Designed with a Destiny (23 page)

“Don’t you dare pull a stunt like that again
Harrington,” she warns, although something about the way she
readily grabs her coat tells me that she’s pleased about being
invited.

***

Zane informs us that contrary to popular
belief the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker, once the command
center for the United States Northern Command, and the Air Force
Space Command is still quite active. “And not just as a movie set
for Hollywood films,” he smirks. “A few years back, they agreed to
lease certain areas of the complex to private businesses and one of
the companies that paid a small fortune for a ten-year-lease was a
company by the name of Zodiac Oil and Gas—one of the largest
producers in the Bakken Oil Field. My father was a private
shareholder and personal friend of the CEO—Reginald Hocking, who
happens to also be a non-operating partner in the joint venture
Burlington Railroad. His office is in one of the fifteen
freestanding buildings that makes up the inner complex. There’s
only two other private businesses leasing space right now, and the
rest is still used by the military for covert operations.”

“It can’t be too classified if they’re
sharing operating space with civilians,” Natalie questions.

“Oh you’d be surprised what the government
does right under our noses,” he says cynically, reminding me of
Elizabeth. “Besides the fact that my father and Hocking had
developed business relationships with many of the higher ranked
military officials, the complex is like a small underground city
taking up about five thousand acres. The public sector is confined
to the north entrance and only two of the fifteen buildings. Each
of the buildings are separated by access tunnels that have their
own unique security. What happens in the back of the complex, in
the other thirteen buildings near the south entrance is anyone’s
guess.”

“Is Hocking involved in the kidnappings?”
Ronan asks quietly.

“No way. The guy is a straight-laced Mormon.
My father used to joke that if Reggie knew half of what he was
involved with, he’d no longer speak to him. I suspect my father cut
a deal with the military side to temporarily take in Chord,” Zane
says.

“So where do we begin to look for Chord—do
we take the north entrance or the south?” I ask impatiently.

“We take the north, and Harrington gets us
in to the offices of Zodiac Oil. My remote travel abilities won’t
work from outside the complex, but once we’re inside, I should be
able to search every other building. After I locate Chord we’ll
figure out the best way to get to him and get us all out.” Ronan
answers my question with the self-assurance I’m looking for and I
lean back in the seat next to him, resting my head on his
shoulder.

“Oh I don’t know, I was thinking we should
go directly to the south entrance, have Natalie take off her
clothes to distract and entertain the guards out front while we
sneak inside. Once inside, Cat releases the idea of fire ants down
everyone else’s pants, which take it from me, will have them
dancing out of their boots, and you Callahan can rescue Chord while
I distract Lieutenant Eckhart with a game of chess and bourbon on
the rocks. It’s much more James Bondish, and would probably be a
lot quicker,” Zane says with a bemused grin on his face. I catch
Natalie biting her lip to keep from smiling.

She recovers quickly though and purses her
lips, like she's thinking seriously about his plan. “Nope that
really won’t work because I don’t have matching bras and panties,”
she plays along.

“What—no matching…? He looks shocked. “I
guess I’d better take you shopping when we get back, but until
then, you’ll just have to strip down to the buff,” he says, shaking
his head as if it’s completely unfortunate. She rolls her eyes, and
slugs him in the arm, acting disgusted which probably would have
provoked him to keep up the banter, except I think she actually
hurt him judging by the way he’s rubbing his arm. Ronan looks down
at me and sighs. I can see he’s not in the mood for their
flirtatious interplay and I quickly smile to let him know that I’m
good with it. Finding Chord isn’t necessarily either of their
concerns yet Zane was tested to the limits today and he amazingly
delivered. He’s earned the trust to make light of my situation and
I don’t take it personally in the least. In fact, I find his
interest in Natalie healthy and reassuring. I didn’t really believe
that his declaration of love for me was anything serious, but now
as I watch the two of them teasing each other, I can see that
there’s potential in their friendship by the way their energy
fields fuse together in the space between them. It’s certainly
nothing like Brandon and Sophia’s, but it’s a start
nonetheless.

As soon as we take the exit road leading to
the north entrance of the bunker both of them become very serious
again, and the atmosphere in the car changes dramatically. Their
sudden level of nervousness leaves no question that they’re well
aware of what’s at stake.

“Cat, he needs to see the license plate
number of DUB551,” Zane says as we’re stopped just outside the
tunnel entrance and immediately approached by an attendant with a
clipboard in his hand.

“Hello Sir, your name and your driver’s
license please” he says, glancing briefly around the inside of the
car. Zane flips his driver’s license on the clipboard, and says,
“Zane Harrington, here to see Mr. Hocking of Zodiac Oil.” His
casual name-dropping of the CEO whether necessary or not, has a
positive effect as the attendant seems to speed up the check-in
process, while Zane impatiently drums his fingers on the steering
wheel. He’s as good as Ronan when it comes to portraying himself as
an inconvenienced business tycoon who feels he’s above the same
rules that apply to everyone else. I guess it sort of helps that in
some ways he is.

License plate number is DUB551,
I
relentlessly reiterate to the attendant, following him with a halo
of energy particles that’s much more concentrated with Ronan
holding my hand. He walks to the back of the car and takes down the
number, then returns to Zane’s window and hands him the clipboard
for a signature. From the backseat I can just make out the faint
smile playing at the corner of Zane’s mouth as he signs his name,
and I let out a sigh of relief.

“Not a bad start—at least they won’t trace
the car back to the Williams,” Zane says, pleased with our progress
so far. He leads us through two open concrete and steel blocks
which he doesn’t really need to announce are twenty-five ton blast
doors. We take a left into a side tunnel that he says branches off
into four access tunnels, the first leading to the Zodiac offices.
Ronan immediately goes in to a trance like state, remote traveling
to scout the area out ahead of us, then stops us midway in the
tunnel and lowers his voice.

“There’s a band of armed military entering
building three from the back. They’re coming for us—now what?”

Zane grins mischievously. “We let them.”

The lobby of building three is richly
decorated in exotic wood furnishings, and expensive art work. The
artificial plants look tasteful even though logically they don’t
make sense in an underground tunnel. Within seconds of entering,
the sound of footsteps can be heard approaching us and a group of
uniformed military bursts through one of the doors leading from the
office. A short, barrel-chested officer doesn’t bother asking
questions, he simply orders us to follow him, while the rest of the
soldiers surround us in an attempt to prevent an escape.

“Where are you taking us?” Natalie demands
as we’re transported to a cylinder concrete access tunnel which has
signs for buildings eleven through fifteen.

“Mr. Hocking requested the military’s
assistance to have you escorted from his building,” he grunts. I
bite my tongue not to inform him that he’s full of shit because I
happened to catch Mr. Hocking in his office—extremely preoccupied
with a pretty young blonde on his lap, who looks far too young to
be his wife. One of the drawbacks of remote traveling is that I’m
bound to stumble on scenes I’d rather not witness, however it
doesn’t discourage me now from exploring every office along the way
to wherever they’re taking us. With Cat by my side, gently guiding
me through the concrete tunnels, it’s easier to pay closer
attention to what’s happening in the areas around us, and less to
where my physical body is being led. I learned the hard way in my
near drowning event that it’s never a good idea to abandon the
physical body completely unless you have someone trustworthy to
look after things. So far, I see no signs of Chord, but then again,
I still have about four thousand acres worth of buildings to
search.

“Have a seat in here,” one of the officers
opens a door to a conference room and ushers us inside. Two stay,
three leave. I invisibly tag along with the three and end up in a
command center where they report to an Air Force Lieutenant
Colonel. He’s facing a wall with four large screens mounted on it,
all monitoring different affairs—world news, military radar of air
traffic, satellite weather, and now the conference room where the
four of us are being held.

“It must be the brunette—she looks just like
him. There’s been rumors that she’d turn up looking for him
eventually. She’s with the one who looks like a zombie—the guy must
be loaded—she’s got a rock on her left hand that probably cost as
much as my first house. I wonder if I stand a chance with the red
head…” the officer blabbers on to the Lieutenant Colonel trying
unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation about us. The Colonel is
too engrossed in watching us to even dismiss the lower ranked
airman and while I’d normally love to see someone shove a sock in
the mouth of a guy like him, I’m hoping they let him continue to
blab. If allowed to go long enough, there’s a good chance he’ll
lead me straight to Chord.

“Carter make yourself useful and get Kennedy
in here for the interrogation!” he finally orders, showing the
appropriate level of annoyance. “These kids will be eating right
out of the palm of my hands before we’ve finished,” the Lieutenant
Colonel chuckles at what he envisions to be a grand slam victory
for the person who must have a fairly good track record of
extracting information from people.

The color screening of everyone I’ve seen so
far, surprisingly isn’t half bad. While no one color screens
yellow, dark orange is good compared to those we encountered at
Area 51—the staff there barely made it into the blue range.
Whatever the Colonel is after, it can’t be too perverse—not to
mention if he had any real idea of what we’re capable of, he
wouldn’t be messing around with a silly interrogation in the first
place. Leaving the command center, I join the others and settle
back in my physical body to wait for the person by the name of
Kennedy, postponing my search for Chord. Carter was right about one
thing—I do sort of look like a zombie when I’m remote traveling,
and with the Colonel scrutinizing our actions, it’s better to be
present during our questioning.

“
We’re being video monitored from the
command center and they’re sending someone in to interrogate
us,”
I inform Natalie and Cat telepathically leaving Zane to
figure it out for himself. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to
learn how to communicate the Designer way if he’s going to be
involved with covert operations such as these. It’s not
impossible—after all, Lawrence taught himself the technique.

“
Hmm, interrogation huh? This could be
fun?”
Natalie proposes in the form of a question, cocking her
head to one side, as if trying to make up her mind whether or not
it will be.

***

Kennedy Malcom stands about five feet, nine
inches with the two-inch heels she’s wearing. Her black suit is
starched and ironed to perfection, not a single wrinkle noted. She
smiles and introduces herself, while placing a tray of beverages on
the table in front of us, then sends the two military men to fetch
us some snacks from the vending machine even though we all
declined. She looks no older than mid-twenties, even with her dark
blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, and wire-rimmed glasses
that she wears on the tip of her nose, in what I think is an effort
to make herself look more mature than she really is. All of us are
a little taken aback by the woman sent to interview us, not because
she’s young, beautiful, and soft-spoken—even though these aren’t
the characteristics you would expect of a top military
interrogator. No—the most intriguing thing about Ms. Malcom is the
fact that she color screens pure gray.

“Is it just me, or does it suddenly seem
gray and gloomy in here?” Zane murmurs out loud, cryptically trying
to get a second opinion on his color screening impression. Had I
not felt a drag in energy the minute she walked in the room, I
would have questioned my visual assessment of her character just as
Zane does now. The corner of Kennedy’s mouth turns upward in a
faint smirk, but otherwise she ignores the comment.

“Yep,” we all answer at once.
“Talk about
a wolf in sheep’s clothing,”
Cat comments mentally as Kennedy
takes a seat at the far end of the table, opposite of us, and pulls
a file out of her briefcase. She carefully studies the papers, her
head bent over them in such a way, that my remote travel birds-eye
view is completely blocked. As the minutes tick by, all four of us
begin to squirm a little in our seats. I’m torn as to whether I
should call this off and bust us out of here or let it play out a
little longer. Admittedly, the circumstances have me weirdly
intrigued as it must the others—no one else is petitioning for a
jail break either. Zane reaches for the pitcher of ice tea and
pours four glasses, handing one to each of us. I don’t realize how
thirsty I am until the ice cold liquid hits the back of my throat,
then I gulp down the whole glass and reach for seconds, filling
both mine and Cat’s glasses before passing it to Natalie who does
the same.