At the Clearest Sensation

by M. L. Buchman

The cool felt good. Like the first hint of relief since she’d felt the man in the Hummer.

  “What have you got?”

  “Hannah nailed it, ex-SEAL Petty Officer 1st Class Claude Vermette. Disappeared into the SOG for three years. Listed as dead in an explosion that took out everyone and everything at a secret research facility in the Nevada desert a year ago.”

  “The SOG?”

  Ricardo turned to Devlin. “Special Operations Group. The CIA has a division called the Special Activities Division—the SAD. You hear about them heading up the dark missions abroad. The SOG is the SAD’s black ops team—sabotage and assassins.”

  “Our government has assassins?”

  Ricardo ignored him and turned back to her. “Rumor is he went SOG, then disappeared even from that.”

  “Into a research lab,” Isobel wanted to hide her face again.

  “What kind of lab?” Devlin was leaning forward.

  Isobel had to face the one thing she hated most. “He was gifted. It’s the only thing that fits. Like he has a psi radar and could feel us. I—” her voice caught in her throat.

  Devlin shuffled close enough to take her hand. She found unexpected strength from his grasp.

  “I opened up to feel him. You were right, Ricardo. He wasn’t angry or afraid. There was no hate. The pieces just don’t fit together. Like maybe he was your zealot ready to kill us in pure battle frenzy.” She turned to Devlin. “Feelings have colors, sort of. The best way I know how to describe it. You know, black equates with evil, red with anger, and so on. That barely skims the surface, because there’s also texture, depth, clarity…but that’s the idea.”

  He nodded for her to continue as if he really was interested and trying to understand. It was killing her that she couldn’t see even his base color. Each person had a baseline that remained no matter what emotion lay over it. Michelle wore a burgeoning spring green of kindness that couldn’t be denied no matter what chaos her more active emotions were actually in. Ricardo’s earth-brown stability was the perfect counterpoint in their relationship, and it was so purely who he was that his emotions rarely varied from that baseline.

  “I expected black-evil or red-fury. What I sensed was shining white of such purity and magnitude that I could feel nothing else, not even Michelle in the back seat. As if it was burning hot as a sun compared to normal people. Like one of Ricardo’s ‘Glory Killers’ but with no hatred of the enemy. Of us. I’ve never sensed true madness before, but maybe that’s what it’s like.”

  “Backed up with the skills of a SEAL-trained CIA assassin?” Devlin groaned.

  Ricardo sighed and shrugged a yes.

  Devlin rocked back, but didn’t let go of her hand. “Well, that sounds like a whole lot of fun.”

  Michelle charged into the bathroom, still under full steam.

  Devlin had forgotten to relock the door after he’d let Ricardo in.

  She spotted him two steps through the door and aimed a hard kick at his face that he barely managed to block. Wouldn’t have if she hadn’t shed her beloved cowboy boots for bare feet. Instead, he managed to get his forearm up directly in her line of fire.

  He didn’t hear any toe bones crack, but she yelped hard and collapsed onto the bathroom mat, cradling her toes in both hands. Thank God she was a practical woman who kept her toenails trimmed or he’d be bloody.

  A moment later Ricardo said softly, “Because I’m not in the mood.”

  “In the mood for what?” Devlin asked him.

  “My wife just asked why I haven’t already killed you.”

  “Oh. Uh, thanks.” Devlin couldn’t think of a better response.

  Ricardo simply nodded, then laughed softly. “Apparently that makes me a total weenie. My wife’s idea of a vile insult.”

  “Must like me, then. I think she’s called me fuckhead, bastard, and a few other expletives in just our short acquaintance.”

  Ricardo stared at him just long enough to make it clear that the redhead with the fiery temper was his.

  Devlin held up his hands palm-out to show that he wanted no part of that.

  “Ow-w!” Michelle cradled her toes, then turned her back on him to face Isobel. “I was coming up to tell you that they found the Hummer parked illegally downtown. It was taken out from the dealer for a test drive, using a false ID. The saleswoman was knocked out and tied up in the back of the Hummer. He’d disabled the anti-carjacking tracker.”

  “There’s the proof we needed.”

  Isobel looked at him in surprise.

  “The vets, even the most screwed up ones I’ve met living on the streets, are still wired up right…on some things. By parking illegally, he made sure that the saleswoman, a civilian, would be found quickly. Bet the windows were even cracked open.”

  “And that he tried to kill us, also civilians?” Michelle scoffed at him.

  “He didn’t. That’s where the wiring got broken. He has a military code against harming civilians, but also some personal code that invalidates that.”

  “Hold it!” Michelle looked around the bathroom. “What’s his personal code have to do with us?”

  “I’m guessing that inside his head you lot—the gifted—don’t fall into the civilian category. You’re something else in there.”

  “So what was he doing? Trying to kill us with kindness?”

  “Not so much. Though one thing’s for certain,” Devlin held Isobel’s hand tightly. “He was definitely trying to kill you.”

  Her hand jerked, then clamped down on his when he didn’t release it.

  “No,” Michelle was shaking her head. “No. That’s so wrong. Ricardo, tell him that’s wrong.”

  Ricardo barely hesitated before grimacing.

  Devlin hated being right.

  Chapter 18

  Hard bed. Belly full of soup. Another charity mission.

  Being dead meant no government draw. More importantly, being dead meant they couldn’t find him again.

  But he had to find her.

  So close.

  He’d come so close, but she’d slipped out of his grasp even as he’d closed his fist. Not strong enough. Not fast enough.

  His fists clenched until the pain throbbed from them, and still he couldn’t be sure it would be enough next time.

  He needed more.

  His training.

  It too had slipped from his grasp. He knew better. Such a simple attack should have worked, but he hadn’t been trained to depend on should haves. He’d been trained to deliver results.

  “Don’t run to your death!” Training had always harped on that. Take the time to plan.

  He’d found his target, then acted rashly.

  Yes.

  But he’d waited long enough.

  Now it was time to hunt.

  And once he’d found them again, then he could plan.

  Chapter 19

  Isobel hadn’t felt like sex, but neither had she wanted to sleep alone.

  Devlin had made it simple by stating that he wasn’t leaving her side. “I’m not as lethal as your brother, but they’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

  He’d sat up against the headboard, fully clothed. He had her Taser resting by his hand, and had showed her the Benchmade knife he carried.

  There was little chance that he’d need it, Hannah was sleeping downstairs and her brother out on the deck. Not even Devlin, with an ease that spoke to her of a former life as a night thief, would be able to slip in.

  She let herself curl up against him as he gently finger-brushed her hair back from her face, and let herself collapse into sleep.

  “What the—” Devlin’s flinch brought her wide awake.

  A man loomed over the foot of her bed. His shoulders were too broad to be Ricardo’s.

  Isobel wasn’t much given to screaming, but for this man to be here, her brother must be dead.

  As she opened her mouth to make her final plea to the gods, the door to the balcony shattered inward.

  The man shif
ted aside into the shadows and Ricardo’s attack carried him tumbling onto the bed.

  Ricardo instantly rolled back to his feet as Devlin shoved her behind him.

  She opened her mind and—

  “No! Wait!” Only one person had ever simply been solid-granite gray.

  Ricardo and Devlin froze.

  The man had somehow crossed the room to the door and flicked on the light switch.

  Then he stepped aside half a moment before Hannah shattered Isobel’s bedroom door with her shoulder.

  Her weapon raised, she scanned the room, aimed at the stranger…then dropped her gun to her side.

  “What the fuck!” Devlin was still trying to keep her behind him.

  Isobel rested her hand on his shoulder to restrain him, and was impressed that she had that power over him because she could feel his adrenaline pumping.

  She knelt on the bedspread, careful of the glass that Ricardo’s entry had sprayed into the room.

  “Hello, Colonel Gibson.”

  He nodded his greeting. He wasn’t a tall man, the same five-ten as Ricardo. His collar-length brown hair was shot with early gray.

  Devlin pushed out of the bed, stepped up to Colonel Gibson, and punched him square in the face.

  Devlin had him dead to rights. The guy should have dropped like a stone.

  Instead, Gibson clamped a hand around Devlin’s wrist and stopped his punch cold. If Devlin stuck out so much as a knuckle, he’d honk the guy’s nose.

  But no cop’s cuffs had ever been so firm and secure as the grasp around his wrist. Devlin didn’t doubt for a second that if the guy wished, he could simply crush all of Devlin’s wrist bones without any visible sign of effort.

  “I’m sorry for surprising you. It was necessary to prove that your present security was inadequate.”

  Devlin looked to see how Ricardo and Hannah took that.

  No change in expression. No chagrin. No anger.

  It was just a proven fact and he suspected they were both already making new plans.

  It was only then that the others stumbled into the room in varying states of undress. The cowboy entered wearing boxers, a Glock 19 handgun, and his hat. Each one spotted Gibson and dropped their defenses immediately.

  “Who the hell are you?” Devlin still couldn’t move his hand.

  In answer, the guy handed Devlin Isobel’s Taser, which must have been taken from his sleeping hand. “I felt that disarming you was a sensible choice. Your training is different than ours, a true street fighter. It increases your unpredictability—in a useful way.” Then he released Devlin’s wrist.

  “Ours?” Devlin wanted to rub his wrist, but Gibson had cluttered his free hand by returning the weapon precisely when he had. Besides, there was no need. He’d been stopped with no pain inflicted, simply as immobilized as if Devlin’s fist had been cast in concrete.

  Gibson nodded toward Hannah and Ricardo. “Two of my very finest soldiers.”

  And that, finally, earned him a reaction from the two ex-Deltas. Surprise?

  Gibson held out his hand. “I’m the former commander of Delta Force, Mr. Devlin Jones. I’m pleased that Isobel’s heart has found such a staunch champion. Her instincts are as exceptional as ever.”

  This time it was Isobel who reacted with surprise.

  Ricardo just smiled, “Pretty obvious, sister.”

  “But I— We— All we did was go sailing.”

  Gibson’s nod toward the rumpled sheets had the urge to punch this guy return tenfold.

  “As I said. A champion,” Gibson stared straight at him. “A pleasant surprise considering your history. Well done.” He scanned the two shattered doors. “Shall we retire downstairs and discuss next steps?”

  “Shall we back up a second and talk about you being an asshole?”

  “Do you think I don’t protect my team?”

  “Yes, that’s precisely what I think, you arrogant prick. And three of them are civilians, not a ‘team.’ Still like to fix your goddamn face for putting them at risk.”

  Gibson studied him and Devlin refused to look aside. But neither did he speak.

  The former commander of Delta Force. And his statement that Ricardo and Hannah had been two of his very best. The very best of the most elite fighting force the world had ever seen.

  Maybe he didn’t take his duties so lightly. Plus he was here.

  No, he wasn’t just here. He’d walked by two of his “best” and disarmed Devlin in his sleep. Devlin was not a deep sleeper—a habit of self-preservation from his time in the Children’s Home Society orphanage, two very rough foster homes out of the five he’d been in, and a couple spins through juvie that had been bad enough to finally scare him straight.

  Yet none of that had stopped this Gibson. He must have been a field man before he was a paper pusher. If they made a field guy into the commander, that probably meant he was the very best.

  Then Devlin felt a chill up his spine.

  “This guy? You?” If a man of this caliber was here, then what did he know about the man who’d attacked them? A matchup between a crazy CIA assassin and an aging Delta Force commander?

  And Gibson’s face darkened. “His skills are exceptional. And based on where he was incarcerated…” his uncertain shrug did more to prove his worth to Devlin than any tricky ninja shit. He wasn’t just blowing smoke because it would be easy and more comfortable to hear.

  Gibson must know that this guy was seriously bad news, which was precisely why he had come to Seattle despite Ricardo’s and Hannah’s presence. Okay, maybe not a total asshole.

  “Oh, here.” Gibson handed Devlin his Benchmade knife before turning for the door.

  Devlin had to slap his back pocket to make sure it was his.

  How the hell had he done that?

  Chapter 20

  “You’re crazy!”

  Colonel Gibson merely smiled. “That’s been posited by many people before you.”

  Isobel could feel the control slipping through her fingers. For a year she’d managed to assemble and run this team.

  She also knew that it was Gibson who had found Jesse and Hannah for them.

  But then he’d placed himself in charge of the team’s missions without so much as a by-your-leave to her. Of course, that’s when she’d found out he’d been running them from behind the scenes all along anyway.

  Devlin’s words still rankled as well—the truth of them.

  Jennie, with the best of intentions, had thrown Isobel’s professional life into complete turmoil. As the actress, she knew who she was, what her purpose was. To take the script that a writer had created, and become a vehicle to embody the director’s vision of those words.

  Now, as co-director and producer, she couldn’t immerse herself in the role as she so typically enjoyed doing. She was known for keeping in character for the entire duration of the film—which had caused difficulties on some of the darker films she’d done early in her career. Thankfully, her rising star gave her the power to turn down those roles now.

  This film was turning her into a complete scatterbrain. As an actress, all she’d had to field were scripts, auditions, and calls for her to be a line model for some product she’d never used so she wouldn’t endorse.

  Suddenly she had distributors bidding on the project, advertising campaigns to plan, and—because she’d chosen to run it lean—an entire film crew to wrangle without five layers of managers and unit directors to fend them off.

  Somewhere in there Devlin hung out, clear enough in her peripheral vision, and far too clear when she turned the lens directly upon him.

  Her personal life might have been depressingly bland, but that had also made it easily manageable. Even the paparazzi had become bored with her—mostly. They certainly hadn’t bothered to find her in Seattle yet.

  Gibson’s assessment was easy to ignore. But for her eminently practical brother to agree, to sanction Devlin as a good match for her was…

  “You’re all crazy!”
r />   “It’s the only scenario that makes sense,” Gibson insisted. “You have to keep making this film.”

  “You want to use Isobel as bait?” Her champion still hadn’t backed down and she wanted to kiss him for it.

  Gibson rubbed his forehead for a moment. “Perhaps we should try this. You are a practical man, Mr. Jones, with an interesting variety of skills, from camera work to peacemaker. Yes, I had someone interview some of the vets still living near your former haunts.”

  Isobel was shocked at the risk she’d taken stepping onto this stranger’s sailboat. In taking him to her bed. She knew nothing about him.

  “Now,” Gibson was still focused on Devlin. “Battlefield tactics. How do you protect a VIP target?”

  “You get them the hell out of there.”

  Gibson nodded. “But that won’t prevent the adversary locating that target at a later time. Not when the VIP is as prominent as Ms. Manella and the aggressor as skilled as Mr. Vermette. So what do you do then?”

  “I sure as hell don’t use her as bait.”

  Gibson sighed, but Isobel was starting to see the pattern so she spoke up.

  “Bait is when someone is out there on their own, appearing helpless. If I’d been alone in that car, he’d probably have gotten me. But I wasn’t. The helo told us he was military. Hannah’s presence distracted him, and her driving skills bought me enough time to get clear. The more I surround myself with the trappings of a movie, the more protected I become. On a normal film, there are layers of security to make sure that the public can’t get to me. They even prevent distractions from other film crew members. We just have to wrap me in enough protection that he can’t get to me. A film naturally puts me at the center of that protection.”

  “No!” But she could see Devlin thinking. His eyes flicked around the room quickly before refocusing on her. “Jesus, Isobel. The risk…”

  She brushed a hand over his cheek. Maybe Gibson and Ricardo were right. She might not know much about Devlin Jones, but maybe, just maybe it would be worth taking the time to find out more.