Virtually Hers (2 page)

She saw a man lying on the floor. Dying. She felt the air thickening even as she looked harder, trying to make out the man’s face. A gurgle of pain escaped from him and then…nothing. She wanted to turn away from death, but felt compelled to keep looking. Where was the other fighter? She couldn’t see him.

The atmosphere felt oddly smoky, although she couldn’t smell any smoke. She could make out the outline of a man as he turned toward her. Even her vision got cloudy, and she blinked hard, trying to focus. Must. Try. To. See. She took a step forward. Hard to breathe, as if the air was very thick here.

All of a sudden, her heart started to beat erratically. Something was definitely wrong. But she so wanted to get closer, to see this man…

Okay, calm down, Hell. Step back. Step away.

At the last second, Helen turned and ran. She felt herself sinking, falling into oblivion, but not before she caught a glimpse of the other man.

Silver eyes. Blue jeans.

Oh God. Not him!

***

It always came to this. Jed McNeil had no illusions about his role as Number Nine in the Covert Subversive (COS) commando unit.

Governments declared war—open and covert—and technology provided the instant highway, but no matter how precise artificial Intel had become, with its laser accuracy, its ability to be in places no human ear or eye could gather Intel, and its useful function of keeping danger away from operatives, there was always the one element not factored into the formula: Human beings were unpredictable, and sometimes, it was much easier to just send one man in after another.

His target was quick, making the first move, going for his throat. Jed leaped out of the way, at the same time swinging his knife upwards. The other man jumped back, wincing at the first slice of his flesh. Startled wariness entered his eyes before he gave a grim smile and resumed attacking.

There was a certain look in a man’s eyes when he knew his time was up.

Jack Cummings hadn’t shown any surprise when Jed appeared, knife in hand. A small nod of acknowledgment. A token, although fierce, resistance.

Cummings had some martial arts training and the hand-to-hand became a short silent dance of death, with swift punches and kicks, which Jed evaded and countered with equally lethal speed. His opponent was quick on his feet too, moving hard and fast as he jerked back and forth, looking to get Jed off-balance. He suddenly lunged forward, fist punching out forcefully.

Jed deflected the jab to his solar plexus, twisting Cummings’ wrist and locking it outward. He twirled his knife into position, intending to give the final lethal blow, but the other man immediately coiled his frame around Jed’s body, his other hand going for the throat. To avoid having his neck broken, Jed elbowed the ribs and rotated sideways. He rammed a fist into Cummings’ face. Another. Then silently advanced toward the man who was holding the bloodied side of his face.

From his expression, the CIA rogue appeared to know that he wouldn’t make it, even if he’d managed to scream for help, and to his credit, he hadn’t. He’d seemingly been expecting someone to come after him.

Never underestimate a desperate man gambling with his life. Jed anticipated the sudden roundhouse kick, springing into a back flip. But not before he saw the flash of steel on the tip of the shoe that had barely missed his throat. Landing on his feet, he flicked his wrist and released the knife in his hand. His steel hit the mark. And it was over.

Jed slipped his bloody knife into the sheath on the back of his belt. He tapped on the tiny unit attached near the buckle, which was equipped with a GPS and coded satellite transmitter, signaling that he’d just completed his mission. He looked down at Jack Cummings’ body for a moment.

To him, there was one simple truth about warfare. All the technology in the world couldn’t equal hand-to-hand combat. He had seen violence from every possible angle since he was sixteen—as a street thug, an IRA lookout, a CIA trainee, an Airborne Ranger in the Army, time with the Green Berets, a covert Special Forces commando, and a few undercover stints that had him working for his enemies. It was a long resume, years spent in wars created by governments, some more secret than others.

It wasn’t something he boasted or talked about, as some warriors did, comparing their adventures at one war-torn place or another, mainly because he’d seen enough in his job to learn to respect silence. Especially about death.

Mission accomplished. Not that it brought any sense of accomplishment. He had wanted to bring Jack Cummings in alive but had failed in the first attempt a few days ago. There was no other option during the second attempt. Not in the middle of the ocean, on an enemy ship.

He frowned. There was that prickle of awareness again, a feeling that someone was watching him. Years of being in his line of work had honed his senses razor-sharp; he seldom second-guessed himself.

He stepped away from Cummings’ body, totally on alert, watching for the slightest movement, listening for any kind of noise that might betray the enemy. If they were any good, they would have shot him by now and not given him a chance to escape. Unless, of course, they were just watching.

In his world, there were agents assigned to just watch and report, entities his kind called “ghosts”. Data-miners. Jed had caught up with a few of them in the past and was even friends with some of them. Objective information agents were useful and provided a valuable service.

But this wasn’t
that
feeling of being watched. Definitely different. This was even more subtle. A light brushstroke. A soft breath on a mirror.

Jed squinted in mild amusement. He was getting poetic about his job. There was nothing at all light or soft about the bloody nature of covert warfare. The feeling persisted, although for some reason, he didn’t feel threatened, just a vague nagging sensation that he wasn’t alone. He circled the small room slowly and stopped in mid-stride. His gaze darted upwards and around. Nothing, but he was sure he’d felt something. There. Again.

He frowned, trying to gauge what he was feeling. It felt like…he shook his head…a vibration, and not from the ship. He didn’t have time to stand here and analyze. Giving the dead man on the floor one last glance, he slipped into the shadows and headed back up to the deck.

He felt no compassion for the likes of Jack Cummings. Betrayal always had a price. Instead, he ran through the usual comprehensive profile of his target. Jack Cummings, early thirties. CIA TIARA Task Force Three, security clearance Level Four. One-half of the team who stole and tried to sell SEED—a miniature satellite encryption device, newly tested at Los Alamos. Eluded capture. Attempted escape to Russia. Information exchange/barter aggregated at ninety percent. Info risk at ninety-five percent.

Jed mentally closed the file. Operation status: target eliminated on international waters.

***

Helen couldn’t open her eyes. They felt weighted down, as if she was in the middle of a dream and was trying to wake up. A drum thundered so loudly, it sounded as if she were listening to her iPod with its volume set way up. It took her a minute before she realized it was her own heart beating.

Her whole body felt feverish. The room was too hot. She still couldn’t open her eyes. Her heartbeat grew erratic as she struggled, fighting something she couldn’t see.

Wake up, Helen, wake up!

Her own scream pierced through her consciousness and her eyes flew open. She stared up at the ceiling of her living room for a few seconds as she gulped in deep breaths of air. Her heart was still racing, although that odd echoing was gone.

What the fuck was that?

She gingerly moved her arms and legs, trying to figure out what’d happened. She felt hot, as if she’d been exerting herself, but the last thing she remembered doing was sitting in front of her laptop, playing with the virtual reality avatar program.

And…

But it was no mistaking who she’d seen before everything went cuckoo. She slowly turned to the side and got on her knees. Grasping the back of the chair for support, she started to get back on her feet.

Headache. Blinding, throbbing, intensely painful headache. It struck her down like a branch hit by lightning, her knees hitting the carpeted floor.

She grasped the sides of her head, in her mind trying to loosen the imaginary band around it. Imaginary or not, the pressure was tightening to the point where she felt herself gasping for air.

Concentrate on your breathing, Hell. Concentrate.

She tried to stand but found herself unable to open her eyes more than a crack. The light coming from the tall lamp by the desk stabbed at her vision. Everything was a distorted red haze that seemed to pulse bright, then dark, with each throbbing thump in her head.

Groping around uncoordinatedly, she found the lamp stand and reached for the switch. She almost screamed her relief as the room plunged into darkness, taking some of the pain with it.

She leaned against the desk, taking deep breaths, counting to ten. The tension around her head loosened and she opened her eyes cautiously.

“Oh man, what the hell was that?” She swayed on her feet. The pain was a dull ache now. Manageable.

The computer screen illuminated the room and she reluctantly turned her eyes grimly back to the figure of the avatar. She swallowed.

No use avoiding the truth. Jed McNeil was Hades, her trainer. While trying to imagine what her avatar really looked like, she had somehow sent herself into remote-viewing mode and went in search of him instead. She knew the identity of the dead man she’d seen. After all, she’d been the one who had remote viewed and located Cummings on a ship.

“Jed McNeil,” Helen said, her voice a soft hoarse. The knowledge of who Hades was would have filled her with satisfaction if her body didn’t feel as if she’d gone ten rounds with someone much stronger. She felt incredibly weak and a little nauseated from the sudden migraine.

She closed the file and sent the system into hibernation. Then, slowly, she hobbled toward her bedroom. Her muscles felt stiff, contracted. She needed to sleep this off.

Stretching out on her bed, she released a sigh of frustration. She wasn’t feeling like her old self yet. No use calling Dr. Kirkland; she knew he wouldn’t give her a straight answer and would probably warn Jed McNeil that she now knew the truth. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to do yet about confronting Mr. McNeil and demanding the truth from him, but one thing she was sure about was that she had better be one hundred percent or that man was going to eat her for dinner.

***

“Did you have any unforeseen problems?”

Jed thought of the odd feeling that had invaded him during the last minutes on the boat. “No,” he replied. “Cummings is taken care of.”

“What do you plan to do with his wife?”

“Any suggestions?” It was up to the powers-that-be, of course, what to do with a traitor who had lost her leverage, but as long as she remained at COMCEN, she could still be of use. “Besides elimination, of course.”

“She might have useful Intel.”

“Number Eight can extract any information that may be of use,” Jed said.

“Not you?”

“I have something to do.” For the first time, Jed allowed himself to think of
her
. “I’ll hear all proposals in the morning.”

“Must be something important.”

Not something. Someone. Elena Rostova. The image of her naked under him, with her long legs open wide, came too easily. The way her rosy nipples puckered up when she was aroused. The sweet arch of her strong back in the throes of passion. Most of all, he wanted to put his mouth on the heat between her legs, playing with her till she bucked uncontrollably. Making Elena moan and come in different ways was fast becoming an erotic fantasy. The thought of doing that turned him on the most.

Jed blinked, a little surprised at his lack of concentration. How was it that the thought of this one woman could set his libido off like a rocket? He had no explanation for it, except maybe because he’d been watching her for so long, that when he now had finally had a taste of her in bed, he wanted more.

The airplane seat could be specially adjusted to any position, much like a car seat, and Jed pressed the button for it to lean back all the way. A footrest automatically popped up. Maximum comfort for any operative in need of catching up with sleep, something he hadn’t had for some time, just like Elena. But, unlike her, he didn’t have to remote view before going on a mission.

He closed his eyes, but his mind continued to focus on the woman in his thoughts. He wondered how she was at the moment. He had made sure she was given a few days off while he was on mission, so she would be around familiar surroundings to get that downtime she needed after the test she’d gone through. He felt the corners of his lips quirking in self-mockery. He wasn’t just concerned about her well being. He didn’t want Elena anywhere near his commandos, not in the state she was in. They were intrigued by the new operative in their midst too.

Elena Rostova, a.k.a. Helen Roston, GEM operative. Remote viewer—an agent trained to spy remote targets with the mind—that special covert activity that nobody wanted to talk about.

He hadn’t decided whether his fascination dealt with the woman or the power she harnessed inside her. She amazed him with her calm acceptance of what she could do. For someone who had discovered her ability to remote view barely two years ago, she was remarkably well-adjusted psychologically. Most test subjects, at this stage, would experience internal conflict because remote viewing pushed the boundaries of reality and personal beliefs.

Not his Elena. He’d watched her for a long time as she underwent extreme physical and mental training, and had yet to see her crack. Even after this last mission, with the strange effect of the serum on her body, she’d fought for control every step of the way. It’d have been so easy to give in to her body’s demands. After all, the mission was over and a success, and there was no need to be on guard.