The calm ocean rose to meet Tyler quickly, and he readied himself to release the chute. Drowned by his own parachute was not how he wanted to go.
He plunged into the water and held his breath as he wriggled out of the harness. After an agonizingly long thirty seconds, he was free and swam for the surface.
He burst into the air and took a deep breath. He whirled around looking for Jess and the raft.
He saw the raft first, its color easily spotted against the blue horizon. Then he saw Jess paddling toward it with a smooth stroke.
It took him several minutes to meet her there. They climbed in and caught their breath. The flashing light of the homing beacon was activated automatically by the water, but the survival kit was gone, probably lost while the life raft was tumbling through the air. They could do nothing now but wait for rescue.
Jess sat up and leaned against the outer tube.
“You all right?” Tyler said.
“That was amazing! You?”
“As good as can be expected.”
She drew the folded Leatherman from her pocket and handed it to Tyler. “I thought we might need it if we’re out here for long.”
“I can’t seem to lose this,” he said, and put it in his own pocket. “Unfortunately, I don’t think the Air Force will consider it a fair trade for a two-hundred-million dollar jet.”
“I can’t see it,” she said. “How far away do you think it is?”
Tyler checked his watch. Fifteen seconds to detonation.
“I’m hoping it’s at least thirty miles away by now. It should still be accelerating.”
“Will we be able to see the blast from here?”
As if in response to her question, Tyler squinted as a fiery orange glow pierced the sky. He counted while he awaited the sound of the explosion.
Two minutes later a tremendous crack split the air.
“Twenty-five miles away,” Tyler said.
“Is that far enough?”
“At this distance the gamma radiation is going to be minimal.” He pointed at the extinguished homing beacon light. “But the electromagnetic pulse reached us. That’s why the electronic beacon shut off. We’ll have to hope someone with a sailboat is headed our way.”
“I hope it’s soon,” Jess said, her teeth chattering.
Tyler’s adrenaline subsided and he realized he was shivering as well.
“Come here,” he said.
She nestled against him, and he wrapped his arms around her for the shared warmth.
That was about all they had going for them. No food. No fresh water. And because of the EMP, the only populated area within two thousand miles was now a technological wasteland.
FORTY
Halfway to Santiago, Colchev finished watching the video from Fay’s camera for a third time. He concluded that there were two possibilities for where they would find the xenobium at the Nazca plateau. Either it was at the Mandala geometric figure or it was somewhere in the pyramid of Cahuachi.
The photo from Ivan Dombrovski’s lab in 1947 proved that the Russian scientist had found a ball of xenobium three inches in diameter as a result of his search all those years ago. The unnamed cave had pointed the way, he’d recorded, but Dombrovski never explained why he didn’t bring the xenobium back with him. The only puzzle piece Colchev had been missing was the location of the cave. Thanks to Fay Turia and Tyler Locke, he’d found it.
The problem now was deciding where to begin the next part of the search. Fay was going to help him decide.
He walked to the rear of the Gulfstream, where Fay stared through the window at the ocean below.
He took a seat opposite her. “Mrs. Turia.”
She turned her gaze on him, her eyes blank. “What?”
“You seem to be an expert on the Nazca lines, and I need your assistance.”
She barked a raspy laugh. “You must be dumber than the sheep on my station.”
Colchev wasn’t accustomed to women talking to him like that. He clenched his armrest tightly. “If you don’t help me, I don’t have a reason to keep you alive. You’re saying I should just shoot you right now.” He drew his pistol and aimed it at her head.
Fay didn’t flinch. “Go ahead. I’ll be dead in a few months anyway.”
That was not the reaction Colchev was expecting. He lowered the pistol. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I have malignant pancreatic cancer. Apparently it’s not a pleasant way to go, so you’ll actually be doing me a favor by pulling that trigger.”
He’d never seen someone so unafraid of death. Men he’d threatened like that were more likely to wet their pants than talk back. He put the gun away and tried a different tactic.
“I’m giving you a chance to save your granddaughter.”
Fay’s eyes softened. “You will not hurt Jessica. I won’t allow it.”
“You will allow it if you don’t help me.”
He didn’t tell her that the armed Killswitch would have irradiated the entire island with gamma rays. It was quite likely that both Jess and Tyler were now dead or soon would be, along with the two models Colchev had left behind in the hotel.
He leaned forward to make his point. “If, for some reason, my mission fails because you didn’t help me, I will have no choice but to hunt your granddaughter down and kill her.”
“How do I know you won’t do that anyway?”
“Because I won’t have any reason to.”
“I’m not naïve. I’ve seen your faces. I know that you have something called the Killswitch. And I know you’re after more xenobium. Why would you let me live?”
“I won’t go into the details, but I will tell you that Washington, DC, will cease to be the center of global power once this is over. Once America is on its knees, China will fall with it, as dependent as it is on the US economy. Moscow will take its rightful place on the world stage as the dominant force, and so I will have nothing to fear.”
“The US will go to war with Russia.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I don’t think so. After all, if they are attacked by their own secret weapon, how can they blame Russia for the attack? No, the US will have too many problems at home to want to start another war. Besides, why do you care? You live in New Zealand now.”
“I’m still an American.”
“Mrs. Turia, I admire your patriotism, but I’m going to succeed whether you help me or not. However, it will go faster if you point me in the right direction. If you don’t, I guarantee that I will carry through on my threat. Your granddaughter will live in fear for the rest of her days, never knowing when or where I’ll strike. You don’t want her to go through life like that, do you? I may let you go just to deliver that message to her.”
Fay glanced out the window again before she looked back at Colchev. “What do you want me to do?”
Colchev smiled. “I need your expertise. I’ve narrowed down our search to two spots based on the video you filmed in the Rapa Nui cave. The first is the center of the Mandala and the second is the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. You seemed to indicate that the Nazca animal symbols were important to the search. What do they mean?”
“I don’t know. We were hoping to learn more when we got there.”
“Got where?”
She sighed heavily. “The Mandala. The alien told me it’s in the center of the figure, buried under the starburst pattern.”
“The alien?”
“The one I met at Roswell. He drew it in the dirt before he died.”
“You met an alien?”
“Of course! What do you think started all this?”
“You’re talking about the Roswell incident.”
“Yes. A spaceship crashed. An alien climbed out and saved me. He gave me the wooden engraving and then drew a rectangle in the dirt before he died.”
Colchev stifled a chuckle.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Actually,” he said. “I do. For reasons that you can’t comprehe
nd. Is your theory that the same aliens visited the Nazca people?”
“How else do you explain the xenobium? A material like none other found on earth falls from the sky at Tunguska, remote Western Australia, and the ancient Nazca plain of Peru. Obviously an alien spacecraft crash landed just like at Roswell, but the spacecraft power source survived. Given how many times they’ve visited our planet over the last few thousand years, it’s only reasonable to assume they’ve had some accidents.”
Colchev smiled. “That’s a fascinating theory.”
“There’s no other possible explanation.”
“So you think the xenobium is buried in the dirt at the Mandala?”
Fay nodded. “We think that’s where it landed over fifteen hundred years ago. The Nazca people buried it there so the gods would be able to retrieve it.”
“And you’re sure it’s not in the Grand Pyramid?”
“I can’t be sure of anything, but the chambers inside the pyramid have been searched thoroughly. If the xenobium was there, it would be gone by now.”
“That would be very bad for you and Jessica.”
Fay looked scared. “That’s why I’m sure it’s at the Mandala. When you find it there, I expect you to keep your promise.”
“Of course.”
Colchev returned to the front of the plane and told Zotkin her wild story.
“Do you believe her?” Zotkin said.
Colchev shot him an amused look.
“I mean about the burial place for the xenobium,” Zotkin said quickly. “The rest of her theory is obviously ridiculous.”
Colchev looked back at Fay, who had resumed staring out the window. “She’s a tough old woman. I really believe she’s more afraid of losing her granddaughter than dying herself. I think she took my threat seriously.”
“And if the xenobium isn’t at the Mandala?”
“Then we’ll take her to the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. We may still need her to interpret the symbols.”
“Tonight?”
“No, it’ll be dark soon. We’ll start the search at sunup.”
“She better be right,” Zotkin said. “We only have two days left.”
“Yes,” Colchev said. “Only two more days for the United States to enjoy its position as the world’s lone superpower. And then it is our turn.”
FORTY-ONE
A high-pitched screech jolted Jess awake. Until she sat upright and experienced a mild head rush, it didn’t register that she’d actually been asleep.
“What was that?” she said, searching for the source of the noise.
“Just a seagull,” Tyler said, leaning against the side of the raft. “He’s been circling us for ten minutes.”
“Like a buzzard.”
“No, but I do think he’s hoping we’ll give him some food.”
“No chance. If I had any food, I’d wolf it down.” Salt crystals clung to her still-damp jeans, and her mouth felt like the inside of a cotton ball. At least she was no longer shaking like a seizure victim. “How long have I been out?”
“My watch isn’t working because of the EMP, but I’d say an hour and a half. Almost getting blown up can be tiring. Believe me, I know.”
“Probably. Plus I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Me neither.”
She scanned the horizon for sign of a rescue boat or plane. Nothing. Easter Island beckoned in the distance, tantalizingly close, but if they tried to swim for it, they’d be exhausted before they got halfway there.
“Do we have any supplies?”
“A flare gun. One shell. But we shouldn’t use it until we’re sure someone is looking this way.”
“You seem pretty confident that’s going to happen.”
“It will,” Tyler said. “I just don’t know when.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I sent out a distress call before we jumped. As long as we don’t get a storm, we should be fine.”
“Great. You just jinxed us.”
“I don’t believe in jinxes.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“If it happens, it’ll happen whether we talk about it or not.”
“Very logical of you.”
“And your boyfriend isn’t?”
Jess brushed away some of the salt from her pants. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Well, not at that moment.”
“Who is he?”
“His name’s Andy. He’s a doctor.”
“In New Zealand? How come I didn’t meet him?”
“He’s volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. He’s in the middle of the Congo right now.”
“Does he know anything about what’s going on?”
“I left him a message, but phone service out there is unreliable.”
“Is it serious?”
“He asked me to marry him before he left. I told him I’d give him an answer when he got back.”
“You? Settle down? I thought you found out it wasn’t your thing after the surfer dude. It sure wasn’t what you wanted at MIT.”
“Tyler, we were young, all right? In college I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. You caught me at a bad time.”
Tyler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Looks like I did it again.”
She chuckled. “You know the ironic thing?”
“What?”
“He’s a lot like you. Dashing, smart, funny, kind, reliable.”
Tyler cleared his throat. “So what’s the answer?”
“To what?”
“To the question he asked.”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“What’s stopping you from saying yes?”
She smiled. “He’s a lot like you. Stubborn, arrogant, workaholic, impatient, logical.”
He returned the grin. “So what you’re saying is, he’s flawless.”
She shook her head. “He’s a pain in the ass.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy.”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
Tyler paused, then said, “Jess, I was blissful with Karen, but I never stopped loving you, either.”
Jess started shivering again, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else. She put her head against Tyler’s shoulder.
“Why couldn’t all this have happened a year ago?” she said.
Tyler didn’t answer, but he put his arm around her. She looked up at him and felt his eyes pulling her toward him.
They kissed. Lightly at first, then ravenously. She forgot all about the cold, the dampness, the hunger, the discomfort.
It would have become more but for the drone of an engine in the distance. They drew apart, checking with each other to see if they’d heard the same thing.
The sound disappeared in the wind and then came back stronger. They both shot up and looked toward the island.
A small boat cut through the ocean, distant but approaching quickly. They got up on their knees and waved frantically. The boat’s two occupants waved back.
“Looks like someone on the island had an old diesel,” Tyler said.
“We’re being rescued. You were right again.”
He looked at her with a serious expression. “You need to make up your mind.”
“I know.”
“But for now we need to get Fay back and stop Colchev.”
“I know,” Jess said again, but she felt like she didn’t know anything.
NAZCA
FORTY-TWO
The drone of the six-seat plane’s engine was so monotonous that the coffee in Tyler’s hand had been the only thing keeping him awake on the early morning flight. There wasn’t much to see as they flew over the mountainous terrain from Lima toward southern Peru, but now that the aircraft was in its final descent, he perked up, and Jess’s tension was palpable. In a few minutes they would be flying directly over the Nazca lines.
Yesterday when the scuba company owner who rescued Tyler and Jess took them straight
to the island, Tyler found that all communications were out except for an old battery-powered short-wave radio. While Jess gathered their belongings from the hotel, including Fay’s medication and cash, he helped get the antique radio working by the time the LAN flight from Lima arrived just ahead of sunset. Unable to make contact with the airport, the airliner pilot had nearly turned around before they were able to reach him and convince him to land.
If there was one small piece of luck, it was that the jet didn’t need to gas up to return to the mainland. Rapa Nui had no refueling equipment to be rendered inoperable by the EMP blast. All airliners to the island had to load enough fuel to make the round trip on one tank.
Though it was the low season of winter, the tourists who were there swarmed to the airport when they realized that the power outage wasn’t going to be a short-term inconvenience. The plane had been only half-full, but none of the arriving passengers were getting off, so seats were at a premium. It was only through Jess’s fast talking and Fay’s bankroll that she and Tyler secured two of the spots on the return flight to Lima. The local police were too busy with the sudden chaos to question them about the downed cargo jet, and Tyler wasn’t going to volunteer any information that would get them confined to the island for an extended period.
By the time they arrived in Peru, they were too tired to do anything but crash for the remainder of the night in a hotel. Tyler had tried reaching Grant and Morgan, but he’d been told by Morgan’s supervisor that they were en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. He also informed her supervisor about the men killed by Colchev, the detonation of one of the two Killswitches, and the crashed C-17, though he left out the part about him being the one who destroyed it. Tyler didn’t have time for the complications that admission would bring. He’d come clean when the entire situation was resolved.
Without Morgan’s help, he and Jess were on their own in contacting the Peruvian authorities. Tyler spoke with a policeman in Nazca who could understand English and told them about Fay’s abduction and the connection to the incident at Easter Island, but he said nothing of the Killswitch or xenobium. The policeman agreed to accompany them to Cahuachi in the hopes that they could intercept Colchev there and liberate Fay. Once Morgan was available, Tyler would consult with her on how to work with the Peruvian government to secure the xenobium.
The Roswell Conspiracy Page 23