The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(12)
Devi opened her compass app and sent the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of The Griffon in the next text. Then she typed in, Is my sister well? You promised to let me speak to her.
But there was no answer.
The bitch. Nevaeh had promised, stared her right in the eye and promised not to hurt Elina. Devi stared at the silent phone. She knew if something happened to her little sister, she’d kill Nevaeh Patel with her bare hands.
She hid the phone away, put on her sunglasses, and pretended to sunbathe, all the while forcing herself to try to stay calm.
CHAPTER SIX
T-MINUS 109 HOURS
Galactus Space Industries Headquarters
Lyon, France
The cream bricks were bathed in sunlight when the SUV pulled into the parking lot at Galactus. Nevaeh climbed from the back seat, stepped into the soft thick air. Rain was coming, but for now, the skies were a luminous blue. She set her sunglasses in place as she turned to Kiera, her Kiera, ruthless, hard as nails, fiercely loyal, and loaded down with weapons, but still, to Nevaeh, Kiera was her champion and her confidante, the only other human being she trusted with her very life. Nearly four years now they’d been together.
Kiera was frowning up at the sky. “Will I have time to check the telescope before the rains begin?”
“No, probably not. Don’t worry about it.”
Kiera checked her watch. “You have meetings starting in five minutes. The final report for the board on why the satellite failed to deploy.”
They shared a smile as the main doors slid open.
Nevaeh said, “Then we will give them very final reasons, not the usual nondeploying fairing. I’ve decided it’s to be metal fatigue from the manufacturer, and a bonus, contractually, if there is a failure, they have to give us back all the money we outlaid for the contract. Not our fault. Tsk, tsk. Shouldn’t be so careless.”
She laughed, an elegant, carefree sound. She felt carefree, happier than she had in years. All her hopes, her dreams, everything was about to come to pass, and she was going to be reunited with the Numen and all would be revealed, everyone on this planet would know she was their future, she and the Numen. She was their salvation. Of course she was in a good mood. Years she’d spent getting to this moment. A decade of work to bring about a new age—no more stupid wars, even if she had to castrate every covetous, money-grubbing man on the planet. Or woman.
She knew there would be resistance, at first. People didn’t want to be saved, didn’t, apparently, want there to be no more wars, no more corruption. She had tried to share the possibilities when she’d first encountered the Numen on the space station, and her thanks had been to be drummed out of NASA for her trouble. She’d learned her lesson. The world wasn’t ready for what she would bring them, nor were they ready for the simple truth—life existed outside of Earth. Nevaeh knew the Numen were gods, older than the Olympians, older than the Titans. And they’d chosen her, no one else, just her. And it had taken her seven years, but now she was ready to save the Earth.
Well, not bring peace, exactly. Say, stability, order, function, through her intelligence, her ability to lead. She would bring the Numen to Earth, and they would give her what she had to have—power and immortality. Might people die to fulfill her quest? Of course. But the sacrifices must be made.
The nuclear bomb would fix everything. And the EMP fallout. It would bring them to their knees, make them grateful for her picking them out of the ashes.
As for the static and noise that gummed up the atmosphere, cell phones and radio waves and wireless communications all combining to make the layer of atmosphere around Earth supercharged with disturbances, it would all stop. Soon, the world where people worshiped their devices, were completely dependent on technology, it would all end. There would be blessed silence in the heavens and on Earth. And she’d give Earth the promise of a greater good.
Yes, once all was quiescent, the Numen would come, and she and they would rule—together.
Inside, the headquarters of Galactus looked empty. The floors were a huge expanse of white marble. The walls were pure white, the only splashes of color from small groupings of modern art canvases on the walls that were changed seasonally. But it was the focal point that was incredible—a full planetary system hung from a jet-black ceiling, fifty feet across. It was in perpetual motion, aligned to mimic the movement of the stars and planets in their ellipticals. To Nevaeh, it represented more than a fanciful rendering of the solar system. It was a reminder of the limitless possibilities of space.
A young Jean-Pierre had been to the Guggenheim in New York and fallen in love with the unique interior architecture, and so modeled Galactus after the museum. It was striking. The floor ramps circled upward, ever upward, ten floors, like the spirals of a shell. The offices and workspaces were on the outer walls and the immense center was filled with the universe. Anyone who came in always paused and stared.
Nevaeh loved walking into Galactus and looking up at the universe. Outside of her sensory deprivation chamber, it was the only place that felt like home.
A woman left an unobtrusive reception desk and came across the expanse to greet her, as if she were a general. Other employees appeared. They might as well salute as she walked by, she was, she supposed, actually their general, and they’d soon understand how important she was. Not only their CEO, but more, so much more.
Smiling, at peace, she took the discreet elevator to the tenth floor and walked into the board meeting, head high, prepared to lie. Everything was in motion.