But this UAV’s brain was far different. It had six processor arrays, all clearly custom-built. This suggested a parallel computing architecture that would be overkill for even the most complicated aircraft. Not only could you fly a Boeing Dreamliner with this much power; you could fly an entire fleet of them.

And still have plenty of processing room left for a championship game of chess.

The obvious conclusion was that the computer flew the aircraft without the help of a ground pilot. But what else did it do?

Li Han was determined to find out. His only problem was to do that without destroying the programming.

And to do it here. It seemed safer to hide out in Duka than attempt to return to the Brothers. But that meant limited power. The electricity in the house worked only a few hours a day, and he didn’t want to attract attention by getting a gas generator like some of the locals. He had battery lanterns, and his laptop was extremely powerful, but there was no mistaking the musty basement for a Shanghai computer lab. He was lucky to even be in a building with a basement, as crude as it was.

The overhead light flickered as Li Han leaned over the computer box. There were two network interface plugs, the standard 5E receptacles used by local area networks around the world. There was also a pair of much larger connectors that looked to Li Han like specialized optical cable receptors. These were irregularly sized, larger than the thumb-sized hook-ins one would find on advanced audiovisual equipment in professional studios or similar applications.

Clearly, the 5E connectors were his way in, but he didn’t have any 5E wiring.

Could he find it here?

There was a sound outside, upstairs—an engine. Li Han froze. For a moment he expected the worst: a missile crashing through the roof. But the noise was just a truck passing on the road.

He took a deep breath and began thinking about where he might find a computer cable in this part of the Sudan.

Chapter 6

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

It was well after 2:00 a.m. by the time Jonathon Reid got home. The house was quiet, his wife sleeping. It was a modest house by Georgetown standards—three bedrooms, a bath and a half, no granite or marble on the property, and the only thing “faux” was the fake flower on the kitchen windowsill. Reid or his wife cut the small lawn themselves. But the house felt like an immense place tonight. He walked through the downstairs rooms quietly, absorbing the space and the quiet. Thinking.

Possibly, he was making too much of this. There was always that danger when you only saw parts, not the whole.

Reid slipped quietly into the master bedroom. He took off his clothes and reached to pull the blanket down. But as he started to slip into bed, he realized there was no way he would sleep. He looked at his wife, her face turned away from him. As good as it would feel to curl his body around hers, he didn’t want to wake her.

He left the room and walked to the far end of the hall, to the guest room. It had been his oldest daughter’s room years before. Repainted several times, it bore no visible trace of her, but to Reid it still felt as if she were there. He could remember setting up her bed the first night they moved in. He’d sat here countless times, reading her stories.

He could close his eyes and imagine himself on the floor next to her bed, telling her while she slept that he had to go away again, explaining that it was his job and that even if he didn’t come back—something he would say only when he was positive she wasn’t awake—he still loved her, and no matter what, would be her father and protector.

Reid eased himself down to that very spot on the floor next to the bed, then leaned back and stared at the ceiling. A dim brownish light filtered in from the window, casting the room in faded sepia.

If the CIA was running an illegal assassination program, from a country it had been ordered to leave, with a potentially uncontrollable weapon, what should Jonathon Reid do? Where was his loyalty? What was his moral obligation?

The CIA was his life. He had a deep personal relationship with the director, not to mention countless fellow officers, present and retired, who would surely be affected by any scandal.

He also had a deep personal relationship with the President. He was one of her husband’s best friends, and hers as well.

And there was his obligation to his country, and to justice.

How did those obligations sort themselves out here? What exactly was he supposed to do?

Li Han was not on the preapproved target list. It was possible, though unlikely, that he had been added under a special mechanism allowed by national security law; those proceedings were compartmentalized, and there was always a chance that Reid’s search—thorough, and itself skirting the bounds of his legal duties as a CIA officer—had missed this particular authorization.

Even so—even if there was no authorization—did that make the targeting wrong? Li Han was such a despicable slime, such a threat to the country, that his death could easily be justified. Truly it would save lives; he wasn’t running an agricultural program in Sudan, after all.

The Agency’s development of the UAV clearly had begun under the previous administration. While the recent reorganization did not allow for such programs, there were always gray areas, especially when it came to development.

Given the CIA’s long history of producing such weapons, not to mention the Agency’s record of success, this was another area that at worst might be a minor transgression. And certainly in his case, given Reid’s relationship with the Office of Special Technology and Whiplash, Reid could easily be criticized for trying to guard his turf. And in fact he might even be doing that, unconsciously at least.

Utilizing a software program that could hunt down and kill on its own? Without authorization?

Raven sounded like science fiction. But then, nearly everything that they did at the Office of Special Technology sounded like science fiction as well. So did half the gadgets covert officers carried in their pockets these days, at least to an old-timer like Reid.

What should he do?

He’d need more information—talk to Rubeo, look at the authorizations he hadn’t had a chance to access. Confront Edmund. Ask what exactly was going on.

Then?

Well, he had to go tell the President, didn’t he?

She might actually know about the program. She might have authorized every single element. It was possible.

Maybe he just didn’t know the whole story. Maybe the original Raven was just a pipedream, and had become a sexy name for a cool looking aircraft. Maybe there was nothing special about the aircraft at all.

“Jonathon, what are you doing on the floor?”

Reid looked over at the doorway. The dim light framed his wife’s silhouette. In that instant she was twenty-five again; they had just met, and she was the most beautiful woman he could ever imagine, in every sense of the word.

She still was, to his eye.

“Jon?”

She came over and knelt by him. “Are you OK, honey? Is your back bothering you?”

“I was feeling a little . . . stiff,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, just far from the truth. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Sitting on the floor isn’t going to make your back better,” she said. “Come on and get a heating pad.”

“I’d rather a nice backrub,” he said.

He reached his hand up to hers. She took it. Forty some years flew by in her grip.

“Come to bed,” she told him softly.