by Fiona Quinn
My not asking Zoe to do separate searches of the kids? That was a ridiculously obvious next step. Why didn’t I catch it while I was at her lab?
I had to fix this.
Me.
I had to fix me.
I checked the wall clock. It wasn’t quite time for me to meet with General Elliot, but I was going to head up there now.
I slid my feet into my kitten-heeled shoes, closed the Puzzle Room door behind me, and decided to take the stairs as I walked to the Commanders’ wing.
I thought best when I was moving. I worked through a lot of issues on my daily run. If need be, I’d pace back and forth in my office with bare feet. It got my thoughts flowing.
As I moved toward the stairwell, I was thinking about Striker.
My psychiatrist had another theory she wanted me to consider. Striker might be part of the problem. And the reason I’m getting worse, not better.
As if Striker could be a problem.
Absurd.
Though, Striker wasn’t really what Avril was suggesting was the problem but my relationship with Striker more specifically.
And yeah, I admit it, I’ve had emotional Striker issues from the moment I met him. We met as two different people. First, I met him when I was a teen, training under my mentor, Spyder. That’s when I was Alex. Alex could have been a boy or a girl or completely without gendered parts because Alex was a silent ghost who was secretly crushing on Striker Rheas the demi-god and completely drool-worthy.
I pushed through the door to the stairs and caught the handrail as I made my way up.
Early Striker had been fantasy Striker.
Then, when I was attacked by Travis Wilson, I was a very wounded Lexi Sobado in the hospital. That’s when Striker became 3D as part of the team that was meant to help protect me and solve the case.
He was a person, not a myth.
In my tumultuous fight to survive Travis Wilson, Striker was a resting place. A moment of peace. A life vest thrown into the turbulent waters for me to cling to.
With Angel gone and Striker right there, I’ll admit, it got confusing for me. Like I was tied to Angel but belonged, somehow, to Striker instead.
And there was a metric ton of guilt surrounding my confusion.
It was strange. And this was something that I’d never found an answer to—one of the few things that my therapist didn’t postulate a theory about: While I thought I felt guilty about my feelings when I was under Striker’s protection, it was a sense of guilt imposed by how I thought others would be judging me. Like I was caught with my hand in someone else’s cookie jar kind of guilt.
Though, nothing physical ever happened between Striker and me while Angel was alive.
I rounded the landing and took the next set of stairs.
After Angel’s death, those guilty feelings changed.
I remembered the exact moment.
The night the IED exploded the vehicles transporting Angel’s Ranger unit home from a mission, I woke up in shock, unable to think, to process. I knew on a cellular level that something horrible had happened.
I later determined, that sense of shock, the one that seemed to lift me up in the air and throw me down on the bed, waking me up into a place of suspended animation, was the exact moment Angel blew up with the IED.
I knew that that day, the military would send their representatives to inform me of Angel’s death.
But that wasn’t when the guilt shifted.
It was on the flight to Puerto Rico, two days later, with Angel’s coffin in the luggage hold of the plane. I was going down to bury Angel per his wishes. Strike Force was with me. And I was still numb. But up under the numb came the sensation of guilt, deep-down guilt that had more to do with purposefully breaking a bond. Deciding to break a bond.
What was that all about?
Certainly, I had never cheated on Angel. Striker and I had never even kissed. We hadn’t made love until we were engaged almost a year later. It was two years since Angel’s death. Two years of this broken-bond guilt.
Did I think there was some way that I could have kept Angel alive? Something I didn’t do that would have helped him survive? I thought that the look on Prescott’s face when he was confronted with Kaylie’s survival was familiar to me. It was a feeling that I carried around with me.
Baggage. Too much baggage. Too many woulda, coulda, shoulda.
I crossed my fingers, whispering, “Please, General Elliot, let me go to see the Galaxy operators. I don’t know how else to help Angel’s soul.”
I pushed through the heavy door and stepped onto the carpet, sinking my heels into the deep pile.
I loved Striker. My future lay with him, of that, I had no doubt. Any doubts I had about that were cleared from my mind when I was dying in the desert after the plane crash. I hesitated about our relationship during my crash recovery for fear that I was just too big of a horror magnet, too big of a problem to impose my cloud of bad juju on anyone. But Striker convinced me that he was a big boy and could make decisions like that for himself. If he was willing to tie his cart to my stampeding horse, it was a personal decision that he made willingly. Then he laughed as if that image was comical to him.
I didn’t think it was funny.
But I let go of trying to regulate and manipulate our relationship and allowed it to be what it wanted to be.
As I moved up the corridor, I felt Angel call to me through the ether, I’m in Hell.
I put a steadying hand on the wall, dropping my head as I tried to take a breath. Anxiety sucked.
I worked to shift my thoughts away from Angel and onto Kaylie, but Kaylie, too, had kissed her family and flown away, never to be seen again. Now, a judge told her family that their beloved Kaylie had been gone long enough to pronounce her dead.
They’d buried the essence of her without seeing her body.
That was very much like what had happened to me.
The parallels in our stories, the grief, and horror that Melody was swimming in, made the tempest waters roar louder through my system, foaming up into a night of fight-mares, of terror-mares, of adrenaline-soaked guilt-mares.
I set out walking again, heading straight toward a smiling Leanne.
Angel was distracting me from my work.
Angel was dead.
Kaylie, though, had a shot at survival.
Prescott had thought we had a week to get to the woman in the photo. But after the attack and the band of refugees scattered… Who knew if they had food? Or water.
You can’t live without water.
Her time frame could be down to days, in that heat? Hours.
And here I was, fighting to stay effective.
Chapter Twenty-One
I finger waved at Leanne. “Hey there, the general said I could have five minutes of his time.”
“Let me check and see if he’s ready for you.” Leanne worked her way around her desk, taking mini-steps in her tight pencil skirt, expertly balancing in her Louboutin stilettos despite the thick carpet. That took some core strength. I bet she did Pilates.
As she shut the door to the General’s office behind her, I stared over at the prisms of the Tsukamoto mobile, Gateway to Nirvana. I let it mesmerize me, heal me. If only I could stand and stare at one of Tsukamoto’s incredible works all day long, I thought, I’d be just fine.
Leanne stepped from behind the general’s door before I wanted her to. “Lynx, he’ll see you now.”
I walked into General Elliot’s office and right into his arms that were outstretched for a hug.
He planted a grandfatherly kiss on my head. “Well, young lady. It’s not often you come to visit me.”
“I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
“The Mrs. was talking about you just this morning.” He moved to the wing chair and sat down stiffly. “She wants you to come around to dinner. I thought you might be showing up this morning because you felt her invitation, and you just wanted to know what time to come.” He chuckled as he
shifted around to a comfortable slouch in his chair. Then waggled his hand toward the chair opposite his.
I liked that General Elliot knew I had psychic abilities. He was one of the very few who knew the extent of them. And he appreciated how it was both a blessing and a curse.
To him, my skills were mostly a blessing; they’d saved him from a psychic attack by Indigo and Scarlet. A militarily trained attack that left the general in a coma.
“I would like that very much. Maybe once I’ve got this Kaylie Street case wrapped up.”
“Kaylie Elizabeth Street was one of Iniquus’s early cases when I left the Galaxy project, and we started up our international hostage response team.” He pursed his lips. “Always bugged me that case. The pieces didn’t fit together right.”
“I had a thought,” I said, finding my place on the very edge of the chair. “I’d like your permission to pursue it, though.”
He leaned back.
“What if I took a trip up to Wyoming?”
He rubbed his bottom lip between his index finger and his thumb. “To see my friends from the Galaxy project? You want to work with remote viewers?”
I found myself clutching at the sides of my thighs like I was trying to hold myself together. I needed his permission. “I know it’s not the way we normally work—”
“There’s a reason for that. We’d be out of business if the Pentagon got wind that we utilized remote viewing intelligence. The brass has painful memories of the time that we tried to combat the Russian parapsychologists and remote viewers with our own. When the program came out in public, it made for a political and budgetary scandal. The military became the butt of public ridicule. Reputation is everything in the military. The same feeling pervades the other alphabets.”
“I understand. I do.” That sure sounded like a no. “Just to briefly catch you up on what happened yesterday with the Kaylie Street case, if that would be okay?”
“Good.” He patted his knees.
“When Iniquus decided to pro bono protect Zoe Kealoha from the would-be kidnappers, she has never forgotten your generosity. Her BIOMIST system helped us in France when Panther Force needed answers, and her BIOMIST data was able to help us again with Kaylie. In both cases, Zoe was providing the information off the books. You should know what an asset she’s been.”
“Noted. We’ll keep tabs on her and make sure Zoe has what she needs when and if she needs us. Just that much information tells me that Kaylie survived Nigeria and somehow found herself in the Middle East. She must have gone through a hearts-and-minds medical check.”
“No, sir, she did not. But there are three babies who did.”
His brow pulled together. “Kaylie’s children?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are we getting them out? Special Agent in Charge Damian Prescott is on the case, right?”
“Yes, sir. There’s a connection. One of those, ‘wow, it’s a small world’ things.”
“Oh, you know better than that. You travel in the ether. You know how things are aligned.”
“I know how I make things seem reasonable in my mind.” I smiled. “How it all works? No, I don’t have a good grasp on that. In this case, though, I would agree. It seems that things are lined up. Damian Prescott grew up in the same neighborhood as Kaylie Street. They played together as children. He was surprised when his CIRG unit was sent to Nigeria to find that his childhood friend was one of the missing scientists.”
The general frowned and nodded as he listened.
“Flash forward a bit, and he was here in Washington D.C. when he was asked to be involved in the development of a handheld field blood analyzer. They were giving feedback on a prototype for Zoe when the project got put on a shelf so the CIA could protect the BIOMIST system. Zoe knew Prescott and sent him an SOS from under her bed when the kidnappers were in her apartment. Because of their history and his work with her on that blood biomarker prototype, Zoe’s given Prescott permission to take her hand-held analyzer into the field, with the CIA’s blessing, to see if he can’t track down Kaylie’s children. He told me just now that he’s been given the green light for a four-person team. They’re suiting up to head downrange. They should be in Iraq by tomorrow.”
“A step forward.” He laced his fingers, steepling the index fingers and putting them under his chin. “What about Kaylie herself?”
“Prescott told me last night that the group of people who were making their way to the border—the ones picked up by the NSA images—were attacked by ISIS fighters. Many of the refugees were killed. The ones who survived ran into the surrounding hills for shelter. To begin with, we don’t know if that was a picture of Kaylie that the NSA flagged. Second, we don’t know if that woman was one of those caught in the explosions. We need boots on the ground, but that’s a non-permissive environment.”
“What are we doing about it?”
“I spoke with Dr. Sophia Abadi last night. At my request, she’s reaching out to her Syrian contacts to see if anyone has heard of an American woman in the area. And of course, the CIA is also involved.”
“But you want to head up to Wyoming.”
I smoothed out the skirt of my dress. “I’m going to be honest, sir. I decided that I wanted to go up there because I was hoping they could help me with a personal matter. But now I’m thinking it might be the best shot we have for finding Kaylie Street. Two birds…”
“When were you thinking of going?”
“I’m flying to Puerto Rico to see Abuela Rosa for the anniversary of my husband’s death. I’ll stay in contact and work remotely if I’m needed. But with the Kaylie Street case, I’m in a holding pattern, waiting for information to come in. I was planning to fly to Wyoming on Thursday, straight from Puerto Rico.”
“If I said no to your using Galaxy operators to look for Kaylie?”
“I still need to go talk to the Galaxy team.” I wished I had a glass of water. My mouth was so dry, my lips were sticking to my teeth. “As I said, I have personal reasons.”
His head bobbled while he thought. After a moment, he said, “One of the problems that my men and women had as they developed their remote viewing skills with the Galaxy Project was that there was a whole lot of noise that was hard to clear. Lots of psychic vibrations and information.” He shook his hands near his head. “A thinning of the veil. There aren’t many people who could commiserate with what they were experiencing. Not many people who could intervene when they needed help.” He stroked a finger along the edge of his jawline and rested it on his lip. “Yup, it’s there around the outside of your eyes and in the way you’re pursing your mouth, like your trying not to show pain while a needle is being jabbed into a nerve bundle. I recognize it.”
I shifted around. Seemed like I wasn’t doing a great job hiding my problems.
“I know you have Miriam Laugherty in your corner. She’s good at what she does. I have the utmost respect.” He shook his head. “But it isn’t the same. She can’t do what you can. And you can’t do what the Galaxy soldiers can. But I bet they have some ways they can help you ease your burden. They had a gal that’s been working with them since we noticed this problem with our remote viewers. Sort of a psychic doctor, if you will. We just call her Doc. Not a very imaginative code name. She’s rather a practical gal. The name fits.” He pursed his lips. “I think you should make it a habit to go up and see the others. Talk things through. Get checked out by Doc. I’m ordering you to do that. I’ll set up an account with General Coleridge to cover the costs of training, counsel, whatever they want to call it. You’re to go up and check in on an every-other-month basis. More if need be. We need you whole and healthy. You’re an asset to Iniquus.” He bent forward to pat my hand. “And you’ve got a special place in this old guy’s heart. You hear?”
“Thank you.” I squeezed his hand.
“You take good care. I’d like you to stop by my office when you get back.”
And just like that, I was cleared to go.
I hop
e this works.
“One more thing, sir.”
He lifted his brows.
“Indigo had been doing remote searches on me when he was alive. I was hoping to look something up from his lab notes I saw in passing.”
“About the attacks, he was orchestrating against you?”
“No, sir, it was actually about Scarlet Vine and her obsession with Striker. When Scarlet was getting confused about what she saw during her remote viewing of Striker, she asked her dad to do the same task so she could compare notes. I saw something I wanted to review.”
General Elliot didn’t answer right away. “You have to be careful. These aren’t oracles. The remote viewing findings have just over a fifty-fifty chance that they’re right.” He dipped his chin.
“His conclusions were accurate on this particular point, sir. I wanted to see the tasking sheet to see if there is more information about how he reached his conclusion.”
“Can you tell me what situation we’re talking about?”
I held his gaze. “I’d rather not, sir. It’s personal in nature.”
“To do with Striker? Your team?”
“No, sir. To understand the circumstance of my husband’s death.”
“His memory haunting you?”
I looked up to find sympathy in his eyes. Not exactly the norm for this man. General Elliot wasn’t the sentimental type by any stretch of the imagination. He was a diamond in the rough, in the sense that diamond is the hardest material on Earth.
His sharp edge was honed in the Vietnamese jungles.
I’d trust him in anything. Follow him anywhere.
But I wouldn’t let his sympathy sink into my psyche.
I thrust my shoulders back. “That would be a fair way to put it, sir.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I’ll direct Leanne to take you to the file room.” General Elliot spread his feet wider and pushed on his knees as he stood. “The lab notes have been digitalized and are searchable. For tight security’s sake, they’re only stored on the one computer designated for that singular purpose. If you need the original copies, they’re stored on a shelf in there, off to the side. Leanne can set you up in the file room. Oh, and here.” The general got a trickster-gleam in his eyes. He stalked over to his sofa and picked up a throw pillow. “I’ll tell Leanne that if you decide to take a nap in there, that it’s A-Okay.”