Trial Run (15 page)

T
he silence in the control room had never been more intense. Air had never been harder to find.

Reese keyed her mike and said, “On my signal, you will depart the transit chamber. You will find Elene. You will redirect her away from the danger and toward home. You will return. You have fifteen seconds. I will maintain the count. You will keep a clear connection to me and to my time-count throughout the entire transit.”

Joss lazily showed her a thumbs-up but did not open his eyes. The monitors showed a lazy heart rate, calm breathing, all the biological lies Joss had learned to fabricate when entering Indian territory.

Reese moved through the standard exit routine, then said, “You are good to go. I am beginning the fifteen-second count now.” The electronic timer between the monitors was utterly silent. Even so, Reese felt as though she could hear each passing second chisel into her brain. “Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. You have twelve seconds left. Ten. Eight.”

Beside her, Karla had stopped breathing. She heard footsteps cross the room behind her. Elene had probably moved up. And Kevin. Maybe Eli. The other three midnight crew members were sacked out in the foyer. Just too drained to keep their eyes open, no matter what load of tension the rest of them were feeling.

“Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

With the hand not holding the monitor controls, Karla reached over and gripped Reese's hand. Reese said, “You are returning. You are back. You have reentered your physical body. You are counting down. You are opening your eyes.”

When Joss did exactly that, Karla covered her mouth as behind them Elene took a broken breath. Even Reese found it hard to hold herself steady as she said, “Welcome home, soldier.”

They all came down with her into the transit room. Kevin. Jeff. Elene. Eli. Even her hacker, the hostile and ever-aloof Goremaster. A clear breach of protocol. Reese could not have cared less.

“Tell me what happened,” she said.

Joss replied, “The whole thing was five by five.”

“You transited.”

“Came out easy as a smile. Stood there looking down at myself.”

Kevin asked, “What is that like?”

“Save it,” Reese snapped. “Go on, Joss.”

“You told me to go. I went.”

“Any difficulty due to this movement into past tense?”

“Couldn't tell any difference at all. You said go, I went. You kept counting.” He shivered. His complexion was pale. Waxy. A sheen of perspiration covered his body. “The only trouble is now. I feel like I've just run a twenty-mile obstacle course with a full pack.”

“Focus on the issue, please. You found Elene. You turned her around.” She stopped because Joss was shaking his head hard enough to rattle the monitor cables. “What?”

“That's where it gets a little weird. I never found her.”

Elene cried, “But I
saw
you.”

“Sorry, babe. Wasn't me.”

Reese said, “You're not making sense.”

“All I can tell you is, I heard you say, ‘Find her.' I started off. And there he was.”

“Wait. You mean—”

“Another guy. Or
something
. Blocking my way. Turning
me
around. And I knew it was all solid.”

The room was as tight and still as the control room. “A
third
person.”

“This somebody or something didn't speak. But I knew just the same. It was all taken care of. My job was to focus on getting home. I followed your count back. I reentered. I woke up. End of story.”

T
he next afternoon, Reese sipped from her disposable cup of coffee and told Kevin, “I think I've resolved the issue regarding how you didn't hear about Trent Major's thesis project.”

Reese sat in the passenger seat of Kevin's Lexus. They were parked on Cota Street, half a block off Santa Barbara's main shopping avenue. They faced the Hotel Santa Barbara. The hotel's corner shop housed a Starbucks. They could look through the coffee shop's glass walls and see almost everything. Their car was shaded by a large elm and the adjacent building. Reese had ordered Kevin to circle the area four times before they found the spot she wanted. The shade helped block them from view.

Kevin said, “Explain to me what we're doing here.”

“I wanted to get a look at our targets. They're meeting here in a few minutes.”

“You've tapped their phones? Why aren't I in the loop?”

“We just got this up and running last night. Besides which, we've been a little busy, remember?” Reese opened the file she had just downloaded. “We have no useable intel so far. A few hours back, Shane Schearer called
Trent Major and set up this meet. Soon as I heard, I called you. That's it. I would have run it up the flagpole if there was anything worth an alert.”

“Did you go through channels for this?”

“Of course not, Kevin. I assume that's why you came to me in the first place. Because I'm not in the official loop. If the colonel decides to ax me at our meeting tomorrow, I'm dead in the water.” She shot him a glance. “Just like you might be, if Washington ever found out there was a guy working down the block on your own project and you didn't have a clue.”

“I might be able to help you out with the colonel.”

Reese nodded satisfaction. The guy had gotten the message. “Trent's background check uncovered a few anomalies. But before we get into that, tell me exactly what it is you want from me. Skip over the preliminaries. Give me a best-case scenario.”

“We need to know how far Trent Major has gotten with his research. We can't access it. For his thesis, Trent uses a laptop that has no internet connection. He splits his work into two encrypted files and stores them on different drives. One he carries with him at all times. The other he stores in the department safe.”

“Sounds like major-league paranoia.”

Kevin shook his head. “Chinese companies have a history of patenting discoveries in computer technology that we assumed were highly confidential and totally ours. Their stuff parallels research going on at Caltech and MIT. We cannot prove a theft. But years of research and several major discoveries have been lost. Trent Major is following what has become standard protocol for cutting-edge research.”

Reese opened the file in her lap. “According to this preliminary workup, the targets actually share some surprising commonalities. Both spent time in foster care. Shane Schearer's parents were killed in a traffic accident when she was fourteen. She and her younger sister were bounced around by the courts until an aunt gained custody. Trent Major's father is a mystery, we're still working on that. When Trent was eight, his mother was injured in a dispute with her boyfriend, a
multiple felon. Trent was shot in the same dispute. He was placed in foster care. No other living relatives on record. Another shared trait, both raised in Central Valley towns. Trent Major is from Ojai, Shane Schearer's aunt lives in Bakersfield.”

“You were going to tell me how Trent Major's research remained under our radar.”

“Last year, his former doctoral supervisor broke his leg skiing and was put on OxyContin for the pain. The prof has had problems with substance abuse before. This time, lost his driver's license for a year and his wife filed for divorce. Apparently he's become a parasite masquerading in professorial clothing. Trent Major was teaching his classes, grading his exams, writing his journal articles. All this ended yesterday. When I spoke with the prof this morning, he was seriously steamed over losing his lackey. And even hotter over being forced to sober up and work. He was delighted to dump on Trent.”

Kevin was nodding now. “So the professor buried Trent's work in order to keep him chained in the dungeon.”

“Which is where he'd still be, except Trent's business partner and the lawyer you put them on to, Murray Feinne, met with the university president. Apparently they strong-armed the president to override departmental protocol. Trent's doctoral work has been reassigned to . . .”

Kevin looked over. “What's the matter?”

Reese opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She had lifted her gaze from the file when the sunlight caught the café's glass door as it opened. She had possibly glimpsed an anomaly. But she couldn't be certain. The image had been too fleeting. A slender white-blonde young woman, holding to a long-limbed stride, had entered the Starbucks.

“What's going on?”

“Probably nothing.” Southern California was filled with long-legged blondes. “I just thought I saw one of our opposition. Which is impossible. They're all in Switzerland.”

“Maybe we should go over, check things out.”

“Stay where you are. Here comes Trent now.”

T
rent Major walked down Santa Barbara's main shopping avenue in a daze. He never used drugs. He was reluctant to take aspirin. The memories from his early years remained piercingly vivid. His mother had downed whatever drug on offer with an abandon that bordered on frantic glee. Trent feared some latent chromosome might be triggered by anything he took and, once awakened, consume him.

But as he walked the sunlit street, he wondered if this was what it meant to get high.

The previous day he had met Shane at her favorite smoothie bar on Camino Del Sur, just beyond the university borders. She had made a process of standing in line for him, bringing over a drink he didn't particularly want, playing the solicitous friend. Talking about the weather. Clearly about to burst with excitement.

When her phone rang, she answered, listened, thanked the caller, rose from her chair, said, “You going to nurse that thing all day?”

“You were the one who brought us here.”

“That was then and this is now. Let's go, sport.”

She bounced down the road beside him, acting like a balloon on a string. Trent did not know Shane well enough to understand what was happening. All he could say was, this was a new side to her, an aspect he had never seen before. One he liked very much.

What was more, she really did have a lovely smile.

She tried to hide it, but the effort only poked holes in her cheeks, dimples that lit fires in her eyes and made her half skip, half dance down the sidewalk. He wanted to ask what was happening, but he was enjoying her act too much to speak.

Then she turned toward the physics building, and the moment was pretty much wrecked.

But she was expecting that too, because she grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. “No hanging back.”

“Can we please not go in there today?”

“Sorry, sport. It comes with the package.” She was immensely strong, a lithe composite of muscle and energy and determination. Shane pulled him up the stairs and down the hall holding the faculty offices. She unlocked an office whose nameplate was empty and flipped on the lights. “Ta-da.”

“What is this?”

“You're the genius. You tell me.”

The room was shaped like an
L
and lined with empty bookshelves. There was even a quartet of padded chairs surrounding a narrow coffee table. A new desk and ergonomic chair.

Trent whispered, “No.”

“Believe it, sport.” She dangled the keys in his face. To Trent's mind, they rang like crystal bells. “What's more, your new thesis professor wants to meet with you in thirty minutes. So if you want me to help you move, we've got to jump.”

“This can't be real.”

“It's real, all right.” Shane moved in close enough for him to catch a
hint of her scent, a heady mix of shampoo and wildflowers. “Your days of being locked inside somebody else's idea of a good time are over.”

Trent pushed through the glass doors and entered the Starbucks attached to the Hotel Santa Barbara. Three hours ago, Shane had called to say she'd meet him there at five thirty. The checks had cleared, they had money in the bank, dual accounts, the works. Trent's only job was to show up with an appetite. In the meantime, Shane had said, she was headed off for some serious Santa Barbara therapy. Trent had made out like it was a major pain, breaking his routine, he needed to stay where he was and settle in, get back to his research. Not meaning a word of it. Just seeing what it was like to play on this new reason to smile. Shane had replied, “Five thirty, sport, it's your time to do some research on real life.”

Shane was not in the café, but Trent was not troubled. If anybody had earned the right to keep him waiting, it was his partner. Just thinking that word,
partner
, caused him to grin. The barista must have seen something good there, because she smiled back with a lot more than just professional courtesy. Trent took his coffee to a window by the side street.

Then he noticed the woman.

She was seated by herself at the table beside the rear wall. She kept looking his way. She was
studying
him. Trent was certain he had never seen her before.

The lady was seriously fine. She was beautiful with a very aggressive edge. Her white-blonde hair was cut butch-short, her clothes new and expensive and as sharp as her features. She was definitely not the sort who would normally give Trent a second glance.

Trent forgot his coffee, the lady's interest was that strong. She alternated between staring him down, then glancing at her watch, then back again. Trent was about to walk over and ask if there was something he could do for her when she beat him to it.

The woman rose from her chair and looked around the café. She stared out the front doors, very worried now, very tense. Then she walked swiftly across the café, her motions catlike. She leaned against the concrete pillar beside Trent's table. She dropped a beautiful shoulder bag on the chair next to his and asked, “Where's the lady?”

“Excuse me?”

“The lady. Your girlfriend. She's late.”

“Shane said she'd meet me here.”

“She's called Shane? Cute.” The woman was so tense the skin around her eyes and lips were parchment-white. “The lady is late, and that's a problem. I can't stay.”

She indicated the shoulder bag. It was large and shaped somewhat like a briefcase, with a beige leather handle and matching shoulder strap. The body of the bag appeared to be the skin of some reptile and was dyed a chalky yellow. The clasps were gold plated. As was the emblem on the side. It looked very expensive.

The lady said, “When your
Shane
gets here, tell her she's got to leave with just one bag. And she needs to play with the toys inside. Not you. Her.”

“You're not making any sense.”

“I know. But I've gone to the trouble of getting this bag so your Shane will accept this as totally real.” She started for the door, then turned back and leaned over and got tight in his face. Showing Trent the fear behind the terse words and the tight motions. “From now on, the only place you'll be alone is in your dreams, and maybe not even there. But you already know all about that, don't you.”

Trent felt the breath freeze in his chest.

The woman asked, “What's your name?”

“Trent.”

“So tell me, Trent. Did you really figure you'd get those three bonus dreams and not pay the price?”

He managed, “Two.”

“What?”

“There've only been two.”

She grimaced, or perhaps it was her best try at a smile. “Which means the next one will be coming at you tonight. My bad. The facts stay the same. There's no such thing as a free lunch, Trent. Not even in your dreams.”