The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(41)

He handed Grant his fitness tracker.

“I thought I’d lost it on The Griffon. Where did you find it?”

“It was on the floor of the sub, under the seat. Covered in water, and I believe I was standing on it for some time, so its most likely ruined, but maybe you’d like to have it anyway.”

Grant strapped it on, held his breath, and pressed the power button. The device flared to life. 12:25 p.m. He grinned. A silly thing to have missed, being able to tell the time.

Broussard smiled at him. “See? Life, it isn’t all bad.”

A large wave caught them, and as the submersible crested, then slid down the wall of water, landing hard in the trough, Grant thought again about Kitsune. What was she doing? Was she safe? He prayed so.

Life isn’t all bad? Yeah, it is.





CHAPTER THIRTY


T-MINUS 43 HOURS

They’d been flying for what seemed like ages, but Mike knew it was only an hour. Her eyes hurt from straining them to look at the water, which shone back up at them. They were flying lower than she liked, able to see the waves as they formed and crested. The swells were massive, and she closed her eyes when it seemed they’d reach up and grab the helicopter.

Nicholas’s cell rang. He pulled it out of his jumpsuit, wedged it under his headset.

“Adam. You have something new? Speak up, it’s loud.”

“I do. Good news. We just got a fresh update from Grant’s tracker. The coordinates have moved significantly. They’ve slid north, up toward Phuket, Thailand. Here’s the latitude and longitude.”

Mike read off the information and the pilot called, “Well out of the search area, you’re sure about this?”

“Adam? The pilot says—”

Adam said, “Tell him we’re sure. Might explain why they haven’t been found. The signal came in brand new, like the tracker had been turned off or something and was turned back on. We’re able to follow it. So fingers crossed the tracker is still attached to Grant.”

The pilot said, “Based on this, we’ve all been looking in the wrong place. The last known signal from the boat should have had them farther south, not heading north.”

“Maybe the yacht was farther north than was first thought.”

“Could be, yes. Or the seas, working their magic. I’ll inform the rest of the search and rescue teams and rejigger our flight path.” The chopper banked to the left, headed on the new course.

Nicholas tapped Mike on the leg. “Again, Dame Mike, good thought with the tracking device.”

She wanted to preen for a moment, but couldn’t, a wave crested right beneath them, scaring her to death. She swallowed. “I hope they’re okay. Why would they have gotten so far out of the search area?”

“Life rafts float. They don’t have the ballast of something larger, can be carried by the waves. I suppose the seas are driving them north because of the outflow from the storm.”

“Okay, that makes sense. We’re due some luck. Now at least we have a specific haystack to search.”

Nicholas said into his cell, “Adam, anything more on the EMP?”

“I’m working on it. As I already told you, the plutonium signature was found two weeks ago, on July 14, the same day Galactus put a satellite into orbit. It was a communications satellite, and according to the news reports, and though the launch went off without a hitch, the satellite itself wasn’t able to deploy. There was a problem with the fairing—that’s the capped part of the rocket that opens to let the satellite out into space. Apparently, the satellite clipped the fairing and was damaged, couldn’t insert properly into orbit and turn itself on.”

“A logical place to start looking for the EMP, then,” Nicholas said. “If the satellite is still up there, we might be able to get a track on it. Gather everything, Adam. We’ll hopefully have Grant back on land in a few hours and we can start chasing down this bloody satellite.”

“Copy that. Be safe. Oh, you know Mr. Zachery is offsite at a training session for the bigwigs this week. He hasn’t been notified of your latest escapade. Ah, Gray swears he won’t say anything.”

Nicholas could hear the grin in Adam’s voice. “Good, because I highly doubt Zachery would be pleased with our current whereabouts. Talk soon, Adam.”

He punched off, zipped his cell back in his flight suit. He and Mike watched the massive waves below and knew they had to be patient. The chopper was starting to bounce around, enough that both Mike and Nicholas tightened the straps of their shoulder harnesses.

Finally, after what seemed like an eon, the pilot called, “We’re coming up on the new coordinates. Keep your eyes peeled. We’re first on scene, but the winds are picking up.”

Nicholas took a monocular out of his go-bag and stuck it to his eye. Mike, shielding her eyes, stared as hard as she could, looking, looking. She spied what looked like a flash of light, realized that must be the sun’s reflection on metal.

“There’s something ahead!”

Nicholas swung his monocular toward the spot where she was pointing. A blip on the horizon, growing larger and larger. The chopper swung up higher and sped toward it. They could hear the pilot on the radio calling to the rest of the search and rescue team. “Spotted, no wreckage, looks like a life raft. Here are my coordinates.” And the crackle and buzz of cheers and babble in a language they didn’t understand.