Raven Strike

“Mark, Doc, hey guys,” said Zen, wheeling over to them with a flourish. “This is my buddy Simeon—he watches over me sometimes to make sure I don’t get into a fight with Dodger fans.” Zen winked at Stoner, who simply stared back. Esrang nodded. Zen saw the two hospital security people eyeing them nervously. “We ready?”

“I think we’re good,” said Esrang, leading the way to the van.

Truth be told, Zen would have preferred that the psychiatrist stayed home. It wasn’t that he was in the way, or even a particularly bad companion. But it added a therapeutic flavor to the outing that made things less comfortable than he wanted. It was bad enough that the doctor had insisted on a bodyguard. Simeon at least was low key and affable, though not overly talkative—a perfect combination, Zen thought. The problem was, if Stoner really went on a rampage, it would take a dozen Simeons and an M1A1 tank to subdue him.

The traffic was light and they made it to the game with nearly a half hour to spare. It was a sparse crowd, even though they were playing the Dodgers. In fact, a good portion of the crowd seemed to be L.A. transplants, with more than a spattering of Dodger blue around them.

“Want something to eat, Mark?” Zen asked. “Hot dog?”

“Hot dog?”

Zen took the question as a yes. “One or two?”

Stoner held up his hand, showing two fingers.

This was really a good idea, thought Zen, calling the vendor over.

There were thousands of faces, each one potentially a threat.

Stoner looked at each one, studying them. The habit was ingrained, part of him, who he was.

There was another part, too. Deeper maybe.

He continued looking, memorizing each face. He hadn’t seen any of them before.

“Here.” Zen handed him the hot dogs.

A hot dog. Frankfurter. Red Hot.

Had he had these? They seemed familiar.

He had. He liked them. It was a long time ago. Before.

“You want mustard or ketchup?” said Zen.

“Ketchup?” asked Stoner.

“Ketchup!” yelled Zen to the man pulling the food from the box.

This was all familiar. The man with the box, with the hot dogs—did he have a gun?

Stoner braced, his body ready to react. His muscles tightened, his breathing became almost shallow.

The man took something from his pocket.

Tiny packets of ketchup, which Stoner knew he would do. Somehow, he knew. The pattern was familiar, yet new.

He began to eat.

“Good?” asked Zen.

“Different,” said Stoner.

“Better than hospital food, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

Zen laughed.

“The food isn’t bad,” said Stoner.

“Honest?”

He turned to Zen, pondering why he would ask that question. As he did, his eye caught something moving above. He cringed, right arm flying up.

“What?” asked Zen.

A small aircraft circled above. Stoner focused on it. It had a camera in the nose, two small engines, no pilot. A UAV drone.

“It’s a police department UAV,” said Zen.

“It’s watching us.”

“Not us, the stadium. Checking out the crowd for security,” explained Zen. “All right?”

Stoner looked at it, watching the pattern it made. He focused his eyes on the camera. It sca

“What do you see?” Zen asked.

“There’s a camera in the nose, inside the dome.”

“You can see that in the dark?”

“Of course.”

“Like Superman—X-ray eyes.”

The first doctors had called him Superman. He knew that wasn’t true—he was more like a freak, a robot created from human flesh, created to do some bastard’s dirty work.

A robot like the plane?

He glanced back toward the sky, watching it circle.

“All right,” he said finally. He turned to Zen. “When does this ball game begin?”

“Five minutes,” said Zen, rising. “Right after the National Anthem.”

Chapter 12

Southeast Washington, D.C.

Amara sat in the kitchen while Ken worked over the laptop, studying the program for hours, punching keys and mumbling to himself. He put his face right next to the screen as he worked, his nose nearly touching it. Amara wondered if he would be sucked inside if he hit the wrong key.

“I see,” said Ken finally.

He rose and picked up the laptop. Unplugging it but keeping it on and open, he walked back toward the stairs. Amara followed him down into the darkness.

Ken flipped a light switch at the bottom of the stairs. The basement flooded with light so strong Amara’s eyes stung. He shaded them as he trailed Ken over toward an ancient, round oil burner. There was a door just beyond it, secured with a padlock and a chain. Ken undid the locks, then pulled open the door and stepped into a primitive wine cellar. Shelves lined the left wall; two large wooden barrels sat on pedestals just beyond them. Dust and spiderwebs were everywhere.

A sheet of heavy, clear plastic hung from the ceiling just past the second barrel. Ken pulled at the sheet, revealing a seam. Amara followed him through, passing into a twenty-by-thirty-foot work space lined with gleaming new toolboxes, a large workbench, and commercial steel shelving. There were a number of high- and low-tech tools—a pair of computers, an oscilloscope, a metal drill press. In the middle of the floor sat a small UAV, engines fore and aft on the fuselage, wings detached from its body and standing upright against the bare cinder-block wall.

Ken knelt down and opened the laptop, staring at the screen before pushing it to one side. He rose and went to the workbench.

“I need solder,” he said, rummaging through a set of trays.

These were the first words Ken had spoken to him in hours, and they filled Amara with an almost giddy enthusiasm.

“So the program will help you,” said Amara.

“Can I trust you to buy solder? Do you know what it is?”

“Of course,” said Amara.

“It’s too late to get it now,” said Ken, his voice scolding, as if it were Amara’s idea in the first place. “Get us something to eat. Buy a pizza and bring it here. There’s a store on the corner.”

“Pizza?”

“You know what pizza is, don’t you?”

“I know what pizza is.”

“Go. Lock the front door behind you. Ring the bell twice, wait, then once and twice more. If you don’t follow that pattern, I won’t let you in.”

Despite his jet lag and the way he had been treated, Amara felt a burst of energy after he locked the front door and trotted down the steps. He walked with a brisk, almost jogging pace for about half the block, pushed along by a sense of mission—not the pizza, but of doing something useful.

Amara did not, in his heart, hate America or Americans. On the contrary, he liked much about the country where he had studied. And he had found that most Americans he came in contact with were helpful and even on occasion kind.

The fact that he’d been sent on a mission that would hurt Americans did not, somehow, co

The heat in the pizza parlor was overwhelming. It was moist and pungent, an oregano-scented sauna.

“Hey,” said the man behind the counter. He was a white man with a child’s face and a belly two sizes too large for the rest of his body. “Help ya?”