“Their whole plan seems risky,” Grant said. “Why aren’t they leaving already?”
“Fay, do you know why they wanted your artifacts?” Tyler asked.
Fay shook her head and clutched her satchel tightly. “I don’t. Only my granddaughter has seen what’s in here.”
“Would she have told someone about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I know why they aren’t leaving,” Grant said with a sniff. “Do you smell that?”
Tyler saw the first wisps of smoke curling up the stairwell, followed by the crackle of flames from the back of the house.
“I’ll call 111 back and tell them to send a fire engine,” Grant said as he handed the shotgun to Tyler and pulled out his phone. “And I’ll get something to cover our faces.” He went into the hallway bathroom.
For the first time, Fay lost her composure. Her face seethed with rage. “Those bastards set my house on fire! I should have killed them when I had the chance.”
Tyler crabbed to the rear window and poked his head up. The back door was engulfed in fire. “Did you have any accelerants outside?”
Fay thought for a moment, then nodded. “Lighter fluid for the barbecue.”
“That must be what they used. The cedar siding will go up fast.”
“If they came for my Roswell artifacts, why do they want to burn them now?”
Tyler shrugged. He was just as confused by the situation as Fay.
Smoke billowed through the hallway. He and Fay crouched to get under the thickest of it.
Tyler edged over to the front window and took a peek. He saw Blaine run around from the back of the house and take up a spot behind the Toyota. At this distance the shotgun would be at a severe disadvantage. Instead of solid slugs, the gun was loaded with birdshot, which had a minimal effective range. There was no way to get all three of them to the Audi safely.
Blaine reared back and threw a glass container with a lit rag protruding from it.
The front of the house burst into flames. Now they were trapped from both sides. They’d all succumb to smoke inhalation long before the police arrived if they stayed inside, but jumping through one of the windows would make them easy targets.
Grant came back from a bathroom with wet hand towels to put over their noses and mouths.
“The firefighters are on the way,” Grant said, “but it’ll be a while. I suggest we get out of here.”
Tyler remembered the tire tracks leading to the garage. “Do you have a car, Fay?”
“A Land Rover. We can get to it from the kitchen.”
That’s what Tyler had been hoping to hear. Since the garage was attached to the house, they wouldn’t have to go outside to get in the vehicle.
“We’ll have to risk a getaway,” Tyler said. “Let’s go before we can’t breathe.”
They all scooted down the stairs. Fay grabbed Tyler’s hand. “This way.”
The three of them scuttled to a door in the kitchen. They had to shield themselves from the flying shards of glass as the back windows shattered from the heat. When they entered the dark garage, Fay slapped a set of keys into Tyler’s hand.
“Your reflexes are probably quicker than mine.”
Tyler gave the shotgun to Grant. “See if you can take one of them out when we pass.”
They scrambled into the SUV, Tyler in the driver’s seat, Fay in the passenger seat, and Grant in the back.
“Ready?” Tyler said, the key already in the ignition.
Grant thumbed the window switch. “Ready.”
Fay clicked her seat belt and nodded.
“Okay,” Tyler said, “everyone keep your heads down.”
Tyler started the engine and flicked the transmission into drive. He didn’t bother with the garage door opener. He slammed his foot to the floorboard, and the Land Rover’s nose tore into the aluminum door, wrenching it from its tracks. Flames licked at the truck as they sped out, the garage door still clinging to the hood until a flick of the steering wheel sent it flying.
The gunmen were crouching behind the Toyota, ready for their quarry to pile out in a panic away from the fire at the back of the house. It only took a moment for them to refocus their aim, but it was enough time for Grant to lay down some covering fire. Two quick blasts disintegrated the Toyota’s rear window and pockmarked the quarter panel.
Tyler checked the rearview mirror and saw that one of the men had been hit by a couple of pellets. The slight injury did no more than cause him to curse loudly and return fire, his pistol cracking as bullets plunked into the back of the Land Rover.
In this snow there was no way the two-wheel-drive Toyota sedan would be able to keep up with the four-wheel-drive SUV, so Tyler intended to gain a lead and rendezvous with the police, who should be on their way up the mountain.
It sounded like a great plan until a pistol shot behind them was followed by a loud thump from under the vehicle. A bullet had punctured the right rear tire. The Land Rover’s back end swerved sideways as Tyler struggled to maintain control. Now he not only had to outrun their trigger-happy pursuers, but he would have to fight the SUV’s insistent urge to plunge off the snowy cliff-side road into the river far below.
FOUR
Morgan Bell wasn’t getting much cooperation from Charles Kessler, Lightfall’s project lead. That pissed her off.
“Dr. Kessler, we have full authorization to be here,” she said, pointing at her credentials. It stated that she was a special agent with the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations.
Kessler peered at her ID in mock studiousness. “Never heard of OSI.”
“That doesn’t matter. I know you’ve been contacted by our superiors about our investigation and that you were instructed to give your full cooperation. We need to talk. Now.”
By “we” she meant herself and her partner, Vince Cameron, who stood next to her watching a dozen laboratory technicians carefully packing equipment into shipping crates. Their voices echoed from the Wright-Patterson lab’s high ceiling. Morgan had visited the sprawling Dayton, Ohio Air Force base many times, but she’d never been inside this building.
“Agent Bell, I’m very busy here,” Kessler said, his eyes sweeping the room before locking on a skinny man in glasses and a lab coat who was wrestling a box onto a hand cart. “Collins! Make sure the OC-5 analyzer gets packed in there.”
Collins looked up and nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir.”
Kessler pointed at a guy with long greasy curls and more forearm hair than she’d ever seen before. “Josephson. Help Collins.”
Josephson looked less eager than Collins. “Dr. Kessler, I’m supposed to be packing the calibration equipment.”
“And if you had that done yesterday, maybe I would have sent Collins on the transport flight to accompany the equipment instead of you. Now move.”
Josephson shrugged and moseyed over to Collins.
Kessler turned back to Morgan. “The transport flight is scheduled to take off in three hours, and as you can see we are behind schedule.”
“Sounds like poor planning on your part,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“Dr. Kessler,” Vince said, “we’re sorry to bother you at a critical time. We just need a word with you in private. I promise it won’t take more than a few minutes.”
Kessler smoldered and then said, “Fine. My office is over here.” He stalked away, leaving them in the dust.
Vince grinned at Morgan as they followed him. “Have you heard of the phrase, ‘You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar’?”
Morgan didn’t return the smile. “Yes.”
“Don’t you think that tactic might come in handy once in a while?”
“I use it if I need to.”
“Do you ever need to?”
“No.”
“See?” Vince said. “That’s your problem.”
“It’s not a problem. That’s what I have you for.”
“I knew I had a purpose.”
>
They entered Kessler’s office and closed the door. Kessler sat down at his desk in a huff. “So what is the OSI anyway?”
“You ever watch the show NCIS?” Vince said. “You know, Naval Criminal Investigative Service? We’re like them, only for the Air Force instead of the Navy.”
“I don’t watch TV.”
“We are the primary law enforcement agency for the Air Force,” Morgan said. “Our mission is to identify and neutralize criminal, terrorist, and intelligence threats to the Air Force, Department of Defense, and US government.”
“Well, I’m pleased to tell you, Agent Bell, that we’re on your side.”
“Are you sure about that? Because we have evidence that there is a leak in Project Lightfall.”
Kessler sat up in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“Does anyone in the program ever use the term, ‘Killswitch’?”
Kessler was aghast. “How do you know that word?”
“That’s the nickname some people on your staff have used to refer to the Lightfall weapon, isn’t it?”
Kessler furiously tapped on his desk with his index finger to punctuate his points as he spoke. “Agent, this is an unacknowledged Special Access Program. Information is strictly on a need-to-know basis. Most members of Congress don’t even know about Lightfall.”
“Well, there are no senators here, so we should be fine.”
“Dr. Kessler,” Vince said, “both Agent Bell and I have top clearances, as I’m sure you were told. And we are on a need-to-know basis in this case. If someone is trying to steal information about Lightfall, our mission is to identify that person or persons and bring them to justice before we have a further national security breach.”
Kessler didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “All right. Yes. The staff started referring to the weapon as the Killswitch, and the name stuck, much to my chagrin.”
“The National Security Agency intercepted a message hidden in a public Internet discussion forum dedicated to videogames.” Vince referred to his notebook. “It said, ‘Kill Switch hints? Stuck on level seven. Died twenty-one times the first day, then twenty-five times the next. Need help.’ The username was PG0915. Only one person responded. A man named George Hickson. His answer was, ‘Did you try the black box cheat code?’”
Kessler frowned. “Hints and cheat codes? Is Kill Switch a game?”
“Yes. It was released nine years ago.”
“So? It’s just some kid who can’t play very well. What’s the problem?”
“Because elements of the message seem to have connections to the Lightfall program, we think it may be a code. When is the Killswitch supposed to arrive in Australia?”
“Two days from now. The weapons test is scheduled for ten days after that.” Kessler’s eyebrows knitted together. “What are you getting at?”
“The arrival date is July twenty-first,” Morgan said. “Seven twenty-one.”
“Are you serious?” Kessler said with a laugh. “That has to be a coincidence.”
“What happens on July twenty-fifth?”
Kessler shrugged. “We’ll be prepping for the test firing.”
“And what about the username?” Morgan asked. “PG0915. You’re using the Pine Gap facility for the test prep. PG may mean Pine Gap.”
“More coincidence.”
“And what if 0915 is a time?”
“Oh, come on. Did you track this person down? It’s probably some pimply-faced teenager in his mother’s basement.”
“We did try to find this person,” Vince said, “but whoever it was used an anonymizer to register the username. George Hickson didn’t pan out either.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“It’s possible that hostile forces are targeting one of those dates for some reason,” Morgan said. “Perhaps someone is planning to take photos or smuggle information about the weapon out of Pine Gap. They may even try to sabotage the weapon somehow. It’s our recommendation that you postpone the test until a later date.”
Kessler’s face darkened. “Agent Bell, do you know how much has been spent getting ready for this test?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Over one billion dollars and seventy thousand man-hours of work.”
“And all of that time and money will be wasted if someone steals information about the weapon or disables it somehow.”
“I don’t believe this.”
A knock at the door.
“Yes?” Kessler said.
The door opened and Collins poked his head in. “Sir, we’re having a problem with the magnetic flux density analyzer.”
“What’s wrong with … Never mind. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” Collins closed the door.
“Why is this test being conducted in Australia?” Morgan asked.
Kessler sighed. “We have to use the Woomera Test Range in South Australia.”
“We have test ranges here in the US.”
“Woomera is the biggest land-based weapons testing area in the world. It’s larger than England and allows the evaluation of rockets and explosives far from prying eyes. No facility in the US is that isolated.”
“Who chose Australia as the test site?”
“The Australians. This is a joint project with them.”
“I know. Do you think someone on the Australian side could be the leak?”
“It’s only a handful of people on their end, but go ahead and waste your time delving into that side of it.”
“We will investigate every possibility thoroughly,” Morgan said. “In the meantime I’m going to recommend that you postpone the test until we can verify who sent that message.”
“Agent Cameron,” Kessler said, turning dramatically toward Vince, “you seem to be the more reasonable person here, so I’ll address this to you. Unless I get a call from the Secretary of the Air Force himself telling me to call off the test, we are going forward with it. Now, you are the investigators, so investigate. You may interview whomever you want. Look into their backgrounds. Put extra security on the transport. I don’t care. Just stay out of my way.”
Before Morgan could respond to the disdainful comments, Vince stopped her. “Putting extra security measures on the transport will only draw attention that what they’re transporting is valuable. We might as well put a sign on the plane saying, ‘Top secret weapon inside. Please don’t steal it.’”
Kessler waved a hand. “Security is your job, not mine.”
“Dr. Kessler,” Vince said, “are any of your employees gamblers?”
“I have no idea. I don’t get involved with their private lives.”
“Any of them been acting strangely at work?”
He spoke without hesitation. “Not at all.”
“You’re absolutely sure you don’t remember anything out of the ordinary?”
“Not that I recall.”
“You seem to be very blasé about the possibility that your project has been compromised by potential spies,” Morgan said.
“I handpicked all of the scientists and engineers on this project myself. I work with them daily. I can state for a fact that none of them is a spy.”
“What about you?”
Kessler’s eyes burned into Morgan’s. “Are you insane? I’ve spent the last ten years of my life on this program. I’ve staked my entire reputation on it. Why would I do anything to sabotage it?”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t, because this is ridiculous. You’re fishing for something to justify your jobs. Unless you can come up with a more credible threat than a stupid message on a discussion forum, we will continue as planned. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make sure Collins will be finished in the next thirty minutes.”
He stood and walked to the door, waving Morgan and Vince out of his office. He shot Morgan a withering stare as he locked it, and he was gone.
“What do you think?” Vince asked her.
“I don’t lik
e coincidences,” Morgan said.
“Neither do I.”
While Vince took a bathroom break, she called her section head. The conversation didn’t go well. She hung up and waited.
When Vince returned, he said, “By the fact that we aren’t hustling after Kessler, I’m guessing the boss said he wasn’t going to the director with this.”
Morgan shook her head. “He doesn’t think there’s enough to warrant cancelling the test.”
“It is pretty flimsy evidence.”
“Not too flimsy to merit two tickets to Australia, though. We’re on United out of LA this evening. I convinced him to send us to Pine Gap just to keep an eye on things.”
Vince groaned. “Are you kidding? Fifteen hours on a flight to Sydney? At least tell me we’re flying business class.”
Morgan shook her head. “Coach.”
Another groan.
“It gets worse. Did you look at Pine Gap on the map?”
“No. Why?”
“Sydney isn’t our final destination. We’ve got a connecting three-hour flight. Pine Gap is in the middle of the Australian outback, near Alice Springs.”
This time Vince didn’t groan. “You just love trying to make me miserable.”
“No,” Morgan said. “You do just fine on your own.”
FIVE
If the bullet had gone through one of the front tires, the Land Rover would have skidded off the road and plummeted into the Shotover River long ago. And although the right rear tire was punctured, it hadn’t shredded, so Tyler was able to open up some distance between him and the rear-wheel-drive Toyota on the snowy road. With the curves throwing off their aim, the pursuers’ shots went wild. So far luck had favored the pursued.
But two new problems faced them. Grant was now out of shells, and they had come down to an elevation where snow no longer covered the road. At the speed Tyler was going, the pavement would rip the punctured tire to tatters in minutes.
“Where are the cops?” Tyler said to Grant in the backseat.
“The dispatcher says they’re about two miles away.”
Tyler saw in the mirror that the Toyota was closing fast. “If we stop, we’ll never be able to hold out until the police get here.”
“There’s a small town up ahead,” Fay said. “Arthurs Point. We could run into a shop and get help.”
The Roswell Conspiracy Page 3