The Last Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Finally, after an hour of stops and starts and a final warning of the roads’ deterioration by a small group of soldiers who looked to Mike to be about seventeen, they were out of the city and winding into the mountains.

  Bernard said, “Now, Aquarius. The facility was under construction for several years. They even had roads built into the area. It sits on the edge of the nature preserve, with tall fencing, electrified, not unlike a military installation. It runs on generators, so cutting the electricity isn’t an option, everything will power up within moments. There are guards—many ex-military—armed with automatic weapons, who patrol the grounds. With a typhoon of this magnitude nearly upon us, it is possible they will take shelter, assuming no one would dare try to breach the facility in such bad weather.”

  Mike said, “What’s our best entry point?”

  Bernard opened his tablet and brought up several photos. “As you can see, there is only one road in, and there is a guard tower in this location, as well as an electrified gate.”

  She groaned. “Those fences are ten feet tall, with razor wire. Not exactly what I want to be scaling in a typhoon.”

  “Yes, I agree it would be most difficult. The best way in is to be let in. We can’t force our way through the gate unless we are able to both turn off the electrical grid and destabilize the generators, and this could be too challenging.”

  Nicholas said, “I could do it—” but Bernard raised a hand.

  “It won’t be necessary.”

  Mike grinned. “Bribery, then. That’ll work.”

  Bernard laughed. “When we were made aware guests were coming”—he looked pointedly at Mills, who gave him a feral grin—“we rotated an asset onto guard duty. One of the gate guards was suddenly taken ill, and our asset was next on the roster for duty. He will meet us at the gate and make sure it is opened.”

  Mike arched an eyebrow at Arndt. “Now that’s handy. However did you manage to have an asset in place already?”

  “It is my brother’s son. He doesn’t work for your government, he works for mine. He has been assigned to this facility since its inception. Though there has not seemed to be anything illegal happening, the fact the owners set up such extreme protections for the facility so closely set off warning bells. My government took the steps they thought necessary to protect our people in the event the facility did end up being an illegal operation of some kind. There are several buildings on the property, and the main building, in the center, has a retractable roof. This is where the telescope lives.”

  “Is the telescope why they call it ‘Statue to the Stars’?”

  “Yes, exactly. It is massive. It took three days to maneuver it into place with a crane brought in especially for the job. It’s been finished for a little over a year now. Oh yes, the woman who owns Aquarius is rarely in residence.”

  Nicholas said, “She is there now, though, right?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You brains should’ve asked that first,” Mills said. He didn’t wait for Mike or Nicholas to try for a comeback. “Bernard, there are plans, blueprints, documents we can use to ascertain where our targets are, yes?”

  Bernard shook his head. “Unfortunately, the office holding those documents burned down. For some reason, the plans for the facility have never been entered digitally, so all we have to go on is what we know from my nephew, and the lore surrounding the construction.”

  “Lore?”

  “Yes. You must understand, the locals shun this place. They fear it is evil.”

  Mike asked, “Why?”

  “There were several accidents when it was being built. Three local men disappeared. One or two bodies were found in the rivers, as if they’d slipped in and drowned, but the bodies had been—interfered with. And it is claimed the bodies of animals have been found on the site as well. Something that kills lives on the land. Napaurauātamaya, or avatārayak. An evil spirit, or a ghost.”

  Mike said, “What do you think it is?”

  Bernard grinned. “I am an educated man. I don’t believe in ghost stories or phantom evils. There are leopards, boars, bears, and venomous snakes roaming free in this area. They are all natural, explainable deaths, at least to me.”

  “How would large predators get inside the fence?”

  “We are talking one hundred square kilometers of land. Nature finds a way.”

  Bernard leaned forward and said a few brief words in Sinhala to their driver, Samuel, who sped up a bit.

  Mike said, “I wonder what the dates would show if the deaths were matched up to Byrne’s and Patel’s stays here?”

  Nicholas said, “You think Kiera or Patel is the evil ghost?”

  “Well, we’re talking a lot of dead people—a murdered psychiatrist in New York, a murdered psychiatrist at NASA, a murdered scientist in Idaho. I have a feeling Patel murdered those people. As for Kiera Byrne, her profile shows her to be dangerous, volatile. I’m also betting on a sadist. Take your pick.” She turned to Vinny. “Hey, Al-Asaad, you met with Kiera many times over the past two years, right? What would you say about her?”

  Mills said, “I would say I wouldn’t want to marry her, that’s for sure.”

  Nicholas looked at his watch. “We’re slowing again. How long is it now, Bernard?”

  “We’re still a full hour away. As the crow flies, the facility is there”—he pointed to the east, through a thick canopy of trees—“approximately ten kilometers. But we must follow the roads, which wind up the mountain in switchbacks, which is why it takes longer. The heavy rain is making it worse. In monsoon season the roads often disappear under mud. We’ve only just finished monsoon. A typhoon on top of it will cause major destruction throughout the southwest of the country. We must be careful. This is why we go so slowly.” He added, “It is not only the snakes and leopards that kill here. Ceylon can be a very dangerous place.”

  They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Mike said, “If the apex of the lunar eclipse has the moon over Nepal, we’re still close enough that if the nuke goes off, Sri Lanka will be affected.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “That means, then, that Patel is looking for her friends, the Numen, to protect her, to possibly come for her, but she’s convinced she’ll be safe. But here’s the question. If the nuke goes off in a low Earth orbit, then Aquarius would be offline, unless she’s managed to protect it with some sort of massive Faraday cage, which I suppose could have been built into the roofs of the buildings. What do you think?”

  Nicholas said, “It’s very possible she doesn’t care. She’ll be with her saviors. Bugger me, I wish we had those blueprints. Since we have only another hour—hopefully—” he said to Vinny and Bernard, “let me tell you about the weird stuff you don’t know—”

  Mike felt the SUV shift, then heave and jerk, heard Samuel cry out—and, suddenly, they were falling.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Mike had the breath knocked out of her when she was slammed against the safety belt. Something crashed into her leg, then her shoulder. She was disoriented, couldn’t see, only heard curses and yells, the sounds of metal being crushed. The scent of loam and mud filled her nostrils. A hand grabbed hers and she realized it was Nicholas and he was shouting at her. “I’ve got you.” He said it over and over. Oddly, she relaxed, stopped fighting against the seat belt and the frantic pitching and twisting of the car. She realized the SUV had slid off the road and they were rocketing down a steep hill. But then, suddenly, they hit something and the SUV flipped and they were sliding down the hill upside down on a vast sea of mud. A window shattered and water and mud flowed in. It was only her and Nicholas in the back seat. Where were Bernard and Vinny?

  The SUV slammed against a large tree and shuddered to a stop. She opened her eyes to see Samuel slumped over the wheel, his aviator glasses askew over sightless eyes, a tree branch through his chest. She must have screamed because Nicholas squeezed her hand. She heard his voice, garbled to her ears. “Are you hurt, are you okay?”
>
  Finally, she was together enough to whisper, “I’m okay, I’m still in my seat belt. Nicholas, Samuel, the tree branch. He’s hurt badly. We have to help him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike, he’s dead.”

  Of course he was, she simply didn’t want to accept it.

  “We got caught in a mudslide?”

  “Yes. I think Mills and Bernard were thrown out.” Nicholas leaned downward and pressed two fingers into the driver’s neck. He’d known he was dead, but he’d had to try. He undid his safety belt, landing hard on what was now the floor of the SUV. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  They heard Mills and Bernard yelling.

  Nicholas shouted, “We’re alive! We’ll need help up the hill, though.” And to Mike, he said, “We’re filling up fast with mud.”

  She took one last look at Samuel, said a prayer for him, then held on as Nicholas cut her free from the belt. She fell against him. He hugged her tight to his chest.

  After a moment, she said, “I never thought of meeting upside down in a mudslide.”

  “I don’t want you to get bored, Agent Caine. Now, let’s get out of here.”

  They maneuvered out of the truck onto the muddy wet ground. The rain was slamming down, the winds howled, and ankle-deep mud sucked at their boots. It was dark and somehow they had to make it up the steep slope. Nicholas said, “We slid at least fifty feet straight down the hill. If the SUV hadn’t hit the tree, we might have landed at the bottom of the mountain, then good luck getting us back up.”

  Mike raised her face, let the rain clean off the mud.

  Nicholas called, “Hurry up there, mate,” and Vinny’s face appeared over the edge of the cliff, his beardless jawline white as a specter’s in the darkness.

  He shouted, “Bad news. The road’s washed out ahead. We can’t get the SUVs any farther. We’re going to have to go in overland, carrying our gear, so salvage what you can from our vehicle. We’re coming to get you.”

  Nicholas looked down at his watch, wiped off the mud, and said, “Bloody hell,” followed by a few more choice phrases under his breath. “Five miles through the bloody jungle, in a bloody typhoon, in the bloody dark? With gear? We’re never going to make it in time.”

  Mike shook his arm. “Stop that. We’re going to make it. We’re trained professionals, to us five miles is nothing.”

  He pulled a huge machete from the back of the SUV and handed it over, handle first. “Fine. You want to be an optimist? You can lead.”

  She took the heavy blade, swung it in front of her a few times in dramatic Zorro fashion, grimaced only slightly at the bruises across her chest from the safety belt. “Not a problem. All right, boyo, follow me.”

  * * *

  It took them twenty minutes to get up the hill, hand over hand on a rope let down by Vinny and Bernard, then another ten minutes to get everyone geared up and ready for the trek. Nicholas was able to reach Adam with the sat phone, and he triangulated their position to Aquarius and mapped the easiest route. It was slightly longer than five miles, but Adam didn’t think it would be as dangerous as the more direct route.

  They were about to sign off and get underway when Adam said, “Hey, hold on. I see another option. Looking farther east, there’s an older road leading to the facility, one I assume they stopped using when they built the main thoroughfare. If you can reach it, you’ll have a straighter shot in. It’s basically a path now, you couldn’t get a vehicle through it, but on foot, it will be manageable. It’s two klicks to your west, then another three and some change to the gate.”

  Bernard said, “We must be very careful if we choose that path. Tamil Tiger rebels once controlled the area. There could be IEDs along the route, left over from their camps. They were defeated and the area cleared, but I can’t be certain we’ll be safe.”

  Mike swiped her hand over her face. “We can do it, Bernard. It is the shortest, quickest route, and believe me, time is of the essence. We’ll be careful.”

  Vinny said, “It’s come to this? I’m actually agreeing with an FBI agent? Maybe I lost my macho when I shaved off my beard. Yeah, we have to chance it.”

  Bernard said, “All right. It’s been ten years—If you feel the risk is worth it, then this is the way we’ll go.”

  Adam pushed the route to Nicholas’s phone. He said to the others, “I have the new route, we’re heading in. Adam, keep an eye out. And when do we talk to the White House?”

  Gray answered, his voice hyper even though he had to be dragging. “Hey, team. Afraid that’s being handled by the CIA—Carlton Grace. They liked your idea, Nicholas, and they’re moving forward. You won’t believe this, but it’s too classified for even the FBI to know about. We’ve been looped out. I’m going to keep my ear to the ground, see what I can find out.”

  “That figures. Copy that, Gray. We’ll be in touch.”

  Adam said, “I’ll keep watching you, Nicholas, we have a stationary satellite and the feed is relatively clear. We’ll be following the heat signatures. The rain is making it hard to see you, so if a bear comes out of the woods I won’t be able to warn you. Do me a favor and squawk your phone every five minutes, just in case we lose sight of you in the trees.”

  “Will do, Adam. Thanks.”

  Nicholas turned to Mills. “We’re out of the loop? Only the CIA? I’m tempted, if a bear comes along, to throw you in its path.”

  Vinny had the gall to laugh. “Long live the CIA, the true power in the world.”

  It was close, but Mike didn’t belt him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  T-MINUS 2 HOURS

  The White House

  Washington, D.C.

  Carl Grace presented his ID at the gatehouse to the White House grounds. The agent looked it over carefully, even shined a black light on it, verifying its unseen markers. Since the attempts on President Jefferson Bradley’s and Vice President Callan Sloan’s lives last month, White House security had been tight as a drum. No Secret Service detail wanted to lose a president.

  As the CIA’s counterterrorism director, Grace was well known to the gatehouse, and to the agent inside. He was half-annoyed at how long it was taking, and half-pleased. If only they were as careful with the people who weren’t supposed to be on the grounds.

  Finally, the agent handed him back his ID and waved him through. He parked in the side lot and went in the portico doors.

  He was surprised to see Callan Sloan waiting for him.

  “Madam Vice President.”

  “Carl. We’re in the Situation Room.”

  She turned and he followed, stepped through the door at the end of the room, then down the concrete stairs to the Situation Room.

  Inside, President Bradley and a dozen advisers were studying a screen showing a satellite view of Sri Lanka, and another showing a scattering of photos. Dr. Nevaeh Patel’s and Kiera Byrne’s faces stared at him—one older woman with dark hair in a ponytail and black glasses, the other younger, red-headed. Grace had always believed Byrne could tear a man’s head off and go eat a sandwich. As for Patel, she looked like a terrifyingly smart dominatrix who could wield a whip with the best of them. He saw no mercy in those dark eyes of hers.

  Bradley stood, shook Grace’s hand. “Thanks for coming, Carl. You know everyone?”

  Grace glanced around the room. In addition to the president and vice president, the assortment of men and women included the president’s chief of staff, the head of NASA, and a couple of spit-shined men in uniform from the DOD.

  Bradley said, “The joint chief is on one open line, and we have General Clarke from Strategic Command on another. They’re tracking the satellite where they think the nuke might be. Have a seat, they’re about to brief us on what they know. Go ahead, Command.”

  A third screen flashed up and Grace saw the interior of another situation room, knew this one was in Florida, well away from D.C. He also knew Callan Sloan shouldn’t be here. Protocol dictated the vice president and the president be separated in times of
a national security crisis. But he also knew Sloan wouldn’t leave Bradley’s side, even with a gun to her head, succession plan be damned. He liked that about her. She was tough, loyal, and smart.

  The general said, “We think we found the right satellite, the one launched on the fourteenth. It’s in the right orbit to be the P-Tel Communications satellite. The specs match. From what we can tell, despite the official word from Galactus, the satellite was successfully launched in orbit, only it was inserted in a completely different elliptical, which is why we didn’t pick up on it sooner. Like you, we understood the satellite missed its orbital window and had fallen back to Earth. We also would have been looking for it in the wrong orbit entirely, much higher than this. It was certainly never activated by P-Tel Communications, though I did receive a report they did in fact attempt to communicate with it.

  “We’ve come to believe Dr. Patel managed to recode the satellite’s computer system and hijack the motherboard from the ground. Instead of the satellite inserting in a geosynchronous orbit at twenty-two thousand miles above Earth, she sent it into a low Earth orbit at two hundred and fifty miles, where it has been moving, silently, into position—right here.” The screen changed to a map, showing the ley lines of the satellite’s orbit, looping sine waves that ended up converging in a single spot. “Its current position puts it two hundred and sixty-seven miles above Earth, in the general vicinity of Nepal.”

  Vice President Sloan said, “Nepal is nowhere near Sri Lanka and Patel’s facility. Why there?”

  “No idea, ma’am. But it’s in the general region where the eclipse can best be viewed. We’re assuming the eclipse has something to do with all of this.”

  Sloan turned to Grace. “We have assets on the ground in Sri Lanka now, correct?”

  Grace said, “Correct, ma’am. There is also a Category Four typhoon making landfall in the area where our assets are located. Currently, they are here.”