Trial Run

by Thomas Locke

  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.

  78

  At 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.

  79

  When 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.

  80

  Shane followed the script to the letter. Holding to a tranquil tone had never been easier. The room was filled with a serenity so strong she could smell it, like walking through a field of desert blossoms, their petals open after the first rainfall in centuries. Shane’s senses felt utterly open, wholly awake. The intensity carried an alien edge, as though she was party to something that was intimately not her own. And yet she was welcome. She counted the silent woman on the bed back up and felt certain she had found a new and dear friend.

  Then it happened.

  As Gabriella took a first long breath, the room’s atmosphere shifted. The wildflowers were replaced by a stench of death.

  “What was that?”

  Gabriella reached over and gripped her with frantic talons. “You have to count me back.”

  Shane would have bolted from the room except for the grip the woman kept on her arm. She could not have shifted those claws without a wrench and a Taser. “That scared me!”

  “Listen to me. Charlie is in danger. I have to go back now.”

  Gabriella lay back down. Resettled the headphones. Took a pair of long breaths. Said, “Restart the controls and read the sheet just like the last time. Do it now.”

  The scent of sulfur left Shane fighting nausea. Terror dripped from the walls. But Shane did as she was told. “I’m starting the count.”

&nbs
p; Charlie drifted in a no man’s land. He felt as though he had been ripped away, not just from the room, but from life. He remained aware, but barely. His perception was flooded by a shattering tide of rage and hurt. He searched for something that would keep him intact. But he knew it was a losing battle.

  He sensed that the two attackers were readying another assault. Another bomb was incoming, and Charlie knew he would not survive.

  Then Gabriella was there again. Filling him with her love. Reconnecting him with the goodness and strength that was hers to give.

  Charlie absorbed her might as he would an elixir. He filled and filled and refashioned her love as his shield.

  The attackers moved in. Thanks to Gabriella’s presence, Charlie was able to look beyond the psychic pain and realize that the attackers had shaped the charge from a wasted life, with the same deliberate care as a human bomb maker. He watched it sweep toward them and, in that timeless awareness, knew precisely who was behind it all.

  Charlie found himself developing battle-honed tactics at this new level. But where his warrior’s senses had required years, this new advance took no time at all.

  His awareness stretched time. He had experienced this before, when the adrenaline rush amped his senses to an impossible degree. Only now there was no outlaw rush, no flood of terror and rage. Charlie extended a shield of impossible potency. He deflected the incoming attack.

  The two wraiths were confused but reacted swiftly, preparing yet another attack.

  Charlie moved forward as he had for the other lost ones. He extended himself as he had to protect Gabriella and Shane. And enveloped both the attacker and the one who hovered on the perimeter. At the instant of contact, he had the sense of confronting a sniper and his spotter.

  He felt them struggle against his hold. His own returning strength and Gabriella’s love were strong enough to keep them in place, at least for a moment. He extended a message crammed with a love-filled wrath.

  Come with me.

  Charlie held them fast and extended himself to a new destination. He turned them about and revealed what lay just beyond their field of vision. For now.

  The maelstrom’s fury had never seemed fiercer. The sucking draw of remorse and guilt reached forward and tried to haul them away.

  Charlie’s grip remained strong enough to hold them there. He extended another message. This is waiting to swallow you.

  He realized the spotter was a female. She fought him with genuine terror. The other was a warrior, trained and battle-hardened, and his own panic was more contained. As though he could search beyond the fear and the vortex, seeking to understand who Charlie was. Charlie recognized both the tactic and the attitude. A sniper’s first duty was to determine who was the foe, the threat. Charlie held them in place until he was certain this second attacker had the chance to rethink his destiny.

  Then Charlie drew them away and offered a final message, one shouted against the vortex’s silent fury. There is a different way to use your talent.

  As soon as Charlie released his grip, the female spotter fled in a wild panic. The warrior lingered a moment, checking him out. Still coming to terms with the shift in his world.

  When the second attacker departed, Charlie followed close behind. He saw the room where they ascended. He knew they called it the transit room. He left them there and moved out. Saw the entire Departures Lounge. The empty electronically controlled lobby area. The position within the building. The group that clustered around Elene down in the atrium. He saw it all.

  Charlie drew himself away and back to where he lay in the motel room on the airport’s other side. He rose from the bed. Went into the bathroom. Washed his face. Stared at his reflection. Told himself to lock and load.

  Nothing had changed. He had known from the outset he was going to have to go in there and end this thing. Only now his reason was far stronger.

  He was going to stop Reese Clawson once and for all.

  81

  Reese was waiting with Jeff for the duty officer to unlock the building’s front door when Kevin hurried up. He wore a raincoat over jeans and a candy-striped pajama top. Kevin said, “I didn’t even know this opened.”

  The main security station stood where a normal building would have a receptionist. The curved desk was rimmed by blank screens.

  Reese said, “This can’t be good.”

  “It’s typical, is what it is.” Jeff did not even bother to glance over. “They could have hired an army for what this system cost. These techies ought to be lined up against the wall.”

  They entered the atrium to find her team clustered around a table. Elene sat at the head. Everyone but Joss looked over as the trio entered. Their expressions were grave. Consuela looked terrified. Joss held one of her hands, his gaze locked on some grim and distant horizon.

  Elene Belote showed neither surprise nor real interest in their arrival. “Hello, Reese.”

  Reese struggled to fashion a response. She needed to be sharp, but her brain simply would not function. Something was seriously wrong with the picture. Five o’clock in the morning, and all of her team were awake and gathered. And focused. Not on Reese. On Elene. Who should not have been here at all.

  Kevin asked, “Where’s Riffkind?”

  Then pandemonium erupted.

  Wails filled the atrium. The vast chamber echoed with the sound of very real human anguish. Screams and howls and moans, a chorus of bedlam.

  The male nurse came flying through the clinic’s entrance, his eyes round, his face bleached white. “You got to get in here!”

  Before they could recover, the patients stumbled out. All of them. They shrieked like ghouls, waved their arms, tore at their hair, their clothes, shouted nonsense words. And headed straight for where Reese stood.

  Reese and Kevin spotted Trent Major at the same moment. He walked out of Kevin’s lab. Trent showed no surprise at the commotion. Just stood looking at Kevin. Who gaped in reply.

  Reese shouted for security to grab him. But she could not make herself heard.

  82

  Charlie?”

  “Thank you for coming back, Gabriella. I couldn’t have made it without you.”

  “What just happened?”

  Charlie shut the motel room door and walked along the outside passage toward the stairs. “Reese is forming attack teams.”

  The news almost broke Gabriella. “She is using my own work to destroy everything I stood for.”

  Charlie unlocked the car and slipped behind the wheel and started the motor. “That’s not going to happen, Gabriella.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  The answer was, what he had aimed on doing all along. Only now there was an added urgency to his work.

  He burned rubber out of the parking lot. “What I do best.”

  Charlie left the car across the street from the compound. Any frontline warrior would say the best time to hit a protected site was the hour just before sunrise. The darkest hour of night had passed, and with it the soldiers’ concentration. The world rested. The night beasts were in their burrows, the day creatures not yet up and moving around. The streets held an almost breathless quality.

  The compound was typical for a top-secret operation. At first glance, the fence was a decorative affair, with black metal posts forming a pattern around the compound’s periphery. Charlie knew the razor edges continued down to chest height, making it impossible to scale or attach any sort of line. The spacing allowed the internal security to observe any approach. The security lighting was intense and illuminated an utterly bare lawn. The only adornment was a blank granite block waiting for some company’s name. The ground was laced with unseen sensors. The place was a hidden fortress. The guards would be numerous and armed and highly skilled.

  And Charlie was going in alone.

  He could feel his strength already sapped by the attack during his ascent. He wanted to crawl under these bushes and sack out.

  Two cars were parked to either side of the peri
meter gate. The gate opened into a concrete strip that ended at the loading platform. The presence of those cars was both good and bad. Good, because it confirmed that the perimeter gate operated on its own backup power, which could be accessed even when the security system was down. Bad, because it meant the security team had been reinforced. He reminded himself that he was a combat vet and a highly trained security specialist. This was just another assignment. He would tough it out.

  Charlie slipped behind the shrubbery at the sound of a lone engine. He raised his head a fraction and saw a delivery truck trundle down the street. The vehicle was just as Elene had described from her ascent. Charlie gripped the black duffel bag. The contents clinked softly as he tensed for the leap.

  As soon as Elene had described her escape from the compound, Charlie had known it would come down to this.

  Elene’s images had been vividly clear. She had seen herself lead a group drawn from Reese Clawson’s team out of the building. They emerged together. Unchallenged. And they made their escape in a white grocery truck that was drawn up to the loading platform.

  Simple. Except for one thing.

  Trent Major had already cut the security system. Elene had described that as well. And as any operative knew all too well, when the system went down, the exterior entries instantly locked. It was an automatic response. Each portal carried its own emergency battery pack. Even an instant’s interruption to the energy supply resulted in the place turning into a fortress. The security chief would hold a key. His duty officer would have another. The only access was via a dual unlocking system. It could be done from inside or out. But both keys had to access the same door, and only one door worked. Charlie assumed it was the front portal. Which meant the loading bay was sealed for the duration.

  This left him with just one option. Because refusing this challenge was not in the cards. He was going in. And they were coming out. The fact that they came out unchallenged meant he must have stayed to duke it out. And did not escape with them.