“Careful.”
Odin pointed. “Disassembled—the top’s been taken off. There’s no motor. No circuit boards.”
McKinney leaned close and pulled off her veil to get a better look. The device looked like the articulated legs of a weaver ant on a central frame—with what appeared to be magnetic pads for feet. The upper portion of the machine was missing. She tried to raise it and was surprised it lifted off the metal—and it was lighter than she expected.
Odin examined the pads of the feet, tracing wires that led up the frame. “Electromagnets. They could switch off the magnets on each foot to provide traction and leverage for movement.” He flexed the leg and found it springlike, with plastic rods rooted in place like tendons. “I’ve seen this before. Electroactive polymers. They contract like muscle tissue when subjected to electrical current. No moving parts needed.”
McKinney’s hands came up greasy. She wiped them on her black robe, then ran her hands along four aluminum canisters similar to the pheromone dispensers on the quadracopter drones they had encountered in Colorado—only, these containers were liter-sized. “Look. A similar configuration of four pheromone dispensers.”
“But five times larger.” He gave her a look of recognition for her earlier prediction.
She waved the detector over them, and above one it went up into the tens of thousands of parts per billion. “The mother lode. We should take these with us.”
“Leave the pepper pheromone behind. They’re angry enough already.”
“We should take everything.” She started unscrewing the canisters from the frame. “Why would they bother with this? A ship-based drone colony. I don’t see how these would be better than what we’ve already seen.”
Foxy nodded back behind them. “There was that wing section back there. You think these things fly?”
“A flying ship-cutter.” Odin kicked the device over with his boot. “We’re not seeing the whole picture.” He stared up at the cuts made in the side of the hull—square holes. “Shipbreaking drones.”
McKinney stood. “But why bother with that? Why not simply swarms of drones with bombs or missiles?”
Odin shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know that swarms of steel-cutting drones could play hell with shipping, radio towers, railroads, and bridges. Someone is building an integrated autonomous war machine, with varying types of drones that can work in concert with each other. Each with a specialized job to do.”
McKinney nodded. “Like the polymorphism that ants exhibit.”
“Right. We need to stop them before that integrated system is complete. We know that a few thousand barrels of those precursor chemicals were shipped here, and now they’re gone—along with just about everything else that was here. And it looks like they loaded it all into shipping containers. Foxy, ask Azeem if he still has a contact in customs in Karachi.”
Foxy nodded.
“Pack up those canisters. We need to find out where those containers went.”
CHAPTER 28
Brood Chamber
Linda McKinney stood at the bow of the surging workboat as humid tropical air rushed past her. She was happy to be back in Western business casual clothing. Alongside her Odin gazed through binoculars at a row of massive blue loading cranes running in a line that extended halfway across the horizon. The land ahead was essentially a concrete island edged by massive pilings and a black-and-yellow warning strip. The scale of the Chiwan Container Port boggled the mind. Onshore workers looked like specks moving among the multicolored shipping containers that rose like a Lego mountain range as far as the eye could see. Monstrous container ships rested up against the island’s geometric flanks, while high- speed cranes thirty stories tall loaded them like children stacking blocks.
A young Chinese man in a hard hat, rumpled shirt, and slacks stood some ways behind them, chain-smoking near the wheelhouse of the boat. He was looking a little sick as Evans lectured him about something in Chinese—how to avoid seasickness, possibly.
McKinney shouted in the wind to Odin. “Evans knows Chinese?”
“He had business here back in the day.”
“Your other friend doesn’t look like a sailor. Who is he?”
Odin spoke while still scanning the horizon. “Shipping agent. Old smuggling contact. We used to help his father avoid tariffs in exchange for letting us know if certain materials were moving in their ships.” He lowered the binoculars. “We scratch each other’s backs for paperwork-free favors.”
“What does he think we’re looking for?”