Oracle's Hunt

by A. Claire Everward

  Her eyes flickered outside, to where she knew the team he was working with was busy.

  “I’ll update you myself at home,” he said, and two hearts missed a beat at how that sounded, at how natural it came. After a brief hesitation, they parted ways.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Donovan’s floor at USFID was busy. The US side of the data center investigation, finding Elijahn’s current whereabouts and any resources he might be using, was now the primary focus here. But Ben and his team were on top of things, and so Donovan spent some time with SIRT teams working on other investigations to make sure he was up to date, as was his responsibility as the agent in charge, and to assist where needed, which was rare. His people were good, and when something like this came his way, an investigation he was forced to give his entire attention to, he could count on them to do the job.

  Finally turning his attention back to Elijahn, he checked if anything new had come up. Everything that could potentially lead to the man and to his possible accomplices was being looked into. New property acquisitions or leases on spaces that might be used to hide people, in the city or in the wider metropolitan area, and specifically at a limited radius around IDSD, taking into account distances, back roads, police presence at selected points, distance from the substantial US and IDSD military presence in the area—any factor that would limit Elijahn or assist him if he wanted to get to IDSD or to any of the people he was targeting, and then get away again, and that would therefore dictate where he would be hiding. Places that in the past year or so had had a surge in electronic activity or communications—because of whoever had scanned for the data center signal, something that, considering the means Elijahn’s people would have had, had to be done within a certain distance from the data center. Money transfers into the country and within it. Movements and chatter involving rogue groups, with emphasis on indications that such a group, most probably militant, small, independent, and trying to remain under the radar, might have joined Elijahn or had provided him with people. Vehicle purchases and retrofitting, firearms purchases and theft.

  These and more, and there were already some interesting leads, but eventually Donovan left his investigators to it. He had something else he needed to do. One thing only he could do, and that was to talk to some of his contacts from the past, the kind of people who would speak only to him, who only he could get to. And there was one he wanted to see without delay. He made the necessary arrangements, and left his office after night was well on its way, heading home. He needed to change.

  Lara raged. “Frank,” she said, and the phone initiated the call.

  “I thought you were going home,” Scholes said, answering immediately. He’d only just now updated Donovan that she’d left.

  “I thought I didn’t have a protective detail.”

  The line was silent for a long moment. “How . . . ?”

  “Like I’m going to tell you so you can hide it better next time.” It was easy, really. IDSD used specific car models for their security. She’d noticed one a couple of cars behind her that morning as she approached IDSD and was searching for Donovan’s car in her rear-view mirror, and had seen it again behind her when she was at the gate a moment ago, but had taken no note of it. It could well have been unconnected to her, a security car coming into the complex and leaving it for a myriad of other reasons. It might even not have been the same car.

  Except that these cars had a tracking system in them that allowed the protective or security agents using them to lock on any car registered to IDSD or to its staff. And the tracking system of the security car apparently following her was locked on the transmitter IDSD had originally installed in her car. It must have lost its signal as she was going through the gate, because when it did, it beeped her car. And her car beeped back. Except that she’d long ago made sure she would know if this happened, if security was following her contrary to her agreement with Frank, and, as she’d ensured it would, the signal alert appeared on the car’s media screen.

  “Lara, until this is over, I’ve upped your security,” Scholes said, his voice determined.

  “Are you kidding me? Frank, we had a deal.” Now, more than ever, she just wanted to be left alone.

  “It’s either that or protective custody.”

  She terminated the call without answering him. She now knew who had decided her new security arrangements.

  It was now Lara’s turn to walk through Donovan’s patio doors into his house. She had meant to storm in but couldn’t help slow down and look around her, curious. This was quite obviously a man’s house, a single man who had lived here for a while, made this his home and maintained it well. It looked comfortable, tidy, its colors cozy, although the shades here were clearly more masculine than in her home.

  Movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Donovan coming down the stairs, putting a black shirt on a well-built torso, she tried not to notice. He slowed down when he saw her, then continued to descend the stairs, buttoning the shirt.

  “Why do I have people following me?”

  “It’s called a protective detail,” he said mildly.

  “I know what it’s called.”

  “I got this thing, I don’t know, about keeping you alive.”

  “I don’t want them.”

  “I’m not asking.”

  Her eyes blazed with anger at him. God, she looked beautiful. She saw the way he was looking at her, he could tell. He didn’t care.

  “How did you know, anyway? That it’s my call?” he asked her.

  “Something Frank said. ‘It’s either that or protective custody,’” she quoted Scholes.

  “Ah,” was all Donovan said.

  “Frank would have settled for a drone. At least I wouldn’t—”

  “I don’t want to just watch Elijahn kill you, I want someone to actually be there to stop him.”

  “Fine. Then tell me the others all have the same security.”

  “They all have the same security.”

  Suddenly she felt stupid. Of course he was protecting everyone whose name Elijahn had. Which was good, it was what she wanted. It was just that she thought he . . . she didn’t know what she thought, she must have been mistaken. But then just now, the way he looked at her . . . okay now that was stupid. What was she thinking? How could she be thinking about this? Where was this coming from?

  He was watching her. Reading her, she knew, blue playing in dark and light hues in his eyes. “You know something, you should increase my security.” She dived in to regain her footing, focused back on what should be on her mind, anything except this, except him. And she had an idea. Yes, that would work. “Think about it. Elijahn suspects the person behind Oracle is one of the names he took.”

  He raised his eyebrows in question. He didn’t like where this was going.

  “And if he doesn’t know which one of us it is,” she said, “if he doesn’t know it’s me . . .”

  “He might go after one of the others.”

  She nodded, concern for those who might be harmed through no fault of their own clear in her gold-flecked eyes. “But if you increase my security, he’ll know it’s me.”

  “And what if he does?” he asked, walking to the living room safe, where he had placed his Glock.

  “Well, then that’s okay, he’ll come after me.”

  He turned back and strode to her so suddenly, anger flaring in his eyes, that she had no time to react, to step back, before he grabbed her shoulders. “How? How is it okay for him to come after you?”

  And now she not only saw it, but felt it, too. There, for the first time, the first time with him, the first time ever outside who she was as Oracle, she felt him, his feelings for her, the uncontrolled emotions momentarily and powerfully drowning all else. Her breath caught in surprise.

  His did too. He felt it in her even as he saw it in her eyes, saw the intensity of the look, the shift in it as the realization came. Realization, and shock.

  They stared at each other. Then
she fought for control, focused again. Pushed it away, to be dealt with later. Maybe. Maybe never. She wasn’t sure she could, for too many reasons.

  “Donovan.” Her tone was softer now. “I don’t want someone else hurt for something they didn’t do, so it has to be fine with me.”

  “Well it’s not fine with me!” He realized he was still grabbing her and forced himself to let go, then busied himself with turning away again, walking to the safe and taking his gun out, checking it, strapping the holster on his belt.

  Gun, phone, but no badge, she noticed.

  When he walked back toward her, he was composed again. “In fact,” he said in a conversational tone, “with that attitude, I think it would be better if I do place you in protective custody.” He contemplated her. He should just do it and that’s it. In fact, at this point he didn’t mind locking her up right here with him standing guard if it kept her safe.

  “Yeah, just try it. I’m still an International, and I’m still IDSD, remember? You have no jurisdiction over me, even if you do have some obscure agreement with Frank.”

  “Maybe it’s time that changed. You need to be protected.”

  “Nevertheless,” she said, “Oracle is needed. And,” she continued, seeing the renewed flare in his eyes, “if Elijahn still doesn’t know who is behind Oracle, and I disappear, he’ll know for sure. Which you apparently don’t want. So we’re back to no protective custody.”

  He picked up a black jacket and slipped it on, his eyes on her. Yes, that was the only reason she wasn’t already locked up in a safe house with a dozen agents following her every move. Or, well, here. With him. But once this was over, once Elijahn and his band of militants were gone, he had every intention of revisiting the issue of her safety.

  He straightened his cuffs thoughtfully, then passed a hand through his hair. Devastatingly handsome, wearing black, meticulously tailored black, from head to toe. No, not just handsome, Lara thought, looking at the way he assessed his own reflection coolly in the hallway mirror. Dangerous. But he wore the dangerous part of it comfortably, as if he’d slipped back into a persona that came naturally to him. She wished she’d read more of his service file.

  “You’re going out.” It came out before she could think better of it. “Am I in the way of a date?” But that didn’t fit the dangerous part. Nor what she had seen in him for her since she came in here. Although, he must have a life, had one before all this started, and she wasn’t sure now . . . maybe she got it wrong after all. Feelings, this type, were long out of practice. And anything that had to do with this man was certainly too easily unsettling her.

  Donovan turned his head and looked at her. Clearly read her again, which only took her further off balance. “Not a date.” He tilted his head a little, contemplating her. “It seems I’m done dating.”

  Before she could react to that he walked out to the back of the house, then waited for her to follow. “I’m going to see a woman about some guns,” he said, shutting the patio doors behind them.

  She understood. “Elijahn.”

  He had promised her an update, he remembered. But first, his meeting. “You’re staying in?” he asked.

  “With my bodyguards outside my door, I assume.”

  He turned to her.

  She raised her hands, palms out. She wasn’t up to fighting out anything with him right now. “Truce. I’ll try to behave.”

  “Don’t just try.” He thought of something. “Do something for me.”

  This surprised her. “Okay, sure.”

  “Lock the house down now. Before I leave.” To be safe. He wasn’t going to be around for a while, and protective detail or not, he was worried.

  She held his eyes for a long moment. Then she nodded.

  “And . . .” He ventured ahead. “Lara, please try to get some sleep.”

  For a split second, just that, her eyes lowered. He frowned.

  He waited until she entered her house and closed the patio doors behind her. He couldn’t see inside the tinted windows, but knew she would be looking at him standing there, waiting for her to be safe.

  As soon as the house locked down, he turned away. Time to focus on the meeting ahead. He made his way to his garage and opened it from the outside. His USFID car was parked at the curb, his driveway clear. For this he would use his own car. Back when he was still in that wild, reckless seam between past and the man he was at present, he was in the field for a stretch of time. He went deep, teetering on that unseen line between the two opposing sides of the law, and made some valuable contacts. He was going back to one of them now. The woman he was meeting knew quite a bit about a lot of the guns that moved inside the United States, simply because she had her hands in it. She had had an eye for him, the man he was back then, so that night that was who he went back to being.

  Lara continued to stand at the closed patio doors long after Donovan was gone, wonder in her eyes. Wonder at him. When she finally slipped into bed between soft sheets, she couldn’t sleep. But this time it wasn’t because of thoughts about a mission or dreams about the past. This time it was fear that kept sleep away, the kind of fear that came with the realization that she cared again. And caring was too painful. She closed her eyes, tried to will herself to sleep. The thing about the life she led was that she never knew when she would be called in, or how long it would be before she had any decent sleep again. But sleep didn’t come, and the thoughts just wouldn’t go away.

  She had had to learn to protect herself because of what being Oracle demanded of her. Sometimes, getting to them, to those she was charged with bringing home, meant locking on to their feelings while they were out there, trapped, not only to see them better—her way—in the context they were in, but also to be able to remind them, at just the right time, of what they had left behind, what waited for them back home. That, more than anything else, had the ability to give them the focus they needed, and that extra mental strength that enabled them to scale walls they did not think scalable.

  But that meant exposing herself to just that, feelings. Making herself susceptible to theirs, and, in the process, to her own. But hers were too painful. And so she’d had to make a choice, early on. She could let Oracle go and distance herself from her own pain, her own open wounds, perhaps letting them heal with time—it might have worked, she would never know, never tried. The choice she had made back then was the other. She had weighed the cost to herself against a single instance in which she was in Brussels and had visited the alliance’s military hospital there to see a man who had returned wounded from a mission she had guided, and his family got there just moments before she did. And she saw their reunion. She saw the small child jump happily on his father’s hospital bed before anyone had a chance to stop him, heard the wounded man laugh. Saw his wife, herself in uniform, approach the bed and touch his cheek tenderly, heard them both cry.

  She had turned then, walked away, flown back home. Went right back into Mission Command. Never considered her own protection over theirs again.

  But that meant she had to learn to keep the part of her that hurt out of reach. So she shut it down. For them she had to believe in love. And she did, she used to have it, after all. But she also had to believe that love could exist unharmed, that being together, without it being cruelly taken away, was possible. And she did believe this, believed it could be for those she cared about, and for those Oracle saved. But she did not allow, did not believe it for herself. It simply could not be, this she knew without a doubt. She was taught this by life, her own, and had sworn not to risk such loss again.

  There were only a rare few who were close to her since. People like Donna, or like her brother Tom and her niece, Sarah, or Frank. They all knew, because they were there with her back then. They wanted more for her, but they knew to leave it alone. That was how she wanted it. Donna was the only one who dared push, and did. She kept trying to set her up, trapped her into double dates—Lara would meet Donna and Patty, and there would be a guy there. Lara objected, t
ried to make Donna understand, but of all people it was Donna who simply refused to accept that there was nothing there anymore, that she didn’t want there to be. It hurt too much when love died, and she’d worked hard to make sure it could never happen again.

  So why was Donovan . . . what was Donovan?

  She opened her eyes and stared at the comfortable darkness of her bedroom, her mind going back to what had happened earlier. To that split second there, in his house, when she’d felt what she had from him, had been flooded with a powerful, clear rush of his emotions. She had no idea how this could be. When she was in Mission Command, the empathic depth of what she felt in those she watched over was focused, concentrated, geared to complement the heights she took her mind to for the sole purpose of bringing them home. But it was there for Oracle, and for Oracle only, and she controlled Oracle well. And this, what happened earlier, that had never happened to her before. Was it because his feelings for her were so intense at that moment? Or was it because hers were? And still, how could it be?

  It couldn’t. It mustn’t. She would not risk loss again.

  She thought of the way he looked at her. Of the fact that he’d managed to awaken something inside her, something that wasn’t supposed to ever be there again.

  She closed her eyes, tried again, but no amount of fear could push her thoughts about him away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Donovan rolled his car back into its garage hours later, he had some of the answers he needed. The bullets taken out of the data center guards had already told him that Elijahn must have gotten his firearms in the United States, although in their absence he would have reached the same conclusion. It made more sense than smuggling them into the country and risking discovery, and acquiring guns here was still possible nowadays if one had the right contacts and enough money.

  But thanks to his contact, and with his knowledge of when Elijahn had entered the country, he now knew for certain that Elijahn had had firearms delivered for him soon after his arrival, in two locations—southern Florida, where firearms had been delivered to four men Donovan now had the description of, and Virginia, where the delivery had been made in a way that, while its contents he now had, neither the receiver nor the current whereabouts of the firearms were known. Both would eventually be identified, but it would take time Donovan knew he might not have. He also knew that Elijahn had asked for very few selective-fire guns, the kind that could go fully-automatic and would indicate a large-scale attack. What he had wanted were mainly handguns with silencers.