Chapter Twenty #4
Later, back at the hotel, Helen watched Jed giving directives to operatives left and right as he changed back into his jeans and shirt.
After making sure she wasn’t really injured, he hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with her before being swarmed by calls from different agencies.
She watched, fascinated as he morphed seamlessly from the cold assassin she’d seen in the underground garage to negotiator, and then to the voice of authority, telling someone somewhere what to do with some kind of information the head of Deutsche International had passed on to him.
Through it all, his silver eyes watched her like a hawk, following her as she walked around the room.
She knew she was acting a tad bit too restless, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He was emanating the most beautiful glow and if she didn’t move around, she would be unable to resist the sudden urge to touch him, to feel all that energy calling to her.
What were these bubbly things she kept seeing when she concentrated on a person?
Was it the serum? If so, besides overriding her pain and exhaustion, what was it enhancing? And why did she herself glow too?
“Jed, vid-feed from Diamond. He’s with Hawk McMillan.”
“Be right there.” Jed turned to her and said, “If Diamond has secured the trigger, we’ll fly back to Center immediately. I want you examined by Dr. Kirkland ASAP.”
Helen cocked her head. He was just too serious. “Won’t you prefer another day near Lake Matka?” she teased. “I’m not sleepy at all, so the brain entrainment machine’s going to be useless. I can think of other ways to use up all this serum-enhanced energy.”
The corner of his lips lifted slightly but his light eyes were still watchful. “I’ll find a way to tire you out.” He caressed her face with the back of his hand. “Food. Drink.”
She gave a mock salute and watched him go. Damn, but she loved watching his ass in those faded jeans.
NOOO! THE BITCH HAD killed his monitors! They were his only connection to the serum! He hadn’t ever considered the danger of his job, that he or his handlers might die. What would become of him?
Jonah hadn’t dared go closer to the dead body. He never liked the energy that still clung to the recently deceased. He followed one man, then another, trying to figure what to do next.
Despair raged through him. He didn’t even know how to get back to the States.
Alone. In the darkness. No serum. The thought of being left all by himself brought him into near panic.
He willed himself to calm down. There was nobody monitoring his physical body back in the room and he couldn’t afford a cardiac arrest right now.
He heard English. American English. Turning, he saw two men conversing in low voices.
Definitely American. Following them was easy, of course, and listening in made his blood boil.
It was that bitch from COMCEN again, interfering with his life.
He continued following them until they reached a hotel room, knowing he would find her there.
The sight of her made him angrier than ever.
She was looking down, studying something in her hand, a small frown crinkling her forehead.
She held it up to the light and it was a vial, the kind of medical glass container that held drugs to be drawn out through a syringe.
He was very familiar with them because his handlers had carried them for his second dosages.
Jonah glared with hatred at the source of all his trouble. The bitch caused this. If he were to be stranded out here, with no serum, so should she. She was going down too.
He wasn’t sure what he was doing but he understood his abilities a lot better now.
It all made sense. Remote viewers gauged sights and sounds, recording them in an objective way, but he’d managed to cross the invisible line with his special talents.
He could see more than that when he remote viewed.
Somehow he’d found a way to “record” energy.
He recalled the one whose “painful” energy he’d inadvertently taken by mistake—what if he crashed into the bitch now and returned that unwanted gift?
What if he took everything from her and left her in pain?
Could he do that? He didn’t know how, but he was even more powerful now, wasn’t he?
They’d told him that some remote viewers could be trained to kill.
He didn’t know how, but he would find a way to damage her.
He’d always known he was far better than the other candidates and he could prove it by trying something new on the one person whom they had deemed better than him. And look at all that glorious sexy glow coming from her. What a goldmine.
Jonah rushed at her, his channels open at full strength. He would suck everything from her. He would find a way to hurt her back. He had nothing to lose.
“DRAGAN DILAVER IS NO longer an asset,” Jed told Hawk McMillan, giving permission to the SEAL to do what he’d been wanting to do with the drug lord before cutting off the video transmission.
Dragan Dilaver had only been useful as long as he was the only one who could give them the coordinates to the missing explosive trigger.
But Hawk had found the crates and the trigger was no longer in it.
The SEALs’ newest information was also worrisome.
A sleeper agent, Llallana Noretski, had it, and Jed had a feeling she was heading to Skopje, and not back to Dilaver, looking to use it at one of the venues where the international visitors and diplomats were congregating.
Dilaver wasn’t running this particular show back in Velesta. He wasn’t interested in assassinations when there was no profit involved. No, he was just someone who was to keep that particular weapon for a while and now the person had set his or her plan in motion.
It made sense. A decoy to distract from the real target.
Not during the most obvious day—today, with its significant treaty-signing and speeches—but on one that was less suspicious, when a few of the more influential VIPs would be gathered.
Like a photo-op during an art exhibit, for instance, that was coming up in a few days.
Everyone would be more relaxed because they’d be thinking that the main danger had been taken care of, and with the treaty already signed, the danger was passed.
A sleeper cell program connected to the CIA, ran by rogue operatives for the last ten years, activated.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They could activate any number of cells to do their bidding, especially now when the traitors were on the run.
They’d had ten years to set up a complex system in D.C.
, invading the very heart of the CIA HQ, before they were caught.
And Jed and his team had—what—these four months to play catch up with just a fucking list of the missing weapons.
Providence had brought Elena to them. Jed could guess how much time she’d saved COMCEN. She, her skills, and the COMCEN Total Immersive VR program had come together at exactly the right time.
He pulled out his cell phone. So many more details to take care of now.
He couldn’t possibly leave; he had a sleeper cell to take care of.
Elena was going to fight tooth and nail to stay, but he was going to send her back to Center.
Her headaches and spontaneous remote viewing worried him.
And now there were flashes of colors, she’d said.
He frowned. He remembered her talking about some beautiful colors in the last RV session they had together, when he had trouble getting her attention to return from the ether.
He wasn’t liking all these incidents one bit.
Elena needed to be in a controlled environment, under the watchful eye of her doctors and COMCEN scientists.
He wanted to be with her, but he had a bomb to stop.
He’d be back at Center immediately after he’d done his job.
He paused outside the connecting door, mentally getting ready for a fight.
It was just a matter of compartmentalizing his desire to be with her, that was all.
He was under no illusion she would figure out immediately that she was taken off an assignment not because of performance, but because of his personal wish.
It wouldn’t sit well with her competitive spirit.
But it had to be done. If necessary, he’d manipulate her to do what he wanted.
She would hate him all over again. Couldn’t be helped.
He’d just have to make it up to her somehow.
He opened the door. All thought froze.
Elena was on the floor, in a seizure. Her body flopped about helplessly and he could see the white of her eyes and her mouth open, silently screaming.
“Elena!”
Jed rushed to her and fell on his knees. He reached out to hold her but she was violently flailing now and her pants came out in a strange monotonic syllable, like an old vinyl record skipping over a scratch.
“Elena!”
He pulled her into his arms and the shaking died a little. Her eyes came back down and he could feel her struggling for control.
“Elena!”
For once, Jed couldn’t pull his thoughts together, couldn’t string any sentences. He looked up and found Heath staring from the doorway.
“Get a doctor,” he breathed out through his clenched throat, then stood with Helen in his arms. “Get help.”