McKinney cast off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. The news had moved on to another story, but she hadn’t. She turned it off.
Our drones might be the root cause of these bombings.
And sixty-five billion dollars for drones being pushed as an emergency defense. The ultimate automated cash machine—drones could be both the hero and the enemy, and who would ever know? Sixty-five billion dollars. And that was probably just the start.
McKinney got up and walked aimlessly around the room, feeling the cool stone on her feet. What reason did she have to believe what they’d told her?
She was a scientist, and science required evidence to sustain a hypothesis. The operative hypothesis being that this was a government-sanctioned top-secret military operation to defend against deadly drone attacks. But where was the proof to sustain that hypothesis? Over the past decade, half a dozen illegal black ops run by rogue elements in the military had been revealed—assassinations, torture. . . . Maybe these people weren’t even with the military—maybe they were private operators, looking to influence government policy. Maybe they were agents of a foreign government. What did she really know?
She thought back over the past forty-eight hours. They had flown here in private aircraft, to a private air terminal at Kansas City—bypassing customs and Homeland Security entirely. Smugglers could have done the same. Did she really know she’d been at an army base back in Wiesbaden—or that it was even Germany? It was dark. She saw a couple of men outside in uniform. She saw offices and army insignias, but truthfully, how did she know that wasn’t just some airport office somewhere? She hadn’t seen any military cargo planes or fighter jets.
The attacks were real enough—they’d been in the news for months—but if these were the people behind them, they could easily have provided all this footage to her. But why would they need to deceive her? Could they be trying to trick her into helping them? The iterations of conjecture were stacking up fast.
What did she really know?
She felt confident she was in Kansas—the highway signs, the cars and businesses on the way in. She was in the United States. There was supposed to be rule of law here.
She padded over to the bathroom and ran some cold water in the sink. She leaned over and splashed her face. Was this just lack of sleep making her paranoid?
Why not be paranoid? She’d been kidnapped—and by people with a serious amount of resources who seemed focused on robotic war using her social insect algorithms. And getting ready to use her as bait for a drone attack—one they might be running as well, for all she knew.
McKinney walked around the room, looking for cameras. Nothing apparent. But then she knew cameras could fit on the head of a pin now. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above the bureau dresser—looking like a prisoner with her short brown hair, in her Cornell T-shirt and sweats, or like some New York branch of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Lean and crazed. The blue light and shadows made her look twice as dramatic. She burst out laughing—almost hysterically—for several moments. If her father and her brothers could see her now, what would they say? Caught up in international espionage. Absolutely laughable.
She grew serious again. McKinney had to know what was going on in this place. Asking questions wasn’t enough. It was time to acquire some hard evidence.
She approached the hallway door and pressed her ear against the wood, listening for any movement outside. Everything was quiet. Satisfied, she carefully turned the dead bolt and then the lever handle. She pulled the door open wide enough to look out both ways down the corridor. She heard only the light buzz of overhead lights. No cameras visible, although there were sensors up on the walls, smoke detectors, sprinkler heads, and the like.
The coast seemed clear, so she stepped out into the hall and started moving left, in the direction she’d entered the day before with Foxy. As she passed the other numbered doors, she heard the sound of snoring from somewhere. It faded as she continued, and soon she came to a T-intersection marked by fire doors held open by magnetic retainers. She peered around the corner.
The adjoining corridor was wider, and the sound of metal clanging and occasional shouts was louder to the left, toward the garage. She turned the other direction, where the hallway continued to another T-intersection with no doors in sight. She decided to walk purposefully in the center of the hallway, head held high. Nonchalant.
Once at the corner she headed decisively left and bumped straight into a closed door. It had some sort of electronic sensor lock with a glowing red LED light over its handle. McKinney turned back the other way without skipping a beat and headed down the white hallway lined with blondwood doors. The other end of the corridor also terminated in a closed door, but she didn’t see any red LEDs over its door handle. She marched toward it.