“As long as we’re all being honest here: yes, it was to take your mind off CID,” Ari admitted. “But I really want to learn how to shoot—all the other army guys I know are too busy or too married to take me out to the range. As long as you stop calling me ‘Dr. Vega’ and ‘ma’am,’ we’re still on. Start me off small and light, then work up to the bigger stuff—I want to learn to shoot every weapon we might have in the field, even the really big cannons. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’a—I mean, okay, Ari,” Moore said excitedly. He looked like a kid again as he excused himself and headed off to get ready.
“Looks like you made his day…again,” Jason observed. “That kid has a lot of strength. You helped bring it out. He’s going to turn into a real asset.”
“You got it, J,” Ari said. They walked together to the first Humvee. Ari showed Moore how to check the CID unit’s self-test and self-repair functions by simply examining rows of green lights. “CID One is in good shape, J,” she announced.
Jason nodded, lost in thought; then: “I think I’ll take it for a spin,” he announced.
Ariadna shook her head with a smile. Jason spent a lot of free time with the CID units. She always thought it was a little creepy, like he was getting addicted to wearing the robot, or he was losing touch with humanity—maybe even reality. “You need a hobby, J,” she said to him privately after Jason and Doug Moore carried the CID unit out of the Humvee and Moore moved out of earshot.
“I’ve got all I can handle right here.”
“That Special Agent DeLaine is kinda cute, don’t you think?”
“You going to ask her out?”
“Ojete!” Ari exclaimed. “No, jerk, I mean you.”
“So that’s what you mean by ‘hobby’? You mean, I need a woman.”
“You catch on quick for a Ph.D.,” Ari said. “You do find her cute, don’t you?”
Jason shrugged. “She’s okay. But she’s not my type. We’re too different. And don’t give me that ‘opposites attract’ bullshit either.”
“Hey, I don’t believe in ‘opposites attract’ either, boss,” Ari said. “That’s why I think you two make a cute couple. You’re exactly alike.”
“Bull.”
“You’re both stubborn, you’re both pros, and you’re both married to your jobs,” she added. “You each need to find somebody to share your lives with.”
“You know, I always thought you and me would make a cute couple. What do you say?”
“What? You mean, you and me, dating? Sleeping together? No offense, J, but that would be like frenching my grandfather.”
“Grandfather…!”
“You’re a nice guy, J…”
“Uh oh—the kiss of death sentence: ‘You’re a nice guy…’ ”
“You are, when you’re not being an asshole, like now,” Ari said. “But you and I are like brother and sister. Now if we were stuck on some deserted island for, like, a year…”
“A year!”
“…and I started climbing the trees going crazy and all, then maybe I’d give you a try. But otherwise…c’mon, J, I can’t even think about it. Let’s change the freakin’ subject before I start having nightmares.”
Jason nodded toward the young Air Force tech sergeant. “What about you and Sergeant Moore?”
Ariadna smiled despite herself and shrugged. “He’s kinda cute, and innocent, and like you said I saw some strength in him this morning. You never know…”
“Why do I get the sudden image of a shark circling around a young sea otter pup?”
“Screw you, Doc,” Ari said with a smile and a laugh. “Get in and shut up, all right?”
Jason unfolded the CID unit and climbed in. After he exercised the cybernetic unit for a few minutes, Jason backed into the side of the Humvee and then stepped away moments later with the forty-millimeter grenade launcher weapon pack attached to the CID’s back. “This is the grenade launcher pack,” he explained to Moore. “The pack contains thirty-two rounds, normally eight rounds each of high-explosive, infrared marker flare, tear gas, and flechette grenades, depending on the mission; we’ve only got smoke rounds in there now for training. The firing system interfaces with CID’s laser targeting system, and rounds are selected by either voice commands or an eye- pointing menu system in the electronic visor. The barrel can swivel one hundred and eighty degrees so you don’t need to be facing the target to attack it.”
“If you’re going to fire grenades out there, sir,” Moore said, “I’ll call in for range clearance. Go out to the Charlie Range controller’s pad and give me a call. After that, you can go and do anything you want.”
“Want us to follow you out to the range?” Ari asked. “We can fire up the radar, maybe test out the datalinks?”
“Maybe later,” Jason said. “I just want to run around a bit, pop off a few grenades, clear my head.”
“Nerd,” Ari said to the man in the fearsome-looking robot before her. The robot pointed to its crotch area, then turned and ran off.
The main part of Cannon Air Force Base was typical of most American air bases, about four thousand acres in size, but Cannon was fortunate in that it had a large tract of vacant land to the west called Pecos East, or R-5104 on aviation charts, about eighty-five thousand acres total, in which Task Force TALON was located. The airspace above Pecos East was restricted from the surface to eighteen thousand feet above ground level. The Air Force performed a wide variety of training exercises on these ranges, including bombing, aerial gunnery, close-air support training, ground-based air defense deployment simulations, and joint forces operations. A number of targets had been set up throughout the range by the Air Force. Some were nothing more than large bull’s-eyes painted on canvas and supported by poles, but others were very realistic models of buildings, armored vehicles, mobile missile launchers, cave entrances, and even oil refineries.
It took about ten minutes for Jason to run the eight kilometers out to the range controller’s station for R-5104 Charlie, which was nothing more than a large concrete parking area, large enough to park two helicopters plus a number of trucks, painted Day-Glo orange and with a large black “X” on it so fighter jocks wouldn’t mistake it for a target. After checking in with Moore and getting thirty minutes’ time in the range, Jason started exploring the range area by jogging around—except in his case, he was casually “jogging” at almost forty kilometers per hour.
Okay: DeLaine was cute, for an FBI agent, he thought as he sped around the range, jumping over targets and the occasional coyote. And maybe he and Kelsey were more alike than he cared to admit. But the problem with old, established, bureaucratic institutions like the U.S. Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was they were slow to adopt new ideas and concepts. The “graybeards,” as Jason called them, liked everything neat, tidy, and under control.
How was he going to get any information on the terrorists if DeLaine was going to dig in her heels like this?
He had been jogging around the range, “attacking” targets he found with his smoke grenades and testing his jumping and vertical leaping abilities, for almost twenty minutes when he heard, “Jefferson to Richter,” on CID’s secure communications system.
“Go ahead, Sergeant Major.”
“Say location.”
He quickly checked his satellite navigation system, then responded: “Charlie Range, four hundred and seventy-five meters southeast of the range controller’s pad.”
“Roger that. Hold your position.”
He landed from his last jump and froze. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Just hold position, sir.”
A few minutes later, Jason noticed a small helicopter appearing on the horizon to the east. He switched to a higher magnification and saw that it was a sand-colored Marines Corps AH-1W Cobra gunship helicopter. “Is that you in the Cobra, Sergeant Major?” Jason asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Shall I meet you at the range controller’s pad?”
“Negative. Hold your position.”
“Roger.” Okay, Jefferson, what are you up to? he thought.
