Page 60 of Breached

“Holy…” Mike stepped away from the crowd to look at the monitor. “It’s basically undetectable.”

“That’s the idea. It’s small but mighty. Given that black-capped chickadees are the most common bird in northern Montana, we thought it would blend in the best. He’s programmed to know when he’s in range of one of us, but when he spots the enemy, he’ll send out a signal as well as a call that sounds like a regular chickadee. It won’t be constant but enough to signal you to activate a special feature we’ve installed in these goggles and in your NODS if you have them on.” I switched the screen to night mode. “Thus,” I pointed to the green laser pointing directly at Quinn, “outing our enemies’ whereabouts.” I gave a rather dramatic hand motion. I was very proud of my little drone.

“So, the enemy can’t see the green beam, even with their NODs?” Mike asked.

“No, it won’t be detectible through regular night observation devices at all, and if it’s daylight, you can still see the beam using the goggles because of this special feature.” I pointed to a small dial that flipped a lens over the eye hole to protect the eyes from the sun but revealed the green beam.

“Holy shit.” Cole stood closer to the screen to get a better look at Quinn and the little drone that hovered directly above him. “And he has no idea that the Guardian is there?”

“No, the assignment is as soon as he senses a drone anywhere near, he has orders to alert me right away. So far, he hasn’t done so.” I stepped over to a different screen as the tiny drone moved on to look for Davie.

“We have high hopes for the technology built into Guardian. In time, here’s what we’ll bring to the fight.” I moved the stats to the side of the screen to show the data that Guardian was sending. It showed not only the location of each of the men, but their heart rate, blood pressure, and predicted energy they had left. I stepped to the side and pointed to a new line of info that was coming in. It wasn’t perfect and still had some problems, but we were perfecting it daily.

“You can see here it’s running a quick analysis of how many weapons they’re carrying and what kind. The drone doesn’t just watch—It predicts each person’s movements. It’s tracking body language, pacing, and positioning. In time, it’ll flag who’s the most nervous, who’s about to panic, even who might be ready to fire. It won’t just guess. It’ll learn faster than they can.” I hit another button, which showed each man’s projected destination. Then the drone moved to get a close-up of each of their faces. The drone glitched a few times, showing its flaws, but I didn’t care. We were creating a new wave of elite technology for the next generation of fighters—our children.

“Okay, that’s crazy.” Keith chuckled, clearly impressed.

“With its facial recognition and gait tracking, basically how somebody walks or runs, even if they were to change their clothes or the lighting changes around them, we will be able to follow them, no matter where they are,” I explained, then I tapped the radio twice and signaled for Quinn to call Chamness on his cell phone. Once they connected and started to talk, I continued.

“Now for the fun part.” I grinned. “We will be able to see what’s going on, listen, and block their signal at any time. Essentially, we will have complete control of any electronic device they carry, and it’s not limited to explosives, even remote devices.”

Suddenly, the drone took a hard turn and shot off in a different direction and found Davie as he breached the door to the helicopter hangar. A red laser beam shot down on him.

“Red?” Cole asked. “Why not the green?”

“Because it’s showing you he’s breaching a building.”

“Shit,” John laughed, “that’s helpful.”

Cole turned to look at me. “Did you run this by General Bruce?”

“Respectfully, no.” I shook my head. “I didn’t feel that it was the best time to bring this to him, given what’s going on.”

“Agreed.” Cole nodded. “Guess we’re about to find out how it works in the field before we take it to Washington.”

“Copy that.”

“In my talk with the general about our situation, he wasted no time in offering any help he could. The protection of the safehouse is paramount. He’ll give us whatever support we need,” Cole added.

“Did you have to bring the military in?” I asked.

“Think about it, Paul. As soon as the action starts, the military will be on us like flies in a shithouse. They have the townspeople to consider as well. He will make sure no one accidentally gets mixed up in any of this. Last thing we need are civilians coming in to see what’s going on.”

“True.” I scrunched up my face.

“Bruce will embed a small team in town, and if we feel we need more, there will be another team on standby at Camp Green.” He smiled. “You just need to keep Guardian on the downlow and away from his men.”

“How did he handle the plan to take out the tunnels?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine the general would approve it, especially with all the legal implications around Esmeralda’s new compound.

“I didn’t get into that.” Cole looked around the table and made eye contact with each of us. “I believe the term is ‘plausible deniability.’”

Mike leaned back and folded his arms. “And when he figures it out?”

“What’s done is done, and none of us had a hand in it. That’s why we have friends in the gray area.” Cole referred to Trigger and Grim, who had immediately offered their help.

“Understood.” Mike nodded.

“Good. Let’s head back to the house.” Cole dismissed us.