The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(104)

“What do I do?”

“Look for a panel.”

“There’s a panel, I’ve put my hand on it a hundred times now, and it’s not opening. I’m trying to break in and I can’t do it.”

“Okay, take a breath. It’s programmable. I’m going to need you—“

“There’s no way, Gray. I’m not the computer whiz you guys are.”

It hit her then. She looked up. The ceiling.

“Hold on, I’m going to try something else.”

She didn’t hesitate. She piled up the two dead bodies the soldiers had left and used them as a stepping stool to climb up to the ceiling. She shoved the panel above her head and it gave way.

Her arms screamed as she pulled herself up into the rafters. The steel door to the command center reached all the way to the ceiling above her, but there was a tiny gap on either side, fifteen feet to the left and to the right of her current position. Rafters spread out like metal ribs in five-foot increments.

“Okay, Gray, can you hear me? I’m in the ceiling, I’m going to try and get around this door from above.”

“Mike, we’re under a minute—hurry!”

She didn’t think, she just did it. She jumped the five feet from the first rafter to the second, almost falling off. The pain in her ankle shooting up her leg took her breath away, plus the mud on her boots made each step slippery. No time to take off her boots, and her ankle needed the support. She jumped more carefully the second time, landing better, and jumped again, to where she could see the sliver of light.

“This better work.”

The gap between the steel and the girder that made the wall was small, but she had a runner’s build. She eyed the gap, realized there was no way to make it through with all her gear. She shucked off the tactical vest, put a gun in her waistband at the small of her back, and squeezed herself into the gap, past the steel door.

She barely made it.

Once on the other side of the steel wall, she danced her way back two rafters, then dropped to her knees and used the butt of the gun to bang a hole in the ceiling large enough to drop through. The ceiling material fell to the floor and she braced herself for a retaliatory shot, but nothing came.

She stuck her head down through the hole and saw an empty room. But it was definitely the command center.

She dropped in, landing on her good foot.

“Nicholas!” Then she saw him lying on his side. She ran across the room, her heart pounding in her ears. He was still breathing.

“Come on, Nicholas, you’ve gotta get up and turn off the nuke.”

“I’m—trying—” he gasped out, and she saw the keyboard on the floor next to him. “I shut down the failsafe on the satellite. But the countdown didn’t stop—”

“Which one is running the bomb?”

He pointed. She pulled her Glock from the small of her back and emptied the entire magazine into the computer.

Thirteen shots.

An explosion rattled the building, and she dropped to her knees. Threw herself over Nicholas. It hadn’t worked, she’d failed.

She heard cries and shouts, smelled smoke, and realized the explosion was on the ground, not in the sky. Mills’s men must have blown off a door to get in.

She looked at the countdown clock. It wasn’t moving anymore, read 00:00:01:03.

She reared back. Nicholas was white, his breathing labored, and there was blood covering his chest. But he gave her a half smile. “Shooting the sucker—never would have—thought of that. You’re—such a show-off.”

She drew in a deep breath. “Where are you hit?”

“Lung,” and his voice sounded hollow, breathless. “Then she shot me in the chest, hit my Kevlar.” Mike spoke calmly into her comms. “The countdown has stopped. Gray, Adam, Lia, anyone there? Nicholas needs a medic, immediately. It—it’s not good. I think he’s lung-shot.”

“Copy that.”

She brushed Nicholas’s hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know if we stopped the nuke, but it stopped the countdown. You turned it off from the ground?”

“Yes. It should have stopped the countdown, too.”

“So we’ll never know if it was you who stopped it, or me. I’ll go with me. My shooting has always been better than your computer skills.”

He tried to laugh, but only his jerky hollow breathing sounded in the silence.

“Mills’s guys are now inside, that was the explosion we heard.” Nicholas was getting paler by the minute. She got back on her comms. “Were you able to get anyone up here? If so, divert them into the building, now. Hurry.”

But it was Carl Grace’s voice that came back to her.

“Medic is on his way in. Keep Drummond comfortable. No reports of any bomb going off in the atmosphere as of yet. Whatever you two did, well done, agents.”

“You get someone in here to help my partner, and we’ll call it even.”

“They’re on their way. You have to get Dr. Patel into custody.”

“I’m out of bullets and left my gear in the ceiling. And my partner is down. Let someone else get her.” As she spoke, she was easing Nicholas out of the heavy gear he was wearing. When she got if off him, he could breathe more easily. Nicholas sucked in air. “Don’t worry about me. Mike, go. She might have a separate override. Go get Patel. Be careful, she’s quite mad, utterly over the edge.”