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“Hey, this is good news. We’re close. Don’t worry, you’re almost there, too,” she said, reading me well as she strode farther into my workspace.
I turned to the side, eyeing my work on the whiteboard. I’d yet to close the final gap needed to turn myth into reality, and I was a little terrified I’d oversold my abilities and wouldn’t be able to deliver on my promise to stop the weapon.
“Listen,” she began, arms folded and eyes on me, “we’ve been dealt a tough hand, and we’re dealing with a formidable threat. We all know it’s not really a terrorist group working for Iran. It was sure as hell also not the Iranians who sabotaged China’s lab either. Whoever’s behind this has gone through a lot of trouble to turn everyone in the world against each other so no one trusts one another, though.”
“I thought we were focusing on the good news.” A nervous laugh fell from my lips, and I cursed that coping mechanism.
She worked her lip between her teeth, appearing a bit stressed herself, despite trying to pull off optimistic.
“Election day is around the corner. Do you think we’ll be able to stop who’s behind this before we have to do a live test run to see if the laser truly works?”
“That’s the plan.” Mya stared at the whiteboard, combing her fingers through her hair.
From the looks of her dark roots, she was letting the blonde grow out. And what a thing for me to be thinking about, all things considered. My brain and the detours it took sometimes had me— “Detour,” I sputtered, blinking quickly. “Holy shit, that’s it.”
I went back to the whiteboard, erased the last two numbers of my equation, murmuring my thoughts out loud as I worked through the problem. “The line won’t be perfectly straight between two points like it is in a controlled setting.” I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the curvature and math needed to bring theory to application. “With the earth’s gravitational force . . . and when the electromagnetic pulse shoots out at that distance and speed . . .” I snapped my fingers. “That’s it, I had the angle wrong. That’s why the math wasn’t mathing.”
“Say what?” Mya said from over my shoulder.
“Just like when a sniper shoots from a long distance, you have to account for . . .” I kept going. Rambling away as if I were alone to my thoughts before enunciating the last few details with more clarity, “The number was off by three degrees. The laser will take the slightest detour.” I did the math once more in my head, then checked it ten times over again on the whiteboard, then on the computer while Mya patiently waited for me. “I was off by three degrees.” I spun around to face her, bringing my fists to my lips. “The laser will work.”
“I have no idea what you just said other than the last part.” She crushed me against her, my arms pinned between us as I caught sight of Carter and Dallas filling the doorway.
“Good news?” he asked, his tired eyes fixed on me. He may have been holding me while I slept at night, but I had a feeling he’d barely actually closed his eyes during that time.
“Your girl just figured out how to save the world,” Mya said, pulling back to look directly at him. “Something about gravity and a detour, I don’t know.” She waved her hand in the air. “I’m going to tell the team. Would you like to do the honors and let POTUS know?” she asked me.
“No, I’m good, you can do it.” I wanted to be alone with Carter so he could rip the Band-Aid of bad news off that I felt coming. Talk about counteracting the good with the bad, though. Story of our week.
Carter fixed his attention on Mya, giving her a go-ahead nod to alert the team, and she called out to Dallas to join her, giving us the room alone.
Carter closed the door and wasted no time getting to me. He pulled me into his arms, and I felt more than his gratitude in that hug. “I knew you could do it.”
I allowed myself a few seconds to feel safe and at ease before asking him to share the news I knew would flip my world upside down again. “What do you know?”
“Who’s behind this,” he said in a low, gruff tone.
I eased back, hands to his chest to meet his eyes. “Who?”
His tense jaw strained as he revealed, “Your best friend’s husband. Karl Novak.”
63
DIANA
“Karl hates you,” I said in pure reflex as the room started spinning.
Carter seized hold of my arms, recognizing I was about to fall. “I know he does, and I’m not sure how it took me so long to figure this out.”
“He, um . . .” I worked my hand between us to rest it over my abdomen, the gnawing pain there definitely not from a lack of food. I was going to be sick.
“Sit down.” He guided me over to my desk chair, kneeling in front of me as he guided me down to the seat. “I wanted to be certain before I shared my theory with you.”
Karl Novak. Is it really possible? Based on what Sierra had revealed over the years, he definitely hated Carter. But did he hate the world and humanity, too? Why was he doing this? “I was with Sierra that night in June after I saw you at the office,” I said, starting to piece things together. “Karl and Craig are friends. I’d assumed Pierce told Craig we’d spoken that day, then figured Karl told Craig where I was so he could talk to me.”
“Assault you in the limo, you mean,” he bit out, red-hot anger visibly flying up his throat into his face.
Was the truth in front of me all these years, and I just didn’t see it?
