The Roswell Conspiracy

FORTY-TWO

The drone of the six-seat plane’s engine was so monotonous that the coffee in Tyler’s hand had been the only thing keeping him awake on the early morning flight. There wasn’t much to see as they flew over the mountainous terrain from Lima toward southern Peru, but now that the aircraft was in its final descent, he perked up, and Jess’s tension was palpable. In a few minutes they would be flying directly over the Nazca lines.

Yesterday when the scuba company owner who rescued Tyler and Jess took them straight to the island, Tyler found that all communications were out except for an old battery-powered short-wave radio. While Jess gathered their belongings from the hotel, including Fay’s medication and cash, he helped get the antique radio working by the time the LAN flight from Lima arrived just ahead of sunset. Unable to make contact with the airport, the airliner pilot had nearly turned around before they were able to reach him and convince him to land.

If there was one small piece of luck, it was that the jet didn’t need to gas up to return to the mainland. Rapa Nui had no refueling equipment to be rendered inoperable by the EMP blast. All airliners to the island had to load enough fuel to make the round trip on one tank.

Though it was the low season of winter, the tourists who were there swarmed to the airport when they realized that the power outage wasn’t going to be a short-term inconvenience. The plane had been only half-full, but none of the arriving passengers were getting off, so seats were at a premium. It was only through Jess’s fast talking and Fay’s bankroll that she and Tyler secured two of the spots on the return flight to Lima. The local police were too busy with the sudden chaos to question them about the downed cargo jet, and Tyler wasn’t going to volunteer any information that would get them confined to the island for an extended period.

By the time they arrived in Peru, they were too tired to do anything but crash for the remainder of the night in a hotel. Tyler had tried reaching Grant and Morgan, but he’d been told by Morgan’s supervisor that they were en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. He also informed her supervisor about the men killed by Colchev, the detonation of one of the two Killswitches, and the crashed C-17, though he left out the part about him being the one who destroyed it. Tyler didn’t have time for the complications that admission would bring. He’d come clean when the entire situation was resolved.

Without Morgan’s help, he and Jess were on their own in contacting the Peruvian authorities. Tyler spoke with a policeman in Nazca who could understand English and told them about Fay’s abduction and the connection to the incident at Easter Island, but he said nothing of the Killswitch or xenobium. The policeman agreed to accompany them to Cahuachi in the hopes that they could intercept Colchev there and liberate Fay. Once Morgan was available, Tyler would consult with her on how to work with the Peruvian government to secure the xenobium.

After only a few hours’ sleep, they woke up to get to the stores by the time they opened. Jess acquired more cash and new cell phones while Tyler made a couple of quick stops of his own to cobble together the hardware he needed. With their purchases in hand, they hurried to the airport and bought tickets on the next flight to Nazca.

The plane’s only occupant other than Tyler and Jess was the pilot. As they neared their destination, he pointed down, and Tyler peered out the window at the desolate plain below. The empty desert beneath him made the landscape around Alice Springs look like the Garden of Eden.

Other than the distant fields that hugged the banks of narrow rivers, there was no sign of vegetation. Rocky peaks engulfed the flat expanse of the Nazca plateau, which seemed to be a uniform rust color until he focused his eyes and saw his first glimpse of the famed white lines.

The construction of the drawings — from the miles-long straight lines to the most intricate animal symbols — was a simple process, aided by the unique geography of the region. A thin layer of red pebbles overlaid the white substrata of chalky clay underneath. All that was needed to make the lines was a pair of hands and time to painstakingly remove the red pebbles. Because the desert experienced almost no rain or wind, erosion was minimal, allowing the drawings to persist for over a thousand years.

Although the construction technique was simple, how the huge drawings were created so precisely and for what purpose had been the subject of heated debate for almost a century. Hundreds of feet long and unrecognizable for what they are at ground level, they remained undiscovered until planes began flying over the desert in the 1920s. It was only then that the lines were revealed to the world as one of the great mysteries of a forgotten people.

Now that he could see them with his own eyes, Tyler could understand why the lines captured the public imagination. The first image he could identify was a giant hummingbird winging its way across the northwestern corner of the plateau. Like the other drawings, it resembled a child’s doodle, but its wings, tail, and beak were outlined in recognizable detail.

Next was a great monkey, its prehensile tail curled into a spiral. Straight lines intersected the drawings and each other in all directions. A casual observer might come to the conclusion that these majestic symbols were alien spaceship landing instructions. It defied belief that a primitive culture could not only make them, but envision a reason for doing so in the first place.

Jess waved for him to check out her side of the plane. He leaned over and saw the shape of a massive condor, and beyond that the eight legs of a tarantula.

“Nana has seen this view a dozen times,” Jess said. “She’d come here just to fly over the lines and see if she could figure out why she’d been chosen by the alien to be entrusted with its secret.”

Tyler admired Fay’s tenacity. He had never believed in aliens — at least not in ones that had visited Earth — but he understood her need to find the truth. Her experience at Roswell had obviously set all of this in motion, and until he had the answers he was ruling nothing out. He was a skeptic, but he was also a scientist. The scientific method meant doing away with preconceived notions. He would go wherever the evidence took him, no matter where it led.

Jess gazed at the desolate landscape with a haunted expression. “Do you think she’s down there somewhere?”

“Yes, and I believe we’re going to find her.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have any reason to think we won’t.”

“Sometimes I like your arrogance.”

“It comes in handy.”

Jess pointed at the astronaut drawing waving to them from the side of a hill. Tyler had to admit it did look like an otherworldly figure, two round eyes gazing from its otherwise featureless bulbous head.

“You think he’s going to lead us to Nana?” Jess asked.

Tyler nodded. “And to the xenobium.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because Colchev is sure.”

“What do you mean?”

Tyler lowered his voice. “We know that Colchev got away with two Killswitches, each one worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“And we know that they’re useless without the xenobium trigger.”

“Right. So what does he do when he finds the only xenobium that we know about?”

Jess frowned. “You mean, why did he set off one of his two Killswitches?”

“Exactly. Colchev had to be absolutely sure that there was more xenobium. And it’s possible that the specimen from the cave wasn’t big enough for whatever he has planned. The sample that Kessler destroyed in Australia was twenty times bigger than the speck we found.”

“The drawing at Easter Island did imply that the Nazca had a much bigger specimen hidden in the pyramid.”

“Kessler told us about a scientist from Russia named Dombrovski. What if Dombrovski was a Russian spy who found the xenobium but couldn’t get it out of its hiding place for some reason? That would explain why Colchev is so positive it exists.”

“He just didn’t know where to look until Nana made that appearance in the video.”

“It also means that Dombrovski found a way inside the Grand Pyramid more than sixty years ago, before anyone even started doing a thorough excavation of the site.”

“So we shouldn’t be looking for the entrance anywhere that’s been uncovered since then.”

Jess eyes lit up as if she remembered something and plunged her hands into her bag. She opened a notebook and leafed through it.

“This is Nana’s. It contains her notes for the book she’s planning to write. She left it in our room because she had scanned everything into her computer and didn’t want to risk losing it at the site of the cave. It has a detailed map of Cahuachi in it, including dates.”

Jess flipped the pages until she got to the map. Jess pointed to a spot on the northwest corner of the Grand Pyramid.

“Look! This is one of the first discoveries of the adobe bricks that led to them uncovering the pyramid.”

“Did floods bury it?” Tyler asked. “The river looks close by.”

“No, that’s the odd thing. The pyramid is more than thirty meters tall. It would have taken centuries of natural floods to cover the entire four-hundred-acre site. For some reason, the Nazca buried the whole city in mud themselves before they abandoned it.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Maybe they didn’t want anyone to ever find the xenobium.”

“So it was literally a massive cover-up, but they left one point of access into the pyramid, something only they and the gods would have known about.”

“They drew the Mandala to show how to get into the pyramid,” Jess said. “Then they drew the Nazca lines as a map to the pyramid. A map that would be decipherable only to those with the ability to see it from the sky.”

“Speaking of that, I took some time last night to compare our photos to southern hemisphere star charts. The animal constellations match up perfectly. If you follow the lines according to the sequence of constellations ordered by their position in the zodiac, they lead directly from the Mandala to the Grand Pyramid.”

As their plane touched down at the Nazca airport, Tyler could see a police car waited for them on the tarmac.

“If Colchev figures all this out,” Jess said, “he might know how to get into the pyramid.”

Tyler didn’t have to respond. They both knew the ominous outcome if Colchev had beaten them to Cahuachi. Fay would be no further use to the Russian spy once he had all the components of a weapon that could kill millions.

FORTY-THREE

Morgan noted that getting out of the US was much easier than getting in. Even at the break of dawn, the line of cars at the Highway 905 US — Mexico border crossing stretched half a mile — on the Mexican side. On the US side it was a clear road to the immigration checkpoint. Morgan flashed her credentials at the officer, and he directed her to the customs building.

She elbowed Grant, who dozed in the passenger seat, still sleeping off the effects of the Ambien he took for the flight back to LA. He had awakened just long enough to make the transfer to the helicopter that took them to the San Diego airport, and then again when they got in the car.

His eyes flew open. “What?”

“Wake up. We’re here.”

“I’m awake.”

“Next time, just take one pill.”

“For someone my size?”

“You took enough to down a bull elephant.”

“Well, I’m up now,” Grant said, yawning. “Remind me. Who are we meeting?”

“Captain Filipe Benitez of the Mexican Federales.”

“Excellente.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“Tenemos los exitos más calientes.”

“You have the hottest hits?”

“It’s from a radio station I listened to when I was at Fort Hood.”

“If the Killswitch played music, you’d be a big help.”

“It’s the only Spanish I remember.”

“Let me do the talking.”

“Si, si, señorita.”

She pulled into a parking spot next to the customs building. When she opened the car door, a blast of hot air hit her, reminding her that it was summer now that she was back in the northern hemisphere.

“Good God,” Grant said as he got out. “I must have really been out of it at the San Diego airport not to notice this heat.”

“We’re ten miles inland here.”

“Aren’t you hot?” He nodded at her suit. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

“I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself. Ha! Get it?”

“I’m amused.” She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she actually almost cracked a smile. His bad jokes were starting to grow on her.

They went inside, where they were met by air conditioning and Policìa Federal Captain Benitez, who was dressed in full tactical gear.

“Special Agent Bell?” he asked in precise English.

She nodded and showed him her ID. He responded in kind, then eyed Grant.

“This is Sergeant Grant Westfield,” Morgan said. “He’s on temporary assignment with me from the Army Rangers.”

They shook hands.

“I was instructed to give you every cooperation I can, Agent Bell.”

“I appreciate your help. This is a dangerous situation, and I understand that you are this state’s top anti-cartel officer.”

“Until they kill me,” Benitez said without a trace of humor. Mexican anti-drug officials had a depressingly short lifespan.

“We think the Baja cartel is going to attempt to smuggle some explosives into the US sometime today,” Morgan said.

“You think they will meet at this address that I was given?”

“It’s possible. Do you have it under surveillance?”

“Yes, for eight hours now.”

“Any unusual activity?”

Benitez shrugged. “A few men came and went. Nothing strange.”

“Were any of the men Caucasian?”

“No. All Hispanic.” He showed her and Grant the surveillance photos.

Grant shook his head. “None of them look like our guys.”

“Captain,” Morgan said, “it is vital that we get those explosives before they enter the US.” She wasn’t going to share that they were looking for a top-secret weapon, only one of which now remained in existence according to the message she’d received about the EMP blast that disabled Easter Island.

“We are prepared for a full tactical breach once you confirm that the explosives have arrived on the premises,” Benitez said.

“We’d also like to capture these men alive, but the explosives are the top priority.”

Benitez shook his head. “The Baja cartel is responsible for over a hundred murders in the last month, including a night club where twenty-five were killed. If this house is theirs, they won’t come quietly.”

“Sounds like our boys have connected with some real winners,” Grant said.

“If your suspects need smuggling assistance, they chose the right gang. The Bajas have moved three tons of cocaine out of Tijuana this year, and we’ve intercepted none of it going into the US.”

“Could this house be their staging area?” Morgan asked.

“Possibly. It’s very close to both the truck and car crossings. It’s also possible that they could be planning to smuggle your item under the border. Some of the cartels’ drug tunnels have been found to be more than a quarter-mile long.”

“I’ll let my team in the US know to be ready for anything. Let’s get over to the house. Oh, and one other thing. Westfield and I need to go in with the tactical team. Sergeant Westfield is a bomb-disposal expert, and we may need him in there.”

Benitez nodded. “Of course. Come with me. We will supply you with uniforms and weapons.” He walked toward the rear of the building. Morgan and Grant fell into step behind him.

“He didn’t bat an eye,” Grant said under his breath. “That was easy.”

“That’s what happens when the Secretary of the Air Force calls up the Commandant of the Federales,” Morgan said.

Ten minutes later they were fully geared up with black fatigues, ballistic vests, M4 rifles, comm units, and helmets.

“You’ll have to leave your car here,” Benitez said. “They’d spot the US plates immediately.”

“Lead the way,” Morgan said.

They went outside to a beat-up Chrysler minivan with blacked-out windows.

Benitez saw Grant’s bemused appraisal. “Our black Suburbans would be noticed even faster than your car.”

They climbed in the back. The driver was one of Benitez’s men dressed inconspicuously in a dingy white tank top. When the sliding door closed, he steered onto the road leading south from the border.

“We’ll only be able to drive by the house once. Any more would be suspicious.”

“How are you watching the house?” Morgan asked.

“Someone abandoned construction of a four-story building across the street. Only the girders have been put up. I had one of my men climb up late last night and install three wireless cameras facing the house.”

“And your man wasn’t seen?”

“It was a moonless night, and I made sure the streetlights went out for a short time.”

In two minutes they were cruising down a boulevard paralleling the border only two hundred yards away. On the left were enormous warehouses supplying the truckers shipping goods back and forth to the Mexican factories. On the right were tiny stores, freight yards filled with semis, street food vendors just setting up shop in their trucks, apartment complexes, and homes. It wasn’t Beverly Hills, but it wasn’t a slum, either.

“There’s the construction,” Benitez said, pointing out the windshield.

A chain-link fence protected the skeleton of bare girders rusting in the sunlight.

The driver turned right at the next street.

“This is Licenciado José López Portillo Oriente. Number 22 is the pink house on the left.”

The second house down from the boulevard was a rundown home set back from the road just enough to make room for a paved front yard. The paint was peeling, tiles on the roof were missing, and old lawn furniture was piled against the garage door.

The only thing that looked out of place was the new iron fence and gate that protected the parking area.

The driver didn’t slow down for Morgan and Grant to get a better look.

“The garage looks big enough for a full-sized van,” Grant said.

“Trucks are very common in this area,” Benitez said. “If they’re planning to move the package across the border that way, it would take only a few seconds to put it on a passing semi.”

“Grant and I are going to need line-of-sight to the house,” Morgan said. “It’s the only way we can identify our subjects.” The night-vision goggles for the ID dust had a limited range, and the cameras on the abandoned building wouldn’t pick up the signal.

“I told you that’s impossible,” Benitez said. “They would see you.”

“Well, we have to figure out something. Otherwise, they could drive straight into that garage, and we wouldn’t know if the explosives had arrived.”

Grant raised his hand. “I have an idea. Is anyone else hungry?”

“You’re hungry?” Morgan said. “The only thing you did on the plane besides sleep was eat.”

“I’m always hungry, but that’s not the point.”

“What is your point?”

Grant smiled. “My obsession with food will get us that surveillance spot.”

FORTY-FOUR

Zotkin swept the ground with his radiation meter.

“Anything?” Colchev said.

Zotkin shook his head. “Just a tiny amount of elevated background radiation.”

The Mandala was positioned at the summit of a flat-topped mountain twenty miles northwest of Nazca. After arriving in Santiago without incident, Colchev had the jet refueled and immediately flew on to the town of Ica, Peru, which was the closest airport to the Mandala. It had been a short drive to the turnoff from the Pan-American Highway, then another mile to the path that led them up to the plateau.

The trek up the mountain hadn’t been an especially hard one on anyone except for Fay, who stood off to the side panting from exertion as she watched their search. There was no need to closely guard her. If she ran, Kiselow, the only man Colchev and Zotkin had left, would chase her down.

From this ground-level vantage point, the massive drawing just looked like a random collection of lines strung together. Holes in the dirt punctuated the intersections of lines in several places, but they served no discernable purpose and hid nothing.

They had concentrated their initial search on the center white space that radiated lines in multiple directions. Unless the xenobium was buried deep beneath the surface, the radiation meter would detect a pronounced signal, but nothing significant registered on the device.

Zotkin shook his head. “I’ve been over every inch of this drawing. The xenobium might have been here at one time, but it’s gone now.”

“We never had a chance to find it here,” Colchev said. “Did we, Mrs. Turia?”

Zotkin and Kiselow turned to Fay, who smirked.

“You really are stupid if you thought I would tell you anything.”

Colchev nodded appreciatively. “Very good act. Convincing, although I gave it a fifty-fifty chance that you were lying.”

Fay laughed. “I’m sure.”

“It doesn’t matter. I would have chosen this location to visit first anyway. More isolated and easier to get the xenobium if it really was here.”

Zotkin took Colchev aside. “Do you want me to kill her?”

Colchev sighed. “Eventually.”

“Now.”

“Not yet. The news from Rapa Nui this morning said that all power was out, but there were no mass casualties.”

“What if Kessler was wrong about the gamma rays?”

“No. The experiments they did with the Australian sample proved that gamma ray emissions from the weapon would be deadly at that range. Somehow they got it off the island.”

“Do you think Locke survived?”

“If he did, we may need Fay as a bargaining chip. But when we do find the xenobium, we will kill her. Satisfactory?”

Zotkin looked as if he were about to protest again, but held his tongue.

Colchev turned around. “All right. Back to the car.” He checked his watch. “We should be at Cahuachi in forty-five minutes.”

Girdled by adobe brick walls, the terraced Grand Pyramid loomed over the sprawling Cahuachi complex. In the days when the city served as the religious center of the Nazca culture, its citizens would ritualistically climb the myriad stairs in a procession that snaked around the forty structures built to house the civilization’s heritage and treasures.

Today the city was uninhabited, awaiting the arrival of the first tourist buses.

Jess was surprised that Tyler had been able to convince the police to provide six officers for the search at Cahuachi, but the show of force had been for naught. Jess shouted Fay’s name repeatedly. Silence was the only response. There was no sign of her or Colchev.

“Do you think they’ve come and gone?” she said to Tyler.

“I doubt it. They wouldn’t have made it before nightfall yesterday, and searching in the dark would have been difficult.”

After a thorough inspection of the grounds, the lead officer called his men back to the main plaza, where he approached Jess and Tyler with a combination of regret and annoyance.

“Señor Locke,” he said. “She is not here.”

“Are you sure they couldn’t be hiding somewhere?” Jess said.

The policeman shrugged. “Señor, this place very big, but we look everywhere. Nobody here.”

“Officer,” Tyler said, “I think the best option is to leave some of your men here and take us to the Mandala. They could be there instead.”

The policeman frowned. Jess had never gotten the feeling that he believed their story. “I’m sorry, señor,” the officer said. “We go now.”

“We’re staying for a while to look around.”

“We are?” Jess asked. “What about the Mandala?”

Tyler nodded slightly to show her that he had a plan.

The policeman shrugged. “Okay. If you see these people, call us and we come back.”

The officers returned to their cars and drove off, leaving the rental as the only car in the lot.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Jess said.

Tyler started walking toward the Grand Pyramid. “Without some muscle, we’ll never be able to take Colchev. We don’t even have any guns. If Colchev is at the Mandala, he’s in the wrong place.”

“Which means he’ll come here.”

“Right. And if the xenobium really is here, we need to find it before he does.”

Jess suddenly understood. “Then we’ll have something to bargain with!”

“If we find it, that is. We’ll do better to search on our own. Since this is probably a Peruvian national monument, the police wouldn’t look too kindly on us breaking in and stealing an artifact from it.”

“That kind of thing didn’t seem to bother Indiana Jones.”

“Yeah, but they never show you the actual sequel to his tomb raiding: Indiana Jones and the Museum’s Repatriation Lawsuit.”

“You’re not going to trade the xenobium for Nana,” Jess said. “Are you?”

Tyler’s jaw clenched. “We can’t. I’m sorry. It would be too dangerous for Colchev to get his hands on it.”

“I’m getting her back!” Jess cried out. “I don’t care about the damn xenobium!”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “We will get Fay back. We can use the xenobium as a lure.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll think about how that will work later. Let’s get the xenobium first.”

Jess grunted and shrugged his hands away, but she didn’t argue further.

Tyler and Jess checked the interior chambers that had been excavated, including the large tunnel that seemed to be the main entrance inside, but it ended at a brick wall and there was no indication of a way further into the pyramid. They climbed to the top of the exterior so they could get a better lay of the land. A maze of walls, trenches, and stairs had been unearthed around it, revealing the smaller mounds that seemed like pale imitations. Beyond that were sere hills and pocked terrain that could have served as a backdrop for a film set on the moon. The blue of the clear sky was the only reminder that she wasn’t looking at a sepia-toned photo.

“Where do we start?” she said.

Tyler consulted his camera, then pointed to the northwest corner of the pyramid. “According to Easter Island, that’s where we’re supposed to look.”

They clambered down the steps until they reached the spot that corresponded to the photo of the drawing on the cave ceiling.

“I bet if we did a survey of the actual Nazca lines, they would eventually intersect right here,” Jess said.

Tyler nodded. “Dombrovski had a lot more time to analyze them than we’ve had. But now that the pyramid is completely uncovered, the entrance should be much easier to find.”

“One question: if we do find the xenobium, it’ll be radioactive. How are we going to carry it?”

Tyler tapped the backpack he’d taken from their rental trunk. “This morning I stopped at a medical supply store and bought one of those protective vests used for patients getting x-rayed. I also picked up a couple of lanterns and a short crowbar.”

Jess was agog. “You knew this might happen.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Next time, give it to me straight. I can take it.”

“Will do.”

The wall at this corner, like the others, was built out of adobe brick, fabricated by mixing mud and straw. The pieces fitted together in a zigzag pattern, mimicking the stair-step construction of the pyramid itself.

Tyler knelt next to the bricks, running his hands over the rough surface.

“It wouldn’t be an obvious opening,” Tyler said, “or someone would have found it long ago merely by accident.”

“Do you see any symbols?” Jess asked.

“Nothing.”

“If this is a secret entrance, why would the Nazca make it so you had to tear the bricks apart to get in?”

“They wouldn’t. Dombrovski entered through here somehow. If he’d hammered the bricks away to get in, there’d be evidence, and these bricks are intact. We just have to figure out how to open it.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the Mandala image,” Jess said. “That would fit the pattern of the drawings, that the Nazca were providing a set of instructions to the gods.”

Tyler nodded. “Makes sense. It has a square overlaid with another square that’s turned at a forty-five degree angle. Which implies that something needs to be turned to set it to the proper alignment.” He studied the picture from the cave, then an aerial photo of the Mandala itself. “But what has to turn?”

Then Jess saw the difference between the drawing and the photo. She snatched the camera from his hand. “Look at this line in the drawing. It’s faint, but you can see that it bisects only the northwest corner of the larger square.”

Tyler’s eyes widened. “It’s as if that corner is supposed to divide in two.”

He didn’t have to utter the same conclusion that they had both reached. The bricks would have to swing away in either direction to reveal the secret opening.

Tyler’s finger followed the path of the stair-step seam created by the bricks. Then he stuck the tip of the crowbar between the bricks. The dirt fell away.

“The mortar’s crumbling,” Jess said.

“It’s not mortar. It’s dirt that’s worked its way into the crack. That explains why no one has noticed the gap.”

He jammed the crowbar farther in and pried at the bricks. At first they didn’t move, but Tyler pulled again, and Jess heard the bricks scrape against each other.

“It’s working!”

Tyler put his back into it, and the bricks separated far enough for Jess to get her fingers in. While Tyler pulled, Jess pushed from her side. The more room they got, the easier it became to swing it aside until the adobe segment was flush against the pyramid wall.

They repeated the process for the other side. With the other half of the corner out of the way, this one was no problem to move. Only three feet across, this hole was even less inviting than the one on Easter Island.

It didn’t matter. If this was the way to get Fay back, Jess wanted to get started as quickly as possible.

She held out her hand. “Give me a damn lantern.”

FORTY-FIVE

The passageway into the pyramid was not much wider than Tyler’s shoulders, so he had to adjust the backpack to keep it from scraping the walls. Jess led the way, holding her electric lantern high enough to illuminate the tunnel sixty feet ahead.

Tyler could make out soot on the ceiling from the torches that must have been carried through here over fifteen hundred years ago. The sunlight quickly receded behind him, and at the first turn in the passage, it was completely gone.

They crept forward another forty feet where they reached an opening on the left. The tunnel continued straight ahead.

“Which way?” Jess said.

“Let’s see what’s in this room.”

She turned and stopped so suddenly upon entering that Tyler almost ran into her.

He didn’t have to ask why. The room was filled with debris, a haphazard pile of bricks that stretched halfway to the ceiling thirty feet above.

“What the hell happened here?” Jess said. “Sure is a weird way to store bricks.”

Tyler raised his lantern to get a better look at the ceiling. Around the edges he could see a few bricks still teetering atop the inner wall that made up part of the room.

“It looks like they built an outer room around the inner room and the inner ceiling and walls collapsed.”

“Or they built the outer room over it after the old one caved in. But why would they do either one?”

“You’ve got me,” Tyler said. Even if there was another outlet on the other side of the room, it would be a dangerous trek to get to it. “Let’s keep going down the tunnel.”

They exited and this time Tyler took the lead.

After another forty feet, the tunnel opened into a vast space, this one so large that their lanterns barely illuminated the opposite side. Tyler estimated the ceiling was sixty feet high, and the circular space was big enough to hold a couple hundred people.

They had to be in the pyramid’s primary chamber.

Jess walked to the other side of the room and shined her lantern into a large opening.

“This must be the main entrance,” she said.

“Is it walled off?”

“Not that I can see from here.”

In the center of the room was an enormous pillar holding up the domed ceiling. Stepped risers surrounded the brick tower and led up to its mid-point. Something about the layout seemed familiar …

He whipped out the camera and checked the aerial image of the Mandala.

The layout of this room was exactly the same as the shape of inner part of the Mandala — a circle inside a square with rectangular steps surrounding a starburst image in the middle. The starburst had to represent the xenobium locked inside the pillar.

The Nazca designers had drawn an overhead plan of the pyramid for their gods.

“This is it!” Tyler said.

Jess ran over to him. “The xenobium?”

“It has to be in the center pillar.” He took out the radiation meter and pointed it at the brick structure.

The reading was in the middle of the scale. He climbed to the second level of steps, and the reading increased.

“It’s up here on the pillar.” He removed the lead apron from his pack and draped it over his front, dangling from his neck. Even with it on, he didn’t want to remain there any longer than he had to.

He climbed the next step. The reading reached the top of the scale.

He looked at the pillar to see if he could spot the xenobium. Halfway up the pillar, the bricks were supplanted by a stack of twelve thin circular stone disks that partially supported the thick vertical wooden beams. The top disk was pierced at irregular intervals by slots that were the same diameter as the beams. The dry desert air had preserved the yard-long segments of lumber.

There was a finger-width gap between each of the beams. He held the lantern up to one of the gaps, and the iridescent sheen of the multi-hued xenobium reflected the light. From the limited view he had, it looked to be an oblong specimen the size of a plum.

The gaps were too small to fit his hand through, and even if he could have, the xenobium specimen was too large to extract.

The Nazca must have created a way to retrieve it. But how?

Then he noticed that wooden handles extended from the disks. He looked closer and saw that drawings of the Nazca zodiac symbols were etched around the rim of each of the disks.

That had to be it. If the disks were rotated to a particular alignment, the wooden beams would slip off their main supports and fall into disk’s slots like the tumblers in a lock. Tyler supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised about such a sophisticated design from a people who had created the wealth of lines on the Nazca plateau, but it was an amazing revelation all the same.

“Can you get it?” Jess said.

“Let me give it a try.”

Tyler grabbed hold the handle attached to the topmost disk and pulled to his right until the spider figure was aligned with the hummingbird figure in the disk below.

Just as he suspected, a wooden beam slid down a few inches into the topmost disk.

What he wasn’t expecting was the cascade of bricks that fell from the roof. He hugged the pillar and they barely missed him as they crashed to the floor.

When the dust cleared, Jess said, “What the hell happened?”

“I got a little overconfident.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“At least we know what happened in that other room. They had a similar pillar setup in there and some tomb raiders found out the hard way that the Nazca didn’t want anyone but the gods messing with their stuff. It’d take a week to dig through there and see what they were after.”

Jess gazed at the pillar. “You mean, if those disks are turned in the correct pattern, the wooden beams fall far enough to let you get at the xenobium, but if you don’t align them perfectly—”

“We get buried under a few hundred tons of bricks. Some of the wooden beams seem to act as keystones. Drop a couple of the wrong ones down into the slots, and it would start a chain reaction.”

“You say the symbols from the Nazca lines are on the disks?”

“Some of them, but I don’t have any idea how they should line up to get the xenobium out. I could try to pry the beams apart, but I’m afraid I’d bring down the entire roof.”

Jess looked thoughtful then broke out her smart phone, to which she’d transferred the cave photos they’d emailed from Easter Island. After scanning it for a few minutes, she said, “Are all twelve symbols on every disk?”

Tyler walked around the pillar, counting each of the drawings etched into the stone.

“All of them are here,” he said. “Why?”

“Because I think I know why the Nazca symbols were connected by lines. The map shows each of the drawings connected from the Mandala through each other all the way to Cahuachi. What if the lines were drawn to show the gods how to unlock the xenobium?”

“It’s a combination lock.” Tyler gaped in awe of the Nazca people’s ingenuity. “The stone disks are the dials. But what’s the zero position?”

“The Nazca apparently liked lines. See if you can find one above the top disk.”

Tyler did another circumnavigation on the top riser and sure enough, there it was. He’d missed it before because it was just a single notch. It lined up with a notch below the bottom disk.

“Found it. Okay. Tell me the order.”

“One problem. I don’t know whether the Nazca would order them from top to bottom or bottom up.”

“What’s your best guess?” Tyler asked. “We’ve got a fifty-fifty shot.”

“As long as my theory about the combination is correct,” Jess said. “All right. They drew the lines leading from the Mandala to here through the constellation symbols. They were leading the gods to the xenobium. That means the disk symbols should go in the same order.”

“So you think the top disk would be the last symbol the line on the Nazca plain goes through?”

“Or it could be top down because the gods would start in the heavens.”

“But then the xenobium would be underneath the disks. I think your first instinct was right. We’ll start with the bottom and work our way to the top.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jess asked. “After that preview of the collapse, we may not get a second chance.”

“If Colchev gets here and figures out what we did, he could walk away with the xenobium before we get back with any kind of force. And if I fail, at least he won’t get his hands on it.”

“Don’t even say that.”

“Believe me, if this starts to buckle, I’m going to run like hell. Stand over by the exit in case this doesn’t work.”

Jess hesitated, then reluctantly moved to the passageway opening.

“Now what’s the first symbol?” Tyler asked.

“The spider.”

Tyler found the tarantula and rotated the bottom disk until the etching was matched up with the line.

“Next?”

“The condor,” Jess said. “Don’t mix it up with the hummingbird.”

“Bigger wingspan on the condor, I assume.” He rotated the second stone disk until the condor was above the spider.

They continued on in the same way for the next nine symbols. None of the wooden beams had moved, but Tyler wasn’t expecting them to until he reached the last disk.

“What’s the last symbol?” Tyler asked. His back ached from pulling on the heavy disks.

“The astronaut.”

“Okay,” Tyler said. “Get ready to run if this doesn’t work.”

“If you start to feel it buckling, get out of there.”

“I will.” Tyler put his hands on the disk’s handle and paused to look at Jess. “I’ve often thought about running into you again. I’m glad I did.” He smiled. “It’s been fun.”

Before she could reply, he pulled the handle. The disk ground against the other stones as it rotated. Tyler put every bit of remaining strength he had into the final heave.

The astronaut etching lined up with the notch and something snapped inside the column. Two of the wooden beams fell all the way into their slots on the pillar. Tyler prepared to jump, but all the other beams remained in place.

The xenobium gleamed from its honored resting place nestled on a cradle of obsidian glass, within reach of human hands for the first time in over a thousand years.

“It worked!” Jess yelled.

Tyler exhaled sharply. “And I’m not dead!”

“That too.”

He used the crowbar to nudge the xenobium out of its holder, and the ovoid relic fell out, thumping onto the top riser before rolling off and coming to rest on the floor of the chamber. Tyler clambered down, took the lead-lined apron out of his pack, and carefully wrapped it around the specimen.

“Is it safe to hold?” Jess asked.

Tyler ran the radiation meter over it. “Not for long. I’ll be getting an x-ray-equivalent dose every two minutes while I’m carrying it.”

“Then let’s go.” She scooped it up.

“Let me hold it,” Tyler said.

“You’ve been next to it for ten minutes already.” She walked quickly toward the exit while Tyler followed carrying both lanterns. “That officer is going to be pretty surprised at what he missed.”

“We can’t tell him,” Tyler said. “If the Peruvian government finds out what we’ve done, they’ll lock us up and who knows what will happen to the xenobium.”

“What about Nana?”

“We’ll leave the pyramid open when we exit. Once Colchev finds out we have the xenobium, he’ll find us.”

They retraced their path out of the pyramid. When they reached the opening, Jess climbed out first. But before Tyler could do the same, she barreled back down the steps.

“What happened?”

“It’s them!”

“Colchev? Where?”

“At the parking area. I saw his gray hair. He’s got two men with him.”

“And Fay?”

Jess nodded. “They’ve got her, Tyler. And they’re coming this way.”

FORTY-SIX

Grant munched on a second breakfast burrito, the salsa running down his hand. From his position he had a good view of the house where they were expecting the Killswitch to arrive. The food vendor had been only too happy to rent out his truck for the day at a reasonable mark-up. Although the vehicle was closed for business, with the awning rolled up and side window closed, its familiar presence wouldn’t arouse suspicion to any occupants in the drug gang’s hideaway.

In the hour they’d been observing the home, no one had come or gone. Grant thought they might be in for a long wait, so he helped himself to the vendor’s supplies. He figured it should be included in the price.

“How can you eat that?” Morgan said with a measure of disgust on her face.

“Easy,” he said, and stuffed the rest of it in his mouth. “Best burrito I’ve had in months. Seattle isn’t known for its Tex-Mex.”

“I don’t want to think about what kind of meat that is.”

“Doesn’t matter. My stomach’s like an iron cauldron.” He wiped his hands on a paper towel. “This was a great idea, if I do say so myself.”

“I won’t be able to get the smell of taco sauce out of my hair for weeks.”

Grant rubbed his bald head. “You could always try my hairstyle.”

“It wouldn’t look as good on me.”

“Why, Agent Bell, is that a compliment?”

She snorted in feigned exasperation, but she also turned red. Grant smiled. It seemed like he was starting to make an impression.

A van approaching from the opposite direction slowed to turn onto the side street where the house sat.

Grant and Morgan donned their goggles. Bright red crosshairs bloomed on the back of the van.

“We have a winner,” Grant said.

The gate to the house slid aside, and the garage door opened. The van pulled inside, and the door closed behind it.

Morgan took off the goggles and radioed Benitez. “That’s our van. The explosives are in the house.”

“We’re ready to move in.”

“Remember, no one touches the explosives except us. When the house is secure, Westfield and I will take possession of the explosives and bring the couriers into custody.”

“Understood. We move in two minutes.”

“Copy that.”

They weren’t going for subtlety in this operation. Two tactical teams would approach the house, one from the front and one from the back to make sure no one escaped. Everyone on the team had gas masks. Benitez had wanted to use concussion grenades for the breach, but Morgan was afraid of damaging the Killswitch, so she insisted on tear-gas grenades instead, telling him that the explosives might be detonated by the concussive blast.

Three men would cover the garage door in case the targets attempted to escape in the van. The rest of them would go through the front door, prepared to shoot anyone who resisted.

Once they found the Killswitch, Benitez would provide escort back to the American border, where they would secure the weapon until the Air Force could arrange for protective transport back to Wright-Patterson.

Grant squeezed into his ballistic vest and put his helmet on over his mask. Morgan did the same.

“You don’t have to go in with us,” she said, her voice muffled.

“You think I’m going to wait in the truck?” Grant said.

“I dragged you along on this. It’s not your job.”

“Morgan, I’ve done this kind of raid dozens of times in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there’s a better way to get the adrenaline pumping, I don’t know what it is.”

“You enjoy this?”

“You don’t?”

“Flying does it for me.”

“Taking down bad guys does it for me.”

“If that’s true, why aren’t you still in the Army?”

“Because I hate sleeping in barracks and eating MREs.” There was a lot more to it than that, but Grant wasn’t going to go into the details now.

Benitez’s voice came through the radio. “We’re set to move in, Agent Bell.”

“Ready here,” she said.

“Do not get out of the truck until my unit is deployed.”

“Understood.”

Grant positioned himself at the food truck’s rear door, his M4 assault rifle at the ready. Morgan checked her own weapon twice. Her breathing quickened to the point that she sounded like Darth Vader hyperventilating.

“Have you ever done this before?” Grant asked.

She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “Only in simulations.”

Grant fell back on his days as a sergeant leading soldiers fresh out of boot camp into battle.

“Remember to verify your targets before firing. This probably won’t take more than thirty seconds, but if it does, things will get confusing fast. Stay with me and you’ll be okay.”

She gave him a thumbs-up with a rock-steady hand, and her breathing slowed.

The tactical team’s truck sped past them, its tires squealing as it came to a stop in front of the house. Men in full assault gear spilled from the rear.

“That’s our cue,” Grant said, and threw open the back door.

He ran at top speed around the corner until he was in the shelter of the massive black truck, Morgan on his heels the whole way. He took up a position next to Captain Benitez, who gave a command in Spanish.

A policeman took aim with the grenade launcher. With a thud, the tear-gas grenade shot across the fence and through the front window with a perfect bulls-eye.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

As smoke billowed from the target house, a hail of gunfire rained down from the homes to the left and right of it, taking out two of the policemen in the first few seconds.

The police opened up, and the neighborhood was instantly transformed into a war zone.

Grant saw a face appear in the window to his left. He took aim and fired. For a soldier trained to hit targets at over two hundred yards without a scope, the distance to the neighboring house across the street was practically point-blank range. The man’s head disappeared in a red mist.

Morgan fired her own weapon, but Grant didn’t take the time to see if she hit anything.

Bullets from high-powered rifles continued to slam into the tactical vehicle. The armor would protect them, but Grant knew that some of these drug cartels carried heavy weaponry like rocket-propelled grenades. If they used one of those, the situation would deteriorate quickly.

More gunfire erupted from the back of the three houses. Benitez yelled at his men in Spanish. Grant hoped he was telling them to fire gas at the other houses because if they stayed out here much longer, they’d be cut to ribbons.

Grant had expected coughing gang members to spew from the main house after the tear gas took effect, but he realized that no one had left the house. It was highly unlikely that a drug cartel would have gas masks, and in a confined space like that, covering your face with a rag wouldn’t do much good.

So what were they doing? Maybe they were holed up in the garage.

He saw that Morgan still had her goggles hanging from her neck. He tapped her on the shoulder, and she twisted around, a wild look in her eye betraying how amped up she was by the gun battle. He gestured at the goggles and took them from her. He leaned out so he could see through the truck’s windshield and held them up to his mask.

No red crosshairs in the garage. He panned over the rest of the house. Nothing.

Until he looked down.

The crosshairs were descending below street level. Then they disappeared, no longer able to penetrate the dirt that shielded the ID dust from the sensors.

Grant dropped the goggles from his face.

“We’ve got to move in now!” he shouted to Morgan. “We’re losing the Killswitch!”

“What? How?”

“Captain Benitez was right. They’ve got a drug-smuggling tunnel.”

FORTY-SEVEN

“Did Colchev see you?” Tyler asked Jess.

She was sure he hadn’t turned her way when she popped out. “No, but they’re headed straight for us. They’ll see the opening any minute.”

With Colchev and his men only a few hundred yards away, Tyler and Jess couldn’t come out of the secret passage without being spotted. Unarmed, Jess knew they’d be easy prey.

“At least we won’t be ambushed like on Easter Island,” Tyler said. “That gives us a small advantage.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’ve got to collapse the chamber. It’s the only way to be sure. We can’t let Colchev get his hands on the xenobium.”

“You’ll be killed!”

“This isn’t a discussion.” He took the lead apron from her and stuffed it in the backpack. He gave her the crowbar and said, “Come on.”

Carrying the backpack, Tyler ran toward the central chamber. Jess followed, expecting him to climb back up to the pillar, but instead he crossed the chamber and went out through the larger main entrance on the opposite side.

The wide passageway turned right and ended at a brick wall after another thirty feet.

With a look of concentration, Tyler examined the wall, then turned 360 degrees.

“What are you doing?” Jess asked.

He laid a hand on the wall. “This is facing south, right where we found the entrance to the pyramid when we were searching for Colchev. I’ll bet the priests walled it up before they buried the whole place with mud.”

“What’s your point?”

He dropped the crowbar by the wall. “You’re going to use that to hack your way out of here. You’ll need to hammer the crowbar with another brick to chisel out the mortar.”

“Are you serious?”

“We can’t go back the way we came in, so this is the only other choice.”

“But it could take hours. They’ll be here any second.”

“Which is why we will have to make them think you’re dead.”

“What do you mean, ‘dead’?”

“Just trust me.” She began to protest, but he shoved the backpack into her hands. “Follow my lead.”

“But Nana—”

“You and Fay will be all right.”

“Will you?”

“That’s not important.” He rushed back to the central chamber. Several approaching lights reflected off the walls of the secret passage on the other side. They didn’t have much time until Colchev and his men entered the room.

When Jess moved to join Tyler on the pillar’s riser, he stopped her before she got out of the chamber’s main entrance.

“Stay there with your back against the wall,” he said. “Don’t make yourself a target.”

She turned off her lantern and stepped to the side so that the pillar stood between her and the secret passage, leaving just enough space so that she had a slim view of the opening.

Tyler set his lantern down and pulled on the top disk. A few more bricks rained down. Another strong pull, and the whole ceiling would fall.

He waited, keeping tension on the handle.

The lights stopped just outside the chamber.

“Come in, Colchev!” Tyler called out. “But don’t shoot. We’re unarmed.”

Colchev’s lights were extinguished. After a moment, Jess could see a man crawl out of the gloom, survey the chamber, and pull back quickly.

“Let us see your hands!” came a booming basso voice.

“I can’t do that,” Tyler said, the body of the pillar between him and the secret passage. “Did you see the collapsed bricks in that chamber you passed?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“The same thing will happen in here if you try to fire at us.”

The lights went back on. A young man dressed in jeans and a denim jacket emerged carrying a submachine gun. He took a look around the chamber, including the ceiling. Then he nodded.

Colchev and a bearded companion, both armed with pistols, followed the first man into the chamber with Fay propped in front of them. Colchev put down the metal case Tyler had used to secure the Easter Island xenobium.

“Nana!” Jess shouted. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Don’t give them anything for me.”

Still as gutsy as ever. Jess breathed a sigh of relief.

Colchev’s eyes went from Jess to Tyler. “This isn’t going to end well for you, Dr. Locke.”

“Maybe not. But then you won’t get the xenobium.”

“You have it?”

Tyler nodded in Jess’s direction. “She does.”

“How do I know that?”

“I’m sure you have a radiation detector. You should be able to tell from there.”

“Zotkin,” Colchev said. The man next to him took out a meter like Tyler’s and waved it around.

“There’s a strong radiation source in the room, but I can’t tell where it is from this far away. She may have it.”

“What are we going to do about this standoff?” Colchev said.

Jess held her breath. She had no idea what Tyler was planning.

“A trade,” he said. “Fay for the xenobium. Then you leave.”

“Really?”

“It’s that simple.”

“I accept. Have the girl bring over the xenobium and we’ll let her grandmother go.”

“No. One man goes with Fay and the radiation detector over to Jess at the main entrance. Your man checks out the backpack she’s carrying. When he verifies that the xenobium is inside, Fay stays there and he goes back. Then you head out one at a time with the flashlights so we can see that you’ve all left. When you go, you’ll take your weapons but leave the ammo on the floor so that you can’t ambush us on our way out.”

Colchev thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed. Give the detector to Kiselow.”

Zotkin handed it over to the man in the denim jacket. Before Kiselow started walking, Tyler said, “One more thing. Kiselow drops his gun. I want to see that he’s unarmed before he makes the trip. Turn out your pockets and show me your waistband and ankles.”

Kiselow looked at Colchev, who nodded again. The man handed over his submachine gun and a pistol from his belt holster to Zotkin, then showed Tyler that he was now unarmed.

“Okay. Go ahead. Slowly.” Tyler kept watch on Colchev and Zotkin, who had the submachine gun trained on Fay. “If you fire or if you or Zotkin take one step farther in, the whole place comes down.”

“I only want what’s mine,” Colchev said.

“It’s not yours!” Fay shouted.

“It will be in a minute unless you all want to die.”

“I’m dying already.”

“But Locke and your granddaughter aren’t.”

“It’s okay, Fay,” Tyler said. “Please.”

Fay huffed but started moving. Kiselow kept her in front of him while they crossed. His eyes moved from Tyler to the ceiling and back to Fay.

When they reached the other side, Jess ran into Fay’s arms and grasped her in a tight hug.

Jess pulled away and studied her grandmother’s eyes.

Fay didn’t look frightened. She looked angry.

“You shouldn’t be doing this for me,” she said.

“We weren’t going to let these assholes kill you,” Jess said.

“The bag!” Colchev commanded.

Jess unslung the backpack and gave it to Kiselow, who unzipped it and ran the detector over the opening.

“This is it,” he said to Colchev triumphantly.

“Bring it back,” Colchev said.

Kiselow zipped it up and started to walk back across the chamber.

Jess glanced at Tyler, who gave her a slight nod.

This had been Tyler’s plan all along. We can’t let Colchev get his hands on the xenobium.

She shook her head, pleading for him not to do it, but when she saw the corner of his mouth go up in a lopsided, heartbreaking smile, she knew there was no convincing him otherwise. He was going to stop Colchev even if it meant sacrificing his own life.

When Kiselow was beside the pillar, Tyler wrenched the disk’s handle.

Three wooden beams fell into the column, and bricks began to plummet from the ceiling.

Kiselow, startled by the crackling of the adobe bricks, froze just long enough for Tyler to leap from the platform, his fist aimed at the Russian’s head. Kiselow saw him in time to avoid the brutal punch, but couldn’t keep Tyler from slamming into him. As bricks rained down, they wrestled for the backpack.

A burst of rounds from the submachine gun peppered the wall beside Jess. The weapon was in Zotkin’s hands, but Colchev had shoved the barrel toward the ceiling, sending bullets ricocheting around the chamber.

“Don’t shoot, you idiot!” Colchev yelled at Zotkin. He turned back to the melee. “Kiselow, throw the bag!”

Kiselow wound up to toss the backpack, but Tyler grabbed the top of it. The bag zipped open, dumping the contents on the ground. The xenobium rolled out of the protective apron, flashing its brilliance in the light.

The hail of ceiling chunks was so thick now that neither Colchev nor Zotkin could make a move for it.

Tyler tried to kick the ball of xenobium away, but Kiselow grabbed his foot. While they struggled, a falling brick caught Tyler in the side of the head. He reeled from the blow, and Kiselow kicked him in the chest.

Tyler stumbled backward. He tripped and landed on his back only twenty feet from Jess’s location. If he stayed there, he’d be crushed in another few seconds.

“Get up!” Jess yelled, but he didn’t move.

She had to help him. She shrugged out of Fay’s grip and ran into the storm of bricks.

Kiselow grabbed the xenobium and hurled it away before he was buried by a shower of bricks.

Jess reached Tyler and yanked him to his feet. Debris narrowly missed her head as they staggered back toward Fay, who turned on the lantern to guide her.

Jess pushed Tyler ahead and she launched herself at the opening just as the rest of the ceiling finally gave way, sealing off the main entrance from the chamber and trapping the three of them inside the tunnel.

They fell to the floor. Tyler rolled over and groaned, his eyes fluttering.

“Stay still,” Jess said, stroking his hair. She felt a huge bump on the side of his skull.

“Are you all right?” Fay asked.

“I’m fine, but I think Tyler has a concussion. Did you see what happened to the xenobium?”

Fay nodded solemnly. “It bounced and rolled into the secret passage. Colchev has it now.”

FORTY-EIGHT

As soon as the tear-gas grenades hit the windows on the two homes to either side, Grant sprinted for the target house, Morgan at his side. The tactical team covered them with a barrage of gunfire.

Grant saw a muzzle flash in the window to his right and let loose with a volley of his own, stitching the wall underneath the window with a row of bullet holes. The thin drywall was no match for the high-velocity rounds, and the gunman disappeared.

The headlong rush to the house wasn’t the best tactic, but they had no time to wait. Morgan had already called into the OSI team waiting for the Killswitch that the tunnel exited somewhere on the American side, but without knowing how far the tunnel went or in what direction, there was no way for them to narrow the location down to less than a square mile of stores and warehouses.

Grant vaulted the fence, landing in the tiny front yard. He charged straight for the front door.

Hit with the battering ram of his 250-pound bulk, the flimsy door was demolished. It flew off its hinges, smashing into a gunman hiding behind it. Grant went down onto the door, pinning the pummeled man beneath him.

As Grant rolled over, trying to bring his M4 to bear, he saw a gang member with a bandanna wrapped around his face. The man turned and raised an AK-47 just as Morgan ran through the open doorway and fired a three-round burst into his chest, killing him instantly.

She kept moving forward, sweeping with her rifle for other targets. Grant took the living room, staying low in an attempt to avoid the random shots piercing the thin walls.

“In here!” Morgan yelled.

Grant found her in a small kitchen with a gaping hole cut in the floor, an extension ladder poking out of it.

They both edged over to the hole on opposite sides and crouched. Grant did a silent countdown with his fingers. When he reached one, they jumped up and unloaded their magazines into the pit. Two screams were followed by the thump of falling bodies and the sound of ejected shell casings clinking on the metal steps of the ladder.

The tear gas had dissipated enough that they didn’t need the masks any more. Grant took his off, and Morgan did the same. Both of them reloaded.

They peered into the hole and saw two corpses. Neither looked Russian.

The hole had been dug through the concrete slab into the dirt below to create a pit large enough for six men to stand comfortably. A four-foot-high tunnel opened to the north.

Grant climbed down the ladder while Morgan covered him. Keeping his rifle aimed at the tunnel, Grant hopped off the ladder next to it in case someone was lying in wait inside. He gave the tunnel the same treatment as the pit. Rounds bounced around the shaft. No one returned fire.

He ducked down and saw that the tunnel was empty. But this was no bare-bones prison escape tunnel. A track was laid down its center and electric lights had been strung along the entire length of its ceiling, powered by wires leading back up to the kitchen. The tunnel curved a few hundred yards away so that the other end was out of sight. Walking that far in a crouch would take time they didn’t have.

Grant was happy to see a five-foot-long flatbed cart lay at their end of the track. One of the dead men had fallen against it, and Grant nudged him aside with his foot. A simple lever control protruded from the front of the cart.

Morgan jumped off the ladder and saw the railcar.

“They don’t mess around,” she said.

“This is high-quality construction,” Grant said. “The cart’s electric-powered, controlled either from the cart or from this lever on the wall. They could move a lot of drugs this way.”

“Looks like our two corpses were getting ready for their turns.”

“There’s only one cart. And it’s too far to scuttle.”

Morgan stared at the cart for a moment, as if she were fishing for another option. “There’s not much room for two of us.”

She was right. The small dimensions of the cart meant they’d have to snuggle up. “You ride behind me and keep your rifle pointed straight ahead while I drive.”

“All right. Get on.”

Grant knelt on the cart and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He positioned himself so that he could operate the controls. “Climb aboard.”

Morgan squeezed on, pressing herself against Grant’s back. Her breath was hot on his neck.

“Ready?” he said.

“Just go.”

Grant put the cart in gear, and the small electric motor hummed. They rolled forward at a decent clip. Other than the threat of imminent death, the ride was quite relaxing.

“Vince hears nothing about this,” Morgan said.

“Are you telling me that you’re going to file an incomplete report?”

A beat, then, “Shit.”

“I hope you include that I was a perfect gentleman.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“What’s not to enjoy? I’m about to go into battle with a beautiful woman behind me and a gun at my side. Could I be any studlier?”

Grant wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a faint chuckle.

They rounded the bend, and Grant saw movement a hundred yards ahead at the end of the tunnel.

“Maybe we’re not too late,” he said.

“Just a little closer and I can take a shot. All I can see are legs.”

“They’re going to be expecting one of the other guys. Wait as long as you can before you shoot. We might surprise them.”

As they got closer, Grant could hear the men speaking in Spanish. They were standing in a pit similar to the one under the Mexican house. Two pairs of knees were visible.

Neither man was paying attention to the tunnel.

The cart rolled forward, and only when they were within thirty feet did one of the men crouch down to see who was coming.

“Vamanos, Carlos,” he said, sounding annoyed at his friend’s tardiness.

Morgan answered with the crack of her M4, cleanly dispatching him. She shot the other man in both legs. He collapsed in pain but defiantly drew a pistol, and she finished him off.

Shouts came from above as Morgan scrambled out of the tunnel, her rifle aimed skyward. Grant crawled after her. They stood with their backs to opposite sides of the pit, each covering one half of the rim.

This would be the tricky part. The enemy had the high ground.

“Were you ever a cheerleader?” Grant said.

She looked at him like he was nuts. “What?”

He gestured that going up the ladder was a bad idea. The men up there would have a bead on it and take her out as soon as her head rose above floor level. To surprise them, Grant would have to give her a boost.

Morgan frowned and then nodded reluctantly.

While she kept her rifle to her shoulder, Grant grabbed her around the hips and hoisted her up. Even in her full battle gear, he lifted her easily. And who said all those hours in the weight room were wasted?

He raised her until she could see over the rim.

Bullets zinged by and she returned fire.

“One down!” she cried out. “They’re in the next room. Let’s go!”

Grant dropped her and went up the ladder two rungs at a time. At the top he knelt beside the ladder and aimed his weapon at the door while Morgan climbed up. It looked like they were in a storage room of some kind of office-park rental.

As Morgan came up out of the pit, a man suddenly appeared in the door to Grant’s right, aiming a pistol at her head. Grant didn’t have time to bring his gun around.

He did the only thing he could. He jumped in front of Morgan. Two slugs hit Grant in the chest. The body armor took the brunt of the rounds, but it still hurt like hell, as if he’d been pounded by a sledgehammer.

Despite struggling for breath, Grant rushed the man and grabbed his arm, breaking it against the door jamb. The gunman screamed. Grant swung him around and tossed him past Morgan into the pit.

The man landed on his neck with a sickening crunch.

Morgan hopped off the ladder and put the rifle to her shoulder. “Thanks.”

“De nada,” he wheezed, holding a hand to his battered chest.

“Where’s the Killswitch?”

Tires screeched outside in reply.

Two men in the next room shouted toward the fleeing vehicle.

“Salen!”

“Esos pendejos rusos!”

Grant barreled through the doorway while they were distracted and took each of them down with one shot.

Morgan dashed to the front door, and Grant went after her. They emerged into bright sunlight beating down on a long row of warehouses and offices.

He got out in time to see a white van tear around the corner and out of sight. They didn’t even get a shot off.

“Did you get the plate?” Grant asked.

Morgan shook her head. “Too far away. Dammit!”

She took out her phone to report their location using her GPS, but there was no way the roadblocks would be in place yet. A plain white van like that was on every other street. Finding it would be virtually impossible.

They’d lost their best chance to get the remaining Killswitch back. Now it was loose in the United States.

All Grant could hope was that Tyler had better luck.

FORTY-NINE

Still groggy from the blow to his head, Tyler took turns with Jess chipping at the wall with the crowbar. Two hours after being trapped in the tunnel between the collapsed central chamber and the bricked-up barricade, his head continued to throb, mostly from the injury but also because he was angry at himself that his plan hadn’t worked. He’d fully expected to die from the cave-in, but he thought the xenobium would have been buried with him. His wooziness made it hard to tell if he’d come up with a poor scheme or Colchev had just gotten lucky.

His only consolation was that Grant and Morgan probably had done a better job of retrieving the Killswitch.

Even so, he needed to get out of the pyramid and warn them that Colchev had the xenobium.

They’d removed twenty bricks so far. There was no way to know how thick the wall was, so they were racing to break through before the battery on their single lantern died.

Fay sat against the wall with Jess’s arm around her. A day without her insulin had made her weak, but the situation was not yet life-threatening. As Tyler hacked at the mortar, she told them about her conversations with Colchev.

“Did he say what his target was?” Tyler asked.

“He mentioned Washington, DC, and that America would be on its knees. The attack would take China down with it.”

“Nadia Bedova, his former colleague, asked me about Wisconsin Ave. There’s a Wisconsin Avenue in downtown DC. The nation’s capital is a tempting target.”

Tyler turned toward them and frowned at the scenario.

“What’s wrong?” Jess asked.

“Something doesn’t make sense about it.”

“Why?”

“Fay said she heard them say that they only had one day left, which would be July twenty-fifth, the same day that Bedova asked me about. If Colchev plans to take out DC, why does it have to be tomorrow?”

“Is something special happening in Washington?”

“Could be, but we’re past the Fourth of July. And the President’s plane is protected against EMP bursts better than any other plane on earth. Colchev would know that.”

“The gamma rays. He could be trying to kill the President.”

“But again, why tomorrow? Bedova also mentioned the Baja drug cartel and the word ‘Icarus’. Did he say anything about them?”

Fay shook her head. “Sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I was the one who let them …” Tyler trailed off. No sense rehashing his mistakes.

“You did your best,” Jess said. “You saved me and Nana.”

Tyler didn’t answer. Failure didn’t sit well with him. He slammed the crowbar into the mortar.

The brick moved, but this one jutted away from him.

He pounded again, and the brick fell outward, letting a sliver of muted daylight through. He could make out the dimly lit interior of one of the pyramid’s previously excavated chambers.

“We’re through!”

Jess and Fay got to their feet and cheered.

Now that he could wedge the crowbar between the bricks and force them out from inside, the hole got bigger quickly. In five minutes the gap was wide enough.

Jess went first and helped Fay traverse the breach. Tyler wriggled out and flopped onto the ground, only to find himself face to face with a family of four gaping in astonishment at the trio covered in dust and squirming out of a wall that had been there for centuries.

The father, who was wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, asked, “What in the world is going on?”

Tyler ushered Jess and Fay out. As he passed the astonished tourist, Tyler handed him the crowbar and said, “You will not believe how long we’ve been in there.”

After a quick refueling stop in Lima, Colchev’s private jet lifted off for North America. The xenobium was safely ensconced in the leaded case. Bomb-sniffing dogs might have detected the explosives in the Killswitch, but he was confident he could get the small specimen of xenobium past customs.

He called Oborski to find out the status of the Killswitch. They should have smuggled it through the Mexican drug gang’s cross-border tunnel by now.

“Where are you?” Colchev said when Oborski answered.

“On our way to Phoenix. Our charter is ready to take off when we get there.”

“And the package?”

“Safe. We had some problems at the border. The black man and some woman were there and tried to take it back, but we got away before they could see our vehicle. Our friends on the peninsula won’t be happy about us revealing their smuggling route.”

“I don’t care about them. Is everything on schedule for tomorrow?”

“Yes. The latest reports show no problems with the launch. It’s still set to go off at noon.”

“Good. We’re on schedule to meet in Shelby. Have the plane there tonight.”

“Understood.”

He hung up and told Zotkin the news.

“I have to admit, Vladimir,” Zotkin said with a smile. “After everything we had to overcome, I did not think this would happen.”

Colchev slapped him on the back and laughed. “Never lose faith, my friend. I will chill the vodka tonight, for tomorrow we will be toasting the downfall of America and the establishment of Russia as the most dominant nation on the planet.”

While federal operatives on both sides of the border combed the Mexican drug houses and the nondescript office on the American side for evidence, Grant and Morgan gave their reports to the FBI. Separately. Grant had been through enough debriefings to know that wasn’t a good sign.

His interview finished long before Morgan’s, so he tried calling Tyler again from the lobby of the San Diego field office while he waited.

No answer, but he did have a voicemail waiting.

Grant, it’s Tyler. We found the xenobium in a Peruvian pyramid, but Colchev got away with it. It’s about the size of a tennis ball, so it could take out an entire state if it gets reunited with the Killswitch.

Other than a bump on my head, I’m okay, and so are Jess and Fay. Fay said Colchev mentioned something about Washington, but I don’t think that’s the target for a few reasons that I’ll tell you about when we get in to LAX tonight at eleven o’clock.

Tell Morgan to track any incoming private plane flights from South America. That’s the only way he could get a radioactive element through customs.

Whatever he’s planning will happen tomorrow. You’ve got to get the Killswitch back. I hope you have better luck than we did.

The message ended, and Grant clicked the phone off. Great, he thought. The news just keeps getting better and better.

Morgan slammed the door open and stalked past him out of the lobby. He caught up with her outside as she plunked herself in the driver’s seat of the pool car. She opened the passenger window and said, “You coming?”

He got in, and she sped off, merging onto the freeway.

After a minute of nothing from her, Grant said, “That bad?”

“Now that the Killswitch is in the US and a threat to national security, the FBI is taking over the case. I’m put on suspension pending an investigation into my actions of the last four days.”

“That’s idiotic! Why?”

“They had a lot of good reasons.” She held up a fist and flicked it open one finger at a time. “I allowed the Killswitch to be stolen, the Australian xenobium was destroyed, our suspects in Sydney were killed before they could be interrogated, and I failed to stop the weapon from being smuggled back into the US. Oh, and the Air Force lost its two-hundred-million-dollar cargo jet and crew that I convinced them to send to Easter Island.”

Grant grimaced. “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound good. What do we do now?”

“We don’t do anything. They took my OSI ID and gun. I’m supposed to fly back to Andrews tomorrow morning.”

“Tyler left me a message. He said Colchev has the xenobium. He thinks the attack is going to happen tomorrow.”

“I know. He called our office and left me the same message.”

“What is the FBI doing about it?”

“They disagree with Tyler’s assessment that Washington isn’t the target. The President is being moved to a safe location away from the city, and they’re shutting down Wisconsin Avenue and doing a building-to-building canvass along the street.”

“Colchev’s too smart for that. He’d just move to a different location.”

“The FBI thinks this is the best option,” Morgan said with disgust. She took the exit for Mission Hills. Grant didn’t know San Diego well, but he assumed she was heading for the airport.

“You’re not giving up are you?”

“What else can we do?”

“Tyler gets into LAX in eight hours. I say we meet him there and trade information. Maybe we’ll come up with something.”

“All right,” Morgan said, “but I need to shower and change first.”

“So do I. Motel?”

She pulled to a stop in front of a tidy two-story home and put the car in park.

“My parents’ house. They’re at work right now.”

Grant took the guest bathroom while Morgan used her parents’ master suite.

By the time he was finished with his shower, Grant felt like a new man. After he toweled off, he wrapped it around himself and walked out of the hallway bathroom to find Morgan standing in the guest bedroom doorway wearing only a robe. Her skin radiated a fresh glow, and her damp hair dipped across her shoulder in an alluring flourish.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” Grant said, not sure if the vibe he was getting was correct. But he was damned interested to see where this was going. His adrenaline surged more than it had during any of the explosions or firefights of the last few days.

The seconds ticked by as they eyed each other. Grant got the distinct impression that he was being ogled, which didn’t bother him one bit.

Without saying a word, he walked over to Morgan and stopped inches in front of her. Her breath was hot on his chest.

He didn’t care if he was wrong. He swept her into his arms and kissed her.

When she returned the kiss so forcefully that she twisted him around and pushed him backward into the guest bedroom, he knew he was right.

FIFTY

The nine-hour flight from Lima left Tyler, Jess, and Fay exhausted, but at least they made it out of Peru before anyone discovered that they’d had a hand in destroying part of a major Nazca monument. Tyler dozed fitfully during the flight, preoccupied with speculation about where Colchev was headed.

Now that Fay had access to her insulin, she was feeling better, but the experiences of the last few days had drained her. Jess decided to get her a hotel room in LA, so when the plane landed, Tyler texted Grant to meet them at the airport Radisson.

The shuttle dropped them at the hotel lobby, where Tyler saw Grant and Morgan standing awkwardly next to each other.

Tyler clapped his friend on the back and said, “How are you doing?”

“We’re fine,” Grant said. “Well, Morgan’s not … she’s had a rough day. I’m trying to keep her spirits up.”

Tyler raised an eyebrow at Grant, who knew exactly what he was silently asking. Grant’s lightning-fast grin answered the question.

“We should find somewhere to talk,” Morgan said.

“I reserved a suite,” Jess said. “The living room should be big enough for all of us.”

After the quick check-in, they settled into seats around the coffee table. Even Fay stayed, despite Jess’s pleas to get some rest. It took them an hour to swap stories about Sydney, Rapa Nui, Peru, and Tijuana. Although they had whittled away at Colchev’s crew, he had bested them at every turn, and they were nowhere close to catching him.

Tyler ran his hands through his hair in frustration at trying to figure out Colchev’s ultimate goal. The Russian’s original plan had been to steal both the Killswitch and the xenobium in Australia. He not only was going to bring it back to the US, a risky proposition in any case, but he had a timetable to get it into the country in time for an attack to occur on July 25.

“Could this be related to money?” he asked Morgan.

“Anything’s possible,” she said. “If he’s playing the market, he could profit when an attack devastates stock prices.

“But why tomorrow?”

“Maybe he has to short sell by then,” Jess said.

“That means he created the short timeline for himself. That seems ambitious, even for him.”

“But what would be on Wisconsin Avenue?” Grant said.

“It does seem like an odd place to attack,” Morgan said. “I’ve looked over the satellite and street maps in detail. It’s far away from any of the critical government functions.”

“That doesn’t matter. Colchev has a huge amount of xenobium. Not only will the gamma rays kill everyone within miles, the EMP burst could take out every computer all the way to Baltimore, whatever street he detonates it on.”

“It sounds like we’re missing a vital piece of the puzzle,” Fay said. “Like when I didn’t know that the phrase the alien told me was Russian. If he was an alien, that is.”

Tyler grinned. That was the first time she conceded that perhaps what she experienced wasn’t a close encounter with a spaceman. He was impressed with her ability to change her mind, even after sixty-five years.

“Fay’s right,” Tyler said. “Bedova asked me if we’d heard the word ‘Icarus’ from Colchev’s men when they were in New Zealand. I bet that’s an important piece.”

“I have one possibility, though it doesn’t make sense,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t tell you before because our knowledge of it is classified. Sorry, but I was bound by law.”

“And now?” Grant said.

The corner of her mouth turned up. “I can’t screw up much more than I already have in the eyes of the OSI. Icarus is a Russian code name for a parachute.”

Jess looked at her dubiously. “A parachute that’s classified?”

“It was developed for their military space program. It allows them to bail out of a sub-orbital spacecraft and parachute back to earth from up to eighty miles high.”

Grant laughed. “You’re kidding. I’m pretty much a badass, but that sounds like an impossible stunt.”

“Maybe not,” Tyler said. “There was a US program called Excelsior in the late fifties. The Air Force was worried about pilots ejecting from the high altitudes that the U-2 flew at, so they designed a multi-stage parachute to prevent fatal spins. Icarus could be a Russian version of the same thing.”

“And you know about Excelsior how?” Jess said.

“My father was in the Air Force. He knows the guy who tested the chute, Joseph Kittinger — probably the gutsiest man in history.”

“Why?” Fay asked. “How did they test it?”

“They put Captain Kittinger, who was wearing a pressure suit, into a gondola attached to an enormous helium balloon, then let it float up to a hundred thousand feet.”

Grant whistled. “Almost twenty miles.”

“For all intents and purposes, he was in space. When he stepped off that ledge, it was like jumping into a satellite photo. He fell for four and a half minutes, still the record for longest parachute freefall.”

“And he lived?” Fay said.

Tyler nodded. “He not only survived, he earned a slew of medals for the mission and eventually became a colonel.”

“Fascinating, but what does this have to do with the Killswitch?” Jess said. “Does Colchev have one of these Icarus parachutes?”

“We don’t know,” Morgan said. “We can’t exactly check with the Russians to see if they’ve lost track of one. Besides, Icarus is a common reference. The boy with wax wings who flew too close to the sun and fell to Earth. You could do a Google search and get a thousand hits.”

“I doubt he’s going up in a balloon.”

“From Wisconsin Ave?” Grant said. “Not likely. Those things are gigantic.”

“If he did get it that high,” Tyler said, “the Killswitch would do a lot more damage.”

“Why?” Jess said.

“Because the EMP effect would be amplified by the magnetic flux in the ionosphere. Military planners have worried for years about a nuclear weapon detonated over the central United States. It could wipe out the entire country’s infrastructure. In an instant every machine in the US would go quiet.”

Jess gasped. “With all the computers and communications systems down, nobody would even know that Armageddon had arrived.”

With a faraway look, Morgan said, “‘And we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.’”

“Who said that?” Grant asked.

“George Eliot.”

“Who’s he?”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “She wrote Middlemarch, you illiterate dolt.”

“Hey, if you had said Curious George—”

“The question is,” Tyler said, trying to get them back on track, “how could Colchev deliver the Killswitch to that altitude?”

“Maybe he found the Roswell spaceship,” Fay said. When she saw the looks the rest of them gave her, she continued, “I’m just saying the Russians designed Icarus to be used with a spaceship, and I saw a spaceship at Roswell. That’s awfully coincidental if you ask me.”

Tyler chuckled. Maybe she wasn’t giving up on her fantasy.

Grant snorted. “Right, instead of a balloon, Colchev has a spaceship taking off from Wisconsin Ave.”

Tyler started to laugh, then stopped himself and sat bolt upright. A spaceship taking off from Wisconsin Ave. Something about that jogged Tyler’s memory.

He asked for Grant’s laptop and opened the browser.

Grant edged closer. “What did I say?”

“Bedova said Wisconsin Ave, not Wisconsin Avenue, right?”

Grant shrugged. “That’s the way I remember it.”

“What’s the difference?” Morgan asked.

“Either Colchev had been using a code or Bedova interpreted the abbreviation the wrong way. It’s not Wisconsin Ave. It’s pronounced Wisconsin A Vee.”

“What do the letters A and V stand for?” Jess said.

“AirVenture.”

“Wisconsin AirVenture?” Fay said. “What’s that?”

Grant slapped himself in the forehead. “Of course! The EAA.”

“The Experimental Aircraft Association has a huge air show every year,” Tyler said. “It’s in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, smack dab in the middle of the country. Thousands of private aircraft pilots fly their planes to the show. It’s so big that for one week, Oshkosh becomes the busiest airport in the world, with over ten thousand takeoffs and landings. I flew to it a few years ago, but I didn’t make the connection until just now because I always called it the Oshkosh Fly-in.”

Morgan looked at the tablet. “This is tomorrow’s schedule.”

Tyler pointed to the middle of the schedule. “Check out what happens at noon.”

Morgan peered at it, then her eyes went wide. “I’ll call the FBI.” She jumped up and furiously dialed her phone.

“What is it?” Jess said. “What happens tomorrow?”

Tyler put a hand on Fay’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I laughed at you.”

“Why?”

“Because you were right. Tomorrow a company called ExAtmo is making a demonstration flight at noon of their brand new product, the Skyward.”

Grant recognized the name instantly. “Damn! You think Colchev is planning to hijack it?”

Tyler nodded grimly. “He must be planning to fly the Killswitch up to an altitude of seventy miles.”

“I don’t understand,” Jess said. “What’s ExAtmo?”

“They’re a commercial sub-orbital tourism venture. Skyward is their experimental spaceplane.”