The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(10)

Three years since he’d begun his search, three long years he’d prayed, he’d studied, followed any and every lead he heard about or read about in ancient texts, stories, legends, he didn’t care. Many times he’d despaired because she’d gotten progressively weaker, but then, somehow—he believed it a miracle, truth be told—the letter had come to him. Yes, he knew it was meant to come to him, for Emilie.

The past nine days had filled him with hope. Exciting days, frustrating, and then he’d had to deal with the fallout from the failed satellite launch. He’d said over and over to the reporters who incessantly emailed him—These things happen. We regret the failure tremendously, and will endeavor not to let it happen again.

Let the press clamor. Jean-Pierre could care less about the satellites his company launched or, in this case, failed to launch into space. No, what he was about to find was the Holy Grail itself, the ultimate reward to those worthy and deserving—the granting of one’s greatest desire and everlasting life. For Emilie.

And he’d finally found the Flor de la Mar, no question in his mind. He’d seen in the silty quiet of the water’s depth the skeleton, spars and metal scattered on the ocean floor. Ah, but there were significant pieces still intact. A five-by-ten chunk of the hull had been their first recovery. Upon examination, they were able to see the repairs to the hull made after the ship’s maiden voyage, when it began to leak. The round marks from the wooden repair pegs had been almost perfectly preserved in the salty deep waters.

For nine days, they’d been diving to the wreck. They’d split into two teams—divers and those running the submersible, as the wreckage was in two areas—one half on the reef, 656 feet under the water, the other deeper by nearly 300 feet, down into a dark, unmapped trench.

The ship herself was in tatters, clearly broken apart by the waves that had sunk her centuries ago. A loss, but nothing to discourage him, because the cargo was scattered across a football field’s length of terrain. So far, they’d flagged hundreds of crates buried in the silt.

The cargo. Or should he say, the lost treasure from the heavens.

He wasn’t at all surprised the ship had gone down. The fact was they’d overloaded her with treasure and she wouldn’t withstand a ferocious storm. She had been repaired many times, this old warhorse of a ship, and was not up to the challenge. Her sinking was no fault of the Heaven Stone. The weight of the crates alone was beyond her capabilities, not to mention crew, supplies, and of course, the stone. He wondered why Albuquerque had decided to use her to transport the treasure he’d taken from the King of Siam after Albuquerque’s conquest of Malacca. Where was his brain? Broussard asked himself again, how had the Grail come to be among the treasures of Siam? He didn’t know why, doubted he would ever know, nor did he really care. He only wanted to find it, find it before Emilie suffocated to death.

A bright young voice called out from the doorway, “You were reading that ancient letter again, weren’t you, Jean-Pierre? You have memorized it.”

Jean-Pierre looked up to see Devi, beautiful Devi, with her charmingly accented French, her glorious black hair braided halfway down her back, her perfect young body. So eager she was, and how she pleased him, her brightness, her curiosity. She distracted him when he despaired, and to be fair, he found her incredible in bed. To his surprise she wasn’t at all venal. She was kindhearted, amazing in his experience for one so young and beautiful, and amazingly, she’d been presented to him quite unexpectedly, like a lovely steak on a plate, by a wealthy businessman in Kuala Lumpur. The world saw her as his current mistress, and that was true enough. But unlike others before her, she was interested in him and in his search, always eager to listen to his stories about the Holy Grail. But of course he’d never told her about Emilie. No one knew about Emilie. He’d always protected her identity, kept her away from the rapacious, ever-insatiable media, to spare her the pain of being called illegitimate.

Devi stood in the suite doorway, wearing a lacy white coverup, and beneath it he knew there was a bikini that would make a man’s guts twist. He found it amazing his crew never leered at her, never made jokes about his latest mistress behind their hands. Fact was they liked her. He saw she was looking down at the linen packet.

“Devi, yes, I have memorized it. I’ve told you, the very existence of this letter gives me new hope when I would fall into depression. It makes me hold to my belief.” He’d shown it to her, of course, and she’d read it.

She crossed the room to where he stood, lightly laid her hand on his shoulder. “I have spoken to the men. They are convinced something—they don’t know what—is down there, waiting to be retrieved. They all want it to be the Holy Grail. They want to present it to you. They are as excited as you are. Tell me, Jean-Pierre, if—no—when you have the Grail in your possession, what will you do with it? Carry it on your shoulders to show the world? Become the emperor of the planet forever? What?”

He looked into her beautiful face, so vital with health and youth. Jean-Pierre was twice her age, wealthy, a man who knew he was handsome and well-made and charming. And notoriously fickle with his women. Still, Devi had been with him for more than six months, a record, both of them knew.

He kissed her gently, then eased the linen-wrapped letter into his battered leather logbook. “No, I do not wish to be an emperor forever or carry it on my shoulders and prance about the world and show off my prize.” What to say? “It is something private, something very special to me.”