Her eyes narrowed at him. “If you leave now, in the middle of this crisis, we will blackball you. You don’t want to know what we can do to marginalize you, to discredit you-oh, but then again, maybe you do know.”
He couldn’t help but grin as he looked at her with something amounting to pity. “Who acts like this, Marta?” Clarke started walking along the horseshoe drive.
The black SUV rolled alongside him, keeping up. “You’re like a mental patient.”
He laughed, feeling lighter and happier with every step. “You know, I actually feel more sane than I’ve ever felt.”
Her cell phone started warbling. “Last chance, Henry. If you don’t get in this car immediately, you’ll regret it.”
At that he doubled his walking pace. It really was a beautiful spring day. He heard the electric window whine closed behind him, as the SUV’s engine thrummed. It accelerated past him, the blacked-out windows sparing him her disdainful look.
Clarke smiled to himself-as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d been dreading that conversation, and now it was over.
He watched her SUV halt at the entrance to the business park, signaling a right turn, heading to the centers of power.
Let them fight over it. He was done.
Suddenly a dark object streaked in silently from above-moving so fast he could barely perceive it. It impacted the black Escalade, waiting at the intersection, instantly detonating into a shock wave that sent metal parts, glass, hurtling into the air, followed quickly by a rolling fireball and a deafening BOOM that broke windows in the nearest office building. Car alarms started wailing all over the parking lot.
“Jesus!” Clarke was frozen in place on the sidewalk, watching the roiling flames as they consumed the twisted remains of Marta’s SUV. People abandoned nearby cars and ran for safety. Others came out of nearby office lobbies to watch the vehicle burn. As spectators began to gather, Clarke pushed through them, passing dozens of people holding up their smartphones as they tried to take video of the wreckage.
CHAPTER 32
Professor Linda McKinney descended the folding steps of an unmarked Gulfstream V jet on the military side of Standiford Field in Louisville, Kentucky. It was early afternoon and a bright spring day, though a tad breezy. Cumulonimbus clouds dotted the sky like floating mountains. She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh air. She was actually home-or at least where her parents had settled after her father retired.
She turned to see Odin in khaki slacks and a button-down blue shirt carrying a rucksack as he descended the steps behind her. A hard-faced Special Forces colonel stood waiting for them at the bottom of the steps. She recognized him from the video screen in Colorado-only this time he was real.
He extended his hand to Odin and gripped it firmly. “Congratulations, Master Sergeant. I knew if anyone could wreck their system, it would be you.” He grimaced. “But did you really have to use a ship filled with BMWs to stop these things? That was quite a bill.”
“I had to improvise, Colonel.”
Odin stood alongside McKinney as the colonel nodded to her in turn. “Remember the terms of your debriefing, Professor. Until we locate the people behind this plot, you’re still in danger. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded. “I need to.”
He nodded back. “Very well. Odin here will accompany you.” He extended his thick, scarred hand to her. “Professor McKinney, the United States is grateful for your service.”
She accepted his crushing grip.
“We might have reason to call on your expertise in the future. I hope you’ll be willing to help us.”
McKinney raised her eyebrows.
Odin stepped forward. “We can talk about that later, Colonel.” They moved away across the tarmac.
The colonel called after him. “Take your time, Master Sergeant. Take all the time you need.”
With that the colonel climbed into the jet, and a uniformed crewman pulled up the steps behind him, closing the door. The plane’s engines whined to life as McKinney and Odin walked to a nearby hangar and a waiting civilian passenger van. It all seemed surreal as she looked around her. So normal.
After a few minutes of travel in silence, the van stopped near a public terminal. They disembarked, and Odin led them through a restricted access door, where two customs officials in uniform with IDs on lanyards waited for them.
Both men were in their fifties. One was pear-shaped and balding, with an extra chin; the other was thin and fit with a clean-cut appearance, despite his graying hair. He smiled to them both.
“Welcome back to the United States, Mr. Shaw. Ms. McKinney.” He handed them both new, unstamped American passports. “You two have a nice day.”
McKinney opened the passport, relieved to see her familiar, terrible photo. To have her identity back.
The other man entered a code on a keypad that unlocked a nearby steel door. He opened it to reveal a stairwell that led up.
Odin nodded to them both, and he and McKinney headed upstairs to a push door marked with warning signs that it must remain locked at all times. They pushed through and found themselves on the other side of the customs station and in the public air terminal among aircraft gates. Travelers walked past them.
People crowded around the many flat-screen televisions bolted at intervals along the length of the terminal. Cable news was on, and as they walked past, McKinney could see video images of a massive, smoking wreck viewed from the air-a colossal ship burning on shoals in the South China Sea.
McKinney slowed and craned her neck to look up at the screen along with fellow passengers.
The news anchor narrated the video. “… felt the scope and sophistication of the plot presents a grave threat to UN member states. In the wake of the discovery both China and the U.S. have expressed support for an international robot arms control agreement to establish an international legal framework on the proliferation and use of lethally autonomous robots.”
McKinney turned to Odin. She knew he could feel her gaze on him. A smile creased her lips.
“It’s not over, you know.” He nodded at the screen. “We set them back a year, maybe two.”
“I’ll take it.” McKinney tugged at his arm and started them walking again. “It’ll buy us civilians some time to sort things out. To let the law catch up with technology.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see about that…”
Odin drove the rental car through suburban Shelbyville, past horse farms and orderly neighborhoods with lush trees and lawns. McKinney was deep in thought. “I guess this is the part where we try to figure out what’s going on between us.”
He grimaced. “You know how committed I am to my work. And I know how committed you are to yours.”
She nodded, filled with conflicting emotions. Then she noticed that he was pulling into a park not quite in her father’s neighborhood. “Where are we going? I thought we agreed you’re taking me straight to my father’s.”
He pulled in to a parking space and shut off the engine. Then he faced her. “I said I was taking you to your father.” He nodded through the windshield.
McKinney looked ahead to see her father sitting alone on a bench not far away, staring at ducks on a small pond. He stared expressionless, unmoving. “Oh, my God. Dad…”
She exited the car and walked across the grass behind him, feeling the tears on her face. But then she thought better of it, stopping to wipe them away as she collected herself.
Her father looked thinner. His bushy hair had become whiter.