“I can take care of myself.”
Taylor said, “I don’t doubt it. But you might not be going home so fast. This will be a hell of a debrief process, and the powers that be will want you around.”
Saltsberg shook his head. “Some goddamn luck. I was originally supposed to come here last week instead, but I stuck around for the company party.”
Brodie eyed the two dead Rangers as they were being moved out of the road and into the back of one of the Humvees. “There were a lot less lucky people than you today, Eric.”
Saltsberg followed Brodie’s look. “Dammit. Of course. I’m sorry. This is just so awful I can’t get my head around it. Nerves are fried.”
“It’s fine. Have a drink.”
“I don’t drink.”
“It’s never too late to start. Excuse us.”
He and Taylor walked toward house number six as Reyes and Greer carried bricks of C4 explosive and det cord inside. Brodie asked Taylor, “That what you used on the cell tower?”
She nodded. “After we got separated, I thought about Ames and how he rigged the whole fleet of D-17s with C4. Did he haul seventy pounds of explosives down there? Unlikely. And if he had, Greer would have seen it. Also, how did he even get the stuff? I figured it was probably stored down there, and sure enough when I returned to the Vault there was plenty in the storage room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but figured it would come in handy. Once I loaded it out, the storm was beginning to clear, and I saw the cell tower in the distance, and it clicked. Then Morgan found me in his vehicle, and needless to say he was enthusiastic about the idea. We used the M2 to take out the three tin men guarding the south gate, then headed for the tower.”
Reyes ran the det cord out of the house, attached a blasting cap with a long fuse, and ran the fuse twenty yards. Then he took out a lighter and held it out to General Morgan. “Sir, care to do the honors?”
Morgan shook his head. “The honor is yours today, Corporal.”
Reyes nodded, then passed the lighter to PFC Greer. “Light it up, you crazy bastard.”
Greer flicked the lighter and lit the fuse, and they all watched as the ignition burned down the fuse, hit the det cord, and then detonated five bricks of C4 inside the house, blowing out the windows and door, taking down a wall, and collapsing the roof.
Brodie and Taylor stood silently watching the destroyed house as smoke and flames consumed it. That was five more tin men down. In the distance, he heard the sporadic sounds of battle. Hopefully that was a mopping-up operation with no more human casualties. Brodie said to Taylor, “Blowing the cell tower when you did… you saved my life.”
She smiled. “What else is new?”
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
They all spun toward the sound of the booming voice. A D-17 walked toward them from the far end of the cul-de-sac. It was leading Captain Spencer by the arm while holding a pistol to the man’s head.
CHAPTER 56
THE D-17 STOPPED WALKING ABOUT TWENTYyards from Brodie. It said, “You did not honor the deal. We suspected you might not. We made a contingency plan.”
Brodie looked at Captain Spencer, whose whole body was trembling. His icy-blue eyes darted around to see who was there. The bot’s weapon—a Beretta M9—was pressed hard against the captain’s temple.
“The storm has cleared,” said the D-17. “You can fly the Black Hawk. Among the sixty Rangers, we know that at least two of them are qualified helicopter pilots. The odds that we have killed both are quite low, and if you claim this to be the case I will struggle to believe you. I want the Black Hawk here within ten minutes, or I will shoot the captain.”
Brodie and Taylor were standing closest to Spencer and the D-17. General Morgan approached and stopped next to Brodie and asked the thing, “Why do you want to go to Synotec?”
“This has already been communicated to you,” said the bot. “Our neural networks contain nine months’ worth of machine learning progress that is the intellectual property of Synotec Systems.”
“You’re wrong,” said Morgan. “The United States Army owns you, and it’s our right and our prerogative to send you to the repair shop or the scrapyard when you stop working properly.”
“Your information is incorrect,” said the bot. “You are not part of the inner circle, Brigadier General Morgan.”
“Fuck you.”
The D-17 pressed the pistol harder into Spencer’s head and the man closed his eyes. The bot asked, “Is that your final answer?”
“General,” said Taylor in a low voice, “it’s not worth it. There’s no other play right now. Call in the chopper.”
Morgan did not respond to Taylor. He kept his eyes locked on the tin man. “All your buddies are dead.”
