The Loch Ness Legacy (8 page)

“Then why blow it up?”

Grant shrugged. “It might not have been the ultimate target, just collateral damage. The Gordian team was able to partially reconstruct an unusual item from the wreckage.”

“How unusual?”

“In the X-Files range. It’s twisted metal from a cylindrical aluminum object about the size of a submarine sandwich. The biggest segments were found on the ground, but they matched bits to pieces on the catwalk where you tangled with Carl Zim.”

“What’s so unusual about that?”

Grant turned his computer so Tyler could see the screen. As Tyler scooted his chair forward and leaned on the desk to get a closer look, his phone rang. He looked at the display and said, “Agent Harris.”

He answered. “What’s the latest, Melanie?” He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Sure, I’ll have someone bring you up to Miles’ office when you get here.” He hung up with a puzzled expression.

“What’s she doing here?” Grant asked. “I thought she’d still be working on finding out who tried to bust Zim out of prison.”

Tyler shook his head. “I don’t know. All she said is that it has something to do with the Eiffel Tower attack.”

Grant felt a chill run down his spine. “I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with this thing.” He zoomed in on five pieces that had been laid out side-by-side. The edges were bent and ripped, but they clearly fit together because of the letters that were stenciled across it.

Tyler sounded it out. “Alt waf fe.”

“One word. Altwaffe.”

“That’s German, right?”

Grant nodded. “It means ‘old weapon.’ And before you ask, I have no idea why it’s called that. Our guys looked it up and couldn’t find a reference to it anywhere. Could be a code word.”

“Maybe it means the weapon was considered obsolete.”

“That could be why it didn’t go off. Carl might have been expecting a big bang, and it fizzled instead.”

“So we don’t know what was in the tube?”

“No. The heat from the explosion destroyed any residue. But you haven’t seen the best part.”

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Color me intrigued.”

Grant clicked on another thumbnail to show another piece of the same metal.

“This part was on the other side of the tube,” Grant said.

Tyler’s eyes flicked from the screen to Grant, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “It can’t be.”

Grant nodded. “It is. Our guys report that it’s the real deal.”

Tyler turned back and shook his head at the screen in disbelief. Though the image on the metal showed faintly through the blackened surface, there was no doubt it was a Nazi swastika.

There wasn’t much more to glean from the report about the Nazi relic. No clue about where it had come from or what its purpose was. Tyler wished he could look at it himself, but there was no way the French government was going to let it out of the country.

Agent Harris texted that she was caught in the Friday morning traffic and was five minutes out. He sent someone down to wait for her while he and Grant headed to Miles’ corner office on the top floor.

The door was open, so they walked in without knocking to the sight of Alexa shoving her shoulder with all her might against the back of their CEO’s iBOT wheelchair. Miles, a burly retired Marine officer who still sported a high and tight crew cut, smiled at them from his perch in the fully upright position that the gyroscopically stabilized chair made possible and grinned at the full mug of coffee in his hand.

“You can push all you want,” Tyler said, “you’re not going to knock him over.”

Alexa released her stance and smirked at him. “I wasn’t trying to knock him over, you dimwit. I have twenty bucks that says I can spill his coffee.”

“You’ll lose that bet. The motors and gears have been modified by him personally. You couldn’t do it with anything less than a forklift.”

She rolled her eyes, took a twenty from her pocket, and slapped it into Miles’ waiting hand. He tucked it in his shirt pocket and took a self-satisfied sip from his mug.

“If I’d known your sister was such an easy mark,” he said, “I would have bet a hundred.”

Alexa rushed over to Tyler and gave him a tight hug. Then she stepped back and inspected his arm. “I thought you were really injured, you dork.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.”

“It wasn’t? You mean getting shot and then almost blown up before nearly falling 150 feet to your death wasn’t that bad?”

“See? When you put it that way, it sounds like I almost died.”

“You better not,” she said and gave him another brief hug. “So am I a free woman now or do you want to continue with the nanny bit?” She stared pointedly at Grant and rolled her eyes.

“I’d say you need someone responsible looking after you at all times,” Tyler said, “but it looks like you’re out of danger now.” Without going into excruciating detail, he told Alexa about Victor Zim’s threat and his subsequent death.

Alexa’s expression went from fear to annoyance to comprehension in three blinks. She turned to Grant. “So that’s why you rushed over to the house all sweaty.”

Tyler quizzed Grant with his eyes.

“I was at the gym when you called,” Grant explained quickly.

Alexa laughed. “And he smelled like he brought the whole gym back with him.” She looked at Tyler. “I’m in the clear?”

Tyler hesitated, so Grant chimed in. “Unless Zim comes back as a zombie.”

“It’s a long walk from California, so I’m not too concerned about that. Well, it looks like you guys have something to talk about, so I will get out of your hair.”

“Where are you going?” Tyler asked.

“I’m meeting a friend at Pike Place Market for some coffee.”

“Dillman?” Grant said.

Alexa nodded. “He just texted me. He’s not home this morning and thought it would be a good place to rendezvous.”

“Is this the guy who was at Loch Ness with you?” Tyler asked.

“The same.”

Tyler was reluctant to let her go. Though Zim seemed to be out of the picture now, Alexa’s connection to Laroche was troubling. Something in his gut was telling him to keep her here.

“Excuse us,” Tyler said to Grant and Miles. He took Alexa aside and lowered his voice.

“Maybe you should wait for me,” he said.

“Until when?”

“Let’s go down there for lunch.”

Alexa patted him on his good shoulder. “You can’t keep an eye on me twenty-four seven. Besides, I’ve traveled to twenty countries without you. I think I can handle downtown Seattle.”

“But if Zim hired somebody to go after you—”

“What are you going to do? Hire a bodyguard to follow me around for the rest of my life? The guy’s dead. I’ll be fine.”

Tyler sighed. It was tough giving up the big brother routine. “Okay. How about I meet you at Etta’s and we can catch up?”

“Good idea. I’ll let you both treat me to crab cakes.”

“Me and Dillman?”

“No, you and Grant. I want to hear his version of Paris, too.”

Tyler shrugged. “There’s not much more to tell.”

She gave him a concerned look and took his hand. “I know this isn’t the first time you’ve had to kill someone, but it still must have been difficult.”

“It had to be done.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“You don’t need to hear it.” Alexa had been spared the ugliness of killing, which is why he’d never discussed his missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. There wasn’t a common frame of reference, and he was afraid she wouldn’t understand some of the things he’d had to do.

“All right,” she said. “But you know you can tell me anything, right?”

Tyler nodded. “Oh, I had a question for you. Have you seen André Laroche lately?” Because the FBI’s investigation was ongoing, Tyler wasn’t allowed to reveal that he was a suspect.

Alexa furrowed her brow at the seeming non-sequitur. “No. I’ve been trying to meet with him, but Marlo Dunham—that’s his assistant—would only tell me he was unavailable.”

“Has he tried to contact you?”

“Why?”

“Just curious about your plans while you’re here.”

“Last I heard from him was a couple of days ago. He sent me an email about our search for the Loch Ness monster.”

“Was there any clue to where he was going?

“No. What’s this about?”

“I’d like to meet who you’re working for. Has he ever asked you about me?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said sarcastically. “Your name comes up all the time.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“You’re being really weird.”

“Just let me know if Laroche calls you.”

She looked at him dubiously, then slowly said, “Okay.”

Tyler loved her naïveté. He’d seen unlikely people do some pretty awful things, so he wasn’t surprised by it any more. He wanted to spare her that kind of cynicism.

He smiled and changed the subject. “Listen. Grant and I will meet you for lunch at noon. Then afterward I can take you on the sightseeing flight I promised.”

“Are you still up for that with your arm and all?”

“I could fly that plane with two fingers. Besides, it’s a beautiful day for it.”

She smiled, but her eyes still held worry. “Sounds great.”

“And be careful on the walk over to the Market. There can be some sketchy people on Third Avenue.”

“If someone messes with me, I can scream with the best of them.”

She walked over to get her purse on Miles’ desk. Tyler noticed her whisper something to Grant, who smiled weakly at the comment and avoided her gaze as she waved and left.

“What’d she say?” Tyler asked when she was gone.

“Just that I don’t stink any more.”

Tyler sniffed and smiled. “She’s right. You’re a veritable flower.”

“Okay, gentlemen,” Miles said as he wheeled himself over to his desk and lowered the chair to a sitting position. “Now would you mind telling me what happened in California? My PR gal has been working overtime because of you two during the last week.”

Tyler filled him in on the helicopter crash near the Pleasant Valley prison, then Grant brought him up to speed on the report from France.

When Miles saw the swastika, he scowled and said, “Nazis? Again? I thought we were done with those guys seventy years ago.”

“When I saw the report, I asked Aiden to do a little online research to look for Altwaffe,” Grant said. Aiden MacKenna was Gordian’s top computer expert and data-mining genius. “He came up empty on the term, but he sure found a ton on Nazis today. It seems that the neo-Nazi movement has been growing in Europe in recent years, except their hatred is now focused on immigrants from Muslim countries and Africa. Don’t get me wrong. They still hate the Jews, but guys that look like me are scaring them even more these days.”

“Yeah, but you’re scary for a whole different reason,” Tyler said.

“You mean my amazing physique?”

“The smell. Apparently it’s strong enough to knock down a moose.”

“That’s because I ooze testosterone,” Grant shot back and then immediately looked like he regretted it.

Miles’ intercom buzzed. He picked up the phone, listened for a moment, and said, “Bring her up.”

Once he put the phone back down, he looked at Tyler and Grant. “That’s Agent Harris. Do you have any other homoerotic banter you’d like to get out of the way before she comes in here?”

Grant feigned shock and cranked a thumb at Tyler. “Please. You think I spend two hours a day at the gym so
he’ll
notice?”

Tyler opened his mouth with a smartass retort, but thought better of it. “I’ll save that one for later.”

“Good idea,” Miles replied.

Harris entered with a grim expression. Her eyes flicked to Grant first, as if she were inspecting him. She nodded to Grant and Tyler, then shook Miles’ hand.

“Dr. Benson, thanks for letting me come by on such short notice.”

“Not at all. Please have a seat.”

He wheeled around and joined them in the office’s sitting area.

“You told Tyler this had to do with the Paris incident?”

She nodded and glanced at Grant again. Tyler sensed her unease, but he had no idea what the problem was.

“Yes, sir,” Harris said. “I wanted to come to you as soon as I could. This isn’t an official call. I thought since I owed Tyler for the incident in Miami—well, that you deserved to hear it now.”

“Hear what?” Tyler asked. Now he was more than a little concerned. “Is this about Brielle Cohen?”

“What? Oh, no. Nothing to do with her. Well, I suppose in a way. It’s about the guests at the party.”

“What about them?”

“I got the briefing this morning. They informed me because of my connection to Carl Zim’s brother, in case I learned anything about the attack from Victor.”

“Agent Harris, they’re both dead,” Grant said. “And we saved everyone at the party.”

“Did you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tyler asked.

“Your own report said that the quadcopter bombs were so small that they wouldn’t have killed more than a fraction of the guests.”

“True. But we don’t know what the attackers’ goals were. Maybe they simply wanted to disrupt the summit.”

“Or maybe it was an assassination attempt,” Grant said.

Harris nodded. “We think you’re right.”

“Who was the target?” Tyler asked.

“Everyone there.”

Tyler exchanged glances with Miles and Grant before turning back to Harris.

“You just said that you agreed with our findings that the bombs weren’t deadly enough to cause that kind of destruction.”

“They weren’t. The bombs were merely a tool.”

“For what?” Miles asked.

“Altwaffe,” Tyler said under his breath. He looked up at Harris. “You know what that is.”

“We think so. Eighteen months ago, a hidden lab was found under Dresden, Germany. It was deep enough underground that it escaped destruction during the firebombing in 1945 that killed fifty thousand people. We believe André Laroche came into possession of the weapon.”

Grant shook his head. “What are the odds?”

“About what?”

“That Laroche also hired Alexa to track down the Loch Ness monster.”

“You’re kidding,” Miles said.

“Yesterday I saw the video footage she shot. She says the creature is real.”