The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Mike asked, “Protocol?”

  Grant shrugged. “Not what it sounds. It’s a debrief. A very thorough debrief. Mr. Fentriss is a stickler for them.”

  The pilots, different ones than on their trip down to Malaysia, handed over hot coffee and tea, and Poppy said, “I’m leaving you in their very capable hands. This is Mr. Paul and Mr. Peters. Gentlemen, get them safe to Lyon, then you’re expected in Brussels. Report in from France.”

  Mr. Paul, tall and skinny with a sharp jaw and shrewd eyes, said, “Yes, ma’am.” Peters, who was wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses and looked straight out of Top Gun, added, “Yes, Miss Poppy, ma’am,” in a soft Southern drawl. She gave him a wink and Mike suspected there might be a little more going on between these two.

  Poppy shook Mike’s and Nicholas’s hands. “I am very glad you made it.” She glanced at Grant. “Mr. Thornton, I expect you to stay in touch, but not until you no longer look like the walking dead.” She disappeared down the steps. Peters sealed the door, then took his seat in the cockpit while Paul readied the cabin.

  “Anything you need, let me know. The bar’s open. There’s food in the fridge, fruit and cheese, all kinds of healthy stuff. Don’t tell Peters, he’s a health nut, will be back here scolding you, but there’s also a stash of M&M’s under the counter, third drawer. Help yourself to whatever. Wheels up in five.”

  He disappeared into the cockpit, and Grant and Mike took their seats. They both sipped from their cups. Mike was worried for a moment her waterlogged hair might ruin the buttery-soft leather seat, then decided who cared, and snuggled down. She said to Grant, “I assumed we’d be with the same crew. How many planes and pilots does Blue Mountain have on call?”

  “Several. As Poppy said, Mr. Fentriss is a stickler for redundancy, and for not exhausting the pilots if he can avoid it, so we always have a couple of crews on hand. I’ve flown with these two before, they’re good.” Nicholas had followed Peters to the cockpit. Mike heard him say, “We’re in a hurry to get to Lyon. What’s our estimated flight time?”

  Paul looked over his shoulder, glasses flashing, and drawled, “I hear you four seem to be daredevils, so you’ll be pleased to know we’ve laid in a route that will let us push this honey to her limits.” He slapped the ceiling of the jet. “We’ll be traveling at Mach 0.9, which is just shy of the speed of sound, about 685 miles per hour, and we’ll be right at the outer limits of our fuel capacity getting you there. It’s nearly six thousand miles to Lyon, and we’ll be there by around three in the morning local time. We’re going backward, so we gain a few clock hours. So hang on tight and get some sleep.”

  Mike said, “Wicked,” and they all laughed. “What? I like planes. Much better than helicopters.”

  Nicholas asked, “What about the typhoon? Is it going to affect us?”

  “No, but we’re getting out at the right time. Another few hours and they’ll be grounding all aircraft. It’s going to make landfall in Singapore and sweep up the strait.”

  The pilot glanced at Grant, who’d paled. “Yes, you would have had a rocky night. But all’s well. We received word the crew of The Griffon has been rescued and are also back on land. By the way, I heard Peters here talking about the M&M’s. Don’t blame me if you feel awful tomorrow, but you probably deserve some sort of reward, so I won’t yell at you too much. Ready? Off we go.”

  Once they were all settled and seat-belted in, Broussard said, “Before I crash, I’ve got to call in. I want to speak to Nevaeh.”

  Mike said, “Jean-Pierre, please, let us keep your whereabouts quiet a little longer.”

  “At the very least, I must be allowed to speak to my secretary, Claudette Bourget. She will be discreet, she is trustworthy.”

  Nicholas said, “You thought Dr. Patel was trustworthy, too.”

  They all saw the moment Broussard registered doubt. A good start. He sighed. “Claudette is utterly loyal to me. And I’m not asking your permission.”

  He pressed a few buttons and put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear.

  A young, hyper voice said, “Galactus, bureau de Monsieur Broussard.”

  “Claudette, bonjour, en anglais, s’il vous plaît,” and she immediately switched to English.

  “Oh, sir, it’s really you! We were all so afraid and there’s been no news—it’s wonderful to hear from you!”

  Jean-Pierre heard her crying. “It’s all right, Claudette, I’m fine.” No need to tell her he’d lost four crew. “Soon I’ll tell you about it.”

  “I know you’ll want to speak to Dr. Patel right away, but she isn’t here, I’ll have to patch you through to her mobile. Once she closed the offices and sent us all home, we feared the worst. I had the phones forwarded to my mobile, and when the phone rang, I was so afraid—I’m at home watching the news, and they said you were all dead, and the typhoon is coming, and—oh, monsieur! She will be so thrilled to know you’re alive. She’s been worried sick, we all have.”

  Broussard let her run on until she finally stopped. He said evenly, “Did you say Dr. Patel closed the offices?”

  “Oh, yes. When they couldn’t find you or The Griffon, Dr. Patel gave instructions to go on lockdown, only essential personnel. Everyone else left. She said it was sabotage—oh, but of course, you won’t know. The Bastille Day satellite we lost was tampered with. Dr. Patel went to Quints in China and found the metal fatigue was purposeful.

  “The media were all over campus, many strangers, many threats. We moved them off the property and closed the gates. Shall I ring her for you now? She will be so pleased, so relieved.”

  Nicholas laid a hand on Broussard’s arm and shook his head.

  Broussard nodded. “No, Claudette, it’s quite all right, I will call her myself. I must handle this personally. Don’t mention my call to anyone else, either, if you please. No media, no outside conversations, no internal communications. I will take responsibility for our messaging to the press. I’ll be back to you in a couple of hours. I wanted to let you know I’m okay, but I don’t want the news to get out yet, not until I’ve had some time to rest and regroup. And if there’s some sort of sabotage, yes, we need to keep it quiet, the news I’m alive might set off another round of attacks.”

  “Oui, monsieur. It is best you stay hidden for now. I’m so glad to hear your voice.”

  Broussard frowned at Nicholas as he hung up. “This situation is getting out of hand.”

  Nicholas said, “Question, Jean-Pierre. Do you really believe Dr. Patel closed your offices to mourn you? Or because a satellite was sabotaged? You’re a multinational corporation, you’re losing money by the minute, am I correct?”

  “Yes, we are, and I admit, it’s not the typical procedure. But this isn’t a typical situation, either.”

  “Sir, the timing is too convenient. She thinks she’s murdered you, she’s shut down your company, stolen the Grail, and we have no idea why, only a brief reference to a nuclear EMP, and now claims of sabotage. Calling and warning her that we know she’s up to something would be a massive mistake.”

  Broussard drummed his fingertips on the leather chair arm. “Listen to me, special agents—yes, that does give you gravitas, doesn’t it? How about she’s simply distraught at the idea of the head of her company being lost at sea? I know her. If I call her I’ll know the truth, all of it.”

  Nicholas sighed. “Sir, if Dr. Patel did do this, she definitely wants you dead. We’ll be operating from a position of power if she continues believing she succeeded. This way, we can see what she does next. I need to have a trap set up on her phone so we know where she is at all times, and I don’t want her to rabbit before we have a chance to figure out what she’s up to, and why she wanted you dead.”

  Broussard shook his head. “Since you insist on circumventing me at every turn, and if there’s nothing else you need from me, I must rest.”

  He closed his eyes and was asleep before they had a chance to ask him any more questions.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT<
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  Mike gave a now-sleeping Broussard a look, then said, “Let’s let it go for now. He’s not thinking straight, and can you blame him? He’s trusted Dr. Patel to run his company for more than five years. A shock this big—I’m not surprised he’s hanging on with his fingernails. But he is getting close to believing it. Who else could it be? So that’s enough for now. Both you and Grant are exhausted. I’ll take first watch. You two get some sleep.”

  Nicholas started to protest, but Mike shook her head. “Seriously. I’m too jazzed anyway. Believe me, the last thing I want is a nightmare about the huge wave that took down our helicopter and all that black, cold water. I’ll do some research instead.”

  “If you’re sure.” But Nicholas was already yawning, and Grant didn’t protest at all. Both men crashed, hard, leaving Mike alone with her thoughts.

  She retrieved a bag of M&M’s from the drawer for a quick sugar boost and got herself another cup of coffee. Then she put on her earbuds and checked in with Adam, who looked beyond relieved to see her, especially when she told him what they’d been through.

  “Adam, we’re fine. Don’t worry. Has the news cycle caught up with the rescue yet?”

  “No, it’s night here. I’m sure the moment dawn breaks, it will be all over the news.”

  “Copy that. Anything new on your end?”

  “Gray is running a bunch of scenarios and is working with the nuke folks at U.S. Strategic Command, looking for the nuclear signature prior to the launch. The company whose satellite was launched July 14—P-Tel Communications, out of Valencia, Spain—is being raided to cover all the bases.

  “There’s another team at the Idaho Research Facility trying to figure out what happened with the missing plutonium. But no one has any idea where the nuke is now. As you can imagine, people are starting to freak out. It’s all going to leak soon, media’s already planning stories. Thankfully, no one wants to start a worldwide panic, so they’re going carefully.”

  “Media and discretion, that’s gotta be a first. With any luck, we’ll track it down and stop it from blowing up before it does any harm. We’re back on the Blue Mountain jet, heading to Lyon, Galactus headquarters, so we can talk to Jean-Pierre Broussard’s second-in-command, Dr. Nevaeh Patel. She’s our primary suspect. Everyone is asleep right now, but—”

  Adam’s face lit up. “Wait. Dr. Nevaeh Patel, the former NASA astronaut? She spent almost six months on the International Space Station before an accident forced them to bring her back down to Earth? That Nevaeh Patel?”

  “I remember now something about her, but not exactly what.”

  “Oh, man. I’ve been researching her as part of the whole Galactus company.”

  “Talk to me. What kind of accident did she have?”

  “A bad one. She was on an extravehicular activity—EVA—what they call a spacewalk—when her tether broke. A less-experienced astronaut probably would have died, because she was literally floating away from the space station and her jet pack failed, but she somehow managed to maneuver herself back and grab ahold of a truss. It was a miracle she survived, changed a lot of their procedures for EVAs, too.”

  “Why don’t I remember? Surely something like that would have made her a heroine and she’d have been all over the news.”

  “Nope. Turns out they grounded her afterward, and she left NASA under guarded circumstances. No one said a word at NASA and neither did she. I turned up some in-depth research that she had a bunch of psych evaluations when she got back to Earth, nothing reported. Two years later, she resurfaced and went to work for Broussard.”

  “Sounds like a normal thing to do if someone almost died on a mission. The FBI would react the same way, put us through our paces, make sure we were fit for duty. But then again, how she managed to save her own life, why didn’t anyone make a big deal out of it?”

  “Hey, look what I just found. Listen to this. Says here a small contingent of people claim she told them she spoke to aliens when she was untethered, and they were the ones who helped her back to the space station.”

  “Tell me what you mean by a small contingent, Adam.”

  “Well—all right. Just maybe I took a quick gander at the personnel database. You didn’t hear that.”

  Mike laughed. “No, of course not. My hearing isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Hey, these are exigent circumstances—plus, interestingly, she was one of NASA’s most promising astronauts, you’d think her leaving would cause a ruckus. But like I said, no one said anything. Was she dismissed, did she quit, did they make life untenable? She was officially grounded, that’s for sure. Also, when I just happened to stumble onto her personnel file, I saw she didn’t pass her psych evals. So, no way they’d ever let her back to space. They can’t afford dead or crazy people on a space station. Now that would make for bad press.”

  “Okay, let’s come forward. So, where was Dr. Patel when the plutonium went missing from Idaho?”

  “2015? I’m assuming in France. Lyon. Breaking major ground in the private space industry working for Jean-Pierre Broussard. Maybe, I’m not sure yet.”

  Mike was silent. “I don’t know what to think. But Grant swears he heard Devi, Broussard’s lover, say Nevaeh’s name right before she was shot and killed. And then the yacht was taken out by a Hellfire missile.” She glanced at Broussard, heard a gentle snore, and whispered, “I trust Grant. I don’t think Broussard can be all that objective, yet. Do a deep check on where she was when the plutonium was stolen in 2015. Also, we need to know if Patel has been in France this whole time, or if she’s somewhere down here in Malaysia. Maybe putting a bullet in Broussard’s lover and trying to kill him and steal the Holy Grail.”

  “Holy Grail? He really believes he found it? Wow. Well, you and Nicholas will find out, one way or another. Hey, Mike? Get some sleep. You need it.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I will.”

  “Hey, that’s my line.”

  She pulled out her earbuds, ate more M&M’s, and did a few searches herself. She pulled up photographs of Nevaeh Patel on her screen. Patel in a Time magazine spread on female astronauts, Patel as an astronaut all suited up. Patel as a successful executive. The most recent news showed her statements to the media regarding her missing boss.

  Patel was fifty-seven now, forty-eight when she was chosen for a mission that meant she’d spend nearly a year aboard the ISS. She had bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy, a master’s degree in earth and planetary sciences from MIT in 1984, then a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the same. Mike did some quick math—Patel had started college when she was only sixteen.

  She flipped through the rest of the available material online, finding more photos, more stories. In addition to being brilliant, she projected a powerful presence. Tall, fit, no-nonsense, a face and voice you listened to, trusted. She had long, dark hair, dark eyes, maybe brown, and large black glasses—similar to Mike’s own. Mike spotted one photo, enlarged it. It showed another woman standing in the background, much younger, with short, spiky dark hair that might be red, a round, hard face, broad shoulders—and clearly in a defensive, protective stance. There was something almost feral in her look, and Mike could easily identify the multiple weapons she carried by the lumps and bumps in her clothes.

  A bodyguard of some sort. Which made sense—Broussard used bodyguards, why wouldn’t the second-in-command? Apparently the French aerospace industry was dangerous.

  She dialed Adam. “I’m sending you a photo, Adam, the woman standing behind Dr. Patel. Find out who she is.”

  “Got it. Will do.”

  Mike closed the lid on her laptop, put her head back, drifted off to sleep. Her last thought was about the look on the bodyguard’s face, staring intently not at the camera, but at Patel.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The International Space Station (ISS) is a multi-nation construction project that is the largest single structure humans ever put into space. Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the sta
tion continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. It has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000.

  —Space.com

  Houston, Texas

  September 2012

  How could she reconnect with the Numen? Nevaeh only knew one way to make it happen.

  She flew home to Houston. She was afraid she was never going to get clearance to come back to NASA. Why would they take her when they believed she was crazy?

  Crazy because when she was lying quietly in a sensory deprivation chamber, she was able to communicate with aliens? And so she called her flight director, Franklin Norgate, the only one with power who could possibly believe her sane, and asked to have lunch.

  They met at an anonymous sandwich shop near the Johnson Space Center campus because she was afraid if she went back to the campus, her fury would erupt and she might lash out, do something stupid, and then she’d jeopardize even this one small hope. The Numen knew she was trying.

  Norgate looked tired—not a surprise, everyone in the space program looked tired. Long nights, altered biorhythms, high-stress environment—it was par for the course.

  “How are you, Nevaeh? You look well.”

  “I am well. Feeling great. I wanted to talk to you about coming back to the fold.”

  Franklin’s smile lit up the room. “Wonderful news! We have a new crop of astronauts who are scheduled to begin training next week. This is perfect timing.”

  Nevaeh grinned, her heart light for the first time since she’d been grounded. “When do we ship out?”

  Franklin said, “This is for the resupply mission scheduled for first quarter 2015. You’ll be happy to know we have another female on the roster. It’s her first time going up. Your mentorship will be invaluable. There’s nothing like having firsthand experience. You can teach her the ropes, get her prepared. She will be thrilled to learn you’re going to be her mission specialist. When can you start?”