PSI/Net

by Rob MacGregor

  She slowed her pace and glanced back at Watkins. "So, what is it?"

  "A man named Trent Calloway wants to talk to you."

  She slowed her pace. "What was that, Steve?"

  "Trent Calloway. He says he's your ex-husband."

  A couple of beats passed as she struggled to remain calm. "Yeah, I know. Where is he?"

  "Down in the lobby."

  "Go tell him that I'm very busy. I'd love to say hi, but I don't have time."

  "He said it deals with national security," Watkins responded, hurrying to catch up with her as she picked up her pace.

  "Then you can refer him to either the Secret Service or the local FBI office."

  "I suggested that already, but he said that it's a psychic thing and that you would understand."

  She stopped, turned to Watkins. "He said that, that I would understand?" The bastard. "Go tell Harvey I'll be there in a couple of minutes. But don't say anything about this. . . this!—"

  "Okay. Nothing about Mr. Calloway."

  She nodded. "Yeah. Thanks."

  What was she going to say to him? "Hi, how are you? How have you been?" Casual. Breezy. No. Better to be blunt, get right to the point. It made her angry that he'd shown up here. Especially today. She'd put the relationship behind her and she'd blocked out whatever curiosity she had about him and his life after the military.

  She paused at the top of the wide staircase leading to the lobby. She spotted him standing a few feet away from a packed luggage cart in the busy lobby. The sight of him seemed to release some chemicals into her blood. She felt light-headed, nervous. Everything turned fuzzy around her. How long had it been since she'd seen him? Five, no, six years.

  From a distance, he looked unchanged, but as she moved closer, she saw something different about him. The crisp military edge had vanished. He seemed distracted, almost otherworldly. He certainly wasn't part of her world.

  As she approached, it suddenly occurred to her that his arrival might be directly related to the big news story. He wanted to remote view the president's aliens. She slowed down. She was about to turn around and get away before it was too late. But at that moment, he looked up and she couldn't make herself turn her back on him, even though that was what he'd done to her. She moved closer. He started to say something, but she interrupted him.

  "This better not have anything to do with an alien threat that you just happened to pick up while remote viewing."

  He looked confused. "I don't know anything about that. Hello, by the way. Good to see you."

  His voice sounded tense, raspy. She had an urge to give him a hug, to apologize for her abruptness. But then she thought better of it.

  "So what are you doing here, Trent?"

  "I'm sorry to bother you. But. . . damn, you look good, Camila. I'm happy for you."

  The familiar stranger stared at her. She moved forward, driven by a part of her that wouldn't listen to reason. She embraced him lightly, then stepped back. The fleeting contact triggered something inside her, a physical memory embedded in her cells. She suddenly felt unsteady on her feet, as if the floor were moving.

  Her hands started shaking. She blinked away a tear. She bit her lower lip and commanded herself to relax. "How did you know I was here?"

  "I heard Dustin was addressing the governors. I figured you'd be with him. I need your help."

  "So what is it? I'm sorry, Trent, but I don't have much time."

  "This isn't personal, Camila, if that's what you're concerned about. This is bigger than that."

  Her mouth turned down. "There was a time when I thought our life together was important. But that got lost a long time ago. You were more dedicated to those psychic freaks than to me. And I wasn't involved with anyone, as you accused, but maybe I should've been. Your sudden departure would've made more sense to me."

  There, she'd said it. She felt proud of herself for finally expressing to him what she'd held in for all these years.

  "I take the blame, Camila. I'm sorry. I left because I didn't want to hurt you." He shrugged. "But I didn't come here to talk about the past. That's over."

  "You bet it is, Trent. Does this have something to do with that ex-spook, Gordon Maxwell?"

  He shook his head. "Not unless Maxwell is behind a scheme to blow up the capital. And I don't think he's the type."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about a powerful bomb," he hissed, "a nuclear bomb that's in a backpack and it's headed for the capital. Washington is going to blow in a couple of days—Monday or Tuesday."

  The words literally knocked the wind out of her. She forgot the personal stuff. "What do you know about it?"

  He hesitated. "I saw it happening."

  "Saw it?" she repeated. "Psychically, right?"

  "Yes."

  She closed her eyes a moment, trying to get her bearings. She had an urge to tell him to take his goddamn fantasies to the Enquirer. But what if he were right? She saw two familiar faces, Secret Service agents, carrying their luggage across the lobby. She knew instantly what she had to do.

  "Okay, are you ready to tell the Secret Service what you just told me, and explain how you got the information?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Well, get ready." She signaled the two agents.

  They veered over toward her. The older of the two, a man in his late forties who had once told her that he'd worked under four presidents, addressed her. "Yes, ma'am. How can we help you?"

  "Sam, this gentleman's name is Trent Calloway. He's just informed me about a bomb that he says is going to blow up the capital."

  The agent touched something on his wrist that must have set off a silent alarm. The other one instantly scanned the lobby. "Mr. Calloway, we're going to take you to a room where we can speak in private," Agent Sam said in a firm voice.

  "That's fine with me."

  Just then a stout woman with an open, friendly face moved their way. "I can verify what he's going to tell you," the woman said in a confident voice. "Hello, Camila. We met once, but you probably don't remember me. I used to work with Trent."

  Camila looked closely at her. "Doc?"

  The woman nodded. She smiled, but her lips quivered. She looked tense, worried.

  Two other Secret Service agents joined their colleagues, a few words were exchanged, and then the group, all but Camila, moved across the lobby and toward the bank of elevators. She stared after them and her hands started shaking again. What if Calloway were right? What if a nuclear bomb was set to go off in the capital in a couple of days?

  Just then she spotted Gordon Maxwell standing at the end of a line, waiting to check out. Harvey Howell could wait a couple more minutes, she thought, and headed toward him.

  Chapter Ten

  The agents hustled them up to the third floor in different elevators and placed them in separate rooms of a suite that looked as if it had been the Secret Service's temporary communications center. Telephones and computers and other electronic gear was strewn around on tables and counters. Boxes and cases lay on the floor and wires dangled everywhere. The agents apparently had been packing the gear when the call had been received.

  No one said anything to Calloway for several minutes, then one of the agents joined him at a table, while a second one remained standing near the door as if he might depart for another crisis at any moment. "My name is Sam Clarke. My partner is Nick Tyler."

  Someone turned on a radio behind the closed door. "Are they going to listen to music over there, or is that just to cover up my screams when you break my fingers," Calloway asked.

  "We don't want either of you overhearing what the other says. Just a precaution."

  "Doc and I aren't making up anything. We don't need to get our stories straight."

  Clarke nodded. "So tell me about yourself."

  Calloway told him about his background in the air force, emphasizing his years as a psychic spy. He explained how he'd glimpsed the six-digit number and what had happened when Doc mon
itored him. He went on to explain that he had decided to come to Denver to tell Camila about it.

  "So you think a young man named Matthew is delivering a nuclear bomb to Washington, where it will destroy the city on Monday or Tuesday. And you think Matthew's mission might be sponsored by some sort of group. That's not much to go on, Mr. Calloway."

  "I know. But I think I can get more."

  Clarke nodded noncommittally. "You and your friend were observed in the hotel last night after the president's speech. Did you meet with Gordon Maxwell?"

  "No. I saw him in the bar, but I didn't talk to him."

  "Why not? You used to work closely with him, didn't you?" Clarke asked.

  He felt a dangerous urge to tell Clarke all about it. To confess to murder. No, he wasn't a murderer. Stay focused. "He was talking to some other people, and besides, I was looking for Camila, not him."

  "But you left last night before finding her," Clarke said.

  "Doc didn't feel well. She has a problem with crowds. So we left." He glanced toward the door to the adjacent room. Calloway had suggested she stay at their hotel this morning, but this time she had insisted on going with him. So he'd relaxed her again en route from their hotel.

  "In fact, I hope she's okay in there."

  "I'll check on her in a minute," Clarke said. "Did you know ahead of time that Maxwell would be speaking at the conference?" "No. I haven't been in contact with him for four years."

  "Please wait here." Clarke stood up and disappeared into the next room.

  Calloway felt frustrated and vaguely disappointed in Camila. She'd simply turned him over to the Secret Service and then gone about her business.

  Agent Tyler strolled over toward Calloway. "Sam believes that stuff you're talking about. I'm more skeptical."

  Even though Tyler wore a suit, Calloway could tell by his thick, muscular neck that he probably spent his spare time in a gym bench-pressing four or five hundred pounds.

  "So what is it? You don't believe it's possible to remote view, or you just haven't looked into it?"

  He shrugged. "I've got to see it before I believe it. That's just how I am."

  "You remind me of myself before I got hit by lightning and got my brain rewired."

  "You were hit by lightning?" Tyler sounded shocked.

  He nodded. "Sixteen years ago now. It hit me just below my collarbone."

  "What happened?"

  "At first, I couldn't walk or use my arms. My voice slurred. The doctors thought that I might regain the use of his arms, but I'd never walk again."

  "But you recovered," Tyler said.

  "Slowly."

  First his voice, then his arms. Within two months, he was hobbling on crutches. But his brain was never quite the same. He knew things before they happened and saw things that happened elsewhere. He was tested and retested by air force psychologists. Then one day he got a telegram from Colonel Gordon Maxwell. The next morning he was on his way to Colorado Spring for more tests and that led to his involvement in Eagle's Nest.

  Tyler nodded when he finished. "I was at Maxwell's talk yesterday."

  Calloway stared out the window toward the parking lot and at that moment the sun reflected off the windshield of a moving vehicle. He blinked and suddenly saw Tyler standing on ice.

  He turned to the agent. "Did you used to play ice hockey?" Tyler frowned.

  "I haven't done it since I was a kid. I wasn't very good. Why do you ask?"

  "Sometimes I get impressions about people. I just saw ice around you and you were excited about it, like you were going to play hockey or maybe go ice fishing."

  He shook his head. "Never gone ice fishing and I don't plan to. Sorry about that."

  "It might be something else related to ice, because you were wearing a suit, the same one you've got on now. I saw you pointing at the ice. You know something about it."

  "What do you mean that you saw me? How does that work?" Galloway smiled.

  "Don't you ever have impressions, hunches about something that's about to happen?"

  Tyler shrugged. "Not that I know of. If I do, they're based on something I see or hear. Like someone looking very sullen and tense while everyone else is laughing at a joke the president just told."

  "But how do you find someone like that in a crowd?" Calloway asked. "The president attracts big crowds."

  "I use my eyes, my physical senses. I don't get any psychic visions or hunches. Even if I did get one, I wouldn't tell anyone about them. I want to keep my job."

  Calloway was surprised that Tyler had turned out to be so talkative.

  "So I guess you don't take what I said about the bomb very seriously."

  "I didn't say that." Galloway heard a sharp edge in his tone. "We take all threats to the president seriously, no matter what the source."

  "That's good. Because you need to take this one real serious."

  "We'll evaluate it and decide how to proceed," Tyler replied.

  "How would you proceed on this one?"

  "It's not up to me."

  The door between the rooms opened. Camila stepped into the room, smiled. He watched her closely, forgetting all about Tyler. Just being near her activated a part of him that he'd suppressed. He realized that he missed her. Or maybe he missed the person she had once been. The person in front of him, he reminded himself, wasn't his wife, not even the memory that he called his ex-wife. Something had changed in her.

  She looked at Tyler. "Sam would like to talk to you."

  The agent nodded and moved into the other room.

  Alone with her. "I've been getting grilled by your buddies."

  "Not my buddies. They work for the president. They're here talking to you because what you've told them could endanger the president."

  So precise. Smooth. Friendly, but professional. More poised than when they'd first talked. Was it really her, the girl who liked to dance in the nightclubs, stay up late, smoke a little pot?

  "So what's the verdict?"

  "First, I want to tell you that Doc has taken ill. Sam Clarke told me about her phobia."

  He stood up. "Where is she?"

  Camila held up a hand. "She's been taken to another room and a doctor has been called. She said it wasn't serious, but I insisted that a doctor look in on her."

  "Thanks. I guess I'll see her in a while."

  "Next, I want to assure you that your impressions are being taken seriously, and we need to try to get more information."

  "Good."

  Ironic, he thought. His work in Eagle's Nest had destroyed their marriage and now, because he had remote viewed again, she had reappeared in his life. He felt none of the impatience that he'd felt with Clarke. He wanted to watch her, to talk to her, to know more about who she was now. Did she still retain some of the same old memories as he did? Did she ever think about him? He had always suspected that he would see her again. He just hadn't known when or under what circumstances.

  "Would you be willing to remote view for the Secret Service agents and myself?"

  "Of course. I'm ready. Except, one problem. Doc is my monitor."

  "That's no problem." Gordon Maxwell stepped into the doorway and into view. "I'll monitor you."

  Calloway just stared at him as he approached. Maxwell's hooded eyes met his gaze. He extended a hand and smiled. Calloway crossed his arms over his chest. "What are you doing here?"

  "I asked him to join us," Camila said. "He gave you an excellent reference. He told the Secret Service agents that they should take what you say very seriously."

  Maxwell glanced at her. "I'd like to talk to Trent alone, if you wouldn't mind, Camila."

  She nodded. "But please don't keep us waiting."

  "It's good to see you again, Trent," Maxwell said as the door closed.

  "Is it?"

  Maxwell ignored the sarcastic comment. "I told everyone that you were the best remote viewer that I've ever worked with and that if you had psychically seen a bomb heading for Washington, they'd damn well better
pay close attention. That's why they want to see what else you can get."

  "Thanks for your help. But I'll wait for Doc," he answered firmly. "She's my monitor."

  "Trent, these guys are busy," Maxwell explained. "They were on their way out. They're anxious to get going. You've got to do it now to convince them. You can find the perpetrators and alter that future event before it's too late."

  "At least, now I know why Doc took ill," Calloway said sullenly. "I have the feeling that when you arrived, the room suddenly became very crowded."

  "I'm sorry that she has a problem being around people," he responded, blandly. "Now can we get started?"

  "Look, Max. Doc and I both know about the drug we were given, the one that we absorbed through our skin when our blood pressures were taken. You probably know by now that it created some adverse side effects, like Doc's problem with crowds."

  Calloway expected Maxwell to deny knowing what he was talking about, but Maxwell surprised him. "That drug was a light hypnotic, that helped you relax and focus, nothing more. There were no side effects."

  "If it was so innocuous, why didn't you tell us about it?" Calloway persisted.

  "I didn't want you guys thinking that your abilities were dependent or even related to a drug. If you got that into your heads, you wouldn't function well when you didn't receive it."

  His answer sounded pat, Calloway thought, as if he'd thought it all out—a defense strategy.

  "But that's old stuff, Trent. They're waiting for us. Are you going to do it or not?"

  "No, I told you four years ago that I'd never remote view for you again. Not after what you did to Bobby Aimes. And I'm keeping that promise."

  Maxwell tensed at the mention of Aimes. His eyes narrowed. "I wonder how many people are alive today because Bobby Aimes is dead. Just think if someone could've pushed one of Hitler's guards into killing him. Look at the bloodshed that could've been prevented."

  "You fucker. How dare you compare the two. Bobby was no monster and you know it."

  "And you know what he was doing and why he was a target." He shrugged. "Regardless of what you think about me, you're not working for me now. This one's for the future of the country. Let's show these guys what remote viewers can do."