Trial Run (30 page)

C
onsuela followed Joss slowly through the Departures Lounge. “We could get in serious trouble.”

“Hey, what are they gonna do, dock our pay?” Joss reached the stairs going down to the transit room and grinned back at her. “This could be a gas.”

“I'm thinking more like a disaster.”

“And I'm telling you, it's time we see how far we can take this.”

Consuela took her time going down the stairs. Wondering why she followed him at all. When she arrived in the transit room, Joss was already bouncing on the chair. Like a kid testing out bedsprings.

She said, “You're a fiend.”

He laughed out loud. “No argument there.”

“I should go.”

“Come on, lady. See, I remembered and I'm talking nice. Who turned you into a mouse?”

“Reese is who. Don't tell me the woman don't scare you too.”

“Absolutely. But here's the thing. She's got her own ladder to climb, right? She'll have us waiting, like, weeks before they green-light this deal. Believe me, I know all about officers and how much time they can waste.” He gestured at the empty chair beside him. “Come on, lady. The motor's primed and running.”

His smile convinced her more than his words. “You are a wicked, wicked boy.”

He only grinned harder. “Tell me you don't love it.”

“I hate you.”

“Like I believe that for one minute.”

“How can we do this without, you know, Reese and the sounds and everything?”

“I got Karla to show me the ropes. I go upstairs, I turn the stuff on, then I come back and we go. I've done it, like, a million times.”

“You're such a liar.”

“Okay, five.”

“For real?”

“I get bored sitting there in my room waiting for the next shot. So I go up alone.”

Consuela found herself drawn by the prospect. “You're not fooling.”

“What, you think I'd drag you down here to pretend?”

“Or something.”

Joss grinned at her. “That's an idea.”

But she was caught by the prospect of a secret transit now. “That means you get control.”

“Go where I want, when I want. I figure maybe they know about this all along. Karla checking with Reese, the lady deciding why not, give it a go and see how it flies. I think Elene's done it by herself too, but I didn't get a chance to ask her. Tell you the truth, when I did it the first time, sitting down here all by my lonesome, I was one scared little puppy.”

“I can't imagine you being scared over anything.”

His grin returned. “Except you.”

“Yeah, well, you got a good reason there.” She settled back. “So what do I do?”

He popped out of his chair. “First we figure what it is we're going to do. Then I go upstairs and set the stuff up. I say we transit, meet up here, then go straight for the target.”

“The woman and the guy and the team in Switzerland.”

“Name the name, that's rule one in sniper school. You ID the target and you build your scenario around the situation at hand.”

“You scare me, talking like that. It makes everything so real.”

“Real as it gets, lady. You in?”

She reached for her headphones. “What is it you guys say before action? Lock and load, is that right?”

T
he knocking at Shane's door was as unwelcome as it was persistent. Shane moaned and rolled over and found her mouth was so dry she could not tell them to go away.

The knocking stopped, then started anew. Shane groaned a second time and forced herself up and crossed the room and said, “Not now.”

“It's Gabriella. I'm sorry to disturb you.”

“Hold on a moment.” She shuffled into the bathroom, found a robe hanging from the back of the door, slipped it on, then came back and let Gabriella in. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Three hours. Not long enough, I'm sure. But I left this as long as I could.” Gabriella entered bearing a tray with a silver thermos and sandwiches and linen napkins and two cups. A leather briefcase was slung over her shoulder. “I need your help. If you are willing.”

“Sure. Is that for me?”

“Yes. I thought you might need something.”

“Let me get on some clothes.” When she emerged from the bathroom, Shane discovered that Gabriella had made the bed and re
arranged the furniture. The coffee table had been drawn over beside the bed. The chair from the desk was pulled up beside the table. The tray was set on the dresser by the door. On the coffee table was a cluster of electronic gear. “You want me to ascend?”

“No. I must do this. I need you to guide me.” Gabriella lifted a sheet of paper. “I have written out everything that is required. We can go through this while you eat. Timing is very important. I must begin in . . .” She checked her watch. “Precisely eighteen minutes.”

Shane drank a cup of coffee and ate a sandwich standing up. Gabriella stood beside her, walking her through the instructions. The process followed the same pattern as what Shane had heard on the iPod but was much more tightly controlled. She set down her cup and said, “I can do this.”

“I am certain you can.” Gabriella hugged her very swiftly, then walked to the bed. “Elizabeth should be the one helping me. But I cannot ask her.”

“You two have argued.”

“Never. But she is in love with Charlie. And I am ascending so that I can go to him. And join in a very special way.” Gabriella settled onto the bed. “Elizabeth would help me. But I would rather not have to ask. I hope you can understand that.”

“Absolutely.” Shane watched her fit on the headphones. “So all I have to do is press this button, then speak into the mike.”

“Be sure and follow the clock exactly. The timing is essential.” Gabriella used both hands to adjust her pillow. “Which is why I could not ask Massimo. He is a wonderful young man. But he and his friends have become increasingly, how should I say, disassociated. They ascend together as a group. For them, it comes natural. These days I feel they are tethered to earth by the thinnest of threads. One hard wind, and poof, they would drift away. I cannot rely on him to even notice the time, much less follow it. How long do we have?”

The laptop screen showed a numerical clock in the upper right-hand corner. “Six minutes.”

“The others of my team think Massimo and his group are just adolescents who play at ascending. They are very helpful and do much of the kitchen work and the cleaning. Yet they only seem to play when they ascend. Then occasionally Massimo says something, usually to me in private. And I am left wondering if perhaps he is why we are here at all.”

Shane found the woman on her bed invited confidences, both by her words and the manner in which she spoke. “Are you in love with Charlie too?”

“So much I have spent a year running from him. In truth, I have two professions. I am a psychologist. And I am a specialist in choosing the world's worst men.”

Rain and wind pounded on the window. Shane asked, “You think Charlie is wrong for you?”

“Of course not. If he was, I would have invited him in long ago.” Gabriella's smile was piercingly sad. “It is so hard to break bad habits, no?”

“Terrible.”

“Do you know, I think we are to become the very best of friends.” She studied Shane a moment longer, then reached for the phone. “It is time for me to join with Charlie.”

C
harlie used his fake ID to take yet another motel room. He had spent a small fortune over the past few days on temporary residences. This particular suites-only motel stood where the main airport road met the avenue leading back to the facility. Charlie made a thorough check of his room on the second floor. He disliked being off the ground floor, but this was the last room they had. The night manager had charged him the full rack rate. Two hundred and seventy dollars plus tax. A lot of money for a ninety-minute stay. But from where he stood on the balcony, Charlie could look out over the dark airport runway and straight into the compound where Elene and Trent were now.

The building where Reese Clawson worked was a featureless block that shone pearl-white under the security lights. Dawn was about two hours away. The roads and airport were still. Charlie knew the quiet was an illusion. He had known the instant he heard Reese's name that this confrontation would end with a bang.

When his cell phone rang, Charlie went back inside and shut and
locked his door. He slid the security bolt in place. Shut the drapes more tightly. Jammed a chair under the doorknob. “This is Charlie.”

“Hello, my darling.”

He should have realized a soul-shimmering joy, hearing her speak those words. Instead, his voice sounded flat to his own ears. “Gabriella.”

“We are all here on Guernsey. Elizabeth arrived with Shane. You did not tell me how lovely Shane is.”

“I never met her.”

“Of course. Shane is here in the room with me. She has agreed to help me ascend. I wish you were here too, Charlie. Shane's room is in the tower of a castle that was built three hundred years ago. It is storming. Listen. Can you hear the wind?”

“Yes.”

“I walked out to the veranda after we checked in. The waves are crashing against the cliffs below the hotel. They tell me the weather is like this most of the winter and spring, with strong winds and storms and waves that make the whole island shake. Will you keep me warm, Charlie?”

He felt a palsy grip his frame. He forced himself to utter the words, as calmly as he could, “There's something I need to tell you.”

“Can't it wait until we are together?”

“Not this.” He walked over to the wall. Pressed it with his fist and his forehead. “I think I realized the first moment I saw you that you had come to change my world.”

“Charlie—”

“Let me finish.” He swallowed hard. “I had learned to be content with never feeling satisfied. Never fitting in. Never knowing a happiness lasting longer than the next adrenaline rush. That was my world, and I was stuck with it. Then you came. I've discovered new words to describe a universe I never knew existed before. Words like chivalry. Sacrifice. Living for a higher cause. I just want to say thank you. For everything. But most especially for waking up my soul.”

“You've made me cry.”

“I love you, Gabriella.”

“I love you as well, Charlie Hazard.”

“Are you ready?”

“Wait, let me blow my nose. All right. I must ask you, Charlie, do you really think you can handle bringing back all eight lost ones?”

“Yes.”

“But you were exhausted after doing it for just three.”

“That was the first time. I need to bring back as many as I can.”

“As many as you can
safely
.”

“Roger that.” He checked his watch. “I make it as twenty minutes past four in the morning, West Coast time. We are go for launch in ten minutes.”

“Take care, my darling. My heart races from the thought of joining with you again.”

He hung up the phone. Stood staring at the blank wall. Wondering if somehow she knew how this was probably going to end. Gabriella was the most intelligent person he had ever met. Perhaps she surmised at some deep level that he would probably not survive the coming assault on Reese Clawson's compound. And this was why Gabriella could allow herself to love him now.

A
t the appointed time, Charlie ascended. And waited.

Gabriella came to him almost instantly. There was no hesitancy this time, no lingering at the borders of his awareness. Instead, she rushed at him. If there was a word to describe their joining, it was hunger.

Charlie indulged himself for a time beyond time, reveling in the union. Then he knew they had to move. As did she. Gabriella did not release him so much as simply acknowledge his departure.

He formed the impression of his destination. Not of a specific name. But of the handwritten list Elene had given him. All eight remaining names.

He had no fear of this. It was almost normal now. He had been in storms before. Desert winds so strong the grit threatened to blast away his skin and whittle down his bones. Hurricanes lashing the Georgia coast, one tearing apart the barracks where he was sleeping. He had
already survived his first encounter with this particular tempest, and his second. He was utterly confident that Gabriella's shield would hold.

The danger was not here. It was in what came after.

The vortex raged at his approach. His ready defiance only strengthened the maelstrom. Charlie could not see where he was or where he went. But he kept stumbling upon forms. Each time he silently called a name, he shifted position and found the next one. They were all the same, sprawled and inert. Then he reached out with Gabriella's love and his own strength, which proved enough to awaken them even here. They rose. And he took them back. And then he returned. Each time, the tempest was stronger. It was not dust that blinded him but the fragments of wasted lives. He could sense his own mistakes and wrong deeds flashing at him, hot as lava spewed from a volcano, hurled by a banshee wind.

It did not touch him. He remained sealed within Gabriella's protective embrace.

He restored the eighth person and returned. He enfolded himself more tightly within Gabriella's loving energy. He lingered there, her love lighting him up like a beacon, a flame so strong he felt able to handle anything that came next. Even his own end.

If only their union could have lasted a little longer.

W
hen Gabriella left him, Charlie allowed himself to be drawn along by her sweet fulfillment, the answer to what felt like a lifetime of hopes. Wishing he could have more, and have it for longer.

He traveled with her to the Guernsey hotel. His awareness of the physical surroundings was vague. He sensed the room and the presence of another woman at Gabriella's bedside. As the woman started the return sequence, Charlie was fairly certain Gabriella was still aware of him.

Which was when he spotted the incoming threat.

A dark mass drifted in from the realm of nightmares and death. A wraith, followed at a distance by a second form. Both of them carried shadows with them. As though they formed a mini-vortex through their intent and took pleasure from their dark handiwork.

The wraith cast something at Gabriella just as she was returning to her physical self. Charlie had the sudden recollection of a day in
Iraq, and hearing the tick of a bomb, and through it the countdown to a friend's demise.

Just like then, he did not think or hesitate. Charlie extended himself in a manner that he did not even know was possible. Perhaps it had not been until the need arose. He stretched himself out like a covering whose dimensions enclosed both women. Enveloping them entirely. Sheltering them beneath his strength.

The bomb landed on top of him. He knew instantly that was what it was. A compressed ball of fury and psychic fire.

And then his world exploded.