Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(88)

“Such as?” Wolf prompted when Faith fell silent.

“Such as the fact that the prototype is capable of connecting with and augmenting certain people’s brain waves and expanding their brain’s capacity.” She seemed to force the explanation out.

An uneasy stir went around the table.

Brain waves? Expanded capacity? Of all the possibilities he’d expected her to spill, this news hadn’t even been in the periphery of his mind.

“Augmenting? How?” This time it was Wolf’s superior who asked the question. And while all Rawls could see was the back of the guy’s head, his voice was the same as the elder who’d worn the red etchings in the cave.

“The machine basically turbocharges certain people’s brains. It makes them capable of doing extraordinary things . . . mentally.”

“Specify,” Wolf said.

From the sharpness in Wolf’s voice and the grim expressions ringing the table, he wasn’t the only one who saw the ugly ramifications in Faith’s news. No wonder she’d been so dead set on addressing Wolf’s superiors.

“In one experiment, the subject turned on a microwave just by thinking about it. In another, she blew the same microwave up—just by thinking about it.”

Blew something up with just a thought. A chill feathered down his spine. How the hell did you protect yourself against something like that?

Down the table someone swore softly.

“You’re telling us”—Zane’s calm voice ruptured the stunned silence—“that this machine you developed can turn certain people’s thoughts into weapons? They can kill by just thinking about it?”

“Yes.” She responded to Zane’s question as calmly as he’d asked it. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She was remarkably collected now, as though letting the cat out of the bag had drained all the tension away.

“And you didn’t tell us about this. Jesus Christ, with the hands it’s fallen into, this thing could destroy the world. This thing could give one person the ability to control the whole f*cking world. And you didn’t tell us about this? Jesus Christ.” Mac shook his head, stunned disbelief lifting his voice.

“No. I didn’t tell you about it,” she agreed, her voice empty of apology. “And I wouldn’t be telling you now if you didn’t absolutely need to know. How do I know you won’t use it for yourself? Turn it over to your military and weaponize it? How do I know that what you’d do with it would be any better than what they’d do with it? I didn’t know if I could trust you. There’s a good chance the people who stole the schematics for the prototype haven’t realized its full potential and it could be recovered and destroyed without anyone realizing what it can do.”

Dead silence followed her retort. The four elders glanced among each other, and Rawls saw a new respect in the eyes that turned back to Faith.

“You said it affects certain people’s brains,” Cosky finally reminded her. “What percentage of people does it affect?”

“From the data we’ve been able to gather, it syncs with certain brain chemistries and brain waves. In the lab and surrounding offices, three out of nineteen were affected. But it wasn’t a large enough sampling to foretell what the rate would be in the general population.”

Rawls nodded absently. What she said made sense. Brain chemistry varied slightly between individuals. Much of the data would depend on the range of brain chemistries or waves the machine could sync with. Only through sampling hundreds of brains would they have been able to work out an average. Yet sampling the volume of brains necessary to acquire a percentage would have caught someone’s attention eventually. Attention they couldn’t afford.

In fact, from what he remembered from their earlier conversation, Dr. Benton had destroyed the prototype for fear it would fall into the wrong hands.

The precaution made much more sense now, as did the NRO’s interest in the research.

Christ, if this technology got into the wrong hands . . . it was absolutely essential they recover it before the NRO re-created the prototype.

“You said it took years to develop the original prototype, and that Dr. Benton destroyed all the research along with the machine before they were taken,” he reminded her.

If it took years or even months to create the machine, they’d have plenty of time to track the scientists down and retrieve them before their invention went online and operational.

“Yes, but Dr. Benton has a photographic memory. He won’t need the research to complete the necessary steps. And he’ll be able to complete those steps faster since he’s done it before. I’m sure he’ll try to slow the process down, but . . .” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed hard, her gaze clinging to his.

He could see the pain from the memory of her murdered friends burning in her eyes. And she was right. They couldn’t count on Benton stalling. The bastards who held him had proved repeatedly that they were ruthless and deadly.

“How long would you estimate it will take them to re-create the prototype?” Zane asked, his voice thoughtful.

Faith shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. But the machine doesn’t need to be fully operational before it can sync with the human brain. Last time it started at sixty-nine percent.”

Rawls frowned, something niggling at him. “How did you find out about the machine’s ability?”