bathroom. “But I had the disadvantage of not knowing exactly where the guy went down, where he was stabbed, we now know. Without the scene photographs, it’s impossible to get an exact location, just an approximate one, so I combed every footpath in the park.”
She walks out with steaming coffee in black mugs that have the AFME’s unusual crest, a five-card poker draw of aces and eights, known as the dead man’s hand, what Wild Bill Hickok supposedly was holding when he was shot to death.
“Talk about a needle in a haystack,” she continues. “The flybot’s probably half the size of a small paper clip, about the size of, well, a housefly. No joy.”
“Just because you found a wing doesn’t mean the rest of it was ever out there,” I remind her as she sets a coffee in front of me.
“If it’s out there, it’s maimed.” Lucy returns to her chair. “Under snow as we speak and missing a wing. But very possibly still alive, especially when it gets exposed to light, assuming it’s not further damaged.”
“‘Alive’?”
“Not literally. Likely powered by micro-solar panels as opposed to a battery that would already be dead. Light hits it and abracadabra. That’s the way everything is headed. And our little friend, wherever he is, is futuristic, a masterpiece of teeny-tiny technology.”
“How can you be so sure if you can’t find most of it? Just a wing.”
“Not just any wing. The angle and flexure joints are ingenious and suggest to me a different flight formation. Not the flight of an angel anymore. But horizontal like a real insect flies. Whatever this thing is and whatever its function, we’re talking about something extremely advanced, something I’ve never seen before. Nothing’s been published about it, because I get pretty much every technical journal there is online, plus I’ve been running searches with no success. By all indications, it’s a project that’s classified, top secret. I sure hope the rest of it is out there on the ground somewhere, safely covered with snow.”
“What was it doing in Norton’s Woods in the first place?” I envision the black-gloved hand entering the frame of the hidden video camera, as if the man was swatting at something.
“Right. Did he have it, or did someone else?” She blows on her coffee, holding the mug in both hands.
“And is someone looking for it? Does someone think it’s here or think we know where it is?” I ask that again. “Has anyone mentioned to you that his gloves are gone? Did you happen to notice when you were downstairs while Marino was printing the body? It appears the victim put on a pair of black gloves as he arrived at the park, which I thought was curious when I watched the video clips. I assume he died with the gloves on, and so where are they?”
“That’s interesting,” Lucy says, and I can’t tell if she already knew the gloves are missing.
I can’t tell what she knows and if she’s lying.
“They weren’t in the woods when I was walking around yesterday morning,” she informs me. “I would have seen a pair of black gloves, saying they were accidentally left by the squad, the removal service, the cops. Of course, they could have been and were picked up by anybody who happened along.”
“In the video clips, someone wearing a long, black coat walks past right after the man falls to the ground. Is it possible whoever killed him paused just long enough to take his gloves?”
“You mean if they’re some type of data gloves or smart gloves, what they’re using in combat, gloves with sensors embedded in them for wearable computer systems, wearable robotics,” Lucy says, as if it is a normal thing to consider about a pair of missing gloves.
“I’m just wondering why his gloves might be important enough for someone to take them, if that’s what’s happened,” I reply.
“If they have sensors in them and that’s how he was controlling the flybot, assuming the flybot is his, then the gloves would be extremely important,” Lucy says.
“And you didn’t ask about the gloves when you were downstairs with Marino? You didn’t think to check gloves, clothing, for sensors that might be embedded?”
“If I had the gloves, I would have had a much better chance of finding the flybot when I went back to Norton’s Woods,” Lucy says. “But I don’t have them or know where they are, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I am asking that because it would be tampering with evidence.”
“I didn’t. I promise. I don’t know for a fact that the gloves are data gloves, but if they are, it would make sense in light of other things. Like what he’s saying on the video clip right before he dies,” she adds thoughtfully, working it out, or maybe she’s already worked it out but is leading me to believe what she’s saying is a new thought. “The man keeps saying ‘Hey, boy.’”
“I assumed he was talking to his dog.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“And he said other things I couldn’t figure out,” I recall. “‘And for you’ or ‘Do you send one’ or something like that. Could a robotic fly understand voice commands?”
“Absolutely possible. That part was muffled. I heard it, too, and thought it was confusing,” Lucy says. “But maybe not if he was controlling the flybot. ‘For you’ could be
“More?”
“I’ve done some. Nothing helpful. Could be he was telling the flybot GPS coordinates, which would be a common command to give a device that responds to voice—if you’re telling it where to go, for example.”
“If you could figure out GPS coordinates, maybe you could find the location, find where it is.”
“Sincerely doubt it. If the flybot was controlled by the gloves, at least partially controlled by sensors in them, then when the victim waved his hand, probably at the moment he was stabbed?”
“Right. Then what.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t have the flybot, and I don’t have the gloves,” Lucy says to me while looking at me intently, her eyes directly on mine. “I didn’t find them, but I sure wish I had.”
“Did Marino mention that someone may have been following Benton and me after we left Hanscom?” I ask.
“We looked for the big SUV with xenon lights and fog lamps. I’m not saying it means anything, but Jack’s got a dark-blue Navigator. Pre-owned, bought it back in October. You weren’t here, so I guess you haven’t seen it.”
“Why would Jack follow us? And no. I don’t know anything about him buying a Navigator. I thought he had a Jeep Cherokee.”
“Traded up, I guess.” She drinks her coffee. “I didn’t say he would follow you or did. Or that he would be stupid enough to ride your bumper. Except in a blizzard or fog, when visibility’s really bad, a rather inexperienced tail might follow too close if the person doesn’t know where the target is going. I don’t see why Jack would bother. Wouldn’t he assume you were on your way here?”
“Do you have an idea why anyone would bother?”
“If someone knows the flybot is missing,” she says, “he or she sure as hell’s looking for it, and possibly would spare nothing to find it before it gets into the wrong hands. Or the right hands. Depending on who or what we’re dealing with. I can say that much based on a wing. If that’s why you were followed, it would make me less likely to suspect that whoever killed this guy found the flybot. In other words, it could very well still be missing or lost. I probably don’t need to tell you that a top-secret proprietary technical invention like this could be worth a fortune, especially if someone could steal the idea and take credit for it. If such a person is looking for it and has reason to fear it may have come in with the body, maybe this person wanted to see where you were going, what you were up to. He or she might think the flybot is here at the CFC or might think you have it off-site somewhere. Including at your house.”
“Why would I have it at my house? I haven’t been home.”
“Logic has nothing to do with it when someone is in over-drive,” Lucy answers. “If I were the person looking, I might assume you instructed your former FBI husband to hide the flybot at your house. I might assume all kinds of things. And if the flybot is still at large, I’m still going to be looking.”
I remember what the man exclaimed, can hear his voice in my head. “
