robots, allowing experienced factory workers to become the brains behind the tireless machines.
On Christmas Eve, only a skeleton crew of security officers and operations personnel were on duty; anyone who might be needed during an emergency was on call at home. The machines, which never slept, were in the middle of a preprogrammed production run when Cole and Roe loaded a new series of instructions into their memory.
Material-transport robot 43 had just finished delivering a pallet of components ready for shipment to the loading dock when it received new orders via the network of overlapping communication ‘cells’ mounted throughout the factory. Robot 43, an industrial robot that bore a strong resemblance to a metal footlocker, glided along the smooth concrete floor on four high-density rubber rollers. Its long, squat form was designed specifically to roll underneath freestanding storage carts and to carry those carts on four internal hydraulic jacks.
Forty-three’s new orders called for it to return to the warehouse and retrieve a package for the testing lab. As it stopped at the designated point in the warehouse, another robot fitted with a hydraulic double-jointed arm removed a box from a shelf twelve feet above the floor. With the package securely held by its fork-and-mandible collecting apparatus, the arm carefully lowered it onto 43’s back.
The warehouse central computer then instructed 43 to proceed to the testing laboratory with the crate. Many people would find such a fully automated factory disturbingly dark and quiet, even more so on the night before Christmas, but these thoughts never bothered robot 43. It simply received and executed commands from the warehouse computer, interrupting its day only to recharge its batteries.
The testing lab’s doors swung open as motion sensors detected 43’s approach. The robot glided in and stopped at the laboratory’s designated delivery station. An articulating robot arm swung around from the diagnostics bench and collected the package from 43’s back. New commands flowed over the cellular network and 43 rolled from the lab toward its next objective.
Inside the lab, several robotic arms, mounted on a ceiling track system, moved into place above the box. They removed the protective packaging, revealing a black cube-shaped chip mated to a 256-pin receptacle. A thin articulating arm, fitted with a pair of hooked nose pliers, swung down from the ceiling and extracted the black cube from the receptacle. The arm then set the cube into the socket connection on the face of a chip encoder.
Prior to his vacation, Cole had customized the original Spyder program instructions to include the contact points where it could reach Parnell and Roe in the outside world. This revised program now resided in the internal memory of the chip encoder.
On Cole’s command, the encoder ran a low-voltage signal across the chip’s internal memory, wiping the old program away. Once the internal memory was purged of the Gatekeeper code, a second signal began to flow through it, this one carrying the Spyder program.
After five minutes of loading and another ten of confirmation testing, the transfer was successfully completed. The articulating arm retrieved the chip and placed it back on the shipping receptacle. The other arms repacked the Gatekeeper and, right on cue, robot 43 returned to pick up the package.
‘The Spyder is on its way to Michigan,’ Cole said as he issued the command that sent 43 back to the warehouse.
‘Now we just need to tidy up a bit,’ Roe added. ‘Bring up the activity log for the lab robots.’
Cole clicked on a few icons and a spreadsheet list of time intervals and activities scrolled out onto a new window. The lab had been quiet tonight, other than their little memory transplant. Cole modified the lab robots’ work logs to list them as running self-diagnostic routines.
‘That should make it look like those robots have been sleeping all night. Now let’s see how 43 is doing.’
Robot 43 had completed its task and was heading back to a charging station in the warehouse.
‘Michael, I think 43 was feeling a little ill about the time we logged in,’ Roe suggested. ‘See if you can’t send it over to the maintenance shop with a malfunction.’
‘I think I can handle that,’ Cole replied.
Cole brought up robot 43’s maintenance history and noticed a recent failure of its hydraulic system. He copied the old entry into the current time slot, indicating that 43 had sensed a partial system failure and reported to the maintenance shop twenty minutes prior to their entry into the Moy computer system. Then he commanded the robot to report to the maintenance shop, where it would power down and wait for the day-shift mechanics to arrive.
‘Robot 43 is down with the flu. What next?’Cole asked.
Roe ran through a list she’d compiled while Cole was manipulating the automated factory. ‘The testing reports for the MARC Gatekeeper order; make sure they’re finalized and that the unit is listed as ready to ship. ’
Cole punched through the order log, checking off the quality-assurance checks. On Friday, when the lead shipping clerk ran a report of items ready to ship, MARC’s Gatekeeper would be among the many items on the list.
‘That’s it,’ Roe commented. ‘All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope it works.’
‘It’ll work,’ Cole said, proud of his creation.
‘I believe that tonight’s efforts deserve a toast,’ Parnell announced triumphantly as he uncorked the champagne.
Cole, too, felt the glow from successfully stealing a Spyder. As Parnell poured out three flutes of champagne, Cole retrieved from his briefcase an envelope containing a printout of the Cormorant file. From day one at the CIA, he was told that information is power; tonight, he felt that power as he accepted the glass from Parnell.
‘To a prosperous New Year,’ Parnell offered.
Cole clinked his glass. ‘To the Spyder, may it make us all rich beyond our wildest dreams.’
Parnell, Roe, and Cole drained their glasses in the spirit of the moment; then Cole laid the envelope on the bar.
‘What’s this?’ Parnell asked as he refilled the glasses.
‘Something I picked up from the CIA that may have some bearing on the structure of our business relationship. Alex, why don’t you look it over first while I discuss profit sharing with Ian.’
15
December 26
Kilkenny scanned the deserted stretch of beach, looking for anything that might get in the way of his squad’s departure from Haiti. After three weeks in the jungle, it was good to see the ocean again.
Gates and Darvas finished a last sweep of the surrounding jungle and flashed a thumbs-up to Kilkenny. The beach was secure. With a nod, the SEALs began exhuming their buried diving equipment. Kilkenny checked his watch; they were right on schedule. At the prearranged time earlier that day, they’d radioed the submarine to be prepared for tonight’s pickup. A brief exchange of code words set in motion the plan that would take them home.
Each man carefully checked his dive gear for damage from the time it had spent interred. The dry-wrap bags had done their job, keeping everything free of water, dirt, and any of the tropical insects that might have tried to take up residence. Inhaling a beetle under sixty feet of water is not recommended.
Once their weapons were stowed and his squad was ready, Kilkenny ordered his men into the water. After three weeks in a tropical rain forest, none wasted any time plunging into the surf. Once they reached the calm water beneath the waves, the squad swam in a loose formation, with Gates taking the point. The digital locator on Gates’s wrist zeroed in on the SVD’s homing beacon, leading them straight back to where the camouflaged minisubs lay on the seafloor.
The SDVs displayed no ill-effects from their long rest on the bottom. Each started right up and the batteries showed no appreciable loss of charge. The homer in each of the SDVs found a strong signal coming from the Columbia, about eleven miles out to sea. Kilkenny rotated his finger, signaling that it was time to move out.
The ice rattled in Parnell’s drink as the thirty-six-foot cabin cruiser bobbed in the light swells of the Caribbean. Parnell leaned back in the captain’s chair and sipped on the iced gin, his mind on neither the sea nor his thirst.
