David Bruns - Weapons of Mass Deception

The status changed from INACTIVE to STANDING BY with three dots that ran on and on.

“How long does this take?” the officer asked.

“Well, sir, these are low-energy signals and are very sensitive to shielding, so it might not pick up on the first pass. I’ve seen it take only a few minutes or a few hours.” He hesitated. “Or not at all.”

The captain made a face.

Victor switched screens to the satellite map. “We’ve got a bird coming over the horizon in a few minutes that has a good angle of attack. If they’re still in the clear, I’m sure we’ll see your sensor, sir.”

The officer fidgeted next to him, folding and unfolding the paper.

The sensor status went to ACTIVE.

“Supe, we’re live on the captain’s sensor,” Victor called out. “Getting parameters now.”

“Acknowledged.”

“We’re okay?” The officer crowded next to Victor’s chair.

“I’ll tell you in a minute, sir. Just as soon as the sensor tells me.” Victor’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He called out again. “Supe, sensor is active, and location correlates with the satellite feed. Programmed for hourly location pings, battery at ninety-nine percent, no radiological emissions present.”

A nuke detector! If only Gloria could see me now.

“Acknowledged, Warren.”

Victor turned to the captain. “Is that what you were looking for, sir?”

The smile said it all. “That’s perfect,” he said. “How does this thing work?”

Victor turned in his chair. “The sensor puts out a low-energy ping that can be picked up by any friendly satellite in range. It’s a simple binary string on a header. That piggybacks on any available comm signal, then the NSA strips it off in processing and it comes to us. I’ll warn you, this is not real-time comms. The sensor sends out a signal once an hour, but it has no idea if it’s connecting or not. It might take us another hour to get the signal from processing. If the launcher is stored in a big metal hangar or underground, you may not get a signal at all.”

The captain blew out a long breath. “Okay, I guess that’s all I need for now.”

“Warren, let’s put that new sensor on the watch list.”

“Yes, supe.” Victor made the necessary adjustments. Adding the sensor to the watch list meant that all locational data would be collated daily and released to a preset distribution list. He looked up at the officer. “I assume you want to be added to the distribution list for this sensor, sir? I’m going to need your name.”

“Baxter, Richard,” the officer replied. “But you can call me Rick.”

Victor looked up the name in the database. He clicked the check box with a flourish. “You’re all set, Rick. If this puppy activates, you’ll be one of the first to know.”

Victor settled in for a long shift after Baxter left. He periodically toggled back to check on the new sensor. The TEL was on the move, heading north for two hours, then due west into the desert.

“I’m sorry, sir. Are you telling me that you gave this person access to your personal information, or that she stole the information?” The woman’s voice had a professional tone, but underneath Brendan could almost hear her saying, You fucking idiot .

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“Which part, sir? If she stole from you, you need to contact the police. If you want to remove her from an account, then you need to contact your bank and get them to remove her from the account. We’re just a credit agency, sir, we just report the data.”

You fucking idiot, Brendan finished for her.

He pressed his free palm against his eye socket. “Can you just make a note that I called, please?” he said, trying to keep the whining tone out of his voice. “Any new credit cards that get opened in my name are not mine. Please.”

Computer keys clicked as she typed. “Are you pressing charges against this woman, sir?”

“No — yes. I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.” He pressed his palm harder into his face. “I’m still in the hospital right now and I’m on the other side of the country… it’s complicated.”

“Well, I do hope you get better soon, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“Uh, no, I guess not—”

“Wonderful, if you could take a short survey after this call to tell us about your experience with—”

Brendan slammed the hospital phone down, one of those hard plastic desk jobs with the coiled cord attached. His financial life was so fucked right now he couldn’t even get a goddamned cell phone.

He clenched his eyes shut, afraid that he might actually cry.

How could Amy do this to him? He was her “one and only”—she actually used to call him that, her one and only. She even signed her emails to him with O&O, their own private joke.

And she was gone. Not only was she gone, but she had left his life a financial wreck in the wake of her departure. Brendan was afraid to even think about the list: Car — repossessed. Apartment overlooking Imperial Beach — evicted. Bank accounts — overdrawn. Credit cards — maxed out. She’d even opened new ones in his name and maxed those out, too.

And she was gone.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. He was pretty sure he still loved her. Five-foot-ten, auburn hair, green eyes, and a body that just would not quit, Amy had it all. Okay, maybe he didn’t love her, but he still missed her. If she walked through the hospital door right now, he’d take her back despite all the damage she’d done to his life.

You are a fucking idiot, McHugh.

Brendan shifted in the bed, wincing when he jostled his knee. The heavily bandaged joint was suspended in the traction device over his bed. He was now a veteran of three knee operations, performed by the ortho docs at Walter Reed. They’d considered trying the first operation at Balboa, in San Diego, but his CO had insisted they send him to Walter Reed. The orthopedic surgeons here had the most experience putting kids from Iraq and Afghanistan back together, and his skipper wanted only the best surgeons working on Brendan’s knee.

He needed all the help he could get. The knife the North Korean kid had stabbed him with was a rusty piece of shit that he’d apparently used to gut fish. To say it was crawling with bacteria was an understatement; the little knife was like a direct bacterial injection into his leg.

After the first operation, the infection got so bad the doctor had wanted to take the leg off above the knee. Brendan remembered the whispered argument next to his bed between his CO and the doctor — or maybe he’d dreamed it? Who knew; he was completely out of it by that point, his head swimming in fever from the infection. It was all a foggy half-memory.

The second operation was what the doctors called “stabilization.” They had talked about cutting out the dead tissue and laying down a base of healthy material to build on. Brendan only half listened. What was he going to do, not have the surgery?

His mother came to visit between the second and third operations. She was the one who asked about Amy. Brendan hadn’t fully realized the extent of his girlfriend’s destruction at that point, and he’d laughed off her absence with a “you know Amy” comment.

Mom was full of Minneapolis family gossip and talk about his father’s heart condition, but by the end of the third day, Brendan was ready for her to go home.

And then operation number three, the one where they put his knee all back together again, just like Humpty Dumpty. The third operation was the easiest of the three and the doctors were all smiles afterwards, which Brendan took to be a good sign.