Dancing on the Wind (49 page)

guessed he was too far away from her. He tried a second and third time anyway and

was met with nothing more than a gray haze.

As soon as the plane touched down, Fallon felt the tension rippling through the

psychic air like the aftershocks of an earthquake. The entire station was seething with

activity and that sent another chill through him. Something bad had happened—an

incident—and whatever had come down had the Exchange on high alert.

Even before the plane rolled to a stop on the tarmac, Fallon was scrambling out of

his seat. His crutches had been stored in the forward compartment during the flight and

he had to hop up the aisle to retrieve them. The cockpit door opened and the copilot

appeared with a tranq gun in his hand.

“Sir…” he began, but Fallon waved him away.

“Give me my crutches, Scott, or I’ll make you eat that toy pistol,” he growled.

“Unless you’d rather have it shoved up your tight little ass!”

The gun’s barrel shook but the young man raised his chin. “Sir, I have orders to

shoot you if you attempt to leave the plane.”

There was a loud rapping on the plane’s door and Fallon saw relief shift over the

young man’s face. He lowered the gun and turned to unlock the door. He barely had

time to move aside as two burly security operatives barged their way onto the plane.

“Agent Fallon, you are to accompany us, sir,” the beefier of the two barked.

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“And just how the fuck do you think I’m going to get off the fucking…”

The burly agent grabbed Fallon’s good arm, squatted and hoisted the Reaper over

his shoulder, fireman fashion.

“Goddamn it, put me down!” Fallon snarled, his injured leg throbbing mercilessly

as the security man looped an arm behind Fallon’s knees.

Out the door and down the rollaway steps, carried unceremoniously like a sack of

salt across the tarmac, into a side door of the terminal then down a jet way connecting a

plane upon which Fallon was jostled, head hanging and hands clawing at the security

man’s ass.

“Behave, Agent Fallon,” the man ordered with a chuckle. “I’m just doing my job,

sir.”

“
I’ll have your fucking head
!” Fallon hissed, digging his nails into the man’s buttocks.

“Keep that up, sir, and I’ll think you want some of that ass you’re mauling.”

Cursing savagely, Fallon was lowered gently enough into a seat and would have

taken a swing at the man who had carried him onboard if a meaty fist hadn’t caught his

and jerked it down.

“Give me a reason to throw you in a con cell for a month or two and I will, Fallon!”

Fallon snapped his head around to see the Supervisor glaring down at him and

holding his fist in a steel grip he knew he would never break. The man’s strength was

unbelievable, and for the first time he saw something in the Supervisor’s glare that

bordered on true evil.

“What happened?” Fallon asked, sensing something dark and ugly beneath the

waves of anger rolling off his boss.

“Why are you here?” the Supervisor countered. “Why the hell did you leave the

Island?”

It was there in that one word—Island—that Fallon intercepted myriad emotions

tumbling through the mind of his superior, but at the apex of that pyramid of feelings

was grief.

“What happened?” he asked again, searching the eyes of the Supervisor.

“Forty-nine people are dead, Fallon,” the Supervisor said through clenched teeth.

“Forty-five died from inhalation of some kind of extremely toxic airborne poison and

the other four were shot.”

Fallon’s face drained of color. “Keenan?”

“Dead,” the Supervisor said brutally. “She took one shot to the base of her brain as

she lay asleep in your bed. She never knew what hit her.”

The world shifted violently around Fallon and he slapped his hands to the armrests

of the chairs. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. That can’t be right. I would have felt

it. I would have…” He remembered the crippling pain he’d felt on the plane and his

face paled.

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“She’s dead!” the Supervisor shouted. “They are all dead. Every last one of them!”

He leaned down to put his face in Fallon’s. “Everyone but you.”

“Sir, we are ready for takeoff,” the pilot informed the Supervisor.

“Then get us airborne, Captain,” the Supervisor snarled.

“You want the shields down, sir?”

“What the hell for? Some bastard knows where the Island is. What difference does

it make now? We’ve been breached, fool!”

“Aye, sir,” the pilot said, snapping a salute. He turned sharply and headed for the

cockpit.

“Buckle your goddamned seat belt, Fallon,” the Supervisor ordered, taking the

chair on the other side of the aisle.

Fallon was too stunned by what he’d just been told to question the command. He

automatically drew the two halves of the seat belt around him. He felt numb. Once

again he sent out a psi broadcast to Keenan but it didn’t connect. There was nothing

there—not even a ripple—but until he stood over her, saw her for himself, he would not

believe what he’d been told. There had to be a mistake. If Keenan had left his world, he

would have known the moment it happened.

“Not true,” he said, and the jet began to back away from the terminal. “It’s not

true.” The pain, he thought. What had caused the pain?

“Why the fuck did you leave the Island?”

He looked over at the Supervisor. “I was trying to protect her,” he said. “I was

coming back to ask you to sever the Extension.”

“Well, you got what you wanted. It’s been severed,” the Supervisor snarled.

“She’s not dead. She can’t be. I would know it.” Again the memory of that horrible

pain lashed out at him.

The plane had been cleared for takeoff, was rolling down the runway and picking

up speed.

“There will be a full-scale investigation,” the Supervisor said. “Nothing is to be

touched until I get there. Not one shred of evidence is to be gathered until my team and

I are on the ground.” His glower was filled with venom. “If I find out you had anything

to do with the assault on that station, I’ll see you fry for it, Fallon.”

Those words cut Fallon to the quick and did more than just wound his fierce pride.

Not only was his loyalty being called into question, but his devotion to his duty as well.

“I had nothing to do with what happened,” he said.

“We’ll see,” the Supervisor said then turned his face away to stare out the window

as the plane took to the air.

It was the longest plane ride of his life, and when the jet touched down on the

Island’s runway, the first thing Fallon saw was the pier. His heart did a painful little

squeeze in his chest and he had trouble drawing his next breath. He looked down at his

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hands and saw they were shaking. His mouth was filled with the bitter, irony taste of

ashes and he had trouble swallowing.

“Why did you leave the Island?”

He looked at the Supervisor. The man was glaring at him with narrowed eyes.

“It’s in me,” Fallon tried to explain. “Something the creature left behind. I was

afraid it would get loose and hurt her.”

“You don’t have to worry about that now,” the Supervisor said, unsnapping his

seat belt as the plane lurched to a stop.

Fallon flinched as though he’d been slapped, the words like steel barbs dragging

down his flesh.

He was the last to leave the plane, left to make his way down the steps as best he

could with the crutches one of the Supervisor’s men had shoved at him. There was no

one to help him and twice he almost fell, pitching forward as he hopped on his left leg

from one step to the next, the crutches held tightly in his grip sliding lengthwise down

the stair railing. No one looked his way as he stood wavering on the tarmac, trying to

get the crutches under his arms. Everyone was heading for the terminal and

everywhere he looked there were men and women dressed in the brown uniforms of

security.

Hurrying as fast as he could into the terminal, he stopped just inside the door.

There was controlled chaos as waves of white-coated technicians with gloves and face

masks bent over bodies with cameras, taking shots from every conceivable angle. Three

men and a woman were at the reception desk, studying something on the computer

screens. The Supervisor was standing stock still, scanning the death surrounding him.

“Sir, can we begin processing the victims here in the terminal?”

The Supervisor swept his gaze over his fallen operatives, his face filled with anger

and pain. “Yeah. Go ahead. Just be very respectful of our dead.”

“We will, sir.”

“Nine people came in on that last plane and nine people left,” Fallon heard

someone reporting to the Supervisor.

“Find out where the hell that plane went when it left here!” the Supervisor

bellowed.

“Sir, they found the crew from the plane,” another man informed him.

“Where?” the Supervisor demanded.

“Thrown in a storage room next to the refueling tanks. Dr. P. says they were dead

long before the attack.”

“Find Dr. Papadopoulos. Tell her to meet me in Agent Fallon’s room ASAP.”

“Yes sir!”

Fallon had no vested interest in the dead who lay scattered about the reception area

and down each of the four corridors although he was sorry they’d been murdered. His

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only concern was getting to the room he had shared with Keenan. He had to make sure

the woman they’d found wasn’t her. As he started that way, the Supervisor and two of

his lieutenants fell into step beside and behind him.

“These people didn’t stand a chance,” the Supervisor said, his voice heavy. “They

had no reason to expect an attack. They thought they were safe here.
We
thought they

were safe here.”

“Like 9-11, sir,” one of the men behind Fallon remarked.

“Yes, exactly like that,” the Supervisor agreed.

“We’ll find them, sir,” the other man said.

“The plane made an emergency landing at Salvador International,” Fallon said. He

was fast losing breath and his armpits were screaming with pain.

“How the hell did you know that?” the Supervisor snapped.

“The security man told me when I informed him I’d be catching a flight back to the

Exchange with the supply jet. He said the passenger plane would be late arriving

because of a hydraulic problem.”

“So they boarded the plane, took out the pilot and passengers and used the onboard

information to fly here,” the Supervisor surmised. He ground his teeth. “Then dumped

the bodies like so much garbage.”

“What about the security cameras on the flight line?” Fallon asked. They were

about forty feet from the door to his room.

“We don’t have any here,” the Supervisor said, plowing a hand through his salt-

and-pepper hair. “We didn’t think we needed them.”

“I don’t mean here,” Fallon said. “At Salvador.”

The Supervisor paused with his fingers threaded through his hair. His attention

was riveted on Fallon. “Good catch.” He turned to one of his assistants. “Check into it. I

want every second of film from the time our plane landed until it took off.”

“Yes sir!” The man hurried away.

Reaching out a restraining hand, the Supervisor brought Fallon to a stop. “I don’t

think you had anything to do with this but…”

“I didn’t,” Fallon said, shrugging off the other man’s hand. “You fucking well know

I didn’t.”

“Right now all anyone has done in there is take pictures. Nothing has been

touched,” he said, cocking his chin toward the room toward which they were headed.

“Your DNA and fingerprints are going to be everywhere, but I don’t want you to touch

anything. Are we clear?” When Fallon didn’t reply, the Supervisor grabbed his arm in a

punishing grip and repeated the question.

“Yes,” Fallon snapped. “We’re clear. I don’t know who’s in that room but it isn’t

Keenan. I would have felt it!”

“I hope you’re right,” the Supervisor said.

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Dr. Papadopoulos opened the door for them when the Supervisor knocked, but she

only opened it halfway, using her body to block their entrance. Her dark brown eyes

flicked toward Fallon and she frowned. “I’m not sure he should see this.”

“Move,” Fallon said—more growl than actual speech.

She held his stare for a second or two then released a long breath and stepped back.

“Suit yourself, Fallon. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Fallon wasn’t prepared for what greeted him when the door swung fully open. It

was like being bowled over by a steam locomotive. He staggered beneath the assault

and the two men behind him—the Supervisor and his assistant—reached out to steady

him.

“
Oh my God
,” Fallon whispered, eyes wide, mouth falling open.

The room looked as though a tornado had spun through it. Furniture was

overturned, glass broken, drapes torn from the traverse rods. Scrawled in large crimson

letters across the pale blue wall, to either side of the doorway, with a thick arrow

pointing into the bedroom were the words
Just for you, Fallon! Enjoy!

Bile surged up Fallon’s throat and he had to swallow convulsively to keep it down.

Instinctively he knew the message had been written—not in paint—but with the blood