“Direct,” Ethan confirmed. “Who’s this?” he asked, gesturing to Powell.
“Your worst nightmare,” Powell snarled, struggling to his feet. “You’ve no jurisdiction and have entered the country illegally. I’ll have the both of you in a cell within—”
Lopez stepped forward and swung a roundhouse punch that connected to Powell’s jaw with a crack that seemed to echo through the aircraft. Powell’s two-hundred-pound frame spun 180 degrees and plunged facefirst onto one of the couches.
Ethan Warner looked at her in surprise as he lowered the pistol.
“Bad day at the office?”
“You have no idea,” Lopez said bitterly, massaging her knuckles. “Now, I need you to tell me everything that’s happened in Israel.”
Your fiancée?”
Nicola Lopez seemed genuinely appalled at Ethan’s loss.
“No worse than you losing your partner,” Ethan replied. “At least my fiancée may still be alive. If I’d put everything together out there sooner, none of this would have happened.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Aaron Luckov said from beside Safiya. “We all did what we could.”
Lopez shook her head, swiping a strand of black hair from her face.
“Wouldn’t have changed much anyway, not with this asshole protecting everything that MACE has been doing,” she said, pointing to where Powell now sat gagged and bound against the couch. “Those remains, they’re the ones that Patterson’s been after?”
Ethan glanced briefly at the crate lashed to the rear bulkhead.
“He’s been after the DNA in the bones, some crackpot campaign to bring angels back to life. He either has no idea or doesn’t want to entertain the fact that the remains aren’t of an angel, they’re of some kind of alien humanoid.”
Lopez stared at him blankly.
“Alien? You’re shitting me.”
“Afraid not,” Ethan said. “Look in the box if you don’t believe me.”
“Then what’s with all the experiments, the dead drug addicts over here?”
“This guy Patterson is the brains behind everything,” Ethan explained. “They wanted to conduct blood transfusions using the bone marrow of the supposed angels to genetically alter the human population, something to do with fulfilling a biblical covenant between man and God. Sheviz was taking it one step further and trying to impregnate women with Nephilim eggs created from embryonic stem cells extracted from the remains.”
Lopez winced.
“Gruesome. He get anywhere?”
“No,” Ethan said.
“You want Patterson,” Lopez guessed.
Ethan nodded once, and she shook her head.
“Powell’s a worthless piece of shit, but he’s right, you’re in the country illegally, and if the FBI finds you, it’s game over. There’s enough evidence here to convict Patterson without you running around playing the Lone Ranger.”
“He’s not done yet,” Ethan insisted. “Whatever he’s planned, it’s likely to go down soon. He’ll know by now that MACE is dead in the water and that his precious DNA is beyond his grasp. Whatever he’s got left, he’ll know that he’s got to use it now before it’s too late.”
“The Bureau won’t let you out of this aircraft, let alone loose in the city.”
“Then you can help me get to him,” Ethan said.
“The hell d’you think I am, the mayor?”
Ethan looked at her strangely as a thought occurred to him.
“No, as it happens. And where’s your backup? Where’s the FBI?”
Lopez sighed.
“It’s a long story, but we’re both screwed. The FBI’s been trying to shut this investigation down since yesterday. Boarding this jet was illegal and is likely to cost me my badge.”
Ethan nodded.
“Then you’ve got no more to lose than me. We can be utterly worthless together.”
Lopez chuckled bitterly. “No use getting cute with me.”
Ethan leveled her with what he hoped was an honest look.
“If we’re going to lose what little we’ve got left, why not bring that sanctimonious bastard Patterson down with us and make it worthwhile?”
Lopez glanced at Powell lying nearby, and an image of Lucas Tyrell drifted in front of her mind’s eye.
“Come with me.”
The sudden screech of car tires and a blizzard of flashing lights reflected off the Gulftsream’s fuselage as the sound of a loudspeaker blasted Special Agent Axel Cain’s ears almost clean off.
“Police, nobody move!”
Cain sprinted from his vehicle and followed four heavily armed FBI agents as they plunged into the fuselage of the Gulfstream, weapons sweeping the interior and finding Powell.
Cain strode to Powell’s side, squatting down and tearing the gag from his face.
“About time,” Powell spat.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Cain asked, looking at the crate nearby, the bearded man, and the Palestinian woman standing near the cockpit of the jet with their hands in the air.
“Detective Lopez has gone off the range,” Powell said. “We need to arrest her and the man she’s with, some guy called