“Okay, Major, let’s see what you can do,” Jefferson radioed a few moments later.
“Okay, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded. “What am I supposed to…?” But he was interrupted…because seconds later a “LASER” warning came over CID’s threat warning system, telling him that he was being illuminated by a targeting laser. Then, moments later, just as Jason was about to ask Jefferson if he had hit him with the laser, the Cobra gunship opened fire from about two kilometers away. Jason saw the puffs of smoke coming from the nose Gatling gun and felt the pounding of shells on the hard earth beneath his feet milliseconds later, and he leaped away just as the shells walked their way to the exact spot in which he had been standing just a fraction of a second earlier.
“Good move, Major,” Jefferson radioed. “Our ammunition is just plastic frangible shells and shouldn’t hurt you, but let’s pretend they’re armor-piercing shells—three hits and you’re out. There are three large ‘enemy vehicles’ marked with green Xs in Charlie Range. Find them and destroy them without getting hit by more than three shells. Let’s go.”
This is fun, Jason exclaimed to himself. He started running in the same direction as the Cobra helicopter and behind it. The desert floor was hard-baked with a lot of mesquite, snakeweed, and mesa dropweed, and he had no trouble racing through, around, or over it. As the Cobra gunship turned, he turned with it, keeping easily on its tail and away from its guns. Once the Cobra tried a steep sliding turn to reverse course, but Jason simply ran underneath it at speeds exceeding thirty miles an hour.
When the Cobra tried a hard turn to quickly spin around to bring its guns down on Jason, he fired two of the smoke grenades at the chopper. “Hey, what the hell was that?” Jefferson shouted as the rounds whistled uncomfortably close.
“You didn’t say anything about me not firing back, Sergeant Major.”
“You wanna play rough, Major? I’m your Ranger,” Jefferson said. He stood on the gunship’s antitorque pedals and accomplished a simultaneous spinning-twisting-diving turn and raked the ground with machine gun fire at where he anticipated Jason would be, and very nearly got him. But as skillfully as Jefferson made the Cobra dance, Jason made the CID robot move faster. At one point, Jason found the second “enemy” vehicle, an old World War Two–vintage American M61 tank. He fired a smoke grenade to mark its location, jumped on top of it, and leaped into the air—very narrowly missing punching the Cobra helicopter at his apogee.
The demonstration was over in less than ten minutes. He had found all three vehicles with no problem whatsoever, and the Cobra gunship’s bullets only came close. A few minutes later, Jefferson landed the gunship on the range controller’s pad. Jason dismounted from CID and was introduced to the commanding general of Cannon Air Force Base, who had been seated in the gunner’s seat. Jason fielded a few questions from the general, and then Jefferson excused himself so he could talk with Jason privately.
“Very impressive, Major,” Jefferson said after the Air Force general was back over by the chopper. “I think perhaps Special Agent DeLaine might be a little premature in her opinion of CID.”
“I agree, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded enthusiastically. “Why don’t you go back to base and tell that to DeLaine and Bolton so they’ll get off my case?”
Jefferson’s eyes turned from light blue to thundercloud dark blue in an instant, and he stepped closer to Richter so he was almost nose-to-nose with him. “I was ordered to get this task force ready for battle,” he growled, impaling Jason with an angry stare, “and if you think I’m going to let anything or anyone interfere with that, you are sadly mistaken. The safety and security of the United States is in peril, and I will not let some childish spat between two wet-behind-the-ears jerk-offs threaten my country or my government. I will crush you under my boots first before I turn you over to a court-martial.” He fell silent, scanning Jason’s eyes carefully for several long moments; then: “I think you’ve spent too much time in the lab, Major. You think you’re in control because in your little world of computer programs, simulations, and mathematical equations, you might be. Out here, you’re being nothing but an irritant.” Richter said nothing in response.
The big Ranger looked Richter up and down again, then sneered at him. “Look at you: Major What-Me-Worry. You’re a lab rat, Richter, nothing but a transistor head.” Still, Jason had nothing to say. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking, Richter? You’ve got to give a shit about something; everything around you now can’t be neat and tidy and orderly like it is in your laboratory or on your design computers. What does your finely tuned brain really want to tell me?” No reply. Jefferson sneered again. “C’mon, you’re a big tough army officer.” He glanced over at the CID unit. “Or are you? Maybe you’re not shit unless you’re humping that big hunk of metal there. Go on. Speak freely. Now’s your chance.”
Richter looked as if he might say something, but after a few moments he simply caged his eyes. “I have nothing else to say, Sergeant Major,” he said finally.
Jefferson backed away and nodded, eyeing Richter suspiciously. “Very well, Major,” he said. “You’re on the hook for this now. Mess it up, and your military career is over.” He nodded to the CID unit. “Good job with your robot, Major. If DeLaine still decides not to use it, I think it would be a big mistake. But as long as you two are working together, whatever you decide is how we’ll play it.”
“Okay, Sergeant Major.”
“But if either one of you are stonewalling or holding back, and I find out about it, there will be hell to pay,” Jefferson warned. “Those are my feelings. That’ll be all. Carry on.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded. Jefferson saluted, waited until his salute was returned, and strode to the Cobra gun-ship, and he was off minutes later.
“Are we ever going to catch a break, Troy?” Jason asked the robot as he gave the order to prepare for uploading. He climbed in and activated the unit. Power was down to about fifty percent, plenty to make it back to the task force area at full speed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico
That evening
That night, Jason and Ariadna had dinner in a mesquite barbecue restaurant at the Clovis Municipal Airport’s general aviation terminal. Because the nation’s airspace was still shut down, business at the airport was terrible— but the food there was outstanding. As they feasted on spicy ribs, enchiladas, and barbecue beef sandwiches, Jason nodded at Ari. “You look different somehow,” he said.
“Oh?”
He looked closer. “Is that an olive drab T-shirt you’re wearing under your blouse?” he asked.
“So what?”
“Where’d you get a…oh, I see. Doug gave you his T-shirt too?”
“We fired over three hundred rounds today. Doug said I shouldn’t wear nice stuff because of the oil and powder residue that comes off the weapons. He gave me a couple of his T-shirts. We’re going to practice tomorrow too.”
“What piece of your underwear did you trade for the T-shirt?”
“You’re a degenerate.”
“What kind of gun are you practicing with?”
“Forty-five-caliber SIG Sauer P220, the best semiauto in the world,” Ari said. “He showed me how to clean it, hold it, shoot it, even holster it.” She opened her blouse and withdrew the SIG from a shoulder holster, pointing it toward the wall. “Beauty, isn’t it?”
Jason’s eyes bugged out in surprise as if she had shown him a nuclear fuel rod. “Christ, Ari! You had it on you this whole time? Isn’t that illegal?”
“In New Mexico it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit as long as it’s unloaded,” Ari said. “Here.” She opened the action with a loud cha-chink! which garnered no reaction whatsoever from the diners around them, as if everyone expected to see handguns at restaurant tables all the time. She inspected the chamber. “It’s unloaded, but always check it yourself.” She handed it to Jason, who looked at the empty chamber. “No, J, never put your finger on the trigger!” she snapped as he wrapped his hand around the butt end.
“But you said it was unloaded, and I looked myself and saw it was unloaded!”
“Doug says always treat a gun like it’s loaded,” Ari said sternly. She pushed the gun’s muzzle away from her as he started to turn it toward her. “And never, ever point a gun at anyone.”
