Brodie looked toward the house. It remained dark and quiet. He knew the man was divorced. There was no one to wake him to come back inside. He probably had plenty of staff, but they were sleeping, or had gone home, or just didn’t care. Not everything can be bought.
Brodie approached the man, picked up the glass, and threw the rest of the drink in his face.
The man sprang awake, startled, and looked around. It took a moment for him to land on the man in black standing over him.
“Jesus! Who the fuck are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Who you are is what is important. Charles Langer, chief technology officer of Synotec Systems.”
Langer furrowed his bushy gray eyebrows. “What is this? Because I—”
“Shut up.” Brodie drew the Glock from his waist.
The man stopped talking and stared at the gun. Then he said, “I have money.”
“No shit.”
The man lunged for something next to him. A cell phone.
Brodie got to it first and flung it into the pool.
Langer looked at the water as it rippled outward from where his phone had plunged. Then he said in a low voice, “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to kill you.”
The man’s eyes widened. He looked again at the gun. “Why?”
“Because you are a mass murderer, operating at the highest levels of a conspiracy that has led directly to the deaths of an Army scientist, a DARPA scientist, a Military Police officer, an Army captain, an Army Ranger driven to suicide, and seventeen more Rangers who died violent and terrifying deaths at the hands of Synotec’s premium product.”
Langer sighed. “You were at Hayden.”
Brodie nodded. “And it’s your bad luck that I didn’t die there too.”
“We didn’t want all that to happen.”
“Of course you didn’t. It’s set you back, cost you money, risked exposing Praetorian. But here’s the thing. The D-17s did exactly what you designed them to do. They just did it earlier than your roadmap had laid out.”
Langer met Brodie’s eyes and said emphatically, “Look around you. Things are unraveling in this fucking country and it’s only a matter of time before the bottom falls out. We are trying to save this nation.”
“From its own people. That’s called tyranny.” Brodie took a deep breath and raised the gun. “I made a vow. Those Rangers did the same. Machines can’t take an oath.”
Langer looked defeated. He stared into the pool, and the water’s mottled blue light reflected off his jowly features. He said in a low voice, “This will not change anything.”
“I know,” said Brodie. “But it’s the only justice those men are going to get. I am going to say their names now. And when I am done, I am going to kill you.”
Langer looked up at the blank sky. He looked terrified.
Brodie said, “Private First Class Justin Beal. Major Roger Ames. Captain Ben Pickman. Specialist Daniel Kemp. Sergeant First Class Mike Miller. Corporal Yusuf Khan. Corporal Frank Dobbs. Corporal Stan Ewing. Private—”
Langer shot up from his chair and began running toward the house. Brodie aimed and fired, hitting the man in the back. He cried out and fell forward.
Brodie walked slowly across the lawn toward him. The man was still alive. Breathing hard.
Brodie continued, “Private First Class Sam Kowalski. Private First Class Dominik Bell. Staff Sergeant Kevin Chung. Corporal Richard Santos. Corporal Mark Bishop. Specialist Nathaniel Reeves. Private First Class Christopher Dominguez. Private First Class Connor Gibson. Specialist Julian Gallegos. Corporal Joseph Rinaldi. Corporal Isaiah Washington. Sergeant Harold McCarthy. Sergeant Carl Durham. Greg Meeks of DARPA.” Then he said, “Twenty-two names. Twenty-two lives. I’m done now.” Then he put a round in the man’s head.
CHAPTER 60
TAYLOR SET A STEAMING MUGof yerba maté on Brodie’s desk. “You look half dead. Have some.”
