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“Well, maybe a little bit, but Mike, she did keep her promises.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve always had a soft spot for her.”
“Not a soft spot. Professional respect. She came through the last time. Well, maybe something of a semi–soft spot.”
“Well, okay, she did, but Zachery will sit on us, probably handcuff us, before he’ll approve our going to Venice.”
“Not if he believes it’s possible the Gobi sandstorm was engineered. He’ll drive us to our plane himself.” He grinned. “Time’s a-wastin’. Let’s go see how far our new powers stretch.”
Nicholas and Mike walked up the stairs to their boss’s office, Mike still arguing all the way, more to herself than with him.
Before they stepped into Zachery’s office, Mike turned, looked up at Nicholas, and asked, “Do you believe Kitsune is telling the truth? About all of it?”
Nicholas framed her face with his hands and said, without hesitation, “Yes.”
He watched her come to a decision, watched her finally nod. “All right, then. Let me think. This calls for some discreet strategy.”
Milo Zachery and Dillon Savich were in Zachery’s conference room, working out some of the last-minute details of Nicholas and Mike’s new group. The wall television was on CNN, showing the destruction in Beijing.
Nicholas knocked on the doorframe.
“Back so soon?” Savich waved them in.
Zachery frowned. “The space won’t work for you?”
Mike said, “The space is perfect. That’s not why we’re here. We have it from a reliable source that this monstrous sandstorm from the Gobi Desert that is hitting Beijing isn’t a natural disaster.” She drew a deep breath. “It was engineered.”
That stopped the two men in their tracks.
Zachery started shaking his head. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, sir,” Nicholas said.
Savich sat forward on the sofa, his full attention on them. “Engineered? Admittedly, there have been plenty of scientists over the years who’ve tried to manipulate the weather. Cloud seeding for rain is a multibillion-dollar industry right now. There was a story only last week about cloud seeding in California as a way to help them get out of their drought. They can create a fog, cool things down, which will help save the trees. Weather manipulation isn’t unheard of, in fact, it’s readily available, and worldwide.?
?
Zachery said, “But to create a dust storm big enough to kill thousands of people in Beijing? You heard the broadcasts—they’re describing it as an inland hurricane of sorts, only made up of sand instead of rain and tornadoes. Who would want to do that, even if they could? It makes no sense.”
Savich studied them a moment, then asked, “You said you got this engineered-storm business from a reliable source? Who is it?”
Nicholas said, “Kitsune.”
Zachery said, “Victoire Couverel, the Fox, that Kitsune? The Kitsune who nearly blew up the Met? The Kitsune who tried to kill you? That one?”
Mike said, “The one and only. Actually, she nearly blew Nicholas up in Geneva, too. The Met was just a small bomb, easily defused. She’s offered us a sort of trade. She’ll help us find out who’s engineering this sandstorm and we’ll save her bacon.”
“—and her husband’s.”
“All right,” Savich said, “enough playing around. What did Kitsune steal this time that’s gotten her into trouble?”
“She stole the staff of Moses from the Topkapi Palace.”
“You’re kidding me,” Zachery said.
Mike said, “No, sir. This is by far the highest-profile case of artifact theft since the Koh-i-Noor. We believe our team can recover the staff, just as we recovered the Koh-i-Noor. Imagine how great that would make the FBI look. Think of all the goodwill we’d engender if we can return it to the Topkapi. Plus, maybe, just maybe, we’ll find the Ark of the Covenant on the way. The staff is supposed to be with the Ark. Who knows?”
Zachery shook his head. “You’re FBI, not Indiana Jones.”
