“While I agree with you, try to keep an open mind.”
“Youkeep the open mind. Let me freak out for once.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She looked at the closed door. “Did you bring a utility knife?”
He fished his utility knife from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her.
She walked to the door, opened it, and inspected the keypad. Brodie watched as she folded out the mini screwdriver from the knife, loosened a screw on the underside of the keypad, and removed the mechanism. She then took out the battery and inspected the backside of the keypad plate.
He understood what she was doing. How many people knew the code for this house, and when was the last time it had been changed? It was probably the designated house for visitors—as infrequent as those might be here—and Captain Spencer certainly knew the code, as did whoever dropped off their bags.
Brodie was used to being the paranoid one in this outfit. Was he jealous? Proud? Maybe a little of both.
Taylor flipped a switch on the battery, reinstalled it, then reattached the faceplate and punched a few buttons. The mechanism beeped and the bolt slid out.
Brodie asked, “What’s the new code?”
“Your birthday, backwards. Two digits for the year.”
“I’m flattered you remember.”
“But willyouremember?” She turned back the bolt, closed the door, and locked it, then handed him back his knife. “Let’s hydrate.”
They walked into the small kitchen, which looked almost brand-new. Taylor opened the fridge and pulled out a Brita pitcher, then poured two glasses of water and handed one to Brodie. She raised her glass as if to toast.
“It’s bad luck to toast with water,” said Brodie.
“You don’t believe in luck.”
“I believe in whiskey.”
“I’m sure back in 1961 this place came with a fully stocked bar cart. But the world got boring.”
“Fine.” He lifted his glass. “To justice for Roger Ames. And a forestalling of the robot apocalypse.”
“Amen.”
They drank. Taylor said, “We need to call Dombroski before dinner.”
“I’ll let you do the honors. Just let him know we’re alive, and we have Camp Hayden’s full cooperation.”
“Copy.”
Taylor went to the living room, and Brodie opened the pantry, which was stocked with the basics, plus two dozen beige pouches of military MREs. He should have packed Metamucil.
He closed the pantry, then noticed a manila envelope on the kitchen counter. He opened it and slid out about a dozen letter-sized color photos from the crime scene and flipped through them.
The first was a wide shot of the lab, with Ames’s body lying crumpled on the floor near a table. Bucky was collapsed face-first on the ground a few feet away. This was obviously taken after the Rangers had incapacitated it with their EMP rifles and removed the hardware key. The sheer difference in size between the two bodies was startling.
The following photos were increasingly tighter and more detailed shots of both bodies, as well as the surrounding blood spatter, bone, and gore. The most disturbing photo was of Bucky’s metal hands, the silver titanium completely covered in Ames’s blood and chunks of skull and brain matter. Detailed shots of Bucky’s body highlighted how much blood had gotten onto it, including blood and gore along the sides of its torso, around and even partly inside the port for the hardware key.
He slid the photos back into the envelope, then exited the kitchen’s sliding glass doors to a rear patio with a few pieces of lawn furniture.
Beyond the patio was a small backyard of sand, stones, and succulents, and then Camp Hayden’s twelve-foot-high steel security fence topped with razor wire. On both sides of the yard were tall wooden fences to separate the adjacent properties and offer privacy.
Brodie walked across the yard and looked through the security fence to a flat desert plain specked with low brush. The sun had slipped behind the distant mountains that now looked purple in the gloaming.
