“At least four miles,” he said. “At this pace it’ll take us another half hour.”
“They could take off by then.”
“I know. We have to stop them before they get airborne.”
She wanted to get reassurance from Tyler that Fay would be all right, but wasting her breath on extracting meaningless platitudes wasn’t going to help her get to the airport any faster. She concentrated on sucking in air through her nose and exhaling through her mouth as she did on her twice-weekly jogs.
Tyler jerked his head around at the sound of an engine behind them.
She turned to see two motor scooters puttering toward them. Two skinny guys, both in their twenties, waved as they approached.
“We need those scooters,” Tyler said. “Follow my lead.”
The kids seemed like college students on summer break, backpacks slung over their shoulders.
Tyler smiled and flagged them down. The look was non-threatening, just a dirty, sweaty man and woman who were out in the middle of nowhere.
The riders came to a stop. Both of them paid more attention to Jess than Tyler.
“Hola,” one of them said to Jess. “¿Qué pasa?”
“No hablo Español,” Tyler said. “¿Habla Inglés?”
The men shook their heads.
“Do you speak Spanish?” Tyler said to Jess.
“No,” Jess said. “And we don’t have time for this.”
With a quick nod at the bikes, she took a running lunge and pushed the closest guy off his scooter, grabbing the handle before it could fall.
Tyler didn’t hesitate to follow her cue. He ripped the second man off his bike as if he were a doll. The man hit the ground with an “oof.”
“Sorry,” Tyler said, and hopped onto the seat.
They gunned the engines and zipped away before the men could get to their feet. In her rearview mirror she could see them give chase, but their cursing and arm-waving didn’t help them catch up.
The scooters could hit forty miles an hour, but the frequent potholes meant that thirty was pushing the safest top speed. Tyler pulled even with her.
“That’s one way to do it,” he said over the wind.
“Those guys will be fine. We can’t let Colchev get away with Nana.”
“We’ll park a truck across the runway if that’s what it takes to keep them from leaving.”
“I hope you’re right. She doesn’t have her medication.”
“What medication?”
“Insulin. She’ll tire quickly without it. If she doesn’t get another dose within a few days, she could pass out and go into a coma.”
“Is she diabetic?”
Jess hesitated, but she had to tell him. “Nana has pancreatic cancer. She wanted me to keep it quiet.”
“She seemed fine to me.”
“She had some rough days earlier in the month, but she’s been okay the past week.”
“How far along?”
“Stage four. Terminal. I’m not giving up hope, but most people in the same situation last only a few months. She’s supposed to start chemotherapy next week.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I would never have let her come along if I’d known.”
“I tried to talk her out of it, but you’ve seen how stubborn she can be.”
“She’s a tough bird. Maybe the doctors are wrong.”
They were only a few miles from town, but a thunderous roar coming from that direction made Tyler stop. Jess pulled to a halt next to him.
It sounded like a jet engine.
“Damn it,” he said. “We’re too late.”
The roar receded into the distance until she saw a white twin-engine private plane take to the air above the far end of the runway.
“No!” she cried out. “No!”
“It’s all right. The C-17 should be able to match the speed of Colchev’s jet. We’ll get into the air as soon as we reach the airport, and we’ll make sure to have a SWAT team waiting wherever they land.”
He revved his engine and took off.
“Why are they doing this?” Jess said when she caught up. “What’s so damned important about this weapon?”
“The Killswitch is an electromagnetic pulse device. Xenobium, the material we found in the cave, is detonated by explosives in the Killswitch, and it sends out a cascade of gamma rays that disrupts any magnetic field within range.”
“Which would do what?”
“It would cause a surge of electricity that damages electronic devices. Anything with a transistor would immediately shut down. Computers, communications, electrical grids, vehicles, airplanes would all be affected.”
“Do you think he’s planning to use this thing?”
“Possibly, but we don’t know what Colchev’s target is. Now that he has the components to make it work, he could take out a major city with it.”
“Good God! Imagine if he set it off next to an airport.”
“Every plane within range would crash. Hospitals would have no power. With no working fire trucks or water pumping stations, fires would rage out of control. Nuclear plants would melt down. We’re essentially talking about a worst-case terrorist event.”
Jess’s stomach twisted at the nightmare scenario.
“This is some kind of classified US weapon?” she said.
“Yeah, and I committed twelve felonies telling you all that. But I need your help to get it back. And we’ll get Fay back with it. I promise.”
He still knew her well. The platitudes helped.
They made better time once they hit the paved road going into Hanga Roa. In another two minutes they were on the airport tarmac.
Tyler came to a stop next to the huge cargo jet and jumped off the scooter without bothering to pop the kickstand. Jess did the same and followed him up the stairs into the C-17.
She stopped suddenly when she saw dead bodies scattered on the cargo floor. The plane’s three crew and the two other security men. All of them had been shot.
Tyler ignored the corpses and knelt on the opposite side of a copper-colored device four-feet long. The sleek piece of machinery had an inherently menacing quality.
“Is that the Killswitch?” she asked.
He met her eyes. “Yes. And it’s armed.”
“What?” She went around to Tyler’s side and saw a LCD display counting down. It read 15:23. 15:22. 15:21.
“Colchev must have set it before he left.” He waved the radiation meter over the weapon and grimaced when he saw the results. “The xenobium we found must be in here.”
“Oh, my God! Can you disarm it?”
Tyler examined the device and shook his head. “It looks like it requires a security code. Do you think you could decipher it?”
“Not without knowing anything about its internal safeguards to prevent tampering. What about cutting the wires?”
“I’m not even sure how it works. I could set it off just by tinkering with it.”
“Then let’s get it out of the plane. We’ll put it far away and then take cover.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“Sure it’ll take out the electronics, but at least it won’t blow up the plane.”
Tyler stood. She could see the gears in his head turning, weighing a set of bad options.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“When it goes off, the xenobium in the weapon will emit high-intensity gamma rays. That’s how it causes the magnetic flux.”
Jess felt her gut twist. “Radiation?”
Tyler grimly nodded. “It doesn’t matter where we take it. If this bomb goes off, everyone on the island will die.”
THIRTY-NINE