He got in, and she sped off, merging onto the freeway.
After a minute of nothing from her, Grant said, “That bad?”
“Now that the Killswitch is in the US and a threat to national security, the FBI is taking over the case. I’m put on suspension pending an investigation into my actions of the last four days.”
“That’s idiotic! Why?”
“They had a lot of good reasons.” She held up a fist and flicked it open one finger at a time. “I allowed the Killswitch to be stolen, the Australian xenobium was destroyed, our suspects in Sydney were killed before they could be interrogated, and I failed to stop the weapon from being smuggled back into the US. Oh, and the Air Force lost its two-hundred-million-dollar cargo jet and crew that I convinced them to send to Easter Island.”
Grant grimaced. “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound good. What do we do now?”
“We don’t do anything. They took my OSI ID and gun. I’m supposed to fly back to Andrews tomorrow morning.”
“Tyler left me a message. He said Colchev has the xenobium. He thinks the attack is going to happen tomorrow.”
“I know. He called our office and left me the same message.”
“What is the FBI doing about it?”
“They disagree with Tyler’s assessment that Washington isn’t the target. The President is being moved to a safe location away from the city, and they’re shutting down Wisconsin Avenue and doing a building-to-building canvass along the street.”
“Colchev’s too smart for that. He’d just move to a different location.”
“The FBI thinks this is the best option,” Morgan said with disgust. She took the exit for Mission Hills. Grant didn’t know San Diego well, but he assumed she was heading for the airport.
“You’re not giving up are you?”
“What else can we do?”
“Tyler gets into LAX in eight hours. I say we meet him there and trade information. Maybe we’ll come up with something.”
“All right,” Morgan said, “but I need to shower and change first.”
“So do I. Motel?”
She pulled to a stop in front of a tidy two-story home and put the car in park.
“My parents’ house. They’re at work right now.”
Grant took the guest bathroom while Morgan used her parents’ master suite.
By the time he was finished with his shower, Grant felt like a new man. After he toweled off, he wrapped it around himself and walked out of the hallway bathroom to find Morgan standing in the guest bedroom doorway wearing only a robe. Her skin radiated a fresh glow, and her damp hair dipped across her shoulder in an alluring flourish.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” Grant said, not sure if the vibe he was getting was correct. But he was damned interested to see where this was going. His adrenaline surged more than it had during any of the explosions or firefights of the last few days.
The seconds ticked by as they eyed each other. Grant got the distinct impression that he was being ogled, which didn’t bother him one bit.
Without saying a word, he walked over to Morgan and stopped inches in front of her. Her breath was hot on his chest.
He didn’t care if he was wrong. He swept her into his arms and kissed her.
When she returned the kiss so forcefully that she twisted him around and pushed him backward into the guest bedroom, he knew he was right.
FIFTY
The nine-hour flight from Lima left Tyler, Jess, and Fay exhausted, but at least they made it out of Peru before anyone discovered that they’d had a hand in destroying part of a major Nazca monument. Tyler dozed fitfully during the flight, preoccupied with speculation about where Colchev was headed.
Now that Fay had access to her insulin, she was feeling better, but the experiences of the last few days had drained her. Jess decided to get her a hotel room in LA, so when the plane landed, Tyler texted Grant to meet them at the airport Radisson.
The shuttle dropped them at the hotel lobby, where Tyler saw Grant and Morgan standing awkwardly next to each other.
Tyler clapped his friend on the back and said, “How are you doing?”
“We’re fine,” Grant said. “Well, Morgan’s not … she’s had a rough day. I’m trying to keep her spirits up.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow at Grant, who knew exactly what he was silently asking. Grant’s lightning-fast grin answered the question.
“We should find somewhere to talk,” Morgan said.
“I reserved a suite,” Jess said. “The living room should be big enough for all of us.”
After the quick check-in, they settled into seats around the coffee table. Even Fay stayed, despite Jess’s pleas to get some rest. It took them an hour to swap stories about Sydney, Rapa Nui, Peru, and Tijuana. Although they had whittled away at Colchev’s crew, he had bested them at every turn, and they were nowhere close to catching him.
Tyler ran his hands through his hair in frustration at trying to figure out Colchev’s ultimate goal. The Russian’s original plan had been to steal both the Killswitch and the xenobium in Australia. He not only was going to bring it back to the US, a risky proposition in any case, but he had a timetable to get it into the country in time for an attack to occur on July 25.
“Could this be related to money?” he asked Morgan.
“Anything’s possible,” she said. “If he’s playing the market, he could profit when an attack devastates stock prices.
“But why tomorrow?”
“Maybe he has to short sell by then,” Jess said.
“That means he created the short timeline for himself. That seems ambitious, even for him.”
“But what would be on Wisconsin Avenue?” Grant said.
“It does seem like an odd place to attack,” Morgan said. “I’ve looked over the satellite and street maps in detail. It’s far away from any of the critical government functions.”
“That doesn’t matter. Colchev has a huge amount of xenobium. Not only will the gamma rays kill everyone within miles, the EMP burst could take out every computer all the way to Baltimore, whatever street he detonates it on.”
“It sounds like we’re missing a vital piece of the puzzle,” Fay said. “Like when I didn’t know that the phrase the alien told me was Russian. If he
Tyler grinned. That was the first time she conceded that perhaps what she experienced wasn’t a close encounter with a spaceman. He was impressed with her ability to change her mind, even after sixty-five years.
“Fay’s right,” Tyler said. “Bedova asked me if we’d heard the word ‘Icarus’ from Colchev’s men when they were in New Zealand. I bet that’s an important piece.”
“I have one possibility, though it doesn’t make sense,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t tell you before because our knowledge of it is classified. Sorry, but I was bound by law.”
“And now?” Grant said.
The corner of her mouth turned up. “I can’t screw up much more than I already have in the eyes of the OSI. Icarus is a Russian code name for a parachute.”
Jess looked at her dubiously. “A parachute that’s classified?”
“It was developed for their military space program. It allows them to bail out of a sub-orbital spacecraft and
