“Okay then, answer a few questions for me.”
He hesitated, “What do you mean?”
I said, “I need to know what they’re after-what Berenko’s after. No bullshitting around here.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“So you won’t mind if I give them what I find.”
“You found them? Where, when?”
I lied and said, “I haven’t yet but I’m getting close. What I need from you is what-it-is.”
“It’s classified.”
I was tired of the runaround, and Jett didn’t have any time to waste. I said, “Get your ass over to my office. Don’t bring anyone with you. Don’t come wired. Then we will talk.”
I hung up, still pissed at the government rules of play that caused so many problems.
**
He was there in ten minutes. I sat down across from him and shoved the chip across the table, along with the magnifying glass. “What is it?” I asked.
He touched it, looked off for a while, then back at me. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small digital voice recorder and pushed the OFF button, then put it on the desk.
“Okay, I’m going to level with you.”
“Jett’s life is hanging on the minutes we let tick by, so I’d like to hear what you have to say, faster.”
He touched the black plastic piece on the desk and said, “This is a MAV.”
I said, “One of DARPA’s babies. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. I didn’t want you to think I was just pulling letters out of my butt. I know what they stand for.”
He blinked, then said, “I keep forgetting your background. Yes, this is one of DARPA’s ‘Babies’, as you put it.”
I said, “And MAV stands for Miniature Aerial Vehicle, so now I’m up to date and we both get high marks in Acronyms one-oh-one. Keep going.”
He touched the small MAV, “These models were a near-future concept until ten months ago. Then they suddenly became reality, thanks to one man. He created this.”
I said, “This one’s not rotary powered for flight, and it’s a hell of a lot smaller than anything I’ve ever heard of.”
“You’re right. A quantum leap in design. These are the ultimate MAVs, both for their size and because they don’t use rotary mechanisms for flight.”
“I saw. These things have wings.”
“Yes. The inventor used a combination of new materials and some revolutionary mechanical nanotechnology.”
I asked, “What can they do?”
Harris said, “There are multiple uses. These can spy for you. They have GPS, miniature cameras capable of disseminating real time motion picture capture. They can be equipped with other things as well, including instruments that would allow them to be used for, well, for sanctions.”
“Say it straight,” I said, “You mean assassinations. How?”
“The needle tips can inject poison, like a bee that stings its target.”
I said, “If they can do that, then they can be used to spread biological diseases, too, right?”
“Yes.”