by J. R. Rain
“Hope?”
Hope stared at her.
Orlenda lowered her voice to a near whisper. “You do what I want, and then you can go be with your mom. This, I promise. Think about it. When your leg is better, you will transfer and you will teach me how to do so as well.” She stood and walked out of the room.
Hope stuffed down her emotions. She needed to tune into Orlenda right now, see if she called that Echidna person, or talked to someone. She needed to find out if Orlenda might say anything about what she really planned to do with her. The problem was, Orlenda had built herself a pretty strong shield. However, Hope knew the woman wasn’t psychic in any way, so the shield had been constructed by someone else on her behalf. That would make it easier to get around, but not entirely easy. It also depended on how strong of a psychic and what kind of psychic had created the shield for Orlenda.
She closed her eyes and called upon the source of the owl and also of the tiger moth. One thing the teachers had taught her is that by utilizing energies from other sources she could strengthen her abilities. Because she was an audial, she typically called upon sources that were known for their strength in hearing. The owl was obvious. The tiger moth worked from sonar to avoid being eaten by bats. She had to learn about all sorts of animals, minerals, plant life, insects, water life, and more. She liked working with the tiger moth because it knew how to get out of the way of the predator. The owl scared her some because of its predatory nature.
As she slowed her breathing and allowed the two sources to begin working with her, she envisioned Orlenda in her mind. She had the advantage of already seeing and speaking to the woman. In her mind’s eye she could see the shield around her.
Hope asked her two sources to see if they could fly through the shield. The owl tried but could not. His energy was stronger and bigger, and he couldn’t break through. But the tiger moth found a small space that had not been sealed up as tightly as the rest of the shield around Orlenda, and the moth was inside.
Orlenda was on the phone and, surprisingly to Hope, she was speaking Russian. Even though Hope knew the language, tuning into foreign languages was always a challenge, and called upon all her gifts. As it was, she caught the tail-end of the conversation.
“I will get you what you need. I am working on it now with the child. It is only a matter of time.”
Orlenda hung up the phone and the tiger moth backed out of the shield.
Hope opened her eyes. Her stomach hurt. She had to find a way out of here, and find someone good. Someone who could stop the crazy woman.
Hope had multiple problems though. She had no idea how to get out of the place, or even where she was. And, even if she did get out of there, she had no idea who was good and who would help her.
Chapter Fourteen
“Orlenda has her,” I said pacing back and forth across the gleaming hardwood floor. The floor to ceiling windows exposed a vast darkness that led to the open seas below. A light off a boat flickered in the distance and reminded me of just how alone Hope had to be feeling in that very moment.
Alone.
“Then that little girl has some very significant, very important information,” Noah said, reading my mind—and, yes, he probably was reading my mind.
“The kind that can destroy millions, I’m sure,” Ayden chimed in.
I stopped pacing, crossed my arms and faced my boys. “Simms knows more than he’s saying. A lot more.” I firmly believed this because Simms had known Orlenda Kobach, and he’d known her in the Biblical sense. The way my father had been located was through bedroom talk between Simms and Orlenda as he’d played double agent at the time. Orlenda had never forgotten it. That much I am sure. No woman likes to be screwed over. And, a woman like Orlenda Kobach would seek revenge until she got it. My senses were telling me that Hope Mitchell was a part of that revenge, and I also believed strongly that I was included in the vendetta. Let’s just say that, like Orlenda, I have not forgotten being wronged and the wrong that I suffered was far worse than a few rolls in the hay. No. The wrong I suffered was watching my father die in front of my eyes.
And now, my sworn enemy had a little girl with the same gift I possessed, and I knew what that child would be facing if we didn’t find her quickly.
“Do you want to find Simms and have a few words with him? See what he knows?” Noah asked.
“I think it’s a waste of our time. I think Simms is hiding something. Ayden told us that that her mother is afraid of Simms. And, you said that her mother isn’t even her biological mother. I think Simms wants this little girl back for some selfish reasons, and my guess is that it’s the same reason that Orlenda has her.”
“What do we do?” Ayden asked.
“Call and get the plane fueled. We can figure out Simms and his part later. Right now we have to find Hope Mitchell, because I’m afraid that once she is able to give that bitch what she wants, Hope will be as good as dead.”
“You don’t think she would continue to use her for future, um, dealings?” Ayden asked.
I shook my head. “No. I know this woman. She will either kill Hope, or sell her off to the highest bidder, likely a group in the middle east who will use her for her gifts, and perhaps harm her to get whatever they want.”
Noah stood, his arms crossed, a grim look on his face. His eyes steely and far away. My guess: he was seeing something, and not just something from across the room. “Fuel the jet,” he said after a moment of this. “I think I may at least be able to clue into Simms part of this. I’m getting something, but I need more.” He picked his backpack up off the couch. I followed suit.
“Where are we headed?” Ayden asked, running a hand through his thick waves of hair.
I frowned. “Not sure, but the three of us better start working on it. With Orlenda behind this, if Hope has something that can create serious mass destruction, it won’t be long before Orlenda has the information, and we all know that it won’t only be a little girl buried six feet under. It could easily be an entire nation.”
Chapter Fifteen
Officially, we had to file a flight plan with headquarters. Officially, headquarters could suck it. Including Simms, and whatever role he was playing in this.
We took my truck, and soon we were bounding down the dark, winding road, itself lit with only the occasional solar light sometimes hidden among shrubs and weeds. I didn’t need lights. I barely needed the headlights. The nearly-full moon was enough for me to pick my way down the twisting road. Then again, it helps to be a tad psychic and have the reflexes of a cat.
I was, after all, a special agent for more reasons than my distance hearing.
Once I hit the main road, and hung a left onto Pacific Coast Highway, the only real road out of Malibu, Ayden, who sat in the passenger next to me, said, “There’s a car waiting for us a mile ahead.”
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Intentions?” asked Noah behind us.
“Not good,” said Ayden. “They mean us harm. Perhaps permanent harm.”
He had no sooner spoken the words than my driver’s window exploded, showering me with glass. The bullet that whizzed by might have gotten my chin, or it could have been the glass. I’d been shot before. This felt like a bullet.
Either way, I kept my cool as best as I could and floored the truck. And, no, it wasn’t just any truck. This one was supercharged, complete with four wheel drive and a heavy duty suspension. As any good secret agent’s truck should be. It wasn’t my Bessie.
As the truck picked up speed, and as both Ayden and Noah brandished their own company-issued pistols—Walthers, of course—a vehicle charged down a short embankment to my left, crashing through shrubs and saplings and hitting the highway in a hail of dirt and broken branches.
“Go, go, go!” shouted Ayden.
Noah said something, too, but I missed it when the back window of the truck exploded. Despite my nerves of steel, that scared the shit out of me, and I swerved so
hard I nearly rolled the truck.
“Easy, kid,” shouted Noah.
I sped by a slow-moving RV with a Texas license plate. Yes, we’re trained to be damn observant, even in the face of danger.
The distinct zzing of a bullet flashed past my ear.
“Here’s an idea,” I said, as I peeled around a faster-moving Camaro, “how about one of you clowns return fire, and keep them off our asses. In particular, my ass.”
“It’s a nice ass,” said Ayden, sticking his head out his passenger side window. “It’s worth saving.”
“Pig,” I said, and mashed the gas pedal when I hit a clear straightaway. “But thanks.”
Ayden shook his head, holding his gun with both hands. It’s not as easy as it sounds shooting behind a fast-moving vehicle, especially when there could be innocent bystanders nearby.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Noah doing the same thing, lining up his target carefully through the shattered window. The target being a black Mustang that looked pretty damn fast itself. Still, it wasn’t gaining. If anything, we were holding even. The second vehicle was a quarter mile back, unable to keep up.
Now on a straightaway with no other cars around, and no homes, either, my two boys let loose with an ear-shattering volley of their own. In my rearview mirror, the speeding Mustang swerved first left, then right, and then the vehicle began a slow-motion tumble. I watched with stunned satisfaction as the slow-motion turned very fast indeed, and vehicle flipped head over ass, or bumper to bumper. The vehicle tumbled once more, then must have hit a high part of the road, for it next spun gloriously in the air, once, twice, and then landed upside down.
“Got ‘em,” said Noah.
“How do you know it wasn’t me who got them?” asked Ayden sitting back in his seat.
“Because I just know,” said Noah, and sat forward, too.
“Give it a rest, you guys,” I said, and for the first time in ten minutes my hammering heart seemed to return to normal. Do we go back? Question them?”
“No way they survived that,” said Ayden. “Besides, the RV just pulled up behind them. We go back and we’re in for a firefight, along with dealing with the local police. I say we stick to the plan. Head to the airport, where our plane is waiting.”
I looked again in the rearview mirror as I approached a curve in the road. Smoke poured up from the exposed, darkened underbelly. Its roof was completely crumpled. Anyone inside would have lost their head.
I took in a lot of air, unbunched my shoulders, and aimed the truck for LAX.
Chapter Sixteen
Once again in a plane on our way to, well, I didn’t really know, which was not making our pilot happy at this point.
The last known contact I had been able to make concerning Orlenda was in Paris six months ago. Orlenda was not a gifted psychic, but she surrounded herself with the gifted, and they protected her. Like Simms, the woman was a master manipulator and very focused. She also had an endless supply of cash flow, which I knew came from various sources around the globe. It seemed there were many who supported her cause of world domination and agreed she would be the best person in control. It confused the hell out of me. However, there was no sense in trying to make crazy seem sane, and God knew there was plenty of crazy in the world. Our team had been able to put a stop to a lot of it, but not all of it. There was simply too much of it. And, Orlenda was behind a lot of it. If we could ever reach her, we could get rid of a lot of crazy and evil in the world. We knew she funded terrorist attacks, drug lords like my good friend Domingo Rodriguez, and was in the business of anything illegal from slave trade to money laundering. She was the queen pen so to speak. She made the rest of the guys in the game look like chumps.
I hated her.
“We have to give the pilot a plan,” Noah said.
“Any ideas?” Ayden asked.
I thought about it. “Tell him to head for Paris. That’s the last hit I had on her and I will start working on it. Since I always seem to be six months behind, I may have more luck trying to go through the kid. If I can get in touch with her as an audial. I mean, if what you are saying is true—that she has been schooled, then she will have guides and sources that she pulls from. If I can connect with one of her sources, then maybe...”
“Good thinking.” Noah winked at me.
My stomach dropped. God! Why was it that I had the tough thing going for me and all this guy had to do was wink at me and I went all jelly fish? Maybe I wasn’t as tough as I thought. That was a stupid thought! I had to be this way. I knew the minute I let any of my guards down that I would be vulnerable. My heart had been shredded the day that I lost my dad, and I didn’t think I could ever go back there. “Anyone get anything on who may have tried to wipe us out on our way to...” I shrugged, “...to God knows where?”
“Without having time to tune in at all, I’m guessing that either Orlenda has received intel that we are looking for her and the kid, or, Simms,” Ayden said.
“You think Simms might actually be in on that?” Noah asked.
“I think he knows that we are figuring out his little project, and there is a chance that he doesn’t want us to know. The more who know, the more opportunity for exposure, and that kind of exposure is dangerous on so many fronts,” Ayden replied.
I didn’t like considering the possibility that the man who I had thought of in many ways as a father could have turned against the team. I didn’t even want to think about it. But I also knew that humans were capable of almost anything—even turning their back on their own, if it meant to serve themselves. It was a horrid but truthful fact. I just shook my head and sighed, not wanting to think the worst, but accepting it may be the truth. “I say we try to figure that out after we get the kid back. One thing at a time. We don’t need to be clouding up anything by attempting two things at once.”
“You’re right. You said that you thought you might know why Orlenda wants the kid?” Ayden directed the question at Noah, who nodded.
“Right. I got a hit about a virus, but it doesn’t ring completely true. My site tells me that is what Orlenda has been looking now for a few months. She has a buyer that I could see is Middle Eastern, but what country I don’t know. The buyer wears a turban, looks to be in his forties. I don’t recognize him at all. He is offering a lot of money—a lot. I can’t get the details, but I’m working on it. I think maybe Hope knows about that, but I am not sure.”
Ayden nodded. “This kid knows something else. I agree with you, but I don’t think it’s about a virus. That might have been planted to throw us off the trail. No, whatever is going on feels bigger somehow.”
Head swimming, I stood and walked to the back of the plane, lowering myself down into the leather cream cushion. I looked out at the haze of inky blue swirling around the Lear. The stars still shone overhead, but would soon fade as night started to give way to daylight. I knew time was running out for Hope Mitchell and finding her was essential. If what Ayden was saying was true, and what Noah had discovered was also true, and what I had heard, the little girl was not only a rare talent, but could potentially be used as a weapon in the wrong hands. What that weapon was, exactly, I didn’t know.
But I would find out.
I closed my eyes and put myself in a state to listen. I knew that Hope had been served breakfast. As I’d said to the guys, if she’d been trained properly, which if Simms was involved, then she had been, then she would have first been taught how to utilize her guardians, sources, guides—however, one wanted to word it. I preferred Guardian. Audial guides would be where I thought a smart place to begin. There are several categories from land, sea, and air, to plant life, minerals, and even more encompassing. It could be a long process to find her connections.
I pulled out the earrings that her mother had given me from my pockets. Ha! I hadn’t taken a lot of notice before. However, they were ladybugs. Okay, now eleven-year-old girls probably do like ladybugs. I’m sure they do. Who doesn’t? But, this kid was no ordinar
y kid. Antennae is how the ladybug “hears.”
I sat with this, eyes closed and went as deep as I could without it becoming dangerous for either Hope, or myself. I breathed her in and out. I finally connected, hearing that slow breath of hers coming and going. This child knew how to control herself very well.
Was she feeling my energy at all?
Moments passed like this. I don’t know how many. And then, a whisper...
“Mom?” I heard her say. “No. You’re not my mom. Who are you?”
At first I thought she was talking to someone in the room.
“I said who are you? I know you are listening. I need help.”
Oh my God. “I’m here to help,” I replied both in my mind and out loud. “I am. I know where your mom is. Can you tell me where you are?”
“Who are you?”
I could her the distrust in her “voice.”
“I’m Kylie and I am an audial. One of my guides is the dolphin and another the hawk. How about you?”
“I like the tiger moth.”
I smiled. “Good. Me, too.” Having this information would help if we lost contact. “Can you tell me where you are? I am on my way to help you.”
“I don’t know. The room is big and fancy. It’s pretty, too.”
“Are there windows?”
“Yes, but they’re a funny shape, like a pointed arch. The ceilings are painted and tiled. I am tied to the bed.”
My heart broke at hearing this.
Hope continued, her words fading. “There’s something else.”
“What? Stay with me Hope. I am on my way.”
“The room is like a room in a movie. It’s like something out of The Adventures of Tintin.”
“What else can you tell me? Hope?”
