The Roswell Conspiracy (34 page)

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.”