by Dale Brown
Brad swallowed hard, remembering the sorrow he had felt as the man who’d raised him slowly disappeared into a shadowy, inhuman world of binary 1s and 0s. This Sky Masters–designed LEAF, risky and highly experimental though it was, had come along just in time to save his father’s sanity. While the suit might look a little weird, at least it let Patrick McLanahan see other people with his own eyes and touch them with his own hands. It also let him speak to them in his own voice.
And that was a precious gift . . . even when what he said with it pissed them off.
“A warning shot?” Whack repeated angrily. “Nobody else has CIDs. Using them against us in the sim was a bullshit move, General.”
Patrick shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Colonel.” He looked around the small group. “Gennadiy Gryzlov may be a psychopath, but he’s also quite intelligent. He knows the kind of force multiplier our combat robots represent. Obtaining CID technology for his own armed forces has to be very high up on his priority list. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what he was after in that ambush that killed Charlie.”
“Maybe so,” Whack agreed reluctantly, obviously wrestling with painful memories. Surrounded by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, he and Charlie Turlock had gone down hard—destroying dozens of Russian tanks and armored vehicles in a desperate last-stand fight. “But there sure as shit wasn’t a lot left of our gear when those bastards finished shooting us to pieces.”
Patrick sighed. “I’ve spent months analyzing the last few minutes of telemetry relayed from your CIDs, Whack. And I’m afraid more components might have survived intact than we first thought.” His mouth turned down. “For example, Charlie’s robot lost an arm to a Russian tank shell before it blew up.”
“Yeah, so?”
“There are some indications that the impact point was high up, on the CID’s shoulder, and not on the arm itself. In which case, the arm’s actuators and control links might not have been severely damaged,” Patrick said quietly. “The same goes for your machine, Whack. It took a hell of a beating before the end, but the Russians could still have salvaged any number of functional or near-functional systems from the wreckage.”
Brad stared at his father. “You really think Gryzlov could reverse-engineer the CIDs from a bunch of half-fried odds and ends?”
“Let’s just say it’s a possibility I can’t rule out,” the older man said. “But we can be sure his scientists and engineers are hard at work studying whatever they retrieved from the battlefield. And now that they know what our CIDs can do—” He shrugged.
“‘What one man can invent, another can discover,’” Nadia quoted slowly, looking worried.
Patrick nodded. “Sooner or later . . . hopefully much later . . . the Russians are likely to figure out how to build their own war robots. And when that day comes, Gryzlov isn’t going to be shy about using them in combat.”
“Facing off against Russian CIDs?” Brad grimaced. “Well, crap, Dad. Based on what we just experienced in the simulator, that would really suck.”
His father nodded. “Which is why we better start figuring out how to fight and win that kind of battle.” He offered Macomber a wry, half-apologetic smile. “Hence the sucker punch today, Whack.”
“One thing still bugs me, though,” Brad said, thinking back over the way the enemy CIDs had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. “You programmed in those Russian robots with the equivalent of our thermal and chameleon camouflage systems, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
Nadia frowned. “But we stripped the thermal tiles and chameleon plates off the CIDs we sent to Perun’s Aerie before the raid itself. In those arctic winter conditions, neither camouflage system was worth the weight or power expenditure.”
“True,” Patrick agreed.
“So there’s no possible way the Russians could reverse-engineer our camouflage gear. Not from anything they might have pulled out of the wrecks,” Brad pointed out.
“Nope,” his father agreed again.
“Then why throw that kind of high-tech invisibility-cloak shit at us in the sim?” Whack demanded. “What’s next? Force fields and plasma guns?”
“‘Train hard, fight easy,’” Patrick said with a grin, quoting the famous eighteenth-century Russian soldier Field Marshal Suvorov. Then his expression turned more serious. He tapped the exoskeleton sheathing his crippled body. “Look, Colonel, most of this complicated hardware is necessary just to keep me breathing. There’s no way I’ll ever fly a plane or pilot a CID again. So, the way I see it, I have one job. Just one. And that’s to do whatever I can to make sure the rest of you are ready for the fight that may be coming.”
His lopsided smile returned. “Even if I have to cheat like crazy to do it.” He looked around the table. “Anyone here have a problem with that?”
There was a moment’s silence. Finally, Nadia cocked her head to one side, looking thoughtful. “No, what you say makes sense.” She matched the older McLanahan’s grin with one of her own. “Better that we die a thousand times in the computer than get our asses kicked just once on a real battlefield.”
Three
RENO, NEVADA
THE NEXT DAY
Dr. Richard Witt stood uncertainly outside the door to an office suite in downtown Reno. A silver-colored nameplate showed that the space was leased to Peregrine Datalytics, ostensibly a small software research firm.
He wasn’t used to feeling this nervous. Witt’s colleagues at Sky Masters Aerospace often joked that he showed less emotion than the automatons he helped create. He suspected many of them were just jealous of his ability to swiftly analyze complex robotics challenges and software problems, using impeccably rigorous logic. His fellow engineers were slower and less efficient than he was because they allowed trifles—personal relationships, rivalries, and ambitions—to clutter up their working lives.
Sweat beaded his high bald forehead. Logic suggested nobody else at Sky Masters could possibly know or care why he had driven to Reno today. But this was one of those situations where pure reason provided less comfort than he would have wished.
Before he could knock, the door opened inward.
“Come on in, Dr. Witt,” FBI special agent Carl Sundstrom said genially. “You’re exactly on time.”
Witt awkwardly shook hands, aware of how rumpled he must look compared to the FBI agent. The other man was shorter by a head, but trim and fit in a perfectly tailored navy-blue suit and crisply knotted red silk tie. “I don’t think anyone followed me,” he blurted.
“Relax, Doctor,” Sundstrom said, offering him a quick, reassuring smile. He closed the door. “You’re not here to do anything illegal after all. Or even immoral.”
“Certainly not,” Witt agreed stiffly. “I am a patriot and a concerned citizen.”
Still smiling, the FBI agent nodded. “And believe me, Doctor, the powers that be in Washington greatly appreciate what you’re offering us.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I only wish others at Sky Masters shared your sense of patriotism and loyalty.”
Witt knew what he meant. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Sky Masters covertly supplied high-tech military hardware, including Cybernetic Infantry Devices, to Scion’s mercenary forces. Those sales violated a whole slew of executive orders issued by President Stacy Anne Barbeau—orders designed to prevent the United States from being dragged into Poland’s bloody no-win conflict with the Russians. True, a number of federal courts had recently stayed her regulations as unconstitutional, but that was mere legalistic nitpicking. Presidents should make foreign policy, not corporations. Especially not a corporation so morally corrupt that it would arm and equip Scion’s brutal hired killers, he thought bitterly. Only greed could explain a willingness to support a warmongering madman like former president Martindale.
He followed Sundstrom into a large conference room. Huge windows looked north across the brightly lit Reno skyline. Another man, gray-haired and heavyset, turned away from the spectacular view when they came in. Dark b
rown eyes looked back at them through a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses.
“Dr. Witt, this is . . . Mr. Smith,” the FBI agent said. “Let’s just say that he works for another department, shall we? One with a much better scientific and technological grounding than my bureau.” He smiled again. “We’re pretty good at catching crooks and spies. Not so much at understanding gizmos like cybernetic control circuitry and neural interfaces.”
Witt nodded, pleased at this confirmation that Sundstrom had taken him seriously during their earlier conversations. This “Mr. Smith” undoubtedly worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or maybe for one of its lesser-known government counterparts. DARPA, part of the Defense Department, was responsible for developing emerging technologies for military use. In fact, Jason Richter, Sky Masters’ current chief executive officer, had been working for a DARPA-affiliated Army research lab when he built the first Cybernetic Infantry Device.
He came to a final decision. For weeks after the FBI first contacted him, he’d agonized over the seeming conflict between the demands of his conscience and his sense of professional ethics and company loyalty. Slowly, Witt reached into his coat pocket and took out a small USB flash drive. He handed it to Sundstrom. “In that case, I believe the information I’ve downloaded onto that device properly belongs to Mr. Smith and his agency.”
The FBI agent looked down at the tiny drive he held with undisguised wonder. “This little thing contains all the schematics and other data necessary to replicate CID haptic interfaces?”
“As I promised,” Witt told him. He looked at Smith. “The password protecting those files is Prometheus.” Seeing their blank stares, he shrugged in embarrassment. “As in the Titan who stole fire from the gods for humanity? It seemed . . . well . . . appropriate.”
Carefully, Sundstrom passed the flash drive to his colleague. “Would you evaluate this material for me, Mr. Smith? But quickly, please.” He nodded toward the Sky Masters cyberneticist. “While I’m sure we can trust the good doctor here, our political masters will want confirmation.”
Silently, Smith nodded and left the room with the drive.
Politely, the FBI agent waved Witt into one of the chairs around the big table and took another. He leaned forward. “Forgive me for asking again, but you’re still convinced that no one at Sky Masters will ever realize you’ve copied this data for us?”
“I wrote the security software for our cybernetics lab,” Witt said flatly. “So I know for a fact there are no traces of what I’ve done in the system.”
Sundstrom visibly relaxed. He shook his head. “I really don’t understand why you haven’t been promoted higher up the Sky Masters corporate ladder, Dr. Witt. Your abilities are quite extraordinary.”
Witt frowned. That was a sore subject. By rights, he should long since have been named head of the Sky Masters Cybernetics Division. No one else in the lab had anything approaching his technical knowledge or analytical skill. But every time he applied for the job, Richter fobbed him off with some lame excuse or another about the difference between scientific and technical expertise and people skills.
“I think I’ve also been remiss in not extending my condolences for the death of Ms. Turlock,” Sundstrom said suddenly. “I understand she was a valued colleague of yours?”
Charlie Turlock? Just hearing her name spoken aloud and thinking about what might have been . . . no, damn it, what should have been, made Witt feel as though he’d been stabbed in the stomach. He felt the blood drain from his face.
“Dr. Witt?” the FBI agent said, sounding concerned. “Are you all right?”
Fighting to regain control, Witt forced himself to nod. “I’m fine,” he rasped. He took a shaky breath. “Yes, Ms. Turlock and I worked very closely together. She was a superb engineer. Her death was a real blow. To our team, I mean.”
Liar, he thought bitterly. He’d wasted so many months and years. Always admiring Charlie Turlock, hell, loving her, and always being too afraid to say anything about it. Then one day, before he could work up the nerve to tell her how he really felt, off she’d flown to take part in one of Martindale’s insane mercenary operations. Somewhere deep inside Russia, he’d heard. And it killed her. She was gone. Gone forever.
With one part of his mind, Witt heard Sundstrom still talking, trying to engage him in the kind of nonsensical chitchat that other people seemed to need to fill uncomfortable silences. He did his best to respond. But most of his being was lost in grief for what might have been—if only he’d been bolder sooner.
He only fully reentered the present when the mysterious “Mr. Smith” rejoined them.
“It is as Dr. Witt has said,” Smith told Sundstrom, flourishing the USB drive. “Everything we need is there.”
Later, after the Sky Masters cybernetics engineer was gone, ushered out with profuse thanks on behalf of the U.S. government and President Barbeau, the heavyset man who’d called himself Smith turned to his younger and better-dressed colleague. “Kakoy debil! What a moron!”
“Come now, Eduard,” Major Vasily Dragomirov said in mock reproof. “Be kind. Why should the good Dr. Witt look further than the carefully forged FBI identity card I showed him?” He shrugged. “Like so many others in life, he sees what he wants to see. Now he has what he wanted, revenge against Sky Masters and Scion. If he thinks he has achieved that by helping his own government, instead of ours, well, so much the better for us, eh?”
“But how the hell did you get onto him?” Captain Eduard Naumov asked. Unlike Dragomirov, he wasn’t a field operative for Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. He was a technical officer in its Ninth Directorate, a group charged with acquiring and analyzing foreign military technology. He’d only flown in to Reno a few days before, standing by solely to verify the data they hoped to obtain in this covert operation.
“From our friends in Beijing,” the major said. Seeing the confusion on the older man’s face, he explained. “A few years ago, the Chinese hacked into the computer archives of the American OPM, their Office of Personnel Management. They stole millions of individual security clearance files.” He smiled cruelly. “And those files include enormous amounts of information on candidates for sensitive positions—embarrassing information on everything from shaky personal finances to substance-abuse problems to potential psychological weaknesses.”
“Like those of Dr. Witt,” Naumov realized.
Dragomirov nodded. “Our masters in the Kremlin paid Beijing huge sums for access to certain files, chief among them those of any scientists and engineers connected in any way to Sky Masters or Scion.”
“Well, it was money well spent,” the older man assured him. He shook his head in wonder. “With the data I have already transmitted to Moscow, our robotics experts should not have any trouble reproducing these advanced haptic interfaces.”
“Which means Mother Russia will soon have combat robots of its own,” Dragomirov said in quiet satisfaction. While preparing for this mission, he had studied every GRU file on the Iron Wolf Squadron’s fighting machines. He had been awed by their lethality and power. His eyes were cold. “And then the world will change forever.”
Four
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
SEVERAL DAYS LATER
President Stacy Anne Barbeau kept her oh-so-charming, professional politician’s smile fixed firmly in place while her aides ushered the members of her cabinet out of the Oval Office. She dropped it the moment the doors closed, leaving her alone with Luke Cohen, her White House chief of staff and longtime political adviser, and Edward Rauch, her national security adviser.
Good God, she thought caustically, pretending to respect the mediocrities she’d appointed to head various Executive Branch departments was sometimes tiresome. But she’d deliberately surrounded herself with sycophantic second raters at the cabinet level. As president, she could bully lower-echelon appointees into doing her bidding. If anyone balked, she could dump them without igniting a political fire
storm. She couldn’t ax a recalcitrant secretary of state or defense or treasury with the same impunity. So she’d picked men and women who were politically reliable and pliable, rather than competent.
After all, Stacy Anne Barbeau knew better than to trust anyone who might prove to be as shrewd, devious, and power-hungry as she was herself. For decades, she’d clawed her way up through the rough-and-tumble world of American politics. Washington, D.C., was full of onetime allies and rivals she’d first charmed, then outfoxed, and finally discarded.
Well, by God, now she was at the top of the heap. She was the queen bee of the American political scene. And like it was in a hive, there wasn’t room for another queen. Nor, for that matter, a king.
“And most especially not that swaggering son of a bitch John Dalton Farrell,” she muttered.
Luke Cohen nodded solemnly. He’d been sounding the alarm about the state of her reelection campaign for weeks, ever since it became clear that John D. Farrell had effectively locked up the other party’s nomination to run against her in November.
Farrell was the current governor of Texas, but that wasn’t what made him a dangerous general election opponent. As the incumbent president, Barbeau had a lot of advantages—including virtually unlimited campaign funds and all the TV-camera-friendly pomp and circumstance surrounding her as America’s commander-in-chief. Even with the nation’s economy sputtering along in low gear, no ordinary, run-of-the-mill politician should be able to shake her hold on the White House.
But as both Cohen and his boss knew, John Dalton Farrell was about as far away from a conventional politician as it was possible to get and still be a viable presidential candidate. Born into a hardscrabble farming family, the Texan had made his substantial fortune as a wildcatter in the energy industry. Time after time, he’d played hunches and beaten the big players—Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, and the others—to new oil and gas fields. And then he’d made them pay through the nose for the rights to develop his discoveries. Along the way, he’d also cemented a reputation as a no-nonsense, plainspoken, tough-as-nails defender of free markets and enemy of crony capitalism. Straight from the long-ago days when his sole asset was one battered, secondhand drilling rig, he’d blasted the kind of backroom special deals career politicians loved to cut with favored big businesses and unions.
