The Last Second (A Brit in the FBI #6)(89)
“How would large predators get inside the fence?”
“We are talking one hundred square kilometers of land. Nature finds a way.”
Bernard leaned forward and said a few brief words in Sinhala to their driver, Samuel, who sped up a bit.
Mike said, “I wonder what the dates would show if the deaths were matched up to Byrne’s and Patel’s stays here?”
Nicholas said, “You think Kiera or Patel’s the evil ghost?”
“Well, we’re talking a lot of dead people—a murdered psychiatrist in New York, a murdered psychiatrist at NASA, the murdered scientist in Idaho. I have a feeling Patel murdered those people. As for Kiera Byrne, her profile shows her to be dangerous, volatile. I’m also betting on a sadist. Take your pick.” She turned to Vinny. “Hey, Al-Asaad, you met with Kiera many times over the past two years, right? What would you say about her?”
Mills said, “I would say I wouldn’t want to marry her, that’s for sure.”
Nicholas looked at his watch. “We’re slowing again. How long is it now, Bernard?”
“We’re a still a full hour away. As the crow flies, the facility is there”—he pointed to the east, through a thick canopy of trees—“approximately ten kilometers. But we must follow the roads, which wind up the mountain in switchbacks, which is why it takes longer. The heavy rain is making it worse. In monsoon season the roads often disappear under mud. We’ve only just finished monsoon. A typhoon on top of it will cause major destruction throughout the southwest of the country. We must be careful. This is why we go so slowly.” He added, “It is not only the snakes and leopards that kill here. Ceylon can be a very dangerous place.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Mike said, “If the apex of the lunar eclipse has the moon over Nepal, we’re still close enough that if the nuke goes off, Sri Lanka will be affected.”
“Absolutely.”
“That means, then, that Patel is looking for her friends, the Numen, to protect her, to possibly come for her, but she’s convinced she’ll be safe. But here’s the question. If the nuke goes off in a low Earth orbit, then Aquarius would be offline, unless she’s managed to protect it with some sort of massive Faraday cage, which I suppose could have been built into the roofs of the buildings. What do you think?”
Nicholas said, “It’s very possible she doesn’t care. She’ll be with her saviors. Bugger me, I wish we had those blueprints. Since we have only another hour—hopefully—” he said to Vinny and Bernard, “let me tell you about the weird stuff you don’t know—”
Mike felt the SUV shift, then heave and jerk, heard Samuel cry out—and suddenly, they were falling.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Mike had the breath knocked out of her when she was slammed against the safety belt. Something crashed into her leg, then her shoulder. She was disoriented, couldn’t see, only heard curses and yells, the sounds of metal being crushed. The scent of loam and mud filled her nostrils. A hand grabbed hers and she realized it was Nicholas and he was shouting at her. “I’ve got you.” He said it over and over. Oddly, she relaxed, stopped fighting against the seat belt and the frantic pitching and twisting of the car. She realized the SUV had slid off the road and they were rocketing down a steep hill. But then, suddenly, they hit something and the SUV flipped and they were sliding down the hill upside down on a vast sea of mud. A window shattered and water and mud flowed in. It was only her and Nicholas in the back seat. Where were Bernard and Vinny?
The SUV slammed against a large tree and shuddered to a stop. She opened her eyes to see Samuel slumped over the wheel, his aviator glasses askew over sightless eyes, a tree branch through his chest. She must have screamed because Nicholas squeezed her hand. She heard his voice, garbled to her ears. “Are you hurt, are you okay?”
Finally she was together enough to whisper, “I’m okay, I’m still in my seat belt. Nicholas, Samuel, the tree branch. He’s hurt badly. We have to help him.”
“I’m sorry, Mike, he’s dead.”
Of course he was, she simply didn’t want to accept it.
“We got caught in a mudslide?”
“Yes. I think Mills and Bernard were thrown out.” Nicholas leaned downward and pressed two fingers into the driver’s neck. He’d known he was dead, but he’d had to try. He undid his safety belt, landing hard on what was now the floor of the SUV. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
They heard Mills and Bernard yelling.
Nicholas shouted, “We’re alive! We’ll need help up the hill, though.” And to Mike, he said, “We’re filling up fast with mud.”
She took one last look at Samuel, said a prayer for him, then held on as Nicholas cut her free from the belt. She fell against him. He hugged her tight to his chest.
After a moment, she said, “I never thought of meeting upside down in a mudslide.”
“I don’t want you to get bored, Agent Caine. Now, let’s get out of here.”
They maneuvered out of the truck onto the muddy wet ground. The rain was slamming to the ground, the winds howled, and ankle-deep mud sucked at their boots. It was dark and somehow they had to make it up the steep slope. Nicholas said, “We slid at least fifty feet straight down the hill. If the SUV hadn’t hit the tree, we might have landed at the bottom of the mountain, then good luck getting us back up.”