“Let’s hit it, Ari,” he said as he passed Ari Vega’s cubicle across the building from his. All of the other cubicles, about thirty of them, were empty. Her cubicle had no doors on it either, but Ari never insisted on separate men’s and women’s facilities—if you couldn’t handle a woman in the lab, the field, or the latrine, she had always said, that wasn’t her problem.
“Shit, J,” Ari murmured, “what time is it?”
“Almost seven-thirty.”
She was still wearing the black fatigue trousers and olive drab T-shirt she had been wearing for the past three days, ever since their demonstration at Andrews Air Force Base. Ari had long, wavy, dark hair, an olive complexion, and a very sexy body, but she always had her hair up, rarely used makeup, and kept her body hidden under bulky clothing; Jason had only seen her with her hair down maybe a handful of times in two years of working closely together. “Seven-thirty? We just hit the rack three hours ago!” Not unexpectedly, things ran late yesterday: the transport planes were delayed by weather and mechanical breakdowns, so they were late getting loaded up in Alexandria, which meant they got in very late to Cannon Air Force Base, the eighty-seven-thousand-acre military installation in eastern New Mexico. To top it off, there were no helpers or offloading equipment to help them at Cannon, so they had to unload the plane themselves by hand. “My brain doesn’t start until eight, man. I’m skipping breakfast. See you later.” Jason was too tired to argue.
The water in the latrine’s shower was ice cold, and when the hot water started, it was as brown as the dirt outside. Jason let it run, hoping it would eventually clear, but he ended up showering under an adjacent head in cold water because it never did. He shaved in cold water, put on the same set of fatigues he wore the day before, brushed the dirt and sand off his boots as best he could, found his fatigue cap, and headed outside.
They were set up in Field Exercise Support Facility Twelve, located about thirty-two kilometers west of Cannon Air Force Base in a restricted area known as Pecos East. Two large rickety-looking steel hangars perpendicular to one another faced a large concrete parking ramp. Long shafts of grass grew through numerous cracks in the tarmac. Obviously the facility had been used recently, but judging by the gang graffiti and empty beer cans they found everywhere they guessed it had not been used for any military purposes. The air was warm and breezy, with thunderstorms already building to the west. The terrain was flat, flat, flat, and Jason could probably count the number of trees he saw on one hand.
Jason found the chow hall, a broken-down-looking place called the Tumbleweed Dining Facility with cracked windows and peeling paint everywhere, but it was closed. He swore to himself and made his way across the dusty curbless street to the front of the center hangar. A steel door that appeared to have been pried open with a crowbar several times bore the familiar sign that read, RESTRICTED MILITARY FACILITY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, followed by a long paragraph of legalese and finished with, USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. He pressed a button to an intercom box beside the door, and moments later he heard a buzz and pulled the door open.
“Unit, ten-hut!” he heard. A lone Air Force security guard in desert camouflage fatigues, web belt with sidearm, and black Security Forces beret snapped to attention behind a gray metal desk. A bank of security camera monitors was set up on a desk to his left; a gun locker and radio recharging stand was on the right. “Welcome to Task Force TALON, sir,” the guard said. He was rather short and perhaps a little on the pudgy side, with horn- rimmed glasses strapped to his head with an elastic band, but he seemed professional, enthusiastic, and friendly. “May I see your ID card, please?” Jason fished it out for him. The guard studied it for a moment, took down some information from it, and returned it. “Thank you, sir. I’m Staff Sergeant Doug Moore, in charge of security here at Area Twelve.” He handed Jason a folder. “Inside you’ll find gate codes, your flight line badges, maps of the base, and other information. Is Dr. Vega with you?”
Jason found the flight line badge on a neck strap and put it on—he had a feeling he was going to use it quite often here. “She should be along shortly.”
“Very well, sir.” His look of surprise obviously told Jason that he didn’t know Ariadna was a woman—she liked using her more male-sounding nickname “Ari” so she could see the surprised look on the faces of the men when they discovered she was a woman. “I’ll notify the rest of the staff that you’ve arrived.”
“Don’t bother—I’ll find them. This way?” Jason pointed to the only other door. He retrieved his flight line badge and swiped it in the card reader, entered a code, and the door popped open.
The hallway inside was dim and narrow, with a decades-old linoleum floor and bare walls. Jason remembered he was here last night, looking for the bathroom, but he didn’t remember much from that long night of transferring equipment from their C-130 Hercules transport plane out at Cannon into a couple tractor-trailers and then making the hour-long drive out to Area Twelve. But he followed vehicle and cargo-handling noise to another locked steel door, entered his codes, and entered.
Containers, boxes, and equipment were strewn all over the hangar, but in the middle of it all were the two Humvees Jason and Ariadna brought out to Cannon, the working prototype they had used in the demo in Washington and another they were using to test upgrades. Jason had to show his badge to a security guard before he could check the Humvee—yes, two CID units were on board, they hadn’t been disturbed, and both were fully charged and ready to go. The first CID unit was the operational prototype; the second, like the other Humvee, was used to test enhancements to the weapon system. Two more upgraded units were just a few weeks from being ready—after Kingman City, Jason was sure that timetable was going to be stepped up. Jason went over to check on the second Humvee…
…and found a guy in a plain gray lightweight jacket, khaki slacks, shooter’s yellow sunglasses, and outdoor all-terrain shoes sitting in the driver’s seat. He was taking notes on the various switches and controls, and he had the computer access panel open. “Who are you?” Jason asked.
“Who are you?” the guy challenged him. “No one’s allowed near these vehicles!”
“They’re my fucking vehicles,” Jason snapped.
The guy scrambled out of the driver’s seat. He was a good three inches taller than Jason, square-jawed and athletic—he definitely looked like he could take care of himself. He withdrew a leather wallet from a breast pocket and flashed a gold badge and ID card that said “FBI” on it. “Special Agent Bolton, FBI.” He stood right in front of Jason, blocking his view of what he was doing inside the Humvee. “Step away from the vehicle.”
“I told you, it’s my Humvee,” Jason said. “What were you doing in there?”
“And you are?”
“Major Jason Richter.” He lifted up his flight line badge and stuck it in Bolton’s face. “I’m commander of this task force.”
Bolton grasped the card, read it, and nodded, after giving Richter a quick and apparently none-too-favorable appraisal. “Okay,” he said, “you’re cleared.”
“I asked you, what were you doing in my Humvee?”
“I asked him to take some notes for me.” Jason turned and saw Kelsey DeLaine walking toward him. The guards did not ask to see her badge, Jason noticed. “I wanted to know the difference between the two vehicles, and since you weren’t around to ask, I had Agent Bolton go in and check. Carl, Jason Richter, U.S. Army. Jason, Special Agent Carl Bolton.”
“Agent Bolton should leave his paws off things he knows nothing about,” Jason said pointedly.
“Carl Bolton is the Washington director of the advanced technology office of the FBI,” Kelsey went on, ignoring Jason’s warning. “He has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in advanced computer architecture. He might know more about the systems in there than you do.”
He might indeed, Jason thought—he had heard of this guy before, but had no idea he worked for the FBI. But he was still in a peeved mood, and he’d only been awake for twenty minutes. “Then he should know better than to touch anything he’s not intimately familiar with, especially switches that can activate weapons.”
“I assure you, Major, Agent Bolton didn’t touch anything—he was simply taking notes.”
Jason stepped around Bolton, reached into the cab, and closed the computer terminal’s access cover—he couldn’t remember if he had left that cover open or not, but he assumed that Bolton had opened it. “Oh yeah? Maybe Agent Bolton would like it if I took a look around inside his suitcase—I promise I won’t touch a thing. Is that okay, Agent Bolton?” The big engineer scowled at him but said nothing.
“Problem here?” Jason looked up and saw Command Sergeant Major Jefferson approach. He wore a slightly boyish grin, but those eyes…his eyes pierced through Jason’s brain like a white-hot poker. Despite the crocodile smile, those eyes said only one thing—you are dog meat to me, sir. “Good morning, sir. Any problems?”
“Good morning, Sergeant Major.” Jefferson nodded but said nothing. “I was just warning Agent Bolton here
