Chapter 2 #2
Wordlessly, Darwin peeled off to the south with Simon as Trace and Dean moved further to north, and Lennox and Colt continued along the middle path they’d been following.
Splitting up to deal with unforeseen scenarios was something SEALs practiced a lot.
It helped when things went sideways suddenly.
Thirty minutes later, Darwin and Simon slipped into a hanger along one side of the airfield. Getting into the secure flight line area had required climbing a fence, but this building matched the coordinates for the rally point, so they didn’t feel too bad about not going through the front gate.
The hanger was filled with a mix of uniformed officers and civilians who had that decidedly nerdy engineer look.
All of them were likely from the program office running the Genesis Project.
They didn’t pay much attention to Darwin and Simon, too focused on a wall covered with a TV screen and computer monitors to even notice them.
A few minutes later, Lennox and Colt arrived immediately followed by Trace and Dean. That’s when the other people in the room finally realized Darwin and his Team was there. Two of the men walked over to talk to them.
“I’m Seth Stevens, Program Manager for the Genesis Project,” the dark-haired man said, reaching out to shake their hands. “And this is my lead engineer, Giles Chambers. I wanted to thank all of you for helping us exercise the system. Your assistance will be invaluable.”
“No problem,” Darwin said, recognizing the man’s voice as the person giving them orders over the radio. “Though I’m not sure how much we helped since we’re not even sure what we were doing out there.”
“Join us for the outbriefing, and you’ll have a better idea of what we were doing,” Giles said, leading them over and introducing them to several of the other program engineers sitting in front of the computers. Graying at the temples, he wore wire-rimmed glasses.
Darwin watched the monitors along with his Teammates as their entire journey across the island was replayed in front of them in crystal clear clarity. Given that the videos were all shot from above, it appeared they’d been right about the drone idea.
“As you can see, our Genesis system was able to successfully track your team across the island, regardless of the evasive techniques you employed,” Giles said. “The system’s tracking algorithms were able to maintain an identity lock, even when one or more of you were out of view.”
That’s when Darwin noticed the little digital tags that followed each of their silhouetted figures as they moved across the screen.
Each tag had a four-digit series of letters and numbers, and it wasn’t hard to figure who was who.
The tag DS01 followed the silhouette moving toward the scrub brush first, which meant it was him.
The tag SM02 stayed close to Darwin the whole time, which meant it had to be Simon.
The amazing thing was that the tags moved with them even when Darwin and the others disappeared behind trees and rocks.
Somehow, the system knew where they were going, even if it couldn’t see them.
He wasn’t sure how the computer operators were able to do that.
Hell, how were they able to ID him and his Teammates when there wasn’t ever a clear view of their faces?
All he could think was that the engineers had put some kind of GPS trackers on their individual equipment.
Unless the computer operators had ID’d them from their original positions and then simply kept an eye on each of them as they moved?
That would be pretty tough to pull off for very long though.
When he asked Giles how they’d done it and what kind of drone Genesis was, the man essentially avoided the question, instead asking some of his own about what he and his fellow SEALs had seen and heard at specific points during the trek across the island.
Darwin had to admit he was a little disappointed Giles wouldn’t tell them anything but also knew they were unlikely to reveal that kind of classified information to field operatives unless they had to.
“You’ll be brought back out to the island for phase two of the testing soon,” Seth said as he walked Darwin and the other guys toward the front of the hanger where they found their cell phones waiting.
“It will be another nighttime operation, but it’ll be a couple days before we can pull it together. ”
Darwin didn’t bother asking what they’d be doing for phase two of this gig, knowing the program manager wouldn’t tell them anything. Instead, he nodded and headed toward the MH-60S Seahawk helicopter out on the flight line with his buddies, its rotors already spinning up.
No one said anything as they all climbed in the bird that would take them back to NAS North Island, the airfield north of Coronado. As Darwin moved up the ramp into the back of the bird, he caught sight of Simon glancing over his shoulder toward the hangers.
Darwin followed the direction of his gaze to see Giles and a group of other people walking into the hanger right beside the one where they’d just been debriefed.
Inside, Darwin caught sight of something matte black and sleek, but before he could figure out if it was a drone, the hanger doors clanged closed and the tail ramp on the Seahawk started closing.
Darwin saw Simon glance his way as they took their seats. He knew his friend had seen the same thing he had and was just as curious. Not wanting to speculate in front of the flight crew, he kept his thoughts to himself. They’d talk about it later.