Reid entered the elevator alone on the first floor at Langley. He swiped his ID badge and pressed the down arrow to access the subterranean levels of the George Bush Center for Intelligence.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation he had had with President Pierson. He’d recounted it entirely several times in his head, each time fortifying his belief that the president was trying to bribe Reid to his side. Pierson was, after all, a businessman before he was a politician, and such men tended to believe that anyone could be bought.
Reid chided himself for not considering it earlier. He had been so fixated with who among his superiors in the CIA might be involved in the plot that he hadn’t stopped long enough to consider that there must be others—military leaders and politicians at the very least, possibly members of other government agencies. Much like he had wondered how many times he had met the president before, he now wondered if he knew this, or at least suspected it before.
But he couldn’t answer that question for himself, which was exactly why he was heading underground.
The elevator dinged and the doors open onto a hall with windowless cinderblock walls painted gray, the corridor lit with long white florescent lights. Reid strode quickly down the hall to a steel door, and again he slid his ID card through the electronic lock. The door opened inward on the covert research and development center of the CIA—or what agents colloquially referred to as “the lab.”
The huge, hangar-sized room was as stark white as a pharmaceutical clean room and as bright as midday thanks to powerful halogen bulbs spanned every ten feet in the ceiling. Long arrays of complex equipment were arranged on tall shelving units in the shape of a huge letter H. He couldn’t begin to guess at the function of half of the machinery in the lab, though he was fully aware that a majority of the collection were things that the general public had no idea even existed.
Usually there were at least three or four engineers working in the lab, but today it seemed oddly quiet. But there was one man that Reid knew would be here, in his underground home away from home.
“Bixby?” he called out. “Are you down here? It’s Kent.”
“Zero!” called out a cheerful voice. Reid rounded the corner of the tall, thick shelving units to find the eccentric but brilliant CIA technical expert bent over something that appeared to be a sleeker version of the Mars Rover.
Bixby stood, grinning wide, and tugged off his latex gloves. He was pushing sixty, though his attitude and physical aspect were equally robust for his age. His gray hair, usually parted neatly to one side, was sticking up slightly; with his black horn-rimmed glasses it gave him the appearance of an aging punkster. He was dressed in a purple linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his forearms dotted with what was either eczema or minor electrical burns.
He pumped Reid’s hand vigorously in his sweaty palm. “Well, it’s been a while!” Bixby said enthusiastically. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. They told me you were transferred to NRD.”
“I was,” Reid told him, discreetly wiping his hand on his pants. “They reinstated me as an agent—at least temporarily. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh?” Bixby raised an eyebrow. “So this is a social call?”
“In a way,” Reid started. “I was hoping to talk to you…”
“Hold that thought,” Bixby said excitedly. “Let me show you something real quick. A couple of things I’ve been working on. Come on.” He led Reid away down the row of machinery. Bixby was a lot of things—brilliant, obliging, pleasant, and very easily distracted.
He showed Reid to an antechamber of the lab partitioned off in a dozen or so workstations, each with long stainless steel tables and glass partitions between them. Upon one of the tables was a significant assortment of tools, wires, and component, but of everything laid out, Reid was surprised by what Bixby wanted to show him.
“Here,” said the tech as he dropped it into Reid’s palm. “This is my newest venture.”
Reid examined the device—if it could be called that. It looked like a poker chip, but heavier, as if it was solid metal. The surface was painted matte gray and there did not appear to be any buttons or dials or knobs on it anywhere.
“…What am I looking at?” Reid asked.
“You’re familiar with EMP, yes?”
Reid nodded. “Sure. Electromagnetic pulse. It, uh, disables anything electronic within a certain range, right?”
“Precisely,” Bixby said. “This is an EMP grenade.”
“This?” Reid almost laughed. “This is a grenade?”
“In a way. See, the weight you’re feeling is a powerful magnet inside the chip. To activate it, you twist the two halves and throw it. Trust me, it’ll stick to just about any metallic surface it encounters. Then you’ve got five seconds before it shuts down anything in a twenty-five-foot radius of it. All the EMP, without the worry of blowing out your own cell phone.”
“Huh.” Reid couldn’t exactly imagine the applications of the device, but Bixby seemed excited by it. “So you just twist the halves, like this?”
“Whoa, whoa!” Bixby shouted. “Don’t set that off in here, you’ll blow half my data!”
“Sorry.” Reid quickly set the device down.
“It’s okay.” The engineer grinned devilishly. “Hey, you want to try it out for me somewhere?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you have nosy neighbors or somebody you want to get back at?” Bixby handed him the chip again. “Take it with you. I haven’t finished field-testing yet. Let me know how it works.”
“You want me to use this on someone?” Reid asked blankly.
“Sure! I made a baker’s dozen of ‘em. Take it. Our little secret.”
“Okay,” Reid shook his head and pocketed the EMP grenade. “Why not.”
“Oh! Got something else to show you. Come on.” Bixby hurried off again, past the partitioned glass workstations and towards another entranceway.
Reid held back his groan and followed, wondering when he’d be able to get around to the reason for coming down there in the first place. He followed through the doorway into a long, narrow room, the purpose of which he immediately recognized: it was a shooting range, albeit a short one, about twenty-five yards long and ending in several humanoid dummies crafted from pale ballistic gel.
“Let’s see here…” Bixby tugged on a steel handle embedded in the wall and a drawer slid out. Reid balked; inside it was a variety of guns, ranging from the tiny LC9 that he personally favored up to the oddly-shaped and futuristic-looking Vector submachine gun, each weapon set into molded black foam.
“Here we are.” The gun that Bixby took from the drawer was a familiar one—a Glock pistol. “This is the Glock 17 Gen 4. Semi-automatic, seventeen round cartridge, four-point—”
“Four-eight-inch barrel,” Reid finished for him, the knowledge of it suddenly present in his head. “I’ve seen it.”
“Of course you have,” Bixby grinned. “And you’ve seen the biometrics.” He turned the gun sideways to show the small, smooth rectangular pad on each side of the pistol, just behind the trigger guard.
Reid had seen the biometrics before, on a Glock 22 model. The smooth pad was a fingerprint scanner for the user’s thumb and acted as a safety; the trigger would be locked unless the right thumbprint was on the pad. Reid was hesitant to be all that excited about the technology; on the one hand, it had once kept an insurgent from turning his own gun against him, but on the other, the gun had failed for him when his hands were coated in dirt and blood.
“Here’s what’s different.” Bixby flipped the pistol around and handed it to him. “This particular one is coded to my prints. Go ahead, try it.”
“I know it won’t work,” Reid said as he took the pistol.
Bixby shrugged. “Try it anyway.”
Reid sighed and took the gun. He put his thumb to the pad, aimed it down range, and pulled the trigger.
An electrical charge leapt up his arm in an instant. “Ouch!” He dropped the gun, his skin continuing to tingle even after he had released it. “What the hell, Bixby?!”
The engineer couldn’t help but laugh. “Like that? Not only will it disallow use, but it’ll give a nice little shock—a hundred and twenty volts at about ten amps, not that different from touching the leads on an outlet.” He laughed again. “You okay?”
Reid shook the sensation out of his arm. It hadn’t hurt as much as it had surprised him. “Yeah,” he muttered, “I’m fine.”
“Okay, okay. Here, give me your thumb.” Bixby held up a digital tablet and Reid pressed his right thumb to it. When he pulled it away, his thumbprint remained, glowing blue on the tablet’s surface. “That’s another nifty feature I developed recently—each pistol can be coded for up to three unique users. It’s on the network, so a team could re-code a gun on the fly, if need be.” He gestured towards the pistol, still on the floor. “Give it another go.”
“Not sure I want to now,” Reid murmured, but he picked it up anyway and, after a moment of hesitation, put his thumb to the pad. He aimed downrange at the center ballistic dummy and, with a slight wince, squeezed the trigger.
The shot popped with a satisfying report that made Reid grin reflexively, the bullet lodging itself in the thick gel of the dummy’s neck. Not my best aim, he admitted. He raised the Glock 17 again and fired four shots in quick succession, three to the chest and one to the forehead. He sidestepped once to the left and fired twice more, then angled and squeezed again three times. Each bullet found a new home in the ballistic gel, striking center mass or cranium.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Bixby beamed.
“Yeah,” Reid agreed with a breath. “It does.” The Gen 4 was a terrific weapon; the recoil was notably reduced from the 19 model, the action smoother. And he could have sworn that the report was somehow quieter; his ears weren’t ringing. “Built-in suppressor?” he asked.
Bixby nodded. “That’s right.”
Reid was impressed. “I don’t suppose I can take this home too, can I?”
“No such luck, Zero.” The engineer chuckled as he took the gun from Reid’s outstretched hand and replaced it in the drawer. “Now then. You said you came by to talk. What’d you want to chat about?”
“Oh. Right.” Reid hadn’t forgotten the reason for his visit, though if he was being honest with himself, he would much prefer to try his hand at more of Bixby’s firearms than breach the subject he’d come to discuss. “I came down here because… I owe you one. If you know what I mean.”
The tech nodded slowly, showing a rare moment of solemnity. The month prior, when Reid’s daughters had gone missing and he had hunted down the traffickers that held them, Bixby had assisted in an indirect and discreet way by providing Watson with a duffel bag full of contraband CIA equipment. In return, Bixby wanted only one thing: to run some tests on Reid’s head. As one of the memory suppressor’s co-inventors, Bixby had a seemingly unhealthy obsession with what was going on in Reid’s brain.
“So you agree? You’ll allow me to do some tests?” he asked.
“Yes,” Reid consented. Then he added, “Noninvasive only.”
“Of course.” Bixby stroked his chin. “I’d like to run an MRI, for certain; a scan of brainwave function in response to stimuli would be useful, as might a gadolinium contrast retention. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?” Reid asked.
“I want to do it here, in the lab,” the tech told him. “Not a CIA facility. That way I can limit who has eyes on the results. But I don’t have half the equipment here that I’d need. Give me a few days to get some things together, and then we’ll do it.”
“Great.” Reid hesitated a moment before asking what he had really come to ask. “You mentioned once before that you might be able to recover something. Do you still think that’s a possibility?”
“A possibility, sure,” Bixby said, “but I won’t know how likely until analysis, and I’m not going to make you any promises I can’t keep, Zero.”
“I understand. How about you reach out when you’ve got what you need.”
Bixby smiled. “I certainly will. Now get out of here, I have to get back to work. Come on, I’ll see you out.” The engineer led him out of the narrow shooting range, past the partitioned workstations, and back into the main warehouse-esque chamber of the lab.
After Guyer’s failure, Reid was certain that waiting another three months to even attempt to recover his memory would be more than tortuous. And after not only the attempt on his life by the Division but also his conversation with President Pierson, Reid’s desperation to recover whatever he could had become outright essential. It was no longer just a desire to know the truth; it was now a seeming requisite to staying alive.
As they strode towards the exit, past the enormous H-shaped arrangement of gadgets and machinery, something caught his eye. He stopped suddenly.
“Bixby,” he said slowly. “What is that?” He pointed to the silver case on the shelf before him.
“That? Oh, not much that would interest you.” The tech chuckled.
“Try me,” Reid insisted.
“Okay, sure.” Bixby, never one to pass up the chance to show off his equipment, snapped open the silver case and lifted the lid.
Reid bit the inside of his cheek to hold back any reaction he might have unwittingly shown. Just as he suspected, the silver case opened like a computer, the top half displaying a wide black screen and the bottom half concealing a keyboard, control panel, and a familiar silver joystick.
It was remarkably similar to—perhaps even exactly the same as—the silver case from the tugboat that had piloted the Brotherhood’s submarine drone.
“It’s a drone guidance system,” Bixby explained needlessly. “It allows for complete remote control from a distance of about two and a half kilometers max. There’s also a fun “set it and forget it’ feature—a password-protected autopilot function, in case something happens to the pilot.”
Qafan. That was the strange password that killed the override system of the submarine drone. Reid had hardly thought about that since the attempted bombing of the destroyer, but now it came rushing back. “Neat,” he said flatly. “Uh, what sort of drone would this guide?”
“This one is fairly universal,” Bixby said with a shrug. “Just about any military-style drone the agency uses is programmable via this system… Predators, Reapers, Parasites—”
“What’s a Parasite?” Reid interjected.
“Oh, they’re very cool,” Bixby gushed. “It’s a tiny drone, no bigger than a pigeon, that attaches to another and overrides the system. You want to see one?”
“No, no, that’s okay.” Reid’s thought process felt like a spinning tire that wasn’t touching the ground. Still, he forced himself to ask the question that was at the forefront of his mind—one he really wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “Who else has this kind of tech?”
Bixby scoffed. “Who else? Nobody has this, Kent. You should know better than that.” He let out a small laugh. “I don’t share my designs outside of the agency.”
“Yeah.” Reid suddenly felt cold. His forced smile came slowly. “Of course not.” Bixby designed this. “I have to get going. I’ll, uh, see you around, Bixby.”
“Stop by anytime,” the tech offered. “And I’ll give you a ring when I’m all set for those tests. Should be by Sunday at the latest, if you’re free.”
“Great.” Reid left the lab, his feet moving as if independent of his brain as he entered the elevator again, stepped out onto the first floor of Langley, and trekked towards the parking garage. He was barely cognizant of where he was going until he was sitting behind the wheel of his car.
His cell phone was already in hand, too. He made the call.
“Hi, Kent.” Reid could hear the smile in Maria’s voice. “You miss me already?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Very much. I want you to come to dinner tonight at my house.” He couldn’t be sure if either of their personal lines were secure, so he tried not to risk saying anything that might set off suspicion in prying ears.
“Tonight?” Maria said in surprise. “I’d love to, Kent, but traffic on I-95 is going to be hellish this time of day. It’d take me at least two hours—”
“That’s fine,” Reid interrupted. “I really want to see you. I… need to see you.”
Maria was quiet for a moment. Then she said cheerfully, “Okay, you got it.” She understands, he realized. “Of course. I’ll be there.”
“Good. See you then.” He hung up the phone, his fingers numb as he twisted the key in the ignition.
It was a hunch—more of what Talia Mendel would accuse of being “wild conjecture”—but Reid was pretty certain he knew where the Libyan’s weapon had come from.
But moreover, he had the sudden and terrifying belief that he also knew why.