The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Gray said, “We have a satellite on you, watching. Now, what are you guys doing at Galactus?”

  “We’re getting into Patel’s computer, seeing if there’s anything to tell us where she is. You’re going to receive an open channel here shortly. We need you to pull everything you can find from her systems. Has her phone come online yet?”

  “Not yet. We’re—”

  She heard a pinging noise, like firecrackers muffled inside a pillowcase—Small arms fire, semiautomatic weapon.

  She said calmly, “Gray, Adam, I have to go. There’s gunfire somewhere close by. I suppose Al-Asaad figured out where Broussard is. Do find out why he personally wants Broussard dead. Did Patel pay him or what?”

  She broke off the call, slammed her laptop shut. She heard Grant shouting to Nicholas. She pulled her Glock off its clip, did a press-check, saw a bullet was in the chamber.

  Nicholas already had his Glock in his hand. “Evidently some of Broussard’s security are breaking into the building. Grant and Broussard are watching it on the cameras in his office.”

  Mike yelled, “It’s not Broussard’s security—Gray and Adam just told me—it’s Khaleed Al-Asaad and his thugs. They want Broussard dead. Why? Probably Patel ordered it. I’ll tell you all of it later.”

  Nicholas blinked at that, slowly nodded. “Al-Asaad? Okay, we need to get Jean-Pierre to a safe place while we deal with Al-Asaad. We need more weapons, too.”

  They found Grant and Broussard standing at the windows in his office. Broussard said, without looking up, “Those men are not my security. I don’t know who they are.”

  Mike said, “It’s Al-Asaad and—I don’t know how many men are with him.”

  Grant said, “But I thought he was long dead.”

  “No, he’s far from dead. I’ll give you the details later. Al-Asaad broke through the gates and is coming to kill us. Jean-Pierre, can you give us more weapons?”

  Mike heard three shots, closer now. A single look of panic crossed Broussard’s face and then it was gone. He cleared his throat, pulled on his leader skin, and became utterly calm.

  “At the end of the hall there is a security outpost. I don’t know what they have in there, but here’s the key.” He fumbled a key from his desk drawer, tossed it to Nicholas. Nicholas and Grant were out the door, their pounding footsteps loud in the hallway. Mike said, “We want to keep you safe, Jean-Pierre. What’s the most difficult area to penetrate?”

  “R&D, but it’s in the basement. If they get in, we’re trapped, and there’s only one egress. There’s a chopper on the roof. Wait, Mike—Al-Asaad—he’s that terrorist, isn’t he? Why would he want to kill me?”

  Mike said, “Patel’s orders.”

  She heard him suck in his breath, then Nicholas stepped into the open doorway, loaded down with weapons. He grabbed Broussard’s arm. “Let’s get to the roof.”

  Grant handed over several guns to Mike. She strapped them on, threw an ammunition belt around her shoulders, and accepted a comms unit, placing the earwig in her ear. “I don’t suppose you found any Kevlar?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s go,” Nicholas shouted.

  There was a massive flash, and a pop, and the room began to fill with smoke. The jitter of automatic weapons fire started, and Mike felt hot bullets speeding past.

  “Flash-bangs!” Nicholas shouted, dragging her back against the wall.

  “I know, I’m still seeing stars.”

  Grant said, “They shot one through the window. They can see us. Jean-Pierre, kill the lights!”

  Broussard, calm as a judge, reached up and typed a few commands into the computer, and the building’s lights went out, darkness was complete. The firing stopped.

  Grant said, “Someone want to tell me why we’re under attack by Al-Asaad, of all people?”

  Mike said, “Jean-Pierre, you called your secretary, Claudette. It seems likely Patel was tracing her phone, in case you managed to escape the explosion on the yacht and got in touch with her.”

  Another battery of bullets, but nowhere close. Nicholas said, “They’re shooting in the dark. We can’t wait until they get into the building. Where are the stairs to the roof?”

  “We have to go out into the gallery. We’ll be exposed.”

  “If we can stay down, the concrete knee walls might block us if we crawl.”

  Nicholas went first. The white knee wall around the spiraling ramps was high enough for him to crouch down and belly crawl. Mike went next, then Broussard. Grant took up the rear. He had a set of night-vision goggles on now, was scanning and relaying enemy positions in a steady stream in Mike’s ear.

  “They’re at the doors, they have a shaped charge on them, they have it set—” He ripped off the NVGs. “Crap! It’s going to go off in less than ten seconds—”

  The doors exploded inward, glass shattering and spraying all over. They used the distraction to scurry on hands and knees across the gallery.

  They could hear booted steps, at least four pairs, by the sound of them, working in concert, no shouts or calls from ten stories below them. These terrorists were trained. They knew how to breach a building, and do it quickly.

  The four of them crouched against the door that would lead them to the stairs to the roof.

  Nicholas whispered, “The minute we open this door we give away our position. Mike, you and Jean-Pierre go first. Grant and I will hold them off. Get to the roof. Jean-Pierre, I assume you can pilot that helicopter?”

  Broussard shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not a pilot.”

  Grant said, “I am. I’ll go with Jean-Pierre. Mike, you and Nicholas hold them off. When you hear the rotors turning, get up to the roof as fast as you can.”

  Nicholas was more than grateful they’d found the M4s. He and Mike had them in their hands, their Glocks back in their holsters. There was two feet of glass railing above the knee wall, and Mike risked a quick look.

  A bullet smashed into the barrier.

  Nicholas yelled, “Go, go!” and angled his weapon down, firing in short bursts as Grant and Broussard pushed through the door and pounded up the stairs.

  A barrage of gunfire came directly at their position. Mike had never been so thankful for thick concrete. It didn’t matter plaster shards and cement were chipped free and raining down from the wall behind them. They took turns shooting down. Mike got one terrorist as he ran up the winding ramp. Before she could be relieved—down to three now—six more well-armed men flooded into the vast entrance.

  “Well, crap. They have replacements.”

  Nicholas nodded grimly. Suddenly, Grant was behind them. Mike jerked and very nearly shot him.

  “Don’t shoot. The keys. Jean-Pierre’s keys. We need them. The door to the roof is locked and I can’t shoot through it, it’s steel. I have to get back to his office.”

  Nicholas was silent a moment, then a half smile crossed his face. He pointed to the installation of planets, dangling just below their position.

  “Mike, how sturdy do you think the structure is?”

  “The planets? You’re joking. No, Nicholas, don’t even think about it.”

  But Nicholas had already wedged the M4 under his arm, swung the strap around so it wouldn’t get in the way. He looked at Grant.

  “There’s no other way back to Broussard’s office, the wall is blown out. Just wait, pin them down. I’m going to climb across, and get the roof door key from his office. Back in no time at all.”

  Mike grabbed his arm. “Nicholas, don’t be insane. You don’t know it will hold your weight. Your mother would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  “Don’t fret, just look at all those beams and trusses. Those bolts are meant for heavy usage. All those planets, they’re far from light. It’ll hold.”

  Grant grinned at him. “By the way, you have a grenade in there,” he said, and pointed to the vest Nicholas was wearing. “Drop it on them from above, it will buy you some time to cross. When you’re ready to come back,
flash us with your phone, and we’ll cover you. Ready?”

  Nicholas nodded, gave Mike a last smile, said, “Steady on,” and jumped onto the installation.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The planets were stout and steady, happy to hold his weight. Nicholas crawled through the outer planets first, Pluto, Jupiter. Good to know Broussard wanted Pluto to stay a planet. He shook his head, realized when the power was on in the building, the planets must move. Cool touch. He saw the counterweight bar on the far side—not only did the planets move, they moved in their designated orbits.

  As he drew closer to the counterweight, he heard a grinding noise, a soft, mechanical sound, and Nicholas realized no, they weren’t dependent on the electricity, but were moving, gently, slowly, but moving. Had he accidentally hit a switch, or were they in perpetual slow motion and he hadn’t noticed it before?

  Bloody great. Obviously, his weight had altered the movement, and the whole mechanism was in motion around him, faster now, the planets starting to whir as they gently twirled and spun.

  He heard a gasp, realized it came from Mike, but ignored it. Al-Asaad’s men hadn’t realized he was up there yet. All their firepower focused on the gallery. It wasn’t going to take them long to realize the mechanism was in motion, and if they looked up—he was a sitting duck.

  Nicholas edged closer to the center. Hand, foot, step. Hand, foot, step. The steel-frame trusses were strong, he just had to make sure he placed his feet in the right spots, grabbed hold of the truss above him. If he hadn’t been as tall as he was, this would have been more of a tightrope walk. At least he could grip above as he walked along the trusses. As he crossed onto the other side, his weight made the planets around him move a bit faster than he liked. A planet was swinging toward him, he needed to get out of its way.

  Three fast steps and he was across. He blew out a breath, vaulted over the railing, and ran down the hallway to duck into Broussard’s office. He saw the keys on the desk, pocketed them, and started back.

  The gunfire was fast and furious. He saw Mike and Grant taking turns shooting down to the foyer. They had Al-Asaad’s men pinned, it seemed—they couldn’t move. They couldn’t get to the ramps that wound to the upper levels of the building, they’d be shot from above by Mike and Grant. Some good luck for the good guys.

  When he stepped onto Pluto, he heard a metallic groan. Not good. The trusses had held his weight across, but now they were protesting? Not fair. He needed to hurry.

  Mike heard the change in the metal and her heart froze. Nicholas was two hundred feet in the air, suspended over a shooting gallery. If he fell, he was dead.

  She wanted to scream, Go back, go back. No, this was Nicholas, and he had to do this, he could do this, if only he could get back across without the mechanism breaking apart.

  A bullet zinged an inch from Nicholas’s hand, and then there were more, and shouts. He’d been spotted.

  He cursed. If he could just get back across—but the gunfire was heavy now, sustained, both from Mike and Grant and from Al-Asaad’s men. He was sheltered behind Earth, but it was going to move through the elliptical and expose him within a minute.

  Grant yelled something at him, pointing at his chest. Nicholas grinned like a maniac, pulled the pin, and dropped the grenade. The explosion was deafening. He heard screams. But the blast also shot a wave of power upward, and the concussion knocked Nicholas off the truss.

  He was falling, falling.

  He landed, hard, on the top of Jupiter, swinging wildly, loose now from the rest. Thank heavens, Jupiter was the largest of the bunch. He was sprawled over it and rode it around in a circle, trying to gauge how to get off the sphere and onto the ramp. The planet would swing close, then swing away.

  He saw a loose cable above him, one meant to hold the planet in the proper place, but it had snapped, torn free by either the blast or gunfire, and as he swung below it again, he took a deep breath and jumped toward it, grabbed it, and hung there for a minute.

  Mike was shouting at him, but he couldn’t make out her words. He clung on for dear life. When Jupiter passed beneath him again, he used it for momentum. He kicked off and swung across the twelve-foot expanse like Tarzan.

  Too soon, he realized the cable wasn’t long enough. He wasn’t going to make it, his hands were already slipping. When he came close to the glass railing, he leaped toward it, catching one hand on the edge. His other arm dangled, and he dropped his M4.

  He couldn’t pull himself up, his hand was slipping. Then Mike was there, hauling him over the railing. Glass cut his chest and legs, but he ignored it. She dragged him onto the ramp.

  He rolled and came up to see a bearded man running toward them, his gun raised. He dove for Mike as a gun went off.

  Another shot and the man fell on his face. Grant had killed one of Al-Asaad’s men who’d managed to sneak up the ramp.

  Mike’s heart kettledrummed in her chest, she couldn’t breathe. Get it together, get it together. Nicholas is safe. When she realized what had happened, she yelled to Grant, “Thanks. Too close.”

  Grant laid down fire as Nicholas and Mike ran to the roof door, where Broussard was waiting. Mike took the key from Nicholas’s bloody hand, managed to unlock the door.

  Nicholas and Mike took turns shooting down the stairwell while Grant got the chopper going and Broussard got himself strapped in. The rotors began to whip, and they slammed the door closed and ran full speed across the roof, leaping into the helicopter as Grant lifted off. They landed in a heap.

  She stared at him and started to laugh. “You’re a bloody mess.”

  Nicholas gave her a crazed grin. “Only scratches from the broken glass, Mike.”

  She couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Between hiccups, she got out, “You are an idiot, you know that?” But her eyes were bright, adrenaline riding her high. Broussard was in the front seat, breathing hard, staring at them.

  Grant looked over his shoulder. “Good thing Jupiter was there to catch you. If you’d fallen on Uranus, you’d have been in real trouble.”

  And they all started to laugh.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The ground disappeared beneath them. Grant said, “In all seriousness, guys, that was entirely too close. Where to?”

  Mike said, “We didn’t get into Patel’s computer. We need to access it. Jean-Pierre, do your employees work from home, log into your systems remotely?”

  Broussard turned in his seat. He had himself well in hand, as if a shoot-out with terrorists was only another walk in the park. “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Tell us where Nevaeh Patel lives, and we’ll try to access her files from her home computer.”

  He gave them an address, and Nicholas turned it into coordinates for Grant. Five minutes later, they set down on the lawn of a lovely country manor house. The sun was starting to rise, hitting the rooftop with gentle beams, making the stone glow yellow. Mike realized suddenly she felt bone weary. Two hours of sleep, a chopper crash, and a shoot-out was a lot for one day, even for her adrenaline-junkie-trained body. Nicholas and Grant had to be in the same shape as she was.

  As the rotors spun down, Broussard said, “So much for surprising Dr. Patel.”

  Grant said, “Well, there are no lights on, nor any lights turning on. If someone set a chopper down on my lawn, it might wake me. She’s most likely not here. We’re breaking in?”

  Nicholas nodded. “No choice. We need to get to her computer.”

  “Then let’s hurry,” Mike said. “Al-Asaad’s men will track us, and I’d prefer not to have another shoot-out with them.”

  Broussard led them to Patel’s garden door. “I haven’t been here in over a year, but I know where she used to leave a key. It’s difficult—how could she get caught up with a terrorist like Al-Asaad? And he’s paying her? So after he builds the bomb, she’ll put it into space? To explode and cause an EMP. Why?”

  “We don’t know the why yet, Jean-Pierre, but—” Nicholas’s mobile rang. He looked
at the screen, looked again. “It’s my mum,” he said blankly. “Hello, Mum? Ah, I’m sort of busy right now—”

  “Nicholas, I know it’s early and I probably woke you, but I had to tell you. I think I understand why Mr. Able was murdered. I discovered his sister was sneaking around with this Satanist cult leader in London. Mr. Able found out—”

  “Mum, sounds like you’ve got it covered. I’m really sorry, but I have to go,” and he punched off. He looked at them. “Ah, my mother’s up to her ears in a murder mystery back home.”

  Mike hugged herself, she laughed so hard.

  Nicholas’s phone rang again. Nicholas said, “Okay, this call’s from New York. Hello, Adam.”

  Adam and Gray were both on the line. Gray said, “Good, you’re okay. What happened? We saw a team make entry, and picked up a heat bloom from an explosion.”

  “Grenade. We got a few of the terrorists. Are the local authorities on it yet?”

  “Yes, full response at Galactus. Al-Asaad’s team scattered when the chopper took off.”

  Nicholas said, “I think Al-Asaad will realize it makes sense for us to come to Patel’s house, looking for her, which means we don’t have much time. We’re about to break into the house and access her computer, since we were chased out of Galactus before we were able to hook in. Can you redirect your eyes our way?”

  He gave them the address and Gray waved at Lia Scott, their communications expert, who stepped away to have the satellite moved.

  “Let us know if anyone comes for us, all right?”

  Adam said, “Will do. I assume you’ll be hooking me up to this off-site computer? I’m on standby, let me know when you’re secure.”

  Mike put the comms unit back in her ear. “Grant, you keep watch. We’ll go inside with Jean-Pierre and find the computer. Shout if anything, or anyone, happens by. We hardly need the Lyon flics on our backs right now.”