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.