Mind's Eye (40 page)

“Look, Cameron,” said Hall, changing the subject. “We need to learn what this is all about before I have a coming-out party. Now I have to worry about Delamater
and
the military. So being presented to the FBI on Tuesday is out. You’ll need to make up some story at the press conference. Say I disappeared again. Or make up something else. But you have to buy more time until we sort this out.”

There was a long silence. “Agreed,” said Fyfe finally. “I’ll take care of it. And Ed, get some more ex-military for hire to look into this as well. In the meanwhile, I’ll work my contacts to try to learn what’s going on.”

The conversation continued for a few minutes before Fyfe and Cowan signed off. Once they left, Hall had Trout take him off speaker and return the call to Alex’s phone.

“Can I be overheard?” Hall said softly once this was done.

“Hold on,” said Altschuler, pulling a wireless earbud from his pocket and sliding it into his right ear. “You’re good to go,” he said.

Hall briefed Altschuler as quickly and efficiently as he could as to what had really happened: that Girdler had learned of his ESP and had decided he was too dangerous to let live, fearing an ESP arms race.

Altschuler was stunned. The implications of this were profound, but now wasn’t the time to ponder them.

“The good news is that none of us should have any trouble making it to the safe house,” said Hall. “There are only two men in on this. Colonel Girdler, and his second-in-command, Major Mike Campbell. But I read from Girdler that the major wasn’t monitoring things when we escaped. Girdler told him he had everything well in hand and ordered him to get some sleep.”

“Why?”

“Girdler thought he was being heroic. Killing me is going against orders, and he wanted to keep the major clean if it was ever discovered. Plausible deniability.” Hall paused. “But with the men Girdler sent to retrieve you and Heather out of the picture, and Girdler unconscious for a few more hours, there’s no one tracking us.”

“Good to know,” said Altschuler, choosing his words carefully since Trout could hear his end of the conversation. “And alerting this guy’s boss may be just the ticket.”

He knew Hall was bright enough to understand what he was saying. If this colonel was disobeying orders, Hall needed to have a little conversation with the person above him in the chain of command.

“This occurred to me also. The problem is that his boss, a general named Sobol, doesn’t want me on the loose, either. He wants me as a guinea pig. And a weapon. But it’s definitely something I’ll have to consider. In the meanwhile, how did the surgery go?”

“Perfectly,” replied Altschuler, although with Trout in earshot he kept his voice bland and revealed no trace of the enthusiasm he would have been gushing otherwise. “Like a dream.”

“Meaning you
can
surf, but you
can’t
read minds?”

“Exactly.”

“Fantastic! Finally, a bit of
good
news.” Hall sighed. “On that note,” he added, “I’d better be signing off. I need to lose the phone and get to, ah . . . Macy’s. But there are some other topics I want to raise with you, Alex, so stay safe.”

“You too,” said Altschuler. “I’ll see you in Sacramento.”

48

Heather Zambrana awoke and glanced at a clock on the end table. It was almost noon. She still could have used more sleep, but the sleep she had managed had done wonders for her after the crazy events of the night before, which had bled all the way into sunrise that morning.

The safe house was a large, fairly nondescript tract home in a moderately affluent neighborhood, with four bedrooms, and spare, utilitarian furnishings. Two of the men who had brought them there, Eric Trout and a man named Tyrone Tienda—both ex-military—had stayed to keep watch near the front and back doors, while the four civilians had all fallen asleep in their clothes.

Megan Emerson and Nick Hall were already sound asleep when she and Alex had arrived, since they had been closer to Sacramento, and had chosen to share a room. This wasn’t surprising from what Alex had told her about them, although she was certain they had been too exhausted to do anything but sleep. She and Alex had chosen separate rooms. But she had hopes that this might change—as early as that night.

The purpose of the house was to hide and protect those on the run or in danger, so the timing and nature of its occupants couldn’t be predicted. For this reason, it was well-equipped with simple men and women’s clothing in several sizes, unopened toothbrushes, and other toiletries.

As she showered and changed clothes, she thought of Alex Altschuler.

He was absolutely
brilliant
. And there was a kindness to him. Also, it was adorable the way he looked at her; like an awkward high schooler with a crush. He wasn’t much to look at, true, but looks had never mattered all that much to her; her own or others. So he was ten pounds underweight and she was ten pounds over. They balanced each other out. She was also several years older than him, but if that didn’t bother him, it didn’t bother her.

He loved science and science fiction and was a fun and interesting conversationalist. She could imagine them attending Comic-con together, each dressed as their favorite superhero. How fun would that be?

She had intended to respect the boss-employee code, as he had been so careful in doing, but these recent developments had changed everything. It was time to go for broke. And if a relationship did develop, he could always change the reporting structure so she no longer reported to him, and disclose a relationship as required in the corporate charter. Or she could leave and work elsewhere. Either way, now wasn’t the time to hide behind a silly corporate edict, designed to protect management from sexual harassment lawsuits.

When she and her fellow civilians were all up and about, each now scrubbed clean and wearing the safe house’s boring, but fresh clothes, their bodyguards gave them a tour of the house. Their last stop was the panic room, which could be entered just beyond the kitchen.

Trout led them inside, and Heather found it to be quite impressive. About the size of a small guest bedroom, it was fortified with steel, Kevlar, and bullet-resistant fiberglass, and its ventilation system was externally vented. The room was carpeted, which was rare, since these rooms were only inhabited during emergencies, and comfort and appearance weren’t high on the list of priorities. A steel workbench stood against a side wall, the purpose of which Heather couldn’t even hazard a guess, and above the bench was a gun rack with an impressive array of firepower.

On another wall, a bank of monitors provided twelve different views outside of the house. These same views would be accessible from Trout’s and Tienda’s cell phones and tablets at all times, and a PDA named Tanya would alert them to anything unusual the cameras might detect. Even so, Trout explained, he and his colleague were paid to be paranoid, so would most often station themselves near the front and back doors, just to be sure.

“I’ve adjusted the cameras to the settings I prefer,” said Trout. “They cover every square inch of the perimeter of the house, out to six yards. I’ve also chosen a few panoramic views. While there are gaps when you go farther out from the house, I’ve covered the angles
I
would take if I were going to lead an assault on us.”

Heather swallowed hard from yet another reminder that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “That’s very comforting,” she said dryly.

An hour after the tour was completed, Heather was sitting around a kitchen table with Alex, Megan, and Nick, eating a ham and Swiss omelet that Megan had made for each of them. They had asked their bodyguards if they could have some privacy in the kitchen, and they had been happy to oblige. Even so, the four civilians kept their voices low.

Altschuler reported on a conversation he had just ended with Cameron Fyfe and Ed Cowan. Fyfe was going forward with the press conference as planned, with one notable exception. He wouldn’t be introducing Alex as CEO. Fyfe himself would become interim CEO until he could figure out why the military was after Hall, and why they had sent men for Altschuler. Naming a CEO the US government seemed to want to abduct or kill probably wasn’t something that would get strong shareholder support.

Heather gazed at Altschuler, directly across from her, with deep lines of concern in her face. “I’m so sorry, Alex. How disappointed are you?”

“I’m disappointed,” he replied. And then, with the hint of a tired smile, he added, “But also a little relieved. Being CEO for the first time is scary. Even more scary when all hell is about to break loose. This way, I’ll be a little less in the path of the raging inferno until this dies out. And I can’t blame Cameron. I think his decision makes a lot of sense.”

“Speaking of being in the path of something deadly,” said Megan. “Did Cowan tell you if he learned anything from the men they captured last night?”

Altschuler shook his head. “No. They’re special forces operatives, who got legitimate orders from their superiors. But they don’t know who ultimately is at the top of the pyramid. Or why they were asked to bring us in.”

Heather frowned. “They didn’t, you know . . . torture them or anything, did they?” she said.

“No. I asked Cowan the same question. They used truth drugs and set them free. I got the feeling Cowan did this for practical reasons rather than ethical ones. He said torturing government spooks, and especially killing them, was a sure way to kick the hornets’ nest, and would have been a very bad move.”

“Any leads on Delamater?” asked Megan.

“None. Fyfe had hoped to be able to have him wrapped up with a bow for the press conference. But it’s not looking good. Cowan has run up quite a bill, tapping dozens of security-for-hire types, like our two friends in this house, but they haven’t gotten anywhere.”

He stared at Heather, and his eyes took on a puppy dog quality as he did. “Fyfe did ask about the newest member of our group.”

Heather raised her eyebrows. “What did you tell him about me?” she asked. Given that Fyfe wasn’t in on Nick’s ESP, nor Altschuler’s recent implants, she knew this would be a difficult question to answer.

“That I had freaked out because I thought of a possible technical problem with the implants. I told Fyfe I couldn’t really explain my concern, because it was out of his depth. But it was a problem that might cause the system to glitch up after a few months. I needed some equipment in Madera to check into it. But even more importantly, I needed
your
expertise,” he said, nodding at Heather. “I told him it turned out to be a false alarm, but I was forced to trust you with the
Explorer
situation. Given the world would know very soon, anyway, I took it upon myself to make this executive decision.”

“Very creative,” said Heather with a big smile, and she could tell Alex was delighted by the compliment.

When breakfast ended, Hall and Altschuler retreated to opposite couches in the living room and closed their eyes for over an hour, each explaining they were doing research. It was a foreshadowing of things to come, Heather realized. Of a future in which, if you came across someone with their eyes closed and looking like a zombie, you couldn’t be sure if they were
sleeping
, or if they were balancing their checkbook, writing a novel, or watching a movie inside of their head.

With Alex and Nick out of commission, Heather thought this was a good opportunity to get to know Megan, and they returned to the kitchen table and sipped coffee and talked about a variety of topics.

“So you and Nick are pretty close, aren’t you?” said Heather at one point.

Megan smiled. “Given how short a time we’ve known each other,
very
close. We’d be even closer if it weren’t for a pesky injury,” she added. She leaned towards Heather conspiratorially. “You and Alex sort of have a thing for each other also, don’t you?”

“Did Nick tell you that?”

“No. Nick’s not like that. He knows having a mind reader around is a menace, and he’d never share anything private he reads unless he really needs to. But I could just tell.”

Heather confirmed that she was interested, and believed that Alex was also.

“So is it something in the water?” asked Megan. “I
think
I like Nick a lot, but given you and Alex are falling for each other, maybe if you force any man and woman together in a pressure cooker like this, their hormones play tricks with their minds.”

“There is evidence with certain species,” said Heather, “that if there’s enough food and space, and their populations have declined dramatically or are under stress, individuals tend to want to mate more often. Sort of nature’s way of speeding up the regrowth of a population that has come under pressure. But I don’t think that’s it. At least not for me and Alex. We kind of had a thing for each other before this. Although we pretended we didn’t. That’s why Alex chose me to join this group. There were others who were qualified.”

“Either way,” said Megan with a grin, “I have a feeling we’ll have two couples tonight trying to, um. . . rebuild the population, so to speak. It’ll be like we’re in some kind of surreal summer camp. Where boys and girls pair off to practice their night moves, avoiding the watchful eyes of the camp counselors.”