He almost smiled at that. “In a manner of speaking.” He rose and began to pace. “The organization I work for is run by a man named Nicholas Kessler. Sixty years ago, he was a renowned scientist whose pioneer research into relativist and quantum physics attracted certain factions in the government that were searching for new and more innovative ways to combat the enemy. Dr. Kessler was commissioned to conduct a series of experiments involving electromagnetic fields on battleships. Ostensibly they were looking for an effective method to demagnetize the hulls of the ships so they would be invisible to enemy mines.”
Marly watched him from the sofa. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke volumes.
“What Dr. Kessler achieved instead was complete invisibility.”
She gasped. “That’s—”
“Impossible?” Deacon’s gaze met hers. “Hear me out, remember? Keep an open mind.”
“I’m trying,” she whispered.
“When the ship rematerialized, it seemed exactly as it was before, but the crew had undergone extreme physical and psychological trauma. Dr. Kessler was so distressed by the condition of the men that he tried to sabotage his own project in order to prevent the experiment from ever being repeated. He knew that if this new technology fell into the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic.”
Deacon walked over and sat down beside Marly. “Unfortunately Dr. Kessler’s notes had already been stolen by a group of rich and powerful men who operated underneath the radar of the government and even the intelligence community. They persuaded Dr. Kessler’s protégé, a man named Joseph Von Meter, to continue the experiments in a series of underground bunkers at an abandoned Air Force station on Long Island, New York. Von Meter agreed, and to this day, he and Dr. Kessler remain bitter enemies.”
Marly glanced at him in surprise. “You mean…they’re still alive?”
Deacon nodded. “They’re old men, of course, but their rivalry is as strong as ever. As I said, Dr. Kessler runs the organization I work for. For the past sixty years, he’s tried to put an end to what his own genius created. One of his primary goals is to find and, if necessary, eliminate the super soldiers created at Montauk.”
“But you were—”
“I was one of them,” Deacon agreed. “I underwent the experiments, the brainwashing, the mind control. I was trained to kill just like all the others.”
Marly shuddered. “And you did so willingly, you said.”
He nodded. “To a certain extent. But they’d been watching me for years. I excelled in both athletics and academics in school, and I even had a certain amount of psychic ability. They made it seem as if I’d volunteered to undergo the experiments, but I now believe that I was being prepared for the super soldier project at least as far back as high school.”
“What about the others?”
He shrugged. “Some were like me. They were led into it gradually, subtly. Others were simply taken by force. When the experiments first started, they used mostly indigents. People who just disappeared off the streets and were never heard from again. Then they started to recruit military personnel and eventually they began to use children. Some of them came from military families, but they also used bogus child-care facilities and phony cults as a means to screen suitable subjects.”
“What did they do to them?” Marly’s expression revealed the revulsion she felt for everything he’d told her.
Deacon knew exactly how she felt. He’d had a hard time accepting the truth, too. Especially his part in it. “I didn’t find out about the children until much later, but from everything I’ve learned since, even the youngest were put through rigorous training and brainwashing techniques until they became adept at whatever special ability they showed an aptitude for. Then their memories were erased. The objective was to send them back home or back out into society until such time as they were needed.”
Marly lifted her gaze. “An army of secret warriors,” she whispered in horror.
“WHAT WERE THE EXPERIMENTS like?” she asked a little while later as she watched Deacon move about the tiny kitchen, making coffee for himself and a cup of tea for her.
He carried the steaming mugs to the table and sat down across from her. “Some of them were pretty brutal. I didn’t personally witness any physical abuse, but I do know they used fear and sleep deprivation as a means to control the subjects. The goal was to dissociate and compartmentalize the mind and personality. For me, it started off with various hypnosis techniques where I learned the process of deep relaxation, visualization and, to a lesser extent, self-healing. From there, I progressed into simple telekinesis. Bending spoons, etc. Eventually I learned to manipulate basic psychological states, interfere with coherent mental functioning and motor reflexes, interface with both conscious and subconscious thought processes, and plant subliminal messages.”
Marly thought back to that day when she’d stood on Ricky Morales’s porch. She could have sworn she’d heard music coming from inside his house, but at the same time, she’d somehow known it was only in her head. Had that been a subliminal message? Had Ricky’s killer even then been sending her a clue?
“You said the project was shut down. Why?”
He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “The project had been underground ever since World War Two. Private funding allowed them to operate beneath the government’s radar, but after the submarine accident, I think things probably got a little dicey. It’s hard to cover up something of that magnitude. Certain people became suspicious and too many questions were being asked. They abandoned the Montauk facility, but we figure they had other locations. If they haven’t already started back up somewhere else, they will. You can’t keep Pandora’s Box closed forever.”
Marly was silent for a moment, trying to take it all in. “You have no idea why you were on board that submarine?”
“No.” He stared down at his coffee. “Like I said, we were to be briefed only when we reached the drop zone. But my feeling is that it was something big. Something that made even the scientists in charge of the project nervous. That’s why they were so quick to shut down the whole operation when it failed.”
Marly wrapped her fingers around her cup, letting the warmth chase away her lingering chill. “How did you hook up with this Dr. Kessler?”
“I met his granddaughter first. I thought it was a chance meeting, but I’ve since come to believe that nothing in my life has ever been left to fate.”
Marly shivered at the sudden darkness in his eyes. “That must have been a terrifying revelation,” she said softly. “But at least you’re aware of the manipulation now. At least you can fight it.”
“You know something about that, don’t you?” Their gazes met, and Marly had the strangest sensation of déjà vu, as if she and Deacon had met before, in another time, another life. Once she might have laughed at such a fantasy, but after today, she couldn’t dismiss any possibility.
“Go on,” she said. “I want to hear the rest.”
He shrugged, dropping his gaze back to his coffee. “After the accident, they wiped out our memories before we were cut loose, but I had just enough recall to know that I didn’t have any close family, no one to go home to. I did have a bank account, though, enough to get by on for quite a while if I was careful. So I more or less bummed around the country, picking up jobs here and there. I even drove out to California, although I still don’t really know why. I think that’s where I grew up. Anyway, I was in a convenience store in East L.A. one day when a man rushed in armed with an automatic weapon. There were two other customers in the store besides me. Two women and a little boy.
“The gunman shot the clerk and grabbed the kid to use as a hostage. I knew it was going to end badly. I knew that little boy was going to die. We all were. I could see it in the gunman’s eyes. So I made him turn the weapon on himself and pull the trigger. That was the first time I realized what I could do. I wasn’t even aware I possessed the ability until that day.”
Marly’s heart was beating a painful staccato insi
de her chest. She didn’t know how or why, but she felt as if she’d been in that store with Deacon. She felt as if she’d witnessed every second of the tableau he’d just described.
“You saved that little boy’s life.”
He looked up. “I also took a life. And I knew I’d done it before because it came too easy for me.”
Their gazes held for a moment, and Marly shuddered at what she saw in his eyes. The pain and anguish. The memories of death.
Impulsively she reached across the table and placed her hand on his. “You did what you had to do, Deacon.”
It was the first time she’d used his given name, and Marly felt a thrill of excitement race up her spine. Whether it was from the sound of his name or the physical contact, she didn’t know. But something was drawing them closer. Pulling them inexorably together.
Abruptly she released his hand and clasped her own in her lap. “What happened after that?”
“Nothing happened to me. The police thought the man had panicked and committed suicide when he realized there was no way out. I let them believe that and walked away. It was only later that I found out someone was on to me.”
“Kessler’s granddaughter?”
“She was one of the women in the store that day. Not the kid’s mother, but the other one. I’d noticed her when she first walked in. Dark hair. Blue eyes. A real knockout. There was something familiar about her, too, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen her before. Then afterward, I saw her watching me. She had a strange look on her face, as if she knew what I’d done. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I was still pretty shaken by what had happened. What I had made happen.
“A few days later, she came to see me. She said she knew who I was and what I could do.”
Marly lifted a brow. “And?”
“She said there was someone who wanted to meet me.”
Marly stared at him for a moment. “And you agreed? Just like that? Not even knowing who she was?” Dark hair. Blue eyes. A real knockout. Men could be so stupid.
“She piqued my curiosity,” Deacon said a little defensively. “Besides, I figured I didn’t have much to lose.”
“Does this woman have a name?” Marly tried to ask casually.
“Camille.”
Camille. It would have to be something exotic. Dark hair. Blue eyes. A real knockout. The kind of woman men would follow anywhere.
The kind of woman that was the exact opposite of Marly. She’d never held any delusions about her own sex appeal. She was a mildly attractive woman who’d never excelled at anything in her life. Not athletics. Not academics. She wasn’t even a very good cop. And most telling of all, she hadn’t been able to keep her fiancé from straying.
“What did they want with you?” she couldn’t help asking.
“At first, they were mostly interested in the submarine accident and what I knew about the mission. They’d already determined that each member of the special ops team on board was carefully screened and selected because he was an expert at one or more psionic skills. Dr. Kessler believed, and still does, that if and when Montauk regroups, they might try and repeat the mission. And if they do, they may also try to resurrect the same team.”
“So, as a preemptive strike, they recruited you to their side,” Marly said.
He nodded. “At first, I reacted to everything they told me the same way you did. I thought it was some kind of scam. It sounded too far-fetched to be true, and yet I knew what I could do. I knew the psychokinesis wasn’t normal. I’d been trained to do it. Programmed to do it. And I also knew that if I’d been able to kill that man in the store so easily, there was a good chance I might do so again. And maybe the next time my reason wouldn’t be so noble.”
“SO HOW DO WE FIND HIM?”
They were still seated at the table and Deacon was on his second cup of coffee. He wondered how Marly was handling everything he’d told her. She seemed okay. The hand that lifted the tea to her lips was almost steady.
Deacon set aside his own cup and folded his arms on the table. “We use the profile. From there it’s a process of elimination.”
“Yes, well, I have a little problem with that profile.” Marly carefully returned her cup to the table. “You think the killer is someone between the ages of thirty and forty. But from what you just told me, these experiments have been going on for years. How do you know the killer isn’t someone older?”
“Because we’re working in the time frame of when the super soldier project escalated,” Deacon said. “It’s not exact, that’s for sure. But it’s a place to start.”
“You also said that the subjects were mostly male. Mostly, but not all, right? The killer could conceivably be a woman.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Deacon agreed. “There were a few women in the project. The only one I personally know of was taken when she was five years old. Her father was a scientist who worked for Von Meter, and the girl was abducted to keep the father in line. They ended up holding her for over four years,” he said grimly.
“And when she was released, could she control thoughts?” Marly asked.
“No. She could walk through walls.”
Marly opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. “Nothing should surprise me anymore,” she muttered. She toyed with her cup before glancing up. “Supposing you’re right. Supposing the killer does fit the profile. That doesn’t mean Sam is the one. There are a lot of other people in this town who meet the same criteria.”
Deacon studied her for a moment. “You have someone in mind?”
She shrugged. “When Navarro first came to town, there were rumors that he was an ex-Navy SEAL. He’s also the right age.”
“And you still think it strange that he didn’t mention his conversation with Lisa Potter.”
Marly nodded. “Among other things. In spite of all that, though, I don’t really think he’s a killer. But there is someone else in town I get strange vibes from.”
“Who?”
She hesitated. “Joshua Rush.”
Deacon lifted a brow.
“I know, I know,” Marly said quickly. “You’re probably thinking this is some sort of personal vendetta, but it’s not. Even when we were…together, there was something about him that I found very unsettling. His intensity could be almost frightening at times. We were only engaged for a couple of weeks, but I knew right from the start that I’d made a terrible mistake. Even if I hadn’t caught him with another woman, I would have found a way to break things off with him. I would never have married that man.”
“I believe you,” Deacon said.
Marly tucked her still damp hair behind her ears. “Something you said earlier got me to thinking. They used cults to screen potential subjects. What if the killer was recruited or even taken by force from one of those cults? When his mind was erased and he was cut loose, wouldn’t he have returned to what he knew?”
“To a cult, you mean.”
“Or something close to it.” Marly folded her arms on the table and leaned toward Deacon. “There’s something very cultlike about the Glorious Way Church. At least there is since Joshua came here. You have to see the way he is with his congregation. Or more to the point, the way they are with him. It’s like he has some kind of hold on them.”
“Any chance you can arrange for us to have a little chat with Reverend Rush?”
“I’ll do better than that,” Marly said grimly. “They’re holding church services every night this week. I’ll take you to see him in action.”
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Marly and Deacon arrived at the Glorious Way Church that night, the revival meeting was in full swing and the place was packed. Joshua had to love that, Marly thought dryly. He always enjoyed playing to a full house.
He was just getting warmed up, but already he had them eating out of his hand. The crowd was so captivated that no one seemed to notice when Marly and Deacon slipped in and took seats at the back.
Marly scanned
the chapel. Most of the congregation had their backs to her, but some were in profile as they turned to gaze up at the pulpit. She recognized several people in attendance. A couple from her apartment complex. A man she’d stopped for speeding a week or so ago. A deputy and his wife.
Her gaze lit on a dark-haired man seated at the end of a pew several rows up. Even from the back, there was something familiar about him, but Marly wasn’t sure why. Then, as if sensing her scrutiny, he turned and glanced over his shoulder.
When their gazes met, Max Perry smiled and nodded, then returned his attention to the pulpit. But in that brief instance, Marly felt the glimmer of something that might have been a premonition.
What was he doing here? she wondered. He didn’t strike her as the churchgoing type, but then Marly knew very little about him. For all she knew, he was here because of the community outreach program. Perhaps he’d been invited to speak, but somehow Marly doubted that even the deaths of four people could persuade Joshua Rush to share the limelight.
Her gaze shifted to the front pew, and suddenly she forgot all about Max Perry as a chill raced up her backbone. Her mother’s face was in profile, but Marly had no trouble discerning her expression as she stared up at Joshua. She looked enraptured. Enthralled. In love.
And Marly felt sick.
“Are you okay?” Deacon said in her ear.
She turned. “What?”
He glanced down where her hands clutched the edge of the pew so tightly her knuckles whitened. “You’re holding on as if you’re afraid you might lift off from that seat.”
“I’m fine,” she said, although she was far from fine.
“Where does that corridor lead?” Deacon whispered. He nodded to the side of the chapel where an archway opened into a narrow corridor that led back into the building.
“To the offices and Sunday school rooms,” she said. “Why?”
“Where is Rush’s office?”
“All the way back.”
When Deacon started to get up, Marly caught his arm. “Where are you going?”
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