Prophecy

by Paula Bradley

  1.6

  Incremental numerals then rose with each abducted child the female found. There was little doubt in the mind of the Shadow that the dicit was, at least in part, responsible for these extraordinary increases:

  1.8

  The Shadow cut transmission to the screen. How safe was this data from the prying eyes of the Min’yel’os? The secret of the Prophecy must be kept hidden in this NMIP, the only device that harbored the startling facts ... until the Shadow was sure this human female was the one who would play a part in Netsor’ah’s interpretation.

  It hesitated, hearing what sounded like the approach of a resident. The panel arrays went dark, the lab now returned to its prior state. Reluctantly, it slipped back into the blackness of the lab...

  And then was gone.

  Chapter 4

  Gabriel Winters, Technical Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, currently posing as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stood in the curve of the bay windows which looked out on the front yard, his eyes slightly narrowed as he stared at Mariah Carpenter’s back. She appeared almost ethereal through the shear curtains that covered the windows. That brought a smile to his lips; there was nothing ethereal about this woman.

  She stood nearly motionless, buffeted slightly by the wind that tumbled around the corner of the house.

  A pick-up truck headed down the street toward them. Easy to see everything that approached; the FBI safe house was at the apex of the cul-de-sac. Mariah’s boyfriend, Thomas James Raphael, was back from a photo shoot.

  Winters knew her eyes followed Raphael’s truck as he pulled into the driveway. She turned in his direction, her face alight with love and happiness; Raphael returned the sloppy sentiments, reaching for her as he closed the distance between them.

  Winters was not happy with Raphael’s performance since the night Mariah stood in the backyard engulfed in an opaque blue-white glow that appeared to hold … something. He accused Raphael of balking at the role he had so willingly accepted some months before, that of being Winters’ eyes and ears when Carpenter was out of his sight and alone with Raphael. It appeared that money was no longer an inducement; the dummy had to go and get himself emotionally attached to the subject and was providing Winters with less and less intel.

  Winters had hoped when Raphael found out that Mariah had murdered Gregory Sinclair he would have been shocked out of this foolish romantic idea and shy away from her. Instead, he not only approved of what she’d done, but had accompanied her when she visited the families who lost loved ones due to Sinclair’s murder spree.

  Threatened with exposure if he didn’t resume his spying, Raphael continued to provide data, but it became more and more inconsequential. When confronted, he claimed he couldn’t be held responsible if Mariah wasn’t doing anything different. Winters kept a cool, composed, blank look on his face. He highly doubted there was nothing of interest to report, but he couldn’t prove it.

  Nevertheless, her attitude toward him had changed ... and for the better. It happened when, without hesitation, he had believed her about a deranged clown who was murdering couples in every city in which the circus stopped. She was now more relaxed in his presence, more willing to converse—but she never completely dropped her guard. It was fine with him; any sign of acquiescence was better than the open hostility she’d shown before.

  #

  Mariah knew that Gabriel Winters was watching her; she didn’t need her psychic ability to read his mind. He watched her whenever he thought he could get away with it. She didn’t care; let him waste his time while she waited for Thomas’ return.

  After their long embrace, they headed into the house. Walking past the living room, she stopped and, telling Thomas she’d meet him in the kitchen, turned and walked purposefully toward Winters.

  With a positive and (she hoped) communicative look on her face, she came to the point immediately.

  “I’m bored. I have cabin fever. I want out of this house. It feels like a prison.” She noted that he appeared relaxed, but looks were deceiving. While she didn’t get waves of tension from him, she knew he was, and would always be, wary.

  “I assume you’ve thought this through and realize the many consequences that would engender. While you’re admittedly psychic enough to feel people’s emotions around you, there are still enemies to consider. Enemies far removed from you that you can’t read. If they can’t use you to their advantage, they’d just as soon eliminate you.”

  She had known this commonsense approach to her statement would have been his reaction. She gave him her million watt grin. “I’ve been working on something that just might take care of that.”

  She always had his full attention whenever they spoke; it was kind of flattering, in a way. But springing something on him that concerned a new “talent” of hers created a stillness in him born of years spent as a defense attorney and his current role in the FBI. Good at his job he said nothing, just waited expectantly.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about when Damion Lazote tried to shoot me … kill me … at the church. And the bullet I deflected. It was the same automatic reaction when Sinclair threw the ricin poison in my face and I was able to blow it back into his. I should be able to tweak my limbic system so it always scans for threats like that.”

  His expression remained fixed, but she could feel his heart rate quickening. “That doesn’t sound possible, even for you,” he said. “The ancient lizard brain reacts subconsciously. That’s why a person reacts milliseconds before they know they’re doing it. Yours just happens to respond faster than others. But how do you propose to tap into it, let alone change anything?”

  There was no smugness in her answer. “Sometimes when I’m alone, I concentrate on my brain. Well, more like which segments are working and which aren’t.”

  There were many things about this woman that he flat out couldn’t understand. That she could delve into her own brain, to see what hemispheres were operating, was beyond his comprehension.

  “I’m just now trying to see into the workings of my brain.” She wasn’t taunting him with outrageous talents like she had before; she was just stating a fact, to his delight. Along with their new attitude of cooperation, she genuinely included him in things she was doing psychically. Some things. He knew she never shared all, even with Raphael.

  “And how is this supposed to work?” he asked.

  “Well, if I can tap into that hemisphere of the brain where the lizard brain hides in, I might be able to tweak it into responding to a psychic or long distant threat.” Her childlike smile was one of pure delight. “Then it will react as it does in a fight-or-flight situation. Make me do something to protect myself without it being a conscious thought ... in the beginning.”

  Does this woman have the slightest idea what her value would be to the U.S. agencies formed to protect the population? Both foreign and domestic? he thought. Winters had to make her understand—but here’s where the ice got thin.

  He had tried several weeks after she returned from her Trail of Sorrow, as he called it. He thought after spending time with the families who mourned the death of their loved ones at the hands of Gregory Sinclair, she’d be amenable to the idea of working for her government, particularly the CIA. She could change the face of the world with her ability to get into people’s heads. She alone could bring down every known terrorist that threatened the safety of people everywhere, not just in the states. She could do so much more than find abducted children, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers. But she brushed him off, not willing to think of it.

  It was now time to go forward with his plan to move her into a house equipped with surveillance equipment run by the CIA. He, along with the scientists involved in gathering information about what she was doing, needed to watch her 24/7.

  #

  Ten days after the new house was chosen and the cameras installed, “Operation: Maximum Magician
” began. Phase one was to leak her current location to one news station.

  Mariah and Thomas were awakened one morning to the sound of loud voices on the front lawn. Peeking between the drawn drapes, they saw two camera trucks with the CBS logo parked in front of the house and a couple of FBI agents arguing strenuously with a woman in a red suit with a microphone in her hand. The peace in the neighborhood was further broken by the arrival of Winters’ sleek silver Mercedes pulling up behind the vans.

  Mariah giggled. She watched Winters uncoil from the car, button his black suit coat, and head for Red Suit. It was hilarious watching Red Suit wave her hands around as she argued, almost hitting Winters twice with the microphone. He just stood there, arms folded across his chest, stance wide and defensive. When the woman finally stopped long enough to draw breath, he spoke, the sound of his exasperatingly neutral voice drifting up to her in the stillness of the morning.

  Red Suit sputtered and fumed for several more minutes, but it was obvious who won. Yelling something about freedom of the press, the news crew got back in the vans, slamming the doors as loudly as possible to wake up those neighbors who were still asleep.

  Winters stood on the lawn until the last truck vanished around the corner then strode toward the house.

  “Let’s go back to bed, Mariah,” Thomas whispered, his arms coming around her, well aware of the effect he was having on her as he breathed into her ear. Turning in his arms, she stood on tiptoe as she molded against him, their passionate kiss a promise that set their blood pounding.

  They drew apart with reluctance when they heard three sharp raps on the bedroom door. Looking resigned, Thomas watched Mariah pad over to the door, mesmerized by her tight buttocks outlined against her tee shirt.

  She glanced back at him with a mischievous grin and said sweetly, “Who is it?”

  They heard Winters’ unmistakable voice on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry to bother you folks, but we’ve got a problem we need to discuss.”

  Winking at Thomas, she replied, “What problem might that be, whoever-you-are?”

  Gabriel scowled at the door. Three thoughts mushroomed in his mind almost simultaneously: first, she knew exactly what had happened just minutes ago. Mariah Carpenter was a light sleeper and the noise under her bedroom window could have woken Rip Van Winkle; second, she knew damned well who was on the other side of the door. She told him his voice was unique ... unemotional, robotic; and third, she never missed an opportunity to goad him. Shortly after he took Manzetti’s place, she informed him that it was her sworn duty to loosen him up.

  Momentarily the frown on his face softened and the corners of his mouth twitched. She was persuasive, the little witch. She had almost gotten him to lower his professional mask a couple of times. Trying for and achieving one of his most colorless tones, he said, “I’ll meet you in the living room. Please make it as quickly as possible.”

  They heard his steps retreating down the carpeted hall and the soft thunk, thunk, thunk as he jogged down the stairs.

  “I never heard him sneak up here. I guess my attention was on something else,” Thomas said softly, rubbing the back of his hand against her cheek.

  She walked into the bathroom. She had heard Gabriel on the stairs even though he moved like a panther.

  Mariah smiled at her image in the bathroom mirror. She let Agent Winters watch her elevate objects and move them around, but what he didn’t know was the experiments she conducted to heighten her senses. Not only could she hear him glide across the carpet as he moved stealthily around the house, she could smell him. It wasn’t his after-shave or any body odor. Mariah Carpenter was now able to identify the unique chemical composition of each individual. And if she came across a scent she didn’t recognize, she could at least tell if it was male or female. Once she had someone’s scent, she knew if they were close by or if they’d been close recently.

  Her hearing was also becoming acute. She and Thomas were having dinner on the patio one evening when she heard the faint sound of voices cheering. A few days later she found out it was the crowd at a Little League game who played Tuesday night—almost half a mile away.

  Mariah was reluctant to share these new talents with Thomas; she thought it would make him uncomfortable. She tried not to cling to him physically or emotionally, always afraid he would finally get fed up with her weirdness and leave. She encouraged him to go out with his friends, to take all the assignments he could handle, hoping their time together would not feel as confining as an MRI cylinder.

  Chapter 5

  It was time to complete “Operation: Maximum Magician.”

  Winters knew the sight of the media trucks would have the desired effect. However, he wasn’t prepared for how easy she made it. Mariah was adamant about relocating to some place with more privacy, less people—a place where she would not feel so exposed. It spoke to her “cabin fever,” this new house and location.

  The house was on Mastenhege Heights, considerably more modern than the one in which she currently resided. It was near the top of a hill, high enough to look out at the Santa Cruz Mountains on a clear day. The backyard was not landscaped. The wildflowers—Indian paintbrush, manzanita, gold poppy—growing in and among large rocks could just as easily be behind a cabin tucked away in the hills instead of a tract home in suburbia.

  Ninety feet from the house, the yard yielded to the remaining segment of the hill. There were no houses beyond this point. The hill was dotted with chaparral, milkweed, and boulders of varying sizes. Englemann oak trees lined the top of the rise, hiding a road used only by the utility companies, further adding to the sense of living in the wilderness.

  She liked the new house, smiling at the bright cheery kitchen and the wall of windows in the living room that afforded her a decent view of the backyard, the south side of San José and the mountains.

  When she begged to turn the house into a kaleidoscope of color, he resisted for a little while. But it was a game, both of them knowing he would capitulate.

  He never let on that he actually enjoyed her attempts at “wiping that perpetually sour expression off your handsome face.” She was not coy and manipulative like most of the women he knew. Her straight-forwardness and uncontrived playfulness was refreshing, maybe even a little stimulating.

  Intellectually stimulating, he amended quickly. It was unsettling, her knowing him well enough to judge how far she could push him. He briefly wondered if she was reading his mind, but shrugged off the notion instantly: if she was, she would have exposed him for what he was—a CIA agent illegally conducting business in the United States, masquerading as an FBI agent.

  He sighed. Gabriel Winters wouldn’t let his imagination dwell on what she would do if she found out who he really was and that he was responsible for the death of her best friend, Frannie Manzetti

  #

  If there was one thing that constantly annoyed Mariah like a persistent flea darting in front of her eyes, it was the inexorable presence of Agent Gabriel Winters. She was not happy when he decided to move into the safe house one week after she did, commandeering the small bedroom on the ground floor for his private office.

  She felt his calculating eyes assessing her. His presence haunted her even when he was not on the premises. Like a phantom, she never knew when he would materialize; nevertheless, since she had his scent, she was never taken by surprise.

  One evening Mariah entertained her guards with The Puppets from Pluto Theater. The show began with the wedding night of Polly Applebottom and Monsieur Pierre Pareknife. The groom stripped the “clothing” off his new bride while seducing her in a bad Pepé Le Pew French accent. The agents laughed in appreciation as the apple spun in the air, its skin coiling gracefully toward the floor while the white-handled peeler spun in the opposite direction.

  Unknowingly, they were witness to the mastering of a new skill: Mariah made two unrelated objects performing different tasks at the same
time.

  But Winters knew. He was sure nothing she did escaped him now. The surveillance equipment brought all her little tricks into sharp focus.

  The infrared cameras with large zoom lenses (monitored by the FBI) were positioned outside. They were weatherproof, able to brighten the night with a seventy degree field of vision and a range of at least one thousand feet. Installed next to the floodlights at the four corners of the house, they were also at the front near the porch lights and in the back in the shrubs under the windows. Since the auto-iris lenses automatically adjusted for light level, they were perfectly functional during the daylight hours as well. Mariah complained of the lights shining in her bedroom window, hoping they would be shut off: Winters countered by covering the windows with blackout curtains.

  The CIA’s hidden equipment, however, was even more sophisticated. Their fixed focus lens cameras were hidden in places like picture frames and mirrors. The images they captured were sharply defined whether a few inches or several yards away.

  It was the visible light zoom lens cameras with pan and tilt that provided the most flexibility. These little gems were installed in the smoke detectors, one in the upstairs hallway, one in the bedroom, and one in the back door entry to cover any stray movements missed by the cameras in the living room and kitchen.

  These highly sophisticated cameras, also equipped with auto-iris lenses, were additionally installed in the burglar alarm system’s motion detectors. The zoom, combined with the three hundred thousand pixels, supplied clear color pictures through the tiny 3.6 mm pinhole lens. Unlike civilian surveillance equipment, all these babies came equipped with microphone pickup integrated into the radio frequency transmitter. Every word, every whisper, was heard with crystal clarity.