His fingers dug into her flesh. “Who sent you? Von Meter?”
“No. Nicholas Kessler.”
“Kessler?”
“He’s my grandfather,” Camille said. “I came here to protect him.”
“From who?”
“From…you.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You think I came here to harm Kessler? I didn’t. That’s not the mission’s objective.”
“And now I don’t believe you,” Camille said.
He released her and backed away. Then he spun toward the door and strode out of the room without another word. Camille waited a few seconds before following him. When she entered the living room, he was standing by the window, bathed in moonlight. She caught her breath at the look on his face. It was hard, angry, resolved. And yet vulnerable somehow. Infinitely vulnerable.
As she watched him, his gaze dropped to the locket he still clutched in his hand. For the longest moment he said nothing, and when his gaze finally lifted to hers, his expression was shuttered.
“Tell me about him.”
“I’ll try,” Camille said softly. “But it’s still hard for me to talk about him.”
“You said he was struck by a car.”
Her throat tightened. “Yes. He died in my arms at the scene.”
Zac put a hand to his face and squeezed his eyes closed. “Was I there?”
“No. You didn’t even know about Adam. At least…that’s what I’ve always believed. But now I think you must have seen him at some point. How else would you have known his name, his face? They must have arranged it somehow.”
“They?”
“Von Meter. Project Phoenix.”
He closed his fist over the locket. “What do they have to do with Adam?”
“Everything. He was your son.”
The implication seemed to strike at his very core. Pain flashed across his face as he turned back to the window.
Camille walked over and sat down on the edge of the couch. “How much do you remember about Project Phoenix?”
He shrugged. “It’s based on technology developed during the war. This war. It’s being developed even as we speak. A U.S. warship will disappear from Philadelphia Harbor on August 15. According to Von Meter, the ship will enter some kind of parallel dimension and travel forward in time. When it returns, a wormhole will open connecting the past to the future. I know it sounds crazy, but…” He turned. “Here we are.”
“Yes,” Camille murmured. “Here we are.” His gaze was so intense that she had to glance away. She clasped her hands in her lap and studied them for a moment. “What else did Von Meter tell you?”
“The same technology that will make that ship disappear will become the basis for Project Phoenix. After the experiment, your grandfather will lobby successfully to have government funding cut off. The project will be forced underground, and, without oversight, the research will eventually expand into controversial areas—interdimensional phasing, psychotronics, thought control and telekinesis.”
Camille glanced up. “Did he tell you about the experiments?”
Zac left the window and came over to the couch to sit down. “What kind of experiments?”
“To develop all this amazing technology, Von Meter and his cronies used human subjects,” Camille said grimly. “At first they used indigents that they took off the streets and sometimes military personnel who had no families, no one to ask questions when they disappeared for long periods of time. They tortured them, both mentally and physically, until they broke them so thoroughly that their minds were easily manipulated. Then they reprogrammed them with engineered realities that allowed the subjects to accept a truth that reached far beyond our three-dimensional perception of the universe. Interdimensional phasing, psychokinesis…even time travel. All of these things became possible once those three-dimensional barriers were broken down. In the face of such astonishing technology, what did a few lives matter?”
“The good of the many outweighs the needs of the few,” Zac muttered.
“Yes,” Camille said bitterly. “I’m sure that’s how Von Meter justified it. But he can’t justify the children,” she whispered. “Nothing can justify that.”
“What children? What are you talking about?”
“You see, they eventually found out that children were more susceptible to the engineered realities and altered states of consciousness than adults. So they began to use younger subjects. Some of the children came from military personnel, some came from people who worked for the project. Others…they simply took.”
“Kidnapped, you mean.”
“Yes. And then they tortured them, too. As they grew older, they trained them in the art of war and turned them into super soldiers, men who would go to extraordinary lengths to carry out a mission.”
“An army of secret warriors,” Zac said.
“Exactly. When they cut them loose, some of the men couldn’t cope. Most of their memories were gone, and they had no families to go home to. They were simply…lost.”
Zac stared at her for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not. “Where do you fit into all this?”
“I work for my grandfather. He’s always felt a responsibility toward these men, and he’s made it his life’s work to seek them out and try to return some normalcy to their lives. Now it’s my life’s work, too.”
“You’re a crusader then,” he said softly.
She shrugged. “I’ve never thought of myself that way. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
A shadow flickered in his eyes. “Is that how we met?”
“No, not exactly. We met in Los Angeles. That’s where my grandfather and I live. That’s where the headquarters of our organization is located. I was crossing a street one day, and I wasn’t paying attention. Too much on my mind, I guess. Anyway, I walked in front of a car, and if the driver hadn’t stopped in time, I would have been killed or badly injured. He missed me by inches. But somehow I knew that it had been more than the driver’s reflexes that saved me. Then I saw you.” Camille paused, remembering. “You were standing away from the crowd that had formed on the street, and you were staring at me with such fierce concentration that I knew. I knew you were the one who had saved me. You stopped that car…with your mind.”
Zac frowned. “I doubt that. I don’t have that ability.”
“Yes, you do,” Camille insisted. “You may not be aware of it, but it’s there, buried somewhere inside you. I saw it with my own two eyes.”
Zac’s frowned deepened, as if he didn’t much care for what he was hearing. “Maybe you saw what you wanted to see.”
“It was more than that. By the time I made it through the crowd, you were already walking away. So I followed you. When you went into a coffee shop, I went in, too, and invited myself to join you.”
He almost smiled at that. “Did I object?”
Camille smiled, too. “No. You didn’t. We talked for a long time, but it only took a few moments for me to realize that I’d been right. You were like all the others who’d been through Montauk. You had the same gaps in your memory, the same reluctance to talk about yourself. The same intensity in your eyes. And yet…there was something different about you. Something that…made me care about you from that very first day.”
He turned and it seemed to Camille that his gaze softened as he studied her. She wondered what he was thinking.
“So what happened?” he finally asked.
“We started seeing each other. I didn’t tell my grandfather about you at first because I foolishly thought that I could save you myself. And when I finally told him, he tried to warn me that I was playing with fire. Only I wouldn’t listen. Then one day you just…disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“I woke up one morning and you were gone. I never saw you again.”
“Did you try to find me?”
“I did at first. Then I found out about Adam and I decided it was best that I let you go. I didn�
�t want Von Meter or anyone at Montauk to find out I was pregnant. I was afraid they might try to use our child to keep you under their control. Or worse, do to Adam what they’d done to you.”
The haunted look in his eyes tore at her heart. “You had him alone then? You raised him by yourself?”
“My grandfather helped me. And it wasn’t hard. Adam was a wonderful little boy. Easygoing and loving…” She trailed off at the quick stab of pain in Zac’s eyes. The same pain that tightened like a fist around her heart. “I didn’t think that you would ever know about him. But you did. Somehow you found out…” Her voice hardened. “I suppose that was Von Meter’s doing, as well.”
“Why would he do that? What would he hope to gain by telling me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought he could use Adam against you somehow. Or maybe he wanted to make sure that the bond between a father and a son wasn’t as strong as his hold on you. When you saw Adam, your reaction must have frightened him. Why else would he have ordered Adam killed?”
Zac’s head snapped around. “Killed? You said he was struck by a car. It was an accident.”
“It was no accident.” Camille got up and walked over to the window to stare out. She didn’t want to think about any of this anymore. She didn’t want to relive that terrible day now because she knew she would relive it again when she fell asleep.
“What happened? Tell me.”
She closed her eyes as Zac came up behind her. She spoke slowly, haltingly, her every word a sword thrust through her heart. “There was a man…in the park that day. Adam saw him first and pointed him out to me. He was…watching us. I knew instinctively that he was dangerous. I wanted to leave, but Adam begged me to play baseball with him. Just for a little while, he said. And he asked for so little. He was such a good kid….” She drewa hand across her face. “A ball got away from him. He ran into the street after it.”
“Then it was an accident,” Zac murmured.
“No.” Camille clenched her hands into fists. She could feel her nails digging into her palms, but she didn’t care. “He made the ball roll into the street. He knew Adam would run after it.”
Zac took her arms and turned her gently to face him. “That man in the park… What did he look like?”
“He was youngish, in his thirties maybe, but he had silver hair. And there was something strange about his eyes.”
Zac’s grip tightened on her arms. “Vogel.”
Camille stared at him in shock. “You know him?”
“I’ve met him. And I promise you one thing.” Something dangerous sparked in Zac’s eyes. “Our paths will cross again, mine and Vogel’s. You can count on it.”
“I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT something you mentioned earlier,” Zac said a little while later. He had returned to the couch, but Camille remained standing, as if too restless to sit. He could see her reflection in the window, and could tell from her forlorn expression that she was still thinking about her son. Their son.
An image of the boy came to Zac suddenly. The child was playing in the shady backyard of an old two-story house near the ocean. Zac couldn’t hear the surf, but he could taste salt in the air. And smog.
He didn’t even know how he’d gotten there. He didn’t even know where he was. It was like a dream. All he knew was that something had compelled him to that house, to that yard, to that boy.
The child saw him, and, casting an anxious glance toward the house, started toward him. “Hello,” he said when he neared Zac. “Are you here to see my grandfather?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“Are you lost?” the little boy asked solemnly.
“I think I might be.”
The boy reached for his hand. “You want to come inside and ask my mom for directions?”
Zac smiled down at him wistfully. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea. She probably wouldn’t like you talking to strangers. Besides…I have to go.”
“Okay. I hope you find your way home, mister.”
“I hope so, too,” Zac whispered, watching the child dart away.
The image faded, and he heard Camille say worriedly, “Zac? Are you okay?”
He glanced up. “Yeah. I was just…remembering something.”
She came back to the couch and sat down beside him. “You said you wanted to ask me something.”
The vision had shaken him, and it took Zac a moment to collect his thoughts. “You said earlier you’d come here to protect your grandfather.”
“That’s right.”
“From me.”
She nodded.
“I’m not here to hurt your grandfather, Camille. Or you.”
She bit her lip. “Then why are you here?”
“Von Meter said that on the eve of the Philadelphia Experiment, your grandfather tried to sabotage the generators on board the Eldridge. Is that true?”
“Yes. He’d tried everything else in his power to stop the experiment. He wrote letters to congressmen. Even appealed directly to the president. But no one would listen to him. Not until they saw for themselves the condition of the crew. By then it was too late.”
“Listen to me, Camille. This is important. Whatever your grandfather did to those generators made it impossible for them to be shut down properly once the ship rematerialized. When they continued to run, the wormhole was able to gather enough energy to stabilize. My mission is to make sure those generators get turned off. That’s why I need your help. I have to get to your grandfather before it’s too late.”
She drew back in shock. “There’s no way I’d ever let you anywhere near my grandfather.” At his stunned look, Camille winced, but she didn’t take it back. She couldn’t. She had a mission, too. “Look, you may really believe that shutting off those generators is your mission’s objective, but I don’t buy it. Think it about it, Zac. Why would Von Meter want to destroy the wormhole?”
“Because it could be the end of us all if the wrong person came through that wormhole.”
“That’s true. But he wasn’t concerned with that when he sent a hundred and something men to their deaths in order to recreate the Philadelphia Experiment. In order to open up a new tunnel.”
Zac frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“When the Eldridge rematerialized, it left a wormhole that linked the past to the future. Had anyone known of its existence in 1943, he or she could have traveled forward in time. But not the other way around. That’s an important distinction. In order for someone from the future—our present—to travel back in time, another wormhole had to be created, one that linked up with the first. That’s why you and the others were on board that submarine that went down in the North Atlantic. You were recreating that first experiment. But instead of traveling forward in time, you went back. You opened up another wormhole. When the sub rematerialized, there was an explosion that sent the ship crashing to the ocean floor, trapping everyone inside. We believe that someone deliberately detonated a device in the engine room so that there would be no witnesses to what had happened.”
“But I survived.”
“You and the other members of your team. But don’t you see? If Von Meter truly wanted the tunnel destroyed, why would he have gone to so much trouble and expense, not to mention the cost in human lives, to open a new passage? To link the present with the past? He’s not trying to protect history. He’s trying to change it for his own benefit by getting rid of the one obstacle that has stood in his way all these years.”
Zac’s features hardened. “Your grandfather.”
Camille nodded. “I think you were given a false objective, Zac. I think your real mission is to destroy my grandfather.”
“Someone flashes me the queen of diamonds and I turn into an assassin?” he said lightly, but there was no real amusement in his tone.
Camille nodded. “Something like that.”
He glanced at her curiously. “So if your hunch is right and Von Meter sent me here to take out your grandfather, I guess that’s where thing
s get interesting between us. You were sent here to stop me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
The look in his eyes made Camille shiver. She returned his stare without flinching. “I’m prepared to kill you if I have to.”
“WELL, I SUPPOSE THAT’S putting it bluntly enough. Any idea how you’ll do it?”
“This is no laughing matter,” Camille said with grim resolve. “I can’t let you near my grandfather. I can’t let you do anything to change history.”
“But we’ve already changed history. We’ve changed history just by being here.”
“Yes, but if we’re careful—”
“Careful?” Zac gave her an incredulous look. “It’s too late for careful, Camille. You changed history when you pulled me out of that mine. I changed history when I saved Billy from drowning. But would you have had me do it any different?”
She turned away from him. “No, of course not.”
“And that brings up another intriguing question. If you came here to kill me, why didn’t you make it easy on yourself and leave me in that mine?”
“It wasn’t that simple. I had to find out for sure that Von Meter was the one who sent you. I had to know what you were up to. And besides, if I’d left you there, he would have sent someone else to replace you.”
“Exactly. That’s why we have to close the wormhole. If he really wants your grandfather dead, then he’ll keep sending someone back in time until he succeeds.”
Camille had thought about that, too. But closing the wormhole would trap her and Zac in 1943. Had he really thought that through?
And would it be so bad? a little voice whispered. With the wormhole destroyed, Von Meter would have no control over Zac. The two of them could—
Could what? Camille asked herself harshly. Start over? It was too late for that.
“We can’t change history, Zac. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s too dangerous to do nothing.” He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “You say you’ve come here to protect your grandfather from me. What if I’m not the only threat?”
Secret Passage Page 12
