Chapter 11
CAPTAIN SPENCER WALKED WITH brODIE and Taylor toward the western end of the camp, where Brodie had spotted the two cul-de-sacs of detached houses during their approach in the chopper.
The air was growing cooler as the sun slipped lower in the sky, now sitting half behind distant mountains, and casting a golden light and long shadows over the base.
Taylor asked the captain, “Did you work with Major Ames before your assignment here?”
Spencer nodded. “We worked together for a couple of years at our headquarters in Maryland. I knew him well. He was my superior officer, but also a friend.”
“What was he like?”
Spencer thought a moment. “Brilliant. Driven. Also idealistic. He really believed in what we were doing here, and that technological advances could make war more humane.”
“There’s nothing humane about war,” said Brodie. “That’s why it’s called war.”
“You sound like Caroline. They didn’t really get along.”
Interesting. Brodie asked, “Why?”
“Well, they both thought they were the smartest person in whatever room they were in. There was also a cultural clash, civilian versus military. But really, it came down to the major’s idealism and Caroline’s more…
clinical nature. Roger didn’t like the size of the gulf between the D-17s’ physical capabilities and cognitive limitations.
It made him uncomfortable. He thought that given the immense physical power we were granting these machines, they needed greater intelligence to at least mimic human morality.
Of course, the operating theory is that a simpler algorithm with very clear behavioral parameters will lead to a more predictable—and therefore safer—automaton. ”
“It didn’t really work out that way,” said Brodie.
Spencer did not respond.
Taylor asked him, “Did you share the major’s concerns?”
“No. I was busy focusing on what we were doing here day to day. Roger was the one always looking ahead.”
Brodie wanted to see if the captain brought up the major’s mushroom munching without being asked directly. “You said you knew him well. Did you socialize outside the lab?”
Spencer replied, “As much as you can socialize in this place. We’d have dinner together, play cards.” He guessed what Brodie was getting at and added, “I did not know about the psilocybin. That was a surprise to me.”
“Why?” asked Taylor.
“Because it was reckless,” said Spencer. “If he’d been caught, he’d have been relieved of command. And that would be a major blow to our work here.”
Brodie said, “Maybe it was part of his work. Expanding his mind.”
Spencer looked at him skeptically. “Aren’t you CID?”
“That’s what it says on my paycheck.”
Spencer sighed. “I’m sure he justified it to himself like that. Or he was bored. I don’t know how he got the stuff.”
Taylor added, “Or if he was doing it with other people.”
Spencer nodded. “It’s possible. Off the record, there’s some speed freaks here. Maybe they got involved. I just don’t know.”
Brodie said, “We heard about Private Beal.”
Spencer did not respond for a moment. Then he said in a low voice, “He pushes them too hard.”
“Who?” asked Brodie. “Captain Pickman?”
Spencer looked at him. “The general.”
They stopped walking as the road ended in a wide cul-de-sac ringed by identical Sixties-era ranch houses. Each house had a desert-landscaped front yard of stones and succulents, along with an attached garage and driveway. A few cars were parked in the drives, along with a handful of golf carts.
If you squinted it almost looked like regular suburbia, but behind the houses was the steel security gate topped with razor wire, and beyond that, endless desert.
Spencer said, “These are the original houses from the old base, but they’ve been updated on the inside.”
“Looks nice,” said Brodie. Actually, it looked like one of those fake towns the government used to build to drop nukes on.
Spencer led them along the sidewalk. Taylor asked, “Did Major Ames have family?”
“Next of kin is his sister, who will be receiving the body,” said the captain. “His parents passed a few years ago, and he was divorced with no kids. By his own telling, he was more married to his work than his wife.”
Right. Why deal with the complexities of a spouse when you can spend all day with machines? They’re simpler, more rational, and less likely to kill you. Until recently.
Taylor asked, “What will his sister be told about his death?”
Spencer looked at her. “That’s not up to me, but I can assure you it won’t be the truth. Hopefully not a lie either. She deserves at least to know that she’s not being given the full picture. The major died while conducting classified research at a top-secret Army facility.”
Brodie said, “I can’t imagine that will satisfy her.”
“It will have to,” replied Spencer, almost brusquely. “If she or anyone else wants to dig, it’s not too hard to figure out he was at Camp Hayden, whose existence is acknowledged by the military. But that’s all she’ll know, and that’s how it has to be.”
Brodie felt the captain was speaking a little callously, especially concerning the death of his own colleague.
On the other hand, the man had a point. When you step behind the veil of secrecy, you are let into a privileged world, and that has a cost. In this case, Major Ames’s sister—and his ex-wife, if she cared—would have to live without ever really knowing what happened to him.
Spencer pointed to a house with a number two on the door. “That’s the general’s house.”
The house was identical to all the others. A sand-covered green Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked in the driveway, and lights were on behind drawn sheer curtains. Brodie asked, “Why do you think the general was not with us today?”
Spencer hesitated, then said, “I imagine he felt that Colonel Howe was better suited to give you an overall impression of the operations here.”
That was a hell of a non-answer. There was clearly some tension here. Dinner was going to be interesting, even if Mrs. Morgan’s cooking wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Brodie spotted another house—number six—with yellow police tape across the door. “Major Ames’s house?”
Spencer nodded. “The MPs already did a search and inventory and cleared out his personal effects.”
“We’ll do our own search,” said Brodie.
The captain told them the access code, then indicated the house two over from it—number four—and said, “My DEVCOM subordinate Lieutenant Mike Lehner lives there. I can set up an interview for tomorrow, just let me know the time.”
Brodie replied, “No time like the present, Captain.” He walked toward Lieutenant Lehner’s house, and Taylor followed.
Spencer didn’t seem to like that. “Mr. Brodie, your dinner with the general is in less than an hour.”
“Won’t take long.” He looked around at the houses. “Which one’s ours?”
“Number eight.”
“Please give us a few minutes and we’ll meet you there.”
Brodie and Taylor left Captain Spencer standing on the sidewalk as they approached house four. On a case like this, catching an interview subject unawares sometimes netted more useful Intel.
Brodie knocked on the door and waited. After a moment the door opened to reveal a tall, lanky man in his mid-twenties wearing jeans and a white polo shirt. He was barefoot.
Brodie introduced himself and Taylor, then said, “We have a few questions for you regarding our investigation.”
Lehner, who did not appear particularly surprised to see them, said, “Of course,” then looked beyond them to the road where Captain Spencer was still standing, watching them.
Lehner stepped aside and let them in, then shut the door behind them.
They entered a small living room with laminate wood flooring and the kind of basic furniture you’d find in a mid-budget hotel room.
Brodie and Taylor sat on a couch and Lehner settled into a chair across from them.
He leaned forward and interlaced his long fingers as he looked between them. “I still can’t believe this happened.”
“No one can,” replied Brodie. Except the guilty party, if there was one. He noticed that Lieutenant Lehner was clean-shaven and had applied gel or pomade to his dark-brown hair, despite being cooped up alone in his house. Brodie asked him, “What are your primary duties at Camp Hayden?”
“As the only robotics engineer on the DEVCOM team, my responsibility is to the mechanical functions of the D-17 units. Running diagnostics, assessing and sometimes repairing physical damage, sharing data with the Synotec engineers as they work on improvements to the units based upon our testing and training.”
Taylor asked, “Before the death of your superior officer, did you notice any anomalies with the units?”
Lehner shook his head. “They were predictable. Frankly, the only aspect of the D-17s that surprised me was their reliability. I thought there would be more performance issues.”
Brodie asked, “What do you think happened to Roger Ames?”
“It is not my place to speculate.”
“It is when a CID agent asks you to.”
Lehner nodded as if conceding the point. This guy was mellow, almost tranquil. Cool as a cucumber? Serene as a psycho? The lieutenant replied, “I suspect the unit simply malfunctioned. A software issue.”
Taylor followed up: “We’ve been told the AI powering these bots is very simple and algorithmic and should not allow for unpredictable behavior.”
Lehner looked at her. “Even the most rudimentary systems are susceptible to chaos.”
Right. Which was a good reason not to build seven-foot-tall autonomous killing machines in the first place. Brodie asked, “Did you notice any change in the behavior of Major Ames in the days or weeks leading to his death?”
“Yes,” replied Lehner without hesitation. “He seemed distracted.”
“By what?”
“I don’t know. But he had been very engaged in the work being done by myself and Captain Spencer. And then at some point, maybe a month or so ago, he kind of… went inward.”
Maybe it was the shrooms. Brodie asked, “Were you aware he was consuming psilocybin mushrooms?”
For the first time, Lehner seemed surprised. “No. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure that’s what the toxicology report says.”
Taylor added, “It showed up in a hair sample, which has a ninety-day window.”
The lieutenant thought a moment. “That’s surprising.
” Then he added, “The major seemed dissatisfied with the focus of the work here. With how it was more centered on my end of things—robotics—than his. You asked me what I think happened. I think maybe—and I have no evidence of this—but maybe the major selected a unit to experiment with. And that led to the malfunction.”
So, Lieutenant Lehner had come to the same conclusion as Caroline Dixon.
Interesting. Did that lend the theory more weight?
Brodie recalled how complimentary Ms. Dixon had been of Lehner, which would be the right thing to do if they were engaged in a conspiracy.
Have someone you vouch for repeat your own story.
A double helping of bullshit. Then again, maybe they were just two independent people coming to the same obvious conclusion.
Brodie and Taylor peppered the lieutenant with a few more questions about his colleagues and the nature of his work, but nothing jumped out as material to the case. Once they were satisfied, they informed the man they would be following up and walked to the front door.
As they were about to leave, something occurred to Brodie and he turned to the lieutenant. “The day of the major’s death, Number 20 malfunctioned. It wouldn’t move. Your two superior officers brought the unit to the lab and proceeded to run diagnostics. Did either of them call you?”
“No.”
“They didn’t call Ms. Dixon either. Do you find that odd?”
Lehner met Brodie’s gaze. “Yes, Mr. Brodie. I find that very odd.”
“Why?”
“We were only a four-person team, and this was the most extreme malfunction of our entire mission thus far. Ms. Dixon or I could have provided some insight. Me especially, if it was a mechanical issue.”
Taylor asked, “Is there anything you would like to share with us about Captain Spencer?”
Lehner took a moment. Then he looked Taylor in the eyes and said, “The captain was extremely loyal to his good friend Roger Ames.”
“And would he do anything that the major asked of him?”
Lehner didn’t respond, then opened the front door. Brodie and Taylor looked outside across the cul-de-sac to their house, where Captain Spencer was sitting on the stoop, watching them.
Lehner waved to his superior officer, then said to the agents in a low voice, “I’ve speculated enough. Good evening.”