Chapter 18
Taylor nodded. “Or they are becoming smarter, somehow.”
Brodie considered that a moment. “Maybe Ames wasn’t tinkering. Maybe he was digging, and he found something. And that’s why he’s dead.”
“If that’s the case, who would be responsible?”
“Maybe no one. The bot itself. Maybe these things have the capacity to get smarter, but that wasn’t the intention of the programmers.”
Taylor looked skeptical. “I’m not sure that’s possible. If the D-17s have a higher intellectual capacity than is evident, it’s because someone designed them that way. Someone in DEVCOM. Or DARPA. Or Synotec.”
Brodie nodded. They both watched a white Military Police vehicle rumble across the dusty road ahead of them. Then he said, “It looks like Caroline’s Intel was accurate. So can we trust her, or is she still a bitch?”
“Why not both?”
Brodie smiled.
She added, “Could be a limited hangout.”
That was Intel jargon for revealing part of the truth to establish credibility, or to mask the larger truth. Ms. Taylor wasn’t in a trusting mood, and neither was he.
Taylor asked, “How does PFC Greer fit into this?”
“Maybe he doesn’t, beyond what he’s already told us.
He was on night duty more often than most because he asked to be, so he was the one who was most likely to encounter Roger Ames during the major’s late-night visits.
And Ames only approached Greer when the private was alone, so that he would have a reason to not have a Ranger accompany him down into the Vault when he activated and released Bucky and… did whatever he did.”
Taylor thought on that. “Ames’s first visit was on April third. Something must have occurred before that date that got Ames interested in Bucky.”
Right. But there was no reported incident with Bucky until its subsequent malfunction on the training grounds the day it murdered Ames. If there had been, someone would have mentioned it.
They walked in silence toward the western end of Camp Hayden, their way illuminated by the occasional LED streetlamp.
The camp was eerily silent, other than the distant hum of electrical generators and the crunching tires of the slow-moving MP vehicle that continued its night rounds along the sand-strewn roads.
Taylor whispered, “Stop.”
Brodie stopped walking. They were standing in a patch of darkness next to a storage shed, about twenty yards from the edge of the cul-de-sac of houses.
A figure was walking down the front steps of the house next to theirs.
It was Caroline Dixon. She’d changed into a long skirt, ankle boots, and a low-cut top that showed off a couple of major assets.
They observed as Dixon walked across the cul-de-sac toward the opposite end, and a strip of sidewalk that led to the other ring of houses south of their own.
Brodie and Taylor began following her, keeping their distance.
They entered the adjacent cul-de-sac, which appeared identical to theirs, and saw Dixon approach a house with a Jeep Wrangler in the driveway.
Brodie and Taylor stopped and watched, obscured in a pool of darkness beyond the streetlamps.
Dixon walked up the stoop, looked around, then rang the doorbell. After a moment the door opened. It was Colonel Elizabeth Howe, dressed down in a T-shirt and jeans.
The women exchanged a few words, then Dixon quickly stepped in and kissed Howe. Howe grabbed the back of Dixon’s hair and pulled her closer, and Dixon kicked the door shut behind her.
Brodie and Taylor stood in silence a moment. Then Brodie said, “They’re two of the only women in this camp, and they’re screwing each other. That’s kind of selfish.”
“You’re kind of gross.”
“Only for your amusement.”
“Don’t strain yourself.” She added, “This is… interesting.”
Right. On the surface there wasn’t anything nefarious here. Nothing wrong with two ladies enjoying each other’s company, especially when one of them was a civilian.
On the other hand, it wasn’t the best idea to create a messy entanglement between the top civilian scientist on a military research project and the second-in-command of the Army facility where that research was being conducted.
Some propriety had to go out the window at an isolated outpost like this, but considering what had happened to Roger Ames, personal relationships at Camp Hayden became potential clues toward possible motives. Sex and murder often went hand in hand.
Brodie asked, “Who’s the top?”
“With those two, it’s hard to say.”
“Maybe we should get a closer look to find out.”
“Maybe we should go back to our house, and you can take a cold shower.”
As they turned to leave, Brodie stopped short, spotting a white MP vehicle parked in a driveway at the far end of the cul-de-sac.
The driver’s-side window was open, and someone hung their arm out, holding a lit cigarette.
Brodie could make out the faint chatter of talk radio or perhaps an audiobook playing from the car’s stereo.
Taylor said, “I bet that’s the night detail for the Synotec guy’s house arrest.”
“Eric Saltsberg. We owe him a visit.”
“It’s late.”
“Lady Justice does not sleep.”
“But this lady does. And he’s not going anywhere. C’mon.”
They walked back to their house, and as Brodie punched in the security code and entered the darkened foyer, he didn’t crack any jokes about killer robots lying in wait.
Taylor flicked on the lights and produced a flask-sized bottle of Jim Beam. “Here’s your nightcap. Swiped it from the rec room.”
“Way to support the troops, Maggie.”
“They had enough hooch in there to fuck up a battalion. Won’t even notice.”
They made their way through the house to the backyard and sat on a couple of plastic chairs. Taylor opened the bottle, had a pull, and passed it to her partner.
Brodie took a swig and handed it back. He looked out at the small yard of rocks and cacti that led to the high fence, and the black desert beyond.
Taylor took another drink and said, “I don’t like it, Scott.”
“Me neither. Did the Rangers have any single malt scotch?”
“I mean Caroline Dixon and Colonel Howe.”
“I thought you were open-minded.”
“Not that. I mean the fact that I didn’t particularly trust either of these women to begin with, and now we see they have some sort of personal relationship.”
“They’re very committed to bridging the military-civilian divide.”
She looked at him. “Can you be serious?”
“One more drink should do it.”
She handed him the bottle. He knocked some back, then returned it to her and said, “Sometimes sex is just sex.”
“Actually, it never is.”
Brodie looked at his partner, who was staring out into the darkness beyond the perimeter.
Maggie Taylor had some experience with bad sex—that is, sex that led to bad consequences, though Brodie was sure the sex itself was also terrible.
The offender was a world-class asshole named Trent Chilcott of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He’d mentored Ms. Taylor during her Civil Affairs service in Afghanistan, then screwed her, then screwed her in a different way.
But that was a long story, and a lifetime ago.
The point was, Maggie Taylor was thinking about how a toss in the sack could upend and rewire people’s agendas and allegiances. But at Camp Hayden, they were all supposed to have the same agendas and allegiances. Clearly, there was more going on here.
Brodie said, “We have met most of the key players at Camp Hayden. I believe at least one of them is lying to us.”
Taylor kept her eyes on the desert beyond the camp gates and did not respond. The sky was brilliant with stars and the arc of the Milky Way. Black peaks of the distant mountains jutted up along the horizon. Somewhere in the darkness echoed the crazy, high-pitched howls of coyotes.
She said, “Dombroski was wrong. He said the scientists here could explain to us what we needed to know. But you and I both sense we’re getting snowed by someone, Scott.
Before arriving, I had no idea the research team was this small.
Three military and one civilian, including the late Roger Ames.
In a circle that tight, each member will have a lot of responsibilities, and there aren’t any redundancies and probably little oversight.
Dixon is the only person here who reps DARPA, and Captain Spencer now has no one here above him in rank who has the slightest clue what his two-person DEVCOM team is doing.
Caroline made it sound like having such a small team meant no one could get up to something in secret, but I think the opposite is true.
And we have as proof Major Ames’s late-night visits with Bucky, activity that was supposedly unknown to anyone else in the research lab. ”
She had a point. Actually, several points.
Ms. Taylor’s Appalachian roots granted her the gift of high functioning on cheap whiskey.
Brodie said, “We have to assume the evidence is not secure. We stay and work the humans because that’s what we understand.
Let’s confiscate the hardware and get it out of here. ”
“Bucky.”
“The whole baseball team.”
Taylor nodded. “I’ll call Dombroski early tomorrow morning and put in the request.”
“Using a phone line tapped by people we don’t trust.”
She asked, “What choice do we have?”
The answer was none, because that was how this place was designed. Secrecy and control. An island way out in an oblivion of stars and sand, where the future of war was being written from behind high fences and concertina wire.
Brodie wondered just how high up the chain General Dombroski would have to go to confiscate Camp Hayden’s high-tech Terra-Cotta Army. It might take time, and Scott Brodie’s instincts told him they didn’t have time.