Chapter 33
THE CAMP’S NORTHEAST GUARD TOWER was unoccupied, and no one saw the agents approach the section of fencing near three black oil drums. Two of the drums had been dragged away from the fence, revealing a crawl space about three feet wide and three feet deep.
Brodie looked at Taylor, who was holding a plastic water bottle and had two more shoved in the pockets of her suit jacket.
Brodie also had three bottles, all sourced from the refrigerator in the brig.
So they had a hundred ounces of water and thirty-four bullets between them.
Should be enough for a short desert manhunt.
Brodie got on his stomach and crawled beneath the fence, and Taylor followed.
They brushed themselves off and headed east, the hills to their left, and the sun slipping low in the sky behind them.
They were in a flat area dotted with brush and a few desert willows in bloom. A jackrabbit darted between the scrub.
Up ahead Brodie saw where the hills dipped down to the flatlands, and beyond that was the mesa—an isolated, flat-topped mountain. It was farther away than he’d realized. This would have been a lot more fun in an ATV.
Taylor took a drink of water. “How long do you figure?”
“Thirty minutes at a steady clip.”
“Think he’s really there?”
He looked at the mesa. “Maybe. Miller made it sound like the guy needed peace, but I think what he really needed was as much distance as possible between himself and Camp Hayden. If I were him, I’d make for the outer perimeter fence.
He’s got gear and the skills of an Army Ranger.
And maybe a weapon, if he knew about the buried cache in Ames’s backyard.
He’d be fine in the open desert for a while. ”
Taylor looked at the distant mesa. “If he is up there, and he’s worried he might be found, there is no better spot to surveil us.”
“Or shoot us.”
Taylor did not respond.
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
Brodie looked back at Camp Hayden as it receded in the distance—the high steel fence topped with razor wire, the empty guard towers, the stretching shadows.
And deep beneath it all, the underground sanctum for a fleet of lethal autonomous weapons, maybe the worst invention since the car alarm.
What the hell were they thinking?
Incompetence and recklessness lead to tragedy, but so does evil. Men are plenty capable of evil. He thought about Major Klasky and what Sergeant Miller had said about the guy—that he’d rather Tom Greer self-destruct than leave this place and possibly reveal its secrets.
That was grim. But was it true? Or had the terrors at Camp Hayden darkened Sergeant Miller’s vision of the world so much that he, like Tom Greer, could no longer see what was real?
As they got closer to the mesa, they had a clearer sense of its scale.
It was about three hundred feet high, and the late-day sun created a diagonal cut of dark shadow along its western side—a climbing path that someone had dug into it, likely an artifact from before this federal land had been fenced off for the creation of Camp Hayden.
In another fifteen minutes they reached the path and began the climb, with Brodie in the lead. The temperature was dipping down to something pleasant, and the sun sat low in the west. The path curved as it wound up the side of the mesa at a steady incline.
In a few minutes they were near the top. Before they reached it, Brodie unholstered his pistol, and Taylor followed.
They crested the top. The flat plain on the mesa was similar in appearance to the land below—a great stretch of sand and rocky earth dotted with low greenery. It was about half a mile across.
“There,” said Taylor.
About five hundred feet away was a small green nylon tent. Sitting in front of it was a man, looking out over the desert.
Brodie called out, “Greer!”
Greer sprang to his feet and looked at them. He was wearing cargo pants, boots, a khaki T-shirt, and a light desert camo jacket. Near his feet was a camo-patterned military backpack.
“Show me your hands!”
Greer didn’t move.
Brodie leveled his pistol and walked forward. “Hands!”
Brodie was well outside the SIG’s firing range, and if Greer had a long gun, they might have a problem. But Brodie didn’t spot a weapon, and Greer didn’t make a move.
Taylor had drawn her weapon and was advancing to the right of her partner. She called, “Tom, let’s be smart. Hands up.”
Greer stood frozen another moment, then slowly raised his hands.
Brodie and Taylor lowered their weapons as they approached. Once they were within normal speaking range, Brodie asked, “What are we doing up here, Private?”
Greer stared at them with his soft, innocent-looking face. “Enjoying the view, sir.”
Brodie and Taylor walked the rest of the way and stopped next to him. Brodie saw a combat knife sheathed in the man’s belt. “I’m taking your knife and checking you for any other weapons.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brodie detached the sheathed knife and handed it to Taylor. He slipped his SIG back in its holster and then patted the guy down. Nothing. “You can lower your hands.” He said to Taylor, “Check his pack.”
Taylor opened the man’s pack and began going through it. Lying near it was a portable propane stove with a mini kettle on top, an open thermos full of steaming liquid, and a sealed MRE pouch labeled Menu 9 Beef Stew.
Brodie eyed the MRE and asked, “They still subjecting you guys to the veggie omelet? In Iraq that was more likely to kill you than al Qaeda.”
Greer was looking out at the desert and didn’t respond.
Brodie followed his gaze to take in the view from atop the mesa.
The sky above was bright blue, and growing orange toward the horizon and the westering sun.
The flat desert spread in all directions, studded with bushes and short trees, and beyond it were the low hills north of Camp Hayden.
The entire camp could be seen from this vantage. A dense, ugly strip hemmed by a black cage with a crown of sharp coils. Brodie saw the flagpole in the center of the parade ground, a tiny white line from this distance. The American and Ranger regiment flags hung limp in the still air.
Brodie asked, “Why’d you run, Tom?”
“Because I could.”
“Why did you lie to us about your relationship with Ames?”
Greer seemed to ignore the question and stared at the distant camp. “I’m not going back there.”
Brodie said, “You’ve got people worried.”
“Good. They should be worried.” He turned to Brodie. “Of what I might say.”
“You don’t want to do that, Private. Unless you want to go to prison.”
“I’m already in prison.”
“Yeah, well out here you’re halfway through your stint. You leak a top-secret project, you’re in for life.” Or worse, he thought.
Greer did not react to that. He picked up his thermos, along with a metal camping cup sitting next to it. He poured some of the hot liquid into the cup and handed it to Brodie. “Have some tea.”
“No thank you.”
“It will feel good out here.”
Brodie took the cup and smelled it. Ginger. “Sure. Thanks.” He took a sip. In addition to the ginger was a strong lemon taste.
Greer must have put two and two together regarding how they’d found him up there. “You talked to Sergeant Miller.”
“Never mind who we talked to.”
Taylor finished with Greer’s backpack. “No weapons. But I found some contraband.”
She handed Brodie an open tobacco tin with a few slender dried mushrooms. He asked Greer, “These from the major?”
Greer nodded.
“Did you consume these with him?”
Greer nodded again.
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Why?”
“To detox.”
“Funny way to detox.”
“Not really.”
“And what did he tell you?”
Greer looked at him. “He told me many things, sir. So many things, I couldn’t even keep them all in my head.”
Brodie handed Taylor the cup of tea and she had a sip.
Brodie asked the man, “Did Major Ames reveal anything he’d learned about Bucky, or any of the other bots?”
He wasn’t sure if Greer was listening. The man’s eyes were locked on the horizon and the failing day.
Then he said, “We were trying to be like them. The amphetamines, the steroids. But we never could. We are not machines. All we could do was lose ourselves. All we could do was break. That’s what the major showed me, sir.
To embrace what makes us not like them. Because that’s where our power lies. ”
This was ridiculous. How did a computer scientist become a psychedelic shaman for a wayward Army private? He needed to get things back on track. “What did Major Ames talk to you about? Other than the power and the beauty of mankind?”
Greer kept his eyes on the distant mountains. “We’re not preparing for a war. We’re already in one.”
“Is that what he told you?”
Greer did not respond. He closed his eyes. Then he said, “I’m glad you’re joining me.”
Brodie asked, “Joining you?”
The man nodded, then opened his big blue eyes and turned to Brodie, an innocent smile on his face.
Brodie looked at the cup of tea in Taylor’s hand and put it together. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Not yet.”
“Jesus Christ…” Brodie looked at his partner, who was peering down at the steaming cup.
Brodie asked, “How much is in there?”
“About ten dried grams in the whole thermos.”
“Is that a lot?”
Greer was understanding his error. “I’m sorry, sir, I thought you understood.”
“I didn’t understand shit, Private, because you didn’t say shit. And now you’ve dosed two criminal investigators.”
Taylor laughed. Off Brodie’s surprised reaction she said, “C’mon, Scott. It’s a little funny.” She said to Greer, “How long have you been drinking this tea?”
Greer looked at her nervously. “I don’t know, ma’am. It’s hard to tell.”
She said to Brodie, “He’s already on his way, Scott. It wasn’t malicious.”
Brodie looked again at the young private, who stared back at him kind of bug-eyed, and Brodie could tell that the thrusters on this guy’s rocket ship had already started firing up. He said to the man, “It’s all right, Tom. A misunderstanding.”
Greer seemed to relax. “Thank you, sir.” He looked at both of them. “I think you’re both good people. I can sense that.”
That was nice. If only someone had brought a bongo up here, they could have had a drum circle. Brodie said to Taylor, “We need to get down this mountain before the effect kicks in.”
She replied, “I wouldn’t risk it.” Then she took another sip of tea. “Good flavor. You wouldn’t even know.”
“Maggie.”
“It’s already done, Scott. May as well meet Tom where he is and see what comes of it.” She added, “Be a palm tree.”
“Excuse me?”
“Bend with the wind, and you won’t break.”
Brodie said to her, “You’ve lost it.”
“No.” She pointed out toward the distant Camp Hayden.
“They’ve lost it. Infighting, backstabbing, psychological torture, killer machines.
Up here… I mean, look around you. People come to places like this to think.
And to listen. So let’s do that. Let’s engage with the private on his terms, and we might be glad we did. ”
“Or we might wander off the edge of this mountain thinking we can fly.”
She smiled at him. The sun’s rays illuminated her blond hair and sparkling brown eyes. She was stunning, a fact he generally tried to ignore. “Just say ‘fuck it,’ Scott. You used to be good at that.”
“I still am.”
“Are you sure?”
Scott Brodie was being goaded by a beautiful woman, which always led him to interesting and reckless choices. He took the cup from Maggie’s hand, looked at the steaming cup of tea, said, “Fuck it,” and took another drink.