“Oh, call me Annie, please.”
“Of course,” he murmured, giving her a sweet smile meant to lull her into a vulnerable state. At the same time, he started emitting golden threads of energy that had hooks attached. He consciously sent them into her chakras. When they fastened there, Rogan could start sucking life energy out of her aura without her ever knowing about it. Symptoms were generally mild—sudden tiredness at the same time every other day or so, for example. Most people thought it was fatigue and not a sorcerer pumping energy out of them.
But Rogan got a rude surprise when all the lines of energy suddenly boomeranged and snapped back toward him. Whatever or whoever she was, she had a hell of a defense system up and in place, aurically speaking. Keeping the frown off his face, he destroyed the hooks before they reached his own field. Did Smith know what she was doing? Bright Sun had said she was a psychic. Maybe she knew enough to protect herself around a stranger. Or maybe she knew a lot more.
“This sketch…have you had dreams like this before?” he prompted.
“Uh, no.” That was a lie, but Annie wasn’t going to tell him the rest of the story. She saw Colby shift uncomfortably in his chair. Even though the FBI agent wasn’t psychic, Annie was sure he was picking up on the energy around Fast Horse. The man was like a power station. And a person with that kind of energy had to be watched—carefully.
“I see. Well…” Rogan cleared his throat and idly gestured toward the sketch. “I suppose it could be a Native American pipe.” He gave her a dazzling smile. “Whatever possessed you to put a lightning bolt on the long end of the L shape?”
“I saw it in my dream.”
Rogan kept his unease to himself. The wooden stem that fitted into the Storm Pipe had a yellow lightning bolt running the length of it. This woman’s psychic abilities were more than alarming. “Interesting,” he murmured. “And this dream just came out of nowhere?”
“Yes, that’s how I receive information.” Annie smiled and tapped her temple. “I have no control over this, of course. I get what I get.”
Rogan moved his eyes to appraise Connolly, who seemed relaxed but alert. The man wasn’t saying much of anything, and Rogan wondered why he was there, if not in some official capacity. Moving his gaze back to Annie, Rogan said, “And this dream had to do with what? There must have been a reason for it?”
“I don’t know, Rogan,” she said. Another lie. She sensed it had to do with the death of the vice president in some way. Pointing to her drawing, she asked, “Can you tell me if a Native American pipe could kill a person?”
Rogan’s mouth went dry. “I think you’ve been reading too many Indian mysteries written by white men,” he joked, laughing.
“I guess so. I really don’t mean to insult your ways. We know so little about them, and Mr. Spearling felt you might be able to help us sort truth from fiction.”
As he sat up, Rogan’s hands came down on his desk. “No problem, Annie. Though I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about a pipe, because it’s sacred and secret knowledge.”
“You’re a pipe carrier, Mr. Fast Horse?”
Rogan’s gaze riveted on Connolly, who was studying him intently. “Why, yes, I am. Which is why I can’t tell you much. We’re sworn to secrecy.” He relaxed back into his chair. “You could consider pipe carriers sacred, who took an oath to defend and protect the vulnerable.” He slanted a glance at Annie, who seemed disappointed. “So, I’m sure you can understand my position.”
“Is the sketch of a pipe?” Connolly asked.
“I really don’t know.”
“Do the stems on the pipe ever carry drawings or carvings?”
The man was beginning to get under his skin. Rogan didn’t like him at all, didn’t like the look in his eyes or the feeling around him. “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Connolly. As I said before—sacred is secret.” It’s not for dumb white folks like you to know, he retorted silently.
A sense of danger flooded the room. Annie could feel it. Rattled, she realized Rogan disliked David Colby. Maybe hated was a better word, but Annie couldn’t logically go there. The medicine man was studying the agent as if he were a rattlesnake that should be killed. “Well, listen, we won’t take up any more of your time, Rogan. We appreciate that you tried to help us.”
Annie heard a disturbance behind her. The door to the office opened and she recognized the woman at the gate, Jeanne Bright Sun. Her round face, once smiling and friendly, was filled with rage. What scared Annie was the fact she had an M-16 rifle in her hand now and wore what looked like a Kevlar vest.
“Rogan, Blue Wolf found this in the glove box. Look.” The woman tossed him a black leather identification wallet.
Rogan caught the case and opened it.
Annie reeled from the sudden energy change. Bright Sun waited at the door, the M-16 in hand, her face grim.
“Son of a bitch,” Rogan snarled, dropping the case on his desk. He glared up at Colby. “You’re an FBI agent.” Without a thought, he pulled a pistol out of a drawer, cocked it and aimed it directly at the man who represented everything he hated.
“Wait!” Annie said, rising out of her chair.
Bright Sun stepped forward, gripped Annie’s shoulder and shoved her violently back down. “Sit still, white woman. I’d like nothin’ better than to blow your head off.” She snapped a look at Rogan. “Is she FBI, too?”
“No,” Colby growled. “Only I am.” He held Rogan’s black, glittering gaze, the barrel of the 9 mm pistol staring him in the face. “She’s just a psychic, someone I hired.”
Bright Sun snorted and pulled out two pairs of handcuffs from her military web belt. “Here, Rogan. You want to do the honors or should I?”
“You do it,” he ordered. His gaze never left the agent’s pale face. “So, why are you here, Mr. FBI man? You lied. Your real name is David Colby.”
When Colby said nothing, Rogan’s face turned from tan to red. The pistol never wavered.
Annie felt Bright Sun grab her wrist and cinch the metal cuff around it. “Wait! You can’t do this! Let us go!”
“Shut up,” Rogan barked, without looking in her direction.
“What do you want done with them?” Bright Sun demanded after she’d cuffed the agent, too.
Rogan lowered the pistol. “Put them in the main lodge. Chain one to each of the two main poles. They can sit there and think about why they really came here.” He suspected this whole thing was a setup, that the U.S. government had somehow figured out that they had killed the vice president. He saw Annie Smith’s mouth fall open. Was she for real? Or just playing a role, as the agent had done?
“Blue Wolf found no identification papers for this woman?” he asked.
Shaking her head, Bright Sun said, “Give me her purse. I’ll check it out.”
Rogan grabbed Annie’s bag from beside the chair and tossed it over. He lifted the pistol as Bright Sun opened it and shook out the contents onto the floor. After rifling through them, she crowed, “An ID badge case.” She flipped it open. “Oh, shit, Rogan…she’s CIA! Look.” She passed the badge to him. “And her real name is Ballard, not Smith.”
Rogan eyed the identification. “A CIA remote viewer?” Nostrils flaring, he glared at Ballard. “You’re good. But not good enough. Now I know why you had that energy shield up around you. You damn well know what you’re doing.”
Gasping as Bright Sun jerked her out of the chair, Annie cried, “We’re not your enemy! You have no right to keep us here! Let us go!”
Rogan snorted. “Since you’re a remote viewer, then you oughta be reading my mind to know what I’m going to do next to your white asses.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“READY?”
That one word sent a spasm of raw fear through Dana’s gut. Chase had mouthed the word quietly as they stood in their climbing gear below the Eagle’s Nest. It was Friday night; darkness had come and they had to make the ascent into Rogan’s lair. Flexing her fingers in the light, thin leather gloves that wou
ld protect her hands, she whispered, “Yes. I’m ready.”
Just having Chase at her side imbued Dana with the courage she needed. The wind picked up, whipped around and then ebbed away. Below them, on the Nevada plain to the north, lights sparkled like colorful jewels. That was the capital, Carson City. Dana could hear the highway traffic passing far below them.
Chase double-checked his gear. Lightning flashed nearby, and he scowled. They wore radio headsets, the microphones near their lips so they could quietly communicate with one another as they climbed. “Looks like the thunder beings are coming our way.” He pulled his night goggles into place so he could see through the darkness. Everything took on a grainy, green appearance.
“The storm spirits know we’re going to try and rescue the ceremonial pipe,” Dana told him. “My mother would always see them come and be present just before she used the pipe.”
Chase settled the night goggles gently over Dana’s eyes and made sure the strap was firm around her head. “I have a feeling it’s going to pour. If it does, that’ll make our climbing even more dangerous.”
Her scalp tingled where his fingers brushed her hair. “They’re our friends. They aren’t here to harm us, Chase.”
Snorting softly, he automatically checked Dana’s climbing harness. They were dressed in black spandex from head to toe. The material was no protection against the wet and cold, should it rain. “You’re ready to go. So am I. The only problem is every time there’s a flash of lightning, our night vision is destroyed for a minute or two until our eyes readjust. Can you ask them to move away so we aren’t blinded every few minutes?” Chase knew the thunder beings could be talked with, pleaded with, but ultimately, these huge sky spirits would do as they damn well pleased.
Giving a soft laugh, a nervous one, Dana said, “They don’t usually listen to me, Chase. You know that. But they know the Storm Pipe is in trouble, in the wrong hands. They know we are going to try and save it. They’re around to help us.”
Planting the first titanium piton, with rubber coating on the top of it to prevent noise from occurring, into the basalt, the hammer looped around his thick wrist, Chase began the slow, arduous task of leading the way up the cliff. “Just plead with them not to rain on us, eh?” Chase knew this was impossible. He’d said it in jest, to ease the tension he’d heard in her voice.
Dana moved behind Chase as he began to put the pitons in place, like a ladder leading up the vertical cliff. Here and there on the rock face were ledges where small junipers or other vegetation tried valiantly to survive. They reminded Dana of some people’s lives, so precarious and harsh.
There were four trees along the route of their three-thousand-foot climb. Chase had planned that at each one they’d rest, recoup, drink water to stay hydrated, and then move up to the next one, until they reached the compound wall at the top. The lightning flashes momentarily exposed his shadowy shape and then temporarily blinded her. Dana shut her eyes, realizing how dangerous the lightning was to her night vision. Hanging in the harness, her boots planted firmly against the basalt wall, she touched her night-vision goggles and waited impatiently for her eyes to readjust.
Silently, Dana sent a plea to the approaching thunderstorms to veer away from them and their route. She felt Chase heft himself upward. The nylon rope between them grew taut. They were climbing a few feet at a time. Swallowing against a dry, constricted throat, she found purchase with both hands and followed him up the craggy face.
The wind was erratic. Gusts pounded against them as they inched their way upward in the blackness of the night. Dana’s hopes fell as she realized the thunder beings seemed to be ringing the area where they were climbing. She sensed their impatience. The storm clouds seemed not only to grow larger and more powerful, but the sky spirits started to move in—toward them.
As Dana climbed, trying to focus intently on each handhold, her fear grew over the possible run-in with Rogan Fast Horse. Were he and his band of women waiting for them? Dana and Chase had taken great precautions to cloak their energy, so they could not be detected by even the most psychic within the group. But things happened and mistakes could be made.
Another flash of lightning shattered the darkness. Dana heard Chase curse softly beneath his rasping breath. Pressing herself against the jagged cliff, Dana closed her eyes. She knew now to wait at least a minute before opening them and moving on.
As she clung to the cliff, the wind buffeting and slamming against her, Rogan’s leering face suddenly loomed in front of her. Dana gasped, totally unprepared for this vision of his lean, angry features. What the hell was going on?
“TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW or I’ll slit your throat,” Rogan rasped into Ballard’s bloodied, bruised face. He saw her blackened eyes open to slits in response to his guttural threat. His fist ached from the blows he’d delivered. Not wanting to break his hand on the CIA bitch, he breathed, “Tell me or I’ll—”
“I don’t know anything!” Annie cried, blood leaking from her split lip. She was bound to a chair, her hands behind her, the ropes cutting off their blood supply. She had to protect David Colby!
Heart pounding, she saw Rogan’s mouth open in a snarl, revealing his yellow, pointed teeth. Her stomach ached where he had repeatedly hit her, and tears leaked from Annie’s eyes. “I don’t know anything!” she repeated. “I told you what I know.” Bloody spittle spewed from her contorted lips, which were fat and swollen from him slapping her. Her head spun. What was happening to Colby? Was someone beating him up like Rogan was her? This was the last thing Annie had expected. She was a remote viewer, who spent her days sitting in a nondescript room with a table and chair. That was all. She wasn’t trained as a spy. Nor trained to endure interrogation. Now, with Rogan’s face inches from her own, his fetid breath spilling over her like that of a bull in a rage, Annie realized she was probably going to die.
“You had that dream about that pipe.”
“Y-yes. I didn’t know it was a pipe, though. I—I just saw the shape of it.”
“And you saw the lightning mark on the stem.”
“Y-yes, but honest to God, I didn’t know what it was!” she screamed into Rogan’s face, her fear mixed with rage. “I still don’t!” Annie wasn’t a fighter by nature. She believed in peace, and desperately wanted peace for this world. And yet she was facing a medicine man who had murder written in his blue, shining eyes, and he was going to kill her.
Blue Wolf jerked open the door to the small inner office in the lodge. “Rogan!”
Snapping his head up, he growled, “What?”
Blue Wolf glared down at Ballard, then shifted her focus to her partner. “We got storms coming. A lot of them.”
“So what?” he demanded, taking a cloth and wiping the blood off his knuckles. Ballard’s blood.
“If we think the FBI knows about us, about our plans—”
“Shut up!”
Taken aback, Blue Wolf slammed the door and crossed her arms. “Don’t you tell me to shut up!” Her breathing became raspy and uneven. “We haven’t gotten anything from Colby. He’s playing dumb. I know he is.” She jabbed a finger toward the white woman bound in the chair. “You got anything more out of her?”
“Not yet.” Rogan made a cutting gesture toward the door. “Let’s talk elsewhere.” He glanced down at Ballard, whose eyes conveyed terror. As they should.
Spinning on her heel, Blue Wolf left the room. Once Rogan joined her, they walked down the corridor toward the ceremonial area. The lights in the hallway flickered as lightning lit up the darkness outside the glass doors. “Damn storm,” she growled. Turning, she glared up at Rogan. His hair was disheveled and he was nursing his right hand. “The Storm Pipe knows something’s up.”
“I think the FBI is onto us,” Rogan rasped in a low tone. He didn’t want his voice to carry back to Ballard. “Isn’t Colby telling you anything?”
“Nothing. We’re beating the shit out of him and he’s not talking. The FBI could know about us, about the pipe.”
>
“Ballard is holding to the story of having a dream about the Storm Pipe,” Rogan said unhappily. His knuckles were bruised and swelling. Never mind that the CIA agent had lost a couple of teeth; his knuckles throbbed with pain and he wanted to put ice on them.
“Colby is hiding something, but I don’t know what. Every time I try to get into his mind, he repels me. He’s stronger than I thought. Have you been able to get into Ballard’s head?”
Rogan scowled. “Not yet. But I’m close. I wanted to soften her up. She’s pretty scared. And when a person’s scared, they lose their focus, and their protective shields drop. I’m close.”
“Well, get it done. Colby’s a trained agent, but I don’t think Ballard is. As a remote viewer, she probably sits in an empty room with a pad and paper, and astrally travels to wherever she’s sent.” Blue Wolf winced as a bolt of lightning struck very close to the compound. “Damn, the thunder beings are restless.”
“Well, of course they are! I’ve decided tomorrow we’re going to use the pipe instead of Monday. They’re excited. I think this is a good sign. Don’t you?”
Blue Wolf looked at him. “They’ve never done this before. These are angry thunder beings, Rogan. I don’t know if they’re friend or foe tonight. I’ve tried to talk with them, but my pleas are falling on deaf ears.”
“The Storm Pipe is secure, though?”
“Of course. On the altar gathering force in the middle of the lodge,” she said, pointing down the hall.
Rubbing his face, Rogan muttered, “I think our best chance is through Ballard.”
“Then go back in there and read her mind, dammit! If the FBI know about us, we need the information now. That means we gotta get out of here and drive for the Mexican border. Tonight.” Her mouth thinned. “And if you aren’t up to it, I’ll dig into that white bitch’s brain. She can’t be that strong.”
Rebuffed by Blue Wolf’s arrogance, Rogan growled, “You should talk. You can’t even get into that FBI agent’s head. You leave Ballard to me. Let’s go back and probe their minds.” He looked at his watch. It was near midnight. “Meet me here in thirty minutes. We’ll compare what we managed to dig out of them.”
Heart of the Storm Page 17
