Still, they kept moving, knowing that the dragnet for the escaped Fort Knox terrorists would be ever widening. To stay ahead of it, they traveled back roads, avoiding main thoroughfares, threading their way south until they reached Nashville.
“You’ve got everyone looking for you,” Kat continued. “FBI, military intelligence, civilian law enforcement. It’s still a clusterfuck out here in D.C., especially with all of this coming down in the middle of the night. Now that the terrorist flag has been raised, everyone’s scrambling.”
As Monk drove slowly through a suburban industrial park on the outskirts of Nashville, Gray glanced to the backseat. Seichan sat with her arms crossed, staring at the dark mix of warehouses, supply stores, and mechanic shops. Because of her past crimes, she was not officially a member of Sigma. She could never be. Her recruitment as an asset and spy was known only by a small handful of people within their organization, all well trusted. To the rest of the world’s intelligence agencies, she remained a wanted terrorist, a deadly assassin for hire.
“How did that alert at Fort Knox get raised in the first place?” Gray asked. “All of our identification was solid. What tipped them off? We were scanned and photographed at the depository. Did Seichan’s picture get flagged by some database?”
“I’m still working on that,” Kat replied. “But I can tell you the alert wasn’t generated from Fort Knox. It came from an outside source, but I can’t trace it. At least not right now. It’s too early. Everyone is still covering his or her ass at this point. I imagine files are being shredded all over D.C.”
“So we were set up. It was an ambush from the start.” He could guess who orchestrated it all, picturing the officer in charge at Fort Knox. “Any further news on Waldorf?”
Gray had spoken to Kat an hour ago after purchasing the disposable cell phone. The conversation had been brief as she tried to quell a hundred fires while blowing chaff to keep Sigma’s involvement a secret and misdirecting the nation’s various intelligence and security agencies to keep Gray and his teammates from getting caught.
“No,” she said. “I’ve made numerous inquires, but Waldorf vanished shortly after the base alert got raised. But he must be hunting for you as desperately as everyone else.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was one of the reasons I was calling you back. To warn you. The Learjet that you took from D.C. was blown up in midair about fifteen minutes ago, shortly after taking off from the Louisville Airport. A blast took out the tail section. Estimates are that it was a bomb tied to an altimeter timer. The plane reached a certain height and the ordnance blew.”
Gray remembered the young pilot. A hot coal of anger settled deep in his belly. “Waldorf was gunning for us. But he must have known we wouldn’t be on that plane.”
He squeezed a fist on his knee as he realized what this meant. The bombing was an act of pure vengeance, a murderous tantrum after Waldorf had been thwarted.
“I thought you should know,” Kat warned. “It’s another reason you must keep moving.”
“Understood.” He heard her sigh loudly, sensing more was to come. “What?”
“I heard from Dr. Janice Cooper again.”
It took Gray a moment to place that name—then he remembered. “She was working with that Japanese physicist.”
“They’re both still under guard, but her partner who survived the massacre has been continuing to consult with other labs. At our request, he’s been studying the massive neutrino surges rising from the West.”
“Has he been able to pin down the location?”
“No, but he has been able to extrapolate the magnitude of the coming explosion. He says it may be over a hundred times larger than the one in Iceland.”
Gray pictured Ellirey Island crumbling to fiery ruin.
A hundred times larger than that?
The level of destruction would be massive, the scale unimaginable.
Kat continued, “Which brings me to the real reason I called. The Japanese physicist has worked up a rough estimate for when it might blow. Like he did with Iceland.”
“When?” Gray asked, tensing his abdomen, anticipating the punch.
“In about five hours.”
A sinking despair settled through him. What could they do in five hours? Even if they weren’t being hunted, they’d have a hard time even flying to the West Coast in time to accomplish anything. But Sigma already had other operatives out there.
“Any word from Director Crowe?”
Her voice grew strained. “No. He had gone down into a cavern system under some ruins, but local rangers reported an explosion there, burying much of it in rubble. I have Lisa monitoring teams combing the desert where he’d last been seen. She’s a wreck. Nothing’s turned up. And I’ve spoken to Ronald Chin at least a dozen times. He’s heard nothing from Painter either.”
Gray hoped the director was okay, but they still needed someone out west who could address the trouble that was escalating in that region. “Did you tell Chin about the geological timer ticking down?”
“I did, but without a location, what can he do? That’s why I need you to find a way to free that old Indian map from the gold plate. If there’s some clue as to where this cache of unstable nanotech is hidden, we need to know it now.”
“I’ll do what I can, but I’ll need some foundry where I can heat up this gold plate. See if I can’t melt away the ordinary gold and expose the map at its heart.”
“I anticipated that.”
Of course she did.
“I have the name of a small goldsmith shop near you. I’ll give you the address. The owner will meet you there in fifteen minutes.”
She passed on the location. It was only a few blocks away, in the same industrial park they were driving through. Leave it to Kat to have every variable covered.
But there remained one last variable.
“Can I have a word with Monk?” she asked, sounding stern.
“Hang on.” He held out the phone to his friend. “Looks like you’re in trouble.”
Monk kept hold of the steering wheel with the stump of his wrist and took the phone. He cradled it between his shoulder and chin and regained his grip on the wheel.
“Hey, babe,” he said.
Kat’s voice whispered from the phone, but the words were too faint to make out.
“No, I didn’t lose another hand,” Monk said, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel. “I just lost my prosthesis. Big difference, hon.”
Gray imagined Kat scolding her husband in an operatic duet that has been going on between husbands and wives for ages, that eternal mix of exasperation and love.
A slow smile spread across Monk’s face. He whispered back words that were mundane and ordinary—but in fact were as loving as the lyrics of any aria. “Uh-huh . . . okay . . . yeah, I’ll do that . . .”
In an effort to give them privacy, Gray turned to study the dark streets, but his eyes caught on the rearview mirror. He saw Seichan staring at the back of Monk’s head, her face soft and lost, not knowing anyone was watching.
But she was still a hunter.
As she sensed his attention, her gaze flicked and trapped him in the mirror’s reflection. Her face went hard again as she turned away.
Monk’s voice suddenly grew sharper. “What? Just now?”
Gray drew his focus back up front.
Monk lifted his chin to address the car. “Kat’s just heard. Lisa’s on the phone with him now. Painter’s been found.”
Chapter 31
May 31, 11:32 P.M.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Less than five hours until the next explosion?
After speaking with Lisa, Painter had been fully debriefed by Kat. He checked his watch. That would put the time just at sunrise out here. But the big question remained: Where exactly would it blow?
Kat continued: “I have Gray working to narrow the search radius. Our only hope is that he truly has found the old Indian map and can pinpoin
t the location of that lost city.”
Ever since clawing his way to freedom, Painter had felt as if his hands were tied. He and the others had escaped the caverns below Wupatki about an hour ago. Members of a search party, bivouacked at the site of the ruins, had been surprised when Painter’s group appeared out of nowhere, asking for water and food. They’d been promptly evacuated to a ranger station, where Painter set about discovering what had been going on during his absence.
Apparently a lot.
But one question remained foremost in his mind. He asked it again: “Kat, has there been any news about Kai?”
“No.” Her next words were spoken carefully. “We’re combing all the counties in Arizona and Utah. No law enforcement agencies have reported the discovery of a dead body matching your niece’s description.”
He steeled his voice, keeping control, knowing it would serve no one to do otherwise. “Jordan Appawora said the commando team had helicopters. They could have traveled farther.”
“I’ll extend the search.”
“What about spreading the word—through clandestine channels and local media—that I survived?”
“Already done. I sent a breaking news ticker out through all the major wires. About the rescue, including photos of your group. If Rafael Saint Germaine or any of his crew turn on a television, radio, or check the news online, they’ll know.”
“Good.”
His niece’s best chance for survival—if she was still alive—was to get that Frenchman’s attention. After that, Rafael would keep her safe, if only to use her as a bargaining chip again. Now all Painter had to do was figure out what chip he had that would set her free.
Over the next ten minutes, Kat went over additional notes: about Fort Knox, the ongoing manhunt for Gray and company, and the status of the neutrino reports.
Once he was caught up, he signed off.
“Sir,” a voice said behind him. He turned to find Jordan standing in the doorway. The others had sacked out in a bunk room at the back of the ranger station. Jordan looked like he’d not slept a wink. “Any word?”
“Nothing yet.” Noting the grim look on the boy’s face, he added, “And that’s good news. Until we hear otherwise, we assume she’s alive, right?”
Jordan gave a sullen nod. “Okay, but when I was crashed back there in the dark, I got to thinking. They took everything from me when I was captured. That included my cell phone. What if they still have it? What if we tried calling my number?”
Painter felt the cords binding his wrists loosen slightly at that thought. Could they still have the kid’s phone? It was worth investigating. Besides, he hated sitting here doing nothing.
Jordan continued to argue his case, not realizing he’d already won it. “Maybe someone will answer my phone and we could threaten them, scare them enough to let Kai go.”
For that matter, we could also track the phone, Painter thought, running through various possibilities. Or turn it into a remote bug by activating its microphone.
Of course, all of this was a long shot. The Frenchman was no fool. He would’ve dumped that phone by now. Painter tapped a finger atop the table. Then again, Rafael thought they were all dead. Maybe his men hadn’t purged everything yet.
Still, Painter knew it would take time to track that phone, especially out here in the remote desert—time that Kai might not have.
Painter had to buy her an extension. “What’s your cell number?”
Jordan gave it to him.
Painter memorized it and asked a ranger for a landline and a bit of privacy. Once alone in a back office, he dialed the number. It rang and rang as he prayed for someone to pick it up.
Finally, the line clicked open. A thickly accented voice spoke slowly, unconcerned. “Ah, Monsieur Crowe, I see we’re not quite done with each other yet.”
June 1, 12:41 A.M.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Rafael lounged once again in the presidential suite atop the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. He had been woken up half an hour ago and shown footage of muddy figures standing over a grated hole.
Painter Crowe lived.
Remarquable.
Shocked, he had stood there in his bathrobe for a full minute, unable to respond. Emotions had warred in his breast at the sight: rage, awe, and yes, a trickle of fear—not for the man, but for the fickleness of fortune.
In the photo, Painter had been staring straight into the camera.
Rafe read the challenge in that steely gaze. He knew the director of Sigma had orchestrated this media blitz. This was a message sent personally to Rafael.
I am alive. I want my niece.
As Rafe held the phone to his ear, ignoring the bundle of cables and wires dangling from the gutted mobile device, he stared over at the closed door. It seemed that fortune was smiling as warmly on the niece as it had smiled on the uncle. He had wanted to interrogate Kai more fully before dispatching her. She had been inside the Utah cavern, saw the mummies and the treasure. He wanted every detail of that trespass. Potentially she also knew more about Sigma, its operatives, and other tidbits gleaned from her short time with her uncle.
But such interviews were too taxing after the long day.
Morning would be soon enough, so he let her live to see one more sunrise.
And now he was glad he’d shown such generous restraint.
“Do not bother tracking this call,” Rafe warned his adversary. “I employ a crack team of encryption experts. We’re bouncing this signal all around the world.”
“I wouldn’t think of it. You were clearly expecting this call, so I can only assume you had countermeasures in place.”
Exactement.
After seeing the photo earlier, Rafe had known Painter would discover some way to reach out to him. He was somewhat surprised it had taken this long. Ashanda—along with assistance from TJ—had worked their technological magic on the device, ensuring no one could track the phone or trace the signal.
“I’ve called to restart our negotiations,” Painter said. “To continue where we left off.”
“Fair enough.”
“First, I want some guarantee Kai is still alive.”
“No, I don’t believe I’ll give you that.” Rafe enjoyed the long pause, knowing how it must torture the man. “Not until I understand what you’re bringing to the table.”
The pause stretched, stoking suspicion.
Are you preparing to bluff?
Truly, in the end, what could the man offer of interest?
Rafe stared at the gold jar resting atop the dining table. He had studied it at length, drinking in every bit of it, trapping it forever in his mind’s eye. Even now, he rotated the jar in his head, tracing a finger over each inscribed letter of the lost language and feeling anew the detailed landscape that was etched across its golden surface.
This treasure promised far more than wealth. It could guarantee eternal glory, for him, for his family. What more could he want?
Painter told him. “In exchange for Kai’s safe return, I will reveal the location of the Fourteenth Colony.”
Rafe slowly smiled, shocked yet again.
The man never ceased to amaze.
Remarquable.
12:44 A.M.
“Uncle Crowe, you’re alive!”
Painter sagged in his seat upon hearing her voice, wanting to express the same sentiments himself.
She was alive!
Instead, he kept his questions practical, knowing he’d have little time. “Kai, are you okay? Have they hurt you?”
“No,” she answered, stretching that single word to encompass so much more.
Painter knew the trauma she must be undergoing: the deaths, the bloodshed, the terror of the unknown. But he also heard the bravery in that one utterance. She had the blood of warriors in her.
“I’m going to come get you. I promise.”
“I know.” Her response held both tears and hope. “I know you will.”
The phone wa
s taken from her. Rafael returned to the line.
“So we have a deal, n’est-ce pas?”
“I will call you with a time and location for the exchange.”
“And I will want proof of what you claim, Monsieur Crowe.”
“You’ll have it. As long as she is safe and unharmed.”
“So be it. Au revoir.”
As the line cut off, Painter continued to hold the phone, fingers clamped tightly to it, as if trying to keep his connection to Kai. He felt light-headed with relief.
A voice rose behind him. “So is Kai still alive?”
He swung around in the chair. Jordan’s bruised face was raw with worry. Focused on the call, Painter had not heard the boy creep into the office. Either the youth was remarkably light-footed, a trait well known to his Ute clan . . . or Painter was simply too exhausted to pay his usual attention.
Maybe it was a combination of both.
Painter faced the young man, knowing he had to be truthful. Jordan had earned it. “They’ve not harmed her,” he said. “But she’s still in danger.”
Jordan stepped forward. “So then you’ll tell them what they want to know . . . to get them to let her go?”
While this was a question, Painter heard the note of demand in it, too.
“I will try.”
That’s the best he could offer. He’d been bluffing with Rafael over the phone, buying time for Kai. But how much leeway had he bought her? How long could he keep stringing the Frenchman along?
In truth, Painter had no idea of the location of the lost Fourteenth Colony. Only one person had a chance of gaining that knowledge—and he was on the run, being hunted by every law enforcement and intelligence agency in the country.
The fear had returned to Jordan’s face.
Painter stood, crossed over, and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay to worry, but don’t lose heart. I have one of my best men on the case.”
The Devil Colony Page 34
