“Who in hell is this?” Skyy asked. “How can you be on this channel?”
“My name is Major Jason Richter, U.S. Army.”
“Where did your helicopter go? Can’t it come back and take any people away?”
“The heat is damaging its engine, like your helicopter. I’m here to get you out.”
“How do you think you’ll do that—carry us out two by two? Most of these people can’t make it. If they leave the water, they’ll die—and if we stay here much longer, we’ll die.” Jason looked around, saw the school bus lying on its side, and went over to it. “Get your helicopter to come back,” she was saying, “and put a cable on…”
Jason simply reached down, grasped the edge of the roof of the bus, picked it up, and pushed with his legs. The bus flipped over onto its wheels, its springs bouncing wildly.
“Oh…my…God…” Skyy watched in pure amazement as the man…robot…whatever it was…as he walked to the front of the bus, picked it up with one arm, and walked it around until the back of the bus was facing the lake. Then he began to push…and in less than a minute had pushed the rear end of the bus into the lake.
“Let’s go, Kristen!” Jason shouted. “Get them on board now!” In moments, the survivors had waded through the water and were helped aboard. The inside of the bus was almost unbearably hot, but it was their last hope. Kristen sat down at the wheel and, after a few frantic moments, got the engine started. With Richter pulling from the front, the bus moved out of the lake. Kristen managed to drive it over the sand and grass until they reached the park road before the engine died, but by then Jason was able to push the bus with ease along the road. With Kristen steering, they reached the highway leading to the town of Bayou Vista a few minutes later, and five minutes after that reached the police roadblock outside the blast area.
Kristen Skyy’s photographer captured it all, live, to astonished television viewers around the world.
The men and women in the Situation Room were on their feet, stunned into complete silence, motionless, almost unable to breathe. Finally, Robert Chamberlain put his hands on the conference table as if unable to support himself otherwise. “What…did…we…just…see, Sergeant Major?” he asked, his head lowered in absolute disbelief. “What in hell is that thing?”
“It’s called CID, sir—Cybernetic Infantry Device,” Jefferson responded. “An experimental program run by the Army Research Lab’s Infantry Transformation BattleLab in Fort Polk, Louisiana. It’s an Army research program trying to find ways to modernize the combat infantryman.”
“I’d say they’d found it, wouldn’t you, Sergeant Major?” Chamberlain asked incredulously. “What is it? Is there a man in there?”
“Yes, sir. CID is a hydraulically powered exoskeleton surrounding a fully enclosed composite protective shell. The system is fully self-contained. A soldier doesn’t wear it like a suit of armor, but rides in it—a computer interface translates his body movements into electronic signals that operate the robotic limbs. As you saw, sir, it gives the wearer incredible strength and speed and protects him from hazardous environments.”
Chamberlain’s eyes were darting around the room as his mind raced again. Finally, he looked at Jefferson as an idea formed in his head, and he pointed at his aide, his voice shaking with excitement. “I want a briefing on this CID thing before close of business today,” he said, swallowing hard, “and I want that…that suit of armor, whatever it is, its wearer, and the men and women leading that research program here to meet with me as soon as possible for a demonstration. That thing is going to be our new weapon against terrorists.”
“Yes, sir,” Jefferson said. He picked up a phone and gave instructions. When he hung up, he said, “I believe the program is still experimental, sir—I don’t think it’s ready for full operational deployment.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Chamberlain said. “Heck, just one or two of those things can do everything a damned truck loaded with troops can do! I want to know everything about it, Sergeant Major—and I want to know how fast we can build more of them.”
The crowd of onlookers and police applauded wildly as Kristen pulled off her radiation suit’s helmet—but the applause and cheering was deafening when the robot assumed a weird stance, a hatch popped open on its back, and Jason Richter climbed out of the machine. Paramedics started to reach for Kristen to help her into a waiting ambulance, but she pushed them away, stepped quickly over to Jason, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him, long and deeply. Jason could do nothing else but enjoy the moment—after all, he thought, these things didn’t normally happen every day at the Army Research Lab. The crowd cheered even louder.
“Thank you, Major Jason Richter, United States Army,” she said between kisses. “You saved my life.” She kissed him again, then took his face in her hands. “And you’re cute, even. I will never forget you, Major Jason Richter. Call me. Please.” Finally, she allowed herself to be pulled away by the paramedics and taken to the ambulance.
“Man oh man, you got the prize of a lifetime—a lip-lock from Kristen Skyy herself!” Ariadna Vega shouted after she pushed her way through the crowd. She was wearing a nuclear-biological-chemical protective suit of her own and was sweating profusely, but she was close enough to ground zero that she decided not to completely take the suit off, even though no one else nearby had one on. “Jason, my man, you were awesome! CID worked great!”
Moments later, their celebration was cut short by two columns of troops, each with infantry rifles, who stepped quickly up and surrounded them. Jason issued a command, and the robot folded itself up into an irregular rectangular box large enough to be carried by him and Ari. They were led to the back of a troop-carrying truck, which was covered with a tarp once they and the folded robot were on board.
Ari’s cell phone was beeping with numerous messages waiting, and while she was listening to them, another call came in. She hardly had a chance to say “Hello” before she handed the phone to Jason. “The boss sounds pissed.”
“Duh.” Jason put the phone up to his lips but not to his ear, expecting the tirade to come. “Major Richter here, sir.”
“What in hell was all that?” screamed Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Farrwood, loud enough to be heard by Ari without the speakerphone. Farrwood was the director of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory Infantry Transformation BattleLab, or ITB, at Fort Polk, Louisiana, near Alexandria. Part of the Joint Readiness Training Center, the ITB was tasked with developing next-generation technology for army ground combat forces. “Who gave you permission to take a classified weapon system all the way to Houston in the middle of a nuclear terrorist attack?”
“Sir, I…”
“Never mind, never mind,” Farrwood interrupted. “If you didn’t get us both shit-canned or thrown into prison, you’ll probably become a national hero. The truck you’re in will take you to the airport and put you and Vega on a military flight. The National Security Adviser wants to talk to us in Washington. Bring the CID unit with you. We’re sending one of the support crew Humvees out on a separate flight.”
“What’s this about, sir?”
“I don’t know, Richter,” Farrwood admitted. “I just hope we’re ready for whatever the hell they have in mind for us.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Pacific Ocean, thirty kilometers west of the Golden Gate Bridge,
San Francisco, California
The next morning
The Gibraltar-flagged cargo ship King Zoser rode at five knots, barely enough to maintain steerageway, in choppy three-to four-meter seas, with waves and wind combining to keep the decks perpetually damp and the men angry. Most of them were manning the starboard rail, either puking or trying to, when the Coast Guard Barracuda- class patrol boat Stingray finally approached.
The King Zoser was a six-thousand-ton cargo ship, heavily laden and lying very low in the heaving water. It had two thirty-meter-tall cranes that could each sling as much as a hundred tons out to fifty meters over the side, making it one of the few older ships on the high seas able to load and offload itself without extensive shore equipment. Its twin nine thousand horsepower diesels propelled it as fast as twenty knots, although it rarely did more than fifteen. It had a ship’s complement of about fifty men and could stay at sea for as long as three
