by Anne Fox
They caught up with Edge and Amigo, who were ahead of them in the arroyo.
“How come she’s still in handcuffs?” Amigo asked.
“We’re helping Spud get a jump on tonight’s festivities,” Voice said, laughing.
Amigo and Edge both laughed. That’s right. Totally humiliate me, she thought.
Arriving back at the van, they saw Crow and Spud had made it there ahead of them.
“Is there a reason my wife is still in handcuffs?” Spud asked.
“She’s a flight risk,” Cloud said. “Besides, we’ve all heard about those little games married couples play and thought we’d get you started.” Spud grinned while the others had a good laugh and Hank turned another shade of red.
“Who shot me?” Crow asked.
Hank twisted her hands around until one could be seen and waggled her fingers.
“Distance?”
“Seven hundred and fifty yards,” she said.
“A head shot at seven hundred and fifty yards,” Crow repeated. “Let’s hope we don’t have any perps out there that good.”
“And who shot me?” Spud asked.
Hank wiggled her fingers at him as well, saying, “Twice.”
“You killed me, too?”
“All’s fair in love and war?” she queried.
“My own wife killed me. Knocked me down, then shot me through the throat. Leave her in cuffs. Put her in the van,” Spud ordered.
“Spud...”
“And I don’t want to hear a peep out of you, woman.” He grinned at her, and even though she knew he was playing with her, she couldn’t quell her feeling of embarrassment.
They rode back to the silo complex in silence, the men all grinning, Hank with a look of resigned defeat. Taking her from the van, Spud led her, still in handcuffs, through the entrance and into the medical area.
Doc Rich turned and, seeing Hank in handcuffs being led in by Spud and followed by the rest of the team, gave them all a questioning look.
“I’ll get our guns put away, Hank,” Amigo said, heading for the weapons locker.
With a little grin on her face, Doc Rich asked, “Spud?”
“I’ve finally figured out how to control her,” Spud said by way of explanation, heading for the tunnel that led into the silo proper where the team’s quarters were located.
Doc Rich chuckled and shook her head. “Hal, suppress biometrics FT6 and FT7.”
Making their way to his quarters, Spud led her inside, still handcuffed.
“Alright, Spud. Enough is enough,” she said.
He undid one wrist. Then he started to remove her clothes until he had her stripped to the waist.
“I’m such a bad cop,” he said, stripping himself to the waist as well. Then he tugged on the loose handcuff and cuffed his wrist to hers.
“Those guys would give you ideas,” she said. “And you’d better hope you’ve got a key, or instead of just me being embarrassed, it will be both of us.”
He pulled one from his pocket, and pulling her by her handcuffed hand, set it on the bed stand. Then he pulled the rest of her clothing off of her, dropping his on the floor beside them.
“Oh,” she sighed as he began making love to her, “you’re such a good cop.”
“It looks like everyone’s here,” Spud said to the gathered group in the common area of the Roswell complex. “Time to take a close look at our recent training exercise and note what went well along with what could be done better.”
Edge spoke up first. “Probably the best thing that worked for the snoopers,” he said, “was not just following the trail up the arroyo. We correctly deduced that it might be a trap, as evidenced by Crow’s hole in his head.”
Crow winced. “Yeah, she got me. So, on the other hand, when you know it might be a trap, it’s a good idea to keep your damned head down.”
“The problem with that,” Cloud said, “is that if you never take a look, you never know where your suspect is.”
“That might be where we could use the drones a little better,” Voice said. “I can see a couple of areas where some drone programming could make things go smoother. One was when Hank took out one of the drones and I’d asked the other drone to join it and have the two drones work together on the grid search. When the signal from the first dragonfly disappeared, the second one just went into hover. I should have default programming so that if we lose a drone and have asked a second drone to work with it, the second will automatically go to the location where the first disappeared and continue to perform the assigned task on its own.
“For what we were just discussing, it might be worth having a dragonfly overhead to do the looking. That way, no one has to risk sticking their head up in the line of fire.”
“The dragonflies were the most effective thing when it came to capturing the snipers,” Amigo said. “The infrared tracking made it tough to evade them. That, of course, let Edge determine he was close enough to me to intercept me.”
“Which reminds me,” Hank said. “It seems Voice has two quarters that belong to me.”
“What do you mean, to you?” Amigo asked. “You got captured.”
“You got captured first. The quarters are mine. I won the bet.”
“On a friggin’ technicality,” Amigo protested as Hank took the quarters from Voice.
Continuing, she said, “It’s true the drones were effective, but in my case, we see they can be evaded. You just have to hide behind something that hides your infrared signature.
“The second thing I saw with regard to the drones in my case was operating according to an assumption. The first assumption was that a suspect wouldn’t recognize that there’s something unusual about a dragonfly making a straight line flight. And the fact that it continued on the grid search routine and flew straight for me allowed me to just grab it right out of the air. Because it’s graphene, a suspect might not be able to destroy it, but all I would have needed to do to incapacitate it is stick it under a rock.
“The second assumption was that a suspect would just continue on a path similar to one they’d already taken. When the second drone continued its grid search, I watched it turn uphill, which is the direction we’d been moving. The minute I saw it do that, I decided to double back. Maybe if the drones were programmed to do a spiral search rather than a rectangular grid, that would work better. After all, a suspect can choose to escape in any direction.”
“Another thing might be to have the drone stay a certain distance away from a target once one is acquired,” Spud said. “Hank wouldn’t have been able to grab one if it had gone into hover the minute it approached her and acquired an infrared signature.”
“We’ll probably have to accept some vulnerability when it comes to the drones,” Crow said. “Hank heard it and was able to jump up and ambush it. It’s likely that a suspect who has figured out that they’re not looking at a real insect but a mechanical drone will think to use the same tactic. I don’t see how we can counteract that.”
“Unless it can be programmed to act like the real thing. If you’ve ever tried to catch a real dragonfly, you know they can be pretty quick at evading you. They just speed out of reach when they see your hand coming.”
Voice was taking notes on his tablet. “These are all good observations on the dragonflies’ capabilities and weaknesses. I think I can get all this programming done and loaded into Hal so when a command is given to the dragonflies, they’ll also have evasion capability. I’ll admit that some of the things you’ve all noted are my own fault. When a drone executes a program that behaves according to an assumption, it’s because the programmer made the assumption.”
“On the grid search, it might be better to program the dragonflies to climb a bit so they can get a look at a bit more terrain when trying to re-acquire a suspect,” Crow observed. “If the dragonfly tracking Hank had climbed, it might have been able to see where Hank was hiding.”
“Climb,” Voice muttered, adding another note on his tablet. “May
be it would be better for the dragonflies to simply track at a higher altitude. One out of arm’s reach.”
“On a different note, we saw the utility of using a sweep line as well as tracking during this exercise,” Cloud said. “Admittedly, tracking got Crow a hole in his head, but I’m sure Spud was a harder target to hit.”
“We caught his movement,” Amigo said. “Once we had that, we had him.”
“But you didn’t catch Edge’s movement, which is how he got you,” Crow observed.
“Yeah. That business of operating according to an assumption cuts both ways,” Amigo admitted. “I assumed all of you were still below us. I didn’t stop to think that there might be someone outflanking us. So, I was just plain looking in the wrong direction.”
“I assumed our perps would be concentrating on the arroyo,” Spud admitted. “I probably wasn’t being as careful about maintaining concealment and cover as I should have been.”
“And my ability to make the kill points out a vulnerability of our body armor,” Hank said. “Arms and legs aren’t armored, but then a shot into an arm or leg isn’t generally going to be lethal, either – unless you get lucky and catch an artery that allows the victim to bleed out. So, you get the person down, but not out. They’re still capable of fighting. My tactic with Spud was to knock him out, then make the lethal shot while he was down. Hence the shot to the chest. The vest might stop the round, but the concussion alone will knock someone down and take the wind out of them. Once incapacitated, they’re lying still. Then you can make the one lethal shot you really have, which is through the neck, where we have no armor. We might want to get Mike to add the graphene armor to the neck. We can’t always assume that our adversaries aren’t going to be accomplished marksmen.”
“It looks like we’re going to have plenty to occupy our time once we get back to Quantico,” Spud said. “I’m going to suggest everyone relax for the rest of the day and get a good night’s sleep so we can get everything packed up tomorrow and get back to Virginia. Which reminds me.” He reached into a pocket and took out a pair of handcuffs. “I believe these belong to you, Cloud?” He held them out, a smile on his face.
Cloud grinned from ear to ear. “Did you have fun?”
Spud grinned back. “I’ll never tell.”
Everyone turned and looked at Hank. She sat looking at where her hand rested on the tabletop, a smile on her face.
“We’ve got three hours before dinner. Let’s go rockhounding.”
Spud looked at Hank skeptically.
“If you don’t want to go, I can go by myself.” She holstered her 1911 and tucked it under her jacket.
“If this is such a safe endeavor, why are you carrying?” he asked.
“Habit. When I used to wander around alone a lot adding to my collection, I always felt better having my little friend along for the ride.”
“Ah,” Spud reflected, remembering the glass case full of mineral specimens that Hank had delivered when she first arrived in the unit. “So what’s in Roswell that’s so special?”
“Pecos diamonds.”
“Really? You can find diamonds out here?”
“They’re not really diamonds,” Hank explained. “They’re quartz crystals. Doubly-terminated quartz. The ones here are usually colored, unlike the ones found in other areas, like New York, that are clear. They call those Herkimer diamonds.”
“I see.”
Hank scowled at him. “I told you that you didn’t have to come.”
Spud sighed. “Picking up rocks really isn’t my thing, but I can see that it’s yours, so I’ll go along.”
They made their way out to one of the vans and Hank got in to drive.
“I take it you know where you’re going?”
She stabbed him with her eyes. “No, of course not. I’m just going to fucking drive around while you hang your head out the window and look for them, given you have no idea what a fucking Pecos diamond is.”
Sounds like it’s time to shut up, Spud.
She took a left onto US 285 and headed south into Roswell, then took another left and headed east out of Roswell on US 380. “And here we are,” she muttered, taking a left onto a dirt road.
Spud thought to make a comment, but decided it would be better to just keep the thought to himself. If we get lost, we can call on Hal.
“You east coast guys all think a road has to be paved in order to find your way around,” she commented, as if reading his mind. “Dirt roads are more common out here in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico than paved ones. It’s just a matter of keeping your bearings and paying attention to landmarks. I’m going to handle this like a right-hand maze.”
She took the first right and drove until they came to an open spot. “This doesn’t look promising,” she said. “Probably was a crane head location at one point.”
“Crane head?”
“Crane head pump. This is oil country. They’re commonly used at drill sites.”
“Oh.”
“Which reminds me: if you smell rotten eggs and I haven’t done a quick about face, let me know. Some of the wells will give off hydrogen sulfide gas. It’s deadly.”
“And here I thought rockhounding was safe,” Spud said.
She laughed. “Yeah. If you know what to be careful not to mess with.”
She turned and drove back out, taking a right back onto the original road she’d been traveling. Coming to another right- hand turn, she took the road and travelled along it, eventually coming to a location with a tank in it.
“Well head. The surrounding area looks marginally more promising, but I think I want to explore a bit more.”
Hope we don’t run out of gas.
She backtracked again and took a right on the original road once more. Continuing to meander through the dirt roads, she finally settled on an area.
“Now we get out and hike around a bit.”
Sounds exciting. Spud rolled his eyes.
Hank jumped out of the van and headed out through the brush, paying attention to her feet. Spud stuck his hands in his pockets and followed her.
“Wow. Look here!” she exclaimed.
Spud walked up next to her and looked where she was looking. The ground was littered with pink and white stones.
“Ok. What am I looking at?”
She turned and stared at him, hands on her hips. “You mean to tell me you can’t see them?”
“What? The pink and white pebbles?”
“These pink and white pebbles. And these red ones, and these purple ones.” She bent down and pointed. “Here’s a nice one.” Picking up a small stone, she handed it to him.
He took it and looked at it. It was shaped like a six-sided capsule, with a six-sided point at each end. “This is a Pecos diamond?”
“That’s one,” she muttered, walking bent over and picking up small stones as she went. “Here’s another one. Take a look at this.”
She handed him another, only this time it sprouted smaller six-sided points around its middle as well as the two six-sided ends.
“Oh, gotta have this one,” she said, plucking a stone from the ground by prying it up with a fingernail. She held it out for him. “Purple. You don’t often see the purple ones. Bet I’ll find some red ones out here as well.”
She meandered around through the brush, picking up stones, Spud occasionally taking a glance back to make sure he could still see the van. We’ll get lost out here, and we’ll have to ask Hal how to find the van. At least we’ve got the bum tickers. Without them, someone might find our skeletons a decade from now.
“Ok. I think I have enough to pick out the nicest for my collection.”
Thank you, Jesus.
She headed back on a beeline trek through the brush, occasionally bending down to retrieve yet one more stone. Arriving back at the van, they climbed in and she retraced their path.
“I’m curious about this,” she said, noting an open area to the right as they drove back out of the area. She steered int
o it and parked the van. Getting out, she and Spud walked through the area.
“It’s another abandoned missile site,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. This was a Nike site.” She walked over to an area and pointed out a spot. “This is one of the spots from which a missile was launched. From the looks of it, there were six launchers here. We’re probably standing on top of what was the magazine.”
“Magazine?”
“Yeah. These sites had multiple missiles that could be launched from each launcher. Each missile had a single warhead. They were designed to take out high-flying aircraft with an aerial nuclear burst. I guess if they were planting things other than corn in Nebraska and had Atlas missiles here as well, it would be as good a place as anywhere to plant some Nikes, too. And there’s the active missile silos that are just west of the airport. I don’t know if you noticed them, but we flew right over them on the way to El Paso.” She stuck her hands in her pockets. “Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD, for short. I don’t think we’re far away from that even now, when we’ve supposedly disarmed a lot of our nuclear arsenal.” She shook her head. “Well. I can stand here and muse, or we can go eat with the rest of the team.”
8
“That’s the last of the gear?” Crow asked, putting bags in the aft cargo area of the Latitude.
“Everything except my flight bag and Edge’s,” Hank said.
“Good deal. You guys feel good about getting the Archer back to Stafford?”
“Getting another five-and-a-half hours of cross-country toward our instrument requirements? What’s not to feel good about?” Hank asked.
Spud walked over and wrapped his arms around her. “Have a safe flight,” he said.
Keeping him close, she asked, “Are you worried?”
He kissed her. “Someone once tossed me on my ass to teach me she could hold her own. I think she can hold her own with this as well.” He took his arms from around her and turned toward the Latitude. Turning back, he said, “See you in Virginia.”
“Saddle up, everyone,” Cloud said from the foot of the airstair.