Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,63
footage showed the empty impound lot on a perennial loop. He could lead a marching band up the main aisle of wrecked cars and the stream would show nothing but a deserted tract of vehicles.
Andre watched, his mouth ajar.
Evan exited the truck. Andre trailed him to the gate, fumbling with his keys. They got through the padlock and entered. Evan paused, sensing a note of danger vibrating the night air.
He went back and left the gate open in case they needed to beat a quick retreat.
32
Lifelike
Andre stood at the spot where Hargreave had bled out, staring at the dark blotch on the asphalt. His cheeks looked heavy, shiny with sweat. “He died right here,” he said, his voice strangled, like he had to push out the words. “And it was my fault.”
But Evan had no interest in Andre’s guilt. He scanned the street once more and then moved cautiously to the kiosk. A shiny new lock assembly secured the door. As Andre came up behind him, Evan lifted the tiny rake pick and tension wrench from his back pocket.
“Don’t have that key,” Andre said. “I broke off the old key in the lock, so they replaced—”
Evan twisted, and the lock released with a click.
Andre said, “Dayum.”
They entered the tight space, the motion-activated light clicking on overhead. Triangle desk in one corner. Tall file cabinet. Security monitors showing hacked surveillance footage—an abandoned lot, a locked front gate, and a dark, empty kiosk. The room hadn’t been cleaned anytime recently, which was good given what Evan was looking for. The scent of musky cologne lingered.
Andre waved a hand in front of his nose. “That’d be Juan. Motherfucker smell like he bathed in Old Spice.”
Evan crouched by the crappy rolling chair and searched the linoleum, running his fingers along the seams where floor met wall. He assumed the cops would have missed it, because they wouldn’t have known to look for it. And he figured the Gentners wouldn’t risk returning to a crime scene to get rid of a dispensable item. Even so, it could’ve been thrown out or stepped on.
“What are we looking for?” Andre said.
“Eyes up,” Evan said. “Watch the street.”
He rose so his gaze came level to the desk. Crumbs, mouse pad, keyboard, outdated Dell Inspiron desktop, chipped coffee mug, legal pad shaved down to a few sheets and covered with doodles. He checked behind the computer and then turned, frustrated.
The file cabinet.
Rising on tiptoes, he gazed across the dust-layered metal top.
There it was, resting toward the back, expended.
He reached carefully, picked it up by a fragile metallic wing, and placed it on his palm.
When he pivoted in the tight space, Andre was waiting, his stare locked on the item resting in Evan’s hand. “Did you just find a motherfucking metal dragonfly?”
“It’s a KAM.”
“Come again?”
“A kamikaze assassination microdrone.” Evan gazed down at the delicate robot on his palm. Amazingly lifelike, easily mistaken for an actual dragonfly. It weighed no more than an AAA battery. The slender body, the size of a snap pea, wore a tiny processor like a backpack. Beautiful translucent wings veined with carbon-fiber, camera and microphone mounted on the head, copper electrodes visible beneath the metallic blue polyamide coating.
Protruding from the face was a wicked-looking stiletto blade, about an inch and a half in length, its silver tip colored with bright arterial blood.
Hargreave’s.
Andre reached a finger to poke at the dragonfly but couldn’t seem to muster the courage to actually touch it. “They stabbed him with this?”
Evan pictured the surveillance footage Joey had produced, Declan holding out his hand as a launch pad, the near-invisible KAM taking flight from his palm. And his attempt to recall it after it had taken out Hargreave.
“Yes,” Evan said, tilting the wings to the light. On the underside a tiny etched logo featured an M with wings sprouting from the letter’s outer downstrokes. “These things can fly, hover, and perch. Some of them can even store a solar charge and stay afloat indefinitely. We got lucky that you locked it inside the kiosk. And that you weren’t in there when it came in to puncture your throat.”
“Who the hell are these people?”
Evan slid the microdrone into one of his cargo pockets and pressed past Andre, relieved at the rush of fresh air greeting his face. “That’s what we have to figure out.”
Andre skip-stepped to hold pace at Evan’s side. “So drone people killed Hargreave. And drone people blew up my house. And Hargreave was a drone pilot.”