“I mean Caroline Dixon and Colonel Howe.”
“I thought you were open-minded.”
“Notthat. 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.
CHAPTER 19
THE ARMY-GREEN LAND ROVERrumbled out of Camp Hayden’s western gate. Sergeant Mike Miller was at the wheel, dressed in desert camo. Brodie sat shotgun, and Taylor was in the back. Captain Pickman was apparently indisposed but would speak with them later in the day. Brodie knew he shouldn’t read too much into that, but he was in the mode of reading into everything.
Taylor had called General Dombroski at dawn East Coast time to inform him of their desire to seize Camp Hayden’s D-17 fleet. She had done so without explaining what a D-17 was, or providing any other information that might be deemed classified or otherwise too sensitive to discuss over the phone. Dombroski didn’t ask questions and could fill in the blanks himself, and he assured her he would force the request through the Army bureaucracy. Brodie figured that it was only a matter of time before one of the officers at Camp Hayden approached them looking very pissed off. And that was fine. On a criminal investigation, if you’re making friends, you’re doing it wrong.
As they drove along a strip of hard-packed sand toward the training grounds, Sergeant Miller gave them a rundown of a standard exercise. “We’re typically two to three squads, the number of tin men changes. We are always the defenders, so we arrive first and have two hours to prep before the assault. Once it gets going, it’s a battle of annihilation. No prisoners. No surrender. The only metrics are your kill count and the length of your unit’s survival.” He pointed out the windshield. “There’s our beautiful village.”
About half a mile ahead Brodie saw the cluster of boxy cinderblockbuildings that made up the training ground. Most were two or three stories tall, but among them were a few four- and five-story towers.
Taylor asked Miller, “Why are you always the defenders?”
“Because, ma’am, if we were to launch an open-terrain assault on a dug-in position of tin men, it would be over in about thirty seconds.”
Taylor nodded but did not reply.
As they got closer Brodie spotted the firing nests atop the man-made hills just outside of the concentration of structures. He also noted that inside the village, several of the rooftops held firing positions ringed with sandbags and tripods for mounted guns.
