The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  A large wave caught them, and as the submersible crested, then slid down the wall of water, landing hard in the trough, Grant thought again about Kitsune. What was she doing? Was she safe? He prayed so.

  Life isn’t all bad? Yeah, it is.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  T-MINUS 43 HOURS

  They’d been flying for what seemed like ages, but Mike knew it was only an hour. Her eyes hurt from straining them to look at the water, which shone back up at them. They were flying lower than she liked, able to see the waves as they formed and crested. The swells were massive, and she closed her eyes when it seemed they’d reach up and grab the helicopter.

  Nicholas’s cell rang. He pulled it out of his jumpsuit, wedged it under his headset.

  “Adam. You have something new? Speak up, it’s loud.”

  “I do. Good news. We just got a fresh update from Grant’s tracker. The coordinates have moved significantly. They’ve slid north, up toward Phuket, Thailand. Here’s the latitude and longitude.”

  Mike read off the information and the pilot called, “Well out of the search area, you’re sure about this?”

  “Adam? The pilot says—”

  Adam said, “Tell him we’re sure. Might explain why they haven’t been found. The signal came in brand-new, like the tracker had been turned off or something and was turned back on. We’re able to follow it. So fingers crossed the tracker is still attached to Grant.”

  The pilot said, “Based on this, we’ve all been looking in the wrong place. The last known signal from the boat should have had them farther south, not heading north.”

  “Maybe the yacht was farther north than was first thought.”

  “Could be, yes. Or the seas, working their magic. I’ll inform the rest of the search and rescue teams and rejigger our flight path.” The chopper banked to the left, headed on the new course.

  Nicholas tapped Mike on the leg. “Again, Dame Mike, good thought with the tracking device.”

  She wanted to preen for a moment, but couldn’t, because a wave crested right beneath them, scaring her to death. She swallowed. “I hope they’re okay. Why would they have gotten so far out of the search area?”

  “Life rafts float. They don’t have the ballast of something larger, can be carried by the waves. I suppose the seas are driving them north because of the outflow from the storm.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. We’re due some luck. Now at least we have a specific haystack to search.”

  Nicholas said into his cell, “Adam, anything more on the EMP?”

  “I’m working on it. As I already told you, the plutonium signature was found two weeks ago, on July 14, the same day Galactus put a satellite into orbit. It was a communications satellite, and according to the news reports, and though the launch went off without a hitch, the satellite itself wasn’t able to deploy. There was a problem with the fairing—that’s the capped part of the rocket that opens to let the satellite out into space. Apparently, the satellite clipped the fairing and was damaged, couldn’t insert properly into orbit and turn itself on.”

  “A logical place to start looking for the EMP, then,” Nicholas said. “If the satellite is still up there, we might be able to get a track on it. Gather everything, Adam. We’ll hopefully have Grant back on land in a few hours and we can start chasing down this bloody satellite.”

  “Copy that. Be safe. Oh, you know Mr. Zachery is off-site at a training session for the bigwigs this week. He hasn’t been notified of your latest escapade. Ah, Gray swears he won’t say anything.”

  Nicholas could hear the grin in Adam’s voice. “Good, because I highly doubt Zachery would be pleased with our current whereabouts. Talk soon, Adam.”

  He punched off, zipped his cell back in the waterproof pocket of his flight suit. He and Mike watched the massive waves below and knew they had to be patient. The chopper was starting to bounce around, enough that both Mike and Nicholas tightened the straps of their shoulder harnesses.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eon, the pilot called, “We’re coming up on the new coordinates. Keep your eyes peeled. We’re first on scene, but the winds are picking up.”

  Nicholas took a monocular out of his go-bag and stuck it to his eye. Mike, shielding her eyes, stared as hard as she could, looking, looking. She spied what looked like a flash of light, realized that must be the sun’s reflection on metal.

  “There’s something ahead!”

  Nicholas swung his monocular toward the spot where she was pointing. A blip on the horizon, growing larger and larger. The chopper swung up higher and sped toward it. They could hear the pilot on the radio calling to the rest of the search and rescue team. “Spotted, no wreckage, looks like a life raft. Here are my coordinates.” And the crackle and buzz of cheers and babble in a language they didn’t understand.

  The pilot turned, gave them a thumbs-up. “The cavalry is on their way. Let’s get closer and see what we can do in the meantime.”

  Nicholas counted off. “Five dots, must be the life rafts, and something metal. Is that some sort of personal submarine?”

  Mike could see more clearly now, laughed. “Broussard is a gazillionaire, of course he has a submarine. Hallelujah, we’ve found them.”

  The chopper pilot brought them closer, hovering directly over the water, only a few hundred feet away so his rotors didn’t cause any damage. Mike could see men and women in the boats cheering and high-fiving one another, could see Grant and Jean-Pierre Broussard waving from the sub.

  No, wait, the people in the rafts were shouting, some screaming, pointing. But Mike didn’t turn in time to see a massive wave rising behind them, black and churning, and it smashed into the side of the chopper.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  T-MINUS 41 HOURS

  The hit sent Mike forward against the pilot. She didn’t have time to think, time to recognize what was happening, she felt only the sickening sense of falling, then tumbling and spinning. She realized the chopper was whirling around, now on its side. Before she could scream, she was hit with a ton of water, in her nose, in her mouth, ripping at her clothes. She held on to her harness for dear life. She felt Nicholas’s hand gripping her arm and knew he wouldn’t let go.

  They hit the surface of the sea hard, and the chopper flipped over entirely. Suddenly, everything was dark. She realized Nicholas had ripped off her headset and was yelling in her ear. She shook her head against the knowledge they were in a helicopter and now it was upside down and so were they, and they were going down. The helicopter wasn’t flooded yet, but it would be in minutes. She smelled smoke. How could that be? They were underwater and a fire had started? But she could smell the smoke, could feel the heat. Mike panicked, jerking frantically at her harness, but it wouldn’t unlock. She was stuck there, hanging upside down, the flames coming closer, then Nicholas pulled out a knife and sliced through the thick nylon, and she fell out of her seat into his arms. She could see the pilot slouched over, his head bent at a completely wrong angle. His neck was broken and she knew he was dead, but still she screamed, “Musa is hurt, we have to help him!”

  “We have to get out, do you hear me? The pilot’s dead, the chopper is going to sink, there’s only a bit of air left. We have to swim for it. The door is right here. Come on, Mike. You can do it. Suck in a big breath.”

  She was frozen, and then her survival instincts kicked in and she was moving. The water was already up to her chest, dark and so very cold, and under that water was death.

  She calmed, heard him say, “The door is below us, you’re going to have to lie down in the dome of the chopper to get out, but I’ve got you.” Nicholas threw a life jacket over her head and fastened it around her waist, yanked the cord so it inflated, then pulled her deeper into the dark water, shouted, “Hurry, hurry, deep breaths, here we go. The flotation device will help you rise up, but big breath, I’m not sure how far under we are. Let’s go.”

  She knew there was no choice. The water was frigid, and then, suddenly, she wa
s free of the helicopter, and the puffed-up life vest strained against the rapid movement of the water. She didn’t know if they were rising or falling, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe. Her ears felt like they were going to explode. She fought down the panic, fought to keep the air in her lungs. Nicholas had a hard hold of her hand and she felt him tug, so she started to kick, kicked for her life, praying they’d surface.

  Nicholas had the third life vest in his hand. He used his teeth to tear open the ripcord, ignored the rush of salt water into his nose. It inflated in a stream of bubbles and was enough to help propel them faster toward the surface. Moments later, though it felt like hours, they burst out of the water into the open sea. He yanked Mike to the surface behind him, grabbed her arms, held her as they both coughed out water, their eyes stinging from the salt.

  He remembered his god-awful fear that he’d lost her in that lake in Italy, but not this time, no way was he going to lose her again. She was pale and it scared him to his gut. “Are you all right? Mike, are you all right?”

  When Mike heaved a huge breath, coughed out more water, got a fresh mouthful of freezing cold salt and brine, she managed to whisper, “I’m alive and well, Nicholas. Tell me you’re okay, too?”

  “Oh yes, I’m marvelous.” Then they rode up the wall of a ridiculously high wave and crashed down the other side. No anchor, no way to control anything, they were at the mercy of the gigantic waves.

  Nicholas kept talking to her, nonsense, really, holding her as close as the life vests would allow. “This is some adventure, hadn’t planned on this part, but well—”

  Another massive wave lifted them, and threw them down into the trough. She hadn’t trained for this, it was nothing she’d ever imagined. She couldn’t speak, just held on to Nicholas for dear life. Nicholas had a cut over his eye, blood was streaming down his face, but he still had ahold of her—and he kept talking about this surprise adventure. Then she realized he’d tied them together somehow—and now he was shouting. He sounded happy.

  Happy?

  She realized he was yelling, “We made it, we made it! We’re going to be okay!”

  She said against his face, “We’re okay? Our helicopter just crashed and we’re floating in the middle of the freaking ocean.”

  “Good, you’re back. Hey, we’re alive. It’s a great start.”

  Another huge wave splashed over her head, dragging her under, but the life vest pulled her back to the surface and she sputtered and coughed. Nicholas wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The waves had to be ten feet high. They needed to find those life rafts, and fast.

  Well, he was right, they were still alive. She shouted, “What happened?”

  “Had to be a super-gigantic rogue wave, caught us broadside. Hopefully it didn’t take down the life rafts or the sub.”

  “How far away are they?”

  Before he could answer, a submarine popped up into the water next to them. And Grant Thornton opened the hatch, stuck his head out. “Good to see you two. Come on, make it snappy. Come into my parlor.” He tossed down a sturdy rope ladder. It was a contest between them and the waves, but finally, they managed to scramble inside the submarine without it taking on too much water. The top snapped closed with a pneumatic hiss, the bilges pumped out the extra water they’d brought in with them. And then there was silence. Blessed silence.

  Grant was grinning at them. “Welcome aboard.”

  And a handsome Frenchman Mike recognized as Jean-Pierre Broussard said, “That was quite an escape. Sorry, no tea or cakes to offer you. Grant, you know these two. Introduce us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  After introductions, Mike said, surprised, “I still have my glasses.”

  “Indeed you do,” Broussard said, and handed her a dry cloth. Mike wiped her glasses, then squeezed the sea water from her ponytail. “Thank you for being here.”

  Grant said, “We saw the whole thing. I’ll tell you guys, I’ve never prayed so hard in my life. We saw the chopper coming from a distance, had no idea you two were in it. Then I saw Mike, and she started signaling, and suddenly, a wall of water was coming up on you. It was the biggest wave we’ve seen so far. Your pilot was much too close to the sea, he should have never been down that far. We lost one of the life rafts, too, it capsized, but everyone is accounted for on the other rafts. Your pilot?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Dead. His neck was broken, something in the cockpit hit him wrong. It’s a miracle we’re okay, for a moment there I thought we were going down with the chopper.”

  “We did, too. We slammed the top closed and submerged, headed toward your last position. Smart thinking with the life vests, they were easy to see.”

  Nicholas looked from Broussard to Grant. “Here you are, rescuing us, when we came out here to rescue you.”

  They shook hands formally, and Grant said, “How did you find us?”

  Mike wanted to hoot and holler, maybe line-dance—they were alive. Nearly drowned, again, and that thought made her shudder. She managed a smile, pointed. “Your fitness tracker. For some reason, it was the only signal we could find, and it’s been off and on for the past day. I assume something terrible happened to the yacht?”

  Nicholas said, “Yes, what happened to the yacht? Did she go down?”

  Broussard swallowed hard, his face hardened. He nodded. “She did.”

  Grant said, “They shot a missile at us. Probably a Hellfire. Took out the stern and we barely had time to get everyone evacuated—those that were alive, that is. That woman wanted us dead. All of us.”

  Mike asked, “What woman?”

  “The woman discussing the EMP. Did you get my transmission, is that why you’re here?”

  Nicholas said, “We did. We were already coming for you when you went off the radar. What do you know about the EMP?”

  Grant repeated what he’d heard. “It’s going to go off maybe tomorrow, Nicholas. We have to get to land and stop her. Please tell me the pilot was able to send word of our coordinates before he crashed?”

  “He did. Help should be arriving shortly. Do you know why your signal was lost? Your boat was dead in the water—no signals, no power signatures, nothing. The transponder never came online.”

  Broussard said, “We had a saboteur on board. Grant believes it was Devi, the young woman who’d been with me six months. I cannot accept it, she was a favorite of the crew, she was happy with me, on The Griffon. This woman Grant overheard—she murdered her, in cold blood.

  “The missile Grant mentioned. The Griffon was attacked, and the Holy Grail was stolen out of my safe. We’d just found it and were celebrating. Someone drugged us, stole the Grail, murdered my Devi, and then scuttled my ship.”

  Nicholas asked, “Do you have any idea who might want to do this, sir?”

  “I found the Holy Grail. Who wouldn’t want to have it? Whoever it was—a woman, Grant believes—wanted the Grail and made Devi steal it. And she must have wanted me dead. Who is she? I don’t know.”

  “Just to be clear, this is Parzival’s Grail you’re talking about, correct?”

  Broussard’s eyebrows shot up. “You know Parzival?”

  “I know some. He was a knight of the Round Table, was part of the Arthurian legend. And he was a Grail knight. As to the rest, you’ll have to fill us in. But first, sir, can you get us to land in this sub? The closest land mass is Thailand, about fifty miles to the east. You’ve drifted pretty far north.”

  “I can, we have the range to accomplish that. Though I’d like to wait to know my crew is being rescued, and then we can head off immediately. I need someone tracing the Grail. I must find it. I must retrieve it. It’s critical.” He paused, then, “We’ll find the woman responsible, too.”

  “Sir, there’s the distinct possibility an EMP is going to explode, maybe tomorrow, we’re not sure, so we need to get back to land, warn the authorities, and find whoever is behind it. And stop them.”

  “But the Grail, my crew—”


  Mike said, “Mr. Broussard, there was a nuclear signature at your launch on July 14 from French Guiana. We believe it was aboard the satellite you were putting into orbit. Obviously, the company who owns the satellite is being investigated as we speak, but we need to find out who might have planted it, and who wants to set it off. Getting a nuclear bomb on a satellite isn’t an easy task, as you’re well aware.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about getting a nuclear bomb on a satellite. And it’s impossible one of Galactus’s rockets had anything to do with this.”

  He was exhausted, obviously brokenhearted over the death of his lover, Devi, everything was lying in ashes at his feet. But there was more, Mike sensed it, and it had to do with the Grail. She softened her voice. “And yet, sir, it seems you are involved, and someone clearly wants you dead. There’s more going on here than you realize.”

  As she spoke, they heard the familiar whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter’s rotors through the open top of the submersible, closely followed by cheers. The cavalry had arrived. Hopefully they wouldn’t be swamped by a rogue wave, too.

  Nicholas stood. “Looks like we’ve saved ourselves a trip under the sea. Let’s divert one of the rescue helicopters and get ourselves back to Kuala Lumpur, and the jet.”

  Broussard asked, “Where do you plan to go?”

  Mike looked from Broussard to Grant. “Lyon, France. We need to go to Galactus headquarters, find the people responsible for the launch. Can you tell us the name of the person in charge of that launch?”

  Broussard said, “My second-in-command is Dr. Nevaeh Patel. She will certainly open an investigation as soon as she’s warned. When we reach the helicopter, we can radio ahead—”

  Grant whirled around. “Jean-Pierre, what did you say her name was?”

  “Nevaeh Patel. Dr. Nevaeh Patel.”

  “I hate to tell you this, Jean-Pierre, but I didn’t understand at the time that what I heard was a name. I only thought it was something weird—‘Nevaeh’ is what I heard Devi say before the helicopter blew up your ship.”