Dogs of War Read online

  I heard about Mexico while I was halfway across the ocean.

  Church called me at the same time that I was trying to call him. “Robot dogs, boss?” I said. “This is mine. I’m going to refuel in New York and then head down to—”

  “No, Captain,” interrupted Church, “you’re not.”

  “The hell I’m not. I run the Special Projects shop, and what says ‘special’ more than exploding robot dogs?”

  “Normally I would agree, but you’ve just come off two back-to-back combat assignments. Mexico has its own counterterrorism teams. Our assistance has been offered, as has that of some of our colleagues. The Mexican government has accepted help, but not from us.”

  “Well … shit.”

  I didn’t have to ask why not us, because it wasn’t the first time we’d been snubbed lately. Ever since Kill Switch, the DMS has stopped being the go-to SpecOps outfit. The people in the know are aware that, while we didn’t actually become a clown college, it looked that way from a distance. Best case was that we were being treated as if we’re all invalids. They look at us like we’re guys in wheelchairs offering to run foot races. Thanks, but no thanks. Fair? No. Understandable? Yeah, but it still pissed me off, and it still hurt.

  We talked for a while about the Prague gig, about the nanotech and the steroid stuff, and explored theories about who was behind it. We had a lot of ideas, but none of them seemed to go anywhere. Sadly, there are a bunch of smart and very bad people out there, and, yeah, some of them are actual mad scientists.

  “Go home and rest,” said Church. “I have no doubt something else will come up.”

  I spent a good portion of the rest of the trip home sulking.

  Well, drinking and sulking.

  INTERLUDE TWO

  CASTLE OF LA CROIX DES GARDES

  FRENCH RIVIERA

  ELEVEN WEEKS AGO

  “Eleven weeks?” echoed the Concierge, his voice filled with alarm.

  “Yes,” said John.

  “Is she serious?”

  “Quite serious.”

  “It took quite a lot of time to set things up a certain way,” said the Frenchman. He was in the vast kitchen of his villa. The house was fully automated and required only a monthly visit from a maintenance supervisor and biweekly deliveries of food. He preferred living alone, and, despite his profession as fixer and arranger for a select few clients, he was generally an antisocial man. Or, as he saw it, asocial. He didn’t dislike people, but he preferred to keep his own company. Robots of various functions and the household artificial-intelligence computer system offered enough interactive challenges to satisfy any residual need for chitchat. And his job required that he spend hours on the phone or in virtual-reality conferences. When he wasn’t working, the silence of his huge, empty house was a comfort to him. If he had his way, he would never leave the place. VR and luxury robots brought everything to him that couldn’t be physically delivered.

  Problems, though, always seemed to find him.

  Case in point.

  “Should I tell Ms. Bain that you’re unable or unwilling to make the necessary adjustments?” asked John.

  “Of course not,” said the Concierge. “No … of course not. It is merely that eleven weeks is a very tight timetable.”

  “And…?”

  “It will require a great deal of cooperation. Gifts will need to be given in order to allow things to move quickly.”

  “You have carte blanche, my friend.”

  “People often say that and then I find out that there is, in fact, a budgetary limit. If I am expected to make a change as radical as this, then—”

  “Hush,” said John, and the Concierge hushed. “Spend whatever is necessary. This is the eve of the revolution, my friend. Act like it. The lady is relying on you.”

  “Of course, I—”

  “She will expect you to pay special attention to our friends in the DMS. Very special attention.”

  “Yes, but I have outlined the risks with that part of the—”

  The line went dead.

  The Concierge sat in his electric wheelchair and drummed his fingers on the armrest. When he moved his fingers, there was the faintest sound of tiny servomotors and mechanical clicks. He was no longer aware of that, though, except when he was in his moments of despairing self-awareness. Every part of his body made some kind of sound. Even his breaths were accompanied by a hiss of hydraulics and compressors. It was a fact of his life.

  There had been times of silence. Long stretches of it when he lay in bed, either in hospitals after the bomb went off on the Boulevard Voltaire back in November of 2015 or at home once he was discharged. His legs were charred and withered nothings, his arms were covered in melted skin, his spine—what was left of it—was wrapped in a complexity of plastics, metal reinforcing rods, tubes, and wires. Only his face was unmarked. Completely unmarked. He had not received so much as a scratch anywhere above the Adam’s apple. A twist of fate that was in no way a kindness. When he looked into the mirror he saw a normal man, but that was a lie. Normalcy was a façade that he wore over corruption.

  The household robots didn’t care what he looked like, though. Nor did Calpurnia, the ever-evolving AI that ran every aspect of his daily life, from waking and washing him to tucking him in at night and lulling him to sleep with subtle injections of lovely drugs. Robots and computers were pure. They possessed no judgment and therefore were not slaves to aesthetic opinions. No human caregiver could do as much for him without something showing in the eyes. Contempt, apathy, pity, horror. He’d seen it all. With robots there was only the precision of programmable care. How wonderful.

  He thought about what the world would be like once Havoc and its Internet-destroying WhiteHat companion program had been allowed to run loose. Would it really be better, as John the Revelator preached? Would it be the golden age that Zephyr Bain had labored so long to bring about? Was the programming truly that good? It frightened him, because he knew that any program, no matter how sophisticated, always launched with a few bugs. The more sophisticated, in fact, the greater the risk of unexpected variables, design flaws, outside interference. No program had ever approached the complexity of Havoc. It was an incredible undertaking that was decades in the making, evolving as the computers and other crucial systems evolved. Which brought with it the constant risks of compatibility errors. Would it run smoothly? Could it launch without a hitch? Was that even possible, no matter what the simulations said? Simulations, no matter how carefully organized, were not the same as real-world, real-time operation.

  And if it failed, in whole or in part, what then? There was no Havoc 2.0. There couldn’t be. The world, as it existed right then, at that moment, would end within hours of Havoc and WhiteHat being initiated. There was no reset button. For Havoc to work, that infrastructure needed to be intact for a certain period of time. Power grids, water, emergency services, military response. It wasn’t useful to disrupt that and not complete the entire program. The possibilities of a partial rollout were sickening to contemplate. Only the fully delivered, fully functional program would change the world into something cleaner and better.

  If, and only if, everything worked exactly right. If every component—organic and digital—worked with maximum efficiency and in perfect harmony.

  If that was actually possible.

  With eighteen months, it was possible. With twenty-six months, it was likely.

  But in eleven weeks? He looked around at the kitchen as if it were a window to the whole world.

  “My God,” he murmured. “My God.”

  He sat like that for nearly half an hour. And then he began making the necessary calls.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE DOG PARK

  DARPA FIELD-TESTING CAMP

  CLASSIFIED LOCATION

  WASHINGTON STATE

  FIVE DAYS AGO

  “You’re here as an observer, Miss Schoeffel,” said the major.

  “So everyone keeps telling me,” said Sarah Scho
effel, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “And, yes, I know that means I keep my hands in my pocket and keep my mouth shut.”

  Major Carly Schellinger smiled. “It’s not quite that bad,” she said, gesturing toward the cabin door. “Shall we?”

  They went outside. The camp was large and constantly in motion. No flyovers were permitted, so Schoeffel’s helicopter had landed in a clearing at an old, deserted logging camp and she’d then been driven here in a Hummer with blacked-out windows. The soldiers guarding the landing site were dressed in unmarked black combat uniforms. No unit patches, no insignia of any kind. The helicopter had also been plain black, without serial numbers. The Hummer had no license plates. The soldiers wore black balaclavas to hide their faces, and most of them had on opaque sunglasses. None of them spoke to her except to tell her to duck under the helicopter blades or to get into the truck.

  The camp was set up in a valley, with dozens of small cabins and tents concealed from the air by camouflage netting. Heavily armed guards patrolled in pairs, and Schoeffel was surprised to see that some of them were accompanied by dogs. Robot dogs. Big, ugly, strange, and quiet.

  It was their silence that disturbed her most. The last time, Schoeffel had seen an awkward and noisy machine. The prototype of BigDog was three feet long, two and a half feet tall, and weighed a ponderous two hundred and forty pounds. It was a bulky body with four oddly delicate legs that could run four miles an hour carrying more than three hundred pounds of gear. Its motion was directed by a sophisticated onboard computer that drew on input from various sensors. The problem was that it was noisy. You could hear it coming. Schoeffel had heard one soldier complain that it sounded like a moving junk pile.

  As she walked along with Major Schellinger, one of the dogs fell into step with them, clearly programmed to accompany the major. Schoeffel kept cutting quick looks at it to study the upgrades. These dogs were different in many impressive ways. They had a head and a tail, though the former was a hard shell around a CPU and the latter was a whip antenna.

  “Can I ask about the dogs?” Schoeffel said.

  The major walked a few paces before responding. “Current designation is WarDog. A different generation from BigDog. New design in almost every way. We’re still field-testing them. We have several models. Bigger ones for equipment transport or to serve as mobile gun emplacements.”

  “Meaning—?”

  The major pointed. Down an alley between two cabins was a shooting range with six targets fixed to hay bales and set at incremental distances of up to three hundred yards. There were no soldiers working the range. Instead, there was a pair of WarDogs. One was the same sleek model that walked beside her, except its body and legs were draped with camouflaged material. The second dog was at least twice the size and a pair of trapdoors on its back had opened to allow a machine gun to swing up and drop into place. Ammunition belts trailed down to thick saddlebags.

  “Are you familiar with guns, Deputy Director?”

  “I’m qualified with handguns,” said Schoeffel.

  Major Schellinger laid an affectionate hand on the barrel of the weapon. “The M60E4/Mk 43 is a gas-operated, disintegrating-link, belt-fed, air-cooled machine gun that fires the 7.62 × 51-mm. NATO cartridges from an open bolt. It has a cyclic rate of five to six hundred rounds per minute, with an effective distance of twelve hundred yards; however, we have modifications in place for WarDog that allow for accuracy at considerably greater range. We chose this weapon for the balance of stopping power, overall reliability, and weight. Even with the extended barrel, it’s only twenty-three pounds. It can also be removed from the WarDog and used on any standard NATO tripod and vehicle mount. The barrels are lined with stellite, a cobalt-chromium alloy, to allow for sustained fire and extended life. All major components of the Mk 43/M60E4 directly interchange with other M60 configurations.”

  “That’s … impressive.” Schoeffel didn’t know what else to say.

  “We’re in full production with them now,” said Schellinger.

  “We are? I thought they were still being tested. I thought that was the whole point of this camp.”

  The major smiled. “Oh, we’re a lot further along than you think.”

  “Then what’s the purpose of the camp?”

  “Fun and games, Deputy Director,” said Schellinger. “Fun and games.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Instead of answering, Major Schellinger gestured toward the DARPA scientist overseeing the testing range, who came over at once. He was a bookish man who looked somewhat out of place in a military uniform. The major made brief introductions and asked for a demonstration.

  “Let’s have long and short range. Speed and accuracy,” she said. “Impress Deputy Director Schoeffel.”

  The scientist looked pleased and set it up.

  “Patton,” he said sharply. “On the line.”

  The WarDog with the machine gun turned and walked quickly over to the top of the range. His padded feet made no sound at all. A sergeant ordered everyone else off the range and announced a live-fire exercise.

  “Six targets, three rounds each,” ordered the scientist. “Engage.”

  Without hesitation, the WarDog named Patton shifted its body to aim at the closest target and fired a three-shot burst. The bullets punched into the kill zone of the target that was fifty feet away. The dog instantly shifted and fired at the hundred-and-fifty-foot target, then the thousand-yard target, and on and on, until it had fired bursts at all six targets.

  With a thin smile, Schellinger offered a small pair of binoculars to Schoeffel, who raised them to her eyes, adjusted the focus, and stared in amazement.

  “WarDogs use sensors and real-time intel from satellites and telemetry-gathering drones to calculate angle, adjust for windage and terrain. The targeting software removes all ‘judgment’ from the shot, which is what makes human shooters score below a constant maximum potential. WarDogs go on pure math. Machine thinking, machine logic, no guesswork.”

  “That sounds a little creepy,” said Schoeffel.

  “Wars are won by the side with the best technology.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. Technology, the nerve to use it.”

  While Schoeffel digested that, the major continued with her praise of the big WarDog. “Patton can be fitted for mortars and grenades, too, or we can pull the machine gun and replace the whole combat package with anything from a flame thrower to a series of antipersonal or anti-tank mines that can be dropped at precise points.”

  “That’s … that’s…” Schoeffel stopped herself before she finished the sentence.

  “Impressive as hell?” suggested the major.

  “Yes,” lied Schoeffel. The word she had been about to use was terrifying.

  The scientist said, “We’re field-testing ten prototypes this week. Our goal is to improve the bullet-to-body ratio.”

  “Which is what?” asked Schoeffel.

  “With human combat troops, there is actually a very high ratio of number of rounds fired compared to the number of enemy killed, particularly in the recent wars in the Middle East. We’re talking about a quarter million bullets per kill. Our goal with the WarDog is to reduce that number to something closer to two hundred bullets per kill.”

  “Which,” said the major, picking up the story, “will allow us to send in armored dogs with sophisticated software for target selection and thereby reduce the number of human soldiers we put in harm’s way. Let the robots do the fighting.”

  “Wait, you mean these machines will be picking their own targets?”

  “Of course,” said the scientist.

  “How will they be able to tell the difference between enemy combatants and our own troops?”

  “All soldiers will have an RFID chip implanted,” explained the major. “No WarDog will fire on someone who has a chip.”

  “That’s all well and good,” said Schoeffel, “but ISIL and the Taliban tend to hide in ur
ban areas and among civilian populations. How do we keep civilians safe?”

  The scientist didn’t meet her eyes.

  Major Schellinger said, “We’re still working on that.”

  Schoeffel watched the second dog trot into position. This one carried a lighter weapon, a modified Remington Mk 21 Precision Sniper Rifle, with a lever system operating the bolt and a new generation of laser sighting. The twenty-seven-inch barrel extended out over the dog’s head, and it could be replaced to fire .338 Lapua Magnum, .338 Norma Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, or the standard 7.62 × 51-mm. NATO rounds. Schoeffel watched it select targets using each of the four possible calibers and shoot with deadly accuracy up to three hundred yards. Then targets were attached to eight separate remote-controlled carts and went rolling off through the forest in different directions. Bird drones followed each and sent video feeds back to the chief scientist’s laptop, where everyone crowded around to watch. The dog leaped forward to pursue, and within eleven minutes had caught up to each of the targets and scored multiple shots in the kill zone. Then it loped back to the top of the range and stood there, quiet, brutal, deadly, and alien.

  Major Schellinger actually patted its head as if it were a real dog. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

  The dog had two red lights for eyes, and although Sarah Schoeffel knew they were nothing but colored lenses over laser targeting systems, she swore that those eyes glared at her. With menace, with what she felt was a kind of bloody, wicked pride. It was stupid to read emotion into a machine.

  Stupid, sure.

  Schoeffel forced a smile onto her face. “Wonderful,” she echoed. “Yes.”

  PART TWO

  JOHN THE REVELATOR

  It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

  —Alfred North Whitehead

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE PIER

  DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 5:09 PM

  The phone rang, and it shook me out of a bad dream about attending my own funeral. The ringing of my cell phone wove itself so seamlessly into the fabric of the dream that I thought they’d buried me with it. I tried to move inside the narrow coffin, but my elbows kept hitting the silk-lined sides and I couldn’t get my hand into the right pocket. I knew that it was Junie calling me from the graveside, trying to tell me that it was okay, that she would be fine, that she was moving on now that I was dead. And then the thread of the dream unraveled and I came awake crying out her name. All at once I was back on the deck of the Pier, the DMS Special Projects office in San Diego. The deck was empty except for my dog, Ghost, and me. He raised his head, saw that there was no danger, heard the phone continue to ring, and gave me a withering look and flopped back down.