Tears welled in her eyes. It was probably too late to escape the oncoming aircraft, but she didn’t care. She grabbed a spare CAR-15, stepped out of the cockpit and aimed, thinking that it was funny that the aircraft running lights were on and that it was turning side-to, offering an easy target.
Screw it, she thought. She was about to set her sights on the Auroch bull horns logo on the fuselage of the chopper, now only a couple of hundred feet away, when an arm waved at her from the helicopter window. A familiar voice came over the radio.
“Hoo-yah, Abby.”
She lowered the weapon, and with the widest smile possible on her face, waved back at Hawkins.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Molly was ecstatic when Hawkins called and said all were safe after rescuing Kalliste.
He told her how he and Calvin had infiltrated the castle maze through the water system, and with the help of someone named Chad, had stopped a bunch of crazy cultists from murdering Kalliste. A deep frown came to her chubby face at the news Salazar was dead.
“How’d he die?” she asked.
“Um. A couple of monster dogs tore him to pieces.”
“Serious?”
“Serious.”
“Hah,” she said. “It would have gone a lot worse if I got a hold of him.”
Hawkins chuckled. “I’m sure that’s true, Molly.”
“Dang. Guess it’s over,” she said.
“I wish I could be sure. Members of the Way of the Axe are scattered around the world. Salazar and Lily are dead. But as long as Auroch Industries is in business, the possibility remains that they could rekindle this whole sick thing. Salazar talked about power on a global scale. He said he was not looking to the past, but toward the future.”
“Is that what he said? Future?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I can do something about that,” Molly said.
She hung up before Hawkins could say another word. She wanted to pull her thoughts together. She went down the list in her head.
Salazar learns about the fusion process and becomes a generous supporter of the new energy source, even though it would put Auroch out of business. He puts money into an organization called FUTR. He sends an explosives expert to Cambridge where a formal announcement will be made of the new process at MIT, along with a demonstration of how it works.
An explosion kills the scientists who have developed fusion and casts doubt in the eye of the unsophisticated public over the future of science that created it. It was the way Auroch had always dealt with rivals.
Molly looked at her digital watch. The start of the energy forum was minutes away.
She called up a map of the MIT campus onto her computer screen. Big place. She had to narrow it down.
She got into the files she had downloaded from the phone retrieved from the attacker she was calling the “bird man.” He had visited the campus several times, but kept coming back to the same point.
Kresge Auditorium.
She looked at a photo of the Saarinen-designed auditorium. Its distinctive rounded roof was an eighth of a sphere, made of reinforced thin shell concrete, with sheer glass curtain walls. The demonstration would be held in the concert hall of Kresge. A bomb blast would have devastating impact, testing the spirit of ‘Boston Strong,’ the motto that described the city’s resilience after the Marathon terrorist attack.
She thought about what Hawkins had told her, that Salazar got someone to smuggle a bomb into the Maze. Guys like Salazar don’t change their spots. He would do the same thing in this case. The bomb could be any innocent-looking object.
The speeches would come first, then the demonstration. The speakers stood at a podium. Good place to stash a bomb.
She went back over the credit card records of the bird man and saw the charge for the rental truck and another for a sign painter. Using an untraceable phone, she called the sign painting company, said she had seen the job they had done. Using the bird man’s name, Sutherland said that she wanted something similar for her food truck.
“Cain’t remember the exact wording.”
They checked their records, and said, “Acme Office Supply.”
Not very imaginative. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be calling you.”
The bomb would have to be triggered at the precise moment during the demonstration. With the bird man dead, that wouldn’t happen. Something nagged at her. She went back to the credit card and saw that the bird man charged two dinners and lunches on several occasions. He had an accomplice.
They had kept the truck under rental. She guessed that the accomplice could sit in the truck watching the broadcast on his tablet; at the correct time, he’d make a telephone call that would trigger the bomb. She hoped the speakers would be long-winded. In the meantime she tapped away at her keyboard. Her fingers were a blur. Sweat poured down her forehead and into her eyes.
She kept an ear open to the TV volume and heard that the professor had ended his speech.
She glanced at the TV screen. The speaker had stepped away from the podium.
He smiled broadly, and said, “Now I will turn this over to my colleagues to demonstrate a discovery that will revolutionize the delivery of non-polluting cheap energy to the farthest reaches of the globe.”
She punched the keyboard one more time. The television screen flickered and went dark. She had hacked the Cambridge power grid and stopped the demonstration in its tracks. She knew she had only bought some time. She had to get the auditorium evacuated and the bomb disabled. She looked up a number and called it.
A man answered. “Bomb squad.”
“You’d better clear out Kresge Auditorium in a big hurry and get your bomb-sniffing dogs to the podium before the lights come back on.”
“Are you saying there’s a bomb at MIT?”
“Yup. Bomber’s going to trigger an explosion from an Acme Office Supply Truck. Keep an eye out for him.”
“May I have your name, please?”
She paused, smiled, and before she hung up, said,
“The name is Gowdy.”
EPILOGUE
As soon as Hawkins returned to Woods Hole he picked up the pieces of his life. His first task was to reacquaint himself with Quisset. Uncle Snowy had spoiled the dog, but when Hawkins came by to take her home she jumped right into his truck and snuggled against him.
He was biking every day. Spending time at home surrounded by his collection of antique dive gear. Spain was all a blur. The flight back to Cadiz. Chad disappearing at the airport. The trip to the hospital where Kalliste was diagnosed as dehydrated but otherwise in good shape. The ocean glider project was on track and the pay-off was making its way to his bank account. It might just cover the deductible the insurance company wanted him to pay for Falstaff’s loss, but it was good to be back in the rhythm he’d become accustomed to.
He hadn’t heard a whisper from Kalliste since they’d said goodbye in Spain, so he was pleased when the padded envelope arrived in his mail with her Santorini address on the outside. Inside the envelope was a plastic baggie containing a coin and a note. The coin appeared to be made of gold and was irregular around the edge. Pictured in relief on one side was the profile of a man. The flip side had the image of a dove.
The note said: Skype me anytime.
With Quisset at his heels, he climbed the stairs to his upstairs office, connected to the Skype function of his computer, and clicked on Kalliste’s address. Her smiling face appeared almost instantly. She looked rested and happy.