The Ranger stopped again, maybe eight feet from the Ranger in the window.
Below, a red triangle had entered the building and was quickly moving toward the stairway and up to the second floor.
Brodie stepped closer and peered into the little model building as the D-17 walked into the second-story room. He expected a sudden burst of gunfire to follow, but the tin man did nothing. It watched a moment, as the odd Ranger stood motionless, and the one by the window fired another grenade round into the road.
Then the tin man continued up the stairs to the rooftop and quickly dispatched the two gunners up there.
Brodie said, “Pause it, please.”
The scene froze.
“Back it up a couple of seconds.”
“Yes, sir.”
The red triangle descended back to the second floor. A grenade round arced back into the window where the Ranger was positioned. Brodie’s Ranger of interest stood frozen.
“There. Pause.”
The images paused. By now, Taylor had rounded the table to see Brodie’s vantage point. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Something with these three. The Ranger in the middle has been moving erratically. And the bot in the room here doesn’t notice the Rangers or decides to let them be. It bypasses them entirely and goes to the roof.”
Taylor stared at the three little shapes. She asked the specialist, “Is there a way to see who these three are?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a display mode I can call up. One moment.”
Three pieces of text blinked on above the shapes. The Ranger in the window was Sergeant First Class Mike Miller. The other Ranger who had been acting so strangely was PFC Tom Greer.
And Brodie knew before he even looked that the red triangle, the tin man that was acting so inexplicably, was Number 20. Bucky.
CHAPTER 22
AS THE TWO AGENTS EXITEDthe administrative building, Taylor said, “It keeps coming back to Bucky. And Greer. But I don’t understand it. We need the body-cam footage.”
“No, we don’t. We just need to grab Tom Greer by the nuts and get him to talk about what the hell happened in that room.”
“Are you grabbing his nuts before or after reading him his Article Thirty-One rights?”
Brodie noticed that the Ranger who had been guarding the door was gone. Then he heard a noise blaring in the distance. A siren.
They both ran toward the sound. Up ahead, three Rangers with EMP rifles sprinted across the parade ground.
They followed the Rangers, who were headed for the brig. The siren was blaring from pole-mounted speakers all around the camp’s perimeter and grew louder as they approached.
Brodie spotted an MP vehicle pulled up in front of the brig. Beside it stood Sergeant Mendez with his pistol drawn. He was looking down at something on the ground.
The three Rangers aimed their rifles at whatever it was and formed a perimeter around it.
As the agents got closer, they realized it was a D-17 unit, lying face down in the dirt, its arms splayed in front of it. Brodie spotted a set of broken manacles around its wrists. Bucky.
“Sergeant!” called Brodie as they jogged up. “What the hell happened?”
Mendez turned to them. He looked distraught. “He’s dead.”
Taylor asked, “Who’s dead?”
“Kemp,” replied Mendez. Kemp had been the MP guarding Bucky. “This… fucking…thing.” Mendez gestured with his pistol toward the inert bot, and Brodie saw now that Mendez’s weapon had its own mini EMP barrel attachment. “I was doing my rounds… saw it just walk out of the brig on its own…”
