Fatal (18 page)

“Just a minute. You see that guy there? The heavy guy with the beard?”

Cassie looked down the counter. A beefy looking man in a set of blue coveralls occupied the middle stool. He was wearing work boots and a greasy cap. As Cassie watched, he drained the last of his coffee and pushed away from the counter. Marge leaned in closer to Cassie. “I just talked to him and he’s headed for Norfolk. He’s a good guy, but he don’t talk much. If you ask him, he might let you ride along. He’s safe, you know? Some of these guys out on the road ... a pretty young girl like you … well, they might get a few ideas, you know? Gene’s okay. He won’t mess with you.”

By the time Marge stopped talking, the driver was already out the door. Cassie grabbed her bag and ran out after him. He was climbing into the cab of a black truck hooked to a flatbed trailer; on the trailer was a large piece of equipment covered with a tarp. She could see wheels underneath the tarp and chains holding it down to the bed. Gene had one foot in the cab when Cassie approached. She took the direct approach.

“I need a ride.”

Gene said nothing for so long that Cassie began to get the idea he hadn’t heard her. He stood on the step of the truck, looking at her, his face blank. Finally, he pulled himself into the truck and slammed the door. He looked down at Cassie through the open window.

“Get in,” he said.

*****

At eight o’clock in the evening, Ronnie left his room. He was free to roam the facility, or at least a limited portion of it. That meant the cafeteria was always open to him, though the workers he might find there were under orders not to speak with him. Since his arrival, his conversations had been restricted to his talks with Wesling and his briefing with Luke Francis. Everything else had been perfunctory talk between the people who woke him up or escorted him to see Wesling. Neither was around and the workers in the cafeteria ignored him when he walked in.

In three hours, Ronnie was expected to do another Remote Viewing session, one that would hopefully find Vitaly Bigolopev and establish or deny his work for Andropov. Ever since he was thirteen years old, Ronnie had used his viewing ability reluctantly. He felt uncomfortable knowing things other people didn’t know. He craved normality, and his ability separated him from the rest of the world. It also took a physical toll on his body. He had never spoken of it, even to Cassie. While she appeared to be able to use her power at will, for Ronnie it was different. Every time he returned he was exhausted, a fact he wanted to keep hidden from Luke Francis. As he grew older, the effects became more pronounced. At thirteen, he recovered quickly. Four years later, he fought to hide the pounding headaches, the overwhelming need to sleep after each trip. Even worse, he returned with a sense of losing his grip on reality. He feared losing it altogether, as if there would be one trip from which he would never return, that either his body would fail or the thin string of connection between his physical self and traveling essence might end up severed permanently, leaving him adrift.

He took a seat in the cafeteria, eating a dry and tasteless lunch for nothing more than the energy it would provide later in the evening. He was almost finished when Wesling came in and joined him at the table.

“We’ve got a few hours before we get started. Vit should be in the middle of his day on that side of the world. I’m going to need you to pay close attention to your surroundings. When we’re finished, you’re going to provide a verbal description, and if necessary, sit down with an artist and let him draw what you’ve seen. It might help us. Of course, the best thing would be if you saw him actually in the presence of Andropov, but that might be too much to hope for.”

“I know what you’re looking for,” Ronnie said. “But it’s a crapshoot. Don’t you people have any other way of finding this guy?”

Wesling shook her head. “We’ve been looking for him for a year. The problem is you have to have someone in the right place or he has to be a public figure. We can find Andropov easily enough. Vit probably doesn’t spend enough time with him to make it likely they’ll be together. When you go in, we’re looking for facility clues. Is it a weapons facility? If so, which weapons facility? Most of them we can pick out by satellite.”

Wesling reached into her pocket and pulled out three photographs. “Here’s how we want to approach this, but first I need to know: are you able to move about at will? What I mean is, when you’re doing this, can you actually control your point of view?”

Ronnie nodded. “To some extent, yes. The first part is finding the target. After that, I can move around in a limited area. The target provides the focus, a kind of a homing point and I’ve never tried to go too far from that point. I don’t know if I can.Why?”

Wesling pulled three photographs from her pocket, laying them out on the table. “That might make things easier for us. Andropov operates in a certain region of the country and controls everything within that region. There are three major weapons facilities within his region. The biggest one is near Yeniseysk, and that’s where Vit is most likely to be if he’s working with Andropov. That’s this one.”

She pointed out one of the photographs, an overhead of a small cluster of buildings surrounding a much larger structure. Ronnie could see a series of what looked like vents across the top of the building and a long strip leading out to the river that might be some sort of loading dock.

“The next most likely place would be Peka, the northernmost facility. It’s not as big, but it’s geared more toward research and development. It’s also easier to hide.” She pointed out another photo. “You’ll know this one because it’s completely surrounded by mountains on all sides.”

The last photo was an overhead shot of an L-shaped building in the middle of an open plain. A barely discernible line ran across the plain, which Ronnie assumed was a road. A series of rectangular shapes behind it, maybe fifteen or twenty of them, appeared to be storage containers or maybe tractor trailers with no pulling vehicle.

“This is Omsk. It’s not a big place, but in the past Vit has done some work here. He seems to like it there. He grew up about 150 miles away and knows the area well. Maybe he feels comfortable there. Omsk produces small deliverables, compact devices. For our purposes, it may be the most dangerous of the three. If he’s there it means Vit is working with Andropov to produce something they can deliver anywhere in the world. We’re talking a nuclear device that could be hauled in a pickup truck.”

Ronnie nodded. “I understand. If he’s in one of these I should be able to recognize it. If he’s not though, I’ll have to try and find some kind of landmark to establish where he is. That might not happen.”

“We have to know where he is. If we don’t get it today, you try again tomorrow,” Wesling said. “I’ll see you tonight.” With that, she gathered her things and left, leaving Ronnie with the three photographs. He gathered them up and stuffed them in the pocket of his jeans. His room had been cleaned while he was gone and he lay down on the starched sheets, trying to sleep but having no success.

*****

“So what exactly do you plan to do with these people when this operation is over?” Wesling asked. Luke Francis disgusted her. He made her nervous as well. She always got the feeling he was dealing from the bottom of the deck, as her mother was fond of saying. When Wesling got word from the diplomatic powers that be to try and find out the exact situation on the division of nuclear power in the Soviet Union in order to enhance the negotiation strategy of the United States, she never envisioned being caught up in a situation that involved psychic research.

Covert information sources were routine. Cassie Reynold and Ronnie Gilmore were not. A few days earlier, Francis had handed over their case files, a compilation of everything the pair had done for Philip Archer over the last four years. It also contained a detailed analysis of their actions. Four years ago, when an agent under Archer’s employment turned rebel and attempted to capture the pair for his own use, the bloody instincts of Cassie Reynold had been given free rein. The agent died in an explosion. Several of his men were eliminated with methods ranging from electrocution to gunshots, to being beaten to death. As much as Wesling liked Ronnie Gilmore, she couldn’t ignore the fact that he had killed. The girl was even more deadly. She could still recall her first discussion with Luke Francis regarding Ronnie and Cassie. It had begun with her voicing her skepticism.

“This is crazy,” she told Francis when he broached the idea. “Do you really believe all this stuff? Psychic powers? Remote Viewing?”

“It’s real,” Francis said. “Believe me, if Archer put it in the reports as valid, you can bank on it. The old man didn’t play around. At the time, I wasn’t in the loop. I was amazed at how he got some of the information he put on the table. Now I know.”

“Good,” Wesling said. “Get them in here. I can use all the help I can get. When can you have them available to me?”

Francis ran his hand through his hair. For the first time he looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” he said. “They aren’t being as cooperative with me as they were with Archer. He let them run around anywhere they wanted, but he didn’t use them to their full potential in my opinion. I think it’s time to bring them in. It’s too big a risk to have them loose.”

“What do you mean by ‘bring them in?’ Don’t you know where they are?” Wesling was uneasy. This conversation had taken a turn. She was no stranger to uncooperative informants, but they were talking about U.S. citizens who had committed no crime.

“I know exactly where they are. It’s my intention to take them into custody. They’re too valuable an asset to remain exposed any longer.”

Wesling thought about that for a few moments before speaking. They were getting onto thin ice now. “I have two concerns in this, Agent Francis. One, it seems to me you’re talking about detaining American citizens without due cause. Two, if you do take them into custody, how do you know they’ll cooperate? It seems to me they hold all the cards in that deck.”

Francis smirked. “They’ll cooperate.”

“But how do you know they’ll work with us?” Wesling asked.

“They’ll cooperate,” Francis said. “They might be … what’s the word? ... gifted. But they don’t know who they’re dealing with now. They’ll cooperate or wish they had. You get your things in order and get ready to work with them. Give them only as much information as you need to get what you want. Let me worry about the rest.”

At the time, Wesling put the matter aside. The whole situation seemed unlikely. Now things were changed. She liked Ronnie and saw him as a potential goldmine in the future. He seemed willing enough to do what she asked, but she had no idea what leverage Luke Francis was applying. The girl was nowhere to be found, and that worried her. Now she had Francis standing in front of her and she wanted some answers.

“I appreciate your concern for these kids, Dr. Wesling,” Francis said. “Believe me, they’ll be well taken care of. Surely you understand that their ability makes them invaluable. You’re going to benefit from it yourself. Do you expect me to leave them exposed? They have to be protected.”

Wesling was careful in her response. Francis was in a position to make things difficult for her if he wasn’t happy. She had to tread carefully.

“It’s been my experience, Agent Francis, that people who supply information are much more effective if they’re not coerced. They have to buy into what they’re doing. This information is important. I’d like to think they were working with me because they want to work with me. So far, Ronnie seems to be agreeable, but there’s something here I’m missing, which brings up the next question. Where’s the girl?”

“She’s close. That’s all I can tell you. We should have her in here sometime in the next few days.”

The answer didn’t satisfy Wesling. If anything, she was experiencing a growing sense of unease. “So the girl is still out there? Should we be concerned? Her history tells me she can be dangerous.”

“You’re in a secure facility and I’ve got people out there chasing her down. We’ll find her and bring her in. Once she’s here she’ll cooperate.” He shrugged. “What choice will she have? She can’t fight the whole agency and come out on top, and I have every available asset dedicated to getting her in custody. What can she do?”

Wesling got right to the point. “According to my briefing, the one you supplied, she could do what she did the last time someone pushed her back to the wall. She could kill everyone that stands in her way.”

*****

Kyle Beecher was as good as his word. Two days after his visit on the porch, a dusty Ford pickup pulling a load of hay came rattling down the driveway of Beuhl’s place. It was the middle of the day. Beuhl spent his morning sitting on the porch sipping coffee, counting black Lincolns as they passed. Things were picking up at the Ag Center it seemed. Beuhl led them back to the barn, where they made quick work of the unloading, stacking the bales neatly in one corner. They left with a check in their hands. Beuhl spent the next half hour breaking open two bales, laying the fragrant hay out on the floor in a pile, making a comfortable bed ideal for horizontal activities. The Ag Center forgotten for the time being, he went back into the house and called Karen Strait.

“Hey, remember that dinner invitation?” he said when she finally answered the phone. “I’m officially inviting you. We can go into the big city and eat if you’d like. I’ll take you to the fanciest place you want. Or you can come out here. I picked up some good rib-eyes. We can grill them out back. It’s your choice.”