The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(86)

The wind was so strong now they could scarcely hear each other. They ran the last hundred feet to the hangar, the hot, spicy air billowing around them. Even though it was raining, perspiration beaded on Mike’s forehead. “Then again, maybe right now I’d prefer the London fog and rain. At least you don’t sweat.”

“My mum always told me ladies never sweat, they glow.”

“Tell me the next time we’re facing off at the gym. I’ll show you how I can glow.”

Vince Mills was already conversing with a group of tough-looking men and women who’d just entered the hangar next to their plane. At their curious glances, she said, “Looks like our arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed. Hopefully they’re on our side. We’re going to need all the help we can get. Listen, Nicholas, before they join us, let me tell you what I found out about Patel. Here’s the bottom line: When Jean-Pierre told her about his search for the Holy Grail three years ago, she quickly became obsessed. She desperately wanted to get her hands on the Grail because it fits in with her plan to set off the nuke in space, causing the EMP.”

“But how? To what end? Why does she need the Grail?”

“Let’s get more distance from the CIA folk. Believe me, this is private.” She leaned close. “She believes, as does Jean-Pierre, the Holy Grail will give her immortality. She must be immortal because she believes they are. She’s counting on the explosion to knock a hole in the atmosphere so her ‘friends’ can come get her. Her ‘friends’ are the same beings she claims saved her life when she was detached from her tether on the space station all those years ago. The Numen. It all started out kumbaya, with the Numen assuring Patel they’d bring peace to the world, no more war, no more famine, no more hate. But her conversations changed as she changed, became bitter, more angry. The last several years, she’s wanted to rule the Earth with the Numen’s help. She wants power, she wants ultimate control. There’s lots more, but that’s the short version.”

He stared at her. “This is all about little green aliens?”

“It would be cool if they were green, but Dr. Patel never mentioned what they looked like or their color. I don’t think she ever knew.”

“Well, this answers a lot of questions.”

“Indeed it does. Now, Carl Grace sent over the dossier on Kiera Byrne. Nicholas, she’s seriously bad news. However did she pass the background check to become the security chief at Galactus?”





CHAPTER SIXTY


That was an excellent question. Nicholas said, “I’m thinking Patel managed to do it. She wanted Byrne, got her approved.”

“Bypassed all their protocols? She managed to keep from them that Byrne had done time? I know, a few arrests for petty things. But there was a big one in 2010. She was twenty. They found her in an alley right after a supermarket blew up in Derry, caught her with a weapon and bomb-making materials. She did two years, then was released.”

“So she’s twenty-eight, twenty-nine now. What else?”

“She’s a chip off the old block. Her mother died in jail for a bombing in 1990. Also a supermarket. Her mother was an actress, then an activist, then an outspoken member of Sinn Fein. She booby-trapped a car in Belfast, rigged it to explode when three members of Parliament were driving by. She was scheduled for release under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 but died a couple of months before she would have been released. Byrne learned at the knee of a master, for sure. Explosives and extensive weapons training, and it looks like she went off-grid in South America for a time before she joined Patel’s security detail in 2014.”

“What was she doing in South America?”

“Unknown at this time, but one source thinks she met local terrorists and these are the people who eventually hooked her up with the big bad terrorist Khaleed Al-Asaad—sorry, the idiot Vince Mills—in one of the ISIS training camps in Venezuela. They were in the same area at the same time. Hey, my phone’s not working. Do you have a signal?”

He looked at his. “Yes.”

“That’s a relief. Let’s check in with Adam and Gray, fill them in about Byrne and see if they have anything new for us. Or any warnings about what’s to come before we head to Aquarius.”

Nicholas flicked up the antenna for the sat phone and dialed in.

Gray answered, “You two survived your ride, I take it?”

Mike said, “We did. It was a blast. What’s happening there?”

“Oh, you know. Nothing major. We’re just at Defcon Three. Everyone is mobilizing in case a nuke goes off.”

Nicholas said, “Okay, that’s good. Listen, Gray, I have an idea. I haven’t had much time to analyze it since we didn’t exactly have Wi-Fi on the flight, but if the military is already raising the threat levels, then I’d like to give them a suggestion, should it be possible.”

“I’m all ears.”

“A nuclear bomb needs a trigger in order to explode and create fission, correct? And the fission part is what we’d like to avoid at all cost. If fission happens, the nuke goes off and the EMP follows.”

“Yes, as far as I know.”

“So if the bomb were destroyed before the trigger went off, we could avoid the nuclear explosion entirely. We could blow up the bomb and not set off the nuke.”