
The screen on my phone clicks to life and D’s pretty face appears.
“You awake or what, I haven’t heard anything from you for five minutes?” inquires D.
“Or what,” I reply. “It is so damn boring out here that even a traffic accident would be good news.”
“Not much farther, I’ve got the exit up on your GPS system. We’ll be in the industrial area of El Paso in about 15 minutes.”
“Shiny, cuss I need to pee, along with being bored.” I tease. “Don’t you ever stop to pee?”
“Ha,” chuckles D. “You humans are so ineffective, always feeding or voiding, and if not that then sleeping.”
“Don’t forget sex, we spend a lot of time getting recreational sex, that’s very important for us.”
“It’s a wonder you humans get anything at all done as you are so busy with your own personal maintenance.”
“Oh yeah, but then I don’t have someone like Frosty doing all my maintenance for me, do I?”
“Sucks to be you, human.”
I follow the GPS diagram and take exit 32 and head off into the industrial area. A few more rights and lefts and I pull up in front of a fenced low warehouse.
“The gate is unlocked,” says DARIA
“Ok”, I acknowledge.
I open the gates, drive the truck through, and then close and lock the gates behind me. As I do the roll door on the warehouse clanks to life and begins to open.
“Just drive in here,” says DARIA. “The washroom is at the other end of the warehouse on the left past the equipment racks.”
“Shiny, thanks D.”
“No problem, I don’t want you peeing in the combat suit and screwing up my sensors.”
Once back from the bathroom I open the back door of the three ton and run up the hydraulic lift. But Daria is ahead of me as always.
“Step back human and I’ll just fly the copter out of the truck onto the warehouse floor.”
“You know I have been thinking about this mission and if it all goes to hell. The risks get very high when I have to hang around invisible for the best part of the day as we cannot fly the copter in daylight. While the church is an option I would consider it a “plan B” option. It would be so much better if the copter could go invisible too.”
“Frosty and I were discussing that actually, and we did do some initial testing. The combat suit is what does the cloaking, but if the copter is attached to you and the suit it may have enough power to render the both partially cloaked. And it can draw power from the copter, but I’m not sure for how long.”
“Let me suit up and let’s give it a try.”
Wearing the combat suit and strapped under the copter Daria brings up the power and I dangle some three feet off the floor. As I switch on the cloaking the copter and I disappear into a strange shimmer. Not completely cloaked but pretty damn good.
“This is freakin excellent you and Frosty are geniuses.”
“Well it is true we are, but this cloaking of the copter is coming at a price of energy life. If you don’t want me to fly you into the ground we better not try to make the whole trip back cloaked. And it brings up another question of where we hide the copter while you smack this guy.”
“Can you hide under a bridge close by or on a roof top?”
“We’re just gonna have to play it by ear as to where I can hide for the time it takes to get the job done.” D mutters. “You better get some rest and I’ve got technical stuff to deal with
prior to our flight.”
“Yup, I can do that. Raid the fridge in the truck workshop and crash on the bunk.”
“Be ready at 4:00am, please.” says D.
Chapter 16: Airborne
The chime of my alarm pulls me back from the softness of sleep and drifting dreams.
“Oh be serious,” I sigh, knowing full well that I have to get to it.
“Get your hair fluffed and your nails done, we got a job to do,” chides D.
“Don’t you have some place other than here that you need to be D?”
“Ha, you should be so lucky, get ready, suit up, and try not to forget your gun.”
In fifteen minutes I am in the combat suit, helmet in place, checking the diagnostics of the pulse rifle.
“All set D.”
“Shiny, latch into the harness and we are out of here.”
“Are you stealing my expressions now?” I ask D as I clip into the copter harness.
“Speech styles and expressions in my vernacular are important to assist integration into the combat team’s espirite de corp.”
“Mother of god!”
“Dude, you asked,” says DARIA, “Now hang-on and try not to fall off, or drop your weapon!”
The warehouse door clanks and grinds open, the copter engines spool up and we fly into the relative darkness of the night. Immediately on clearing the warehouse we turn toward the desert hills to make the low altitude sneak across the border into Ciudad Juarez.
The flight, if you can call it that, is rather pleasant once you get used to the fear of falling. Dangling under a drone copter in a harness doesn’t instill a lot of travel comfort and confidence.
My helmet visor is tracking the terrain in night vision. We are not that high and following the terrain profiles closely. About ten minutes into the flight we pause at the mouth of a small ravine. In the distance I can see the lights of the US/Mexico border.
“Switching to cloaking,” says D. “And interrupting a pair of border cameras.”
D.A.R.I.A Book One Page 5
