Helen frowned. The other possibility of actually being spied upon by a remote viewer from the CIA was disconcerting. It was no fun being on the other end of the game. They had trained her, so why were they after her now?
There was so much she still had to learn about her newly-acquired skill. There was so much more she didn’t know. Her CIA monitor had told her that practice and time would help her achieve higher levels, even without a personal trainer. But she had Hades as her monitor now, and she had a feeling that he knew a lot more than he was telling her.
“Actually, let me talk to Nikki Harden and set up a meeting with her husband, Rick, from TIARA.” Jed McNeil spoke for the first time since the meeting started. “I don’t want Steve McMillan reporting back to Admiral Madison about this yet.”
Helen looked at him. Nikki Harden was a retired GEM operative, a legend among her sisters because of her background. On her return from her training hiatus, she’d learned that Nikki had gotten married recently, but the details were lost among a hundred other pieces of news she had to absorb.
“I’ll let her know so she expects your call, Jed,” T. said. “You know she doesn’t like to be surprised.”
Jed’s lips curled up at the corners. “Just because Diamond’s spoiling your fun, you don’t have to spoil mine, too.”
“Darling, you’re having entirely too much of that lately. Now that we’ve established that our attackers were actually one of our own agencies and not a foreign entity, what’s our next course of action?”
“We divide into two groups. One takes care of finding out the CIA culprit. The other takes care of our current operation, which is still ongoing, by the way. We need the other half of the Cummings. He isn’t to be allowed to escape or he might barter for his wife’s release with his information. Heath, you’ve interviewed the woman, what’s your take on this?”
Because it was still ongoing, Helen refrained from asking questions about the electronic key she’d retrieved. If the powers-that-be decided to test her again, she didn’t want any chance of them saying that her RV was contaminated by information.
Besides, it was more interesting watching the COS commandos. Her training had isolated her for two years. She’d forgotten how much prep there was in between operations. She was also a GEM operative, essentially trained to work alone, so working with a group of men was something new. However, she hadn’t been away from the field so long that she couldn’t sense that these were all dangerous men. They were sitting here listening to one of their own calmly dissecting the psyche of their prisoner. “Interview,” they called it. “Interrogate,” T. had said last night.
She felt a small shiver running down her back at the thought of Heath Cliffe in a room alone with the woman she saw. She’d spent last night with one of them, had practically enjoyed relinquishing control to him, and for the first time, she understood a little of these men’s training. It wasn’t all physical strength and macho stuff like the guys against whom she’d been pitted. These men were—she searched for a word—untamed. Working outside the boundaries, and given the freedom to live in the shadows like they do, would be bound to unleash a certain wildness in a man.
Yet, studying them, she saw that they were bound to some kind of duty, or at least, they appeared to be bound by responsibility because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be here. She wondered about each of these men’s backgrounds—who they were and what brought them here to black operations. The more she learned about them, the more this world of shadows fit them well. Each of these men, sitting here looking so civilized around a table, was not quite tamed. The few times she’d been alone with one of them had shown her one thing. They disregarded rules and ethics when it fit their purpose, and their agenda, she realized, was never black and white. Not Armando’s. Not Heath’s. Not even Diamond’s. And definitely not whoever Hades was.
At that precise moment, Flyboy caught her eye and signaled to her that he’d call her later. He gave her another one of his devastating smiles. When exactly had he returned from his satellite tracking? Surely it hadn’t taken that long once he found out that the CIA used one of their own secret landing strips? She smiled back sweetly. They were her wild beasts and she would learn to train them.
CIA secret medical facility
The voices were faint but he heard them. They were discussing their next step. It always paid to pretend not to be aware of everything.
“They’ll track back to our department but I think we’re safe for now. They’re going to think it’s the RV department anyway.”
“I can’t believe she’s that good. She’s just achieved Level Two, according to the reports.”
“Yes, but don’t forget it’s her physical training that’s gotten her out of this. She beat out the rest of the candidates, you know, so she’s got to be damn good.”
“What we need is to find one of these candidates and get him to kill her for us. We can’t afford this. She’s a threat to our network in the CIA, even more so than the fucking admiral’s internal investigations and committee overviews.”
“We need to lay low for a while. We have our own remote viewer, hell, a whole hospital of them, if we need more. We have our own serum. We have what we need to counter any of their moves, if they’re going to use her to spy on our activities. Don’t worry. We’ve been around for over a decade. No one’s going to dig us out that easily. Meanwhile, we have to hide him. He’s still useful. Did pretty good back there.”
“Yes, but look at him staring into space like a madman. Not going to last, man.”
“Like I said, the facility has plenty of candidates.”
He was afraid. Mad. Not that kind of mad. He wasn’t a lunatic, no matter what those fuckers think. He was pissed-off mad.
All his beautiful collection of images…gone. They were gone! Ever since his remote viewing self had bumped into that woman in the stairs, ever since that awful experience—whatever it was—he hadn’t been able to rewind. Empty. Like a blank tape. There wasn’t one image left. Empty. That other viewer had sucked it out of him somehow.
It had been what had kept him going all these months when they’d abandoned him in this stupid hospital, the images and all those feelings he’d collected from the people from whom he’d taken them. The memories of their sex lives—how he loved the glow of their lust rushing in him. And he had collected some really sexy ones this last time too, especially from that woman everyone was after, the one who had a husband. She was mighty fine and what a hot lusty kinky babe. Always wanting sex, that one…oh the lost images! He could remember them, but who the fuck cared about memories when he couldn’t rewind and taste the energy?
That woman he’d bumped into—he had to somehow find that woman and get it back. It had to be inside her still and she was probably enjoying his collection. Somehow, she’d stolen it from him. He’d heard his monitors talking about her, that she could remote view and then physically lead a team into action without her needing any downtime, so that meant she was on the serum, too, only something better. Something way stronger because she had fucking stolen his images without being in remote-viewing mode! How the fuck did she do that?
Empty. He wanted to howl, but he had to somehow behave normally after this downtime. He was just doubly depressed, that was all. He was going to convince them to give him the serum again, so he could collect some images. Then maybe he could get two doses, like before, and explore that power again. Only he had to be very careful not to let any of these fuckers know.
When he was stronger, he’d think of this woman. Find her. Take back what was his.
Twenty
Theta wavelength. First the white light. Then he appeared. A moment later, the scene appeared. He had recreated her quarters and was lounging in his perfect naked state on her bed. Bastard.
