The Roswell Conspiracy (29 page)

“I won’t go into the details, but I will tell you that Washington, DC, will cease to be the center of global power once this is over. Once America is on its knees, China will fall with it, as dependent as it is on the US economy. Moscow will take its rightful place on the world stage as the dominant force, and so I will have nothing to fear.”

“The US will go to war with Russia.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I don’t think so. After all, if they are attacked by their own secret weapon, how can they blame Russia for the attack? No, the US will have too many problems at home to want to start another war. Besides, why do you care? You live in New Zealand now.”

“I’m still an American.”

“Mrs. Turia, I admire your patriotism, but I’m going to succeed whether you help me or not. However, it will go faster if you point me in the right direction. If you don’t, I guarantee that I will carry through on my threat. Your granddaughter will live in fear for the rest of her days, never knowing when or where I’ll strike. You don’t want her to go through life like that, do you? I may let you go just to deliver that message to her.”

Fay glanced out the window again before she looked back at Colchev. “What do you want me to do?”

Colchev smiled. “I need your expertise. I’ve narrowed down our search to two spots based on the video you filmed in the Rapa Nui cave. The first is the center of the Mandala and the second is the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. You seemed to indicate that the Nazca animal symbols were important to the search. What do they mean?”

“I don’t know. We were hoping to learn more when we got there.”

“Got where?”

She sighed heavily. “The Mandala. The alien told me it’s in the center of the figure, buried under the starburst pattern.”

“The alien?”

“The one I met at Roswell. He drew it in the dirt before he died.”

“You met an alien?”

“Of course! What do you think started all this?”

“You’re talking about the Roswell incident.”

“Yes. A spaceship crashed. An alien climbed out and saved me. He gave me the wooden engraving and then drew a rectangle in the dirt before he died.”

Colchev stifled a chuckle.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Actually,” he said. “I do. For reasons that you can’t comprehend. Is your theory that the same aliens visited the Nazca people?”

“How else do you explain the xenobium? A material like none other found on earth falls from the sky at Tunguska, remote Western Australia, and the ancient Nazca plain of Peru. Obviously an alien spacecraft crash landed just like at Roswell, but the spacecraft power source survived. Given how many times they’ve visited our planet over the last few thousand years, it’s only reasonable to assume they’ve had some accidents.”

Colchev smiled. “That’s a fascinating theory.”

“There’s no other possible explanation.”

“So you think the xenobium is buried in the dirt at the Mandala?”

Fay nodded. “We think that’s where it landed over fifteen hundred years ago. The Nazca people buried it there so the gods would be able to retrieve it.”

“And you’re sure it’s not in the Grand Pyramid?”

“I can’t be sure of anything, but the chambers inside the pyramid have been searched thoroughly. If the xenobium was there, it would be gone by now.”

“That would be very bad for you and Jessica.”

Fay looked scared. “That’s why I’m sure it’s at the Mandala. When you find it there, I expect you to keep your promise.”

“Of course.”

Colchev returned to the front of the plane and told Zotkin her wild story.

“Do you believe her?” Zotkin said.

Colchev shot him an amused look.

“I mean about the burial place for the xenobium,” Zotkin said quickly. “The rest of her theory is obviously ridiculous.”

Colchev looked back at Fay, who had resumed staring out the window. “She’s a tough old woman. I really believe she’s more afraid of losing her granddaughter than dying herself. I think she took my threat seriously.”

“And if the xenobium isn’t at the Mandala?”

“Then we’ll take her to the Grand Pyramid of Cahuachi. We may still need her to interpret the symbols.”

“Tonight?”

“No, it’ll be dark soon. We’ll start the search at sunup.”

“She better be right,” Zotkin said. “We only have two days left.”

“Yes,” Colchev said. “Only two more days for the United States to enjoy its position as the world’s lone superpower. And then it is our turn.”

FORTY-ONE

A high-pitched screech jolted Jess awake. Until she sat upright and experienced a mild head rush, it didn’t register that she’d actually been asleep.

“What was that?” she said, searching for the source of the noise.

“Just a seagull,” Tyler said, leaning against the side of the raft. “He’s been circling us for ten minutes.”

“Like a buzzard.”

“No, but I do think he’s hoping we’ll give him some food.”

“No chance. If I had any food, I’d wolf it down.” Salt crystals clung to her still-damp jeans, and her mouth felt like the inside of a cotton ball. At least she was no longer shaking like a seizure victim. “How long have I been out?”

“My watch isn’t working because of the EMP, but I’d say an hour and a half. Almost getting blown up can be tiring. Believe me, I know.”

“Probably. Plus I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Me neither.”

She scanned the horizon for sign of a rescue boat or plane. Nothing. Easter Island beckoned in the distance, tantalizingly close, but if they tried to swim for it, they’d be exhausted before they got halfway there.

“Do we have any supplies?”

“A flare gun. One shell. But we shouldn’t use it until we’re sure someone is looking this way.”

“You seem pretty confident that’s going to happen.”

“It will,” Tyler said. “I just don’t know when.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I sent out a distress call before we jumped. As long as we don’t get a storm, we should be fine.”

“Great. You just jinxed us.”

“I don’t believe in jinxes.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“If it happens, it’ll happen whether we talk about it or not.”

“Very logical of you.”

“And your boyfriend isn’t?”

Jess brushed away some of the salt from her pants. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Well, not at that moment.”

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Andy. He’s a doctor.”

“In New Zealand? How come I didn’t meet him?”

“He’s volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. He’s in the middle of the Congo right now.”

“Does he know anything about what’s going on?”

“I left him a message, but phone service out there is unreliable.”

“Is it serious?”

“He asked me to marry him before he left. I told him I’d give him an answer when he got back.”

“You? Settle down? I thought you found out it wasn’t your thing after the surfer dude. It sure wasn’t what you wanted at MIT.”

“Tyler, we were young, all right? In college I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. You caught me at a bad time.”

Tyler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Looks like I did it again.”

She chuckled. “You know the ironic thing?”

“What?”

“He’s a lot like you. Dashing, smart, funny, kind, reliable.”

Tyler cleared his throat. “So what’s the answer?”

“To what?”

“To the question he asked.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“What’s stopping you from saying yes?”

She smiled. “He’s a lot like you. Stubborn, arrogant, workaholic, impatient, logical.”

He returned the grin. “So what you’re saying is, he’s flawless.”

She shook her head. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy.”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

Tyler paused, then said, “Jess, I was blissful with Karen, but I never stopped loving you, either.”

Jess started shivering again, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else. She put her head against Tyler’s shoulder.

“Why couldn’t all this have happened a year ago?” she said.

Tyler didn’t answer, but he put his arm around her. She looked up at him and felt his eyes pulling her toward him.

They kissed. Lightly at first, then ravenously. She forgot all about the cold, the dampness, the hunger, the discomfort.

It would have become more but for the drone of an engine in the distance. They drew apart, checking with each other to see if they’d heard the same thing.

The sound disappeared in the wind and then came back stronger. They both shot up and looked toward the island.

A small boat cut through the ocean, distant but approaching quickly. They got up on their knees and waved frantically. The boat’s two occupants waved back.

“Looks like someone on the island had an old diesel,” Tyler said.

“We’re being rescued. You were right again.”

He looked at her with a serious expression. “You need to make up your mind.”

“I know.”

“But for now we need to get Fay back and stop Colchev.”

“I know,” Jess said again, but she felt like she didn’t know anything.

N
AZCA

FORTY-TWO

The drone of the six-seat plane’s engine was so monotonous that the coffee in Tyler’s hand had been the only thing keeping him awake on the early morning flight. There wasn’t much to see as they flew over the mountainous terrain from Lima toward southern Peru, but now that the aircraft was in its final descent, he perked up, and Jess’s tension was palpable. In a few minutes they would be flying directly over the Nazca lines.

Yesterday when the scuba company owner who rescued Tyler and Jess took them straight to the island, Tyler found that all communications were out except for an old battery-powered short-wave radio. While Jess gathered their belongings from the hotel, including Fay’s medication and cash, he helped get the antique radio working by the time the LAN flight from Lima arrived just ahead of sunset. Unable to make contact with the airport, the airliner pilot had nearly turned around before they were able to reach him and convince him to land.

If there was one small piece of luck, it was that the jet didn’t need to gas up to return to the mainland. Rapa Nui had no refueling equipment to be rendered inoperable by the EMP blast. All airliners to the island had to load enough fuel to make the round trip on one tank.

Though it was the low season of winter, the tourists who were there swarmed to the airport when they realized that the power outage wasn’t going to be a short-term inconvenience. The plane had been only half-full, but none of the arriving passengers were getting off, so seats were at a premium. It was only through Jess’s fast talking and Fay’s bankroll that she and Tyler secured two of the spots on the return flight to Lima. The local police were too busy with the sudden chaos to question them about the downed cargo jet, and Tyler wasn’t going to volunteer any information that would get them confined to the island for an extended period.

By the time they arrived in Peru, they were too tired to do anything but crash for the remainder of the night in a hotel. Tyler had tried reaching Grant and Morgan, but he’d been told by Morgan’s supervisor that they were en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. He also informed her supervisor about the men killed by Colchev, the detonation of one of the two Killswitches, and the crashed C-17, though he left out the part about him being the one who destroyed it. Tyler didn’t have time for the complications that admission would bring. He’d come clean when the entire situation was resolved.

Without Morgan’s help, he and Jess were on their own in contacting the Peruvian authorities. Tyler spoke with a policeman in Nazca who could understand English and told them about Fay’s abduction and the connection to the incident at Easter Island, but he said nothing of the Killswitch or xenobium. The policeman agreed to accompany them to Cahuachi in the hopes that they could intercept Colchev there and liberate Fay. Once Morgan was available, Tyler would consult with her on how to work with the Peruvian government to secure the xenobium.

After only a few hours’ sleep, they woke up to get to the stores by the time they opened. Jess acquired more cash and new cell phones while Tyler made a couple of quick stops of his own to cobble together the hardware he needed. With their purchases in hand, they hurried to the airport and bought tickets on the next flight to Nazca.

The plane’s only occupant other than Tyler and Jess was the pilot. As they neared their destination, he pointed down, and Tyler peered out the window at the desolate plain below. The empty desert beneath him made the landscape around Alice Springs look like the Garden of Eden.

Other than the distant fields that hugged the banks of narrow rivers, there was no sign of vegetation. Rocky peaks engulfed the flat expanse of the Nazca plateau, which seemed to be a uniform rust color until he focused his eyes and saw his first glimpse of the famed white lines.

The construction of the drawings—from the miles-long straight lines to the most intricate animal symbols—was a simple process, aided by the unique geography of the region. A thin layer of red pebbles overlaid the white substrata of chalky clay underneath. All that was needed to make the lines was a pair of hands and time to painstakingly remove the red pebbles. Because the desert experienced almost no rain or wind, erosion was minimal, allowing the drawings to persist for over a thousand years.

Although the construction technique was simple, how the huge drawings were created so precisely and for what purpose had been the subject of heated debate for almost a century. Hundreds of feet long and unrecognizable for what they are at ground level, they remained undiscovered until planes began flying over the desert in the 1920s. It was only then that the lines were revealed to the world as one of the great mysteries of a forgotten people.

Now that he could see them with his own eyes, Tyler could understand why the lines captured the public imagination. The first image he could identify was a giant hummingbird winging its way across the northwestern corner of the plateau. Like the other drawings, it resembled a child’s doodle, but its wings, tail, and beak were outlined in recognizable detail.