The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(58)

And time was running out.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO


T-MINUS 31 HOURS

May 4, 2018

A small amount of radioactive, weapons-grade plutonium about the size of a U.S. quarter is missing from an Idaho university that was using it for research, leading federal officials on Friday to propose an $8,500 fine. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Idaho State University can’t account for about a 30th of an ounce of the material that’s used in nuclear reactors and to make nuclear bombs. The amount is too small to make a nuclear bomb, agency spokesman Victor Dricks said, but could be used to make a dirty bomb to spread radioactive contamination.

—Associated Press

FBI New York Field Office

26 Federal Plaza

Adam was alone in the office. He’d been running names and flights for three hours, looking for anything that could tie Nevaeh Patel to the Idaho Research Facility. He was good and ready to quit, but since it was new code he’d written expressly for this task, and they were trying to stop a nuke, he was willing to let it run for a full twenty-four hours before admitting defeat.

He’d just finished reading the AP report on the missing plutonium in Idaho. He was on his third Red Bull, fingers sore and wrists aching, his eyes burning. When the program dinged to indicate a match had been found, he at first couldn’t believe it. Then he punched a fist in the air. Of course he should have known it would work. There it was, a flight manifest—it made him sit up, heart revving.

The manifest was for a private jet company out of Duluth specializing in deadhead flights—when the plane was empty of passengers but needed to be moved to a new airport for a client pickup—and allowed the empty seats to be sold at the last minute at a fraction of normal cost so the planes wouldn’t fly empty and waste more fuel.

This particular flight, in July of 2015, originated in London, England, and ended in Boise, Idaho, where it picked up a full load of passengers and continued to Los Angeles.

There was one listed passenger on the London-to-Boise leg of the flight. The passenger’s name was K. R. Byrne.

The moment Adam saw it, he knew he had her. K. R. Byrne.

Kiera Rachel Byrne.

Bingo.

Nevaeh Patel’s bodyguard had gone to Idaho the same week the scientist was killed? Was this when the plutonium had gone missing? What about Dr. Patel? Had she been there as well, taken a separate flight? Using a fake ID and passport?

Adam sent a message to Mike’s computer, telling her what he’d found, then he set about tracing the rest of Byrne’s whereabouts. Knowing she traveled under the name K. R. Byrne helped. He adjusted his coding and waited.

Sure enough, he was able to find another flight, this one a return, a week after the incoming flight. It went to Cuba, then directly to French Guiana, and two days later, back to London.

Had Kiera Byrne taken the stolen plutonium to South America and stashed it there until they were ready to use it? Three years was a long time to keep something so volatile hidden. But it wasn’t like she could take it to France and keep it in her desk at work.

Yes, Guiana made sense—it’s where the signature was spotted by the U.S. Strategic Command nuclear division. So how had she kept it hidden for so long? Where had it been? Did she give the plutonium over to a terror organization that in turn made her the bomb? French Guiana was north of Brazil—not exactly a hotbed of insurgency, but close enough to Venezuela, where there were many reports of bourgeoning terror organizations.

He went back to the travel schedule of K. R. Byrne.

She was a busy woman. He had to assume most of the legitimate travel she did was based around guarding her boss, who also traveled a great deal. For the most part, they flew on one of the three Galactus Lear jets, regular jaunts between Lyon and French Guiana for launches of Galactus rockets. Those were easily searchable, registered flights, all assigned to one of three tail numbers. No, they weren’t hiding or doing anything shifty on those flights.

But Byrne herself continued to make random trips here and there, some to the U.S., some to other European destinations, a few to more exotic locales, like India and Sri Lanka. There was even one flight into the heart of Nepal.

Either she had an inordinate amount of vacation time to burn, or Patel had sent her to scout, plan, get ready for the launch of the nuke, put together the source material to be taken to Guiana and attached to the plutonium. Were the two involved with a terrorist organization?

He created a chart of the flights with their dates, and was about to send it to Mike and Nicholas when he saw a flight to Corsica, with both Patel and Byrne on board. It was August 18, 2015. Adam stared at a grainy photograph that came up with it, but it was clear enough to see Patel and Byrne sitting at a table at the Hotel Corsica restaurant at 10 p.m. local time, and a man sitting at the bar, looking at them.

Who was he? Adam felt a niggling recognition. He called up a series of terrorist photos, most of them barely recognizable, but he was certain. It was Khaleed Al-Asaad sitting at the bar. Well, the database gave it an 85 percent match.

Adam pulled the face from the photo, lined it up side-by-side with Al-Asaad’s last known photograph. The database program ran, lining the screen with red, diagramming the two faces, measuring angles and giving comparisons.

It was Al-Asaad all right, though Adam thought he’d probably had some surgery to alter his looks. His chin wasn’t as strong, nor his nose, and his cheeks were rounder. But the basic measurements—pupillary distance, the set of his ears—these couldn’t be falsified. The program finished running and gave him an official match confirmation. This was Al-Asaad and he was there meeting with Patel and Byrne.