Price of Duty

FIFTEEN

Brad McLanahan couldn’t help grinning like a maniac as the XCV-62 swooped and soared, climbing and diving as it streaked low over a broken, bewildering landscape of canyons, cliffs, buttes, and mesas at 450 knots. “This must be the world’s longest roller-coaster ride,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “Sweet, isn’t it?”

“You do know how to show a girl a good time,” Nadia Rozek agreed dryly. She was sitting in the cockpit’s right-hand seat, acting as his copilot and systems operator.

Brad laughed. Like the XF-111 Super Varks he’d flown into combat last year, the Ranger prototype was equipped with a digital terrain-following system. Between the detailed maps stored in its onboard computers and short, periodic bursts from its radar altimeter, they could speed across the ground at an altitude of just two hundred feet — even in this otherwise baffling maze of natural wonders.

He tweaked his stick slightly left, following the glowing visual cues displayed on his HUD. The Ranger banked slightly, racing past a sheer-walled mesa that rose high above them. It vanished astern in seconds.

An icon began flashing on Nadia’s left-hand MFD. “We’re receiving an encrypted transmission via satellite,” she said crisply, tapping virtual “keys” on the display to decode the compressed signal. “Message reads: ‘I owe you twenty.’” Puzzled, she looked across the cockpit at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means our deception plan worked,” Brad said, with a sudden feeling of relief. “Boomer bet me ten bucks at two-to-one odds that it wouldn’t.”

In truth, even though it had been his plan, he was almost surprised that they’d actually pulled it off. I must have shared more of Hunter Noble’s skepticism than I realized, he thought. In theory, setting up the fake crash had been comparatively simple and straightforward, but making it succeed in real life had required precise timing… and depended far more on luck than was usually wise.

First, they’d loaded up a C-130 with an assortment of aircraft components — bits and pieces from earlier XCV-62 mock-ups, four turbofan engines of the right make, and a couple of impact-resistant drop tanks full of fuel and rigged with command-detonated explosives. Then, while the real Ranger taxied out of Hangar Five, supposedly “remote-piloted” by Tom Rogers, the Hercules had flown low over a preselected point out of sight of McLanahan Airport and dumped the “wreckage” out of its cargo hold.

Once that was done and the real XCV-62 was in the air, the rest was comparatively easy. Brad had pretended to lose power to one of their engines and dropped behind the ridge. Triggering the explosive-rigged drop tanks after they’d flown past the crash site had created a nifty fireball, making it look as though the Ranger had slammed straight into the ground.

Nothing about their phony crash would have fooled an experienced accident investigation team. Not for very long, anyway. But Brad had insisted it would look convincing enough to fool the FBI agents keeping tabs on Sky Masters’ activities, and it seemed he’d been right about that.

The navigation cues on his HUD slid sideways, indicating the start of their planned turn to the south-southeast. He toggled the stick, following the glowing cues until they were centered again.

“Next stop, a scenic stretch of sand across the border in Mexico,” Brad announced.

Nadia checked her computer-generated map. They were heading for an improvised airstrip and refueling point set up by Scion operatives deep in the desolate Chihuahuan desert. From there, they would fly south across Mexico and then on to a tiny airfield on Colombia’s Pacific coast, where they would fuel again and grab some much-needed crew rest.

She clenched her jaw. They were still half a world and more than twenty hours of total flight time away from her besieged homeland. Although she’d been frantically busy trying to learn the systems of this remarkable Sky Masters aircraft, she’d seen enough news to know that her country’s situation was going from bad to worse with every passing day. Her parents assured her they were safe and well, but how much longer could that last as the Russians systematically crippled piece after piece of Poland’s vital infrastructure?

Sky Masters CEO Jason Richter opened the door to his office and saw that all the lights were on and all of his window blinds were drawn tight. His mouth thinned. So he had company.

He went in, not entirely surprised to find Kevin Martindale already there waiting for him. As usual, the former president was accompanied by a hulking bodyguard.

“I see you’ve made yourself at home, Mr. President,” Richter said pointedly. “Too bad I didn’t know you’d be dropping by tonight or I would have arranged for some refreshments.”

Martindale smiled. “You have my apologies, Dr. Richter,” he said, with a perfunctory shrug. “But I thought it best to keep a very low profile on this visit. Since I suspect you would prefer to avoid any unnecessary federal entanglements, that’s as much for your company’s sake as it is for my own.”

The Scion chief glanced at his bodyguard. “You can wait outside, Carl. Mr. Richter may be irritated with me, but he is not homicidal.”

The big man nodded silently and left, closing the door behind him.

“Where do you find those guys?” Richter asked. “Goons ‘R’ Us? Rent-a-Praetorian?” Martindale ignored his crack. He settled himself in one of the office chairs. Sighing to himself, Richter did the same. “Okay, Mr. President,” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

“Now that the XCV-62 is safely on its way, I wanted to discuss our other big problem,” Martindale replied.

“Patrick McLanahan,” Richter realized. The other man nodded. Richter grimaced. “I’ve been analyzing the biometric data you’ve sent me over the past week or so.”

“And?”

“I could have e-mailed you my findings,” Richter said quietly.

“Certainly,” Martindale agreed. His expression was somber. “But let’s just say that I would prefer to hear bad news about a close friend and longtime colleague in person.” He looked up. “And the news is bad, isn’t it?”

Richter nodded slowly. “Yes, it is.” He frowned. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so here goes: I’m certain the general is in grave danger. As is everyone around him.”

“In what way, exactly?” the other man pressed.

“Piloting a Cybernetic Infantry Device may be keeping the general alive and physically healthy, but I believe it’s also inflicting more and more psychological damage on him,” Richter said flatly. “The mental strain and emotional impairment involved in living entirely inside a machine, without real, meaningful human contact, has to be enormous.” He shook his head. “We designed CIDs for combat use, not as permanent habitats. Except for Patrick McLanahan, no human being has ever run one for more than twenty-four hours straight. So I have precisely zero data to use as a comparison.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Martindale said.

Richter nodded. “Just so you understand that I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, Mr. President. My background is in cutting-edge engineering, especially robotics — not in medicine or psychiatry.”

“Consider your stipulations and caveats accepted,” Martindale told him. “But medical doctor or not, you know more about CIDs and the stresses involved in piloting them than anyone else in the world.” Slowly, reluctantly, Richter dipped his head, acknowledging the other man’s point. “Is Patrick McLanahan insane?” Martindale asked bluntly.

“Not yet,” Richter said. “At least not completely.” He shook his head. “But I’d say he’s headed that way. And fast.”

He looked squarely at the other man. “I found evidence in the data you supplied that the general is overriding the CID’s health-monitoring software. He’s deliberately preventing the robot from stabilizing his brain and body chemistry more and more often.”

“Why on earth would he do that?” Martindale asked.

“My guess would be that General McLanahan believes he benefits from faster reaction times and reflexes.”

“And does he?”

“In combat? Sure,” Richter said. “But over the longer term, screwing around with your body chemistry and neurotransmitters like he’s doing is pure, unadulterated poison.”

Martindale sat silent for a moment, absorbing this news. “What can we do to stop this from happening?” he asked at last. “To keep him sane?”

“You have to pull him out of the robot,” Richter said matter-of-factly. “And soon. Because if you wait too long, you’re liable to have a hell of a mess on your hands.” His expression was grim. “Imagine what could happen if General McLanahan lost the ability to control his emotions. Or to distinguish between friends and foes.” He saw Martindale wince, obviously visualizing the political damage Scion and the whole Alliance of Free Nations would suffer if it became clear that one of their vaunted combat robots was in the hands of a madman.

“But if we pull him out of the CID, he’ll die,” the Scion chief pointed out grimly.

Richter nodded. “Yes.” He frowned. “Or he may just slip into a permanent vegetative state.”

“Which is as close to death as makes no real difference,” Martindale said.

“True,” Richter agreed.

Martindale scowled. “And we have no other option? There’s nothing else we can try first?”

Richter hesitated, unsure of whether or not he should go any further down the road that had suddenly popped into his mind. Ethically speaking, experimenting with people’s lives without their permission was strictly taboo. On the other hand, he thought, what did Patrick McLanahan really have to lose? He was pretty sure that the general would never knowingly want to risk losing his mind and putting others in danger.

“There is an alternative, isn’t there?” Martindale said, watching his face.

“There may be,” Richter admitted slowly. “But it’s one hell of a long shot.”

Martindale eyed him carefully. “I submit that our mutual friend’s situation may be bleak enough to warrant taking chances. Even extreme chances,” he said.

“Well, I’ve kind of been tinkering around with something new,” Richter said slowly, frowning in thought. “Although really the device I’m working on is more for the civilian medical market. As far as I can tell, there aren’t any military applications that make sense.”

“Is this new device of yours something we could try on General McLanahan right away?” Martindale asked.

“Oh God, no,” Richter said, abruptly appalled at his own train of thought. Proving a new technological advance was one thing. Using someone else as an expendable guinea pig, especially someone like Patrick McLanahan, was another. “All I have so far is a really raggedy-ass prototype. Between software glitches and hardware malfunctions, it still crashes about three-quarters of the time.”

Martindale nodded. “I see.” He frowned. “I assume a crash in this case would be bad?”

“Oh yeah,” Richter nodded vigorously. “Bad as in fatal.”

“And does this ‘raggedy-ass’ prototype of yours have a name, Dr. Richter?” the other man asked.

Richter hesitated again. “Well, yes, it does,” he admitted at last, somewhat nervously. People were always telling him that the project and equipment names and acronyms he came up with sucked. “I’ve been calling it the LEAF.”

Martindale showed no reaction to that, one way or the other. “Then let’s discuss exactly what it’s going to take to scrub the glitches out of this new machine of yours ASAP,” he said firmly.