“So?”
“There might be some ‘unethical behavior’ involved.”
“This is politics. Ethics have no meaning in politics.”
“I’ll let you in on this, Phil, but only if you’re on board with me. Are you on board?”
“Senator Whiteslaw,” Mein said in a level voice, “if you can do what you say you can do, then you will be the next President of the United States of America. I want to be in on that,”
Whiteslaw nodded appreciatively. “Okay, Phil. Listen to this….”
Chapter 18
The blue phone did not ring this time. Instead, a blue phone icon popped up on the crystal-clear screen below Dr. Smith’s desk, telling him he had an incoming transmission from the field. Namely from Mark Howard, who was chaperoning Remo on board the chartered jet, just to make sure the Reigning Master didn’t go wandering off somewhere.
Mark Howard gave him a succinct report as they were driving back to the airport, giving Smith time to perform some research before they called in from the chartered aircraft for an in-depth report.
“They claim they’re fine,” Mark said. “But they don’t look fine.”
“We cleaned up real nice,” Remo insisted. “What were those things we went up against there? Smitty, you have any idea?”
“Offense/defensive robotics,” Smith replied, his fingers snapping over the keyboard. “None of the designs you mention are surprising.”
“Oh, yeah? I was surprised,” Remo said. “What about that Mr. U.? What’s the deal with him?”
“Mobile Intrusion, Termination and Reconnaissance Unit,” Smith said. “Nothing more than an autonomous weapons system. The prototype was stolen from a DOE-funded lab in Oregon in 2003. He was said to have been fitted with a metal skull to house the electronics and the DOE was considering using the head in the actual models for its psychological impact. The design was proven substandard in battlefield mobility trials and the project was shelved before the theft even occurred.”
“I got news for you—it worked well enough,” Remo said. “Running on a smooth surface, anyway. What about the dog and the big spider?”
“Both designs that have been tested within the United States. You’ve seen mechanical spiders yourself. It is the insects that interest me most,” Smith said. “They exhibited sophisticated insect flight replication technology, down to replicating the structure of the wing muscles. One pair of wings is powered by a contracting capillary group replicating the top-to-bottom thoracic muscle set, another by an end-to-end muscle group, also on the thorax. It’s better than what the U.S. had developed thus far.”
“But do they have the little Gee-DAMS inside?” Remo asked.
“They don’t,” Howard said. “I’ve dissected three of them. These are remote-controlled devices with no Gee-DAM chips. I’ll bet there was a heat-sensitive control device in the vicinity. Once it locked on to its targets, Remo and Chiun, it simply relayed flight patterns to the swarm. Inefficient, but there were so many of them they nearly succeeded in killing them.”
“So we did not get the Gee-DAMS,” Smith intoned unhappily.
“Listen, Smitty, there’s something more important we need to talk about. What the hell was it that Cote was using to power up all this stuff? That’s what worries me the most.”
“And I” added Chiun.
“I agree. We’ll be looking into that aspect of it. It’s as mysterious to me as to you,” Smith admitted. “Especially because it seems to have been a side effect. Remo, you’re convinced Cote did not even know what he was doing?”
“He was clueless. As soon as the figurines unplugged themselves from the wall sockets, the bad feeling went away. If he knew he was doing it, he would never have let me chat him up while I regained my strength. Can you send in some pocket-protector types to dismantle the place and figure it out?”
Smith pursed his lips. “That’s impossible. The villa ceased to exist within minutes of your last report. The fire department says the entire structure burned to the ground, even the stone. The place must have been rigged with thermite charges.”
There was a moment of silence. “Nope,” Remo said. “Otherwise it would have happened a lot sooner than that. I’ll bet one of those animatronics was programmed or remote controlled to set those charges. Whatever, it’s just what Cote would have wanted—a big blast of an ending.”
“Who ran the remote controls?” Smith demanded.
“Whoever is really behind this thing,” Remo said. “It wasn’t Cote the cartoon supervillain. Somebody who was tied into the security system at the Cote house and spoke like a German.”
“Any indication who it was, though?”
“Some super-duper-villain, I guess,” Remo said.
In the privacy of his office, Smith closed his eyes, imaging he felt true physical pain. What he wouldn’t give to have a truly professional-acting enforcement arm.
“Somebody who likes robots,” Remo added helpfully. “He likes them so much he dredged up one of them that was a hundred years old.”
Smith almost allowed that one to pass by, like much of what Remo said, but somewhere a light glowed in his head. “What are you talking about?”
“You know. Ironhand.”
“That news report from El Paso was in one of the data feeds you sent over,” Mark Howard explained. “I was asking Chiun if he remembered reading the books.”
“Because I am so very old, you see,” Chiun announced loudly.
“Ironhand was fiction, Remo,” Smith explained. “Not according to the letter. The old man said his father saw the real Ironhand at a World’s Fair.”
“A century ago,” Mark Howard said. “So?”
“There were a number of Victorian-era fakes like Ironhand,” Smith said. “They were sort of a rage for a while. Some were electromechanical, some were steam powered. Remember Metropolis?”
“I’m sure Superman fought robots,” Remo said, “and that was later than Victorian era, wasn’t it?”
“The silent-era film, Metropolis in 1919,” Smith said. “Regardless, there were many fake robots before anyone created anything like a true automaton,” Smith insisted. “Ironhand was turned into pulp fiction.”
“Worth checking out, though,” Remo said.
“Do not heed his ramblings. Emperor,” Chiun called. Smith could picture him sitting far away from Mark and Remo, his eyes locked on the wing out the window. “He is as delusional as the poor hermit who died alone in the deserts of Newer Mexico.”
“What’s the harm in looking?” Remo asked.
“Remo, think about it,” Smith said. “Ironhand was supposed to be more than seven feet tall and made out of steel. Not a likely configuration if you want to get into a highly secure military base, is it?”
“Why not? One of them was good enough to work for Cote. Chiun, cough up the iron robot head.”
“It is of no consequence,” Chiun answered dismissively.
“Chiun! Give me the effing head!”
There was a muttering, then Smith heard the sound of something hard hitting something else hard.
“What was that?” Smith asked.
“It’s a robot head, Smitty,” Remo said. “It was made of iron, by a blacksmith, and I bet that makes it pretty damn old.”
“Mark?” Smith asked.
“Mark?” Remo added.
“It is an iron skull. Dr. Smith,” Mark Howard reported. “It looks like a doll’s head.”
“It tried to kill us.”
‘We’ll look into it,” Smith said dismissively. “Mark, send me some photos and specifications.”
Remo sulked. Nobody cared, but that was okay because he was sulking for his own benefit, not theirs.