by Bianca D’Arc
“It makes a warped kind of sense.” Rose had to nod. “You said state-funded. So, this is like a government coming after us? How are we going to hold out against that?” Suddenly, she felt weak against the specter of such power.
“It’s what we do for a living, Rosie,” Jeff said, instilling some of his own confidence into her with his casual words. “I wouldn’t have brought you here unless I knew we could protect you. Speaking of which…” He got up and headed for the door, then paused to look back when she didn’t follow right away. “You coming? We’ve got to tell the guys about the invasion we just saw.”
Rose shook her head and stood. She could see there would be no postponing the necessary meeting with the other guys. Jeff was full of energy and ready to take on the world, but she was less enthused about the danger that was heading their way. Still, she had to admit, he was the expert in that kind of situation. She had to follow his lead.
“Right behind you,” she said, falling in behind the already-moving man headed back toward the barracks building next door.
The unit was already beginning to gather for the scheduled meeting when Jeff ushered Rosie into the room they used for planning their missions. The other guys went on alert as soon as they saw Jeff’s face, and all casual discussion ended. Hal stood at the front of the room and gave them his attention.
“Captain, we’ve both foreseen an attack on this island,” Jeff reported without preamble. He had everyone’s attention now.
“When and where?” Hal was just as to the point.
“They come out of the water on the beach where we do PT. As for when… Just before oh-three-hundred on a moonless night with scattered cloud cover,” Jeff fired back.
Over the next twenty minutes, the team asked questions, and Rosie and Jeff answered them as best they could. Jeff was astounded to learn the minute details Rosie had observed and her ability to recall them. They took turns going through the exact sequence of what they’d seen, and her account seemed to have a lot more nuance and fine detail than his. He supposed it was her years of doing this that made her so much better at it than him, but if he’d needed any convincing that she knew her stuff, he had it. From the impressed looks of the other guys, they saw it, too.
“New moon is tonight,” Hal said when they settled in to discuss the details of what they’d seen.
“It felt imminent,” Rosie contributed. “Some visions have a feeling of urgency about them that means they’re going to happen sooner rather than later. This was one of those.”
“And you both were in the same vision?” Hal asked. “How does that work?”
“That was a new one,” Rosie admitted. “I’ve never shared a vision with anyone before, but we were both definitely there in the same moment. We were able to see each other and talk inside the vision.”
Hal gave them both a strange look but nodded. “Well, what we need is a plan,” he said finally, rubbing his hands together.
Hal started issuing orders, and within moments, the room had been transformed into a war room. One of the guys brought up a map of the island and used the room’s projector to display it against the wall. Hal had them walk through the details again, and zeroed in on the section of beach they’d been on in the vision.
“There’s just one more thing,” Jeff added as they went through the sequence again. The first time they’d done it, there had been so many questions about the details, he’d never gotten to the final moments of the display.
Hal looked at him expectantly. “What is it?”
“Just before the vision ended, I saw a periscope out on the water,” he admitted.
Hal sat back as he whistled between his teeth. “Frogmen and a sub?” he mused. “This just got a whole lot more interesting.”
They broke for lunch about two hours later, all adjourning to the mess hall for some refreshment. When they went back to planning, Rosie opted to go back to the lab building to talk over the dual-vision phenomenon with Dr. Holbrook. Jeff knew the planning session would be going on for hours yet, and if there were any details they needed Rosie for, he could just pop over and ask her.
He insisted on walking her over to the other building before rejoining the unit in the war room. Nobody objected, and when he returned to the planning session, more than one guy commented about how good Rosie’s recall had been. It seemed she had unanimously impressed them all. Jeff felt an unaccustomed pride fill him. She really was something special.
He spent the rest of the day closeted with the guys, planning for the action that might come as early as that very night. All other routine work was postponed, without making it obvious from the outside that they were up to something unique—just in case they were being watched from the sea. Which they probably were.
Hal operated mostly autonomously from base command, which was a good thing in this case. There was an admiral to whom he now reported in the Spec Ops command, but a simple phone call to the man—Admiral Morrow—had given Hal carte blanche to handle any perceived threat against Plum Island. The admiral had called the base commander and given him the same orders, reinforcing the idea that Hal’s group had specialized skills, and the projects housed on that island were all of vital interest to the military.
Phrased in that way, the commander in charge of the island—a fellow named Kinkaid—had become very cooperative in allowing Hal to run the show as far as the defense of the island went. Although there were MPs and a few combat-experienced troopers on the island, there wasn’t really any expectation of trouble on base. The few workers here were mostly on long-term research projects that didn’t require the kind of rapid response that other locations used. After all, they were on an isolated island in friendly waters. As long as they controlled who came and went from the base, that had always been enough.
Until now.
Luckily, Hal’s group was used to dealing with unusual and hostile situations. They were the reason a sub was even now trolling the waters just off the coast, and they were the ones the bad guys were after. It was only fitting that Hal and his men be the ones to deal with the threat. They had the usual armament they brought into the field and had received permission to utilize any of the base’s equipment they might require.
Given that leeway, the men were able to devise a plan that might just make the opposition think twice about ever attacking this island again.
Chapter Eight
Rose spent her afternoon discussing the shared-vision phenomenon with Dr. Holbrook and catching up with the woman she hadn’t seen in years. When Rose tried to ask questions about Jeff’s abilities and Jeana’s opinions about what they’d discovered so far, she hit a brick wall. Jeana explained that she didn’t want Rose to get any preconceptions about what might or might not work with Jeff. She wanted Rose’s approach to be fresh and intuitive, not influenced by anything that might have happened in the recent past.
Rose understood, but she was still very curious about what Jeff had been able to do and learn on his own and with Jeana’s help. He had a tactical mind and had noticed things Rose hadn’t in that shared vision, but she’d been at this longer, and when they’d done the report to Hal and the other guys, Rose had felt glad she’d been able to prove she had a place among this group. That she could bring some skills to the table.
She had no doubt Jeff would pick up fast on the things she could teach him, but at least for the moment, she felt like she could really contribute to his progress. What would happen when she’d taught him all she knew? Well, she’d cross that bridge when they got to it. If they wanted to boot her off the island and away from the safety it represented, then she’d just have to figure something else out.
For now, they had to foil the attack that she felt sure would come either tonight or tomorrow. Hal had told Rose to fill Jeana in on the vision and help the doc prepare her lab for possible intrusion. Once Jeana heard the details, she pulled out a sheaf of papers in a red folder that had been in her desk. It was a plan for removing sensitive data from the lab area for
just this kind of situation.
“You can always trust the military to have a procedure in place for every contingency,” Jeana said with a grim smile as she handed over a copy of the procedure to Rose. “I’d appreciate whatever help you can give me on this. We don’t have a lot of personnel here, right now. Once the powers that be decided this wasn’t some sort of medical problem, they shipped the infectious disease folks back to their regular duty stations. I was brought in and advised to choose members for my team very carefully. They really don’t want details about these guys to spread, and I don’t blame them.”
“I’m happy to help,” Rose replied easily as she leafed through the three-page procedure. “It looks like mostly we’re just removing hard drives and leaving the empty shells of the computers like decoys or something.”
“Exactly,” Jeana replied with a grin. She went to the closet in her office and withdrew a briefcase. Placing it on the desk, she opened it up to show Rose. “This was made specifically for my work computers. The foam is cut for every piece and includes a little foam envelope for my laptop. The case itself is armored shielded, and once locked, if tampered with, it will destroy the magnetic media inside. So, even if the bad guys get the case, it’s highly unlikely they could get to the data.”
“Wow.” Rose was impressed.
“This won’t take too long, but I could use a hand with the desktop units. There are two, and we can do them simultaneously if you’ll follow my lead.” Jeana turned to offer Rose a small screwdriver, which she took.
“Just tell me what to do.”
By dinnertime, they were as ready as they could be. All the sensitive data from Jeana’s lab was in the base vault, in its armed briefcase that would self-destruct if anyone messed with it. Jeana, herself, was staying at the base commander’s house, ostensibly a dinner guest of the commander’s wife. The plan was for the dinner to run long and Jeana would be invited to sleep over in their guest room. That would keep her on the other side of the island and, hopefully, out of harm’s way.
Hal had wanted to tuck Rose away in the same fashion, but she’d argued against it. If she got hit with a vision during the attack, she wanted to be on the spot where she could tell the guys. Likewise, if Jeff got the vision, she wanted to be there to help him interpret it. She didn’t know why she was so adamant about wanting to be there, but she felt the need to stake out her territory, and that was in the barracks, near the action.
“You know, you really don’t have to stay. I managed this far without your insight into my visions,” Jeff argued. “I can handle this.”
“I’m sure you can, and my desire to stay isn’t intended as an insult to your abilities,” she tried to explain. “I just… I need to be here. I don’t know why, yet, but I do know that I need to be close.”
Jeff looked into her eyes, as if searching for the answers within, then seemed to give up and shook his head. “I don’t like it, but I respect your position.”
They went into the mess hall together and sat with Hal and Casey to share the meal. Casey had also rejected the idea of being stashed somewhere safe while the men dealt with the threat, and Hal had relented. Casey and Rose would stick together, out of the way but still in the barracks building.
They’d agreed to meet by the big ladies’ room and hold tight there until given the all clear. The bad guys would be looking for offices and fortified safe rooms if they made it into the building. It was reasonable to assume that the ladies’ room would be low on their list of target areas, so it seemed the safest place to be if they were going to stay.
After dinner ended, Jeff insisted on taking Rose on a tour of the ladies’ room. It seemed an odd thing, but she went along with him. Jeff walked in confidently, heading for the row of shower stalls. He reached into one of them, yanking hard on the shower head, which caused an audible click. Then, he reached over to the tall linen cabinet beside that shower stall and pressed inward until it popped back, as if on a spring. The whole cabinet pivoted on hidden hinges and revealed a hidden chamber.
“When we did the remodeling, we put in a hidden room behind the showers,” Jeff explained. “It’s not huge, but it’ll fit you and Casey easily, with room to spare. There’s even a cot, two chairs, and some communications gear.” He gestured for her to follow him inside the hidden compartment. “You have feeds from the hidden closed-circuit cameras we rigged around the building and in some of the corridors.” He flipped a switch on a large screen hung on one wall, and it came to life. It showed several camera views, separated into boxes on the screen. “In particular, there’s a camera positioned to view the hallway and the door to the ladies’ room. From here, you can see if the coast is clear outside. Or, if anyone enters the ladies’ room from the hallway, you can see just who it is.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” Rose allowed. “Does Casey know about this?”
“Sure. She was here when we built it,” he replied easily, turning off the monitor. “You two should stay in here throughout. If you need to get in touch with any of us, use the radios, but do it sparingly. We need to concentrate on the mission.”
“Understood.” She looked at the radios on the small table next to the cot. They were sitting in charging stations, and there were two of them.
“Casey is trained to report anything she might see on the cameras to Hal. We practiced with her until she had our lingo down pat,” he told Rose as they exited the safe room. “She’s familiar with the radios and the frequencies we use. Follow her lead for now. Once this is over, we’ll see about getting you up to speed on our procedures. If you’re staying with us, you need a bit of practice outside of real-world situations.” He smiled at her, and she knew he was trying to ease the tension that had crept up on her.
It was hitting home that this was going to be dangerous. Not just for her. She’d be safely ensconced in a hidden room. But Jeff—and all the guys—would be out there, fighting the bad guys. What if something happened to him? She’d be devastated if he got hurt…or worse.
“Hey,” he said, putting his knuckle under her chin to raise her head gently so their eyes could meet. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Sorry. It just became a little too real all of a sudden,” she admitted.
Jeff tugged her gently into his arms, right there next to the showers. Being in his arms felt so good. So safe. So warm and protected. She hugged him back, reveling in the feeling she had never felt before in her adult life. This was special. This man was special.
She turned her head into his neck and kissed him there, wanting him to know how much she appreciated him and his embrace. She hadn’t quite anticipated the fire that started to flow in her veins at the touch of her lips against his skin, but she supposed she should have realized what would happen. They were simply combustible when they got together. She’d learned that lesson very well, indeed, last night.
“Oh, Rosie,” Jeff groaned, pulling away only slightly so that he could look down into her eyes. “You’re killing me.”
She smiled, knowing his words weren’t a complaint. “You have the same effect on me,” she admitted, hearing the breathiness of her own voice.
Jeff looked around the room, as if considering their options, then bent slightly to grip her under each thigh with his large, strong, capable hands. He carried her as if she weighed nothing at all, moving directly into the shower stall at the end of the row, farthest from the door.
Luckily, they were somewhat roomy shower stalls. Each had its curtained alcove, though they were all in a row. He pulled the curtain shut behind them and then set her on her feet, her back brushing the tiled wall behind her. The shower stall might be roomy for one, but it was deliciously crowded with both of them in there. She couldn’t wait to find out what he had in mind.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” he told her, almost apologetically.
“I don’t mind,” she whispered back, knowing whatever happened next, she wanted this time alone with him. She wanted him. Period.
“Ar
e you sure?” He cupped her cheek with one hand, looking deep into her eyes. “It’ll have to be fast.”
“Then, let’s not waste any more time,” she told him, already tugging his shirt from his waistband.
She saw the grin on his face as he took over the task and took the shirt off over his head. She did the same, leaving only her bra, which had dried overnight, along with her panties. She lowered the borrowed sweatpants but left the panties. It was his turn to get rid of his pants.
But he had boots on, and those pants weren’t going to come off all the way. He lowered them a bit, but left the crucial bit covered for now, while he returned to her, stroking her skin with his calloused, skilled hands.
As his head lowered and his lips touched hers, she felt her bra straps slide down her shoulders. Then, he was kissing her, and she lost track a bit of what was happening. The cool air of the room against her nipples alerted her when he peeled the lacy cups of her bra away from her breasts. A second later, his warm hands took away the momentary chill and started shivers of an altogether different kind coursing down her spine.
He broke off the kiss and trailed his lips down her neck and over the mounds of her breasts before latching onto an erect nipple. Meanwhile, his hands went to the scrap of lace and elastic at her hips, lowering it until it slipped down her legs to pool on the shower floor. She stepped out of the panties and lifted one knee so she could get closer to him.
At that point, he lowered his pants enough to free himself, allowing her wet core to slide up against the thick erection that she wanted so badly. He felt so good. Tall and strong and hard where she was soft. She felt like they belonged together, odd as that seemed after such a short acquaintance.
