by Dayton Ward
Sighing, Skouris shook her head. “Just that more people are going to die.”
TWENTY-FOUR
NEAR CASPER, WYOMING
LONA CALLAHAN FELT the burn in her muscles as she sprinted up the narrow trail, her legs pumping like pistons. Despite having to navigate the winding path’s broken, uneven terrain, she forced her breathing to maintain a consistent rhythm, drawing long, deep breaths and exhaling in time with her footsteps. Through the predawn near-darkness, Lona could see the lights of her house ahead of her. She hit the final hill, swinging her arms even harder to help sustain her pace as the grade increased almost to a thirty-degree angle.
Blood rushed in her ears and her heart pounded as though ready to explode from her chest, but she ignored all of that. A quick glance at her watch showed that she was still ahead of the pace she had set during the previous morning’s run. Motivated to best that mark by an even wider margin, Lona grunted and leaned into her stride, her feet digging into the soft earth and finding purchase as they propelled her forward.
The first hints of sunlight were playing through the trees as she passed the pile of stones she had set out to designate her start and end point for the measured run. No sooner did she cross that threshold than Lona slowed her steps, dropping from the full sprint to a steady jog and finally to a walk. She kept a brisk step, allowing her pulse rate and breathing to slow, and tapped a button on her watch to halt its timer function. At the same time, she felt the now-comforting warm glow wash over her as the mystifying energy field—the “time bubble,” as she liked to call it—evaporated from around her, releasing her from the temporary detachment from “real time” she always experienced when she conjured the field.
Welcome back.
Looking down at her watch, Lona verified that she had completed the six-mile course in just under thirty minutes—subjective time—trimming nearly twenty seconds from yesterday’s run. She walked over to the rock pile, retrieving the compact infrared beam emitter she had positioned atop it. Connected to the device was a digital stopwatch, programmed to start and stop in response to the emitter’s beam being broken as Lona passed through it at the beginning and ending of her morning runs. The time on the watch read twenty-six seconds, only three seconds faster than yesterday, but still an improvement.
Six miles in twenty-six seconds. Lona smiled, pleased with her continued progress. Within a few weeks, she figured to have that down to an even twenty. Having long since learned to recognize the physical sensations that coursed through her body as the time-bending field manifested itself, it had taken only a bit more time to comprehend the notion of anticipating those responses and even to imagine them as a means of calling forth her power.
“Eat your heart out, Jaime Sommers,” she said to any wildlife that might be listening. As expected, she received no responses.
Lona likened the field to a bubble after determining that the effect was limited to the small area immediately surrounding her body, not much more than an arm’s length in any direction, she estimated. Anything inside that sphere was subject to the field’s influence, within which Lona was able to cause time to move at a rate slower or faster than real time. With her increased control over the field, she also had learned to mitigate its effects on her own body. No longer was she left out of breath, though she still felt the effects of dehydration. As with any physical training regimen, her body had responded to the grueling conditioning she had undertaken, adapting to accept the exertions she placed upon it and to recover from such efforts with ever-increasing efficiency.
Too bad I’ll never be able to call Guinness.
Pausing to retrieve the towel and the bottle of water she had left near the rocks, Lona turned and walked the fifty or so yards separating the trailhead and the back porch of her two-story A-frame house. Situated near the center of twenty-one acres of largely undeveloped forest, her only neighbors were the lush blankets of trees covering the rolling hills in all directions. The sun had yet to rise above the horizon, but the sky was lightening with pending dawn, and the temperature was more than comfortable at this hour. A slight breeze wafted through the forest, cooling the sweat on her exposed skin. Early morning was Lona’s favorite time of day. It was now that the world and she seemed most at peace, when she was best able—for a time at least—to set aside and almost forget the realities of the life she had chosen.
Or, more recently, the life apparently chosen for her.
Lona reached the back porch and moved to the pair of chairs positioned beneath a bay window, which offered an unfettered view of the property behind the house. In one of the chairs was her cell phone and she picked it up, examining its digital display and finding no new messages. Only Reiko knew the number, anyway, and Lona did not expect her to call except in the event of an emergency or unexpected change relating to her current task. Reiko had gone quiet after first alerting her that she had tracked Nicholas McFarland to Seattle despite the best efforts of the CIA and NTAC.
That Reiko had not called was enough to tell Lona things were still proceeding according to plan. McFarland was in NTAC’s protective custody at a safe house in one of Seattle’s suburbs, one of several locations being used to keep him hidden until Lona herself was captured or—more likely—she succeeded in killing him. Reiko’s assignment, in keeping with the role she always had played as Lona’s assistant, consisted of simple surveillance. Though she was capable of handling herself in the field, Reiko’s tasks had only rarely called for her to directly engage a mark. During the years they had worked together, it had been but one of the steps taken by Lona to ensure Reiko’s anonymity, as much from her government employers as enemies who might be hunting for her. Such was the case now, with Reiko keeping tabs on McFarland until such time as Lona completed her preparations and traveled to Seattle to handle him herself.
As happened with every instance when her thoughts turned to Reiko, Lona found herself longing for her absent lover. She was the lone constant, the one thing she desired from her previous life, and whereas prolonged separation had been the norm during assignments in the past, Lona had come to realize in recent weeks that she now disliked any such measures. Time had very nearly succeeded in taking Reiko from her, and Lona had no intention of ever again tempting such fate.
So finish this business, she chastised herself, and then get on with life.
Stripping out of her sweaty running clothes, Lona made her way to the oversized shower in her Asian-styled master bathroom. Open on the side closest to the vanity, the shower itself was thirty-six square feet of emerald green floor tile. Glass walls on two sides provided an unobstructed view of the surrounding forest, while a host of tropical plants and vines dominated the modular cedar panels and shelves comprising the third wall. Two large circular fixtures descended from the ceiling, in short order releasing a cascade onto her as though she were standing in the midst of a gentle tropical rainfall.
While the shower soothed her stressed muscles, it did little for Lona’s restless mind as discipline and training once more asserted control, and she contemplated her final, lingering arrangements. At the same time, she continued to envision variations of the scenario she likely was to encounter in Seattle. Despite her abilities as well as having surprise in her favor, Lona had long ago learned not to take anything for granted, or to put forth any guarantees of success, either to her employers or even to herself. Such proclamations were the purview of amateurs, the ones who almost always ended up being caught or killed. For these reasons, Nicholas McFarland would die.
But not yet.
The single thought came unbidden, repeating and expanding until it pushed away everything else. Lona flinched, the words driving into her brain with the might of a physical blow. She staggered from beneath the shower’s tender waterfall, stumbling toward the wooden bench running the length of the cedar wall. Her fingers gripped sections of the thick, lush vines, steadying her as she lowered herself onto the bench.
There is another.
Melodic yet r
esolute, the voice beseeched her from within her own mind. The feeling was all too familiar, of course, coming as it did each time she was called—more like summoned—to do the bidding of whatever force commanded her. While such compulsions had come with varying degrees of intensity, this was unlike anything she had yet experienced.
“McFarland,” she responded, the single word echoing in her ears. “He must die.”
Rather than another response she could understand, Lona instead recognized the sensation that came as images and suggestions began spilling forth and faces, each of them blurred and shadowed, danced in her consciousness. Most were people she did not know, and trying to bring any of them into focus was a futile gesture. She could only wait until whatever it was that impelled her brought the indistinct visions into sharp relief, at which time she could begin to comprehend her next task. Struggling against dizziness and the momentary nausea that always gripped her at this time, Lona waited until a single face centered itself in her mind’s eye.
A short, stocky man with thinning red hair. Who was he? Lona knew that other answers would only come in time, and only take longer to reveal themselves the harder she willed them to appear. As with most other aspects of her life, patience now was most certainly a virtue.
Still, she knew she had her new target. This man, whoever he was and because of whatever he had done or might do in the future, must die. McFarland, as important as it was to dispatch him, would have to wait a bit longer. For now, Lona had new preparations to make.
Waves of queasiness subsided and Lona realized her wet skin was beginning to chill. Rising from the bench, she turned off the shower before reaching for the oversized terry-cloth towel hanging on a nearby hook and beginning to dry herself. As she turned to step out of the shower, her eyes caught sight of the cedar wall and she stopped, feeling her jaw muscles slacken in shock.
The vines, some of them anyway, were dead. Desiccated and brown with extreme age, pieces of the once-vibrant plant now fell to the shower floor, the rest of it dissolving to dust as she reached out once more to touch it. How had that happened? She had watered all of the household plants the previous evening before retiring for bed. Had this one fallen victim to some odd disease?
No.
With a start, Lona looked down at her hands, turning them over and examining them as though enlightenment might appear from her very flesh. She had caused this? Uncertainty and even fear reached out for her as Lona contemplated what she had just done, her anxiety only heightening with the knowledge that she would receive no answers.
It’s not fair, damn it!
Again, no one replied.
TWENTY-FIVE
ISSAQUAH, WASHINGTON
THERE YOU ARE.Fishing in Minnesota, my ass.
Reiko Vandeberg smiled as she peered through her binoculars at the backyard of the unassuming sage-green house, nestled among several homes of similar design plotted around the cul-de-sac she had dubbed “Genericville, Suburbia.” Through the lenses, she watched as a lean, tanned man—in good shape for someone in his late fifties—stepped through the open sliding glass door and onto the home’s wooden patio deck. He was dressed in dark slacks and a white dress shirt with no tie and his sleeves rolled up to a point below his elbows. Reiko noted that his dark, stiff hair did not move despite a decent breeze. He paused momentarily as if to verify that he was alone, then cupped his hands to light the cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Those things’ll be the death of you, sir, Reiko thought as she watched CIA Deputy Director Nicholas McFarland take the first drag from the cigarette. Says so right on the package.
Reaching into her pocket, Reiko extracted her cellular phone and flipped open its cover. Pressing a speed-dial key, she held the phone to her ear and listened as she heard her call diverted directly to voice mail rather than ringing through to the other end of the line. Shaking her head, she left another message—her fourth—for Lona to call her back before ending the call and slipping the phone back into her pocket. The message was perfunctory and generic, as required when talking on an open line. Reiko sighed as she returned her attention to the house. The number she had called was known only to her and Lona, and Lona had yet to return any of her messages. For her call to route to voice mail without ringing meant only one thing: she had turned off her phone.
She’s gone dark, again. Where the hell did she go this time, and why didn’t she tell me before she left?
This was not new behavior for Lona, of course. For years, it had been standard procedure for Lona to “go quiet” when on assignment, for Reiko’s protection as well as her own. Reiko knew she should not be concerned, but these were not normal circumstances, and Lona most certainly was not acting like herself—the self she had been before her long absence.
Reiko released an exasperated sigh as she shifted to a more comfortable position where she sat at the base of the large oak tree. Other trees along with evergreen bushes and a low-rise rock wall offered an ideal location for surveillance, concealing her both from the houses around her and the residential street to her right. From here, she had an unobstructed view of the house that was anything but the quiet, unassuming suburban domicile it appeared to be. Looking past McFarland into the house, she could see at least two other figures moving about, one wearing a shoulder holster over his blue pullover shirt. Another man wore a dark blue NTAC Windbreaker.
Not very subtle.
Tracking McFarland to this safe house—all while not revealing her own presence—had proven every bit as challenging as following him and his security escort to the prior two locations where he had been secreted. Not for the first time, Reiko wished Lona was here to assist her with this surveillance, or at least was available to share more of the seemingly infallible insight she now harbored.
It was Lona who had put forth the revelation that McFarland would be traveling from Washington, D.C. to Seattle—most likely to meet with NTAC agents—but she had left it to Reiko herself to track the Agency director’s movements once he completed his clandestine cross-country flight. Despite that knowledge, following McFarland was no easy task, as the NTAC agents charged with his protection were doing so in effective fashion. Reiko had made initial contact with McFarland as soon as he arrived at Sea-Tac Airport and was whisked away in a government-issue SUV, and followed him to the local NTAC headquarters.
However, it was while attempting to pursue McFarland to one of the Agency’s “safe houses” that she realized his protection detail was leaving little to chance. She had followed what she at first believed to be the vehicle transporting McFarland to a condominium located in Yarrow Point, a small town east of Seattle. Keeping watch over the place for several hours while agents came and went, a sneaking suspicion that things were too quiet there soon came over her. Reiko risked a closer inspection of the condo, only to discover it empty. Angry with herself at how easily she had been duped, it had taken several attempts at following vehicles to and from NTAC headquarters before she finally found McFarland’s true hiding place.
I know this body’s getting slower these days, but I didn’t think I was getting dumber.
Stifling a yawn, Reiko reached up to massage her right temple as she watched McFarland pace the deck. Puffs of wispy, white smoke occasionally swirled about his head before being dissipated by the breeze. In a sense, Reiko realized she owed McFarland a debt of thanks for the role he played in placing Lona into her life. That had been nearly twenty years ago now, though for Lona twelve of those years had passed in the blink of an eye.
For Reiko, as the woman left behind, those years had seemed interminable.
It had taken her months to accept that Lona was gone, either captured or killed, or perhaps in hiding and fearing for her own life and unable to contact her. When the months turned to years, Reiko forced herself to accept that her lover was gone, and so she made attempts to piece together something resembling an ordinary life. Putting to use her formidable computer skills as a corporate software analyst, she slowly opened herself t
o love as well, finding a new life partner dedicated to her and capable of making even the bleakest of days seem hopeful.
Sweet Carmen, Reiko thought. And I was able to abandon you so quickly, so easily. She had not even hesitated, not when confronted with Lona standing before her on that street in Seattle, looking exactly as she had the last time she had seen her more than a decade earlier.
Lona’s return was indeed a miracle, especially considering the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and long absence. However, Reiko slowly had awakened to the fact that while her life’s true love had come back in body, Lona never fully was present in mind and spirit. At first, she wanted to attribute their emotional disconnection to Lona’s reentry process. Acclimating to life after being “gone” for so long had to carry unimaginable layers of adjustment. Later, as Reiko discovered the incredible physical ability bestowed upon Lona by whatever powers had spirited her through time and space, she chalked up Lona’s distraction to her process of understanding and accepting this wondrous gift.
However, when Lona began talking about her higher calling—this sense of special purpose and destiny that now drove her beyond any other internal motivations—Reiko realized the woman she knew and loved more than any other person had yet to return to her. She was there, but buried beneath layers of other consciousness that seemed to dominate her every waking moment. This new Lona was unpredictable, impulsive, even reckless as she carried out these mysterious assignments, which came not from her former employers but instead from another authority she would or could not identify. She pursued her targets at a far greater pace than she had in the past. Rather than taking months to plan an assassination, Lona had carried out multiple hits in just a few weeks. Her actions carried with them far more risk than she used to undertake, and Reiko feared that her irresponsible approach to the tasks she carried out would soon be her undoing.
