After five minutes, he said, “You ever shoot anybody down?”
“I thought you were going to shut up.”
“I did. You are going to find out that five minutes of shut-up is a long time for me.”
Morgan ignored him, but he smiled when he heard the faintest sigh.
THIRTY-ONE
With a warm mug in her hand and the thick bathrobe wrapped around her, Jess sat on the balcony and watched the reflection of the dawning sun glitter on the Pacific. She sipped the coffee, and the caffeine jolt soothed her throbbing head.
The sliding glass door opened and Fay stepped to the railing, stretching her arms.
“What a beautiful sight. You were tossing and turning all night. Did you get any sleep?”
Jess stifled a yawn. “Some. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, nothing a few antacids couldn’t fix.” Fay sat in the other lounge chair. She stared at the sea for a minute before continuing tentatively. “Tyler’s the one that got away, isn’t he?”
Jess nodded. “I nearly didn’t come back to the room last night.”
“He’s interested in you. The eyes don’t lie.”
“A lack of passion was never our problem.”
“Then what was?” Fay swiveled in her chair. “Did he cheat on you in college?”
“Tyler? God, no. He’d be the last guy to do that.”
“Then what?”
“I was young. New to college. He wanted a commitment. I wanted to have fun. Maybe it was just bad timing.” Jess shook her head. “Tyler’s a good man. He deserves the truth about my situation, about Andy.”
“You’ll know when the time is right to tell him, dear. Just follow your heart.”
“My heart is saying I made a big mistake all those years ago. I know they say you shouldn’t go through life with regrets, but sometimes it’s hard not to.”
“The people who say that are sociopaths,” Fay said.
That surprised Jess. “You have regrets?”
“Too many to count.”
“Like what?”
“Smoking, for one. But we didn’t know any better.” Fay held out her hand, and Jess took it in her own. “Regrets will always be a part of you, Jessica. The mistake you shouldn’t make is letting those regrets keep you from enjoying the rest of your life.”
“I won’t.”
Fay smiled. “Me neither.”
Jess stood. “We’ve got a lot to do today. I’m going to take a shower.”
Thirty minutes later came a knock on the door. Jess watched as Fay answered and let Tyler in. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t bothered to shave, but his windbreaker, T-shirt, and jeans didn’t look too rumpled.
He nodded at Jess, but spoke to both of them. “The NSA guys found a Suzuki four-by-four that’ll fit all of us. They’ll be here in few minutes. We’ll stop for supplies at the hardware store. I’d wear a jacket. It’ll be cool out there.”
Fay excused herself to change in the suite’s bedroom. The silence grew thick.
“Tyler, I’m sorry about last night.”
“No need to be. I must have gotten the signals wrong.”
“No. You didn’t. You know you didn’t.”
“I know,” he said. “I was just trying to make this a little less awkward.”
“I shouldn’t have broken up with you.”
“Well, now you’re making it more awkward. Besides, I broke up with you. Not to get into a pissing match about it.”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t have broken up with me if I could have committed to you back then. I was stupid.”
“So we both agree on that,” Tyler said with a twinkle in his eye.
Jess couldn’t help but smile. “You are not making this any easier. I wanted to tell you—”
Tyler’s phone rang and he put up a finger. He looked at the display, then answered. “Hello … all right, we’ll be down in a minute,” he said and hung up.
As he pocketed the phone, Fay came back in. “Are they here?”
Jess sighed, realizing that she’d missed her opportunity. Turning to Fay, she asked, “Are you ready to do this?”
Fay beamed. “I’ve been ready since I was ten years old.”
* * *
The store had the caving equipment they needed: four flashlights, a couple of shovels, and a hundred meters of nylon rope. Jess was an experienced spelunker, so the idea of delving into a dark, creepy hole didn’t bother her in the slightest.
Tyler drove the Suzuki. Fay was in the passenger seat, and in the back Jess squeezed between two wiry security men, a blond kid in his twenties named Harris and a curly-haired guy called Polk who smelled like a locker room. Both were armed with silenced submachine guns. She thought the extra men were an unnecessary precaution, but Tyler had insisted.
It took only fifteen minutes to reach their destination four miles to the north. Once they left the paved road, the Suzuki bounced over the rough grassland toward the sea while Jess navigated. With the dry creek bed to their right, Tyler inched along to make sure they didn’t bog down in any unseen gullies.
Fifty yards from the cliff leading down to the Pacific, Tyler came to a stop, and they all climbed out. Far from any of the tourist spots, the area was deserted. Jess checked her cell phone and saw that it wasn’t getting a signal.
“Now what?” Tyler said.
“The map seems to indicate that whatever we’re looking for should be on the very edge of the island,” Fay said. “There’s probably a marker of some kind, possibly carved into a stone.”
“Let’s fan out. If you see anything unusual, give a shout.”
“Unusual like what?” Polk said.
“The Rapa Nui people were known for cave paintings and rock art,” Fay said. “Something like that might be what we’re looking for.”
Tyler devised a grid pattern for the search. They would space apart at five-yard intervals and walk parallel paths to make sure they didn’t miss anything, starting a hundred yards south of where the creek mouth met the cliff.
Jess chose the spot closest to the cliff face with Fay next to her. They methodically walked the route. Every few minutes someone would stop to check out something more closely, but it always turned out to be nothing.
The group slowed as they reached the dry creek bed’s mouth since that seemed to be the location of the dot on the map. They spent a half-hour meticulously combing the grass before Jess’s foot scraped across an abrasive flat surface. If she hadn’t been walking so deliberately, she would never have noticed the red stone almost completely buried in the soil. The eighteen-inch-wide slab looked nothing like the brown dirt surrounding it. She recognized it as scoria, the pumice-like rock that was used as a material for the gigantic hats adorning some of the Moai.
Jess called out, and everyone came running over to her find. Centuries of growth and accumulated earth had nearly covered the stone.
Tyler took one look at it and said, “That had to be placed there on purpose.”
Jess knelt and pulled the grass away. “Help me dig it out.”
Tyler went to the car to retrieve the shovels. After ten minutes of digging, they were able to see the carvings that adorned the sides of the circular slab.
A spider, a bird, a monkey, and a human figure. They were identical to the drawings on the engraving.
“Oh, my God,” Fay said, her hands trembling. “This is it!”
“Is that what the map was leading us to?” Jess said. “It doesn’t have any other drawings on it.”
“It must be a marker for something nearby.”
They fanned out to look again. Jess remembered her conversation with Tyler about the sea-side caves and walked to the part of the cliff closest to them, which was obscured by some low shrubbery. She pushed it aside and peered over the edge, where she saw a path carved into the cliff-side that was wide enough to accommodate an elephant. Without the marker, finding the path would have been pure chance in spite of its width.
“Hey!” she yell
ed. “Take a look at this.”
Everyone joined her at the edge.
Jess turned to Tyler. “Shall we see where this goes?”
“All right,” Tyler said. “Let’s get the rope and flashlights.” The three men returned to the vehicle.
“Nana, you should stay here.”
Fay looked at her as if she were insane. “That would be a big no.”
“We don’t know how safe that path is.”
“If you think I’m staying behind while you get to make the discovery of a lifetime, you don’t know your grandmother very well.”
“Then just let us scout it out first.”
“Absolutely not.” When Jess began to object again, Fay said, “Unless you plan to tie me up and lock me in the car, I’m going.”
Jess shook her head in defeat. “Okay. But I want you right behind me.”
“That’s my girl.”
Tyler and Polk returned with the equipment.
“I asked Harris to stay with the car in case anyone comes nosing around,” Tyler said, and led the way down the path, followed by Jess and Fay, with Polk bringing up the rear.
Once they were on the path, Jess could see that crude handholds had been notched in the cliff, making the descent relatively easy.
After two switchbacks, Tyler disappeared around an outcropping. When Jess came around it, she saw Tyler standing on a ledge large enough to fit three SUVs.
“Looks like this is the end of the line,” he said. “Other than the path back up, there’s no way off.”
While Jess guided Fay onto the ledge, Tyler inspected the cliff face, but there didn’t appear to be any passages leading into a cave.
He knelt in front of a large boulder that was lodged against the cliff face, running his fingers along its base.
“Jess, look at this.”
She bent over and focused a flashlight where he was pointing. The bottom of the boulder was scored with small divots chipped out of the stone.
Tyler looked at her. “Didn’t you say last night that one theory for how the natives moved the Moai was that they rocked the stones back and forth using ropes?”
“Right, but they stopped because they were chipping—” It suddenly dawned on Jess what Tyler was getting at.
“If they wanted to hide this cave entrance from someone paddling along the coast,” Tyler said, “they would block it with one of their stones. I think we’re going to need more muscle here. We’ll have to chance leaving the car alone for a little while.”
Polk called on his walkie-talkie for Harris to join them.
“You really think this is the way in?” Fay said.
“Only one way to find out.” Tyler began rigging two ropes around the top of the boulder, one to be pulled in each direction.
“How much do you think this weighs?” Jess said.
“Oh, probably a few tons. But if they were as good at this as you said they were, I’m guessing they made the boulder maneuverable.”
When Harris arrived, Tyler gave him and Polk one rope while he and Jess took the other. Then he explained the procedure that he thought would work best. By alternating pulls, they started a rocking motion in the stone, and while it was tipped in one direction, the two people on the other side would move out and tug it in the opposite direction.
Tyler was right. The stone was perfectly weighted. Even with only him and Jess pulling, they were able to budge the rock so that it tilted a fraction in their direction. As they let it return to center, Harris and Polk pulled, causing it to tilt farther in the other direction.
After eight more pulls, they had enough momentum to start walking it out. It only moved an inch at a time, but that was all they needed. In ten minutes Jess could see a space big enough for a person to slip through and darkness beyond.
“All right,” Tyler yelled. “I think we got it.”
They let the boulder wobble to a standstill and caught their breath. Tyler sent Harris back to the car. Jess agreed that the last thing they needed was a passing tourist following their path down to the ledge.
Tyler pointed his light at the side of the boulder that had been hidden until now. “I’d say we’ve found who’s been keeping an eye on the place.”
They crowded around and saw what he meant. The side that had been against the cavern opening had the prominent brow and wide nose of the Moai they’d passed on the way here.
“Imagine,” Fay said with reverence. “No one has seen this in over thirteen hundred years.”
“I can’t believe you were able to do this,” Jess said. “We never would have figured out how to get in there.”
Tyler shrugged at her. “I guess MIT wasn’t a total loss. Let’s take a look, shall we?”
Before Jess could respond, he was swallowed by the cave.
THIRTY-TWO
With midnight come and gone, Morgan still kept an eye on the intersection below, though she didn’t think there was much point. She had reviewed the dossier the CIA had on Vladimir Colchev. Given his history and how well he’d planned the attack on Pine Gap, she thought it was very possible he had another mole in the Killswitch project besides Kessler. If that were the case, he would know the theft attempt had failed, and Colchev and his men would be long gone from Sydney.
“They’re not coming,” Grant said.
“They could be giving Kessler some extra time to make it.”
“Not likely. I think it’s safe for me to take a leak.” He headed to the bathroom.
As the fan came on, Morgan’s cell rang. She frowned when she saw it was Vince.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she said.
“The doohickey they have me hooked up to is beeping every five seconds, so I can’t sleep. The morphine’s great, though.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“She said I won’t be playing rugby any time soon.”
“How long until you’re back?”
“They’ll let me check out in a few days and fly back to the US. I’ll be a desk jockey for the six weeks I’m on crutches. Have you made contact yet?”
“The targets haven’t shown up. We’ll give it another hour, but they probably won’t take the bait.”
“Sorry I can’t be there.”
“Yeah, thanks for sticking me with Westfield for the duration.”
“Is he there?”
“In the john.”
“I thought you two got along really well.”
Morgan snorted in response. “It’s been a joy.”
“No sparkling conversation?”
“It’s actually not that bad. I’m getting used to him.”
“Wait a minute. Are you sweet on him?”
Morgan felt herself blush. “Don’t be ridiculous. Army grunts aren’t my type.”
“He didn’t seem dimwitted to me, especially for a former pro wrestler.”
The toilet flushed and Grant came out of the bathroom. Morgan looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, he’s not stupid,” she said. “Just annoying.”
Grant nodded happily and took his seat.
“Whoa,” Vince said with a moan.
“You okay?”
“Now all of a sudden I’m tired. Keep me posted. And stay safe.”
“Will do. I’ll see you back in the States.”
She hung up.
“Who was that? Your boyfriend?”
“My partner.”
“How is he?”
“Fine.”
“That the official prognosis?”
Morgan smirked. Annoying.
“So what’s the plan now?” he said.
“We wait here another hour.”
“Then when they still don’t show up?”
“Then we find out what the link to the Baja drug cartel is.”
“It sounds like Andrew Hull won’t be any help.”
Morgan couldn’t argue with that. The arms dealer had been shot by a sniper in front of his office building this morning. It wasn’t until t
he afternoon when the police were searching his files and found the reference to a truckload of “gravel” going to Alice Springs that they made the connection to the Pine Gap explosion. Colchev must have offed Hull to cover his tracks.
The problem for her was that it worked. Unless their liaison at the Drug Enforcement Agency could find a lead, they were at a dead end.
“You really think Colchev wants to smuggle a Killswitch back into the US?” Grant said.
“That’s the only reason I can come up with for why he would want to seek out a drug gang. They’re the best smugglers out there. It’d be much easier to fly it into Mexico and drive it across the border than land in the US and try to get it through customs.”
“Seems like a lot of effort when the weapon was already in America a couple of days ago.”
“Until it got to Australia, the Killswitch was on an Air Force base the entire time. Trying to steal it there would have been suicidal. And they needed the xenobium from Pine Gap to make it operational.”
“Well, we know they ain’t suicidal,” Grant said. “That’s why they needed the robotic truck. None of his men were fanatical enough to blow themselves up.”
Either that or they were saving themselves for a suicide attack on American soil. But where?
“You’re an expert on explosives and electronics,” Morgan said. “What would be the likeliest target?”
Grant considered that for a moment. She was impressed that he didn’t just blurt out an answer.
“I’ve been wondering about that. Nadia Bedova mentioned Wisconsin Avenue. How many are there in the US?”
Morgan brought up the data on her cell phone. “Ten. Six in Wisconsin, two in Illinois, one in Iowa, and one in DC.”
“I don’t think this guy wants to take out corn farmers, so I’m betting DC is the target.”
“It could also be Chicago. One of the Illinois locations is in a suburb.”
“We know that if Colchev gets a large enough sample of xenobium, it could take out the entire city’s grid. I’d still say Washington, unless Air Force One is visiting Chicago any time soon.”
Morgan nodded. “We’ll check on that. But if a terror attack is his plan, then taking out either Washington or Chicago would meet that goal.”
Grant rubbed his head. “That’s the part about Wisconsin Avenue that I don’t get.”
The Roswell Conspiracy Page 18