Page 55 of So Lethal

“None of this is your fault, Doctor,” Michael interjected, “but it’s important that you give us the whole truth right now.”

She took a deep breath and released it in a rush. “He said that he had to minister to those without sound by liberating them from a life of silence.”

Faith’s heart leaped. “One more question for you, doctor. Have any of your patient records gone missing lately?”

“No,” she replied firmly. Then her eyes slid to the left. “But… two weeks ago, there was a data breach, and… there was some indication that information had been copied from a certain insurance carrier’s medical records.”

“Were the records of the four victims among them?” Faith asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but they all had that insurance carrier.” Dr. Hayes’ lips trembled once. “So did Captain Harrison.”

That was it. This was their guy. “I need contact information for Captain Harrison,” Faith said.

Dr. Hayes nodded. Her hands were trembling when she typed the commands on her keyboard. A few seconds later, the printer started humming. Turk watched the printer, his tail switching back and forth in anticipation. When the humming stopped, he barked and looked at Faith.

Dr. Hayes handed Faith the document, avoiding her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“Like my partner said, it’s not your fault,” Faith said.

She left the comfort at that. They had their most solid lead of the case, and she wanted to pursue it right away. So she gave Dr. Hayes a quick thank you, then left the office.

“Should I call for backup?” Michael asked.

“Oh yeah,” Faith replied. “Tell Ferris to bring the cavalry.”

“Will do.”

Harrison’s address was in Cupertino, about halfway between their location and San Jose. They would reach it in twenty minutes. With any luck, they would find him there and put an end to his warped mission.

Captain Harrison wanted to liberate the hearing impaired by murdering them. Faith would liberate them by taking their murderer off of the streets.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

“Look on the bright side, David. If you fuck up, you won’t have to hear Steward nag you anymore.”

Captain David Harrison grinned at the testing booth and gave Captain Jeremy Fuller his finest one-fingered salute. Laughter echoed through his radio, and Jeremy said, “I appreciate the offer, but there’s no way you last the night with me.”

“Who said I needed the whole night?” David replied.

“Cut it out, you two,” Major Adam Steward snapped.

David grimaced as he realized their boss probably heard them ragging on him a moment ago. “Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “Power is nominal, temperature is a little elevated but still inside the green. Target is prepared, and unless Captain Fuller has any objections, we are a go for this test.”

“Roger that. Test commences in thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds heard,” David replied.

He scrolled through the systems menu of the Mk 1440 acoustic crowd dispersal unit. The Army, in light of recent very unfortunate mistakes during civilian protests in Afghanistan, had recognized the need for a less lethal option for crowd dispersal when the safety of American servicemembers wasn’t believed to be in danger. After several years of the usual proposing, bidding, haggling, and compromising, the Pentagon had finally selected a manufacturer and that manufacturer had finally delivered a working prototype.

And so far, it worked well. Preliminary tests showed significant improvement over previous-generation acoustic weapons, particularly in the targeting arena. It wouldn’t be helpful to the Army if they deafened their own soldiers along with the enemy.

This was their first test on living things. Well, not actually living things since the modern era frowned upon indiscriminate massacre of animals. However, David was assured that the dummies arrayed in front of him were fitted with membranes that functioned exactly as a human eardrum would. These would—it was claimed—measure the damage a sound wave would do to a human eardrum and thus let them know if their weapon was effective.

“Okay,” David said. “Time is up, green means go, and I am going to let her rip.”

Jeremy chuckled. Steward sighed and lamented, “There was a day when officers were actually professional.”

David grinned and pressed the proverbial big green button, in this case just a lit portion of the new state-of-the-art LED touchscreen.

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