Intuition

by Anna Durand

  If anyone realized he could communicate with her psychically, then Tesler would manipulate their connection to get to her. He didn't know how. He couldn't risk finding out. The wall she constructed around her mind ought to shield her from the worst of it. If Tesler tortured him, she might sense it but not experience it the way she would without the barrier. In this moment, he was glad of that. She must keep away from him, until he escaped from this facility. Any attempt at contact endangered her. As much as burned to see her — to hear her voice and feel her, psychically and physically — it was out of the question.

  He was right back where he started two years ago. Alone.

  "Has your woman left?" Nkosi asked.

  David glanced sideways at the man. "What?"

  "I assume you were talking with your woman, from the way you were so protective of her."

  "You listened in?"

  "No. I meant the way you ordered me to not listen or watch. That was protective."

  "Oh." The explanation was quasi-plausible. And since David could use the help of a co-conspirator to get out of here, he may as well give Nkosi the benefit of the doubt.

  He would never, under any circumstances, admit to communicating with Grace.

  "No worries," Nkosi said. "I don't expect you to confirm what I believe. She must be quite something for you to shield her so."

  A mechanism thunked. The door swung inward.

  Karl Tesler walked into the cell.

  David stood up. Nkosi stayed on the floor.

  Tesler halted just inside the doorway. He glanced from David to Nkosi and back again. A smirk tugged at the corners of Tesler's mouth, and he said, "Welcome home, David."

  "You can torture me all you want," David said, "but I won't tell you anything."

  "Torture you? No, I won't do that." Tesler swept one arm through the air to point at Nkosi. "I'll torture him."

  David envisioned death rays shooting out his eyes to scorch holes through the Tesler's chest. Wouldn't do any good. The man had no heart. He probably wasn't even human.

  Nkosi pushed up off the floor, favoring sore muscles. When he'd risen to his full height, a good three inches taller than David, he said, "Don't worry, my friend. Neither one of us will give this… person what he seeks."

  Tesler made a sound somewhere between a growl and a chuckle. "Such bravery — and camaraderie. We'll see how long it lasts once we get you into the fun house."

  Two guards trundled into the room. Both held stun guns at the ready. One guard herded Nkosi out of the cell and down the hallway out of sight. The other waved his stun gun at David, gesturing for him to exit the cell. David complied. There was no point in arguing, at least until he'd figured out a plan of escape.

  As David walked past Tesler, the scientist murmured, "How is your golden girl?"

  David stopped. He narrowed his eyes and glared straight into Tesler's. "You will never get your hands on her. She's tougher and smarter than you or any of your thugs."

  Tesler smiled, a wolf baring his teeth before pouncing on his prey. "We'll see about that."

  "JT failed, and so will you."

  Tesler made a rude noise. "Jackson Tennant was ill prepared and stark-raving mad. I have a clarity of purpose he never found. And I have a plan that doesn't revolve around a harebrained hypothesis that blood contains the essence of psychic powers. I plan on extracting them directly from the source."

  A chill ran through David, because he suspected he knew the answer before he asked. "What source would that be?"

  "The human brain, dear boy. The human brain."

  David couldn't muster a response. His every thought centered on Grace and a terrible image of Tesler drilling into her skull to tap into the source of her power. A sharp pain in his chest blossomed, until it devoured his entire body, tearing through muscles. God no. He would never, never, never allow the image to become reality. Whatever the price to spare her, he'd pay it without hesitation.

  Tesler chuckled again. "Do you know what the greatest prize of all is?"

  David ground his teeth.

  "The brain of a traveler with the Golden Power," Tesler said. "The pretty pink brain of your darling girl."

  If he had to die for Grace, then he was dragging this bastard down with him.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace lay motionless on the bed for several minutes. Night had fallen, and the harsh glow of sodium-vapor lights leaked in between the curtains from the parking lot outside. A horn blared out on the interstate. The draft from the air conditioner rustled her hair.

  David said awful things to her. Although she realized he'd spoken out of fear, his words hurt. One day soon, he would explain himself. What happened then…

  She thrust the question aside. Drained in body and mind, she could spare no energy on fretting over the future. David could have his way, for the time being. She'd leave him alone.

  But not for long.

  Gabriel Amador offered to help her, and she might have to accept his offer. First, though, she wanted a little more information about the man. Since the DVD provided nothing of value, she must search elsewhere.

  She called the front desk. Tag answered on the first ring. "How can I help you, Ms. Marcus?"

  "Uh — " He was calling her Ms. Marcus, she realized just in time, before she told him he must've confused her with someone else. She almost forgot her own alias. "Does the motel have Wi-Fi access?"

  "Sorry, no. We're still living in the Dark Ages here." He paused for a second, then said, "You could use the office computer if you want. It's got DSL."

  "Won't you get in trouble for letting me use it?"

  "Nah," he said, his tone utterly dismissive of the possibility. "Nobody'll find out, but even if they did they wouldn't care. This dog's leash is pretty loose, ya know. Come on down and I'll set you up."

  "Thank you. I really appreciate this."

  "Ain't nothing."

  She hung up, grabbed her purse, and headed for the motel's lobby. The big neon sign at the edge of the parking lot declared "Stay-A-Night Motel — Vacancy." As the lobby's door swung shut behind her, Tag greeted her with a big smile and a sweeping gesture meant as an invitation for her to come around behind the desk. She returned his smile, ducking behind the desk. When she reached the computer, she saw he already had a web browser open on-screen.

  "Have at it," he told her.

  "Thanks."

  She watched Tag pick up a pile of unopened mail and carry it to the far end of the desk, about six feet away from her. The computer monitor stood at an angle on the desk, which meant he couldn't see the screen from his position. Still, she must assume the computer had some kind of tracking software on it that let Tag's employers keep tabs on his activity — a keystroke logger or similar application. Maybe she was being paranoid again, but paranoia seemed prudent when she had Tesler's goons on her trail.

  Okay. She'd keep this brief and vague.

  Navigating to a search engine, she typed in two words: Gabriel Amador. The search results came up with links to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for various individuals named Gabriel Amador. None of them matched the man she'd met. She tried Gabriel Ricardo Amador, with no better luck. Next, she typed in "Catalan Enterprises." The top results had nothing to do with Amador's company, but were instead links to informational pages about the Catalan people of northern Spain. She scrolled down to see more results.

  Eureka.

  She clicked on a link for "Catalan Enterprises: Venture Capital, Investment Services, and More." The website loaded in a few seconds. She skimmed the text on the home page, learning the company provided seed money for new businesses, ran an online stock-trading service, and owned a number of banks and other financial institutions around the world. The company was, predictably, based in the Catalonia region of Spain. She browsed the rest of the site but found no mention of Gabriel Amad
or. The site didn't name any of the company's officers or the board of directors, and it supplied nothing more exciting than gobbledygook-filled explanations of how venture capital worked and how to apply for it.

  Maybe that was the point. Amador gave her his company's name because he knew it would lead her nowhere.

  "You feel that?" Tag asked.

  She glanced up at him. He surveyed the small lobby, which consisted of a coffee table and three chairs situated in front of the desk. He held an envelope in one hand, and a letter opener in the other, as if he'd frozen in the middle of slicing open the letter.

  Grace shut her eyes, letting her paranormal senses kick in. She felt something too, though it was vague. The nape of her neck tingled.

  Her pulse shifted into overdrive. Someone's watching. She scanned the room, trying to listen through the pounding of her own heart. No use. She couldn't hear anything else. The sharp scent of Tag's coffee wafted into her nostrils, and she could almost taste the bitter brew.

  "What was it?" she asked Tag.

  He shrugged. "Weird feeling. Like a ghost walked through me or something."

  A ghost. She'd never heard of a traveler walking through someone, but she didn't know everything about psychic abilities. Since travelers didn't have physical bodies, she imagined they could walk through solid objects. She hadn't tried it herself, because the idea hadn't occurred to her. The thought of it made her queasy. Sure, in her astral form she was essentially a ghost, but still…

  Walking through walls? Ew.

  She surfed back to the search engine and typed in John Mendoza. A boatload of results popped up, and though she tried to sort through them for relevant information, she got bogged down by the myriad John Mendozas in cyberspace. Everyone had some kind of digital footprint these days. Everyone except Gabriel Amador.

  Out of curiosity, she searched for David Ransom. The results numbered in the millions. A listing for a yellow pages website announced "268 David Ransoms in the United States." Oh jeez. Really? One David Ransom was all she could handle. Hundreds of them running around out there sounded like an awful lot of stoic, pigheaded men.

  A ridiculous image unrolled in her mind. Hundreds of tiny Davids trotting around on a map of the United States. One little Grace struggling to herd them all with her lasso.

  She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped from her lips.

  "No fair," Tag said. "You gotta share the funny e-mails."

  "Oh it's not an e-mail. I just had a weird thought, that's all."

  Movement flashed in her peripheral vision. She glanced at Tag, but he held the same position as before, having moved only his head to look at her. The movement had seemed quicker than he would've moved his head. She must've imagined it. Or else it was a bird.

  "Something wrong?" Tag asked.

  "I thought — no no, it's fine."

  Tag shrugged and went back to sorting the mail.

  Grace stared out the glass doors of the lobby. A few cars occupied spaces in the parking lot, scattered along the length of the motel. Although the establishment sat next to the interstate, it lay on a side road at the end of an off-ramp. She couldn't see the traffic whizzing by on the interstate. The occasional car exited the off-ramp, driving past the motel.

  The movement she swore she'd seen came from closer. Much closer.

  If she could sense other travelers, then maybe she could sense normal people too.

  Beyond the glass doors, the glow of the streetlights tinged everything a jaundiced yellow. Focused on the light outside, and the beat-up cars bathed in it, she relaxed and cleansed her mind of thoughts. The crossroads tugged at her, but she resisted. Instead, she expanded her mind to sweep the vicinity like radar. Nothing. Nothing. She hit a blip when she scanned over Tag. Then nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  Blip.

  She jerked. Was the blip a person? She locked onto the signal — a feeling really, impossible to define but definitely there — and aimed her remote viewing sense at it. The wall barred her view, of course. She was psychic, for crying out loud. Walls didn't matter to her. She itched to shut her eyes, to block out all other stimuli, but she couldn't afford to limit her natural vision. A voice in the back of her mind warned this might be a trap, set by a traveler in league with Tesler or Amador, or both. She must keep her natural vision available even as she switched over to remote viewing. Sure, piece of cake.

  I can do this. Concentrate.

  The walls faded into semi-transparency as she tracked the blip back to its source. Her inner vision zoomed in on the target, flying through the ghost image of the wall. She panned left, toward the junction of the lobby wall and the rest of the motel, which jutted out from the office and lobby section. There, in the shadows cast by the overhanging roof, she caught sight of a figure crouched against the wall. The person wore black military-style fatigues, black boots, black gloves, and a black full-face helmet. He had a radio clipped to his belt and gripped a big automatic weapon in both hands.

  Her heart thudded in her chest. She swallowed against the lump in her throat as a wave of cold dread crested over her. A commando. The black-suited man was an ALI goon.

  They were here.

  She pulled back from the commando and resumed scanning the vicinity. Nothing. Nothing. Blip. Nothing. Blip, blip, blip. This time, she had no trouble peering through the walls to identify the blips. Four more commandos had spread out along the outside of the building. As she followed the contours of the structure, she found two more commandos inside a plain white van parked behind the lobby.

  Oh shit.

  How in the hell had they found her? She ditched her credit cards, her car, everything except her cash, her new computer, and her purse with the gun inside it. Even as she watched the commandos with her remote vision, she reached for her purse to pat the hard outline of the .357 revolver inside. Sliding her hand into the bag, she curled her fingers around the gun's grip.

  "You okay?"

  Tag's concerned voice broke her concentration. The walls snapped back into view. Her head spun a little. As she grasped the edge of the desk for support, she realized she'd stopped breathing. No wonder she was woozy. She sucked in a couple deep breaths and, steadier now, pushed away from the desk.

  Out the corner of her eye, she noticed Tag take a step toward her.

  She held up a hand to stop him. "Um, I can't explain this but some very bad people are trying to kidnap me. They're in the parking lot. I imagine they're about to storm in here and take me by force. I don't want you to get hurt."

  "I can handle myself."

  His expression had turned hard, and suddenly he reminded her of a hitman in one of those mafia movies Hollywood loved to make. He probably could handle himself. But against seven armed commandos?

  Dammit. She hadn't intended for Tag to get caught in the middle of her nightmare. She didn't want him to suffer or die because of her, and yet she could not let Tesler capture her. Remaining free offered the sole hope of stopping the mad scientist.

  "There's a back way out," Tag said, hooking a thumb toward the door behind her.

  "Bad guys have a van out back."

  Tag frowned, working his lips as if thinking hard. Finally, he said, "Take the side door. It opens off the back of the office, onto the sidewalk on the far side of the building."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  "I'll keep 'em occupied while you beat it."

  He waved toward the office door.

  She tugged her purse tight against her, the bulk of her gun jostling inside it. If she let this man cover for her while she fled, Tesler's minions would hurt him — or worse, if he failed to cooperate to their satisfaction. Tag's blood would stain her hands too.

  No more deaths because of her. Stand and fight.

  Trouble was, Tag wouldn't back down. Despite meeting him a few hours ago, she understood a basic truth about him, about men of hi
s ilk — the noble warriors. They fought for what was right, without fail. She knew this, because she loved just such a man.

  David wouldn't abandon her in these circumstances. Neither would Tag.

  Unless he urged him into it.

  When she set out on a cross-country odyssey to free David from the California facility, he'd knocked her unconscious to slow down her progress, in the vain belief she might give up when she woke. Fat chance. If she could replicate his technique, then she might keep Tag out of harm's way without hurting him.

  Much later, she'd asked David how he gave her psychic mickey. He said, "With a small, controlled burst of telepathic energy empowered by my fervent need for you to sleep. The subject must be willing on some level to succumb. That's how thought projection works. Desire coupled with power."

  But if she employed too much power, she could damage Tag's mind.

  Did Tag want to submit to her will? She'd given in to David because, though it chagrined her to admit it, deep down she liked surrendering to him. A little bit. On occasion.

  Tag was a stranger. This might not work at all on him.

  She'd once tricked an old man into believing a twenty-dollar bill was five thousands bucks. Putting a guy to sleep should be easy.

  Tag urged her toward the door with a large, but gentle, hand on her arm.

  Another door, behind him, caught her attention. "What's that?"

  He looked where she pointed. "Closet."

  Three, two, one…

  Gaze glued to his, she summoned a ball of psychic energy and blew it into Tag. His eyes widened. She beamed a fervent wish into his mind. Get in the closet, sit down, sleep. She repeated the command over and over, until she felt his will softening.

  He shuffled to the closet, swung the door open, and tromped inside. She kept up her inner chant, afraid he might snap out of it if she stopped. He sat cross-legged on the floor of the closet, leaned against the wall, and promptly fell asleep.

  Thank heavens.

  She kicked the closet door shut. The latch clicked into place.

  A quick telepathic pass confirmed he was undamaged. If she interpreted things right.