Grant whistled in appreciation. “Good things come in small packages.”
“The Killswitch uses an isomer trigger. Without it, the weapon is nothing more than a very expensive bomb. All other EMP weapons with an effective range of more than half a kilometer are either nuclear or the size of a house, making them impractical in battle situations. Using a hafnium isomer to generate the gamma radiation necessary, we were able to shrink the weapon to only fifty kilograms, and half of that weight is for the plastic explosive to set off the isomeric reaction in the trigger. Most of the design expense went into compacting the weapon into such a small size.”
“So the Killswitch is triggered by hafnium-3?” Tyler asked.
“No. Production of hafnium-3 is prohibitively expensive. It would cost a billion dollars for just a few grams. We have something even more powerful. A hafnium isomer called xenobium. It’s more stable than hafnium-3 and twice as powerful.”
Tyler chewed his lip. “You glossed over the fact that both hafnium-3 and induced gamma emission weapons emit gamma rays. How deadly is this xenobium?”
“It can be carried safely in a shielded lead container.”
“And the gamma rays from the explosion of the Killswitch?” Morgan said.
Kessler looked around the table and cleared his throat. “At low altitudes the explosion would produce a lethal dose of radiation for anyone within a mile or more depending on the size of the xenobium trigger.”
“Sounds like a nuclear weapon to me,” Grant chuffed.
“It is non-nuclear in the sense that it is not a fission or fusion device, and as I mentioned there is no lingering radioactive fallout. Beyond the immediate region around the explosion, the effects are not fatal.”
“Supposedly. Didn’t you just say that you haven’t tested it yet?”
“Of course. All our calculations are purely theoretical at this point.”
Everyone went silent at the potential catastrophe if the weapon was set off in a populated area, possibly on July twenty-fifth.
“Do the hijackers have this new isomer?” Tyler finally asked.
“They don’t. All one hundred grams are stored ten stories under Pine Gap, locked in a hardened vault. We had been planning to divide it into five-gram fragments to use in the Killswitch, but right now it’s still secure and in a single piece.”
“Could they have made their own xenobium?”
“As far as we know, no one else is even close to obtaining the capability to manufacture it. The problem is that they might have found another source of the isomer.”
“From where?”
Kessler took a breath and wiped his brow as he sat. “From outer space.”
“Excuse me?” Grant said with a laugh and looked at Tyler while pointing at Kessler. “I thought he said outer space.”
“That’s what I heard,” Tyler said.
“I did say outer space,” Kessler replied, not getting Grant’s sarcasm. “The sample at Pine Gap was found in Western Australia ten years ago. In 1993 a few truck drivers and gold prospectors reported a bright light and a series of thunderous booms. The explosion was so large that it registered 3.9 on the Richter scale. Because the area was so remote and because no one was injured, nobody went to investigate it for years. Some theorized it was a nuclear blast set off by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.”
“Come on!” Grant said incredulously. “The group that gassed the Tokyo subway system?”
“I didn’t say I agreed with such ludicrous speculation. No one ever detected radiation, so the likelihood of an atomic weapon was minimal. However, the impact of an iron meteorite like the one that created the Barringer Crater in Arizona was also ruled out because no crater was found at the site of the seismic event.”
“Leaving what?” Tyler said.
“We now believe it was an airburst explosion of a meteor above twenty thousand feet. With no trees in that part of the desert to be blown down by a shockwave, it’s possible that the evidence would be hard to find. When geologists went to investigate the mystery long after the event, they conducted a careful search of the area around the seismic event and came back with a single sample from the location’s epicenter. After extensive testing, it was determined that the material was an unusual isomer of hafnium called xenobium.”
“Is that the only sample in the world?” Vince asked.
“To our knowledge it’s the only one that still exists. The first known sample was discovered a century ago by a Russian scientist named Ivan Dombrovski.”
Grant snorted. “He sounds like an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers.”
Kessler ignored him. “Dombrovski escaped from Russia during the Bolshevik revolution. He claimed to have recovered the material from the area of the Tunguska blast and used it to buy his American citizenship.”
“The Tunguska blast?” Tyler said. “So we know if was caused by an exploding meteorite?”
“No one’s ever been able to definitively prove what caused the blast. Explanations include a meteorite, comet, or even black hole. And some crackpots theorize it was an alien spacecraft that crashed and vaporized in the explosion.”
Tyler and Grant exchanged looks at the mention of aliens. The subject did seem to keep coming up in the last few days. Tyler felt his ironclad skepticism cracking just a bit.
“You’re saying that this xenobium could be an alien artifact?” Grant said.
“Don’t be absurd,” Kessler said. “It could have easily been part of the meteorite or comet that exploded. Dombrovski just found the remnants that didn’t detonate. And so did the Australians.”
“What happened to the sample Dombrovski brought to America?” Tyler said.
“For the next thirty years, he experimented with it. He established a project to take advantage of xenobium’s unique properties and named it Caelus for the Roman god of the sky. Dombrovski was also trying to figure out how to produce more xenobium, but he never was able to.”
“What was the goal of Project Caelus?”
“We don’t know,” Kessler said. “In 1947 his lab was destroyed in a fire set by Soviet spies, taking Dombrovski and the xenobium with it. Most of the records about Caelus were lost as well, but there were enough surviving files to confirm that his xenobium was the same material as the specimen found in Australia.”
Collins entered and nodded at Morgan and Vince. “The Australian police need to talk to one of you.”
“Why?” Morgan said.
“They found the bodies of the men who picked up the Killswitch from the airport.”
“I’ll take it,” Vince said.
“Find out where the crime scene is,” Morgan said. “Tell them we’ll head there in five minutes.”
Vince nodded and left.
Kessler stood. “While we’re taking a break, I need to take my own.” He left at a trot, as though he were barely going to make it to the bathroom.
Grant grinned at the quick exit. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
“They’ve been looking for xenobium ever since,” Tyler said under his breath.
“What was that?” Morgan asked.
Tyler suddenly stood when it clicked. “The Russians. They’ve been looking for more xenobium for almost a hundred years.”
“But if that’s what Colchev’s men were looking for,” Grant said, “why did they attack Fay?”
“Maybe they thought she had a sample of it. She said they were asking about a multi-hued metal object, colored like an opal. Hafnium becomes opalescent when it oxidizes, so I’m guessing xenobium does, too. But why did they think she had some?”
“Xenobium!” Grant said, slapping the table. “Remember? It was in the phrase Fay said in the video.”
Grant was right. Tyler wanted to smack himself for not making the connection faster. He wheeled around to Morgan. “Can we get to the Internet from in here?”
“No. Every computer in here is cut off. Why do you need it?”
“We need to see Fay’s video. Take me t
o a computer with Web access.”
Morgan was dubious but led Tyler and Grant back to the office where her laptop was, passing Vince speaking on his phone in the hallway. She opened the computer and let Tyler find Fay’s video on YouTube. He dragged the slider until he got to Fay’s appearance and the phrase she was told by the creature she’d encountered.
“Rah pahnoy pree vodat kahzay nobee um.”
“My God,” Morgan said.
“She must have gotten the pronunciation wrong. Whoever or whatever spoke to Fay was trying to tell her something about xenobium.”
“Where is she now?”
“The last we heard, she was with Jess McBride at the warehouse where Colchev locked us in the truck.”
Vince burst into the room, breathless, as if he’d been running.
“Morgan,” Vince said, holding out his phone. “You have to look at this.”
She took it. From his vantage point, Tyler could see it was a photo of five men, three white and two black, lying on the ground, each with a bullet in his forehead.
“What is this?” she said. “I recognize Josephson, but who are the other men?”
“A private pilot spotted them in the desert south of town. The police found them next to a Pine Gap truck. They’re the men from the security detail who were sent to pick up the Killswitch.”
Morgan looked back at the photo, first with a puzzled expression, then with dawning horror.
“Are you sure?”
“They all had their Pine Gap IDs on them.”
“What’s the matter?” Tyler said.
Vince looked up, his eyes clouded with dread. “The men we saw at the airport were all Caucasian. That means the hijackers had to have taken out the men before they reached the airport. The men we met were the impostors.”
“So?” Grant said.
“So,” Morgan said, her jaw clenched, “Kessler arrived at the airport with them.”
TWENTY-SIX
Morgan didn’t waste time on self-recrimination for not detecting Kessler’s treachery earlier. There would be plenty of time for that when her superiors found out. Her priority was to hunt him down and make him tell her where she could find the stolen Killswitches.
“We’ve got a major security breach,” she barked into her phone to Herman Washburn, Pine Gap’s chief of security.
“What kind?”
“Charles Kessler. He left Pine Gap with your security team and arrived at the airport with the hijackers. He must have been there when your men were killed.”
“But Kessler was at Pine Gap when the truck bomb was supposed to hit. He would have been killed.”
“When we check the records,” Morgan said, “I’ll bet we find out that he was in the underground vault at the time. It would have been the only safe location during the blast.”
“Dammit! All right. I’ll post guards on every side of the facility to keep him from escaping.”
“He can’t be far. He left the lab just a few minutes ago. He may be trying to steal the xenobium sample.”
“His badge isn’t showing up on our internal monitoring system. We’ll do a room-by-room search. He won’t get away.”
“Make sure he isn’t harmed. We need him for questioning.”
A voice came over the intercom. This is a security alert. All non-security personnel are instructed to remain where they are. This is not a drill. The message repeated.
“Wait a minute,” Washburn said. There was an excruciating pause. “Agent Bell, I’ve got Kessler. He’s in the vault with the xenobium. He’s asking for you.”
“All right, I’ll head down there.”
“No, he wants to talk to you over the intercom. You’ll have to come to the security bunker.”
Morgan grimaced. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up and turned to Vince. “Kessler’s in the vault. Head down there and make sure any escape routes are cut off.” She pointed at Tyler and Grant. “You’re both with me. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Grant put up his hands. “Whatever you say.”
“Let us know if we can do anything to help,” Tyler said.
“Come on.” She sprinted for the security room with Tyler and Grant keeping up behind her.
When they arrived, the room was bustling with activity.
Washburn, a grizzled veteran, eyed Tyler and Grant. “Who are they, and what are they doing here?”
“Locke and Grant. They blew up the truck bomb.”
Washburn appraised them, then grudgingly nodded.
“Where is he?” Morgan asked.
Washburn pointed at the center monitor. “I’ve got the vault sealed.”
Kessler was looking up into the camera.
“Can he see me?” Morgan said.
“No.”
She leaned into the mic. “Dr. Kessler, this is Special Agent Bell. I know you are involved with the hijacking.”
“I want safe passage out of Pine Gap, and I’m taking the xenobium with me.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“You will do that or I blow it up.” Kessler held up an object the size of a grapefruit.
Morgan put her hand over the mic. “Can he do that?” she asked Washburn.
“How the hell should I know?”
Morgan looked at Tyler.
He nodded slowly. “Given that I just learned about this stuff, it’s hard to say. But if that thing he’s holding is a detonator with the xenobium inside, I’d say it’s possible.”
“How much damage would it cause if it went off?”
“Kessler said they had a hundred grams of it and that it was twice as powerful as hafnium-3,” Grant said.
She could see Tyler doing the math in his head. “That gives it the explosive power of over sixty tons of TNT. How thick are the vault walls?”
“Twelve feet of concrete on the sides,” Washburn said. “The door is two feet of hardened steel.”
“That’s not enough to contain the blast. The vault is ten stories underground?”
Washburn nodded. “At the edge of the facility.”
Tyler glanced at Morgan. “You’ll get some serious foundation damage if it goes off in the vault. But if Kessler gets topside, it would take apart half the buildings in Pine Gap.”
“What if that’s his plan?” Grant said.
“We can’t risk letting him get out,” Morgan said. She removed her hand from the mic. “Kessler, disable the device and we’ll talk.”
“No.” He tapped on the device in his hand. “I’ve just set this for sixty seconds. If the door doesn’t open in one minute, it goes off. Starting now.”
Morgan checked the clock on the wall. “Kessler, if you did this for money, we can work something out. We can get you help.”
“Let me out! Now!”
“Maybe someone kidnapped a loved one. Tell us and we’ll figure out how to solve the problem.”
“I’ve got nobody. I dedicated my life to this project. And for what? Two divorces that milked every cent out of me, a pitiful pension, and an empty apartment. Why shouldn’t I be able to retire in luxury?”
Forty-five seconds.
“Kessler, I’m not letting you out of there.”
“Then I have nothing to live for.”
“Yes, you do. We can work this out.”
“So I can sit in a cell in Guantanamo for the rest of my days? I don’t think so.”
Thirty seconds. She could tell he wasn’t bluffing, but there was no way she could let him leave with the xenobium.
She put her hand over the mic and turned to Washburn. “Get your men out of there right now.” He scrambled to call his men. Vince would be with them. She tried not to think about it.
Speaking to Kessler, she said, “The Killswitch is useless without the xenobium. You said so yourself.”
“I’m sure they have a backup plan.”
Fifteen seconds.
“Kessler, I’m not bluffing. That door will not open.”
“I know.”
<
br /> “Then don’t do this,” Morgan said, desperate to convince him to give up.
“There’s no alternative.”
Five seconds. Kessler began to mumble to himself.
“Where are Vince and your men?” she said to Washburn.
“Headed up the stairs. I don’t know what lev—”
The screen went white and a massive tremor shook the ground. Morgan held onto the console as the floor rattled beneath her. Mugs, headsets, and books clattered to the ground.
After a minute, the trembling subsided.
“Is everyone all right?” Washburn said. A few people said yes. Others who were more shocked just grunted.
Morgan was already running toward the stairwell to see if Vince made it out alive.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Even from outside the entrance of Pine Gap, Tyler could easily see the depression caused by Kessler’s detonation of the xenobium. It had been an hour since the blast, and all non-essential personnel had been told to evacuate the premises. Only the emergency crews who had been pre-screened for security clearances were allowed into the facility to scour the rubble for survivors.
Grant was helping Morgan search for her partner while Tyler waited for Fay and Jess to arrive. He knew they wouldn’t be permitted inside, so he paced along the outer fence.
He recognized the Jeep as it sped toward him. He waved it over and saw that Jess was driving.
She threw the door open, jumped out, and launched herself at Tyler in a tight hug. “I’m so relieved you’re all right.”
Tyler savored the embrace for a moment, then extricated himself and saw that Fay had joined them. “Are you two okay?”
“Other than being psychologically scarred by finding five dead bodies in the warehouse, we’re fantastic.” Jess gestured at a passing emergency vehicle. “What the hell is going on here?”
“There was another explosion, this one inside Pine Gap. That’s all I’m allowed to say about it.”
“What happened at the warehouse?” Fay said. “We thought the worst when we found those bodies.”
“That’s a long story. I’ll have to tell you later.”
The Roswell Conspiracy Page 15