Mind's Eye Page 6

  Her eyes shot open as the door to her office bolted inward once again.

  Two men entered and closed the door behind them. Both were fit and intense, one bald as a billiard ball and the other blond.

  “What is this about?” she demanded. “You can’t just barge—”

  “Shut up!” said the blond, removing a gun with a long, thin barrel attached, which Megan recognized immediately as a silencer.

  She felt queasy and suddenly found it hard to breathe. She had no doubt why these men were here, but they had missed Nick Hall by eight or nine minutes. He was even now on the road, driving away from them as quickly as he could in a yellow Ford Taurus.

  The bald intruder held a small electronic cube in one hand and a cell phone in the other. He walked the few steps to the chair in front of her desk and set the cube-shaped device down on it. He glanced at the screen and then nodded at his partner, a grim look on his pock-marked face.

  He removed a business card from the card holder on her desk. “Her name is Megan Emerson,” he said into the phone. “Works at the address we’re at now. I’d advise you to find where she lives and send someone to stake it out, just in case.” With that, he ended the connection.

  The blond turned toward Megan, the gun in his hand never wavering. “So tell us about your visitor,” he said.

  She shook her head in pretend confusion. “What visitor?”

  He removed the cube-shaped device from the chair and lifted it into the air, gesturing to its digital readout. “Have you ever seen one of these?” he asked

  She shook her head.

  “It’s a very expensive piece of equipment. It’s basically a bloodhound in a box. And right now this one has been keyed to the scent of a man named Nick Hall. I have no idea how it works, but I’m told it can detect a smell at one part per hundred billion—which even an actual bloodhound can’t match. And do you know what it’s telling us? It’s telling us that the guy we’re looking for, Nick Hall, came into this office.” He nodded at the chair in front of her desk. “And sat in this chair.”

  Megan swallowed hard.

  “So last time I’m going to ask nicely,” said the blond ominously. “Tell me about this visit. And more importantly, tell me where he is now.”

  Megan’s breath caught in her throat. “Your device must be wrong,” she croaked, intending to say this with confidence and defiance, but barely rasping it out. “Or maybe he broke in when I wasn’t here.”

  In a blur the blond was behind her, gluing a huge palm over her mouth and pressing her body back against his. He lowered his other hand, still holding the silenced gun, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Megan felt a blinding pain in her upper thigh the same instant she heard a spit sound issuing from the barrel of the silencer.

  She screamed into the man’s hand, which was now pressed into her mouth so hard she thought her teeth might cave in.

  “I’m going to release you,” he whispered into her ear. “Scream and I’ll take out your knee. Do we understand each other?”

  She nodded.

  The man removed his hand as tears of pain and fear began to slide down her cheeks. He had shot her! Without blinking. Just to prove to her that he was utterly ruthless. The man was a monster, and a fear and hopelessness greater than any she had ever known seeped into her soul.

  “Last chance,” he said calmly as blood poured from her leg and soaked her pants. “Where is he?”

  Megan fought to ignore the barrage of nerve signals hammering into the pain centers of her brain. Tears continued to roll down her face, almost of their own volition. She had to tell this savage what he wanted. Nick Hall had abilities that should allow him to protect himself, as he had done before. But even if not, she didn’t have a choice. “He left about ten minutes ago. In my car. It’s a Ford Taurus.”

  “Give me the license plate number.”

  She unconsciously shifted weight and the daggers of pain intensified. She grimaced and shifted her weight back the other way. “Okay,” she said, calming herself enough to dredge this information from a suddenly uncooperative memory. She opened her mouth to recite the number when a powerful thought exploded into her head. A telepathic thought.

  “Megan, stop! Find a way to stall! I’ve read his mind, and he’ll kill you the second you give him your plate!”

  “License plate!” the man hissed, moving in front of her and pressing the barrel of the gun into her knee.

  “I’ll be there in just a minute,” broadcast Nick Hall. “Hang on!”

  “I’ll give it to you,” said Megan to the blond killer. “But I can do better than that. I know exactly where this Hall is going. Exactly.”

  The man smiled. “Where?”

  Megan raised a hand and pretended a wave of dizziness was coming over her. Every second counted. But she also couldn’t risk getting too cute. These were not patient men. “You have to. . . promise . . . not to kill me,” she said as slowly as she thought she could get away with, pretending her injury had sapped most of her strength.

  “Of course. Tell me what I want and we’ll leave. Simple as that.”

  “How close are you, Nick?” she broadcast hastily, with as much force as she knew how to use.

  “Maybe thirty seconds. I’m sprinting as fast as I can. Keep stalling. You’re doing great.”

  “How do I . . . know. . . I can trust you?” she said weakly.

  The blond shook his head in annoyance and glanced at his bald partner. “Look. There’s only one thing you can be sure of,” he said, returning the gun to her kneecap. “If you don’t tell me where he is in three seconds, you’ll never walk again.”

  “Okay,” she said frantically, and realized that her tears had stopped and she was thinking as clearly as she ever had. Knowing Nick was on his way had given her hope, and the adrenaline in her system was doing its job, allowing her to temporarily function at a high level despite her injury and circumstances. “There’s an old. . . abandoned warehouse. . . about twenty miles . . . from here. On a road . . . called Franklin. He’ll be . . . hiding. . . there. But he’s planning to. . . to booby-trap the place. In case he gets company.”

  “Brilliant!” came an encouraging voice in her head. “Just a few more seconds.”

  “But I know how . . . I know how to . . . bypass his trap. He’s placing explosives . . . at the main door. But there is a loading dock. On the northeast side. You just have to—”

  “Hit the floor! Now!”

  Megan froze.

  “NOW!” broadcast Hall so powerfully that if the word had been spoken it might have burst her eardrums. She dropped to the ground.

  And less than a second later, so did the two men near her.

  Both of their backs had been only a foot or two from the outer wall of her office, and Hall sent multiple silenced slugs through the flimsy wall material and into their bodies. They were dead before they could come close to comprehending what had hit them.

  Megan realized vaguely that Hall must have read their precise position from their minds. They hadn’t even known he was there, yet he had been able to shoot them at point blank range; so close that even a novice shooter couldn’t miss.

  Hall entered a second after the two men had fallen, probably having been able to detect the cessation of their thoughts immediately. He closed the door and rushed over to Megan on the floor, whose leg was continuing to seep bright red blood.

  Hall glanced at the two men he had killed, and an anguished expression came over his face. He then turned to Megan, and his eyes moistened at the sight of her injury. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. “This is all my fault.”

  He pulled a pair of shears from a black metal canister on Megan’s desk and cut strips of cloth from one of the attacker’s shirts. He folded one of the pieces several times to form a thick bandage and tied it down tightly with the other strips of material. He accessed the web to learn the best way to deal with a gunshot wound, but he didn’t find anything magical, just to staunch the flow of blood as b
est he could—pressure was key—get her to emergency personnel immediately, and be on the lookout for signs of shock, which would cause her to pass out if she had lost too much blood.

  “I left your car a few feet from the back exit,” he explained while he was tending to her injury. “I’ll drive you to a hospital as soon as I’m done. I’m afraid we can’t risk an ambulance. They called in your name. Whoever they’re working for knows you spoke with me. And I read from their minds that they’d been ordered to be sure there are no loose ends. The people after me won’t let you live no matter what now. But these two never got to tell anyone that I took your car.”

  He stared at her with absolute resolve. “I promise you, Megan, you’re going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it. This is all my fault.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, her voice now faint. “You didn’t shoot me.”

  Hall carefully lifted her from the floor and sat her in her wheeled desk chair, placing her large purse gently on her lap to hide her injury, and pushed her between the bodies of the men he had killed and out of her office. He suspected Megan Emerson hadn’t been pushed any distance in a desk chair since she was nine or ten, if ever, but this was by far the best method of transportation available.

  “Thanks for coming back for me,” broadcast Megan telepathically, too weak for speech but still able to get her thoughts across.

  “I’m just sorry I was so late,” he replied in the same way. “I was already a mile away when they began to examine Radich’s car in your lot. I picked up their thoughts and knew their bloodhound device would lead them right to you. I got back as fast as I could.” Even though he was using telepathy, it was easy for Megan to detect the undertones of guilt and self-reproach in his words.

  “What’s your blood type?” Hall thought to ask.

  “O positive.”

  A man appeared in the corridor as Hall continued wheeling Megan as fast as he could toward the exit, but he didn’t waste time slowing down. Not surprisingly, the man’s mouth was agape, not entirely able to believe what he was seeing. “It’s my turn for a ride next,” said Hall as he raced by the other occupant of the hallway.

  The man turned to follow their progress, but didn’t respond. Although Megan couldn’t read minds, she was pretty certain he was thinking something like, What a couple of morons, or That is some messed up shit.

  They made it to the car parked outside, and Hall lifted her into the passenger’s seat and belted her in. He slid in behind the wheel and started the car. “Hang in there,” he pleaded as the car began to move.

  10

  “We’re missing something,” said John Delamater. “Was your man at the mini-mart any good? This Cody Radich?” he asked Vasily.

  “Very,” replied the Russian. Unlike several of the men on the current manhunt, who had no connection to Vasily, Radich had worked with him often.

  “Get him on speakerphone,” ordered Delamater. “Don’t give my name, but vouch for me and tell him to answer my questions.”

  Four minutes later Radich’s voice issued from a speaker that Delamater had placed beside his beloved chessboard on the small wooden table. Vasily insisted that Radich repeat everything that had happened, down to the smallest detail, along with his every thought and impression, no matter how insignificant. Delamater leaned close, with his right hand rubbing his chin, as he listened to the man’s account of what had transpired.

  When he had finished, Delamater gestured to the phone, and its mute button.

  “Hold on,” said Vasily as he muted the connection.

  “If Radich is telling the truth,” said Delamater, “I can’t see how Hall made him. He has to be hiding a mistake.” He motioned again for Vasily to unmute.

  “Any chance your gun was visible?” Delamater asked Radich.

  “None.”

  “Any chance you were pretending to read the wrong magazine? One that didn’t make sense for you? Ladies Home Journal? Vogue?”

  “Popular Mechanics,” hissed Radich, in a tone that made it clear he was offended by these questions, but he was enough of a professional to keep his temper in check when speaking to someone he would have to assume was Vasily’s boss. “And before you ask, the magazine was right side up.”

  “Any chance you looked out of place?”

  “No. I was dressed casually. No tattoos that would suggest I was military or mercenary. Nothing.”

  Delamater had Vasily put his assassin on hold once again. What was he missing? There was something about Radich that gave Delamater a sense he was competent and really hadn’t made any blunders. Delamater was a good judge of character and had learned to trust his instincts, which had served him well. He turned to the Russian. “Do you think he’s covering up a mistake?”

  “I don’t,” said Vasily without hesitation. “He’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with. Smart, experienced, and detail-oriented. I spoke with him earlier. He’s as mystified as we are.”

  Delamater gathered his thoughts and motioned for Vasily to unmute. “Okay,” said Delamater. “So somehow, miraculously, this guy gets the drop on you. Even though he has no way to know you aren’t just a harmless customer? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” replied Radich woodenly.

  “And you just took it? You didn’t make any move against him? Against a marshmallow like this guy?”

  “I was going to,” came the frustrated reply. “But the instant before I was about to try to disarm him, he jumped out of range. Like he knew I was going to attack before I did. It was uncanny.”

  Radich paused. “And as I explained to Vasily, your intel on this guy is shit. Based on the intel, I tried to get him off-balance by suggesting the safety on Baldino’s gun was still on. According to the profile I was given, this guy shouldn’t have even known which end of a gun to point. Not only did he know Baldino’s Glock didn’t have a traditional safety, he knew it had a fucking five-pound trigger pull. This is lower than most guns, which is one of the reasons the Glock is so popular. But I didn’t even know the exact spec on the trigger pull.”

  Delamater tilted his head in thought. “How do you know he was right?”

  “I looked it up afterward. He was right.”

  Delamater’s eyes brightened for just a moment. An important piece of the puzzle had clicked into place. He thanked Radich and motioned for the Russian to end the connection.

  Vasily opened his mouth to speak, but Delamater held up a forestalling hand. He needed to complete his thinking without interruption.

  Hall’s four implants were working, after all.

  It was the only way to explain how Hall could pass as an expert, could possess detailed information on Baldino’s gun. The bastard had his own personal Internet connection.

  Hall had lied when he had said the system wasn’t working.

  But why?

  Being able to stealthily surf the web, using thoughts alone, would confer a considerable advantage on someone. But it was hard for Delamater to believe this had been responsible for all of Hall’s success. Access to the Internet couldn’t help him dodge bullets.

  But regardless, this could change Delamater’s calculations dramatically. He would now have to weigh additional options to determine if a change in strategy was in order.

  Delamater had human resources at his disposal that Vasily couldn’t even begin to guess at. If you kept palms well greased and didn’t ask for much in return, it was easy to corrupt even those thought to be incorruptible. People were greedy and power-hungry, especially the ones who had risen to positions of prominence. Unless you truly believed in something to the deepest depth of your being, as did Delamater, all men were whores in the end.

  There was an old joke that had always struck Delamater as defining of the human species. A man asks a woman if she would sleep with him for ten million dollars. She agrees. He then asks if she would sleep with him for a dollar. She is aghast. “What kind of woman do you take me for?” she asks.
To that, the man responds, “We have established what you are, madam. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

  Such was true of humanity in general. He was a rare exception, but the vast majority of humanity would do anything for the right price, be it money, power, prestige, or sex. The idea of a man selling his soul to the Devil was a mainstay of fiction, and people found it plausible that someone would strike such a bargain, even when they knew exactly who it was they were dealing with.

  But before he committed to a course of action, he needed to speak with his brother. Seek the council of the only man alive whom he fully respected, and whose respect he truly valued. He needed to inform him of this triumphant new development.

  His brother was working hard on a project of his own, one with far less lofty goals than Delamater’s own project, but one whose chance of success was far higher. His brother had always believed he was wasting his time on this project. That despite his obvious genius at getting past the first monumental hurdle, it still wouldn’t matter: what he hoped to achieve with implants was still fifty years away and couldn’t be rushed, no matter what the strategy. Delamater had no doubt this stunning new development would get his brother to reevaluate his position, possibly even to drop what he was doing and join Delamater’s efforts.

  “Vasily,” said Delamater finally, breaking from his reverie. “I need you to go out to Bakersfield immediately and take personal charge of operations. Amateur hour is over,” he finished, knowing full well they had not sent amateurs, but also that Vasily was a cut above the rest. He gave the Russian a curt nod of dismissal.

  Vasily rose. “I’ll call you when I’m on the ground.”

  He took a few steps toward the door to let himself out, but turned before he reached his destination. “I may have misread your expression when the call ended. But it looked like you had figured something out. Something important. If so, it could be vital that I know about it.”

  Delamater nodded. “You’re right,” he said, shooting Vasily an icy stare. “You did misread my expression.”