I looked at Dutch; he was focused on Tanner in a way that suggested there might be something more to this missing-drone story. “After combing through the area where the drone was believed to have crashed, no evidence of it could be found, which is why the military began to suspect the pilot’s story.”
A little way down from me and to the right, the lieutenant colonel who’d come with Gaston to recruit me in Austin shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Into the silence that followed Tanner’s last statement, he said, “I personally requested the pilot come in for a polygraph. But when he failed to show up, we went looking for him. We found him on the floor of his shower, shot through the head at point-blank range.”
“Suicide?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“No,” he told me.
“Any leads on who pulled the trigger?” Dutch asked.
“No again,” said the military man.
“We hope to get Ms. Cooper’s intuitive input on that later,” Director Gaston said, with a meaningful look at me.
I nodded. I’d do what I could, especially if this was a case of national security.
Tanner spoke next. “Obviously, we no longer suspect there was an operational issue with the drone. We believe the pilot was coerced or bribed into delivering our drone into enemy hands.”
I furrowed my brow. Why was one missing drone causing so much concern? I mean, when I looked back at the slide, the thing looked one step above a model airplane you could buy at any hobby shop.
Gaston seemed to read my mind, because he spoke next. “It’s more than just a missing drone,” he told me. “Agent Tanner, why don’t we allow Professor Steckworth to explain?”
Gaston’s eyes had settled on a slight man at the end of the table with salt-and-pepper hair and a nose much too big for his small square face. He cleared his throat when all eyes turned to him, and nodded to Tanner, who clicked her remote, and another slide projected onto the screen. It was a photo of a man young enough to be a college student, and somewhat unremarkable in appearance except for the fact that enveloping him on all sides was the most beautiful cloud of color I’d ever seen. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, already understanding what I was looking at.
“Do you know what you’re seeing?” Professor Steckworth asked, eyeing me keenly.
I nodded. “You’ve captured the image of his aura.” In my mind’s eye when I focused only on the young man in the photo, I too saw a cloud of color, though it wasn’t nearly as vivid or complete as what I was seeing on the screen.
Professor Steckworth smiled. “Yes, very good, Ms. Cooper. Your own abilities allow you to see auras, I take it?”
“Well . . .” I hesitated, not wanting everyone to assume my eyesight was clogged with images of color, color everywhere. “It’s less that I see them and more that I sense them in my mind’s eye. If I close my own eyes and focus, I can imagine, if you will, what someone’s aura looks like. And in case you’re wondering, Professor, yours is mostly deep blue with some wisps of yellow and olive green.”
Professor Steckworth appeared surprised, and he reached for a folder and pulled out a printout of himself, surrounded by a blue bubble with traces of yellow and some olive green, which he held up for everyone to see.
I sat back in my chair and grinned at each person who’d given me a doubtful look when I’d walked in. Oh, yeah . . . I’m a badass psychic, people . . . uh-huh.
“I’m quite impressed,” he said, and I relished the few knowing glances exchanged around the table before the professor motioned to Agent Tanner, and she clicked forward again . . . and again . . . and again. In every slide was the picture of another person wearing a different set of colors, varying in degrees of intensity and vibrancy. I knew why they were showing me the photos. “You’ve documented that each one is unique to the person,” I said. “Like a fingerprint.”
Professor Steckworth spoke again. “Indeed.” He then seemed to want to talk at length and looked to Tanner, who nodded. “You see, twenty years ago I had the most astonishing encounter with a woman who claimed to be a psychic. I was working on my PhD at the time, and her abilities so impressed me that I made her the focus of my thesis.
“This woman was also an artist, and for a mere pittance she would paint your portrait and include your individual aura. Of the hundreds of portraits I viewed from her hand, no two were alike, and that began my quest to see if I could prove that auras really existed.
“What I discovered was that each and every human being emits a certain electromagnetic frequency made up of individual wave patterns that is unique to that person—no two frequency patterns are alike, not even with identical twins. I then worked with the psychic to match colors to each wavelength and was able to develop digital photography software that captured the frequencies and translated them into a signature color pattern. I called the system Intuit.”
“Awesome,” I whispered, completely fascinated by the photos and the professor’s story.
The professor took a sip of water and continued. “As my research and applications turned increasingly promising, the air force learned of Intuit and became intrigued, requesting several demonstrations. They wanted to purchase my patent, but I didn’t want to sell it outright. Still, when I needed funding to continue Intuit’s development, they offered me a partnership and provided me all I needed in return for the exclusive use of the system. Even then I could see the far-reaching benefits of my research, and as a former marine, I readily agreed.
“Along the way, I made several key discoveries using the software, which could prove most useful to our national security. What my research team and I discovered was that when we scanned in a still photograph of test subjects, our software was unable to detect or produce an aura image; however, when we scanned in a video image, the software was able to capture the aura.” The next slide showed a short clip of an infamous terrorist and it left me stunned. The United States’ public enemy number one was surrounded by a bubble of color—mostly brown, black, and dark red—and then my own intuitive radar began to put the pieces together and it filled me with dread.
“The drone was carrying Intuit,” I said softly.
In answer there was a click and the next slide revealed an aerial view of that same air base from before and on the ground were little blobs of vivid color.
I gasped.
“Holy shit!” Dutch hissed under his breath.
“The drone was carrying the only prototype of the technology,” said Professor Steckworth. “We dubbed the prototype Intuit Tron, and it had reached its final testing phase on the morning it disappeared, which was right before it was set to be deployed. This is the last image it recorded, in fact.”
The professor fell silent and in the room you could have heard a pin drop, but then Tanner clicked the remote again and a clip of the president’s last State of the Union address began playing. Two seconds in I saw the man I’d voted for and fully supported, surrounded by a huge bubble of brilliant sky blue, emerald green, and deep purple. In that moment I believe my heart skipped several beats and my stomach felt like it fell all the way down to my toes. There was another click and the slide moved to a clip of the British prime minister, then the French president and on and on with each allied national leader’s aura vividly portrayed.
It took me several seconds to realize I’d stopped breathing.
The lights came on then and I squinted in the brightness, while my mind raced with the possible horrible implications of having this particular technology in the wrong hands. “Now do you understand why your country so desperately needs someone with your talents, Ms. Cooper?” asked Tanner.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said gravely. “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”
“Good,” she said. “Then let’s get started. . . .”
Dutch and I spent the next several hours being briefed on Intuit and its capabilities. I was somewhat relieved to hear that the original software was still with the good ol’ U.S. of A., but the drone carried the actual w
orking portable prototype, so if it was placed into the wrong geeky hands, it was only a matter of time before one of our enemies figured out how to reverse engineer it. The implications were beyond frightening.
“Imagine that you are a terrorist,” said Professor Steckworth as if he’d been doing much of that lately. “You could easily sneak Intuit and the drone into any country, and fly it anywhere within fifty miles of your location. The battery on the drone is good for up to one hundred miles, or round-trip to your target and back. The software is programmed to look for whatever signature aura you input. If you are an enemy of Israel and you want to kill the Israeli prime minister, simply upload the PM’s aura off of any film footage and send the drone over the border.
“Your only worry is that the drone will run out of battery life before it finds your target, but we know with certainty that there are some solar panel technologies being developed right now that are quite lightweight. One of the next improvements we were about to make to the drone was mounting some of these ourselves to extend the drone’s range, and we’ve already calculated that it is possible to mount these on the top of the drone without compromising lift. As long as there are at least eight hours of sunlight available to charge the battery, your drone could run day and night. In theory, given the right climate, like, say, the Middle East, the drone could stay aloft for weeks and weeks.”
“How good is the camera system on the drone that was stolen?” Dutch asked.
“Moderately sophisticated,” Steckworth admitted. “But it doesn’t need to be more than that. Again, Intuit itself is highly sensitive to the color patterns of the auras of your target. It does not need especially good camera quality to recognize the pattern and instruct the drone to fly lower to take a closer look. The software would need to be within five hundred feet or so to make a positive match, and the drone is quite small, only three and a half feet from tip to tail. It is also nearly completely silent. Anyone with a keen eye would think it a large bird gliding on air currents, not a man-made drone.”
“Besides the obvious enemies of the U.S., who would want this technology?” I asked.
Steckworth leveled his eyes at me. “Who wouldn’t, Ms. Cooper?”
It took me a minute to get the clear meaning of that. “You’re telling me that even our allies would try to take the technology away from us?”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Steckworth cut me off. “Possibly not all of our allies will attempt to acquire the drone, but enough of them know about it that it gravely concerns us.”
“You mean to tell me, countries like Canada, England, France, and Australia—countries that actually like us—might want to take it?”
“Quite possibly.”
I sat there for a full minute with my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe it. How had our world come to this?
“So the drone gets close, makes a positive ID . . . then what?” Dutch asked next.
Steckworth shifted uncomfortably. “We had the drone equipped with a nitro-piston gas-spring air rifle, able to shoot thirteen hundred fifty fps.”
I turned to Dutch. “Huh?”
My fiancé’s face was hard and not at all happy. “It’s a nitro-gasfueled gun able to shoot thirteen hundred fifty feet per second,” he said.
Oh yeah, that was helpful. “Huh?” I repeated.
“It shoots darts, not bullets,” he said.
I scowled. “Why didn’t you guys just say that?” And then I thought about what Dutch had just said. “Hold on, it shoots darts?”
“Yes,” said Steckworth. “But the gun was not loaded with any toxins at the time the drone went missing.”
“Hold on,” I said, putting up my hand. “It shoots toxic darts?”
“However,” Steckworth continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “the actual darts outfitted for the gun were stolen from my office on the day the drone went missing.”
“It shoots toxic darts which are currently missing?” Was I the only one just realizing we had one mother of a problem on our hands?
“What’s the toxin?” Dutch asked in his usual calm style . . . which I found completely annoying.
Again Steckworth shifted uncomfortably, but he gave us the answer. “We created the trifecta of toxins: ricin, botulinum, and dieffenbachia.”
“You created the trifecta of toxins?” I said, my voice rising in pitch. Seriously? Like, it wasn’t lethal enough with just one or two?
“I’m familiar with ricin and botulinum,” Dutch said, ignoring me again, “but what’s the third one you mentioned?”
“Dieffenbachia,” Steckworth repeated. “Highly effective. Works to swell the soft tissue and inhibit the ability to deliver an antidote for the ricin and botulinum.”
“How quickly would death follow after the dart hit?” Dutch asked next while I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and a shudder running along my spine.
“In a strong healthy adult male of an average ninety kilograms . . .”
“Two hundred pounds,” Dutch whispered to me.
“It would take approximately eight to ten minutes, during which time the subject would be in extreme agony until the convulsions and seizures took over.”
“If one of our guys was hit with a dart, how quickly could an antidote be delivered?”
“It would need to be delivered in approximately ninety to one hundred and twenty seconds after exposure to the toxins.”
I scribbled a note and passed it to Dutch. It read, Steckworth must kill at parties. Literally!
The corner of Dutch’s mouth quirked, but he didn’t write back. “You guys probably suspect the pilot for the toxin theft?”
“Yes,” said Steckworth. “He had the appropriate clearance to be admitted to my laboratory and the area where the toxins were stored, although his ID badge was not used to gain entrance and by coincidence the security cameras were not working on the day of the theft. We believe he may have walked into the building with someone who knew and trusted him.”
“I have a question,” I said.
Steckworth’s eyes swiveled to me. His expression was guarded. “Yes?”
“What were we going to use Intuit for?”
Steckworth blinked as if he couldn’t understand why I would ask something so obvious. “To target and kill our deadliest enemies.”
That’s what I’d thought, but it still shocked me a little to hear it out loud. “Why aren’t we trying to kill these people the old-fashioned way?” I asked next with just a hint of sarcasm. “You know, with a bunker buster or a gun or something less . . . well . . . toxic?”
“Against the enemies we’re targeting, Ms. Cooper, the method of death is crucial,” Steckworth said frankly. “Blowing our enemies into vapor only turns them into martyrs. They feel a sense of glory dying by bullet or a bomb. The dart we’ve developed is quite small with a very thin needle and is designed to drop off after impact. The target would experience only a sharp prick slightly more than a mosquito bite, and then within a minute or two they would become very, very sick indeed. As the toxins spread, the target would cry out in pain, vomit, lose control of their bowels, froth at the mouth, their faces and limbs would swell, and they’d convulse until they died. Their death would be as unromantic and inglorious a thing as can be imagined. Those around them would immediately suspect poison and treachery from within, which would further undermine the terrorist establishment. Using Intuit to pinpoint the target and kill them with a toxin serves our purposes on multiple levels.”
“Unless someone spots the dart and puts two and two together,” I pointed out.
Steckworth nodded. “Yes, but as I said, the dart is quite small, and in the desert, such things get lost in the dirt quite quickly.”
I sighed. This whole topic was turning my stomach. The things we planned to do to our enemies and the things they planned to do to us just sickened me, and at that moment, I will admit, I wanted to back out.
Dutch seemed to read my mind a
nd he reached out and grabbed my hand. Squeezing it gently, he said, “It’s a dirty business, Abs. But someone’s got to step up and do it.”
I looked sharply at him. There was something in his eyes I didn’t like. Leaning over, I whispered, “Do you mean to say that if I decide to opt out, you’re still in?” Those midnight blues looked deep into mine and held firm. “Yes.” Aw, shih tzu.
Steckworth finished lecturing us on Intuit and before the next round I was allowed a short break to visit the ladies’, then returned to the conference room to find CIA director Tanner and FBI director Gaston there with Dutch and a folder.
“Do you feel up to looking at some photographs?” Agent Tanner asked.
I took my seat. “Sure,” I said. “What am I looking for?”
The director laid the folder out in front of me and opened to the first picture, of an Asian man with a very flat face and a big blue mole on his nose. Immediately I got the sense that he was one seriously bad dude.
“These are photographs of known weapons dealers with the capability to pull off the drone heist. We’d like you to look through the file and flag any that seem suspicious to you.”
I used my finger to flip quickly through the photos. “They all look suspicious,” I said, smiling at the little joke until I saw Dutch’s disapproving stare. “Sorry,” I said before taking a deep breath, closing my eyes, and switching on my radar to point it at the file.
I studied each and every photo, being very specific when I searched the ether around them for anything that might indicate one of the men had taken the drone. In the end I separated out two photos: one of a short fat man with a beard and mean-looking eyes, and another of a tall dark-haired man with brown eyes and a square jaw. The second man looked very familiar to me in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I knew I’d never met him, but he reminded me of someone; I just wasn’t sure whom. “I’d look more closely at these two,” I said finally, pushing the photos forward toward Director Gaston.
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