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“Time to hang it up, Nicholas, time to sleep.”
But he couldn’t. Finally, he pulled out the thumb drive and plugged it into his laptop.
“From Jason Kohath’s computer?”
“You’re awake, too, are you? Yes, this is from Jason’s computer.” He began to scroll down, then stopped. “We’re going to need a team of astrophysicists to figure all this out and translate it for us so we have a prayer of understanding it.” He sat back, pulled her close. “Imagine, Mike, to be able to create lightning, to be able to create a thunderstorm, to whip up a sandstorm, to blow in a hurricane. We know the basic ingredients are moisture to form clouds and rain, then unstable air and lift. And we know unstable air has to be relatively warm to rise rapidly. But with the Coil and the lasers—it’s all quite remarkable and I don’t understand it.”
“Will the astrophysicists?”
He grinned at her. “We’ll see.”
Mike said, “What if one of the astrophysicists could replicate it, Nicholas? And become another Jason Kohath?”
“I believe we’re going to have to let our superiors decide. They knew what to do with the micro nukes Havelock created, they’ll know what to do with this information as well.”
“And exactly what did our superiors do with the micro nukes?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.”
“There you go. Maybe some criminal or a spy got hold of the micro nukes and sold them to an enemy.”
He studied the thumb drive lying on his palm, then slipped it back on its key ring and put it in his pocket.
Mike smiled at him through another yawn. “We have one more task to perform before we can nap.”
He raised a dark brow. “You’re calling it a task? Again? Aren’t you too tired? And on the boat, Mike, didn’t we already perform—”
“Yes, yes, be quiet. Let’s call Zachery. I’d rather have him screaming at us at thirty-five thousand feet than in our faces.”
Zachery didn’t yell at them, he was frankly too relieved. He’d gotten a call, he told them, from Kitsune—the Fox—and she’d told him everything, answered his questions, at least those she could. “She said you were both heroes and the world owes you a big debt. And then she blew me a kiss over the phone and said she doubted she’d ever be speaking to me again and have a good life and enjoy my doubtless stimulating future with you guys.”
Kitsune had called their boss? Called them heroes?
“Sir, did Kitsune also bother to tell you she saved my life—twice?”
“Remember, the Venice ambush,” Mike called out. “She showed up there, too.”
There was a pause, then Zachery said, “No, she didn’t tell me about saving your life, Nicholas. Is that why you let her go?”
“She didn’t need either Mike or me to let her go, sir, she and her husband were gone, destination unknown, when Mike and I flew back to Cuba. Grant Thornton’s security firm, Blue Mountain, showed up in Cuba and flew them out.”
Zachery sighed. “I hate to say this about a major international crook, but I like her, can’t help it. When she called you guys heroes, I heard a man laugh in the background. Her husband?”
“Yes, a very brave man,” Mike said, “who appears to understand her very well.”
Zachery sighed. “Why can’t things be black or white? Forget I said that, that’d be boring. Savich called me before Kitsune did, told me how you guys must have managed to stop the storm because the mammoth hurricane off Washington, D.C., simply up and disappeared. He said the meteorologists are flummoxed, no explanation, nothing, and that was nice to see. It will remain a mystery, needless to say.
“Now, come home, rest a couple of days, then you have to go back to Italy, check in with the local police as well as the Carabinieri in Castel Rigone. Evidently you left bodies in tunnels and more bodies in wrecked cars off the highway.
“Oh, one other thing. A local cop, Deputy Inspector Nando, said to tell you Major Russo of the Carabinieri was arrested. I don’t know for what exactly, but this Nando said you’d understand.”
That was very fine news indeed. It was good to occasionally see some justice in the world.
Nicholas said, “Sir, rather than fly home, Adam, Louisa, Mike, and I would like to chat up the police in Castel Rigone immediately, then drive over to Venice for a couple of days.”
Zachery laughed, told them not to fall into the Grand Canal, punched off.
“Venice, Nicholas? Really?”
