The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Grant said, “Copy that.”

  Broussard gave her an arched eyebrow. “ ‘Flics’? You’ve worked France before, haven’t you? I thought the FBI was supposed to be an American-soil organization.”

  Mike adjusted her ponytail. Little bits of debris from the shot-out knee wall rained down onto the flagstones. “We’re part of a special unit. We get to travel the world stopping bad guys. Now, Jean-Pierre, let’s get inside and access Patel’s computer.”

  Broussard unlocked the garden door, and they slipped inside. Nicholas used the flashlight on his phone instead of turning on the lights. Soon there would be enough light from outdoors to show them the way, but inside, with the curtains drawn, the rooms were dark.

  Broussard looked around, confused. “It’s like she’s gone away for the season. She’s closed up the house entirely.”

  Mike asked, “Where is her office?”

  “I am not sure. I’ve only ever been downstairs. I don’t recall seeing it.”

  Nicholas led them through the kitchen, a great hall, and up the staircase. “Spread out,” he said, and they all went in different directions.

  Mike found the office on the third floor. The room was beautiful: blond wood, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with a ladder allowing the occupant to get to the top levels. Half library, half office, and out the large windows, a view of beautiful gardens.

  Patel’s computer was a twenty-seven-inch iMac desktop, sitting on a desk devoid of anything but a mouse. Completely the opposite of her workspace at Galactus. Interesting.

  Mike booted up the computer and called Adam.

  “Okay, I’m here. What do you want me to do?”

  “Computer?”

  “iMac.”

  “Do you have the jump drive with the program Nicholas likes to use to break passwords?”

  “Oh, yes. Hold on, it’s in my bag.”

  She found the small jump drive, plugged it into the back of the screen. She toggled the mouse and the computer came on.

  “Great, give it a few minutes, then we’ll be in.”

  She could see the program running, the password box filling and emptying over and over, and then Adam said, “Got it. Open sesame.”

  The screen came to life. There was a super-high-resolution photo of Earth, close enough to see the layers of atmosphere and the curve of the planet. It was not the standard photo that came with an iMac’s software. Mike wondered if it had been taken by Patel from the space station.

  Files began flashing on the screen, and Mike sat back and waited, drumming her fingers on the desk.

  Nicholas stuck his head in. “You all set?”

  “Adam’s running the files now.”

  “That will take a while. Come here, I want to show you something.”

  “Adam, I’ll be right back.”

  His voice floated through the speaker of her phone, distracted. “All good, Mike. Gonna take me a minute here anyway.”

  She stashed the phone in her back pocket and Nicholas walked her down the stairs to the second floor, where the living quarters were. His shirt was bloody, and Mike reached for him, wiping at the biggest stain. “We have to get you cleaned up. Surely there’s a bathroom.”

  “Yeah, I’ll clean up in a minute. Patel and Byrne don’t share rooms. They each have their own. Byrne has a computer here, though, and I was able to force my way in. I’m scanning it now, and I think we might find some answers.”

  She followed him into a large bedroom with a separate sitting area. The room looked more like a high-end hotel suite, perfectly decorated in creams and blues, well balanced between priceless antiques and modern furniture. She had to hand it to them, Kiera Byrne and Nevaeh Patel had good taste.

  “It’s strange, it feels like they’re basically roommates. Whatever, this is a pretty elaborate setup.”

  “Jean-Pierre said Byrne is incredibly protective, whatever that really means.”

  “It doesn’t matter. From all we know, Byrne is going to fight to the death to protect Patel. What did you find?”

  He sat her down in front of the computer, eased in next to her, and started opening files, moving her through his theories. “Schematics for the nuclear EMP. And here’s a lengthy correspondence with someone who certainly seems to be—guess who? None other than our buddy Al-Asaad.”

  Mike said, “That seals it. They were working out their deal in their two recorded meets in Corsica. In 2015 and 2016. Of course, the plutonium was stolen in 2015. I suppose the meet in 2016 was finalizing everything, making the money deal and the delivery. I wonder how much Al-Asaad paid them? Millions?”

  Nicholas said, “I wonder how they got hooked up with a terrorist?”

  Mike said, “That’s easy. Kiera was raised in the shadow of the IRA. Bombings, killings, you name it. She had contacts, don’t doubt it.”

  “They probably communicated on the dark web. These emails are all coded, I’m running my encryption program on them right now. See? They date back to 2015, before the plutonium was stolen from Idaho, before their first meet in Corsica. Looks like Al-Asaad was looking for a way to build and launch a nuclear EMP himself, and Kiera Byrne and Patel had the solutions.”

  “Nicholas, I don’t understand why Patel would do this. I mean, are we about to have a coordinated terrorist attack?”

  His face was stark. “I think so, yes.”

  “We have to let New York know.”

  “I already have. I cloned the hard drive and sent it to Gray. He’s running the analysis now.”

  “So what’s our next step?”

  “This.”

  He flipped to another screen and Mike saw what looked like a huge eggshell broken in half, with a massive telescope sticking out like a snout. It was surrounded by thick vegetation, palm trees, and unfamiliar lush green plants.

  “What’s this?”

  “This, Michaela, is a refracting telescope. I think Patel built her own observatory somewhere. Using lots of Al-Asaad’s money to supplement what she doubtless stole from Galactus.”

  “Why? To what end?”

  “To this end. Listen.”

  Mike heard a woman’s voice, hyper with joy. She was speaking jerkily, quickly. “Everything is in place. I have the Heaven Stone so I am now immortal, so I can be one with you and live forever. I’ve placed the bomb aboard the satellite, the countdown is underway. Two more days, and there will be no more noise in the heavens, no more noise on Earth. And you will come to me.”

  A long pause.

  Then, “Yes, I will be high on my mountaintop awaiting you. In two days, at the apex of the lunar eclipse, the skies will glow with an explosion of such magnitude that, like I said, all the satellites will go dead, and then the world around us will be dark and silent, as I came to believe you wanted. That will be your moment, that is when you will be able to enter Earth’s atmosphere unharmed. Earth will be open to you, and I will welcome you and we will begin our journey to save Earth.”

  Another pause. This one even longer.

  “Yes, we will bring peace to Earth together. I will rule, you at my side, my confidants, my advisers. No one will ever betray me again, all will revere me—and you.”

  He hit stop.

  Mike said, “What in the world?”

  “Out of this world, actually.” Nicholas started running through the files. “There are hundreds of these recordings, all different. I sampled several from each year beginning in 2014, and there’s a gradual change in Patel’s attitude, in her plans. She begins speaking with optimism, nothing can stop her, can stop them, then gradually she becomes bitter, people betray her, her anger runs deep and deeper. She’s frustrated.”

  “She sounded crazy.”

  “Yes. It seems Byrne’s been recording her boss’s conversations with—someone. What’s strange is it’s an open channel, but there’s no one on the other end, no one I can hear, at least. Patel is having a conversation, but no one’s talking back to her.”

  “Or maybe we’re missing whoever is r
esponding? Can the tapes be enhanced?”

  “I’ll send it to Gray and see if he can work his magic on it, but I don’t know. What we have to do now, though, is figure out where this mountaintop she mentions might be. That’s where she is, and she has the means to set off the nuke and cause the EMP.”

  “Well,” Mike said, taking off her glasses and polishing them with the hem of her shirt, “this isn’t a biggie. All we have to do is find a monster observatory with an unregistered telescope, and we find Patel. Only one problem. If this was recorded yesterday—I don’t think we can have more than a day before she sets it off. When is the apex of the lunar eclipse?”

  Nicholas opened a search engine. “Slightly different times from different regions, but—” He cursed under his breath. “We don’t have long, Mike. It’s going to happen early tomorrow morning.”

  Mike heard footsteps running toward them, jumped to her feet, M4 at the ready. It was Broussard, shouting, “They’re here, they’re here. Al-Asaad’s found us.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Nicholas said, “Bloody hell, I’d hoped we’d have more time. Mike, give me your comms.”

  She handed her comms to Nicholas, who started shouting orders to Grant. Jean-Pierre came into the room. “Jean-Pierre, we’ll have backup here shortly. Listen to me now. Did Dr. Patel ever talk to you about building her own observatory? Or purchasing an industrial-grade telescope?”

  He looked taken aback. “An observatory? A telescope? Wait, I remember she did mention wanting to do something down the road, for educational purposes—she wanted to teach students about space from her perspective as a former astronaut. But it would take more money than she possibly has, grants, land somewhere. There would be records.”

  “Did she say where she wanted to build it?”

  He shook his head.

  The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire started up. Mike gently shoved Broussard toward a chair. “Please stay here.”

  “No, absolutely not. I’m going with you. I’m not about to sit here and wait for them to come kill me. Give me a weapon, this is my fight, too.”

  Mike’s phone started to ring. She gave him a long look, handed him a pistol. She grabbed her phone. Adam was still on the open line. She said, “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Satellite shows five bogeys at the back gate and—wait—five more at the front. And the Lyon police have been dispatched, someone tipped them off to your possible address. It’s going to take them ten, fifteen minutes to get to you, though, you’re well outside of the city limits.”

  “We’re running low on ammo. Our attackers, they don’t have air support, do they?”

  “Not that I can see. They drove, they’re not on foot.”

  “So if we can get to the helicopter, we can get away.”

  Mike heard Nicholas yelling, “Mike! Get down here!”

  “Gotta go, Adam. Keep an eye out. And start looking for a high-end private observatory, on a mountaintop, probably funded by Dr. Patel herself. Maybe the answers will be in her computer files. Talk soon.”

  She grabbed Broussard’s arm. “Let’s go. We’re all in this together now.”

  Nicholas and Grant had set up a barrier at the garden door, and were trying to figure out the best way to get back to the helicopter when Mike and Broussard ran out of the kitchen.

  Mike said, “Adam says there are another five at the front. So they’ve got us on both sides.”

  Nicholas said, “I’m with you, Mike. We’ll take the front. Jean-Pierre, you’re with Grant. We only have to hold them off for, say, ten minutes, then I’m praying the police will be here.”

  Mike and Nicholas ran through the house and took up positions in the drawing room windows that gave out onto the sweeping front lawn.

  Mike said, “These French doors are hardly going to hold up to a gunfight. If they breach, we’re sunk.”

  “Well, you’re an excellent shot, Agent Caine. I’ll give you the right side, I’ll take the left. Maybe we can catch them by surprise.”

  Mike glanced out past the edge of the curtain. Nicholas went to the other side of the room, a good twenty feet away.

  “They’re making a straight-on approach, right up the hedgerow along the path. Ready?”

  “As I ever will be.”

  She knocked a hole in the window pane and started shooting. She caught two, who went down and didn’t move again, and the remaining three scattered, running away from her fire, directly into Nicholas’s path. He picked them off, one, two, then a third man was left alone. He took off running back toward the gate. Mike pinged him in the upper thigh, and he dropped in the grass, writhing in pain. Just as quickly, he grew still.

  “Good shooting, Mike.”

  They heard yelling from the back of the house, shouts and calls.

  Nicholas said, “Grant needs help. You go, I’ll stay here just in case there are more of them out there.”

  She ran back through the house to Grant’s position, only to see Jean-Pierre on his back, a large red stain spreading across his chest.

  She yelled, “Nicholas! We need you,” and to Grant, “What happened?” She dropped to her knees and started putting pressure on the wound.

  “Ricochet in the window. I took out three, but there’s two more, and one of them’s a damn good shot.”

  Broussard groaned. “Some help I am, you should have made me stay upstairs,” and he gave her a heartbreaking smile.

  Glass shattered around them. Grant called, “Mike, move him, I can’t get a proper stance.”

  “Hold on.” She dragged Broussard ten feet into the room. The wound was high up in his left chest, almost collarbone level. The blood leak was slow and steady, not gushing. “Lucky,” she murmured to him. “You’re going to be okay, I promise.”

  Nicholas came skidding into the room, cursed, then ripped off his already ruined shirt and tossed it to Mike.

  “More pressure!”

  She saw the blood starting to leak out his back. “I think you got even luckier, it looks like the bullet went through. Still, it’s bleeding heavily. We need to get you to a hospital. My guys said the Lyon police are on their way.”

  “It hurts, I think I might—” Broussard shuddered and passed out. A blessing because it gave Mike the chance to really get the pressure to the right depth. The bleeding was slowing. She felt for Broussard’s pulse—slow, a bit bumpy, but strong enough for the moment.

  “Grant, do you have any hemostatic gauze in your bag?”

  “QuikClot? Yes, my bag’s on the back table there.”

  Nicholas shot three times out the window, then rushed to the bag, tossed it at Mike, and said, “For heaven’s sake, Mike, get this on him and make another call for help. We’re down to our last magazines.”

  They saw another man running wildly toward them, spraying the house with bullets. Suddenly, he was down. They stared at each other. Who had shot him? Not the Lyon police, they weren’t here yet.

  The gunfire slowed from outside. As they searched to find the shooter who’d killed the terrorist, they saw a man walking slowly toward the house, his hands laced on top of his head.

  “Bloody hell, what the devil is this? Is he surrendering?”

  Grant yelled at Nicholas, “Careful, careful, don’t show yourself. He might be wearing a vest. We don’t need him blowing us up. I think we should take him out.”

  As if the man knew what they were thinking, he ripped open his shirt, showing only dark skin and hair, and immediately clapped his hands back on top of his head.

  Grant was shocked. “Bugger me sideways, mate, that’s Al-Asaad himself! I recognize his photo. What is he up to?”

  “You’ve got to be wrong, Grant,” Nicholas said, crowding him away from the window.

  “No, I’m sure. That’s Al-Asaad approaching the door, hands up, shirt open, no bomb.”

  Mike squeezed in beside Nicholas. “Look, now he’s getting on his knees. He still has his hands on his head, fingers laced, now he’s down, face in the dirt
.”

  “It’s a trap, got to be,” Grant said. “The minute we open the door, his remaining people will rush us.”

  “I don’t think he has any remaining people,” Nicholas said.

  A voice shouted out, “Agents Drummond, Caine? May I have a word?”

  The man sounded like a bloody American. What on earth was going on here?

  Nicholas shouted, “Who are you?”

  The man called back, “You probably know me as Khaleed Al-Asaad.” And now they could hear the Southern in his voice. “But my real name is Vince Mills. I’m CIA.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Mike circled the man, his face still pressed against the ground, trying to figure out what was going on. CIA? Yeah, right. She wasn’t about to take his word for it. She ordered him up, marched him into the dining room, and handcuffed him to a chair. He didn’t say a word as she tied his legs to the chair. It wouldn’t stop him from breaking free, but it would slow him down long enough so she could shoot him.

  They stood back and eyed the man. He was dark as an Arab, with a full black beard, and go figure—he had a frigging Southern accent. Nicholas said, “All right, you’re American and you claim you’re CIA. Yet you attacked us, twice, and you weren’t exactly firing blanks. You were trying to kill us, all of us. Why?”

  Mills said, “Sorry about that, it wasn’t intentional—well, it was intentional by my betraying captain, but I didn’t intend it. Here’s what happened. I was told Broussard had escaped dying and Patel wanted him dead. She told me he was headed to Lyon, to Galactus. I don’t know how she discovered that, but I told her I’d go after him. What I didn’t tell her was I wanted to capture him, question him, see what he knew about this mess, if he knew where Patel and Byrne were.

  “I guess Patel—or Kiera Byrne, more likely—made a sideways deal with my captain to make sure Broussard was killed this time. I couldn’t believe it—he and my men betrayed me! Me—Al-Asaad! The meanest terrorist bugger imaginable.” He sounded so outraged, Mike wanted to laugh. Instead, she kicked his leg. “Get on with this fine tale of yours.”

  “So I get to Galactus with ideas of capture, and my son-of-a-bitch captain and the men, unbeknownst to me, were there to kill him.