“A warning shot?” Whack repeated angrily. “Nobody else has CIDs. Using them against us in the sim was a bullshit move, General.”
Patrick shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Colonel.” He looked around the small group. “Gennadiy Gryzlov may be a psychopath, but he’s also quite intelligent. He knows the kind of force multiplier our combat robots represent. Obtaining CID technology for his own armed forces has to be very high up on his priority list. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what he was after in that ambush that killed Charlie.”
“Maybe so,” Whack agreed reluctantly, obviously wrestling with painful memories. Surrounded by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, he and Charlie Turlock had gone down hard — destroying dozens of Russian tanks and armored vehicles in a desperate last-stand fight. “But there sure as shit wasn’t a lot left of our gear when those bastards finished shooting us to pieces.”
Patrick sighed. “I’ve spent months analyzing the last few minutes of telemetry relayed from your CIDs, Whack. And I’m afraid more components might have survived intact than we first thought.” His mouth turned down. “For example, Charlie’s robot lost an arm to a Russian tank shell before it blew up.”
“Yeah, so?”
“There are some indications that the impact point was high up, on the CID’s shoulder, and not on the arm itself. In which case, the arm’s actuators and control links might not have been severely damaged,” Patrick said quietly. “The same goes for your machine, Whack. It took a hell of a beating before the end, but the Russians could still have salvaged any number of functional or near-functional systems from the wreckage.”
Brad stared at his father. “You really think Gryzlov could reverse-engineer the CIDs from a bunch of half-fried odds and ends?”
“Let’s just say it’s a possibility I can’t rule out,” the older man said. “But we can be sure his scientists and engineers are hard at work studying whatever they retrieved from the battlefield. And now that they know what our CIDs can do—” He shrugged.
“‘What one man can invent, another can discover,’” Nadia quoted slowly, looking worried.
Patrick nodded. “Sooner or later… hopefully much later… the Russians are likely to figure out how to build their own war robots. And when that day comes, Gryzlov isn’t going to be shy about using them in combat.”
“Facing off against Russian CIDs?” Brad grimaced. “Well, crap, Dad. Based on what we just experienced in the simulator, that would really suck.”
His father nodded. “Which is why we better start figuring out how to fight and win that kind of battle.” He offered Macomber a wry, half-apologetic smile. “Hence the sucker punch today, Whack.”
“One thing still bugs me, though,” Brad said, thinking back over the way the enemy CIDs had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. “You programmed in those Russian robots with the equivalent of our thermal and chameleon camouflage systems, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
Nadia frowned. “But we stripped the thermal tiles and chameleon plates off the CIDs we sent to Perun’s Aerie before the raid itself. In those arctic winter conditions, neither camouflage system was worth the weight or power expenditure.”
“True,” Patrick agreed.
“So there’s no possible way the Russians could reverse-engineer our camouflage gear. Not from anything they might have pulled out of the wrecks,” Brad pointed out.
“Nope,” his father agreed again.
“Then why throw that kind of high-tech invisibility-cloak shit at us in the sim?” Whack demanded. “What’s next? Force fields and plasma guns?”
“‘Train hard, fight easy,’” Patrick said with a grin, quoting the famous eighteenth-century Russian soldier Field Marshal Suvorov. Then his expression turned more serious. He tapped the exoskeleton sheathing his crippled body. “Look, Colonel, most of this complicated hardware is necessary just to keep me breathing. There’s no way I’ll ever fly a plane or pilot a CID again. So, the way I see it, I have one job. Just one. And that’s to do whatever I can to make sure the rest of you are ready for the fight that may be coming.”
His lopsided smile returned. “Even if I have to cheat like crazy to do it.” He looked around the table. “Anyone here have a problem with that?”
There was a moment’s silence. Finally, Nadia cocked her head to one side, looking thoughtful. “No, what you say makes sense.” She matched the older McLanahan’s grin with one of her own. “Better that we die a thousand times in the computer than get our asses kicked just once on a real battlefield.”
Three
Dr. Richard Witt stood uncertainly outside the door to an office suite in downtown Reno. A silver-colored nameplate showed that the space was leased to Peregrine Datalytics, ostensibly a small software research firm.
He wasn’t used to feeling this nervous. Witt’s colleagues at Sky Masters Aerospace often joked that he showed less emotion than the automatons he helped create. He suspected many of them were just jealous of his ability to swiftly analyze complex robotics challenges and software problems, using impeccably rigorous logic. His fellow engineers were slower and less efficient than he was because they allowed trifles — personal relationships, rivalries, and ambitions — to clutter up their working lives.
Sweat beaded his high bald forehead. Logic suggested nobody else at Sky Masters could possibly know or care why he had driven to Reno today. But this was one of those situations where pure reason provided less comfort than he would have wished.
Before he could knock, the door opened inward.
“Come on in, Dr. Witt,” FBI special agent Carl Sundstrom said genially. “You’re exactly on time.”
Witt awkwardly shook hands, aware of how rumpled he must look compared to the FBI agent. The other man was shorter by a head, but trim and fit in a perfectly tailored navy-blue suit and crisply knotted red silk tie. “I don’t think anyone followed me,” he blurted.
“Relax, Doctor,” Sundstrom said, offering him a quick, reassuring smile. He closed the door. “You’re not here to do anything illegal after all. Or even immoral.”
“Certainly not,” Witt agreed stiffly. “I am a patriot and a concerned citizen.”
Still smiling, the FBI agent nodded. “And believe me, Doctor, the powers that be in Washington greatly appreciate what you’re offering us.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I only wish others at Sky Masters shared your sense of patriotism and loyalty.”
Witt knew what he meant. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Sky Masters covertly supplied high-tech military hardware, including Cybernetic Infantry Devices, to Scion’s mercenary forces. Those sales violated a whole slew of executive orders issued by President Stacy Anne Barbeau — orders designed to prevent the United States from being dragged into Poland’s bloody no-win conflict with the Russians. True, a number of federal courts had recently stayed her regulations as unconstitutional, but that was mere legalistic nitpicking. Presidents should make foreign policy, not corporations. Especially not a corporation so morally corrupt that it would arm and equip Scion’s brutal hired killers, he thought bitterly. Only greed could explain a willingness to support a warmongering madman like former president Martindale.
He followed Sundstrom into a large conference room. Huge windows looked north across the brightly lit Reno skyline. Another man, gray-haired and heavyset, turned away from the spectacular view when they came in. Dark brown eyes looked back at them through a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses.