The Roswell Conspiracy

TWENTY-EIGHT

By eight a.m. Monday morning, Colchev’s men were almost finished repacking the two Killswitch weapons into their new containers. One was already closed up and would be shipped on a cargo flight from Sydney to Mexico City labeled as “computer parts”. The second would be coming with Colchev on a private jet supplied by a Russian oil tycoon. Compromising photos of the macho billionaire with some underage boys meant that Colchev could use the plane with no questions asked.

Before he let his men close up the second padded container they’d specially designed for the Killswitch, Colchev ran his fingers over the sleek copper casing. The weapon, four feet long and a foot in diameter, was tapered at both ends.

According to Kessler’s report, the Killswitch was an advanced version of an explosively pumped coaxial flux compression generator. Science had never been a strength of Colchev’s, so the description was gibberish to him. His understanding of its operation was that the plastic explosive inside the tube detonated the xenobium, causing the copper coils within to amplify the resulting gamma rays in a high-energy blast which would radiate out and interact with the earth’s magnetic field. The cascading effect of the magnetic flux would overload any electronic devices within its effective range.

At lower altitudes, the range was minimal, no more than a few dozen miles. But the effect was magnified at higher altitudes due to its closer proximity to the ionosphere. The higher Colchev could get it when it went off, the more damage it would cause.

Designed to account for the possibility that future sources might be discovered, the weapon allowed for any amount of xenobium up to five hundred grams to be inserted by unscrewing one end of the Killswitch. Sixteen metal teeth came together to clamp the material in place. The detonation was controlled with a digital display that had been fitted to the case. Once the security code was entered, the weapon was activated by setting the built-in timer.

Colchev shook his head in disgust. He had the weapon now, but Locke had destroyed his plans to get the xenobium. The purpose of the road-train bomb hadn’t only been to cover the theft of the Killswitch. Although it would have taken investigators time to ascertain that the weapon wasn’t in the wreckage, the theft would be revealed when the bodies of the security men and their truck were eventually found.

The true reason for the truck bomb had been to allow Kessler to smuggle out the xenobium. In the confusion following the explosion, Kessler was to replace the xenobium sample with an identically sized hunk of regular hafnium, which wasn’t radioactive or difficult to obtain. The two would be indistinguishable from each other except by testing for radiation emissions, and no one would think to do so for weeks. By that time Colchev’s mission would have been over.

Now, with no distraction to cover his theft, he gave Kessler only a ten percent chance of successfully getting out of Pine Gap with the xenobium. Unless Colchev found more xenobium, the Killswitch would be worthless.

He stood and nodded for Zotkin to close the container. Nisselovich and Oborski carried it out to the car, leaving Colchev and Zotkin alone.

Zotkin frowned, reflecting Colchev’s own concerns. “Do you think we should continue with the mission?”

Colchev couldn’t give any indication that his confidence in the mission might be faltering. “Of course we continue. We’ll never get another chance like this.”

“But we cannot complete our plan without the xenobium. What if Kessler can’t get it to us?”

“Then we find the other source.”

“You think it really exists?”

“The evidence from Ivan Dombrovski’s lab indicates there is more than enough for our purposes.”

Zotkin scratched his head. “Why not just take the weapon back to Moscow?”

“Because we are all now enemies of the state. The deaths of Nadia and her team assured that. We are fully committed to this mission, Dmitri. If we don’t succeed and show Moscow the true extent of our patriotism, there’s no going back.”

Zotkin hesitated, then nodded. “Of course you are right. How should we divide up?”

With four operatives lost in the last two days, Colchev was down to only eight men, including him and Zotkin. He thought for a moment about how to allocate his forces.

“Nisselovich and Oborski will take one weapon to Mexico as planned. Kiselow and Chopiak will accompany you and me to Rapa Nui. Buran and Vinski will stay in Sydney to see if Kessler made it. If he’s not at the dead drop by noon, they should head to Mexico.”

“Speaking of Mexico,” Zotkin said, “Andrew Hull was the one who gave us that contact.”

Colchev nodded. There was only one way Nadia Bedova could have tracked Colchev down as quickly as she did. He’d known Hull could be bought, but he hadn’t counted on Bedova meeting the price.

“I can’t have any more leaks,” Colchev said. “The Americans will find Hull soon, so we’ll have to pay a visit to our helpful arms dealer before we leave. You procured what I asked for?”

Zotkin nodded and went into the next room. He returned with a black case the size of a carry-on bag.

With reports of the truck-bomb explosion at Alice Springs all over the news, surely Hull would realize he was now a marked man, but even someone with his vast security measures could be dealt with by using the correct approach.

And Colchev had the perfect method. He flicked open the clasps on the case and smiled as he inventoried the pieces of the disassembled sniper rifle. Even from a distance of five hundred meters, Buran would not miss.

TWENTY-NINE

By the time the C-17 reached Easter Island, it was dusk. Despite Jess and Fay’s eagerness to get started, Tyler convinced them that the trek to the location on the map would have to wait until morning.

He had spent most of his waking time on the flight planning the security arrangements with the NSA operatives and the pilots, who never questioned the diversion from their planned paratrooper training op in Japan. In between catnaps Fay and Jess researched Rapa Nui history using a dozen books and articles they’d downloaded during the stopover in Sydney.

On arrival they quickly determined that there was no way Colchev had beaten them to the island. The tarmac of diminutive Mataveri Airport, the most remote commercial airport in the world, was devoid of aircraft. There were only a few scheduled flights per day, most of them from Santiago and Lima. Colchev couldn’t have made it all the way to South America and caught a flight to Easter Island in that time, and the airliner from Tahiti wasn’t scheduled to arrive for two more days. The only other way to the island was by private jet, and according to ground control, none had landed in weeks.

Still, because they believed Colchev had heard Fay’s Russian phrase, Tyler assumed he’d come to Easter Island eventually. Two of the NSA operatives would stay behind with the three C-17 crew members to keep an eye out for him while the other two would accompany Tyler, Jess, and Fay in their search of the island. Formed by an extinct volcano, Easter Island measured only fifteen miles across at its widest point, and the airport was not much more than a two-mile-long landing strip next to Hanga Roa, the town where virtually all of the five thousand inhabitants lived.

The Air Force and NSA men opted to stay with the plane for the night and take shifts sleeping on the crew bunks inside. When he was in his twenties, Tyler would have thought nothing of stretching out on the plane’s spartan accommodations, but now that he was in his thirties, he’d gotten used to a bit more comfort. Besides, Fay and Jess wanted to stay at a hotel, so they found two rooms at the Tupa Hotel near the main street.

After settling in, Tyler suggested that the three of them get some dinner, but Fay, who had snacked on the plane, said she was too tired for dinner and retired early. That left Tyler and Jess to find a restaurant by themselves, alone together for the first time since New Zealand.

They chose a place called Au Bout du Monde that was popular with tourists who came to gawk at the island’s incredible Moai statues. It was winter on the subtropical island, so half the tables were empty.

Tyler and Jess were seated on a second-story patio warmed by heat lamps to fend off the evening chill. The position gave them a dazzling view of the moonlit Pacific. The expansive sea suggested just how isolated they were on the tiny island. Beyond the distant horizon, the ocean was uninterrupted by land for another 1,200 miles.

As they waited for their green curry appetizers and pisco sours made with Rapa Nui’s native grape hard alcohol and lemons, they quietly took in the scenery, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. Once the food and drinks arrived, Tyler filled the awkward silence by asking Jess about her research during the flight.

“Did you and Fay figure out exactly where the map is taking us tomorrow?”

“We think so,” Jess said. “The map shows a jagged line going from the center of the island to the point on the coast where we’re supposed to find whatever it is we’re looking for. Comparing it to the satellite photo of Rapa Nui, we narrowed it down to a dry creek just south of the Ahu Maitake Te Moa.”

“What are we looking for? One of Easter Island’s famous statues?”

Tyler had seen photos of the stoic monoliths, some with the creepy white eyes still in place, but he didn’t know much about them other than their general appearance and massive size, some of them weighing in at more than eighty tons.

“I doubt what we’re looking for is one of the Moai,” she said.

“Why not?”

“From what I read on the plane, it seems clear that all eight hundred and eighty-seven of them have been well studied and documented. They’re either located on Ahu — those are the ceremonial stone platforms — or they are still lying in the quarries where they were carved.”

“How do you think they are related to Roswell and Nazca?” he asked.

“I don’t know the link to Roswell, but a connection to the Nazca is a possibility. Nana is a much better authority on Nazca than I ever will be, but my understanding is that there was an exodus from the Nazca plain of Peru sometime between AD five hundred and seven hundred. No one knows for sure why they left or where they went, but some anthropologists think South American migrants settled this region of Polynesia around that time. The Nazca people could have been among them. Thor Hyerdahl proved that it was possible by building a raft called Kon-Tiki using only materials that would have been available to people at that time. Now scientists mostly dismiss that notion, but nobody has proven it with certainty either way.”

“Could the Moai have been created by the same people who drew the Nazca lines?”

“Supposedly the Moai came hundreds of years later, but who knows? Maybe the statues were created by their descendants. The height of their construction was in the 1600s until it came to an abrupt halt and the island’s population crashed.”

Tyler nodded. “I remember there was a book called Collapse a few years back. The theory was that the natives cut down all the trees on the island to transport the statues, and when that happened, they didn’t have building materials for canoes or shelter anymore.”

“Right. Jared Diamond popularized that theory.”

“Theory? Looks like a slam dunk. I didn’t see more than a couple of trees when we were coming in for a landing.”

“They’ve replanted some trees in the center of the island, but it’s still mostly barren grassland. They could have used trees to move the statues, but that’s just one theory.”

“Really? I thought it was pretty well established the islanders transported the Moai on rolling logs.”

“There have been arguments about that for decades. Another theory is that they may have been moved by human sweat alone by dragging the statues with ropes made from the trees.”

Tyler chuckled. “Come on. Dragging rocks weighing over a hundred thousand pounds?”

Jess smiled. “Which is why some of the more out-there ideas include alien intervention and tractor beams.”

Tyler grinned at that. “There we go with the aliens again. Fay sure seems convinced that we’re dealing with spacemen.”

“She’s got me doubting myself. What about you?”

“I’m a skeptic, but I’m also open-minded. However, I’d like some more evidence before I conclude that the Nazca lines and the Moai were created by beings from outer space.”

“Right now, theories are all we have to go on. Another bizarre hypothesis for how the statues were moved comes from an old woman who told the first European explorers that the Moai walked to their current positions.”

“Now you’re just trying to make the aliens seem reasonable.”

“No, really. A man named Pavel Pavel tied ropes to one of the smaller twelve-ton Moai and by rocking it back and forth, he and a crew of seventeen men were able to move it, covering ground at a rate of six hundred and fifty feet per day.”

“Sounds possible if the base were shaped correctly and the statue had an optimal center of gravity — not so low that it would be hard to rock, but not so high that it would topple easily.”

“The problem was that it chipped the base, and none of the Moai show that kind of damage.”

Tyler scooped up the last of the curry. “The Moai were moved from quarries. Do you think the wood engraving is leading us to something like that?”

“It’s possible, but Nana had an alternative theory. The map is steering us toward the northwestern edge of the island. Rapa Nui’s ocean-side cliffs are riddled with caves that were painted by the natives. Her guess is that we’ll find one at that location.”

Tyler groaned. “More caves?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve just had a lot of experience with caves lately, none of it good.”

“Suck it up. We’ll get some ropes and flashlights in the morning in case Nana’s right.”

Their main course of Chilean sea bass arrived along with another round of drinks.

Tyler took a bite and then saw that Jess was only staring at her food.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I was just thinking how odd it is to be here — on Easter Island of all places — having dinner with you like this after all these years.” She picked up her fork and began eating. “It seems so normal.”

“Especially after the last few days.”

“Do you remember that time during that snowstorm right before Christmas when I dared you to run across the quad naked with me?”

Tyler laughed. He hadn’t thought about that night in more than a decade. “I remember thinking that you were crazy.”

“Why wouldn’t you do it?”

He shrugged. “I was a ROTC cadet. I couldn’t afford to get caught doing something like that.”

“Are you still that uptight?”

“Uptight? Just because I wouldn’t freeze my ass off running around campus in my skin?”

“Nobody would have seen us.”

“I just didn’t want to do it.”

“That’s what I mean. You were — are — charming, smart, competent, stable. You’re also logical to a fault. You measure the pros and cons of everything you do. Every action is an equation with you. I just wanted you to be more impulsive sometimes. Like when you saved Fay in Queenstown.”

“That wasn’t impulsive. That was necessity. Two men were shooting at us.”

“What about coming to Australia with us?”

Tyler focused on his food before looking at Jess again. “You and Fay needed help.”

Jess smiled. “You always were a sucker for the damsel in distress.” She picked at her food. “Nana told me the details about your wife’s car accident. That must have been rough.”

“Thanks. It’s not something that’s included in my Gordian Engineering website profile.”

“Did you ever wade back into the dating pool?”

Just like the Jess he recalled. Never one to beat around the bush. Tyler downed the rest of his drink.

“Since Karen died I’ve met a couple women I got close to,” he said, “but unfortunately we couldn’t make it work. My job takes me all over the world. Makes it difficult to maintain a relationship.”

“Is that on purpose?”

“A consequence.”

“Huh.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were so adamant about settling down right away,” Jess said. “I just never figured you for the love-’em-and-leave-’em type.”

“A lot’s changed since college,” Tyler said.

“I see that.”

“But not with you.”

“I tried marriage once. Not a good match.”

“Was he too logical?”

“The opposite. He was a pretty surfer boy. Mooched off me for two years before I called it quits.”

“And now?”

She shrugged. “I used one of those online matchmaking services, but after the fourth drooling weirdo showed up to meet me at some coffee house, I gave up trying to find a soul mate. Now I just use it for sex.”

Tyler gaped at her, dumbfounded, until she let out a huge belly laugh.

“Kidding! Boy, maybe you really haven’t changed.”

Tyler shook his head and smiled. Then he ordered another drink.

They lost track of time and didn’t stumble out of the restaurant until eleven p.m. Reminiscing about college days had resulted in lots of laughs and an extended period at the bar.

Tyler had realized too late that his five drinks were more pisco than sour. He downed a couple of waters before they left, but the walk back to the hotel only accelerated the absorption of alcohol into his system.

Not that Jess was any better. She’d had the same number of cocktails that he did and weighed about half as much. They leaned on each other as they veered down the hall toward their rooms.

Jess stumbled and Tyler barely caught her, causing them both to stifle guffaws.

“This is what I should’ve done,” she said.

“What? Gotten me drunk? I still wouldn’t have run around naked in the quad.”

“How about now?”

“No way.”

“You’re no fun.”

They reached their doors, which were right across from each other — Fay and Jess’s room on one side and Tyler’s on the other.

Jess patted her pockets, then said, “Dammit.”

“What?”

“I left my key in the room.”

Tyler’s head cleared for a moment. He didn’t think Jess would try such a transparent ploy. “You did not.”

“If you don’t believe me, search my pockets.”

“I believe you.” He raised his fist, but Jess grabbed it before he could knock on the door.

“If Nana’s sleeping, I don’t want to wake her.”

In some distant part of Tyler’s brain, a little voice screamed that what he was about to say was a terrible idea, but his alcohol-lubricated id put the cautionary alarm on mute.

“Sleep on my bed,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “I’ll take the couch.”

Jess went motionless. “I … I can’t.”

He took out his key and raised one hand like he was swearing on oath of office. “I promise I’ll be a gentleman.”

She grinned. “Impulsive.”

“Practical.”

“Right.” Jess took a long look at him, but her eyes eventually flicked back the way they’d come. “I think I’ll go get another key from the front desk.”

Tyler nodded and tried to laugh his way out of the situation. “That would also work.”

Jess gave him a hug. “I had a great time tonight.”

“Me too.”

She let him go and headed to the lobby. Tyler waited until she was out of sight. She never once looked back.

Tyler opened his door and went inside, where he planned to bang his head against the wall until his id was in a coma.

THIRTY

With Easter Island sixteen hours behind Sydney, Grant thought Tyler was probably asleep by now. Too bad he was missing the view.

The steel arch of Sydney Harbour Bridge, its spine dotted with tourists partaking in the BridgeClimb experience, provided the backdrop for the three-way intersection below. The sunny afternoon meant that the street was crowded with strolling pedestrians who’d wandered away from the nearby waterfront attractions in search of food or window shopping along the tree-lined streets. Well-maintained brick buildings, common to The Rocks, as the area was known, provided a quaint respite from the bustling business district only a few blocks away.

Grant didn’t need binoculars to see the planter at the corner of Hickson and George where Kessler was supposed to drop off the xenobium, but he used them anyway. Morgan, lithe in a sports bra and Lycra leggings and pretending to be out for an afternoon jog, stretched her legs on the planter, surreptitiously depositing a fist-sized metal container into the box of geraniums.

When she peeled out of her stretch, she threw a pointed glance at the window before she trotted away. Morgan knew Grant was watching her through the blinds and wanted him to know it.

Eh. He didn’t care that she knew he was staring. Grant had been sitting in the third-floor apartment for six hours now. He didn’t mind Morgan’s fine form spicing up the day, even if she had been nothing but a pain the entire time.

She’d picked a room at the Holiday Inn high enough to give them a good view of the area, but low enough that it wouldn’t take them long to reach ground level if they spotted the target. Their luggage lay on the beds and Chinese takeout containers littered the small kitchen nook.

Two tactical squads of the Australian national police waited in vans around the corner, ready to move in if Grant recognized one of the targets.

But they’d decided they needed bait. The scientists at Pine Gap rigged up a small device that would emit just enough radiation to set off a detector. Now all they had to do was wait until midnight to see if their trap would snare any varmints.

Five minutes later, a key rattled in the door and Morgan walked in.

“Have a good run?” Grant said cheerfully.

“Did you get a good look while I was down there?” she said with a deadpan expression.

“Of you? Bird’s-eye view.”

“You’re not around women much, are you?”

“Are you kidding? I grew up with four older sisters. There were nothing but women in my house. That’s why I appreciate them so much.” He waggled his eyebrows at Morgan, then smiled and turned back to the window.

As she rummaged in her bag for a change of clothes, Morgan said, “If you’re trying to bother me, it won’t work. After spending time in a squadron with fifteen guys, this is a breeze.”

“You were a pilot?”

She sighed, as if she were sorry she’d brought it up. “F-16.”

Fighter jockey. Grant was impressed. “Then what are you doing in the OSI? You get drummed out of the service?”

“I still hold a rank of captain in the reserves, Sergeant.”

“I’m not in the reserves, so you can just call me Grant. Although I like the way you say ‘sergeant’. Very authoritative.”

She ignored him and took her clothes into the bathroom. When she came out, she was dressed in her suit again. Disappointing.

She picked up the second pair of binoculars and peered at the street.

After a few minutes of silence, Grant sat back in his chair, thinking to himself how boring stakeouts were. Well, that was easily rectified.

“So what happened?” he asked Morgan. “Did you sleep with a colonel and his wife found out and they bumped you down to investigator?”

“None of your business.”

“Come on, Morgan. Lighten up. We’re going to be here for a long time. And don’t forget I saved your life yesterday. Might as well tell me your story.”

Another sigh. “If I tell you, will you shut up?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine. It happened when I was stationed in South Carolina at Shaw. I had an old Corvette—”

“Sexy.”

“Do you want to hear the story?”

“Sorry. Continue.”

“It was late one night. I was on my way back from leave at my grandparents’ house in Atlanta when a deer jumped onto the road. I missed it but lost control and spun off the road into a tree. They tell me I hit my head on the steering wheel and blacked out. Because it was down in a ravine, I was unconscious for an hour before someone spotted the skid marks and found me.”

“You look fine to me. And I mean that in the health sense.”

“I was in the hospital for a couple of days with two broken ribs and a concussion.”

“Then what happened?”

“I was cleared to fly the next month, but when I was up in the air and performed some routine maneuvers, I got severely dizzy. I tried to shake it off, but on landing I nearly ran off the runway. When I got out of the plane, I tossed my cookies all over the tarmac.”

“Because of your head trauma?”

Morgan nodded but didn’t look at him. “A rare form of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. In my case it only shows up under high-g maneuvers. The doctors tried everything, but they couldn’t find the source. MRIs. Exploratory surgery. Even did tests inside a centrifuge at Brooks. Nothing worked. After a year of not flying, my career was stalled, so I asked for a discharge. Since I majored in criminology in college, I applied to the OSI. Been there five years. Now you know the story.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your flying status. I just dabble. Got my helo license a few years back. But Tyler’s logged a couple thousand hours in jets. I know he’d be crushed if he could never fly again.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it, so there’s no sense dwelling on it.”

Morgan went to her bag and pulled out two pairs of night-vision goggles. She handed a set to Grant. He recognized them as thermal imagers, but they seemed to have been modified.

“You really think we’ll need those with all the streetlights?”

From her coat she removed a vial of what looked like gray dust. She took off the cap and dipped the tip of her pinkie into it.

She nodded to his goggles. “Take a look.”

Grant donned them and flipped the switch. Most of the room was a cold green, and Morgan glowed yellow. The end of her pinkie, though, was covered with bright red crosshairs.

“What’s going on here? I thought I knew all the latest toys.” He reached out to touch her finger. He just barely brushed against it, and when he withdrew his index finger, it too had red crosshairs on it.

“This technology is still classified top secret, so you can’t discuss it with anyone else.”

He removed the goggles and looked at his finger. The dust was now invisible.

“Is this ID dust?” He’d heard about it, but he thought it was still in the testing phase.

“Yes. Because we suspected a leak, we didn’t tell the team that we coated the inside of the Killswitch containers with tracking dust. Pine Gap internal sensors are configured to identify the RF signature of the dust. We were planning to see if any unauthorized personnel were accessing the containers. Anyone handling the open container would have been tagged with the ID dust.”

“So why didn’t you track it?”

“The range is limited. No more than a few hundred yards. These goggles are tuned to sense it. If someone walking by down there has it on his hands, we’ll see it.”

“What if they wash their hands?”

“The nanoparticles are so small that they embed themselves in skin and clothes. It would be like trying to wash off the markings of a Sharpie. Because it transmits a radio-frequency ID, the signal is even visible through walls and thin metal casings.”

Grant wiped his finger on his clothes, but all it did was transfer a few of the particles. “Is it safe?”

“It’s not FDA approved, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried.” But he couldn’t shake the sensation that the motes were pricking his finger.

“Just keep an eye on the street. Our target may not have handled the Killswitch crate, so we need you to identify anyone who might be one of Colchev’s operatives.”

“Got it.”

He took off the goggles and scanned the street with the binoculars.

After five minutes, he said, “You ever shoot anybody down?”

“I thought you were going to shut up.”

“I did. You are going to find out that five minutes of shut-up is a long time for me.”

Morgan ignored him, but he smiled when he heard the faintest sigh.

THIRTY-ONE

With a warm mug in her hand and the thick bathrobe wrapped around her, Jess sat on the balcony and watched the reflection of the dawning sun glitter on the Pacific. She sipped the coffee, and the caffeine jolt soothed her throbbing head.

The sliding glass door opened and Fay stepped to the railing, stretching her arms.

“What a beautiful sight. You were tossing and turning all night. Did you get any sleep?”

Jess stifled a yawn. “Some. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, nothing a few antacids couldn’t fix.” Fay sat in the other lounge chair. She stared at the sea for a minute before continuing tentatively. “Tyler’s the one that got away, isn’t he?”

Jess nodded. “I nearly didn’t come back to the room last night.”

“He’s interested in you. The eyes don’t lie.”

“A lack of passion was never our problem.”

“Then what was?” Fay swiveled in her chair. “Did he cheat on you in college?”

“Tyler? God, no. He’d be the last guy to do that.”

“Then what?”

“I was young. New to college. He wanted a commitment. I wanted to have fun. Maybe it was just bad timing.” Jess shook her head. “Tyler’s a good man. He deserves the truth about my situation, about Andy.”

“You’ll know when the time is right to tell him, dear. Just follow your heart.”

“My heart is saying I made a big mistake all those years ago. I know they say you shouldn’t go through life with regrets, but sometimes it’s hard not to.”

“The people who say that are sociopaths,” Fay said.

That surprised Jess. “You have regrets?”

“Too many to count.”

“Like what?”

“Smoking, for one. But we didn’t know any better.” Fay held out her hand, and Jess took it in her own. “Regrets will always be a part of you, Jessica. The mistake you shouldn’t make is letting those regrets keep you from enjoying the rest of your life.”

“I won’t.”

Fay smiled. “Me neither.”

Jess stood. “We’ve got a lot to do today. I’m going to take a shower.”

Thirty minutes later came a knock on the door. Jess watched as Fay answered and let Tyler in. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t bothered to shave, but his windbreaker, T-shirt, and jeans didn’t look too rumpled.

He nodded at Jess, but spoke to both of them. “The NSA guys found a Suzuki four-by-four that’ll fit all of us. They’ll be here in few minutes. We’ll stop for supplies at the hardware store. I’d wear a jacket. It’ll be cool out there.”

Fay excused herself to change in the suite’s bedroom. The silence grew thick.

“Tyler, I’m sorry about last night.”

“No need to be. I must have gotten the signals wrong.”

“No. You didn’t. You know you didn’t.”

“I know,” he said. “I was just trying to make this a little less awkward.”

“I shouldn’t have broken up with you.”

“Well, now you’re making it more awkward. Besides, I broke up with you. Not to get into a pissing match about it.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t have broken up with me if I could have committed to you back then. I was stupid.”

“So we both agree on that,” Tyler said with a twinkle in his eye.

Jess couldn’t help but smile. “You are not making this any easier. I wanted to tell you—”

Tyler’s phone rang and he put up a finger. He looked at the display, then answered. “Hello … all right, we’ll be down in a minute,” he said and hung up.

As he pocketed the phone, Fay came back in. “Are they here?”

Jess sighed, realizing that she’d missed her opportunity. Turning to Fay, she asked, “Are you ready to do this?”

Fay beamed. “I’ve been ready since I was ten years old.”

The store had the caving equipment they needed: four flashlights, a couple of shovels, and a hundred meters of nylon rope. Jess was an experienced spelunker, so the idea of delving into a dark, creepy hole didn’t bother her in the slightest.

Tyler drove the Suzuki. Fay was in the passenger seat, and in the back Jess squeezed between two wiry security men, a blond kid in his twenties named Harris and a curly-haired guy called Polk who smelled like a locker room. Both were armed with silenced submachine guns. She thought the extra men were an unnecessary precaution, but Tyler had insisted.

It took only fifteen minutes to reach their destination four miles to the north. Once they left the paved road, the Suzuki bounced over the rough grassland toward the sea while Jess navigated. With the dry creek bed to their right, Tyler inched along to make sure they didn’t bog down in any unseen gullies.

Fifty yards from the cliff leading down to the Pacific, Tyler came to a stop, and they all climbed out. Far from any of the tourist spots, the area was deserted. Jess checked her cell phone and saw that it wasn’t getting a signal.

“Now what?” Tyler said.

“The map seems to indicate that whatever we’re looking for should be on the very edge of the island,” Fay said. “There’s probably a marker of some kind, possibly carved into a stone.”

“Let’s fan out. If you see anything unusual, give a shout.”

“Unusual like what?” Polk said.

“The Rapa Nui people were known for cave paintings and rock art,” Fay said. “Something like that might be what we’re looking for.”

Tyler devised a grid pattern for the search. They would space apart at five-yard intervals and walk parallel paths to make sure they didn’t miss anything, starting a hundred yards south of where the creek mouth met the cliff.

Jess chose the spot closest to the cliff face with Fay next to her. They methodically walked the route. Every few minutes someone would stop to check out something more closely, but it always turned out to be nothing.

The group slowed as they reached the dry creek bed’s mouth since that seemed to be the location of the dot on the map. They spent a half-hour meticulously combing the grass before Jess’s foot scraped across an abrasive flat surface. If she hadn’t been walking so deliberately, she would never have noticed the red stone almost completely buried in the soil. The eighteen-inch-wide slab looked nothing like the brown dirt surrounding it. She recognized it as scoria, the pumice-like rock that was used as a material for the gigantic hats adorning some of the Moai.

Jess called out, and everyone came running over to her find. Centuries of growth and accumulated earth had nearly covered the stone.

Tyler took one look at it and said, “That had to be placed there on purpose.”

Jess knelt and pulled the grass away. “Help me dig it out.”

Tyler went to the car to retrieve the shovels. After ten minutes of digging, they were able to see the carvings that adorned the sides of the circular slab.

A spider, a bird, a monkey, and a human figure. They were identical to the drawings on the engraving.

“Oh, my God,” Fay said, her hands trembling. “This is it!”

“Is that what the map was leading us to?” Jess said. “It doesn’t have any other drawings on it.”

“It must be a marker for something nearby.”

They fanned out to look again. Jess remembered her conversation with Tyler about the sea-side caves and walked to the part of the cliff closest to them, which was obscured by some low shrubbery. She pushed it aside and peered over the edge, where she saw a path carved into the cliff-side that was wide enough to accommodate an elephant. Without the marker, finding the path would have been pure chance in spite of its width.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Take a look at this.”

Everyone joined her at the edge.

Jess turned to Tyler. “Shall we see where this goes?”

“All right,” Tyler said. “Let’s get the rope and flashlights.” The three men returned to the vehicle.

“Nana, you should stay here.”

Fay looked at her as if she were insane. “That would be a big no.”

“We don’t know how safe that path is.”

“If you think I’m staying behind while you get to make the discovery of a lifetime, you don’t know your grandmother very well.”

“Then just let us scout it out first.”

“Absolutely not.” When Jess began to object again, Fay said, “Unless you plan to tie me up and lock me in the car, I’m going.”

Jess shook her head in defeat. “Okay. But I want you right behind me.”

“That’s my girl.”

Tyler and Polk returned with the equipment.

“I asked Harris to stay with the car in case anyone comes nosing around,” Tyler said, and led the way down the path, followed by Jess and Fay, with Polk bringing up the rear.

Once they were on the path, Jess could see that crude handholds had been notched in the cliff, making the descent relatively easy.

After two switchbacks, Tyler disappeared around an outcropping. When Jess came around it, she saw Tyler standing on a ledge large enough to fit three SUVs.

“Looks like this is the end of the line,” he said. “Other than the path back up, there’s no way off.”

While Jess guided Fay onto the ledge, Tyler inspected the cliff face, but there didn’t appear to be any passages leading into a cave.

He knelt in front of a large boulder that was lodged against the cliff face, running his fingers along its base.

“Jess, look at this.”

She bent over and focused a flashlight where he was pointing. The bottom of the boulder was scored with small divots chipped out of the stone.

Tyler looked at her. “Didn’t you say last night that one theory for how the natives moved the Moai was that they rocked the stones back and forth using ropes?”

“Right, but they stopped because they were chipping—” It suddenly dawned on Jess what Tyler was getting at.

“If they wanted to hide this cave entrance from someone paddling along the coast,” Tyler said, “they would block it with one of their stones. I think we’re going to need more muscle here. We’ll have to chance leaving the car alone for a little while.”

Polk called on his walkie-talkie for Harris to join them.

“You really think this is the way in?” Fay said.

“Only one way to find out.” Tyler began rigging two ropes around the top of the boulder, one to be pulled in each direction.

“How much do you think this weighs?” Jess said.

“Oh, probably a few tons. But if they were as good at this as you said they were, I’m guessing they made the boulder maneuverable.”

When Harris arrived, Tyler gave him and Polk one rope while he and Jess took the other. Then he explained the procedure that he thought would work best. By alternating pulls, they started a rocking motion in the stone, and while it was tipped in one direction, the two people on the other side would move out and tug it in the opposite direction.

Tyler was right. The stone was perfectly weighted. Even with only him and Jess pulling, they were able to budge the rock so that it tilted a fraction in their direction. As they let it return to center, Harris and Polk pulled, causing it to tilt farther in the other direction.

After eight more pulls, they had enough momentum to start walking it out. It only moved an inch at a time, but that was all they needed. In ten minutes Jess could see a space big enough for a person to slip through and darkness beyond.

“All right,” Tyler yelled. “I think we got it.”

They let the boulder wobble to a standstill and caught their breath. Tyler sent Harris back to the car. Jess agreed that the last thing they needed was a passing tourist following their path down to the ledge.

Tyler pointed his light at the side of the boulder that had been hidden until now. “I’d say we’ve found who’s been keeping an eye on the place.”

They crowded around and saw what he meant. The side that had been against the cavern opening had the prominent brow and wide nose of the Moai they’d passed on the way here.

“Imagine,” Fay said with reverence. “No one has seen this in over thirteen hundred years.”

“I can’t believe you were able to do this,” Jess said. “We never would have figured out how to get in there.”

Tyler shrugged at her. “I guess MIT wasn’t a total loss. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Before Jess could respond, he was swallowed by the cave.

THIRTY-TWO

With midnight come and gone, Morgan still kept an eye on the intersection below, though she didn’t think there was much point. She had reviewed the dossier the CIA had on Vladimir Colchev. Given his history and how well he’d planned the attack on Pine Gap, she thought it was very possible he had another mole in the Killswitch project besides Kessler. If that were the case, he would know the theft attempt had failed, and Colchev and his men would be long gone from Sydney.

“They’re not coming,” Grant said.

“They could be giving Kessler some extra time to make it.”

“Not likely. I think it’s safe for me to take a leak.” He headed to the bathroom.

As the fan came on, Morgan’s cell rang. She frowned when she saw it was Vince.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she said.

“The doohickey they have me hooked up to is beeping every five seconds, so I can’t sleep. The morphine’s great, though.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“She said I won’t be playing rugby any time soon.”

“How long until you’re back?”

“They’ll let me check out in a few days and fly back to the US. I’ll be a desk jockey for the six weeks I’m on crutches. Have you made contact yet?”

“The targets haven’t shown up. We’ll give it another hour, but they probably won’t take the bait.”

“Sorry I can’t be there.”

“Yeah, thanks for sticking me with Westfield for the duration.”

“Is he there?”

“In the john.”

“I thought you two got along really well.”

Morgan snorted in response. “It’s been a joy.”

“No sparkling conversation?”

“It’s actually not that bad. I’m getting used to him.”

“Wait a minute. Are you sweet on him?”

Morgan felt herself blush. “Don’t be ridiculous. Army grunts aren’t my type.”

“He didn’t seem dimwitted to me, especially for a former pro wrestler.”

The toilet flushed and Grant came out of the bathroom. Morgan looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, he’s not stupid,” she said. “Just annoying.”

Grant nodded happily and took his seat.

“Whoa,” Vince said with a moan.

“You okay?”

“Now all of a sudden I’m tired. Keep me posted. And stay safe.”

“Will do. I’ll see you back in the States.”

She hung up.

“Who was that? Your boyfriend?”

“My partner.”

“How is he?”

“Fine.”

“That the official prognosis?”

Morgan smirked. Annoying.

“So what’s the plan now?” he said.

“We wait here another hour.”

“Then when they still don’t show up?”

“Then we find out what the link to the Baja drug cartel is.”

“It sounds like Andrew Hull won’t be any help.”

Morgan couldn’t argue with that. The arms dealer had been shot by a sniper in front of his office building this morning. It wasn’t until the afternoon when the police were searching his files and found the reference to a truckload of “gravel” going to Alice Springs that they made the connection to the Pine Gap explosion. Colchev must have offed Hull to cover his tracks.

The problem for her was that it worked. Unless their liaison at the Drug Enforcement Agency could find a lead, they were at a dead end.

“You really think Colchev wants to smuggle a Killswitch back into the US?” Grant said.

“That’s the only reason I can come up with for why he would want to seek out a drug gang. They’re the best smugglers out there. It’d be much easier to fly it into Mexico and drive it across the border than land in the US and try to get it through customs.”

“Seems like a lot of effort when the weapon was already in America a couple of days ago.”

“Until it got to Australia, the Killswitch was on an Air Force base the entire time. Trying to steal it there would have been suicidal. And they needed the xenobium from Pine Gap to make it operational.”

“Well, we know they ain’t suicidal,” Grant said. “That’s why they needed the robotic truck. None of his men were fanatical enough to blow themselves up.”

Either that or they were saving themselves for a suicide attack on American soil. But where?

“You’re an expert on explosives and electronics,” Morgan said. “What would be the likeliest target?”

Grant considered that for a moment. She was impressed that he didn’t just blurt out an answer.

“I’ve been wondering about that. Nadia Bedova mentioned Wisconsin Avenue. How many are there in the US?”

Morgan brought up the data on her cell phone. “Ten. Six in Wisconsin, two in Illinois, one in Iowa, and one in DC.”

“I don’t think this guy wants to take out corn farmers, so I’m betting DC is the target.”

“It could also be Chicago. One of the Illinois locations is in a suburb.”

“We know that if Colchev gets a large enough sample of xenobium, it could take out the entire city’s grid. I’d still say Washington, unless Air Force One is visiting Chicago any time soon.”

Morgan nodded. “We’ll check on that. But if a terror attack is his plan, then taking out either Washington or Chicago would meet that goal.”

Grant rubbed his head. “That’s the part about Wisconsin Avenue that I don’t get.”

“Why?”

“Well, we know the Killswitch’s effective range goes up the higher it is when it detonates. So why set it off at ground level? I spoke to Collins before we left Pine Gap just to get a sense for what this thing could do. If Colchev had the same amount of xenobium that was at Pine Gap, he could have flown the Killswitch to 35,000 feet and taken out a huge swath of territory.”

“How huge?”

“In the right location it could take out everything from Washington to New York.”

Morgan went silent for a moment as she realized the enormity of the situation.

Grant put on his night-vision goggles and swept the street.

“Colchev could be selling it on the black market to a terrorist network. Maybe the buy is going to happen somewhere on Wisconsin Avenue in DC.”

She shook her head. “If he were in this for the money, he could have found a hundred easier ways to make it.”

“And why specifically on July twenty-fifth? Why is the date so important to Colchev? Is that when he’s planning to set off a Killswitch or is that when he’s going to acquire another component he needs for his scheme?”

“I don’t know. There’s something we’re missing.”

“Then we need to find out what it is. Let’s hope I’m wrong about his men not showing up.” After two more sweeps, Grant said, “I wonder if we have any kung pao chicken left.”

Without taking the goggles off, he stood and turned, then abruptly halted. He cocked his head up, slowly moving it down as if he were watching something drip from the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” Morgan asked.

“You need to put your goggles on.”

For a second she thought he was joking, but she realized his voice was deadly serious for the first time today.

She whipped the goggles off her lap and fitted them over her eyes. When she saw why Grant had told her to put them on, she whispered, “Damn it.”

She could see red ID dust crosshairs descending, superimposed over the bedroom wall like ghostly apparitions.

Right where the hotel’s elevator shaft was located.

She could have kicked herself for making such a boneheaded oversight.

Morgan’s targets had been watching for Kessler from the hotel the entire time, several stories directly above her. And because the scientist hadn’t shown up, her only links to the Killswitch were about to get away.

THIRTY-THREE

The light piercing the narrow crack they’d opened in front of the cave entrance did little to penetrate the gloom. Except for the thin beam of his flashlight reflecting off the basalt walls of the lava tube, Tyler could see nothing.

Although the Moai protecting the cave had done an admirable job of concealing the entrance, apparently the seal had not been tight enough to prevent moisture from entering. The cave surface felt damp to Tyler’s touch, and the air reeked of fungal decay. If mold had grown unchecked in here, whatever they were meant to find might have been destroyed centuries ago.

Jess guided Fay into the tight confines of the cave. Tyler instructed Polk to guard the entrance outside, but it was as much to keep him from seeing the results of their search as it was for protection. Not that he didn’t trust the guy. After all, Polk was the one with the gun. But Tyler saw the wisdom in following Morgan’s need-to-know rationale.

“Be careful,” Tyler said, his voice reverberating into the distance. “The floor’s slippery.”

“You watch your head,” Jess said. “Without hard hats, you could get a nasty bump.”

“It sounds like you have some caving experience.”

“Nana introduced me to it in New Zealand.”

Fay took a deep breath. “Do you smell that? It’s the aroma of history.”

She removed a state-of-the-art video camera from her knapsack and turned on its powerful floodlight. It provided as much illumination as the two flashlights put together.

When she saw Tyler’s appreciative look, she said, “I use this to record all my trips.”

“Paratus et validus,” Tyler said.

“What does that mean?”

“Ready and able. It was my Army unit’s motto.” He showed Fay the Gordian camera he’d had delivered to the C-17 during the Sydney stopover. The equipment was only slightly more advanced than hers. “You would have fit in well. Especially with the way you handled that shotgun.”

Fay grinned. “Flatterer. Come on. I want to see what’s in here.”

She led the way into the darkness. No fear at all. Tyler was even more impressed.

Ten yards in, the path turned, and the echo effect increased. Tyler was shocked that he could now see light coming from the far end of the tunnel.

He exchanged glances with Jess. She was as surprised as he was. They continued on until they emerged into a massive chamber, its thirty-foot-high ceiling domed like a planetarium. Sunlight streamed through a one-foot-diameter hole in the ceiling, providing a weak supplement to the illumination cast by their flashlights. The tall grass must have hidden the hole from view when they were topside.

They all stopped, slack-jawed, as they laid eyes on what the Rapa Nui people had been hiding for more than a thousand years.

The ceiling was covered with images that were exact copies of the Nazca lines. Tyler took out his smart phone and brought up the map of the lines that he’d stored on it. Not only were the symbols identical to the geoglyphs on the Peruvian plain, but they were arranged in exactly the same locations and orientations. Each of the symbols was stippled with dots that didn’t appear on the Nazca plain. Straight lines connecting the symbols matched straight lines in Peru, but there were far fewer of them on the ceiling.

“My God,” Fay whispered as she focused the camera on the drawings.

“This is spectacular,” Jess said.

Tyler made his own recording as he gawked.

Jess took his phone and looked back and forth between it and the ceiling. “Some of them are missing.”

“What?”

“The ceiling isn’t a complete representation of the drawings in Peru. See? The whale is missing. And these two that look like flower pots aren’t here either.”

Fay and Tyler crowded around the phone and saw that she was right.

“What do you make of that, Fay?” Tyler said. After all, she was the expert here.

“Based on how the drawings were made and arranged, archaeologists theorize that some of them came much later. Perhaps hundreds of years.”

“Which ones are here?”

Jess counted them off. “The monkey, condor, dog, hummingbird, pelican, spider, lizard, parrot, tree, flower, iguana, and human.”

Tyler watched her as she tapped her fingers for each one. Twelve in all. Then he realized the significance of the dots.

“Twelve drawings,” he said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

Jess immediately got it. “One drawing for each lunar cycle in a year.”

Fay gaped at the ceiling. “Then the dots are—”

Jess nodded. “Stars. These are constellations. How come no one has ever figured that out before?”

“With all of the extraneous drawings added to the Nazca plain over the years since the original twelve were drawn, it was impossible to know that they represented constellations.”

“If those dots correspond to visible stars,” Jess said, “we should be able to figure out which parts of the sky they appear in.”

“What’s that?” Tyler asked, pointing at an image located away from the others and connected to the monkey drawing by a single line. Instead of a crude animal symbol, this image was a complex geometric pattern. A circle encompassed two perpendicular overlapping rectangles with a bright white starburst in the center. Girding the circle were two squares offset like the triangles in a Star of David.

Fay got closer. “That’s the Mandala. The drawing is on a high plateau north of the Nazca plain. No one knows what it means.”

Tyler made sure to get a good shot of each symbol, then photographed the path of each line connecting them. When he was done, he looked around to see if there were any other exits from the chamber.

That’s when he noticed the other drawings. He’d been so focused on craning his neck at the ceiling that he hadn’t seen the wealth of stone carvings decorating the walls.

“Guys,” he said, “take a look at these.”

The intricate artwork encircled the entire chamber. Primitive paint filled the grooves so that the lines glowed white under the beams of their flashlights. Rather than drawings of animals, each etching seemed to illustrate a scene. Tyler started taking pictures beginning with the first one to his left.

The first image showed a streak coming down from the sky, trailing fire in its wake. In the next drawing was a starburst matching the one inside the Mandala figure. Above the starburst rose the unmistakable profile of a mushroom cloud.

Whoever drew this had either witnessed a gigantic explosion or had been told what one looked like. The same as at Tunguska. And as with the event in Western Australia, there would have been no downed trees to record the blast in the arid Peruvian plateau.

“This tells a story,” Jess said.

Fay nodded. “The migrants from Nazca must have recorded their history in this cave so it wouldn’t be forgotten.”

“It’s funny that no one has ever found a drawing like this before,” Tyler said.

“Not at all,” Fay said. “Remember that for five thousand years no one could translate hieroglyphics. Then the Rosetta stone was discovered and revolutionized our understanding of the Egyptian language. A single artifact changed everything. This cave could be a pre-Columbian Rosetta stone for the Nazca culture.”

“Why haven’t they found drawings like this in Peru?”

“They might yet. An ancient city called Cahuachi lay hidden south of the Nazca plain until it was discovered in the 1950s. Only when further excavations started in the 1980s did archaeologists realize it was a ceremonial pilgrimage site for the Nazca people.”

“Would it be possible for something like this to be hidden there?”

“Of course. The site is huge. One and a half square kilometers. The largest pyramid is thirty meters high, a stepped structure built of adobe bricks. Somewhere in the complex, there might be an exact duplicate of this story, originally protected by the religious order that lived there and now buried in the city.”

They continued on with the story, with Fay interpreting the scenes.

“Here we see someone discovering a circular object in the aftermath of the explosion. They carry it back to their people as a treasure. Oh, my goodness. Are those dead bodies?”

The next drawing showed a landscape scattered with what appeared to be corpses. The circle seemed to be sending out beams to each of them, striking them down.

“Whatever they found must have been deadly,” Tyler said. If the culprit was a large chunk of xenobium, the intense gamma rays emitted from it would cause anyone in close contact to become sick within days from radiation poisoning.

Fay lowered her camera and squinted at the next drawing for several minutes. Kneeling human figures sat before what appeared to be an altar with the circular object resting upon it. “Here it looks as if they’re offering the object as some kind of sacrifice. Perhaps they hoped the gods would come to retrieve it and relieve them of their burden.”

“They could have just thrown it away,” Jess said.

“They wouldn’t if they considered it the property of the gods. They would want to safeguard it in case the gods ever returned to claim it. I think that’s what the next etching describes.”

The next image showed the object being encased inside a pyramid. A line led straight from the top of the pyramid up to the ceiling where it intersected with the human figure.

Fay looked up at the ceiling. “They’re recording the event that led to the drawing of the Nazca lines.”

Jess followed her gaze. “My God, it’s a code.”

“A code?” Tyler said.

“They wanted the gods to come and get their treasure back, but since the Nazca took it from its original location — the Mandala — they thought they needed to provide instructions to the gods about where it was hidden.”

“And what better code for the gods to follow than the constellations,” Fay said.

Now Tyler understood why the Nazca lines had to be so large. They were a message to the heavens, and the Nazca people made sure no person on Earth at the time would have been able to decipher the code.

THIRTY-FOUR

They should have had Colchev’s men cornered, but an errant tire squeal blew an easy outcome.

As soon as Grant had shown Morgan the red crosshairs descending toward the first floor, he bolted out of the room with her close on her heels, shouting instructions to the Australian police into her phone.

They charged down the stairs expecting to intercept their targets in the lobby, but as they eased open the door to the lobby, a tire screeched outside just as the elevator opened. The pair of tactical team vans skidded to a halt in front of the main entrance and black-clad policemen poured out.

Then all hell broke loose.

Grant saw two men who he recognized from the Alice Springs warehouse dressed in light jackets and khakis. Both of them pulled semiautomatics and sprayed the lobby with rounds. Grant, armed with a SIG Sauer.40 caliber pistol on loan from the NSA, took aim at the men, but the screaming guests and hotel staff running for cover blocked his sightline. The tactical teams must have realized they could easily hit innocent bystanders and didn’t return fire either.

The gunmen ran; Grant and Morgan gave chase. She yelled for someone to intercept them at the rear entrance of the hotel, but it was far too late. Colchev’s men were already out the back exit.

Grant approached the glass door cautiously, sidling up next to it with his back to the concrete wall. He poked his head out to see through the door and was met with a hail of gunfire that shattered the glass.

He dropped to his knee and took five quick shots through the broken glass. The men ducked around the corner of a building, and Grant’s rounds pinged off the brick.

“Watch where you’re shooting!” Morgan shouted. “We need them alive.”

“They started it!” Grant had been a soldier. Trained to kill, not to maim, not to read someone their rights.

He and Morgan burst through the gaping doorway and sprinted after the gunmen, who were fifty yards ahead. Morgan called into her phone. “They’re heading down a diagonal street. Somebody cut them off before they head under the bridge.”

The steel span of the Harbour Bridge began just a hundred yards ahead. If the gunmen got out of sight, they could easily disappear in the wharfs on the other side. They must have had a car parked around somewhere, but the hotel’s offsite lot was in the opposite direction.

A police car came to a stop and blocked off the road ahead. The tac teams were busy setting up a perimeter in a ten-block radius around the hotel. Grant thought the Russians were cut off until he saw them shoot at a locked door and duck through.

“Where’d they go?” Morgan said.

“I don’t know.” It looked like it was in the foundation of the bridge. But as they got closer, Grant saw the sign next to the door.

BridgeClimb. The tourist entrance for the guided walk up the spine of the bridge.

The gunmen would be taking the bridge over the roadblocks set up on the streets underneath it. If they got onto the bridge’s vehicle deck, they could carjack someone and get away into the northern suburbs.

Grant and Morgan reached the door and stopped.

“You want to wait for the tac team?” Grant said.

“No,” Morgan said. “I’m not letting these bastards get away. You stay here.”

Grant shook his head. No way she was going by herself. “If you go, I go.”

She didn’t hesitate. “All right. You pull the door open. One. Two. Three.”

Grant yanked it wide, and Morgan went in crouched, ready to take the shot if she had to.

“They’re on the catwalk.” She darted through the door and up the iron stairs. Although he was fast for his size, Grant had to dig deep to keep up with her.

Once they were up to the catwalk level that ran the length of the span underneath the bridge, Grant could make out the shadows of two men pounding across the steel grating. They were too distant to take clear shots, but that didn’t stop them from blasting away. Rounds pinged off the girders.

Not very effective, Grant thought, but they might get lucky just by sheer quantity.

Morgan never hesitated. She charged headlong down the walkway, not even flinching when bullets whizzed past.

Grant made sure to keep his balance as he ran. The street was now a hundred and fifty feet below. If the bullets weren’t fatal, the fall would be.

They reached a massive stone masonry pylon that served as the southern anchor for the bridge. The catwalk passed through an opening bored through the center of the pylon. Out the other side of the tunnel, Grant saw the two gunmen approach an intersecting catwalk and split up. One went straight ahead toward the northern terminus of the bridge while the other took a perpendicular path toward the opposite side of the bridge.

When Grant and Morgan reached the same point, she nodded at the man heading for the northern terminus. “You take that guy. Make sure he doesn’t get to the other end of the bridge before the police set up their roadblocks.”

“But don’t kill him.”

“Right.” She didn’t even sound out of breath.

“Easy enough,” Grant said, wondering how he’d do such a thing.

Without another word, she took off.

Though Morgan didn’t like leaving Grant on his own, she felt she’d had no choice other than to let him chase the second gunman. Given how well he’d handled himself so far, she thought it was an acceptable risk.

If she didn’t catch up with her target soon, he might be able to escape in the maze of steelwork that made up the bulk of the bridge. Built as an arched span of girders between the masonry pylons, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was the main connection linking north Sydney and the business district. Eight lanes of street traffic and two rail lines made it one of the busiest stretches of road in the city. If he got to the vehicle deck, the gunman would have multiple options for his getaway.

Morgan’s target headed for the set of stairs used by the BridgeClimb tourists as they descended from the main arch. Because the last tour group had come down hours ago, at least she didn’t have to contend with bystanders getting in her way.

The Russian climbed the stairs leading up to the vehicle deck two at a time. The steps were so steep that it was nearly a ladder, with switchback platforms every five yards.

Morgan reached the stairs, holstered her pistol, and began climbing after him. She could see that her quarry had made the mistake of trying to climb without holstering his weapon, so he was hampered enough for her to be able to make up the distance.

She was just one platform below him when he turned to fire. He got off two shots that caromed off metal before the slide locked back, indicating he was out of ammo.

She had him.

He hurled the pistol at her, catching her in the shoulder, but she ignored the blast of pain.

As he reached the vehicle deck, which still bustled with cars and trucks, she lunged for his feet. He kicked, barely missing her hand, and kept going.

On the next platform, she could take the shot that would disable him. Then it would be an easy task to haul him in.

At the vehicle deck, the stairs were wrapped with a ten-foot-high steel mesh cage to keep the BridgeClimb hikers from exiting onto the sidewalk. Instead of continuing up, the Russian grabbed the top of the cage, intending to vault over it and onto the sidewalk. If he did that, he might get into a car before Morgan could stop him.

She leaped up, but she didn’t try to latch onto him. She pushed the exposed soles of his feet, toppling him over the side of the cage before he was ready.

He somersaulted over the edge, tumbling off the sidewalk and onto train tracks.

Morgan climbed up, drew her pistol, and aimed down at him, covering any possible escape.

With her free hand, she dialed her police contact to tell him that she had the subject ready for apprehension near the south pylon.

The Russian, seeing that he was caught, stood and put his hands over his head.

Her contact answered, but before she could make her report, the squeal of metal brakes interrupted her.

The Russian must have realized what was coming a split second before it happened. His mouth made a silent O just as a train roared through the pylon and smashed into him.

Grant wondered where in the hell this idiot thought he could go.

They were running up the arched spine of the bridge, and Grant wasn’t afraid to admit he was starting to get winded. The guy he was chasing was wiry, with more of a runner’s body, so Grant could do no better than keep pace behind him.

For some reason, the man had forsaken the chance to go over the metal cage they’d passed and onto the bridge deck. He just kept climbing until he was padding up the inclined walkway, only a thin steel railing on either side between him and a long and lethal drop to the road deck below.

Up ahead Grant saw what the guy was heading for. The bridge had four maintenance cranes that jutted from small sheds. The sheds housed the equipment to lower the maintenance platform that dangled over the side like a window washer’s scaffold. The shed also encased the motor used to move the crane up and down the arch’s span. Each housing was pierced by a small tunnel over the walkway to let the tourist climbers pass through.

If the Russian could get to the closest of the cranes, he’d use the platform to lower himself to a walkway below and climb down one of the ladders to the vehicle deck. Given that there was only one scaffold, Grant would have no way to follow.

He wasn’t going to let that happen no matter what Morgan said.

He’d have one chance, when the man was getting onto the scaffold suspended from the crane’s wires. After that the man could train his full attention on shooting Grant, who would have to lean awkwardly over the side to have any kind of shot.

When the man got to the crane, he turned and fired some covering shots, and Grant went prone. The man was at the very limit of Grant’s range, and the odd geometry of the arch made the shot even tougher.

But this was Grant’s best opportunity. The gunman began climbing onto the hanging platform.

Grant fired. It hit. Right leg.

Bull’s-eye. Morgan would be proud.

The man reflexively grabbed his thigh, releasing his grip on the platform. His left foot, which was already planted on the platform, sent it swinging away from the bridge. He tried to regain his balance, but his feet were too far apart to recover. He scrabbled to grab hold of anything he could and came away clutching nothing but air.

With a terrified scream, the man plunged through the space between the bridge and platform. The sound didn’t stop until he smacked into the road below.

Grant got to his feet and leaned over the railing. Blood pooled around the head of the corpse. No way this one was going to talk.

Grant frowned at the mess. “Huh,” he said. “I really thought that would work.”

THIRTY-FIVE

It was when Tyler got to the astronaut drawing that Jess knew something was wrong.

As Fay explained to them, the astronaut figure depicted on the Nazca plain was one of the primary reasons that ancient alien theorists thought that spacemen had helped the Nazca people draw the lines. It was a simple humanoid with one armed raised and the other at its side. Although it had two legs, the head was round with the eyes being its only distinguishing features. Because the nose and mouth were missing, some thought it looked more like an alien creature than a human.

It seemed a stretch to Jess. To her it resembled a slightly more complicated stick figure. So what if the designers forgot to put the mouth on.

The astronaut drawing on the ceiling wasn’t the issue. There was a second one at the end of the story drawn on the walls. It was identical to the ceiling figure, except this one was drawn with a large round object in its raised right hand.

Tyler had taken out a small electronic device and was circling the room, waving it over the walls until he reached the astronaut drawing. He stopped, and a strange look crossed his face. He took the Leatherman from his belt and unfolded the knife. Fay yelped when she saw him dig into the lower hand of the astronaut with the blade.

“You’ll damage it!” Fay yelled.

“Sorry, Fay,” Tyler said, and pried at the etching until a stone divot fell from the wall.

When Jess’s flashlight passed across the resulting hole, a multi-hued glint reflected the light. It was about a tenth the diameter of the object in the raised hand, but this wasn’t drawn on. It was embedded in the wall.

Tyler checked his device’s display, and even in the dim light she could see his expression of alarm. He shouted toward the entrance.

“Polk, I’m going to need the case from the truck!” When he got an affirmative, he turned to Fay and Jess. “Let’s step to the other side of the chamber.

“Why?” Jess said. “What is that device?”

“It’s a radiation meter.”

Instead of retreating, Fay moved closer to the dime-sized object. “That’s radioactive?”

“Please, Fay, step back.”

“How dangerous is it?”

“We’ll be okay provided we don’t stay here too long.”

They moved to the opposite side.

“All right,” Jess said, “I think we deserve to know what’s going on.”

Tyler paused for a moment, then sighed. “Fay, can you turn off your video camera, please?”

Fay looked puzzled, but complied.

“I’m not supposed to tell you because it’s classified,” Tyler said, “but you’re right. You need to know the risks. What I’m about to say could send me to prison. You cannot under any circumstances talk about this with anyone else. Do you understand?”

She and Fay both nodded in bewilderment.

“The material embedded in the wall is called xenobium, a form of the element hafnium. We think the Nazca people found it after an explosion in their region. One of its properties is that it emits gamma radiation. I was hoping we wouldn’t find any, which was why I didn’t say anything until now.”

“That’s the reason Morgan Bell sent the Air Force jet to bring us here?” Jess asked. “This is related to the truck bomb in Australia, isn’t it?”

“In a way. They stole a weapon called the Killswitch. This material is the trigger that powers it. If the people who have the Killswitch got their hands on this, it could result in a devastating terrorist attack.”

They stayed to one side of the chamber until Polk called from the entrance that he had the case. Tyler ran out and came back carrying what looked like an aluminum suitcase, but by the way he was holding it, it seemed to be much heavier than Jess would have thought.

“Lead-lined case. Agent Bell gave it to us in the event that we found any xenobium.”

Tyler pried at the hole until the xenobium popped out and rolled across the floor.

“Put a light on it, but don’t touch it.”

Tyler used the pliers on his Leatherman to pluck the xenobium off the floor. Jess had a hard time believing that something the size of a pea could be lethal.

He put it inside the foam interior of the case and closed the lid. After another wave of the radiation meter, he declared that the gamma emissions were back down to a normal level.

Jess returned to look at the story on the wall and saw that it made perfect sense now.

“So the Nazca people found the xenobium,” she said, “but they didn’t realize it was deadly until those with extended exposure started to get sick and die. Why bring it here?”

“We may never know,” Fay said. “Perhaps they brought a small piece with them as an offering of thanks to the gods wherever they landed.”

Tyler pointed to the astronaut figure. “Look at his hands. This bit of xenobium was in his left hand. The right hand is raised holding with an object that is much bigger.”

“The drawing would imply that they left a larger piece behind somewhere in Nazca,” Jess said.

“Then we need to find it before anyone else does,” Tyler said, aiming his flashlight at the ceiling. “But where is it?”

Fay pointed at the Mandala geometric figure on the ceiling. “See the starburst in the center? It looks like the explosion is taking place there. It could be that the Nazca people saw the fireball come down from space, and when they went to investigate, they found the xenobium.”

Tyler walked over to the pyramid in the pictogram story. “Notice how the Mandala looks like the overhead view of a pyramid. Now look at the lines in the overhead chart. If you follow them, they go from the Mandala, through every one of the animals, and then straight to the Cahuachi pyramid.”

“Of course!” Fay shouted in triumph. “The Nazca would have wanted to protect their find from thieves and separate it from the main population so that the people wouldn’t get sick. The priests would have been the only ones allowed to have access to it. Not only would they hide how to get inside the pyramid, they would have constructed booby traps to keep invaders from taking the treasure. But they didn’t want to hide it so well that the gods wouldn’t find it.”

“The gods weren’t very powerful if they needed instructions,” Tyler said.

“They weren’t considered infallible like the God of Abraham.”

“The pyramid would have been pretty noticeable at the time. Why not just put a big drawing on top of it to draw the gods there?”

“The Nazca might have thought the gods would return to the Mandala to retrieve their treasure. So they created the lines as a pathway to lead the gods from there to Cahuachi. It’s only ten miles away from the Mandala.”

“But the Tunguska blast was huge,” Jess said. “Wouldn’t a similar explosion have destroyed Cahuachi?”

“We don’t know if Cahuachi was built before or after the explosion,” Tyler said. “Maybe it was destroyed and then rebuilt. Fay said the city was only uncovered fifty years ago, and it’s still being excavated.”

“On the other hand, we could be wrong,” Fay said. “The xenobium could be buried at the Mandala and the pyramid has nothing to do with it. But won’t it be fun to find out?”

Fay’s giddy excitement was contagious, and Jess couldn’t help getting caught up in it.

“Have the archaeologists discovered any way inside the pyramid?”

“A few chambers, but to my knowledge they’ve never found anything like that metal.”

“If the Nazca line drawings form a code,” Tyler said, “how does it tell the gods where to find it?

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Jess said. “If these are astrological symbols representing constellations, then they must go in order from the beginning to the end of the year. The straight lines connecting them could be the pathway that Nana mentioned.”

“We can figure out the astrological link by matching the dots in the symbols to star charts. The question is, how does that tell us where to go in the pyramid?”

“Maybe the symbols have something to do with that as well.”

“We’ll try to figure that out on our way there,” Fay said. Then her voice took on an awed tone. “This could be the single greatest discovery of pre-Columbian archaeology, even though it’s found on Easter Island. Not only does it prove that the descendants of Nazca people came here, but it also provides an answer for the mystery of the Nazca lines.”

“Are you sure you’re up for more travel?” Jess said.

“If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to put you over my knee.”

Tyler laughed. “I’d like to see that. All right, you two. We’re all going.”

When they exited the cave, Tyler handed the case to Polk. “Take this to the car and bring Harris back with you to help us reset the boulder.”

“I’ll go with him,” Fay said. “I want to load this video onto my laptop.”

Jess smiled. Most of her friend’s grandmothers were afraid to even touch a computer, let alone download video. Polk led Fay back up the trail.

“Why put the stone back in place?” Jess said. “Colchev doesn’t have the map.”

“We don’t want anyone else to retrace our steps and find the cave until we’re ready to reveal it to the world. Once the stone is covering the opening, I’ll add some marks on the ground to disguise the ones we made.”

Jess gave Tyler a quick hug. “Thanks for being honest with us.”

“It’s only fair. You’re both sticking your necks out to help.”

“Yes, but we dragged you into this. You could have blown us off in New Zealand.”

Tyler leaned against the cliff face. “Remember in college when you asked me why I was in ROTC?”

“Something about your dad saying you shouldn’t do it.”

“Well, there was that. But it was really because of my father that I did it. His service in the military inspired me. It sounds corny, but there’s a lot to be said for being part of something greater than yourself.”

“Then why did you leave the Army?”

“The prospect of getting blown up all the time was one big reason.”

“Did Karen have anything to do with your decision?”

Tyler nodded. “Not because she forced me to, but because being with her was being part of something greater than myself. She was good for my soul. Boy, that sounds like a sentiment on a greeting card.”

Jess stroked his arm in a comforting gesture. “I think it’s sweet. I’d kill to get a greeting card like that. But what does it have to do with this trip to Easter Island?”

“Do you know what Grant and I were doing in New Zealand? Testing the performance of a new car in winter conditions. Fun and important work, but not earth-shattering.”

Jess nodded. “Our find here is earth-shattering.”

“Exactly. The last few years I’ve been part of discoveries that have been revolutionary.”

“And saved a lot of lives in the process. Yes, I did follow your exploits in the news, even though you shunned the press and kept your private life out of the stories.”

“Grant is the glory hound, not me.”

“So you do it for another reason.”

“After Karen’s death, I thought the world had ended. And it had, for me. But since then I’ve realized that I don’t want to go through the motions in life. I want to make a difference. Not to have my name in the history books, but because it’s what makes me feel worthwhile.”

Jess’s lip curled into a grin. “So you’re being selfish, is what you’re saying.”

“See? You get me. You always—”

Before Tyler could finish, he was interrupted by a honking horn, then the clatter of gunfire.

THIRTY-SIX

Before his private jet had landed on Easter Island an hour earlier, Colchev’s men in Sydney reported that they were leaving the hotel after Kessler no-showed, which meant this path to the xenobium was his only option. He didn’t hear from his men again, so he had to assume that they’d been caught or worse.

With the next flight to Easter Island from Peru not scheduled to arrive until later that evening, the only other jet on the island was a C-17, which must have been sent by the Americans to intercept Colchev. The Gulfstream’s refueling stop in Tahiti had to be the reason the Air Force had beaten him here. The C-17’s range was much farther, so it could fly nonstop, perhaps even refueling in mid-air on the way. Colchev’s jet had to go far out of the way to make the vast distance across the Pacific.

He was sure that the Americans noted his Gulfstream’s arrival, but the tail number would only lead them to the billionaire’s front company based in the Bahamas. Still, seeing a bunch of men step off the plane would raise suspicions, so Colchev had hired two models in Sydney to come along on the trip. When the private jet landed and went through the cursory immigration and customs check, the observers on the C-17 would see two of his men, Kiselow and Chopiak, deplane with the girls and think they were nothing more than extravagant tourists.

Colchev’s late arrival on the island meant that the Americans had a head start. Simply going out to the site mapped out on Dombrovski’s photo of the wood engraving wouldn’t work. And his first order of business was to cover his rear, which meant taking out anyone on the Air Force jet.

Instead of attempting a direct assault, Colchev, who stayed on the plane with Zotkin in case he’d be recognized, decided deception was the better choice. He instructed Kiselow and Chopiak to drop the models at a hotel in Hanga Roa, where they checked into a reserved room. Then his men took their rented vehicle to a remote location along the shore and called the police asking for help. When the lone police car arrived, his men shot the policeman and dumped him into the ocean.

The whole plan had gone smoothly. Kiselow and Chopiak drove the hijacked police car to the C-17 leisurely, as if they were just making a courtesy call. Before the man guarding the plane could tell that they weren’t Easter Island cops, he was shot twice, the action shielded from the tower’s view by the immense plane’s fuselage. With the element of surprise complete, an ambush took out all four men aboard the jet without drawing any attention at the sleepy airport.

Colchev and Zotkin joined the two other men in the police car and set out for the location described on the map. From a distance they saw a Suzuki 4x4 parked near the ocean-side cliff.

Colchev had instructed Zotkin to drive toward the SUV slowly so that the vehicle’s occupants wouldn’t become suspicious. There were three people in view, a woman inside the Suzuki and two men holding assault rifles walking toward the cliff. They had to be security guards protecting Tyler.

The woman honked the SUV’s horn, causing the two guards to whirl around. When they saw that it was a police car, the younger blond man waved and started walking toward them while the older curly-haired one stood near the cliff.

When they got within twenty-five meters, Colchev raised his own AK-47 and shot the blond man, who crumpled to the ground. Chopiak fired at the other man who fell over the edge of the cliff. Neither of Tyler’s guards got a shot off.

Zotkin then sped toward the SUV as the woman, whom Colchev now recognized as Fay Turia, jumped out and ran toward the ocean. They intercepted her just as gunfire rang out from the cliff’s edge. A bullet slammed through the rear driver’s side window, killing Chopiak instantly. Chopiak must have missed or only injured the second man, who had to have landed on a ledge. Kiselow returned fire, and the guard ducked for cover.

“Keep your aim on him,” Colchev said. “If he shows his head again, blow it off.”

Colchev leaped out and grabbed Fay. She kicked and punched him but was no match for Colchev’s bulk. He put her hand in a controlling grip, making sure not to snap it.

“Calm down, Mrs. Turia. There’s nothing you can do now.”

“Screw you!”

“You are a feisty grandmother, aren’t you?”

“Let go!”

“No.” He plucked a video camera from her hand. “What do we have here?”

“Family photos.”

“I don’t think so. I think you found something. Let’s see what.”

Kiselow fired again, but his shot missed. It did, however, keep the guard pinned.

Colchev peered at the LCD display and saw that it was video from inside a cave. He fast-forwarded through it, watching Tyler Locke and Jess McBride occasionally making appearances. Intriguing. It provided everything he had to know to find the xenobium. He slowed the playback when he got to the part showing Tyler waving around a radiation detector. After a look of alarm crossed Tyler’s face, he turned to Fay and the video ended.

“Where is the xenobium fragment?” Colchev asked her.

She remained silent, but her eyes inadvertently flicked to the Suzuki.

“Zotkin,” Colchev said, “search their vehicle.”

Zotkin scuttled over to the 4x4, keeping the police car between him and the guard. In a minute he returned carrying a silver case. He put it down in the grass and opened it.

“No!” Colchev shouted when he saw the pea-sized bit of xenobium. It wasn’t the large specimen in the photo from Dombrovski’s lab. “Blya!” He slammed the case shut.

“That isn’t …” Zotkin said, stumbling over his words. “If that’s all there is, our mission is over.”

“I know that!” Colchev yelled before calming himself. “It’s all right. All this does is prove that Dombrovski was right. The photograph we found wasn’t a forgery. The xenobium we need was in fact hidden by the Nazca. Mrs. Turia has given us the information we need to get it.”

“Colchev!” came a man’s shout from the cliff’s edge. “Colchev!”

Colchev peeked around the corner of the police car but couldn’t see anyone. “Who is that?”

“My name’s Tyler Locke.”

“Dr. Locke, you keep popping up in the wrong place. I remember you from the hood of my road train.”

“And I remember you killing Nadia Bedova. Now let Fay go!”

“Why should I?”

“Take me in her place.”

“Again, why should I?”

“Because she’ll slow you down.”

“She seems spry enough to me.”

“What do you want then?”

“Come out with your hands up.”

“No. We know you stole the Killswitch weapons, Colchev.”

Colchev grinned. “So?”

“So Kessler is dead. Your plan went up in smoke in Alice Springs.”

The grin vanished. “You’re the one who forced me into this action, Locke. If you hadn’t interfered with my truck bomb, none of us would be here right now. Don’t make me kill Mrs. Turia.”

A woman’s voice yelled out. “If you hurt her, I’ll cut your nuts off and feed them to you!”

“That must be Ms. McBride. I won’t hurt Mrs. Turia. She’s going to be my guide.”

“The hell I will,” Fay said. “Don’t listen to them, Jessica!”

Colchev took a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it in Fay’s mouth.

“Colchev!” Tyler yelled. “Let her go, and I’ll guarantee you safe passage off the island.”

“It’s too late for that, Locke.”

“We can’t stay here,” Zotkin said. “Somebody might have heard their gunshots. We have to kill them now.”

“Their position is too well-defended,” Colchev said. “We don’t have the manpower to outflank them.”

“Keep them distracted. I’ll crawl through the grass and shoot from over there.” He pointed to a rocky outcropping 150 yards away.

“There’s no time. We’re not even sure you’ll have a clean view of them. We’ll take out Locke’s car so he can’t follow us back to the airport. By the time he gets there, we’ll be long gone.”

“But even with his car disabled, it’s only four miles to the town. Locke will be able to call the mainland before we can get there. The police will intercept us as soon as we land in Chile.”

Colchev’s eyes fell on the case. There wasn’t enough xenobium for his ultimate goal, but it would be sufficient to power the Killswitch he had with him. He buried his head in his hands, trying to think of another solution, but he wracked his brain and nothing came. It was either use the Killswitch or risk total mission failure. At least it would give him a chance to test the weapon and verify that it worked.

Colchev glowered at Zotkin. “We’ll make sure he can’t call the mainland when he gets back to town. Put the Suzuki in neutral and then get in the police car.” He turned to Kiselow and pointed at Fay. “Keep her head toward the cliff so they won’t fire. I’ll drive.”

Shielded by the police car, Zotkin ran to the Suzuki and back. He and Kiselow climbed in the car with Colchev taking the wheel. He drove forward until the police car’s front bumper touched the back of the Suzuki’s. Colchev gunned the engine, pushing the vehicle toward the cliff.

When he got within four car-lengths of the drop-off, he wrenched the wheel to the right. The Suzuki’s momentum caused it to go sailing over the edge just as the guard popped up to see what was going on. The SUV smashed into him, taking him down to the rocks below.

Fay screamed through her gag, but the momentary appearance of two heads above the cliff edge meant that Tyler Locke and the granddaughter were still alive. Not that it mattered. Once Colchev’s car was gone, he was sure the Americans would head back to Hanga Roa on foot. At a fast trot the two of them could reach the outskirts of town in a little over thirty minutes.

They would arrive just in time to die.

THIRTY-SEVEN

When Grant climbed down to the bridge’s vehicle deck, only Morgan’s intervention kept twenty police officers from training their weapons on him. He jogged over to her as he eyed the train stopped halfway up the bridge. Officers swarmed over part of the track behind the last car. The suited man she was speaking to got a phone call and retreated to take it.

“Who was that?” Grant asked.

“Roger Abel. Australian federal agent.”

“Are we all playing nicely?”

“Grudgingly on their part. They know this is related to Pine Gap. They’re leading the investigation here, but they’re instructed to share any info they find.”

“Given that you’re not interrogating your runner, I’ll bet he didn’t come quietly.”

Morgan nodded at the rails. “Pulped by the commuter train.”

“Anything useful left over?”

She shook her head. “He’s spread across a hundred feet of track. The Aussies will collect the pieces. They’ll tell us if they come across anything pertinent, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“We might have more luck with my guy.”

“I saw him hit the ground. What happened? I told you not to kill him.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“My guy was an accident.”

“So was mine.”

“I heard that you shot him.”

“Yeah, but only in the leg. It was a good shot, too.”

“Let’s go look.”

“By the way, anyone hurt at the hotel?” Grant asked as they walked toward the center of the bridge.

“No. We got lucky. These guys were just trying to sow confusion so they could escape.”

“It almost worked.”

The agent caught up with them. “That was my director. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to,” Morgan said.

“Nicely handled,” Grant said.

“We’ve got two dead gunmen,” Abel said, “one of whom your partner shot before he fell to his death. I need to know whether we have more of them out there.”

“You don’t. Did your director tell you to cooperate with us?”

They reached the corpse sprawled in the middle of the right lane. Abel crossed his arms. “According to him, I retain custody of anything we find, but you can see it before it goes into evidence. I’m allowed to get your statements, but then you’re free to go.”

“Good. We need to examine anything found on this man.”

Abel scowled and then nodded at a uniformed officer carrying a plastic baggy. He handed the package to Morgan.

The baggy contained a wallet, a US passport, phone, car keys, and a scrap of paper with an address. She opened the wallet to find two hundred Australian dollars and nothing else.

“This is it?” Morgan said.

Abel nodded. “We’re running down the ID on the passport.”

“It’ll be fake, just like the ones on the bodies we found in the warehouse in Alice Springs.”

“Were these men responsible for the explosion there yesterday?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

The phone was still operational. Since the guy landed on his back, Grant assumed it had been in his front pocket.

Morgan scanned through the recent calls and text messages. They’d been wiped clean. Same for the contact list.

“This guy didn’t make or receive any calls?” Morgan said.

“It must have been erased remotely,” Grant said. “My company worked on similar technology. It’s a common feature on secure phones used by foreign intelligence services in case they’re caught or lose the phone. That’s why this one’s not password protected. The remote erasure took that out, too.”

Abel stared at the body. “He’s with the CIA?”

“We think he may be a Russian,” Morgan said.

She glanced at the piece of paper and then showed it to Grant. It said 22 Lic. Jose Lopez Portillo Ore.

“Does that mean anything to you?” she asked Grant.

He shrugged. “A town in Oregon? Maybe someone he’s planning to meet with?”

“Or a street address where they’re going to meet.” Morgan jotted down the phrase in her notebook and handed the items back to the officer.

After making their reports of the chase to Abel, they walked back toward their car.

Grant searched for the phrase on his phone while Morgan was lost in thought. The entire phrase failed to yield anything useful, so he started plugging subsections of it into a search engine.

“When Kessler didn’t show to make the drop,” Morgan said, “their next move would probably have been to leave Australia. We think that they had some connection with the Baja drug gang. This could be related to their contact in the cartel.”

Grant continued trying different combinations. “Like we said earlier, a drug gang would be a good way to smuggle the Killswitches back into the US. They’ve got the systems already in place, and they’ll do anything if the price is right.”

“We can’t send out a blanket alert to the Border Patrol describing the Killswitch because of its secret status. And unless we send a detailed description, they won’t know what to look for. We’ll have to see if we can narrow it down to a particular city.”

“Got it!” Grant said triumphantly. “That guy had the abbreviation wrong or we couldn’t read his handwriting. It should have been 22 Lic. Jose Lopez Portillo Ote. It stands for 22 Licenciado José López Portillo Oriente. It’s an address in Tijuana. There’s a border crossing a quarter mile from there.”

“That could be where they’re planning to meet to repack the shipment for the smuggling operation.”

“If we can intercept them there, we might be able to retrieve the Killswitches before they even cross the border.”

“We’ll have to coordinate with the Mexican Federales to put a stakeout on the location. When the weapons arrive, we’ll raid the place and get them back.”

“How will you know when the Killswitches are there?”

“Because you’re coming with me. You know what the Russians look like.”

“Do I get to have a gun?”

Morgan squinted at him. “I guess so. You’ve come in handy so far.”

Grant smiled. “Then I’m in.”

She got on her phone. “This is Special Agent Bell. How fast can Grant Westfield and I get to San Diego?”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Jess had been shocked when Polk was dashed on the rocks by the falling Suzuki, but she’d been outraged by the kidnapping of her grandmother. Her instinct had been to charge up over the cliff edge to get Fay back, but Tyler had restrained her when he saw how well Colchev’s gunmen had them pinned. Harris’s lifeless form in the grass only confirmed that they would have had no chance.

When Colchev’s car was out of firing range, Tyler and Jess gave chase. Her feet crunched on the hard-packed dirt as she ran next to Tyler. They’d settled into a fast jog after sprinting for five minutes behind Colchev’s rapidly receding SUV, which was now long gone.

“How far … to the airport?” she asked between breaths. She wasn’t struggling for air, but Tyler’s long legs made it a challenge to keep up. He didn’t seem to be huffing and puffing.

“At least four miles,” he said. “At this pace it’ll take us another half hour.”

“They could take off by then.”

“I know. We have to stop them before they get airborne.”

She wanted to get reassurance from Tyler that Fay would be all right, but wasting her breath on extracting meaningless platitudes wasn’t going to help her get to the airport any faster. She concentrated on sucking in air through her nose and exhaling through her mouth as she did on her twice-weekly jogs.

Tyler jerked his head around at the sound of an engine behind them.

She turned to see two motor scooters puttering toward them. Two skinny guys, both in their twenties, waved as they approached.

“We need those scooters,” Tyler said. “Follow my lead.”

The kids seemed like college students on summer break, backpacks slung over their shoulders.

Tyler smiled and flagged them down. The look was non-threatening, just a dirty, sweaty man and woman who were out in the middle of nowhere.

The riders came to a stop. Both of them paid more attention to Jess than Tyler.

“Hola,” one of them said to Jess. “¿Qué pasa?”

“No hablo Español,” Tyler said. “¿Habla Inglés?”

The men shook their heads.

“Do you speak Spanish?” Tyler said to Jess.

“No,” Jess said. “And we don’t have time for this.”

With a quick nod at the bikes, she took a running lunge and pushed the closest guy off his scooter, grabbing the handle before it could fall.

Tyler didn’t hesitate to follow her cue. He ripped the second man off his bike as if he were a doll. The man hit the ground with an “oof.”

“Sorry,” Tyler said, and hopped onto the seat.

They gunned the engines and zipped away before the men could get to their feet. In her rearview mirror she could see them give chase, but their cursing and arm-waving didn’t help them catch up.

The scooters could hit forty miles an hour, but the frequent potholes meant that thirty was pushing the safest top speed. Tyler pulled even with her.

“That’s one way to do it,” he said over the wind.

“Those guys will be fine. We can’t let Colchev get away with Nana.”

“We’ll park a truck across the runway if that’s what it takes to keep them from leaving.”

“I hope you’re right. She doesn’t have her medication.”

“What medication?”

“Insulin. She’ll tire quickly without it. If she doesn’t get another dose within a few days, she could pass out and go into a coma.”

“Is she diabetic?”

Jess hesitated, but she had to tell him. “Nana has pancreatic cancer. She wanted me to keep it quiet.”

“She seemed fine to me.”

“She had some rough days earlier in the month, but she’s been okay the past week.”

“How far along?”

“Stage four. Terminal. I’m not giving up hope, but most people in the same situation last only a few months. She’s supposed to start chemotherapy next week.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I would never have let her come along if I’d known.”

“I tried to talk her out of it, but you’ve seen how stubborn she can be.”

“She’s a tough bird. Maybe the doctors are wrong.”

They were only a few miles from town, but a thunderous roar coming from that direction made Tyler stop. Jess pulled to a halt next to him.

It sounded like a jet engine.

“Damn it,” he said. “We’re too late.”

The roar receded into the distance until she saw a white twin-engine private plane take to the air above the far end of the runway.

“No!” she cried out. “No!”

“It’s all right. The C-17 should be able to match the speed of Colchev’s jet. We’ll get into the air as soon as we reach the airport, and we’ll make sure to have a SWAT team waiting wherever they land.”

He revved his engine and took off.

“Why are they doing this?” Jess said when she caught up. “What’s so damned important about this weapon?”

“The Killswitch is an electromagnetic pulse device. Xenobium, the material we found in the cave, is detonated by explosives in the Killswitch, and it sends out a cascade of gamma rays that disrupts any magnetic field within range.”

“Which would do what?”

“It would cause a surge of electricity that damages electronic devices. Anything with a transistor would immediately shut down. Computers, communications, electrical grids, vehicles, airplanes would all be affected.”

“Do you think he’s planning to use this thing?”

“Possibly, but we don’t know what Colchev’s target is. Now that he has the components to make it work, he could take out a major city with it.”

“Good God! Imagine if he set it off next to an airport.”

“Every plane within range would crash. Hospitals would have no power. With no working fire trucks or water pumping stations, fires would rage out of control. Nuclear plants would melt down. We’re essentially talking about a worst-case terrorist event.”

Jess’s stomach twisted at the nightmare scenario.

“This is some kind of classified US weapon?” she said.

“Yeah, and I committed twelve felonies telling you all that. But I need your help to get it back. And we’ll get Fay back with it. I promise.”

He still knew her well. The platitudes helped.

They made better time once they hit the paved road going into Hanga Roa. In another two minutes they were on the airport tarmac.

Tyler came to a stop next to the huge cargo jet and jumped off the scooter without bothering to pop the kickstand. Jess did the same and followed him up the stairs into the C-17.

She stopped suddenly when she saw dead bodies scattered on the cargo floor. The plane’s three crew and the two other security men. All of them had been shot.

Tyler ignored the corpses and knelt on the opposite side of a copper-colored device four-feet long. The sleek piece of machinery had an inherently menacing quality.

“Is that the Killswitch?” she asked.

He met her eyes. “Yes. And it’s armed.”

“What?” She went around to Tyler’s side and saw a LCD display counting down. It read 15:23. 15:22. 15:21.

“Colchev must have set it before he left.” He waved the radiation meter over the weapon and grimaced when he saw the results. “The xenobium we found must be in here.”

“Oh, my God! Can you disarm it?”

Tyler examined the device and shook his head. “It looks like it requires a security code. Do you think you could decipher it?”

“Not without knowing anything about its internal safeguards to prevent tampering. What about cutting the wires?”

“I’m not even sure how it works. I could set it off just by tinkering with it.”

“Then let’s get it out of the plane. We’ll put it far away and then take cover.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“Sure it’ll take out the electronics, but at least it won’t blow up the plane.”

Tyler stood. She could see the gears in his head turning, weighing a set of bad options.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“When it goes off, the xenobium in the weapon will emit high-intensity gamma rays. That’s how it causes the magnetic flux.”

Jess felt her gut twist. “Radiation?”

Tyler grimly nodded. “It doesn’t matter where we take it. If this bomb goes off, everyone on the island will die.”

THIRTY-NINE

Tyler briefly considered dumping the Killswitch in the ocean, but he had no idea whether that would short circuit it, causing a detonation before it got deep enough to remove the radiation threat.

“What are we going to do?” Jess said. “How far away do we have to get it?”

“I don’t know the effective range, so as far away as we can …”

Tyler paused and fixated on the dead pilot. The C-17. If he still had enough time, he could get the Killswitch far away. He checked his watch, comparing it to the countdown timer. To have a chance of succeeding, he’d have to start right now.

He ran for the staircase leading up from the cargo deck to the cockpit.

“Where are you going?” Jess yelled as she came after him.

He sat in the pilot’s seat and fired up the auxiliary power unit that he would need to start the engines. Tyler thumbed through the checklist while the APU whined as it spooled up. It would take eight minutes to get all four engines warmed up.

“If I can get the plane over the open ocean,” he said, “it might be far enough to keep everyone safe.”

“Will it keep the island from getting hit by the electromagnetic pulse?”

“I don’t know.”

“But this is suicidal!”

Tyler thought back to what the pilot had told him about their previous mission before it had been scrubbed to ferry them to Easter Island. The C-17 was supposed to be going from Alice Springs to a paratrooper training op in Japan. That meant the crew had brought their own parachutes, standard procedure for an airborne drop.

“There are chutes on board somewhere. I’ll jump once I get into the air and set the autopilot.”

“Have you ever jumped from one of these?”

“A couple of times,” he lied. He’d done a few jumps at Grant’s urging, but those had been out of a propeller-driven skydiving plane, not a full-sized jet.

She looked around the cockpit. “Where are the chutes?”

“I don’t know. But they’ve got to be here somewhere.” He handed her his camera. “This has a wireless connection. Send every photo and video in there to your email address.” In case the Killswitch knocked out the island’s electronics, he wanted to make sure they had a record of the cave drawings.

Jess tapped on the camera’s display while Tyler worked on getting the engines started, the checklist on his lap. What he didn’t tell her was that it would take only one missed detail to screw up his entire plan. While he’d flown jets for years now, he’d only flown sleek twin-engine private planes, not four-engine monsters like the C-17. The principles were the same, but the handling was altogether different. And now he would have to skip all but the most important steps in the checklist to get into the air in time.

Tyler knew he was making a big assumption about the chutes. Aircrews always packed their own parachutes, to be used only in an emergency during the drop, but he didn’t actually have confirmation that they were on the plane already. He was willing to take the risk, but there was no reason to tell Jess.

“Done,” she said, looking up from the camera. “It’ll take a few minutes to upload them all, but they’re on the way.”

“Thanks,” Tyler said. “Now get off the plane.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“This is crazy!”

“Go!”

She stopped typing and dashed into the cabin behind the cockpit, but instead of leaving, she threw open locker doors.

Tyler didn’t have time to ask what she was doing. With the APU at full power, he started the number one engine. The engines had to be started in sequence from port to starboard, approximately ninety seconds for each one as the rotors reached the minimum RPM needed.

Jess returned carrying two parachutes. “Found them,” she said, dumping them onto the floor. “Even if you jump out safely, you’ll be miles from shore. You can’t swim that far.”

“There are life rafts embedded in the fuselage. I’ll deploy them before I jump.”

“Where are they?”

Tyler felt the color drain from his face when he realized that wasn’t going to work. He’d been part of the team investigating the crash of a C-17 in Alaska a couple of years before, so he was familiar with the aircraft. The plane’s Floating Equipment Deployment System, or FEDS, consists of three rafts ejected from the top of the aircraft.

Idiot, he thought. You should have remembered that the rafts are attached to the plane so that they won’t float away after a water landing.

Jess must have noticed his ashen pallor. “What’s the matter?”

“The life rafts are tethered to the aircraft. If I eject them in mid-air, they’ll just flutter behind the plane like kites.”

“Are there any inside the plane?”

“No.”

“Then we need to bring one of the other ones on board.”

She was right. He had to deploy them now. He ran to the loadmaster’s station, armed the deployment mechanism, and pulled the T-handle.

Three bangs jolted the aircraft. Two rafts sailed into the air on either side of the cockpit, trailing nylon ropes behind them. The protective clamshell coverings clattered apart on the ground, and the rafts began to inflate automatically. A third raft would be behind the starboard engines. The blown hatches would have a negligible effect on the plane’s aerodynamics.

He took the Leatherman from his pocket and pressed it into Jess’s hand. “Take this. There’s a knife on it. Cut the ropes loose on all of them, starting with the port raft, but be careful of the engines. Drag the forward rafts behind the engines. Then drag the other raft in through the rear cargo door and get out. I’ll close it when you’re clear.”

“No way. I need you alive if we’re going to save Nana. That’s why I’m coming with you.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

“Tyler, I’ve done more than forty jumps. Discussion over.”

Tyler could see she was going to be just as stubborn as Fay was. And she was right. He didn’t have time. Only ten minutes left to detonation.

“All right,” he said. “You win. Pull the raft in and close the crew door. There should be a button next to it. It’ll show green when the door is secure.”

She left and Tyler opened the massive rear cargo door. He saw Jess dash out and cut the cord on the port raft, using the line to drag it backward as she strained at the weight of the enormous raft. When she was clear, he started number two engine.

Jess repeated the process with the starboard raft. Tyler wanted to go help her, but doing so would have wasted time they didn’t have.

As soon as she was out of sight, Tyler started engine three.

He put the pilot’s headset on. It was already on the tower frequency.

“Tower, this is Air Force flight … uh, this is the Air Force C-17. Permission to taxi for takeoff.”

An accented voice answered after a pause. “I don’t have your flight plan, C-17.”

“This is an emergency takeoff. We’ll file the plan en route.”

“Negative, C-17,” came the shocked response. “Not without your paperwork. There could be traffic in your proposed flight path.”

“Tower, traffic won’t be an issue unless they’re on final approach. This was just a courtesy call to tell you to keep the runway clear. I don’t see anyone out there, so I’m taking off. Out.”

Engine three was still warming up, but he could use the first two engines to taxi.

A minute later, Jess returned and climbed into the right-hand seat, sweat pouring from her brow. “Those bastards are heavy,” she said between breaths, “but I got one aboard. The side door’s closed.”

Tyler closed the cargo door, pushed the throttles forward, and released the brakes. The C-17 rolled across the tarmac at a stately pace.

“Wait a minute,” Jess said. “You’ve only started three engines.”

“The plane is designed to take off with an engine out. We can’t wait to start the fourth. Put your seat belt on.”

He swung the big beast around and headed for the two-mile-long runway, lowering the flaps and making sure he didn’t miss anything critical on the checklist. Taking off wouldn’t do much good if he crashed at the end of the runway.

As soon as he had the nose lined up on the centerline, Tyler pushed the throttles until the fan speed reached ninety percent.

The engines howled in response. The plane surged forward, pressing Tyler against his seat.

He couldn’t help thinking, This is about the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

“If we’re going to die,” Jess said, “I need to tell you something.”

“We’re not going to die.” Yes, we are.

“The reason I didn’t come into your room with you last night is because I’m seeing someone.”

“You really think this is the best time for this?”

“I wanted you to know that it was a tough decision. Even after all these years, I still love you.”

Tyler was so shocked by her profession that if his hands hadn’t been glued to the yoke, he would have keeled over. He could have chosen from a thousand possible responses, but he had to keep his attention focused on the task at hand. Now he had a real reason not to die just yet.

His eyes met Jess’s for just a moment. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk in the raft.”

The C-17 hit takeoff velocity with a half-mile of runway to spare. Tyler pulled back on the yoke, and the massive plane rose smartly into the air. Easter Island receded behind them.

“I’ll get us up to three thousand feet,” he said. “I’ll keep us at a hundred and sixty knots for the jump and hope that’s slow enough, but I’m going to set the autopilot to speed up just before I leave the flight deck. That way we’ll get the maximum distance between us and the plane by the time it blows.”

“What should I do?”

“Go down to the cargo deck and keep hold of the life raft. I’ll open the cargo door, but don’t launch the raft until we’re ready to drop. At this speed we’re going a mile every twenty seconds. I’ll give you a minute to get down there and open the door, then I’ll join you and we’ll jump.”

Jess nodded and got out of her seat, taking one of the parachutes with her. “I’m not jumping without you.”

“I know. Go!”

She sprinted away. Tyler eased the jet to a heading of 180 and kept it steady at an altitude of 3,000 feet at 160 knots. He changed the transponder code to squawk 7700 and adjusted the radio to 243 megahertz, the guard emergency frequency.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Air Force C-17 from Easter Island. We are ditching six miles due south of the island. Request rescue boat. Repeat we are ditching on heading one eight zero from Easter Island VOR. Request rescue boat.”

He glanced at his watch. Six minutes to detonation.

A nervous reply bleated from his headset. “Air Force C-17, this is Easter Island control. We read that you are ditching six miles due south—”

That was enough for Tyler, who just wanted to make sure he’d been heard. He tore off the headset, opened the cargo door, and dialed up the autopilot for maximum cruising altitude and speed. Then he stood and put on the parachute. When the harness was buckled, he initiated the autopilot command.

The engines powered up and Tyler could feel the altitude increasing. He shot down the stairs and ran to the back of the cargo deck where Jess was waiting at the open door. She had a death grip on the life raft to keep from being sucked out by the airstream.

“You ready?” he shouted over the wind.

She nodded, no trace of fear. If anything, she looked pumped for the experience.

Tyler put both hands against the raft, and Jess did the same.

He called out, “One! Two! Three! Push!”

They surged toward the cargo door, until the raft tipped over the edge and flipped out.

“Go!” he yelled, and Jess sprinted forward with a whoop, as if she were on one of her extreme tourism adventures. She leaped off the lowered cargo door, and the slipstream ripped her away.

Tyler, who was right behind her, wished that he were as exhilarated by the jump. The only thing that was making his feet move was the knowledge that this was no longer a perfectly good airplane.

Then he was freefalling into space. The air was sucked from his lungs as he was bombarded by a wind shear unlike anything he’d experienced in previous jumps.

Tyler watched the C-17 rise into the sky above him, so mesmerized that he almost forgot he wasn’t on a static line. He pulled his ripcord and strained at the harness as the chute yanked him to a sudden stop.

He scanned the ocean for the other chute and saw Jess floating lazily below him. The bright banana-colored raft splashed into the water only a few hundred yards away. The fully inflated boat’s wind resistance had kept it from getting too far behind them.

The calm ocean rose to meet Tyler quickly, and he readied himself to release the chute. Drowned by his own parachute was not how he wanted to go.

He plunged into the water and held his breath as he wriggled out of the harness. After an agonizingly long thirty seconds, he was free and swam for the surface.

He burst into the air and took a deep breath. He whirled around looking for Jess and the raft.

He saw the raft first, its color easily spotted against the blue horizon. Then he saw Jess paddling toward it with a smooth stroke.

It took him several minutes to meet her there. They climbed in and caught their breath. The flashing light of the homing beacon was activated automatically by the water, but the survival kit was gone, probably lost while the life raft was tumbling through the air. They could do nothing now but wait for rescue.

Jess sat up and leaned against the outer tube.

“You all right?” Tyler said.

“That was amazing! You?”

“As good as can be expected.”

She drew the folded Leatherman from her pocket and handed it to Tyler. “I thought we might need it if we’re out here for long.”

“I can’t seem to lose this,” he said, and put it in his own pocket. “Unfortunately, I don’t think the Air Force will consider it a fair trade for a two-hundred-million dollar jet.”

“I can’t see it,” she said. “How far away do you think it is?”

Tyler checked his watch. Fifteen seconds to detonation.

“I’m hoping it’s at least thirty miles away by now. It should still be accelerating.”

“Will we be able to see the blast from here?”

As if in response to her question, Tyler squinted as a fiery orange glow pierced the sky. He counted while he awaited the sound of the explosion.

Two minutes later a tremendous crack split the air.

“Twenty-five miles away,” Tyler said.

“Is that far enough?”

“At this distance the gamma radiation is going to be minimal.” He pointed at the extinguished homing beacon light. “But the electromagnetic pulse reached us. That’s why the electronic beacon shut off. We’ll have to hope someone with a sailboat is headed our way.”

“I hope it’s soon,” Jess said, her teeth chattering.

Tyler’s adrenaline subsided and he realized he was shivering as well.

“Come here,” he said.

She nestled against him, and he wrapped his arms around her for the shared warmth.

That was about all they had going for them. No food. No fresh water. And because of the EMP, the only populated area within two thousand miles was now a technological wasteland.

FORTY

Halfway to Santiago, Colchev finished watching the video from Fay’s camera for a third time. He concluded that there were two possibilities for where they would find the xenobium at the Nazca plateau. Either it was at the Mandala geometric figure or it was somewhere in the pyramid of Cahuachi.

The photo from Ivan Dombrovski’s lab in 1947 proved that the Russian scientist had found a ball of xenobium three inches in diameter as a result of his search all those years ago. The unnamed cave had pointed the way, he’d recorded, but Dombrovski never explained why he didn’t bring the xenobium back with him. The only puzzle piece Colchev had been missing was the location of the cave. Thanks to Fay Turia and Tyler Locke, he’d found it.

The problem now was deciding where to begin the next part of the search. Fay was going to help him decide.

He walked to the rear of the Gulfstream, where Fay stared through the window at the ocean below.

He took a seat opposite her. “Mrs. Turia.”

She turned her gaze on him, her eyes blank. “What?”

“You seem to be an expert on the Nazca lines, and I need your assistance.”

She barked a raspy laugh. “You must be dumber than the sheep on my station.”

Colchev wasn’t accustomed to women talking to him like that. He clenched his armrest tightly. “If you don’t help me, I don’t have a reason to keep you alive. You’re saying I should just shoot you right now.” He drew his pistol and aimed it at her head.

Fay didn’t flinch. “Go ahead. I’ll be dead in a few months anyway.”

That was not the reaction Colchev was expecting. He lowered the pistol. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have malignant pancreatic cancer. Apparently it’s not a pleasant way to go, so you’ll actually be doing me a favor by pulling that trigger.”

He’d never seen someone so unafraid of death. Men he’d threatened like that were more likely to wet their pants than talk back. He put the gun away and tried a different tactic.

“I’m giving you a chance to save your granddaughter.”

Fay’s eyes softened. “You will not hurt Jessica. I won’t allow it.”

“You will allow it if you don’t help me.”

He didn’t tell her that the armed Killswitch would have irradiated the entire island with gamma rays. It was quite likely that both Jess and Tyler were now dead or soon would be, along with the two models Colchev had left behind in the hotel.

He leaned forward to make his point. “If, for some reason, my mission fails because you didn’t help me, I will have no choice but to hunt your granddaughter down and kill her.”

“How do I know you won’t do that anyway?”

“Because I won’t have any reason to.”

“I’m not naïve. I’ve seen your faces. I know that you have something called the Killswitch. And I know you’re after more xenobium. Why would you let me live?”

“I won’t go into the details, but I will tell you that Washington, DC, will cease to be the center of global power once this is over. Once America is on its knees, China will fall with it, as dependent as it is on the US economy. Moscow will take its rightful place on the world stage as the dominant force, and so I will have nothing to fear.”

“The US will go to war with Russia.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I don’t think so. After all, if they are attacked by their own secret weapon, how can they blame Russia for the attack? No, the US will have too many problems at home to want to start another war. Besides, why do you care? You live in New Zealand now.”

“I’m still an American.”

“Mrs. Turia, I admire your patriotism, but I’m going to succeed whether you help me or not. However, it will go faster if you point me in the right direction. If you don’t, I guarantee that I will carry through on my threat. Your granddaughter will live in fear for the rest of her days, never knowing when or where I’ll strike. You don’t want her to go through life like that, do you? I may let you go just to deliver that message to her.”

Fay glanced out the window again before she looked back at Colchev. “What do you want me to do?”

Colchev smiled. “I need your expertise. I’ve narrowed down our search to two spots based on the video you filmed in the Rapa Nui cave. The first is the center of the Mandala and the second is the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. You seemed to indicate that the Nazca animal symbols were important to the search. What do they mean?”

“I don’t know. We were hoping to learn more when we got there.”

“Got where?”

She sighed heavily. “The Mandala. The alien told me it’s in the center of the figure, buried under the starburst pattern.”

“The alien?”

“The one I met at Roswell. He drew it in the dirt before he died.”

“You met an alien?”

“Of course! What do you think started all this?”

“You’re talking about the Roswell incident.”

“Yes. A spaceship crashed. An alien climbed out and saved me. He gave me the wooden engraving and then drew a rectangle in the dirt before he died.”

Colchev stifled a chuckle.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Actually,” he said. “I do. For reasons that you can’t comprehend. Is your theory that the same aliens visited the Nazca people?”

“How else do you explain the xenobium? A material like none other found on earth falls from the sky at Tunguska, remote Western Australia, and the ancient Nazca plain of Peru. Obviously an alien spacecraft crash landed just like at Roswell, but the spacecraft power source survived. Given how many times they’ve visited our planet over the last few thousand years, it’s only reasonable to assume they’ve had some accidents.”

Colchev smiled. “That’s a fascinating theory.”

“There’s no other possible explanation.”

“So you think the xenobium is buried in the dirt at the Mandala?”

Fay nodded. “We think that’s where it landed over fifteen hundred years ago. The Nazca people buried it there so the gods would be able to retrieve it.”

“And you’re sure it’s not in the Grand Pyramid?”

“I can’t be sure of anything, but the chambers inside the pyramid have been searched thoroughly. If the xenobium was there, it would be gone by now.”

“That would be very bad for you and Jessica.”

Fay looked scared. “That’s why I’m sure it’s at the Mandala. When you find it there, I expect you to keep your promise.”

“Of course.”

Colchev returned to the front of the plane and told Zotkin her wild story.

“Do you believe her?” Zotkin said.

Colchev shot him an amused look.

“I mean about the burial place for the xenobium,” Zotkin said quickly. “The rest of her theory is obviously ridiculous.”

Colchev looked back at Fay, who had resumed staring out the window. “She’s a tough old woman. I really believe she’s more afraid of losing her granddaughter than dying herself. I think she took my threat seriously.”

“And if the xenobium isn’t at the Mandala?”

“Then we’ll take her to the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. We may still need her to interpret the symbols.”

“Tonight?”

“No, it’ll be dark soon. We’ll start the search at sunup.”

“She better be right,” Zotkin said. “We only have two days left.”

“Yes,” Colchev said. “Only two more days for the United States to enjoy its position as the world’s lone superpower. And then it is our turn.”

FORTY-ONE

A high-pitched screech jolted Jess awake. Until she sat upright and experienced a mild head rush, it didn’t register that she’d actually been asleep.

“What was that?” she said, searching for the source of the noise.

“Just a seagull,” Tyler said, leaning against the side of the raft. “He’s been circling us for ten minutes.”

“Like a buzzard.”

“No, but I do think he’s hoping we’ll give him some food.”

“No chance. If I had any food, I’d wolf it down.” Salt crystals clung to her still-damp jeans, and her mouth felt like the inside of a cotton ball. At least she was no longer shaking like a seizure victim. “How long have I been out?”

“My watch isn’t working because of the EMP, but I’d say an hour and a half. Almost getting blown up can be tiring. Believe me, I know.”

“Probably. Plus I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Me neither.”

She scanned the horizon for sign of a rescue boat or plane. Nothing. Easter Island beckoned in the distance, tantalizingly close, but if they tried to swim for it, they’d be exhausted before they got halfway there.

“Do we have any supplies?”

“A flare gun. One shell. But we shouldn’t use it until we’re sure someone is looking this way.”

“You seem pretty confident that’s going to happen.”

“It will,” Tyler said. “I just don’t know when.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I sent out a distress call before we jumped. As long as we don’t get a storm, we should be fine.”

“Great. You just jinxed us.”

“I don’t believe in jinxes.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“If it happens, it’ll happen whether we talk about it or not.”

“Very logical of you.”

“And your boyfriend isn’t?”

Jess brushed away some of the salt from her pants. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Well, not at that moment.”

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Andy. He’s a doctor.”

“In New Zealand? How come I didn’t meet him?”

“He’s volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. He’s in the middle of the Congo right now.”

“Does he know anything about what’s going on?”

“I left him a message, but phone service out there is unreliable.”

“Is it serious?”

“He asked me to marry him before he left. I told him I’d give him an answer when he got back.”

“You? Settle down? I thought you found out it wasn’t your thing after the surfer dude. It sure wasn’t what you wanted at MIT.”

“Tyler, we were young, all right? In college I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. You caught me at a bad time.”

Tyler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Looks like I did it again.”

She chuckled. “You know the ironic thing?”

“What?”

“He’s a lot like you. Dashing, smart, funny, kind, reliable.”

Tyler cleared his throat. “So what’s the answer?”

“To what?”

“To the question he asked.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“What’s stopping you from saying yes?”

She smiled. “He’s a lot like you. Stubborn, arrogant, workaholic, impatient, logical.”

He returned the grin. “So what you’re saying is, he’s flawless.”

She shook her head. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy.”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

Tyler paused, then said, “Jess, I was blissful with Karen, but I never stopped loving you, either.”

Jess started shivering again, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else. She put her head against Tyler’s shoulder.

“Why couldn’t all this have happened a year ago?” she said.

Tyler didn’t answer, but he put his arm around her. She looked up at him and felt his eyes pulling her toward him.

They kissed. Lightly at first, then ravenously. She forgot all about the cold, the dampness, the hunger, the discomfort.

It would have become more but for the drone of an engine in the distance. They drew apart, checking with each other to see if they’d heard the same thing.

The sound disappeared in the wind and then came back stronger. They both shot up and looked toward the island.

A small boat cut through the ocean, distant but approaching quickly. They got up on their knees and waved frantically. The boat’s two occupants waved back.

“Looks like someone on the island had an old diesel,” Tyler said.

“We’re being rescued. You were right again.”

He looked at her with a serious expression. “You need to make up your mind.”

“I know.”

“But for now we need to get Fay back and stop Colchev.”

“I know,” Jess said again, but she felt like she didn’t know anything.