“Where is she now?”
“The last we heard, she was with Jess McBride at the warehouse where Colchev locked us in the truck.”
Vince burst into the room, breathless, as if he’d been running.
“Morgan,” Vince said, holding out his phone. “You have to look at this.”
She took it. From his vantage point, Tyler could see it was a photo of five men, three white and two black, lying on the ground, each with a bullet in his forehead.
“What is this?” she said. “I recognize Josephson, but who are the other men?”
“A private pilot spotted them in the desert south of town. The police found them next to a Pine Gap truck. They’re the men from the security detail who were sent to pick up the Killswitch.”
Morgan looked back at the photo, first with a puzzled expression, then with dawning horror.
“Are you sure?”
“They all had their Pine Gap IDs on them.”
“What’s the matter?” Tyler said.
Vince looked up, his eyes clouded with dread. “The men we saw at the airport were all Caucasian. That means the hijackers had to have taken out the men before they reached the airport. The men we met were the impostors.”
“So?” Grant said.
“So,” Morgan said, her jaw clenched, “Kessler arrived at the airport with them.”
TWENTY-SIX
Morgan didn’t waste time on self-recrimination for not detecting Kessler’s treachery earlier. There would be plenty of time for that when her superiors found out. Her priority was to hunt him down and make him tell her where she could find the stolen Killswitches.
“We’ve got a major security breach,” she barked into her phone to Herman Washburn, Pine Gap’s chief of security.
“What kind?”
“Charles Kessler. He left Pine Gap with your security team and arrived at the airport with the hijackers. He must have been there when your men were killed.”
“But Kessler was at Pine Gap when the truck bomb was supposed to hit. He would have been killed.”
“When we check the records,” Morgan said, “I’ll bet we find out that he was in the underground vault at the time. It would have been the only safe location during the blast.”
“Dammit! All right. I’ll post guards on every side of the facility to keep him from escaping.”
“He can’t be far. He left the lab just a few minutes ago. He may be trying to steal the xenobium sample.”
“His badge isn’t showing up on our internal monitoring system. We’ll do a room-by-room search. He won’t get away.”
“Make sure he isn’t harmed. We need him for questioning.”
A voice came over the intercom. This is a security alert. All non-security personnel are instructed to remain where they are. This is not a drill. The message repeated.
“Wait a minute,” Washburn said. There was an excruciating pause. “Agent Bell, I’ve got Kessler. He’s in the vault with the xenobium. He’s asking for you.”
“All right, I’ll head down there.”
“No, he wants to talk to you over the intercom. You’ll have to come to the security bunker.”
Morgan grimaced. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up and turned to Vince. “Kessler’s in the vault. Head down there and make sure any escape routes are cut off.” She pointed at Tyler and Grant. “You’re both with me. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Grant put up his hands. “Whatever you say.”
“Let us know if we can do anything to help,” Tyler said.
“Come on.” She sprinted for the security room with Tyler and Grant keeping up behind her.
When they arrived, the room was bustling with activity.
Washburn, a grizzled veteran, eyed Tyler and Grant. “Who are they, and what are they doing here?”
“Locke and Grant. They blew up the truck bomb.”
Washburn appraised them, then grudgingly nodded.
“Where is he?” Morgan asked.
Washburn pointed at the center monitor. “I’ve got the vault sealed.”
Kessler was looking up into the camera.
“Can he see me?” Morgan said.
“No.”
She leaned into the mic. “Dr. Kessler, this is Special Agent Bell. I know you are involved with the hijacking.”
“I want safe passage out of Pine Gap, and I’m taking the xenobium with me.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“You will do that or I blow it up.” Kessler held up an object the size of a grapefruit.
Morgan put her hand over the mic. “Can he do that?” she asked Washburn.
“How the hell should I know?”
Morgan looked at Tyler.
He nodded slowly. “Given that I just learned about this stuff, it’s hard to say. But if that thing he’s holding is a detonator with the xenobium inside, I’d say it’s possible.”
“How much damage would it cause if it went off?”
“Kessler said they had a hundred grams of it and that it was twice as powerful as hafnium-3,” Grant said.
She could see Tyler doing the math in his head. “That gives it the explosive power of over sixty tons of TNT. How thick are the vault walls?”
“Twelve feet of concrete on the sides,” Washburn said. “The door is two feet of hardened steel.”
“That’s not enough to contain the blast. The vault is ten stories underground?”
Washburn nodded. “At the edge of the facility.”
Tyler glanced at Morgan. “You’ll get some serious foundation damage if it goes off in the vault. But if Kessler gets topside, it would take apart half the buildings in Pine Gap.”
“What if that’s his plan?” Grant said.
“We can’t risk letting him get out,” Morgan said. She removed her hand from the mic. “Kessler, disable the device and we’ll talk.”
“No.” He tapped on the device in his hand. “I’ve just set this for sixty seconds. If the door doesn’t open in one minute, it goes off. Starting now.”
Morgan checked the clock on the wall. “Kessler, if you did this for money, we can work something out. We can get you help.”
“Let me out! Now!”
“Maybe someone kidnapped a loved one. Tell us and we’ll figure out how to solve the problem.”
“I’ve got nobody. I dedicated my life to this project. And for what? Two divorces that milked every cent out of me, a pitiful pension, and an empty apartment. Why shouldn’t I be able to retire in luxury?”
Forty-five seconds.
“Kessler, I’m not letting you out of there.”
“Then I have nothing to live for.”
“Yes, you do. We can work this out.”
“So I can sit in a cell in Guantanamo for the rest of my days? I don’t think so.”
Thirty seconds. She could tell he wasn’t bluffing, but there was no way she could let him leave with the xenobium.
She put her hand over the mic and turned to Washburn. “Get your men out of there right now.” He scrambled to call his men. Vince would be with them. She tried not to think about it.
Speaking to Kessler, she said, “The Killswitch is useless without the xenobium. You said so yourself.”
“I’m sure they have a backup plan.”
Fifteen seconds.
“Kessler, I’m not bluffing. That door will not open.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t do this,” Morgan said, desperate to convince him to give up.
“There’s no alternative.”
Five seconds. Kessler began to mumble to himself.
“Where are Vince and your men?” she said to Washburn.
“Headed up the stairs. I don’t know what lev—”
The screen went white and a massive tremor shook the ground. Morgan held onto the console as the floor rattled beneath her. Mugs, headsets, and books clattered to the ground.