The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  “He wasn’t alone, there were you three. I didn’t know who you were, maybe cohorts. My men started firing and then, of course, you guys fired back. Then everything went to hell in a handbasket.”

  He shrugged, had the gall to grin up at Mike.

  She nearly punched him.

  “I was trying to find out who you were, and my men figured they had a free pass to kill the lot of you along with Broussard. Then you managed to escape. I had no alternative but to come after you. You could have all been in on it together with Patel and she was double-crossing you, I just didn’t know. I didn’t find out who you were until a couple of minutes ago. You’d already taken down nearly all the men, including that treacherous captain of mine, and it was my pleasure to remove the last one. And then I surrendered.”

  “Hey, really good shooting. Gotta say, those individuals aren’t—weren’t—very nice, and some were new, but still fairly well trained. Unfortunately, as it turns out, as I already said, they weren’t loyal to me but to my captain who talked them over, probably paid them.” Another grin. “And here we are.”

  Nicholas stared down at Mills, his eyes narrowed, his arms crossed. He looked royally pissed. “You’re going to have to make me believe you, mate. I’m having a hard time fathoming how this all worked.”

  “I’ll fill in all the blanks, answer all your questions, but first, do you know where Kiera Byrne and Nevaeh Patel are?”

  “We don’t. We’re looking for them right now.”

  “I assume you know about the nuke?”

  “Yes, we do. How do you?”

  “I’m supposed to. I’m CIA, as I told you. I’ve been deep undercover, playing Al-Asaad for two years now. Tough gig.” Mills sounded almost chipper, and Nicholas wanted to boot him in the jaw. He was furious. Nobody had bothered alerting them about this undercover CIA nutter?

  Vince Mills recognized the rage, didn’t want to have his head knocked off, and said fast, “Kiera Byrne has been working with Khaleed Al-Asaad—that is, she’s been working with me. No, don’t shoot me. Here’s what happened: Nearly three years ago, we—a CIA team—managed to kill Al-Asaad. Before we announced to the world we’d killed a major terrorist and received our just kudos, we heard about a theft of plutonium from the Idaho Research Facility. Only we knew about it, and we kept it under wraps.

  “Then we heard chatter about a new player looking for someone to make a nuclear bomb. They had the plutonium, but not the nuclear material and expertise. The CIA decided Al-Asaad was the perfect go-between. I wasn’t going to say no. The bombings, all the attacks, keeping him in character so the world still believed he was out there. Granted, there were a few bombings that were the doing of various unsavory people in the region, but we claimed responsibility.

  “It wasn’t hard. We made sure to have me in the vicinity, doctored a few photos, put out a massive online propaganda campaign. You know how easy it is to spread disinformation through the Internet, Drummond. I’ve been playing a top terrorist for the past two years. Look at me. I’ve got the thick wild beard, coal-dark eyes, and heavy brows. I blend right in.

  “My assignment was to make contact, make a deal with them. I would pay them for the plutonium, build the bomb for them, let them inspect it to their heart’s content, then arrest them at the last minute, hijack the nuke before they could blow up New York or whatever their target. They never told me.” He took his first breath, shrugged.

  “So I resurfaced as Al-Asaad and eventually managed to net both Kiera Byrne and Dr. Nevaeh Patel, as you already appear to know, which doesn’t say much for CIA security. We struck a deal and they gave me the plutonium and I built the bomb. It had to be for real because I knew Patel was brilliant and she’d know if I’d screwed something up so it wouldn’t work, plus none of us knew if Patel was really the one behind the entire deal—we were thinking North Korea—which is why I simply couldn’t arrest both her and Byrne at the get-go. I had to play it out, find out the identity of this unknown person or country. Of course, turns out Patel was the head of the hydra.

  “So now you know the whole story, and while all of this is fun, we need to find Patel and Byrne, because I’ll bet they have the means to set off this bomb and wreak serious havoc.”

  Mike said, “Where’d the money come from to build the nuke?”

  Mills looked embarrassed. “Well, a lot of it came from Al-Asaad because the CIA wanted the bomb built so they could nab Patel—or North Korea or whoever. For a while, we suspected Broussard. But, of course, he was clueless.”

  Mike said, “So over the two years, you funneled tons of money to Kiera Byrne and Dr. Nevaeh Patel.”

  “Listen, not very much at all came out of the taxpayers’ wallets. You wouldn’t believe how deep the pockets are of those sheikhs who have all the oil. When I told them it was a nuke and I’d blow up something big to cripple the demonic West, I got whatever I asked for.”

  Mike and Nicholas looked at each other. Mills hurried into speech. “And then I found out Patel was putting the nuke on a satellite.”

  Mike said, sarcasm riding high, “You had the nuke. You had this great plan. Tell us, how did Patel get her hands on the nuke?”

  Mills said fast, “By the time we realized Patel was the brain behind the nuke, it was too late. She paid another terrorist group to steal it and then she acted fast, faster than we’d expected, and before we could bring her down, the nuke was launched aboard a Galactus satellite into space. And the bummer is I have no idea where she plans to detonate the bomb. And that’s why I wanted to question Broussard. But hey, we’ll find the satellite and bring both it and the nuke back to Earth. All will be well.”

  Mike could only stare at him. “You—the CIA—allowed a nuke to be made. On purpose. Are you a total idiot?”

  “Maybe the decision-making along the line wasn’t the best, but that’s in the past. Now is what’s important. We have to find Patel and stop her before a massive nuclear EMP disrupts all our communications, shuts down the electrical grid, and we’re down and in chaos. I don’t want to think about what would happen.”

  Nicholas said, “So you people march the world to the bitter edge, then assume you can make everything all right? I can’t believe you—the CIA—pushed it this far. Who cares if there was someone behind Patel, like North Korea? You should have arrested both Patel and Byrne immediately.”

  Mills shook his head. “Trust me, in retrospect, we should have, but we wanted more than Patel and Byrne. Not only did we believe there was a bigger force behind them, we knew there were a half dozen major terrorist groups involved, and we wanted all of them, and that meant waiting.”

  Grant spoke for the first time. “The CIA set up this terrorist cover to get their hands on the stolen plutonium?”

  “And who are you, boyo?”

  Nicholas said, “You will tell him what he wants to know or I will personally ship you back to Syria or wherever your play-cave is.”

  Mills paused a moment, and Mike knew the instant he believed Nicholas. “Oh, all right. Yes, since 2015, as soon as we realized the scope of the theft of the plutonium, and we found out Kiera Byrne was involved, the op went into action. I met Patel a short time later, in Corsica. She’s the brains of the two of them, but don’t get me wrong, Kiera’s tough and street smart, dangerous as a snake, but kinda cute, I thought, and well, hot.”

  Mike said, “You’re saying you slept with her?”

  “Well, yeah, but come to find out she really doesn’t swing that way. Look, I never meant to hurt you guys, or Broussard. Hey, guys—ah, girl—you do know this is highly classified, need-to-know only.”

  Nicholas said in a voice as dry as sand, “Trust me, we have clearance.”

  “Yeah, I know who you guys are. But this one? He’s a civilian.”

  Mike got in his face. “Agent Drummond is a nice man. Me, not so much. You will tell Mr. Thornton everything he wants to know. You will tell the Easter Bunny everything if I tell you to, or I’ll pull out your tongue.” And sh
e leaned even closer, and whispered, “Fear me.”

  Mills believed her. “All right, whatever you say. Listen, I’m really Vince Mills, CIA. My dad’s name is Bob Mills, he’s a straight-up Virginian, a bank manager, but my mother is Pakistani and I inherited both her looks and her language skills. Got recruited by the Company in college and have been in the field undercover pretty much my whole career, working in the Middle East theater. Really, guys, how many times do I have to repeat myself?”

  “As many times as we want,” Mike said. “Now, shut up.”

  Nicholas studied Vince Mills, nice American name. His story rang true, it did sound like a typical CIA maneuver. He said, “We have to confirm this.”

  “We’re running out of time here. Oh, all right, call Langley, talk to my boss, Mr. Grace. Actually, you know him, don’t you?”

  A strange European wa-a wa-a siren’s wail began to grow louder. Mike glanced out the window. The Lyon police and first responders were coming up the road toward the drive. Big surprise—it was littered with bodies.

  Mills said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I need you to keep the police off my back while I have a chat with Mr. Broussard. He’s got to know where Patel and Byrne have gone.”

  Nicholas said, “We already told you, he doesn’t know. And you’re not even going to say hello to him until we confirm your identity. He was shot, needs to go to hospital.”

  Mills went to stand, realized he couldn’t. “Then hurry up and call Langley, talk to Mr. Grace. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Nicholas said, “Grant, cover him, please. Mike, with me.”

  Grant pulled Nicholas to one side, said, “We need to get Broussard to hospital. He’s still unconscious, his pulse is too sketchy.”

  “I hear you. Give us a moment.”

  In the kitchen, Nicholas pulled his hands through his hair. Little bits of dirt and glass rained down on Patel’s floors. “I hate this—that character is CIA, and what’s worse, I believe him. Imagine, playing the notorious terrorist Al-Asaad, working with Byrne and Patel. And we didn’t know a blessed thing about it.”

  Mike said, “Nicholas, why would anyone bother telling us? Imagine, his handler is Carlton Grace. A multiyear undercover op in a terror organization sounds just like him. We need to confirm Mills’s story. Get Adam on the phone.”

  Adam’s voice came through. “Good timing, was about to call you. I think I have a lead on the telescope.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  T-MINUS 20 HOURS

  Nicholas said, “Tell me.”

  “It was delivered to Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2016. I traced it to a mountain, dead center in the middle of the country. And there’s a very good chance Patel is there, too. She has a set of architectural drawings on her computer, very detailed, and there are several references to ‘Aquarius.’ I think that might be the name of her observatory. I’ve sent them to you. Nicholas, you’re going to want to check this out. I found them in an old cache. They’d been deleted, were several years old. The files were degraded. I don’t have an exact location.

  “But I did match a tail number of a deadheading jet that landed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a couple of days ago. Her name wasn’t listed, and I’m trying to get their CCTV to look for a facial match. But my gut says it’s her.”

  “Sloppy of her. Sounds like she’s not trying to cover her tracks anymore. Good job, Adam, thank you. Listen, I have an emergency. We need to verify a set of bona fides with Carlton Grace from CIA. Get him for us, I don’t care where he is. Crash their mainframe, break down the doors, whatever you need to do. We must speak with him immediately. If you get any resistance, call the White House, get Vice President Sloan on the phone, and tell her it’s life or death.”

  “Jeez, okay. What are we confirming?”

  “Just get me Grace. I’ll handle the rest.”

  “Copy that. I’ll ring you back when I have him.”

  And he was gone.

  Nicholas smiled at Mike. “I’m so glad Adam came into the light.” He had his tablet out, found the map. “Well, Sri Lanka is one of the places that will experience the full lunar eclipse.” He looked up, stared at Mike. “My God, she’s timed this down to the minute and place. What are the odds, Mike? Surely this is where we’ll find the controls to the nuke. But you know, my biggest question is, why is she doing this?”

  “I might be making a leap here, Nicholas. But say Patel wasn’t happy about being sacked from NASA. Could she be trying to get revenge on them somehow? Or maybe she blames her co-astronauts on the ISS.”

  Nicholas said, “I don’t think you’re far afield. From the snippets of her conversations with—we still don’t have a clue who—she got progressively more angry, more bitter. There was hate there, and then, later, the thirst for power. Are we talking revenge, too? Could she be going after the International Space Station? Can you imagine a nuclear bomb going off in space, taking out the space station? It would halt a huge swath of the space program in its tracks. Not to mention the astronauts aboard who would die, and decades of research destroyed. The space station is hardened against solar flares and other types of natural EMPs, but a bomb of this magnitude—I’m not sure they could survive it, even with precautions. And assuming it doesn’t take a direct hit, if it couldn’t be powered because of an EMP, it would degrade into orbit and fall to Earth.”

  Mike nodded. “We’d better look at its orbit, see where it’s going to be at the apex of the lunar eclipse.

  He typed it in. “You nailed it. The ISS will be passing over the Sri Lanka area moments after the eclipse begins its hour and a half of totality.”

  “Here’s my question. If she’s in Sri Lanka, and the ISS will be overhead and the moon will be in eclipse—and assuming the nuke is in a low Earth orbit—won’t she be directly in the line of the blast? That would make it a suicide mission.”

  “I don’t know, Mike. We’re going to have to hunt her down, see what all this is really about.”

  “Yep, find out everything before the bomb goes off. Hey, not all that much for us to do. And we have that bearded idiot in there to contend with.”

  The sirens wailed to an ear-splitting crescendo, then squawked as they shut off suddenly. There were shouts from the front lawn.

  Nicholas said, “They saw the bodies, I assume.”

  “This is insane.” Mike cursed. Nicholas was so shocked, he stared at her. “Sorry, but like you, I know Mills is telling the truth. And I’d really like to belt him. And Carlton Grace. Hey, the whole lot of them for dealing this down to the wire.”

  “Agreed, but first things first. Let’s focus on getting Broussard patched up and safe. Then we can deal with Mills—and Patel.”

  They heard Mills arguing with Grant even before they got back to the dining room.

  “Don’t you understand? You have to let me loose, if they see me there’s a good chance they’re going to take one look and see Khaleed Al-Asaad. They’ll take me into custody and sort through the reality later. It’ll blow this entire operation. Look, there’s a nuke, and we’ve got to stop it.”

  Nicholas said from the doorway, “Grant, let’s play it this way. Go let in the police. Mike and I will take care of him.”

  Grant gestured at his dirty, bloody clothes. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t cuff me on sight.”

  Nicholas smiled. “You’re married to Kitsune. I’m betting you can talk your way out of anything.”

  Nicholas took off the restraints, pulled Mills to his feet, and marched him from the room, Mike covering him. She was down to the last few bullets in her magazine, but that was enough to take out this bozo if he tried anything.

  Grant was yelling out the door now, “I don’t speak French, I’m a British citizen, I work for Blue Mountain. We have a wounded man here, we need a medic and an ambulance, stat.”

  Mike said, “I hear one of the police speaking English. Good. No one’s going to shoot Grant, not right away, at least.”

  Nicholas pushed Mills into a small parlor off the din
ing room, shoved him into a chair. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  “No need to get rough, Agent Drummond. I’m on your side.”

  “Trust me, it’s to your benefit to shut up, mate. It’s been a bloody long twenty-four hours and I don’t see it getting any better.”

  “Time is running out. If the nuke goes off—”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  Nicholas’s phone rang, a 202 area code. D.C. “Yes?”

  “Agent Drummond? Carlton Grace. Didn’t expect our paths to cross again so soon.”

  “Nor did I. We’re secure, I assume?”

  “Yes. Speak your mind, and make it fast, I’m busy here.”

  “I have Vince Mills here, he told us a wild-hair tale only you bozos at the CIA could come up with. Do you claim him?”

  Grace started to chuckle. “However did you manage to hook up with Vinny? And what’s he doing telling you his name?”

  “He’s told us everything. Like you, evidently, we’re also on the trail of this nuke EMP. Are we on the same page now?”

  A sharp breath, then Grace sighed. “Why am I not surprised you’re involved, Drummond? We’re getting down to the wire. Anything you can do to help secure the nuke, our resources and assets are yours. Mills has been on the hunt for two years now. He’s legit. He almost had eyes on it, too, until last week when everything went south. How’d you get involved?”

  “Through Jean-Pierre Broussard. A friend is on his security detail. They were on the yacht that went down. We went for the friend, got wrapped up in stopping this nuke.”

  “Wait. Broussard is alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent. Does he know where Patel is going to detonate it?”

  “He doesn’t. But we’re nearly certain it’s in Sri Lanka. There’s a lunar eclipse at one a.m. there, and we think the EMP may be timed to go off at the eclipse’s apex. Small problem: We don’t have a specific location outside of central Sri Lanka yet, and we’re in Lyon, France, right now. By my calculations, seeing as it’s eight a.m. now and it’s at least a ten-hour flight, plus a three-hour time differential in their favor, I don’t know how we’re going to make it in time to stop it. And this is assuming she is indeed in Sri Lanka.”