A Glimpse of Evil (34 page)

So far I was following. The air force had lost a drone. Got it.

“It is not unheard of for the operating systems on these aircraft to fail, and because these drone are very expensive to replace, as well as the importance of what this particular drone was carrying, an extensive search was immediately conducted to retrieve whatever remained of the drone and its cargo.”

I looked at Dutch; he was focused on Tanner in a way that suggested there might be something more to this missing-drone story. “After we combed through the area where the drone was believed to have crashed, no evidence of it could be found, which is why the military began to suspect the pilot’s story.”

A little way down from me and to the right, the lieutenant colonel who’d come with Gaston to recruit me in Austin shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Into the slight pause that followed Tanner’s last statement, he said, “I personally requested that the pilot come in for a polygraph. But when he failed to show up, we went looking for him. We found him on the floor of his shower, shot through the head at point-blank range.”

“Suicide?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No,” he told me.

“Obviously, we no longer suspect there was an operational issue with the drone,” Tanner added. “We believe the pilot was coerced or bribed into delivering our drone into enemy hands.”

I furrowed my brow. Why was one missing drone causing so much uproar?

Gaston seemed to read my mind, because he spoke next. “It’s more than just a missing drone,” he told me. “Agent Tanner, why don’t we allow Professor Steckworth to explain?”

Gaston’s eyes had settled at the end of the table on a small man with salt-and-pepper hair and a nose much too big for his small square face. He cleared his throat when all eyes turned to him, and nodded to Tanner, who clicked her remote to project another slide on the screen. It was a photo of a man young enough to be a college student; he was somewhat unremarkable in appearance, except for the fact that enveloping him on all sides was the most beautiful cloud of color I’d ever seen. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, already understanding what I was looking at.

“Do you know what you’re seeing?” Professor Steckworth asked, staring keenly at me.

I nodded. “You’ve captured the image of his aura.” In my mind’s eye, when I focused only on the young man in the photo, I too saw a cloud of color, though it wasn’t nearly as vivid as what I was seeing on the screen.

Professor Steckworth smiled. “Yes, very good, Ms. Cooper. Your own abilities allow you to see auras, I take it.”

“Well . . .” I hesitated, not wanting everyone to assume my eyesight was clogged with images of color, color everywhere. “It’s less that I
see
them and more that I sense them in my mind’s eye. If I close my own eyes and focus, I can imagine, if you will, what someone’s aura looks like.”

“Excellent,” Steckworth said, and I noticed a few knowing glances exchanged around the table before the professor motioned to Agent Tanner, and she clicked forward again . . . and again . . . and again, and in every slide was the picture of another person wearing a different set of colors that varied in degrees of intensity and vibrancy. I knew why they were showing me the photos. “Each one is unique to the person,” I said. “Like a fingerprint.”

Professor Steckworth nodded again. “Indeed.” He then seemed to want to talk at length and looked to Tanner, who nodded to him. “You see, twenty years ago, I had the most astonishing encounter with a woman who claimed to be psychic. I was working on my PhD at the time, and her abilities so impressed me that I made her the focus of my thesis.

“This woman was also an artist, and for a mere pittance, she would paint your portrait and include your individual aura. Of the hundreds of portraits I viewed of hers, no two were alike, and that began my quest to see if I could prove that auras really existed.

“What I discovered was that each and every human being emits a certain electromagnetic frequency made up of individual wave patterns unique to that person—no two frequencies are alike, not even with identical twins. I then worked with the psychic to match colors to each wavelength and was able to develop a digital photography software to capture the overall effect. I call the system Intuit.”

“Amazing,” I whispered, completely fascinated by the photos and the professor’s story.

The professor took a sip of water and continued. “As my research and applications turned more promising, the air force became more and more intrigued, and when I needed funding to continue Intuit’s development, they provided me all I needed in return for the exclusive use of the system. Even then I could see the far-reaching benefits of my research, and as a former marine, I readily agreed.

“Along the way to developing Intuit, I made several key discoveries using the software, which could prove most useful to our national security. What my research team and I discovered was that when we scanned in a still photograph of test subjects, our software was unable to detect or produce an aura image. However, when we scanned in a
video
image, the software
was
able to capture the aura.” The next slide showed a short clip of an infamous terrorist, and it left me stunned. The United States’ Public Enemy Number One was surrounded by a bubble of color—mostly gray, black, and red, and then my own intuitive radar began to put the pieces together. “The drone was carrying Intuit,” I whispered.

In answer there was a click, and the next slide revealed an areal view of that same air base from before, and on the ground were little blobs of vivid color.

I gasped.

“Jesus!” whispered Dutch.

“The drone was carrying the only prototype of the technology as well as a homing device and a small dummy missile,” said Professor Steckworth. “We dubbed the prototype Intuit Tron, and it had reached its final testing phase before being deployed on the morning it disappeared. This is the last image it recorded in fact.”

The professor fell silent, and in the room, you could have heard a pin drop, but then Tanner clicked the remote again and a clip of our president’s last State of the Union Address began playing. Two seconds in, I saw the man I’d voted for and fully supported surrounded by a huge bubble of brilliant blue, green, and lavender. In that moment I believe my heart skipped several beats, and my stomach felt like it had fallen down to my toes. There was another click, and the slide moved to a clip of the British prime minister, then the French president, and on and on with each allied national leader’s aura vividly portrayed.

It took me several seconds to realize I’d stopped breathing.

The lights came on then, and I squinted in the brightness, while my mind raced with the possible horrible implications of having this particular technology in the wrong hands. “Now do you understand why your country so desperately needs someone with your talents, Ms. Cooper?” asked Tanner

“Yes, ma’am,” I said gravely. “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

“Good,” she said. “Then let’s get started. . . .”

 

 

Abby Cooper is a psychic intuitive. And trying to help the police solve crimes seems like a good enough idea—but it could land her in more trouble than even she could see coming.

 

 

Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com

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THE FIRST BOOK IN THE
GHOST HUNTER
MYSTERY SERIES

 

 

 

Don’t miss the first adventure in the series starring M.J. Holiday, a sassy psychic medium who makes a living by helping the dead.

 

 

 

Available wherever books are sold or
at
penguin.com