They watched Fentriss march off the plane, took their seats. A few minutes later, they were taxiing, and then in the air.
Once they were settled, laptops and phones open and tapped into the plane’s secure encrypted network, Poppy said, “Tell me, what can I do to help?”
Nicholas said, “Are you an operative, or are you admin?”
The look she gave him should have set his hair on fire.
“Right, operative. In that case, I’ll need you to run me through how the teams are comprised, what your emergency protocols would be in this kind of situation, everything you can think of that will help us intercept him. Where will Grant be making his way to if he’s simply out of touch? Assuming the boat went down but they were able to get into life rafts, what’s the first thing he’s going to do?”
Poppy said, “Find a way to communicate, obviously. And if Grant’s down, another team member will be leading things. Assuming we’re in a worst-case scenario, that is.”
She flipped out a laminated map on which she’d made a series of X’s.
“This is what’s known as the Strait of Malacca. Here”—she pointed to a large red X written in grease pencil—“are the last known coordinates of The Griffon. You’ll notice this yellow X is where the EMP transmission came from. There are at least five nautical miles between the two, heading toward the Indian Ocean. They were sailing north, out of the Strait. Why? I don’t know.”
Nicholas stared at the map. “Hook us up with search and rescue out of Kuala Lumpur. Once Adam gets back to us with the coordinates, we’ll pass them along so they can get a head start. Make sure they have a chopper ready for us, too.”
Poppy frowned. “You’re going out there?”
“If they haven’t been located when we land? Yes, we are.”
She played with the map, drew two thunderbolts to the west of the ship’s last knowns. “This is a major storm, Nicholas. It’s very possible the winds will take it to official typhoon levels later today. To fly into that kind of storm is suicide.”
“So make sure it’s a sturdy chopper.”
Mike groaned. “A very sturdy chopper. We don’t have the best luck with them.”
“Not exactly true,” Nicholas said. “It’s not usually us who has the problem.”
Poppy said, “I’ll make it happen, though for the record, I think you two are nuts to want to fly out into the middle of the ocean in a storm of this magnitude. What else?”
“Specs for The Griffon. We’ll need to know how many crew were aboard, how many life rafts, whatever means of escape they’d have if the ship were to go down. And if Broussard has what he believes is the Holy Grail, pulled from that old shipwreck—the Flor de la Mar—anything and everything on that, too, if you please.”
“You got it.” She turned to her own computer and started typing away.
Mike said, “I want to learn more about this Jean-Pierre Broussard character.”
Poppy snapped her fingers and pointed at Mike’s tablet. “I thought you would. I’ve sent you the dossier. It includes video and transcripts of various interviews. If you want more, holler.”
“Thanks, Poppy.”
Nicholas said to Mike, “I’m going to do some recon on how Grant works, see if I can figure out what he’s thinking. You study up on Broussard.”
Mike saluted him. “Sir, yes, sir, Sir Nicholas, sir.”
Poppy raised a brow. “Is she being facetious?”
Mike said, “Nope. Nicholas was knighted a couple of weeks ago.”
“Yes, I remember, and you were damed as well, Michaela. I think that’s the best part. So I’m flying with royalty, what a deal.” She stood, curtsied, making them both laugh.
“Actually, Poppy,” Mike said, “Nicholas technically already is royalty—his grandfather is a viscount. I’m only a sheriff’s daughter from Omaha.”
Poppy said, “Who’s been royally damed. I need to hang with you two more. Maybe I’ll get a sash of my very own.”
They settled in to their work, Nicholas and Poppy discussing the operational aspects of Blue Mountain, Mike researching Jean-Pierre Broussard.
He wasn’t hard to find. The Galactus website had a series of slick, well-produced videos showing the progression of the company as it grew into a private space powerhouse. The videos were narrated by Broussard himself. He was handsome, larger than life, rich as Croesus. He’d wanted to be an astronaut himself, had started Galactus to reshape the way both businesses and private citizens accessed space.
A quick search for The Griffon turned up an entirely new aspect of Jean-Pierre Broussard. This was the playboy she knew about from People. There were endless photos from various ports of call, such as the Venice Film Festival, where The Griffon had docked for two weeks while the world’s finest actors and filmmakers came aboard and partied into the wee hours. But there was an interesting story about how the yacht had recently been retrofitted with a massive crane for yet another treasure-hunting expedition Broussard didn’t talk about.
She read more, absorbing the two sides to the man’s personality—treasure hunter, space explorer. After two hours, she emerged with a better understanding of the man and his missions, but she knew absolutely nothing about his private life. If he’d ever had a wife, children, for example. He was considered a playboy, changing out new lovers on a regular basis.
Mike stretched, fetched herself a cup of coffee from the galley, and went to Nicholas’s chair. He and Poppy had long since finished their briefing and now he had a series of spreadsheets open with coding gibberish on them.
“Do you think Jean-Pierre Broussard really found the Holy Grail? Do you think it’s a cup? Or something else? I remember reading somewhere many believed it to be a stone. You know, like the Sorcerer’s stone in Harry Potter.”
Nicholas didn’t stop typing. “Parzival.”
“Gesundheit.”
He laughed, looked up at her. “Parzival, the Grail knight. He features prominently in the Arthurian Grail legends. The Grail as a stone predates the modern Christian version of the Grail as the cup from Christ’s crucifixion. They called it the Stone from Heaven. The legends are swashbuckling, romantic tales of adventure and true selfless heroism. My dad read me the stories at bedtime.”
She shook her head. “How do you remember this stuff? You were just a kid.”
He tapped his earbuds. “I downloaded a series of workshops led by the mythologist Joseph Campbell explaining Wolfram von Eschenbach’s medieval poem. I’ve been listening for the past hour. It’s actually quite saucy in parts.”
“Please read me the saucy bits later. Now, what else do I need to know?”
“The Grail stone is claimed to have healing powers, rewarding fidelity and true love. And there’s also the promise of immortality.”
“Immortality. Now, that would be an excellent reason to go hunting for it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
T-MINUS 52 HOURS
They were two hours out of Kuala Lumpur when Adam called back. Nicholas was running data sets on The Griffon’s last known location, extrapolating a possible search area. He tossed his phone to Mike to answer.
She got Poppy’s attention, then put it on speaker, said to Adam, “Tell us you found something.”
“I found something. I have a general set of coordinates. Looking for the fitness tracker was a great idea, Mike. Sending them to Nicholas’s phone right now.” A text came in with the coordinates. She read them off to Nicholas, who plugged them into his grid. A large red dot showed up. It was on the farthest edge of the area he’d marked.
Nicholas said, “Bloody good job, Adam. We have him. Is this coordinate live?”
“Before you get too excited, no, not exactly. This is the last known of Grant’s Ziost tracker. It was uploaded last night. As of five minutes ago, the tracker was still in this position, but the regularly scheduled upload didn’t happen. Ziost has two ways to do GPS tracking—uploading GPS data manually when the user tells it to track a run or a walk, o
r sensing when the user has started a workout and tracking it automatically. Luckily, it also updates itself in the system every eight hours, so there are new coordinates three times a day. Since I know what the signal is now, I can keep trying to track it myself instead of waiting for their system to refresh and upload again. Assuming I can locate it on my own GPS system. When I do, I’ll have to track it by hand and will send you updates if it changes.”
Mike said, “Adam, is there any way to tell if this tracker is above the water or below?”
“No, but my vote is above. The Ziost is water resistant to one hundred feet, not meant to be a dive companion or anything, more like you can shower with it or get it wet, but it isn’t designed to be immersed for extended periods. But this signal was pretty strong. I’d think if it was underwater, it wouldn’t have the same strength. I could be wrong, though.”
“Good to know. Thanks, Adam. Keep on the lookout.”
“I am. Also, on your nuke, I’m forwarding all the info I was able to find on the Idaho Research Facility. You’ll find this interesting, for sure. There’s a dead scientist from around the same time the plutonium went missing—2015. His name was Edward Linton. Murder-suicide; he evidently shot his wife, Janie, then himself. The disappeared plutonium was in his research section, and he was the one in charge. Suspicious timing, don’t you think?”
Mike shook her head. “I can’t believe this is only coming out now. When he and his wife died, why didn’t the facility do a thorough check of all the materiel? Make sure it was all there?”
“No clue, but it would have been the smart thing to do, for sure. I’m already running a—ahem—program to take a look at their internals and see what’s what.”
Nicholas said, “Ah, excellent initiative. Thank you, Adam. We’ll be on the ground in a couple of hours. Will loop you in as soon as we have more.”
“Good. Hey, take me off speaker for a moment, will you?”
Nicholas raised a brow but complied. “You’re solo. What is it?”
“This possible nuclear EMP situation is starting to get some legs. Word leaked out, and the press has it. There’s a lid on it for now, no bets on when they start reporting it. The Idaho Research Facility has already released a private statement, so it won’t be too long. The dark web is lit up right now, everyone’s talking about it.” He was silent for a moment, then came back, sounding unusually grave and formal. “If a nuclear EMP goes off, what are my orders? What’s our procedure?”
Nicholas felt a wave of fear like a punch to his gut. Any sort of nuclear explosion would be terrifying, but to have a nuclear EMP go off would create chaos the levels of which he couldn’t imagine or predict. And they had no idea where it might be, nor where it might go off. Still, he tried to reassure Adam. “If such a thing were to happen, you’d get yourself to the New York Field Office. It would be the safest place. They have preventative measures to keep us up and running, and alive. The building is hardened against all sorts of attacks, EMP included.”
“Okay. Let’s say it’s not an if but a yes it could very well happen. What about you and Mike?”
Nicholas said, “We’ll be fine. We might not be in ready communication, but we’ll be fine.”
“Nicholas, this is what I’m worried about. You’re on the other side of the world. If it goes off, depending where it does, there’s a good chance we won’t be able to communicate at all. In that case, you’ve got to find an old ham radio rig with tubes around. Do you know how to use a ham?”
“Actually, I do. My grandfather was an enthusiast, and my father as well. The odds of our stumbling across one in an emergency, though, given where we are, are slim. But if—and it’s a big if, Adam—but if something happens, don’t panic. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can. If I can find an old-school radio, I’d broadcast in our approved frequencies. If I can’t, know I will find a way to check in. We’re prepared for this scenario, Adam. Don’t worry.”
“I should have known you’d have squared away for all eventualities. It’s a little freaky, to think a nuke might be imminent. I’ll be moving to Federal Plaza. I’ll call you back from there.”
“Good plan. Before you go, what is the chatter?”
“In the dark web? The usual nihilist crap. But there are a few accounts saying it’s for real, one in particular, a guy who used to work for OSTP—Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House—saying he overheard on a private signal network that Strategic Defense found a nuclear signature off the coast of South America two weeks ago. And do you believe this? The signature is from a spaceport launch site in French Guiana.”
“Hold on.” Nicholas pulled up the website for the spaceport. “Oh, bollocks.”
“What?”
“French Guiana spaceport is Galactus’s home base. It’s where they launch all their rockets.”
“And now Broussard’s boat has gone down—wait, do you think he’s responsible? Could he be behind putting a nuke into space?”
Nicholas blew out a breath. “I don’t know. But we better find out. Drop everything, Adam. Once you’re at Federal Plaza, reestablish contact with me when you’re set up with Gray. Get the team informed. And do it quickly.”
“I’m gone.”
Nicholas looked up to see Mike walking back from the galley, a cup of coffee in her hand.
“What was Adam freaked out about?”
“The nuclear EMP may be more than a rumor. Supposedly, a nuclear signature was reported from the spaceport in French Guiana. All back channels, nothing official. It’s where Galactus launches their satellites. I need to do a deep dive into the Galactus systems, see what I can find. If they launched a rocket with a nuke on it, Broussard himself may be responsible. And if so, he could have made his boat go offline in order to run. Or the ship could be down. We don’t know yet.”
Mike could only stare at him. One day they were happily chowing down grilled lobster with Kitsune and Grant, and the next—“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
His smile was grim. “I wish I were.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aquarius Observatory
Sri Lanka
Nevaeh heaved the box holding the Holy Grail into her safe and slammed the door. It made no sense, the Grail seemed even heavier than it had been just a short time before. Even stranger, once they’d arrived at Aquarius, the stone had stopped buzzing. She would swear it felt cold, distant from her. Even the Numen had held silent.
Perhaps she was only tired from the flight and the excitement of having the Grail in her possession, and worried about the too-early discovery of Broussard’s boat going down, and she wasn’t feeling what she should. It was her fault, not the stone’s. Yes, she would call it the Heaven Stone, not the Holy Grail, it was more fitting because she was coming to believe it had come from the Numen a long time ago, and had somehow become lost to them. When she’d mentioned this to them, she remembered their agreeing.
As she showered, she realized that in just over two days’ time, she would be in ready, constant contact with the Numen. When the nuke went off, the satellites surrounding it would be destroyed, and all would be clear and silent, what she knew they wanted, and their conduit to her would be open. She would be there, on her mountaintop in Sri Lanka, waiting for them.
It was ingenious, really, the plan she’d concocted. Having the nuclear EMP built was only the beginning. The massive coordination of getting the nuke to space, untraced, had taken years to develop. But it was there now, floating in orbit, unseen by the very people who tracked such things, ready for her signal.
Yes, people would die. But people died every day. Once the Numen were here, with her, everything would change. Wars would end, for all time. All good things demanded sacrifice. So sacrificing the few to save the many was the only way. She refused to feel bad about that.
She toweled off, turned on the television, and saw the breaking news alert. They were reporting The Griffon had gone off radar and was missing in the vast sea off the coast of M
alaysia. No survivors had yet been found.
She pumped her fist.
Are you dead, Jean-Pierre? About time, I say.
Only two more days.
* * *
She heard Kiera moving around in the hallway. Her second, as she sometimes thought of her, had been nothing short of perfect. Nevaeh would relive the moment of impact from the missile they’d shot into The Griffon for days to come. And the look on Devi’s face before Kiera had shot her. Hope. Such hope. What a stupid, stupid girl.
Would the Numen take Kiera with them, too?
Nevaeh wasn’t sure, really, if she wanted Kiera to be with the Numen. Odd, the Numen were strangely silent when she’d asked them the question.
She snapped off the television and walked naked to the sensory deprivation tank she’d installed in the room she’d had built in the facility, right next to her bedroom. Closed, it looked like a large white egg. She pressed a button and the eggshell cracked open with a small hydraulic hiss. It was made by a company called DreamPod, and that’s exactly what the tank did for her—allowed her to relax and access her dreams.
This was the place she most enjoyed communicating with the Numen. She believed they preferred it, as they became positively chatty. She lay in the warm, salty, embryonic water, the preprogrammed chakra lights glowing and the distant hum of music in her ears. And then, when she was fully relaxed, she went black. No lights. No music. Nothing.
Her brain relaxed into theta waves—near sleep. The sensory deprivation chamber was quiet as the womb. Absolute silence, absolute calm. It was as close to being back in space as she could get without launching herself on a rocket.
She waited, but nothing. Why wasn’t it working? She couldn’t seem to relax.
The melodic chorus started, all sibilant voices merging into one: Why didn’t the Heaven Stone greet you as it was supposed to, as we expected it to? It was heavy, and that isn’t right. And the buzzing? We do not understand this. What have you done, Nevaeh, to make it treat you like an enemy? You killed Broussard, Devi—perhaps you should not have murdered Devi—she was an innocent, wasn’t she? Blackmailed by you? Why did you kill her?
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