before it straightened for a two-mile stretch. He immediately recognized the ribbon of asphalt next to it. As a racing fan, he knew Elkhart Lake Raceway well. Even from this distance he could see the stands packed with spectators. Cars buzzed around the track.
“We have a winner,” he said and banked toward the highway. The spaceplane wasn’t much larger than a private plane, and roadway landings weren’t unprecedented and were often successful. He just had to hope that anyone driving on that stretch of highway would see him in time to get out of the way.
It wasn’t until he was committed to his approach from the north that he saw an unfortunate obstacle.
The highway was under construction. Orange cones dotted the pavement, and yellow pavers and backhoes littered the road.
He had one other choice. The straightaway at Elkhart was just barely long enough.
Tyler nudged the stick sideways until he was lined up with the track.
Jess realized what he was attempting. “Are you insane? We can’t land there!”
Tyler grimaced as he concentrated on the narrow strip of straightaway. “If you have a better idea, tell me three minutes ago.”
“You haven’t even lowered the landing gear!”
“Our speed’s too hot. This will only work as a belly landing. As long as the racecars stay out of my way.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Hold on.”
The track’s final turn flashed below him, and he could see that the racers were vintage sports cars. Then he saw the pedestrian bridge that marked the beginning of the flat straightaway. Miraculously, the segment of the track in front of him was devoid of cars.
As the spaceplane flew over the bridge, he could make out the faces of amazed race fans craning their necks to watch him come in.
Tyler pulled the nose up and the Skyward settled toward the tarmac as gently as if it were falling onto a bed of hay. Then the peaceful landing was interrupted by a grinding din as the pavement tore at the spaceplane’s belly with a vibration that rattled Tyler’s seat.
As the craft slid down the straightaway, Tyler’s control was gone. He was as much a spectator as the dumbfounded people sitting in the stands on either side. The first turn came up fast, but the end of Elkhart’s front straightaway was bordered by a spacious run-off area instead of a catch fence. The Skyward plowed into it, sending a tsunami of sand to either side, and came to a halt.
The sudden silence was deafening. Tyler got out of his chair and went over to Jess.
“Are you all right?”
Jess nodded and unhooked her belt. She stood, shaking. But when she removed her helmet, Tyler could see it wasn’t because she was terrified.
“After that, bungee jumping just won’t have the same rush,” she said with a huge smile. “You think my company can offer this as a ride?”
The rest of the day was a blur for Tyler. The police took him and Jess to the Milwaukee FBI office for interrogation before the phalanx of journalists that had descended upon Wisconsin could start hounding them for information. It had been quickly verified that the Killswitch had been on board the spaceplane because of the container found in the Weeks hangar with the spaceplane’s gagged original crew, all of whom attested that Tyler and Jess had also been hostages of Colchev and Zotkin.
Tyler told the FBI that the spaceplane had been over the lake when the weapon was tossed out, so they’d have to plumb its depths if they ever wanted to retrieve the Killswitch. A search for it began immediately.
Colchev’s bloody mess of a corpse was found by a rancher on a property near Lake Michigan. His two accomplices, the ones that Morgan and Grant subdued at the air show, had regained consciousness and were spirited away to an undisclosed location.
It wasn’t until that evening that Fay and Grant, who had endured their own questioning, were allowed to see them. While Jess and Fay talked, Tyler went into one of the conference rooms where he found Grant staring at the table. Tyler put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and sat next to him.
The agents had told Tyler about Morgan’s sacrifice with the T-38. He saw that Grant was mourning more than just the loss of a colleague, but now wasn’t the time to go into it. Tyler recalled when people tried to console him after his wife’s death. Words of sympathy rang hollow, but they were appreciated all the same.
“I’m so sorry about Morgan,” Tyler said.
Grant swallowed hard. “She tricked me into ejecting before she rammed the Lodestar. Stupid. She promised.”
“She’s a hero,” Tyler said. “Without her, Jess and I would be at the bottom of Lake Michigan, and Colchev would be celebrating the ruination of the United States.”
Grant flashed a joyless smile, then changed the subject. “Do you think they’ll ever find the Killswitch?”
Tyler sighed. “Possibly. The search area is going to be huge, and the weapon was probably destroyed on impact, but the xenobium will be intact. If they can find the radiation signature in all the muck at the bottom, they’ll get it. Maybe they’ll even restart the program, although that may be difficult without Kessler’s expertise.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Grant said. “If they do find it, we’ll never know about it.”
Tyler nodded, and he silently pondered what other secrets the government had kept quiet for the last sixty- five years.
EPILOGUE
The lush grass of Roswell’s South Park Cemetery defied the blazing August sun. Tyler wiped his brow in the sweltering heat and admired the landscapers’ efforts to keep the lawn watered. It was a pleasant setting, shaded by the occasional oak tree, and he could see why Ivan Dombrovski had chosen it for his wife’s grave. Tyler and Jess continued their search for Catherine’s headstone.
Though Jess and Fay weren’t allowed to leave the country until the inquiries into the events in Wisconsin had come to a conclusion, a personal trip to New Mexico was allowed. At least that’s what the FBI thought it was.
Tyler had been intrigued by what Colchev had told them: that Dombrovski had visited his wife’s grave every day during his final year and that the Soviets never knew to which island the wood engraving’s map had been referring.
It was only when Tyler put it together with Fay’s Roswell encounter that he made the connection.
The dying alien Fay said she met had drawn a K, a backward E, and a T inside an upright rectangle. In the Latin alphabet, they were puzzling, but not if the word he was writing had been Russian. In the Cyrillic alphabet, the first three letters translated to C, A, and T. It was the start of the word “Кэтрин”.
The alien had been trying to spell Catherine in his native tongue.
“Here!” Jess called out.
Tyler found her standing in front of a modest granite headstone. It read, “Catherine Dombrovski. Beloved wife. 1890–1946.”
“I wish Nana were here to see this,” Jess said with a tear in her eye.
Tyler put an arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Me too. But she insisted we come without her.”
He knelt in front of the headstone and inspected the granite without seeing any obvious seams on either side. He ran his fingers over its surface, feeling for a hidden latch or button.
When his index finger ran over the dot of the raised “i” in “Catherine,” he felt it give slightly. That had to be it. He pressed it, and the entire outline around her name popped open like a door hinged on the bottom, confirming his suspicion for the reason that Dombrovski had been such a devoted visitor.
Even in his most distraught days after Karen’s death, Tyler didn’t visit her grave daily so he was sure there
