“Thank you,” Kelsey acknowledged. “Continue.”
After a short discussion, the teams decided to jumper the electrified fence wires, then cut them. No alarms or booby traps were set off, and they were able to disarm the Claymores inside the compound. The flat desert floor made it easy to spot more trip wires and booby traps set up inside the fence. One team member was able to move up to a mechanical dog—actually a wooden box on legs with ultrasonic emitters and a speaker that would emit barking sounds if activated—and disarm it without it detecting his presence.
“Pretty amazing,” Kelsey said off the air to Special Agent Carl Bolton seated beside her. “Thirty minutes after launch and they’ve reached the inside of a well-guarded and booby-trapped oil refinery without setting off one noisemaker. They’ll be done in five minutes.”
“They’re the best of the best, that’s for sure,” Jefferson said. He made a few more notes, but he had precious little to debrief the team so far. “They’re acting like they’ve trained together for years.”
“This is better than I hoped,” Kelsey said. “If we can find another twenty guys to bring out here like this, we’ll be operational in plenty of time with an entire platoon ready for action, with one in reserve.”
“I’m just glad we’re not screwing with that CID thing,” Bolton said, completely ignoring Doug Moore standing almost right beside him in CID Two. “We’d still be sitting in a classroom learning how each and every microchip fits together. Do those eggheads really think it’s that important to learn how that stuff works? Those briefings are the most God-awful boring things I’ve ever been to.”
“It’s impressive, but Richter and Vega are just out of their element,” Kelsey said, trying to be upbeat. “They’re not helping themselves, that’s for sure. We made the right decision by deferring their participation for now.”
“Definitely,” Bolton said. He focused in on the refinery again. “They’ve started the search. Moore?”
“The Gooses are on station,” Doug Moore reported. He was watching the imagery from the GUOS unmanned aerial vehicles through his helmet’s electronic visor. “Imaging infrared sensors active…I’ve got the three TALON elements in sight…Team Three, CID Two, hot contact, one o’clock, eleven meters…Team Two, no contacts…check that, Team Two, I’ve got a stray blip at your three o’clock, fifteen meters. Might be residual heat from a timer or chemical package.”
“Checks,” the TALON team leader radioed back. “Demo charge with a mechanical timer. Deactivated.”
“Roger that,” Moore acknowledged. “Team One, stop, stop…” But it was too late—a robot “terrorist” swung around on a mechanical pivot and fired a MILES laser beam. One commando was hit in a nonlethal spot: his backup “killed” the “terrorist” with a three-round burst. “Sorry about that, One.”
“If you can’t help them out, Moore, then terminate and let them do their job,” Bolton complained.
“It had an infrared shield on it,” Maxwell reported. “Very clever, hiding it from the Goose’s sensors. We would’ve completely missed it and it would’ve hosed us if the Goose hadn’t warned us. I’m starting to develop a fondness for our little Goose friends up there, Kelsey.” Bolton shook his head but said nothing.
In less than ten minutes, assisted by Doug Moore and the GUOS drones, the task force had “killed” more than a dozen “terrorists” and deactivated six demolition charges and booby traps set up in various parts of the complex. “Excellent work, guys, excellent,” Kelsey said. “Mission accomplished. Let’s head back to the training area, get cleaned up, and…”
“Something’s happening,” Doug Moore in CID Two suddenly interjected.
“What?”
“GUOS Two has detected a high-speed vehicle approaching,” Moore said, studying the downloaded images in his electronic visor. “It’s Major Richter, ma’am. He’s…watch out!”
Suddenly there was a tremendous “Craashh!” and CID One burst through the outer perimeter fence. Several live Claymore mines exploded, but Richter kept right on coming. He ran through the avenues in the complex at a very high speed, firing smoke grenades at all of the already-attacked targets. Several MILES laser guns opened fire on him, scoring hits. The Task Force TALON commandos were stunned at how fast the CID unit was traveling and how accurate it was launching grenades.
“Knock it off, Richter,” Kelsey radioed, waving at the smoke wafting in her direction. “The exercise is over. Stop before you run over someone.” But Richter kept right on going, running faster and faster, dodging around pipes and tanks with incredible speed while firing in all directions. Once all the targets were destroyed, Richter stood triumphantly in the center of the complex, raising his hands and jumping from foot to foot like a huge robotic Rocky Balboa on the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. “What a hot dog. Bring it in, Jason.” He turned to acknowledge an imaginary crowd, swatting at a steel pipe still left standing, then turned again, still dancing…
“Watch out!” Moore shouted. The steel pipe had been holding up a steel tank on a short steel pedestal, and when Richter broke the pipe the tank teetered over and crashed on top of him. “Major!” Moore shouted from within CID Two, running up to Richter.
Helped by CID Two, Richter got CID One to its feet and came trotting up to where Kelsey, Bolton, and Jefferson were standing. It unloaded its backpack and assumed the “dismount” stance, and Jason Richter climbed out a few moments later. He immediately began examining the robot’s left side. “Jason! What did you do?” Kelsey shouted as she stepped quickly over to him. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I lost everything for a moment there.”
“You know better than to just run out onto a live fire range without getting clearance from the range supervisor!” Bolton shouted. “You did this on purpose to screw up our exercise and turn attention to your CID stuff.”
“Hey, Bolton, you can kiss my ass,” Richter retorted angrily. “I thought you guys were done and it was my target.”
Kelsey felt bad that the CID unit was damaged, and she was impressed that it had assaulted the complex so quickly and so effectively. Fortunately no one got hurt, and the task force had already done pretty well on their morning training. It was a good first exercise, despite the unwanted intrusion. She walked over to where Richter was examining the robot’s back. “What happened to it, Jason?” she asked.
“Cracked an access panel,” he said worriedly. “The primary hydraulic power pack is leaking. It’s more maintenance than I can do here—I might have to take it back to Fort Polk.”
“How long will it take to fix it?”
“I have no idea—maybe a couple days, maybe a week.”
“Take all the time you need,” Bolton interjected sourly. “Maybe we’ll get some work done around here for a change.”
“Button it, Carl,” Kelsey said. “All right, Jason, you and Ariadna can head on back.”
Jason nodded dejectedly. “Okay. There’s an Army Research Lab C-130 here from Fort Polk right now—I’ll just hitch a ride with them. I don’t want to stow the CID because of the break, so I’ll just walk it into the cargo bay.”
Kelsey nodded. This was the first real sign of emotion she had ever seen from Jason Richter—it should’ve come as no surprise to her, she thought, that he reserved his deepest feelings for a machine. “Sorry about your robot, Jason,” she said. “Get back as soon as you can. We’ll use CID Number Two as scheduled.” Jason nodded, shot Bolton an angry glare, which did nothing but increase the size of the smirk on his face, climbed back inside the robot, started it up, picked up his grenade-launcher backpack, and trotted back toward the task force base, moving a little awkwardly.
Bolton shook his head as he and Kelsey watched the robot run out of sight. “I thought that thing was more sophisticated than that,” he remarked.
“I thought it did pretty well—a lot better than a Humvee, dune buggy, or helicopter could,” Kelsey said. “But I’m glad we decided not to go with it right now. That should get us off the hook with Jefferson for us not wanting to use it, too.”
“It looks like a wounded raccoon hobbling away,” Bolton observed. “Maybe he won’t interfere with our training for a while.” He turned to speak with the commandos as they returned to the range controller’s pad. Kelsey watched the CID unit trot away for a few more moments. It did look rather pitiful. Richter’s pride and joy, brought down by a small grenade. This is not going to look good in front of the brass, she noted.
Back at the task force training area, Ariadna was shaking her head as she watched CID One trot up and saw Jason dismount. “I got the call from Doug,” Ariadna said. “I can’t believe you broke CID One.”
“It was an accident.”
