“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 th
e 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.
The Roswell Conspiracy tl-3 Page 27