Eight

We have to get to Egypt,” Diana said. “As quickly as we can.”

Diana and Steve had found a receipt for a plane ticket in Maxwell Lord’s office, and he was going to Cairo. His flight had already left, but if Diana and Steve moved fast, they’d be able to stay on his tail.

“We’ll never be able to get you onto a plane,” Diana said told Steve as they snuck back out of the headquarters of Black Gold. The sun was setting outside, but the crowd of angry would-be buyers was still yelling and clogging the sidewalk. If anything, there were even more of them now than there had been an hour ago. “You don’t even have a passport.”

Steve shrugged and gave Diana a cocky wink. “I don’t want to get on a plane . . . ,” he said.

Diana stared at him. Was he really suggesting . . . ?

He was. Steve wanted to fly a plane and pilot it all the way to Egypt . . . himself. Diana opened her mouth to say, “No, that’s a terrible idea,” but then she thought about it a bit more. This was an emergency—a potentially world-ending emergency, if she was right about that stone. And she really couldn’t fly on a commercial airline with Steve. As far as 1984 was concerned, Steve didn’t exist.

“Well . . . ,” she said. And Steve grinned.

“I knew you’d see it my way,” he said.

And that was how Diana and Steve found themselves, just after sunset, sneaking up to a locked security door at a storage hangar attached to the National Air and Space Museum. Diana leaned back and raised her foot, ready to kick the door in, but Steve held out a hand to stop her. He fished a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and quietly jimmied the door open.

“I don’t think lock technology has changed much in the last sixty years,” he said, swinging the door open and gesturing grandly for Diana to step through. “Some things still work the same.”

Diana and Steve snuck quietly through the hangar. Diana watched with amusement and affection as Steve tried to stay focused on their mission . . . but kept getting distracted by the many, many airplanes from many different periods that were stored in the enormous hangar. “Holy moly,” he murmured softly, running his hand along the side of a plane.

“Diana, there’s an entire history here,” he told her, gazing around as they walked through the echoing space, lit only by the light seeping in the windows from outside. “It’s the entire history of aviation—of pilots.”

They had emerged onto a darkened runway behind the hangar. A few new arrivals were parked there—cutting-edge military jets packed to the gills with technology so new that most of the world didn’t even know about it yet.

Steve let out a low, awed whistle and trotted right toward a huge inky-black jet. It was nearly invisible against the night’s darkness. Diana could just barely make out its angular, dangerous lines, limned with moonlight and reflected security lamps. She scanned the runway—all clear. She climbed into the cockpit, and Steve slid into the pilot’s seat, practically giggling in excitement. He punched a button, and the dashboard lit up—a dazzling array of dials, switches, readouts, and buttons whose purposes Diana could only guess at.

“Yikes,” Steve said. Diana guessed he had never seen anything like it either. But after a moment of total bafflement, he started flipping switches and stabbing at buttons.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, and grabbed the control stick. The engines roared to life, and the whole jet started vibrating violently. Diana had never felt anything like it. And the noise was—deafening.

“Go! Get us out of here,” Diana said. She didn’t need her Amazonian hearing to know that the snoozing security guard had woken up the instant those engines had roared on.

“I’m trying,” Steve said, frantically adjusting knobs and flipping switches as he steered the taxiing jet through the dark toward the runway. Just a few more moments and they’d be—

Blazingly bright light blinded Diana. She squinted and blinked, desperately trying to clear her vision. The security lights had come on, and muffled shouts mingled with clanging alarms. They’d been spotted.

Steve pushed the throttle and the jet shot forward, roaring down the runway. A fleet of military trucks pulled onto the runway behind them . . . and another one turned onto the runway in front of them. They were going to have to get airborne fast, or else they’d end up mowing down those trucks! Diana clenched her fists helplessly. The jet was racing down the runway faster and faster—but would it have time to get enough speed for takeoff? It had to. They had no choice!

“Get airborne now!” she yelled into the radio.

“Hang on!” Steve yelled back. “Here we go!”

He yanked the control stick up and hit the throttle, and the F-111 roared into the air, its landing gear just grazing the very tops of the military jeeps as it swept over them into the night sky.

As they climbed to altitude, Steve leaned the jet into a steep curve over Washington, DC, and Diana leaned over to look out the window. Lights from a million windows and streets twinkled and glimmered. It was beautiful. This city—her city—was beautiful. When you were down in it, it was so easy to get lost in the noise and the smells and the thousand indignities that humankind subjected itself to. But from up here, at night, it was an orderly ocean of lights, a blanket of gems.

And then, as if to mirror the glittering splendor down on Earth, the sky around them lit up in a thousand different colors.

“What—” Diana breathed, and then she realized.

“Fireworks,” Steve said, staring around them. A brilliant cascade of red and orange shimmered around them, and muffled BOOMs resounded through the air as the fireworks detonated just below them.

“But why—” Steve started, and Diana answered as she remembered what day it was.

“The fourth,” she said. July fourth. Of course.

“The Fourth of July!” Steve crowed. He smiled in wonder and banked toward the fireworks, throttling the plane back to its slowest airborne speed.

Diana felt happier in that moment than she had for sixty-six years.

Meanwhile, in a basement research room at the FBI, Barbara was knee-deep in microfiche.

She’d been working her way through the FBI’s archives all night, but her mind wasn’t at all tired, not even after speed-reading her way through thousands of articles, reports, and clippings related to the cache of artifacts that had included that citrine stone.

Barbara was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to be here at all, especially not this late at night. And she was absolutely sure she wasn’t supposed to have access to these files. But she’d been very charming when she asked, and the FBI agent she’d been talking to had agreed to break all kinds of rules to help her out.

Here he came again. Barbara’s eyes flickered up from the microfiche reader. Her helper dropped another stack of films on the table for her. Barbara ignored him as she grabbed the first one and loaded it into the reader. Huh . . . this was interesting. She scanned quickly through images of a recent archaeological dig funded by the Mexican government. “Near-ancient Mayan ruins . . . ,” Barbara murmured. And suddenly she knew.

She straightened up. The FBI guy was still there, smiling at her. “Anything else I can get you?” he asked, laying on the charm. “Coffee? Tea?”

Any other time, and Barbara would have enjoyed flirting with an FBI agent. After all, how often did you get the chance? But right now she was on a mission. She had no time for this guy, and no interest in him.

“I don’t need anything from you at all,” she said plainly, not bothering to smile. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door. “And I’m done, anyway.”

“Hey,” he said to her back as she left. “You don’t have to be so mean!”

Barbara didn’t turn, and didn’t answer. She was already heading up the stairs. She had an embassy to break into.

The Mexican embassy was several miles from the FBI research archives, but Barbara didn’t bother waiting for the bus or hailing a taxi. Instead, she just ran. As she went, her strides lengthened and the blood pounded in her ears. She felt like she could run forever. And she was making better time than most of the cars going by on the avenue.

Breaking into the embassy was laughably easy. Barbara leaped up, reaching for the bottom of a second-floor balcony above the front door and pulling herself up onto it. The knob on the balcony door was trivial to force.

Once she was inside, she made her way through the dark, silent building and found the records room without much trouble. Barbara didn’t bother turning on a light before she started leafing through papers. She could read with no difficulty. It didn’t take her long to find a file on that particular archaeological dig. And it was full of photos of the various artifacts that had been recovered from it—including the citrine.

Barbara grabbed the file and jumped nimbly back down from the balcony. She didn’t bother sprinting this time. She was enjoying the night too much. Ever since that scary guy had tried to mug her the other night, Barbara had been feeling a little shaky when she was alone outside. But not tonight. Tonight, she felt strong. She felt dangerous. And she loved the feeling.

“Hey there,” a voice said. And suddenly Barbara realized where she’d wandered on her walk. She was at exactly the same corner as she’d been when that guy had attacked her.

Barbara stopped and spun on one heel. There he was, weaving unsteadily toward her, casting a long shadow in the single light of a nearby streetlamp.

“You talking to me?” Barbara asked, her voice sharp.

“C’mere,” the man said, stepping closer. Barbara didn’t move away.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said. “How about I tell you instead? Stop harassing people like me.”

She stepped into the light so he could see her face more clearly. “Remember me?”

The guy stopped for a moment, taken aback. He obviously did remember her, and he also obviously remembered what had happened to him. He looked around.

“I don’t see your friend here,” he said to Barbara. “Nobody to protect you this time.”

And he took another step toward her. Barbara still didn’t back away. And she didn’t stop smiling. Instead, she took one long step toward him and grabbed his arms. He grunted, surprised, and strained to break her grip. But Barbara held firm. It was—as many things were lately—surprisingly easy.

“Nope,” Barbara said. “Nobody but little old me.”

She heaved him up and sent him flying into the wall.

Barbara strolled over him, taking her time. He climbed unsteadily to his feet. “Hey . . . ,” he said, holding up his hands in useless defense. But Barbara ignored him. She picked him up and punched him, hard.

“Barbara! Are you okay?”

Barbara came back to herself in pieces.

She was in a dark alley. There was blood on her knuckles. Her homeless friend, Leon, was there. Leon looked scared. Leon looked scared of her.

Barbara looked down at the man she’d attacked. And then she understood why Leon looked so scared.

What had she done?

“Barbara,” Leon said gently. He held out a hand as if to calm her. “Barbara, I’m your friend.”

“I don’t need friends,” she said. She sneered and looked Leon up and down, taking in every tatter, every stain on his clothes.

“Especially not friends like you,” she said.

Barbara turned and ran into the night.