Chapter Sixteen #2
Unlike Jed, Heath emanated a subtle strength.
Whenever she was by Jed, she always felt a bit wary, as if a wild animal were somewhere inside him, waiting to eat her up.
With those smiling eyes, Heath appeared like a helpful choir boy.
But, she reminded herself, he was the trained interrogator.
It was noteworthy how the serum was expanding her analytical skills.
“News travels fast around here. Does everyone know Armando secretly used the serum?”
“Only those who need to know,” Heath said.
“Is he going to be punished?” she asked, curious. Jed hadn’t seemed particularly angry when he confronted Armando yesterday. But he did give very specific orders about staying at Medic to be tested.
“Punishment?” Heath finally smiled. “We aren’t in school, Hell. We don’t punish bad behavior. Endangering one’s team through bad decisions is the only thing that makes us lose our temper a little. No one wants to die from carelessness around here.”
The man made jokes with subtle threats. Helen mentally shook her head. On one hand, she knew her normal self would be making a sarcastic remark right now. Instead, her mind was busy computing and analyzing Heath as if he was a target. Dang if the serum wasn’t curbing her inner snark bunny.
JED DIDN’T LOOK UP. He sensed the moment Elena entered the conference room.
She hadn’t said a word, but he knew she was there.
When he’d found out this morning that she was going to use the bio-serum, his initial reaction had been to countermand her decision.
He’d stopped himself just in time, not only because he realized how extraordinary the move would seem to anyone, even to Dr. Kirkland, but also because his wanting to do so stemmed from personal reasons.
Preventing an operative from doing his or her job was alien to his nature.
What Elena had decided to do made perfect sense as a responsible operative.
The serum was to be used to alleviate the effects of remote viewing so she could perform her job at optimal capacity.
She was the prime mover in their assignment; it was her right to be here to give a summary of what she’d seen during the remote-viewing session.
That he himself didn’t like the idea of her using the serum so soon after the first dosage shouldn’t be a reason to question her decision.
But the image of that other remote viewer at Stratter’s haunted him.
While Elena had been watching the curled-up man on the bed, he’d scanned the room, noting the medical trays and the IV bags.
The set-up looked awfully familiar. He didn’t doubt that the CIA and other agencies had been testing their versions of a serum on their remote viewers; science and technology didn’t remain a secret for long, especially with the speed of email and spying technology these days.
Those agencies were looking for their own super spy, and from this one instance, at least one remote viewer was negatively affected.
Jed couldn’t prove whether it was the serum, the strange encounter with Elena and Armando, or some other outside interference, but that man didn’t look well at all.
He waited until she’d chosen her seat, listening for clues as he heard her greeting the others. She sounded pleasantly normal, but was she? He, as Number Nine, couldn’t countermand another operative just because he was worried for her welfare now, could he?
“How are you feeling?” he asked, still writing.
“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
Something inside Jed relaxed. That was a typical Elena smart-ass reply. He put down the pen and finally glanced up. He waited for the familiar thrum of desire that always kicked in whenever he looked at her. Having her around him in real life had only kicked up that in-the-gut feeling a notch.
There was something appealing to him about the way she always had messy hair. Even tied up, little wisps would escape, framing her face, hinting at the rebellious nature underneath. Right now it looked damp and spiky, as if she had been in a hurry.
She looked rested. The serum had also probably taken away the pain from her leg.
There was a faint challenge in her body language, although her gaze was searching his coolly.
He could think of several reasons, all of which were understandable, why she wanted to be here in person.
She didn’t want to be some member of a team only good at one thing.
She was curious to hear his explanation of what had happened in the crate.
She’d brought up Stratter’s to T because of the photo.
He still wondered why he’d guided her to look for it on the wall.
Maybe it was his perverse way of giving her a part of himself.
His history at Stratter’s Pointe wasn’t something he shared with anyone.
The serum, he noted, had taken the edge off her anger.
Knowing her, she should be frustrated by his manipulation of her mind and body all yesterday.
Not that he had any regrets. He was honest enough to admit he enjoyed every side of her.
He had meant what he told her too, that in virtual reality, she was his, that he had to be the one in control.
Last night, out there, when she was either hallucinating or seeing some kind of strange colors, he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.
He must be careful not to push too much because Elena pushed herself hard enough. His hand curled tightly around his pen.
He’d nearly lost her. The force of the emotions that came with that thought shocked him.
“HELL, TELL THEM THE weapons you saw and each location, please.”
Helen couldn’t stop looking at him. In a room full of men, she was drawn to him and him only, and they hadn’t even greeted each other yet. The idea that it might all be the trigger he’d put in her head nagged her.
She’d been prepared for some arrogant display from him, perhaps ordering her back to rest. Once again, he had surprised her by giving her center stage.
His light eyes looked back at her coldly, his face stern and unsmiling.
He was always light and playful when he was Hades, but out here, no such luck.
Number Nine was all about work. She wasn’t deceived.
He wasn’t happy she wasn’t resting, even though he was choosing not to say anything about it.
“You experienced it firsthand,” he continued, misreading her hesitance. “I’m here to confirm what was seen as well as point out the clues that pinpointed the locations.”
He clicked on a small remote pad by his side. Each of their computer screens lit up. Helen looked at the images carefully.
“We saw a few on this list last night,” she confirmed quietly, still a bit wary that he was letting her run the show. “We tried changing the universal agreement midway during the RV session, and it worked.”
“Do we really have the exact locations?” Sullivan asked, impressed. He took a large swallow from the largest coffee cup she’d ever seen.
Helen shook her head in answer. She’d only been to two of these debriefings. She wasn’t sure how much these guys—her team, she corrected—understood about the ins-and-outs of remote viewing.
They’ve all been testing you in their own way these past months, Hell. They knew about RV and all the experiments you and Jed were undergoing.
“Sully, your caffeine’s not working. Exact isn’t a term used in remote viewing,” Flyboy said.
“We were pretty good the last mission,” Sullivan pointed out. “I mean, Hell was. Heck, she made every one of those department heads sit up when she gave the exact location and proved them right by coming back with the decoder.”
“I think it might have made a few of them determined to get the same results at their agencies,” Jed said. “Continue, Hell.”
She was slightly amused he’d never called her Hell except during a meeting.
Maybe the serum was making her more analytical about what he’d done to her.
Instead of anger and resistance, she was able to sort of understand him—she was Elena in private, Helen in formal situations, and Hell in the team.
Jed McNeil seemed to relate to her differently at different times.
She found that odd and sexy at the same time.
It made her feel as if he didn’t see her the same as the others.
“I find remote viewing specific only in certain details, Agent Sullivan,” she said. “The previous mission gave very obvious clues. Foreign language usage, among other things.”
“Perhaps we can only up our remote-viewing percentage with foreign locales,” Armando suggested. “Like a worldwide game of hide-and-seek.”
“Isn’t that what this entire mission has been?” Jed asked. “Everything on our list is spread all over the world and hidden by different hands. I believe you’re familiar with how the weapons game’s played, Armando, seeing that you moved them around for your family at one time.”
Armando smiled humorlessly. “Yes, I’m extremely good at making things disappear.”
“Things don’t just disappear. They’re hidden,” Jed countered softly, “but we’ll get back to that in a bit.”
Helen looked down at her notebook. Armando was in trouble, all right. In spite of what Heath had told her about punishment being for school, she had a feeling Jed had his ways of reining in those around him.
“Let me just start from the beginning,” she said.
She gave a brief account of the first place, the bars in the windows, and the person curled up on the bed surrounded by the doctor and two other men.
She told them she recognized the man as one of her few rivals during the inter-department contest for SSS.
“Since we were looking for my attacker and my bilocation led me to him, it’s a fair assumption that this man is being used as a remote viewer by another group to either spy on us or take me down. ”
“The first attack on Hell in Munich,” Flyboy interrupted. “I traced that van to a CIA ID, remember?”