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cuffs biting into their wrists before their senses returned. Hayes’s crew knelt on the men’s backs and dug pistols into the bases of their skulls.
    “I tossed the keys, assholes,” the driver said. “You’ll never—”
    Hayes hit the detonator. The hills flashed bright as midday. As the crack echoed, quieter with each distant canyon, the rear door fell off the truck and shook the ground.
    “That won’t be a problem,” Hayes said. He radioed to Ward to bring the box truck.
    The guard was talking nonstop between panicked breaths. “Is this? Are these the goddamn guys? We’re dead. We’re—”
    “They’d have killed us already if they wanted to,” the driver said. “You’ll wish they had.”
    Little Bill said nothing. He watched Hayes with hate in his eyes.
    “Just calm down,” Hayes told them. “Hey, Bill, you all right?”
    He didn’t respond.
    “You know who I am?” Hayes asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Good. That’ll save time. You notice you’re all still alive.”
    “Am I supposed to thank you for not killing me?”
    Hayes knelt next to him. “No. Just tell your boss: We have what we need. The past is coming for him.”
      
    Less than three minutes had elapsed since the first explosion. Ward arrived in the box truck and backed it up to the armored vehicle, out of sight of the captives. The team ran the ramps straight across and rolled the crate out of the wrecked truck.
    Hayes radioed Foley and Green to pull back the traffic-control points. Foley had detoured one car without incident.
    The ramps flexed under the thirteen-hundred-pound weight of the shipment. Once it was in the truck, Ward and Hayes pulled a copper mesh over the crate to block any GPS or RFID signals. Hayes pulled the vinyl wrap signage from the side of the box truck, leaving it white, and swapped its stolen plates for a new set. With the crate inside, there was barely room to stand.
    Green pulled up in the Nissan truck. After they loaded the bikes into the bed, the team split up among the three vehicles and drove deeper into the mountains. They left the three men trussed by the side of the armored truck. The explosions were bound to draw attention. It wouldn’t be long until someone came by.
    There was no backslapping among Hayes’s squad. As they drove off, it was like the raid had never happened. They took separate routes, then reconnected in a valley forty miles away, at the end of a long service road between groves of almond trees.
    The team gathered at the back of the box truck. Desert air blew dry and cool. Moret rubbed her shoulder. It had been banging against the crate the whole drive.
    “I give,” she said, shining a light over the customs form stapled to the raw pine. “So, what is it, some kind of artifact?”
    Hayes had kept the details to a minimum as they organized the op. Cells were the safest way to operate, here at home, behind enemy lines. They all trusted him absolutely. They deserved a look. And to be honest, Hayes wanted to see it too. He pulled back the mesh, then wedged his knife in under the top of the crate, pried back a corner, and worked his way up the lid. Ward helped him pull the top off with a squeal of nails against wood. He lifted some of the packing.
    “Is that ivory?”
    “Bone.”
    Speed was resting, slumped against the bulkhead. The others crowded in.
    Hayes reached down and lifted the inner lid. They stared at it for a moment.
    Green turned to Hayes. “Holy shit.”
    “Sell your cloak and buy a sword,” Hayes replied, and he ran his hand over the shipment. “Now the real work starts.”

Chapter 6
    COX SCANNED THE images of the burned-out armored truck once more, cursed under his breath, then shut his laptop. He had set up in an office on the second floor to run the search for Hayes and his team. While he worked the phone, assistants ferried in faxes and scans and couriered CDs full of data: old pay records, state rolls, unit rosters, vouchers from the adjutant general’s office. By