CHAPTER 23
THE WIND HAD PICKED UPand blew sheets of sand across the asphalt parade ground. Brodie looked up at the high flagpole in the center, where the flags of the United States and the 75th Ranger Regiment whipped against a blindingly blue sky.
Brodie and Taylor stood on the eastern edge of the parade ground, and to their right stood Dixon, who had now been joined by the two surviving members of DEVCOM at Camp Hayden—Captain Spencer and Lieutenant Lehner. Standing to Brodie’s left was the MP Corporal Nimitz, and the man Nimitz had just released from house arrest, the unlucky Eric Saltsberg of Synotec Systems. Saltsberg was a beefy man in his fifties with a brown goatee and thinning hair. He squinted against the bright sun. The man wore jeans, boots, and a blue polo shirt, though until very recently he had probably been in his underwear.
Brodie asked him, “Feel good to get out of the house?”
Saltsberg looked at him oddly. “What?”
“You’ve been cooped up for days.”
“Right.”
“I bet you can’t even get Netflix out here.”
“I didn’t check.” He added, “I brought a book.”
“Good for you.”
Saltsberg, who looked slightly amused, asked, “What organization are you two with again?”
“Army CID,” replied Taylor.
“I’m not familiar with it.”
“You know NCIS?” asked Brodie.
Saltsberg nodded.
“It’s like that, but Army instead of Navy, and not all made up.”
“Interesting,” said Saltsberg, clearly lying.
Taylor asked, “Did you have a hand in designing the D-17s?”
The man did not appear comfortable with the question, though he replied, “No, not really. We ran manufacturing and assembly according to the specs provided by DARPA. They handled the software end. We did our own testing in Nevada, and I came here to conduct a field evaluation.”
Brodie asked, “How do you evaluate? Do they get, like, a letter grade, A through F?”
Saltsberg no longer looked amused. “We go in for a somewhat more sophisticated assessment at Synotec Systems. Though I guess if we did use your grading, I’d have to give the D-17s an F, for ‘fucked up beyond all recognition.’?”
“Right.”
Brodie looked across the parade ground, where General Morgan was conferring with Captain Pickman and Sergeant First Class Miller. Six Rangers armed with EMP rifles stood around them, as did Sergeant Hector Mendez and one of his subordinate MPs whom Brodie had not seen before. Nearer to Brodie, Taylor, and the science team was Corporal Powell, the young Ranger Brodie had first met during his interview with Bucky. It was not lost on Brodie that Corporal Powell was the only Ranger with live ammo in his rifle, and also the only Ranger in the vicinity of the CID agents and the scientific research team. Powell held his rifle low, with his fingers nowhere near the trigger. So things weren’t feeling too hostile. Yet.
Brodie eyed General Morgan, who was speaking animatedly to Pickman and Miller, and gesturing toward the center of the parade ground. The guy was losing it, perhaps using Kemp’s death as an excuse to act on his basest instincts. Brodie had a bad feeling about where all this was going, and he hoped he was wrong.
Brodie spotted another figure heading toward the parade ground from the south and making a beeline for the general. It was Colonel Howe. She didn’t look happy. Trailing her was Major Klasky.
Dixon said, “The band’s all here.”
Brodie eyed Captain Spencer, who had been mostly silent. The man appeared worried.
A covered truck drove to the center of the parade ground, then three Rangers hopped out and unloaded the limp D-17 from the back of the truck and dropped it onto the asphalt. One of the guys got back in the truck and drove it off.
General Morgan walked toward the robot, accompanied by Sergeant Miller, Captain Pickman, and two EMP-equipped Rangers. Two more Rangers followed them, one wheeling a portable generator and the other carrying a boxy piece of equipment. Howe and Klasky quickened their pace as they approached.
Everyone else followed suit, converging toward the center of the parade ground and the lifeless tin man lying on its back. Brodie noticed that someone had cleaned Kemp’s blood off Bucky’s chest, which had the effect of giving the bot a mirrorlike sheen beneath the high desert sun.
