Chapter 8

"Are you sure this is correct?" Colonel Jerrik looked around the room.

"Our source has never given us poor intel in the past," the analyst at the podium replied.

"There's always a first time," Sergeant Major Bohannon muttered.

"Have you been able to gather any corroborating evidence?" Jerrik asked.

"We have a few leads." Flicking a button on the controller, the analyst began a video reel that played on the holo-projector in the middle of the table. "Purely by coincidence, on the same day as the New York assassination, a combined force of SEALs and SAS hit a mercenary base in Peru. This group was the International Freedom Brigade, although they were really just out to get rich. We captured about a dozen people, most were just grunts and mercs, although we did manage to get one of the ringleaders. NSA ran him through the brain sifter and found out they had somehow came into possession of three of the robots. We think these three were the ones that pulled the Manhattan job."

"And two of them blew up on the Lower West Side."

"That's right, Colonel."

"So what happened to the third?"

"We don't know." The analyst shrugged. "You guys took out their manufacturing base, and the SEALs got the people pulling those bots' strings. Unless there were a secondary objective or some of the mercs got away, it would have reverted back to its last instructions. It's probably gone to ground."