The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(74)

They heard Mills arguing with Grant even before they got back to the dining room.

“Don’t you understand? You have to let me loose, if they see me there’s a good chance they’re going to take one look and see Khaleed Al-Asaad. They’ll take me into custody and sort through the reality later. It’ll blow this entire operation. Look, there’s a nuke, and we’ve got to stop it.”

Nicholas said from the doorway, “Grant, let’s play it this way. Go let in the police. Mike and I will take care of him.”

Grant gestured at his dirty, bloody clothes. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t cuff me on sight.”

Nicholas smiled. “You’re married to Kitsune. I’m betting you can talk your way out of anything.”

Nicholas took off the restraints, pulled Mills to his feet, and marched him from the room, Mike covering him. She was down to the last few bullets in her magazine, but that was enough to take out this bozo if he tried anything.

Grant was yelling out the door now, “I don’t speak French, I’m a British citizen, I work for Blue Mountain. We have a wounded man here, we need a medic and an ambulance, stat.”

Mike said, “I hear one of the police speaking English. Good. No one’s going to shoot Grant, not right away, at least.”

Nicholas pushed Mills into a small parlor off the dining room, shoved him into a chair. “Don’t move a muscle.”

“No need to get rough, Agent Drummond. I’m on your side.”

“Trust me, it’s to your benefit to shut up, mate. It’s been a bloody long twenty-four hours and I don’t see it getting any better.”

“Time is running out. If the nuke goes off—”

“I told you to shut up.”

Nicholas’s phone rang, a 202 area code. D.C. “Yes?”

“Agent Drummond? Carlton Grace. Didn’t expect our paths to cross again so soon.”

“Nor did I. We’re secure, I assume?”

“Yes. Speak your mind, and make it fast, I’m busy here.”

“I have Vince Mills here, he told us a wild-hair tale only you bozos at the CIA could come up with. Do you claim him?”

Grace started to chuckle. “However did you manage to hook up with Vinny? And what’s he doing telling you his name?”

“He’s told us everything. Like you, evidently, we’re also on the trail of this nuke EMP. Are we on the same page now?”

Another sharp breath, then Grace sighed. “Why am I not surprised you’re involved, Drummond? We’re getting down to the wire. Anything you can do to help secure the nuke, our resources and assets are yours. Mills has been on the hunt for two years now. He’s legit. He almost had eyes on it, too, until last week when everything went south. How’d you get involved?”

“Through Jean-Pierre Broussard. A friend is on his security detail. They were on the yacht that went down. We went for the friend, got wrapped up in stopping this nuke.”

“Wait, Broussard is alive?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Does he know where Patel is going to detonate it?”

“He doesn’t. But we’re nearly certain it’s in Sri Lanka. There’s a lunar eclipse at one a.m., and we think the EMP may be timed to go off at the eclipse’s apex. Small problem: Seeing as we don’t have a specific location outside of central Sri Lanka yet, and we’re in Lyon, France, right now. By my calculations, seeing as it’s eight a.m. now and it’s at least a ten-hour flight, plus a three-hour time differential in their favor, I don’t know how we’re going to make it in time to stop it. And this is assuming she is indeed in Sri Lanka.”

“We can rally some assets. Help you track them, and if they’re found, get you there. We have people on the ground in Sri Lanka. We can send them along with you.”

“That’s a lot to coordinate.”

Grace said simply, “I’m a good coordinator. It’s what I do best. How do you propose tracking them?”

“I could make a cell phone call sharing the good news Jean-Pierre Broussard is alive. That would do it. Especially if the call came from Patel and Byrne’s business partner, Al-Asaad.”

Grace said, “We’ve tried it. She’ll scramble the call. They’ve always been exceedingly careful with their communications. We’ve never been able to pinpoint Byrne, it’s part of our problems with this. They’re very smart.”

“I’m not worried about what she says. I want to verify she’s in Sri Lanka. A call from a trusted source, with the infrastructure in place to capture its location, or at least triangulate—”

“I know what you’re thinking. She uses a satellite phone that has tracking, yes, but she always, always has it turned off. And you know a satellite’s tracking is much broader than a cell phone tower. When she has the tracker off, we have one chance, only one, that the phone might register a single ping before it scrambles. Thing is, the ping is rerouted multiple times. So far, we’ve never been able to capture it. We’ve tried this before, following Byrne. She’s never had the GPS on. She’s been very careful.”

“We have nothing to lose trying again, and this time, we’ll use a deencryption tool of my own design. See if it works.”

There was a slight pause, then, “You’re telling me you have better toys than the CIA?”