Authors: Robert Cain
"Time 1528 hours, ten seconds,” CORA said from the air overhead. "Simulation three-six-zero. Commence run.”
And then Rod’s hands blurred as he dragged the slide back on his .45, chambering a round. He moved forward, scanning the screens around him.
Drake glanced at the smaller monitor. The Rod’s-eye view showed a targeting reticle superimposed over the moving street scene, the words COMBAT MODE: STAND BY prominent at the upper right. The scene shifted left, centering on a heavyset man in a raincoat. The man turned to face the camera. . . .
The images on the screen exploded into a blur of fire and movement. The man in the raincoat froze motionless, one hand beneath his coat, a hit marker like a bright third eye staring from the bridge of his nose.
But the view was already changing, the motion too quick to follow. Rod was moving with literally inhuman speed and precision, the .45 in his hand barking time and time again in such rapid succession that the shots sounded like they were being fired full auto. There was the briefest of pauses as the empty magazine fell away and a fresh one was rammed home, and then Rod was firing again, twisting and dodging as he acquired targets, tracked, and fired.
"RAMROD Mark I,” CORA said. "Run number three-six-zero complete. Time forty-three seconds. Score one hundred percent. No collateral damage.”
"I never would’ve fucking believed it,” Menefee said.
Ashby’s face was white. "It moved ... it moved faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”
Menefee looked at Drake. "What do
you
think of all this, Lieutenant? It’s your brains they’re pickin’ for this thing.”
"Mine, and those of a few others, sir,” Drake said. "Doesn’t hurt.” He grinned. "Except when I trip over the damned cable to the helmet.”
"The point is, you’re a SEAL. A professional warrior. What’s your opinion of using robots in combat?” Drake hesitated before answering. His eyes locked with Weston’s. "Well, sir,” he said slowly, holding Weston’s gaze. "I’d have to say that grunts aren’t paid to have opinions.”
"Look, Roger,” Weston said. "It’s not a matter of opinion anymore. RAMROD
works
... a combat robot that can move, fight, and think faster than a human. It can provide fire support to a human combat team, or go in by itself on missions humans can’t handle. When Group Seven became interested in RAMROD, they had the idea that the project might have considerable potential in targeting the drug traffic coming into the U.S. My evaluation is that Rod is ready. He may be exactly the weapon we need to
win
this war, once and for all!”
The DEA man shook his head. "I have two men missing on an OUTCONUS op, James. Emilio Esposito and Ray Calveras. Calveras had a wife and three kids. General Sinclair here lost four of his crack SEALS on the same op. I find it in rather . . . bad taste that you’re suggesting we should have sent a machine to the Salazar fortress to do the job, instead of them.”
"If we had, maybe they’d still be alive.” Weston looked at his watch. "Ladies, gentlemen. I suggest we retire to the third-floor conference room. Perhaps I can answer any other questions you may have there.”
Drake stayed in the lab as Weston and the VIPs began moving toward the doors.
Moments after Weston and the others had left, Rod returned to Lab One with Greg Irvin. Drake watched as McDaniels rolled up Rod’s sweatshirt so that she and Irvin could get at the robot’s access slot.
McDaniels glanced up at Drake as Irvin inserted a power feed. "Okay, Chris,” she said archly. "What
do
you think?”
"About what?”
"What they were asking you. Is Rod ready for combat?”
Drake frowned. He’d been mulling over that question since long before Menefee had asked it. Drake had a number of doubts about the whole project, had had them ever since his first day at RAMROD. His personal loyalty to Weston, however, would not have let him admit them to Menefee.
With Heather, though, it was different. They’d worked closely together for most of the past three months, and he knew he could be honest with her. "I wish I could give you a straight answer, Doctor,” he said at last. "Oh, he works fine . . . but for combat? Look, when you’re in combat, there’s a kind of sixth sense, a telepathic instinct that tells you . . .” He let the thought trail off, not sure of what he wanted to say.
"Tells you what?” McDaniels demanded. "We’re dealing with science here, Chris, not magic.”
"Perhaps Lieutenant Drake is alluding to a certain enhancement of the normal senses,” Rod said quietly.
His intrusion into the conversation was so unexpected that Drake almost jumped. Normally, the robot was so still and quiet it was possible to think of it as a totally inanimate machine.
"How do you mean, Rod?” Irvin asked.
"I’ve scanned a number of references on file here in the RAMROD library and elsewhere,” the robot said. "I find frequent mentions of the kind of sixth sense Lieutenant Drake is speaking of. It occurs to me that many of the cases on file could be explained by the normal human senses, particularly those of sight, hearing, and smell. For example, one man might be hiding in a darkened room, watching a second man enter. The second man is not aware of the first, yet might
sense
that something is wrong or that he is being watched.”
"He knows he’s not alone,” McDaniels said.
"Precisely, Dr. McDaniels. Yet that feeling could be attributed to several nonparanormal phenomena. The second man might sense the other’s body odor, yet do so on a subliminal level. Perhaps he hears the other man’s breathing or detects a change in air pressure as he moves. The clues are enough to raise a suspicion that he is not alone, yet are not strong enough to make themselves clearly recognized for what they are.”
"Bull . . . shit,” Drake said, enunciating each syllable clearly and precisely.
"You’ve got a better idea?” McDaniels said, arching one perfect eyebrow.
"I
know
better. Our robot friend here has been reading too many back issues of
Psychology Today.
C’mon, Doc! I’ve
been
there!”
"You could easily be misinterpreting a perfectly explainable phenomena.”
"God, you sound as bad as he does.”
"Lieutenant Drake,” the robot said. "I am curious about these experiences you mention. Would it be possible to allow me to witness them through the PARET link?”
"Huh?” Drake was taken aback. "Uh . . . you mean PARET my
memories
? That sounds like mind reading.” "In a way he can do just that,” McDaniels said. "Same principle as teaching him to use a gun. You remember something, bring it to mind, and he can read the neural firings associated with that memory. In a sense, he’s sharing that memory.”
"Good God!” Drake said. "And you accuse
me
of talking about magic!”
"Not magic at all,” she replied primly. "Rod would have to be familiar with how your brain works . . . which he ought to be by now, after working with you for three months. You’d have to concentrate hard. The process is crude, and he can only deal with clear, clean images. Let your mind wander and he won’t be able to read anything.”
Drake considered the robot for a moment. The idea appealed to him. "What’s your security clearance, Ace?”
"Actually,” Rod said, "according to your personnel file, Lieutenant Drake, you are not cleared for that information.”
Drake blinked. The damned robot had a higher security clearance than he did! "Right. Aren’t you afraid I’ll read
your
mind?”
"You can’t,” McDaniels said.
"Humans
can’t. We don’t . . .” She stopped and smiled. "We don’t have the programming for it.”
Drake decided not to press the point. Striding across the lab floor, he picked up a PARET helmet and settled it over his head. "CORA?” he called into the room "You listening?”
"Monitoring,” the RAMROD computer’s voice replied from a wall speaker. "PARET direct access initiated
...”
It had been almost a year, but there was no problem. The memories were as clear, as sharp as if he’d lived them yesterday. . . .
He’d come ashore out of the warm waters of the Gulf, Drake and four other SEALs. Their navigation had been precise. The hulking shape of the Sief Palace rose to their right. To the left, the three spectacular Kuwait City Towers speared the sky.
It was an inky, moonless night and the city was blacked out, but the light-intensifier goggles Drake wore let him see his surroundings with perfect clarity in shades of white and green. Besides, there were fires. Something large was burning beyond the Sief Palace in the direction of the British embassy.
Drake lay in the mud flat on his belly, the water going
lap-lap-lap
around him. He’d been moving ashore when the Iraqi soldiers—more of a mob than a military formation—had appeared, dragging with them two Kuwaiti girls. He’d given the signal to the others to freeze, then lay there, not moving, scarcely daring to breathe as the Iraqis hunkered down in a circle twenty meters away and started working on their captives.
What
followed was the vilest sort of nightmare. The SEALs were under explicit orders. The Iraqis had captured several batteries of deadly HAWK antiaircraft missiles when they invaded Kuwait. Satellite photos had located one battery near the Sief Palace. In waterproof pouches, the SEALs carried circuit boards for the HA WK guidance systems
,
identical to the boards already in place. . . .
Except that these would melt when the missiles launched.
Once the circuit boards had been replaced, the SEALs would return to the sea for an underwater rendezvous with the SDV that had brought them in. Capture—even discovery and escape—was out of the question, for the enemy could not know they had even been ashore. The SEALs were armed with Mark 22s and their diving knives, far too little firepower to give them a chance against the mob. There was absolutely nothing they could do but
wait .
. . and watch as the Iraqis raped the Kuwaiti women.
Ten minutes passed . . . then twenty. Another group of soldiers wandered in out of the night, laughing and joking with one another. One of the girls screamed, was silenced by a blow. To move was to risk discovery. If one of the Iraqis even glanced in their direction . . .
A soldier stood with a grunt, a comic-horror figure wearing only his shin, an AK-47 slung muzzle down across his back. He gave his victim a mocking salute and a gap- toothed leer, then turned and started walking down the beach, coming toward the SEALs.
Drake tensed, Hush Puppy ready in his hand. If he had to fire, the five of them would have to bolt for the water. There'd be no continuing the mission once the alarm was raised.
The Iraqi soldier came closer, four meters away. Drake heard the squelch of his bare feet in the mud. Raising his head, he found himself looking squarely into the Iraqi’s eyes.
The fire on the skyline seemed impossibly bright, and the foul air carried the tang of burning oil. For an endless moment, SEAL and Iraqi looked at each other, across a distance of a few feet.
Had he been seen? Drake couldn’t tell. The Iraqi seemed to be looking straight at him, eyes narrowing as if trying to make out some dimly seen shape in the darkness. A motion, a breath would betray the SEAL. The Iraqi would die . . . but not before he screamed warning to two dozen friends at his back.
Drake’s finger tightened on the pistol’s
trigger .
. . then eased. His eyes, already narrowed to slits to hide the whites, dropped away from the other man’s. They taught you in the Sneaky Pete courses that staring at another man could warn him that you were there, that he could
feel
you watching him. Rock, Drake thought. I’m a rock ... a rock ... a rock. . . . He focused his eyes on the man’s hands. There was blood on them, and a gold ring too large for his finger.
The Iraqi snorted, brushed aside his shirttail, and began urinating into the Gulf.
The release of tension was almost too much to bear. Drake was certain the Iraqi had seen
something . . .
and had then decided it was nothing.
One of the women was screaming again, weakly this time, pleading. The Iraqi
finished what he was doing, then turned away from the water and stalked back up the beach.
Eventually, the soldiers gathered their weapons and clothing and wandered off. The SEALs moved away from the water, carried out their mission, and returned an hour later to the mud flat. Before they donned rebreathers and masks, Drake looked for the women to see if there was anything he could do.
Both were already dead.
Drake removed the helmet, blinking at the brilliance of the overhead lights in the lab and breathing deeply. For a moment, it was almost as though he’d been reliving the incident. "Well,” he said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "Well, Rod?”
"Fascinating,” the robot said. "And is it your contention that the soldier did not see you because you telepathically convinced him you were a rock?”
Drake laughed. "No. But for a moment, it did feel as though I could . . .
read
him. Feel him, feel his thoughts. One moment I was ready to kill him. The next moment, I knew he hadn’t seen me, that it was okay. And . . . I’m convinced the bit about not looking at the guy works. I was staring right at him, and he was definitely uneasy. I looked down, and he relaxed.” "Sounds pretty subjective to me, Lieutenant,” McDaniels said.
"You weren’t there, Doctor. What do you think, Rod?”
"I do not know, Lieutenant Drake. But you have given me a great deal to think about. Thank you.” Quitting time at RAMROD was 1700 hours. Two hours after the session with Rod, Chris Drake changed into his civilian clothes in the building’s first-floor locker room, then picked up his car, a red Alliance, in the basement garage and checked out through Camp
Peary’s main gate. Following the signs for Yorktown and Hampton, he merged into the traffic flow on Interstate 64 South where it passed the base perimeter two miles from Williamsburg.
As always at this time of day, the traffic was murderous.
Christopher Drake had joined the Navy in the late seventies, after two years of trying to support a wife and newborn baby while going to college by day and working in a warehouse at night. After boot camp, and for no better reason than determination to prove himself, he’d volunteered for BUD/S training and been accepted. He spent fifteen weeks of hellish training at Coronado, somehow avoiding the course’s eighty- percent dropout rate, and won the coveted trident pin of a Navy SEAL in 1979. When SEAL Team Six was organized as the Navy’s antiterrorist unit in 1980, Drake volunteered for special training with Delta Force at Fort Bragg.
In 1985, Palestinian terrorists hijacked the liner
Achille Lauro
and, along the way, murdered an eighty
year-old American tourist in his wheelchair. Drake had been one of the Navy SEALs readying for an assault against the terrorists. Later, he’d been present when Navy F-14s forced the aircraft of terrorist mastermind Abu Abbas to land at Sigonella. Watching the Italian authorities set free the man who had planned the
Achille Lauro
hijacking had filled Drake with a towering rage.
He almost quit.
His response was typical of a man who refused to be beaten by the system. Instead of resigning, he applied for an officer candidate program and became a mustang, an officer who’d come up through the ranks.
As a SEAL lieutenant j.g., then, he’d participated in the reorganization of the SEALs, transferring to SEAL Team Eight when that unit, its very existence classified, had taken on most of the Navy’s antiterrorist responsibilities. In 1989 he participated in the takedown of terrorists occupying an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, an operation that went so smoothly the incident never even made the newspapers. A year later, a newly promoted lieutenant, he’d found himself in another Gulf, on a mission so sensitive he wasn’t even supposed to tell his wife.
And after that had come his assignment to RAMROD. Three months now of light duty and no watches . . . except for the quick sneak-and-peak into Colombia with
snowdrop
a week ago.
SEAL Eight’s permanent station was Dam Neck, Virginia, tucked away on the southern shore of Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk and Virginia Beach, a part of the Little Creek Amphibious Base. Rather than subjecting his wife and daughter to what was euphemistically referred to as "substandard base housing” with a two-year waiting list, Drake had rented a ranch-style house in Virginia Beach. Normally, on nights when he didn’t have the duty, he had a fifteen-minute drive home. Since he’d been TAD’d to RAMROD, though, his evening commute ran closer to an hour and a half, and even that depended on how badly the traffic was backed up at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. It was forty miles from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach, following the expressway through Newport News, Hampton, then across the Roads to Norfolk.
Norfolk was the largest U.S. Navy base in the world. One hundred twenty thousand military personnel worked there, or in the nearby facilities at Portsmouth, Little Creek, Dam Neck, or the naval air station at Oceana, all supported by over forty thousand civilian employees. And at rush hour, every one of them hit the highways. He gripped the steering wheel of the Alliance in growing frustration as the line of traffic crawled into the tunnel portion of the Hampton Roads Bridge- Tunnel.
He was especially eager to get home to Meagan and their daughter Stacy tonight. His sudden arrival back from Panama the day before had ended their agony of several days, knowing that he was missing, not knowing if he was dead. Sinclair himself had visited them as soon as word was radioed from
Decisive
that he’d been recovered, but the real relief, for all of them, had come yesterday afternoon when he met them at Oceana.
Meagan had pulled Stacy out of school for the occasion. At thirteen, Stacy was old enough to know what MIA meant. The two of them had been waiting on the runway when the C-130 Hercules taxied to a stop.
They’d planned a homecoming celebration—dinner out at a favorite restaurant—but first had come his debriefing at the hands of several CIA spook types. He’d come home late that night, exhausted, his time in the jungle finally catching up with him, and knowing that he had to get up early the next day for more debriefings with Sinclair and Weston.