The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(102)

Which one was responsible for the satellite’s motherboard?

He wished his comms worked, but it didn’t matter. Neither he nor Adam were astrophysicists.

No help for it. He started moving left to right, systematically, reading the running programs. One was telemetry, one was an orbital path, and he stopped to study that screen. It was just as important for them to figure out where the satellite was as it was for him to get the bomb countdown stopped. He looked at his watch—he had less than six minutes to stop it.

At that moment, his comms came back on with a deafening squawk, and he heard Adam shouting in his ear. “Nicholas, Nicholas can you hear us? We can finally hear you, you’re muttering those great British curse words. If you can hear us, give us a sit rep.”

He shouted back, “Yes, I can hear you again. Thank God, Adam. I’m looking at a screen right now and I’ve got the orbital path, is this where the satellite is right now?”

He read off a series of coordinates, and Adam said, “I’ve got it, we’re mapping it now. Can you turn off the bomb?”

Nicholas looked at his watch—five and a half minutes to go. “Well, I’m in the command center. Can’t find Patel, and Mike is somewhere out in the halls going head-to-head with Kiera Byrne.”

“We’ve heard a lot of fighting, but I think she’s okay, I heard her cussing up a blue streak about her ankle. The bomb, Nicholas. You have to turn off the bomb. We can’t stop it from here, can’t get the Orbital Test Vehicle into place in time. It’s all up to you.”

“Problem is I can’t tell which bloody setup is to the satellite’s motherboard.”

“Well, keep looking, and hurry up. The White House is panicking, they’re about to get on the phone to Moscow and Beijing to warn them, and they’d rather not have to do that.”

“I’m looking, Wait, I think this is it.”

He sat on the stool and dug into the code. “It is, I’ve got it. Bloody hell, Adam, it’s in remote mode. I don’t think I can—”

A voice behind him said, “What do you think you’re doing? Get away from there.”

He whirled around, saw the gun before he registered the woman holding it. He dove to the side, sent the stool spinning away, but it was too late. He had only a heartbeat to register that he’d found Nevaeh Patel before the bullet struck him and the pain began, so sharp and intense it took his breath away. He went down.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO


Nevaeh stared dispassionately down at the man. He wasn’t dead, he was breathing, but he’d be dead soon. She heard shouting, realized he was wearing an earwig. She knelt down, took it out of his ear, and listened.

“Nicholas, Nicholas, report! We heard a gunshot, are you hit? Are you hit?”

She said, “Whoever you are, oh yes, he’s hit. He’s down for the count.”

She dropped the earwig to the tile floor, smashed it with her shoe. The remote shouting stopped.

She saw the man, Nicholas, was bleeding, the bullet had caught him in the upper arm. She pressed her foot against the wound until he groaned in pain.

“Your name is Nicholas? And just who are you, you gorgeous creature?”

Nicholas tried to lunge at her, but she was fast and he was light-headed from the pain. He could feel the bullet, knew it had gone through his arm and into his chest, right in the notch where his body armor met his underarm. He couldn’t tell how deep it was, but he knew it had to be bad, he was having trouble breathing. It had hit a lung.

He knew he had to get up, he had to stop the countdown. He tried to push himself to his knees and Patel started to laugh at him.

“Hurts, does it? I’ve not been shot, but Kiera told me the pain is incredible, like hot pokers shoving into you over and over.”

He managed to grab hold of the counter that held the multiple command and control modules.

He got some air in his lungs, not much, maybe he’d gotten lucky—again—and the bullet wasn’t in his lung. He looked over at the older woman, fit, tall, glossy black hair, wearing, strangely, a Roman-style toga. “Why are you doing this?”

“Let me ask you, Dr. Patel. Why do you do what you do? Trying to set off a nuclear EMP, hurting thousands, and eventually, millions of innocent people the world over?”

“Unlike you, I am doing this to change our screwed-up world, to stop all the fighting, the incessant wars. I will bring peace, no matter what is necessary to do so. The Numen will be beside me. I have the Heaven Stone, thanks to Jean-Pierre, and it will come to obey me, to do what I require of it. I have the satellite in place, the bomb will go off shortly, and the Numen will come to me. They will reward me.

“I met them in space, did you know? Is that why you’re here? Did those bastards at NASA send you? Well, let me tell you, the moment the bomb goes off, the space station will be the first casualty. They’re going to be in exactly the right spot—”

“No, they won’t. They’ve been alerted to the danger and altered course two hours ago.”

Nicholas watched this woman go from dreamy to psycho in a heartbeat. Even her voice changed, no longer eerily calm, it was vicious, cruel.

“How is that possible? Who are you?”

“I’m Special Agent Nicholas Drummond, FBI. And it’s time to end this insanity, Dr. Patel. Listen to me, please. Your actions could start another world war. Help me end this. Help me turn it off.”