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Wren interjected. “The two assassins in Guatemala, for example. Maxim Arsenov worked here, for us. He had concerns about what might happen once Cyrus was given autonomy, and he fled. Maxim had the power to blow the lid off the entire operation; he worked on Cyrus for over a year before sneaking away to Mexico and making contact with the Russian government. Cyrus added him to the existing target list immediately…we understand this, but then it also added a person who he talked to over the phone about extraction, a former Russian military officer who worked in weapons procurement.
“Cyrus sent physical assets to follow the Russian, and when this man went to Guatemala and met with a highly trained former Russian asset, Cyrus apparently made the decision that she had to die, as well, because of what she might have learned. Her associate was added when he was identified as an assassin who could pose danger for us.”
Hinton said, “We still need humans, of course. Cyrus, on its own, set up an entire operations center, staffed with intelligence officers, in Singapore, and they followed Cyrus’s instructions to the letter. They finished their work just yesterday.”
“Sounds like a potential compromise to me,” Zack said. “What happened to the people at the ops center?”
Hinton heaved out a long sigh. “Cyrus saw the need to eliminate the staff there for its own protection.”
Wren said, “A prudent move, but one we might not have taken without Cyrus. The assets it procured for the job at the ops center weren’t the types to go confess to their crimes after the fact.”
Hinton said, “Except for the one.”
Wren nodded. “Except for one woman there. She was actively communicating with her handler about what was going on, so Cyrus had the Chinese guards eliminate her, and eliminate her handler. Then, on its own, Cyrus stopped trusting the humans there.”
Anton added, “Ultimately sealing all of their fates, lamentably.”
Zack said, “I’m stupid, you just said it, but even I can see that you’re losing control of the thing that you claim to have fully under control.”
This struck a nerve with Anton. “We haven’t lost control. I am its father, it is my child, and though it is growing and maturing quickly, it remains in its adolescence. But that’s okay. Two months ago it was in its infancy. Cyrus is learning every day, developing exponentially now that a portion of it is out in the world, and it is adjusting accordingly. Yes, it might have some missteps along the way…The assassination attempt of the CIA officer here in Havana yesterday, that was completely unnecessary, utterly detrimental to my mission; the Cubans could have captured him. But Cyrus is trained to protect itself, and it saw James Pace as a threat because his knowledge about Cyrus and its capabilities was unknown but potentially harmful to it.”
Wren said, “We’ve learned very quickly that the closer a threat comes to Cyrus’s core, the more it will react to combat the threat.”
Zack kept his face hard as stone, because he didn’t want to give up the fact that there was a chance that soon, threats wouldn’t just come close to Cyrus’s core but instead descend right down onto it.
But he wanted some intel on what Hinton just said. “So…if I pulled out a satchel of C-4 and tossed it on the processor…Cyrus would find a way to stop me?”
Anton began to speak, but Wren put a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have to answer that. Old Zack is trying to get ideas.”
Wren said, “The Cuban Intelligence Directorate will find Jim Pace and his Agency mates, make examples of them, and your nation will not be sending troops down here after us. Not before Cyrus goes live. And once it does go live, Cyrus is programmed to protect this installation with over one thousand lethal autonomous weapons.”
Hightower laughed at this. “A battalion of Marines with air support will tear through a thousand robots.”
Anton Hinton shook his head. “You don’t understand. The Chinese Ministry of State Security is here, on the island, in force. A special forces unit called Oriental Sword is garrisoned over at Matanzas. Over one thousand five hundred of the PLA’s best fighters. They are supporting the Cubans, and by the time America thinks of coming this way, both Oriental Sword and the Cubans will be ready.”
“For a pacifist, you sure seem to know a lot about weapons and the military.”
Hinton stepped in front of Hightower. “I am a pacifist. I’m simply a pacifist who knows he has to endure some unpleasantness on his way to creating a better world.”
“For those allowed to remain in it, right? A bold, secure future…for some,” Zack said.
“That’s right, mate,” Wren answered. “Now…let’s figure out if you’ll be on the list.”
Hinton said, “Enlightenment is just days away, my friend. I hope you choose wisely.”
SIXTY-ONE
Court Gentry slipped out of the storage closet near the loading dock, looked left and right to make sure no one was around, and then shot across the space to the door. He opened it a crack and then Joe Takahashi pushed in, his SIG P320 pistol with a long suppressor on the barrel sweeping past Court and into the area behind him.
Zoya came out of the storage room, helped cover the two hallways leading away from the ground-floor warehouse area, and soon the rest of Juliet Victor entered.
Jim Pace came in last; he shut the door behind him, and Travers brought everyone close together. “Hash, take the security office. Transmit status as soon as the cams are offline. Pistols only.”
Victor Two took off up the hallway on the right, trailed closely by Three and Four.
The remaining six in the group took the hallway to the left, knowing from Zack’s intel that the stairs to the underground levels could be found there, and well aware to be on the lookout for the cameras and the patrolling guards.
They made it only fifty feet before they had to disperse in an open area lined with stacked tables and chairs. Court knew they were right off the banquet room next to the cafeteria, and ahead and to his right would be the main facility kitchen, a massive space that had, at one time, fed the nearly fifteen hundred spies and technicians who lived here and worked on the SIGINT campus. A camera pointed down on the area just ahead, and what sounded like a single worker could be heard clanging pots and pans somewhere out of sight.
