His Mysterious Ways

by Amanda Stevens

  His expression hardened. “Because I’m telling you it wasn’t.”

  “Why should I believe you? If you were a man I could trust, you would have told me the truth last night. You wouldn’t have threatened and coerced information from me that you obviously already had.”

  He leaned toward her, too, his eyes burning into hers. “I’m not going to apologize for last night. I needed information and I got it in the most efficient way I knew how. You’re the only other person I know who can do what we do. I had to find out what you knew because all this time, I thought I was the only one…” He trailed off and settled back in his chair as the waitress brought their drinks. He didn’t seem to notice the woman this time even though she made a production of bending over the table to place the glasses before them. When Lassiter failed to respond, the waitress shot Melanie a hostile look.

  He waited until she was gone, then picked up his drink. “Look, you told me you don’t really know how you do it. Well, I don’t know, either. I assumed it was the result of an accident I was involved in, but seeing you in the infirmary the other night changed everything.”

  “What accident?” she said with a frown.

  “We’ll get to that in a moment. But if what you say about a doorway in your room this afternoon is true, it appears there may be someone else here in Santa Elena with our ability. And that person didn’t come to your room out of mere curiosity. Someone is keeping tabs on you.”

  “But who?” she asked in a voice that sounded far more frightened than she would have liked.

  “I guess that’s what we have to find out.”

  She gazed at him across the table. “We?”

  “Do you really want to go it alone, Melanie?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure what I want anymore. I thought if I could find my father, everything would be all right somehow. All my questions would be answered. But it’s not going to be that easy, is it.”

  “Nothing is ever easy,” he said, and the look in his eyes made Melanie shiver.

  “Tell me about the accident,” she said softly.

  His gaze dropped to his drink. “Do you remember what happened to the Russian submarine, the Kursk?”

  “There was some kind of explosion or collision,” Melanie said. “The crew was trapped for days. By the time the rescue team got there, it was too late. Everyone on board was dead.”

  If possible, Lassiter’s expression turned even darker. “Five years ago there was a similar accident involving an American sub. No one knew about it because the incident was kept out of the media. Even the rescue efforts were secret.”

  “Why?”

  “In addition to the regular crew, there was a special-forces team on board. Their assignment was so top secret that for security reasons they were to be briefed on the specifics of the mission only after they were en route to the destination.”

  Melanie frowned as she toyed with her drink. “How do you know all this?”

  “I was a member of that special-forces team.” Their gazes met across the table and he nodded absently. “There was some kind of explosion on the sub, but I never learned the cause. We lost power and crash-dove to the bottom of the North Atlantic. We were trapped more than three hundred feet below the surface.”

  He raised his glass, and in one fluid move, drained the tequila. He immediately signaled the waitress for another. “Because of the covert nature of my team’s mission, we were kept isolated from the crew. Most of us escaped the brunt of the explosion because of where our quarters were located, but we were trapped inside. The hatches were all sealed. We could hear men screaming outside, but we couldn’t get to them. We were in pitch-black until the emergency generators kicked in, but even then, the light was so dull we needed flashlights to ascertain the damage. And to make matters worse, we were listing so badly some of the men became disoriented.”

  He paused again as the waitress brought his fresh drink. This time, she didn’t bother practicing her feminine wiles on him. She plunked the glass on the table and hurried off to find a more appreciative audience.

  “The loss of power meant that we had to contend very quickly with carbon dioxide,” he said. “And, of course, the cold. The residual heat didn’t last long and hypothermia set in. Then fear, panic, isolation. And as the days wore on, helplessness.”

  An unnatural claustrophobia clawed at Melanie’s throat as she watched Lassiter’s face. He remained expressionless, but there was something in his eyes, a shadow of the horror he’d been through…

  She shuddered and tried to look away.

  “The rescue efforts took days to coordinate and carry out. Everything had to be kept secret. By the time the divers and equipment reached the sub, everyone on board was dead.”

  Melanie could feel the blood drain from her face. “But…how could that be? You were there.”

  His gaze lifted to hers. “That’s right. I was.”

  Chapter Seven

  “They got to our section first, but I don’t know if that was by design or accident,” Lassiter said. “The recovered bodies were taken aboard a military hospital ship equipped with a high-tech resuscitation facility. We were all flat line when they got us out. No pulse or heartbeat. No measurable blood pressure. No electrical activity in the brain. We were dead.”

  Melanie put a hand to her mouth, not knowing what to say. Her heart was beating a painful tattoo inside her chest. She didn’t know why, but she was suddenly having trouble breathing.

  “I was told later that the hypothermia dramatically slowed the rate at which postmortem cell deterioration took place,” Lassiter said. “Otherwise, there would have been no hope. I don’t remember any of this, of course, but at some point, I was given massive doses of epinephrine. An exsanguination needle was inserted into a vein and a bypass machine drew all the blood out of my body, warmed it, then pumped it back in.”

  Melanie shivered again. She couldn’t help herself. “Were you the only survivor?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I know the others in my team were brought aboard the ship and later transferred to a hospital in Virginia at the same time I was. But I never saw them or talked to them. I was kept isolated. After I physically recovered, I went through weeks of debriefing. I don’t remember a lot of it. What I do recall is that the day I was released from the hospital was the same day I was told I’d been discharged from the military as mentally unfit to serve.”

  Melanie stared at him in shock. “Like the Eldridge crew.”

  He nodded. “I was told in no uncertain terms that it would be a mistake to try and fight it. Or to even ask questions. For the sake of national security, I was to forget I’d ever been aboard that sub.”

  “What did you do after you left the hospital?”

  “I drifted for a while,” he said with a shrug. “There was really no place for me to go. Or so I thought.”

  Melanie frowned. “But you had a life before you entered the military. Why didn’t you just go home?”

  A shadow flickered across his features. “I grew up on a farm in the Mississippi Delta. My father died when I was just a kid, and my mother raised me. She and I were fairly close, I guess, but after I left the hospital, I knew I couldn’t go back there. I was afraid my being there would somehow put her in danger, give them leverage to use against me. Besides…that part of my life was over. The memories of my mother belonged to someone else. The life I knew in Mississippi belonged to someone else. I couldn’t go back.”

  “How did you end up in Santa Elena?”

  “I met a man in a bar one night. He was a mercenary who had contacts all over Central America. He needed someone for a job in El Salvador and I hired on. I’ve been in this part of the world ever since.”

  “And the phasing?” she asked carefully.

  “I didn’t know about it until I got down here. When it happened, I thought it had to be a phenomenon caused by the accident. When I died on that sub, I crossed over into another plane of existence or something. When I was resuscitat
ed, I brought back with me the ability to move from one plane to another. Or at least, that’s what I thought.”

  “That’s as good an explanation as any, I guess,” Melanie murmured.

  “That’s what I told myself. But after I heard your story last night, I’m not so certain anymore. Maybe I was on that sub because of what I could already do.”

  Melanie glanced up at him. “You don’t remember anything about the mission?”

  “The accident occurred before we were briefed.”

  “What about before the accident? Your training? Other missions? You must remember something.”

  He shook his head. “I have memories, but they’re…vague. It’s hard to explain.” He glanced down at his hands. “Do you remember what you said last night about a special-ops team of super soldiers?”

  “Are you telling me you think you were at Montauk?” When he didn’t reply, Melanie said, “But you have memories of your childhood. You weren’t abducted.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said grimly. “If they can engineer realities, what’s to keep them from giving us false memories?”

  He was right. Of course, he was right. It seemed as if “they” could do anything. “Why are you called el guerrero del demonio?” she asked. “Did someone see you phase?”

  “Yeah. I ran into some trouble a year or so ago in Guatemala. My team was hired to take out the compound of a local drug lord. Someone sold us out and we were ambushed. The ones who weren’t murdered were thrown in prison and tortured. I got out and came back for the others. A couple of them saw me go through a wall. They were grateful for the rescue, but they were also frightened. After that—” he lifted his drink “—the rumors spread. There were men who wouldn’t work with me, and the contracts eventually dried up. Then a few months ago, Hoyt Kruger called me from his headquarters in Houston with an offer.”

  “From Houston? My father moved there after I went missing, but I suppose that’s just a coincidence,” Melanie said. “There couldn’t be a connection, could there?”

  “It’s possible, I guess.” Lassiter’s curious gaze moved over her. “What do you remember about your father, anyway?”

  “Hardly anything. I have memories of things he said to me and things we did together. But I can’t put a face or voice with any of those memories.”

  “You must have seen photographs of him.”

  “Only a snapshot and it wasn’t very clear. It was a group photo taken with his unit in Vietnam. I looked for it after my mother died, but I couldn’t find it.”

  “Your father was in Vietnam?” His voice sharpened. “Do you remember if he had a tattoo on his upper left arm?”

  “I have no idea. Why?”

  “Angus Bond told me that Kruger’s partner, a man named Martin Grace, has a tattoo on his arm similar to one he saw on a patient he treated in Vietnam. The wounded soldier was supposedly with a covert special-ops team. And he knew about the doorways.”

  “So Bond knows?”

  “I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to understand what the man was talking about, but even so, the meeting and the tattoo made an impression.”

  Melanie frowned. “So you think my father had some kind of connection with these men?”

  “I think there may be a Vietnam connection. Your father, Martin Grace, Hoyt Kruger. They’re all around the same age, I would guess. So is Angus Bond, for that matter. And they were all in Vietnam.”

  “That doesn’t mean they knew each other.”

  “But there’s more. I told you earlier about a sniper who killed one of my men yesterday. I found the gunman’s rifle after the shooting. It was the same kind of weapon that was used by snipers in Vietnam. I think he left it behind on purpose—as a warning. Taglio and I were standing only a foot apart. It could just as easily have been me in the sniper’s crosshairs. I think he wanted to show me he could get to me when and wherever he chooses.”

  “And you think one of these men was that sniper?”

  “I think it’s very possible.”

  Melanie thought about that for a moment. “But why warn you?” she asked in confusion. “Why didn’t he just take you out when he had the chance? If the Montauk people, or whoever we’re dealing with, didn’t want you talking about the accident or asking the wrong questions, why did they let you go in the first place? Why did they let me go? After they were through with us, why didn’t they just…get rid of us?”

  “Because the people who are running this thing aren’t soldiers, Melanie. They’re scientists. And I have a feeling we’re still their guinea pigs.”

  The nerves in her stomach tightened painfully. “Then whoever came to my room this afternoon wasn’t just keeping tabs on my movements here in Santa Elena. They may have been watching me for years. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” Melanie glanced around the shadowy patio, wondering if someone was watching them at that very moment. When she’d returned home to her mother all those years ago, she hadn’t been set free at all. She’d simply progressed to a new phase of experimentation. “I feel sick,” she whispered, the reality of the situation settling over her like a fetid smell.

  Lassiter threw some bills on the table and stood. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  A few minutes later, they retraced their steps through the alley. Before they got to her vehicle, Lassiter took her arm and pulled her aside. “I need to ask you something.”

  “What is it?” Melanie asked in alarm.

  “What did you mean last night when you said you had a feeling the ‘other side’ was dangerous? Unstable, I think was how you put it.”

  “It is,” she said in surprise. “It’s one thing to go through a wall or a locked door, but I’ve always known that if I go too far or stay too long, the openings will close up. I won’t be able to get out.”

  He put his hands in his pockets as he gazed down at her. “It’s not like that for me.”

  Her brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no danger for me.”

  “But…I don’t understand.”

  “I think I do. You were a little kid when they took you. Five years old, you said. They must have engineered a different reality for you because of your age. They might have been worried you’d wander too far, become disoriented and not be able to find your way back. Creating an unstable dimension, or the perception of one, was their way of keeping you on a short leash.”

  Melanie leaned against the building and took a deep breath. For a moment, it felt as if a fist had closed around her heart. “You know what, Lassiter? You were right. We’re nothing but animals to these people. Two-legged lab rats. Haven’t you ever wondered why we didn’t ask questions? You said you were told not to, but I don’t really see an oblique command like that stopping someone like you. Besides, you were leaving the military. You could do whatever you wanted. Why didn’t you ask questions? Why didn’t I?”

  “Because we were programmed not to,” he said.

  She nodded, putting a hand to her mouth. “They raped our minds, Lassiter. They used our worst fears against us. They stole our innocence and they turned us into something that doesn’t feel quite human. And we let them because we were too young and frightened to fight them. We were like lambs being led to the slaughter. And now here we both are in Santa Elena, and I can’t help wondering what happens now that we are asking questions.”

  “I think that’s fairly obvious,” Lassiter said darkly. “They’ll try to stop us.”

  “We can’t let them. We have to find out the truth, because if we don’t…” Melanie squeezed her eyes closed as she brought her hands to her ears. “I can still hear them screaming, you know. All those children…what they did to them…to us.” She clenched her fists as she said fiercely, “I hate them. I hate them for what they did to us. They had no right. They stole our childhoods, our minds, our free will…”

  She was shaking so in her rage that Lassiter thought her legs might collapse out from under her. He didn’t know w
hat to say to her. How to calm her. He wasn’t used to dealing with emotions. He’d shut out his own years ago.

  Tentatively, he put a hand on her arm, and when she didn’t pull away, he drew her to him. To his surprise, she melted against him, as if she hadn’t had the offer of comfort in a very long time.

  Her hands tangled in the front of his shirt. “We have to stop them.”

  “That won’t be easy.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care…” She buried her head in his shoulder, and he held her for a very long time.

  MELANIE DIDN’T THINK she’d be able to sleep a wink that night knowing there might be someone other than Lassiter who could come in and out of her room at will. But if he was right and they were being watched—had been watched for years—changing hotels wouldn’t help her. Even going back to the States wouldn’t end the surveillance. All Melanie could do for now was try to find her father and pray he had some answers for her.

  But there were no guarantees that he would. There were no guarantees that he was even still alive. He could have died years ago and whoever sent that last letter to Melanie’s mother could have done so to lure Melanie to Santa Elena. But why? What could they do to her here that they couldn’t have done to her back home? That they hadn’t already done to her?

  The more likely scenario was the one Lassiter had suggested the night before. Someone had followed her to Santa Elena in the hopes that she would lead them to her father. Because no matter how much she might wish it otherwise, Melanie couldn’t help but believe that her father was in this thing up to his neck.

  Shedding her clothes, she climbed into bed, prepared to spend the remainder of the night tossing and turning with an endless parade of questions marching through her head. But surprisingly she soon became drowsy. She closed her eyes as her mind began to drift, and just before she dozed off, she thought about the way Lassiter had held her earlier. Not tightly. Not seductively. Not with even a hint of passion. He’d held her as someone would hold a friend in distress.