Mind's Eye (5 page)

“
Fuck you!
” hissed Radich into the phone, his thoughts as he voiced this sentiment perfectly clear to Hall a half mile away. “
I earned my reputation
.
The problem wasn’t me, it was shitty intel. Powder-puff, my ass. This Hall knows his shit, and he has some major brass balls. And he made me somehow.
How the fuck is that possible?
I didn’t even know I was going to be part of the hunt until an hour ago. I swear I did nothing to tip him off. You better spread the word to stay frosty with this guy, or you’ll have more dead bodies than just Baldino’s.
”

Hall almost slammed into the car in front of him, a white Honda, as it slowed for a red light, and decided to return his full concentration to the road and his current predicament. The light changed to green and the line of cars once again picked up speed.

He needed to ditch Radich’s car as soon as possible. But then what?

An alarm went off in his head. Something was wrong.

He scanned through the hundreds of voices in his mind and found the reason for the alarm in seconds. Another mercenary was approaching in the oncoming lanes and had spotted him and the car.

Hall yanked the wheel to the right, cutting across two lanes like a maniac before screeching into a hairpin right turn, an SUV two lanes over having to swerve halfway onto the sidewalk to avoid a collision. He could read the dismay in the mind of the merc in the oncoming car, who realized he couldn’t weave his way through a dense stream of traffic to make a left turn and follow.

Without further hesitation, the driver sent a high caliber slug through Hall’s side window as he was completing the turn, narrowly missing his torso but taking a chunk of flesh from his upper left arm. Because of the shock and the adrenaline rush from the sound of the window being shot—the safety glass now heavily veined with a spiderweb of cracks and a huge hole in its center—Hall didn’t even realize he had been hit until blood started running down his arm, tickling it.

Hall wiped the familiar red liquid away to inspect the wound, relieved to find the bullet had cut only a shallow groove and his blood loss would be limited, despite appearances. He popped open the glove compartment as he drove and found a small first-aid kit, which wasn’t entirely surprising given Radich’s line of work. He covered the groove in his arm with an industrial-sized bandage and wrapped gauze around it to hold it tight.

He had been driving aimlessly and now found himself on an industrial road. He needed to ditch the car. He had no doubt he could find a tutorial in cyberspace on how to steal a replacement, but he didn’t want to go that route. Radich had called in his position, and his colleagues would be descending on the area like locusts.

Holing up had saved him before. Maybe it could again. If they couldn’t find him in four or five hours, they might have to assume he had slipped the net, in which case he could be almost anywhere, and they would have to extend the boundaries of their search perimeter over a hundredfold.

A gleaming glass office complex, with hundreds of cars parked all around it, appeared on his right. It covered quite a lot of territory but was only two or three stories high. He pulled off and parked the car behind the building, out of sight of the road. He took a deep breath and entered the office building’s first floor.

Hall found himself in a main atrium with fake foliage and a small stream. Very tranquil. Wide glass doors appeared on each of the four sides of the atrium rectangle, beckoning visitors into the lobbies of four different companies in the complex.

The doors on his left had a familiar hand-painted bright red sign,
WeOfficeU
. He had seen their ads. It was an office co-op. With more and more people working freelance these days, there was a greater and greater need for office space and support. Individuals and very small businesses rented out offices by the month, and shared a receptionist, phone systems, parking, and conference room facilities. This allowed sole proprietors and consultants to meet with clients in a state-of-the-art office building, giving them a far more professional and accomplished aura.

WeOfficeU might be ideal, Hall realized. The inhabitants of these offices didn’t all work for the same company, and there was likely a high turnover among tenants, so a stranger in their midst would almost certainly go unnoticed.

He found a nook near some heavy foliage and crouched low, trying to disappear. The arm of the oversized shirt he had taken from Baldino was now soaked in blood, but the flow had largely stopped.

What a sight he must be. Wearing bloodstained clothes that didn’t fit, a two-day growth of stubble, a hair style that could only be achieved by washing your hair in a sink with hand soap and then letting it dry haphazardly while you ran for your life, and various small cuts and bruises. At least he no longer carried an odor that would be offensive to a skunk.

He smiled. You had to look for the silver lining.

He thought he might have to wait until five o’clock, thirty minutes away, when the official business hours of the office were ending, but after only a few minutes of reading the vapid and relentlessly selfish thoughts of the WeOfficeU receptionist, she left her desk to make copies of some paperwork on an expensive copier in an adjoining room.

Hall practically flew through the lobby door, detecting no one else around the reception desk. He walked quietly past the desk and through another door into the main floor. Large office spaces were often filled with impersonal cubicles in the center and offices along the walls for upper management, but the entire point of this business was to provide private offices for individuals, so there were enclosed offices throughout.

Several tenants had their office doors open, but the majority didn’t. Perfect. He avoided the open doors and paced briskly along one wall. He ducked down as one man returned from the bathroom and entered his office, closing the door behind him. It was clear WeOfficeU was thriving and the space was at full capacity.

Hall passed maybe twelve more offices, feeling with his mind for occupants in each case, until he finally found one that was empty; a corner office with a neighbor on one side of it and a tiny kitchen alcove on the other. Hopefully, whoever was renting this office was gone for the day.

Hall thrust open the door, backed into the office, and closed it gently behind him.

He heard a loud intake of air, as though he had just startled someone half senseless, and spun around to face a petite young woman sitting at a desk.

She opened her mouth and prepared to scream.

6

“Don’t scream!” said Hall in desperation. “I’m a friend.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was all he could think of. How had he failed to read her presence here?

The woman at the desk was taken aback by the sheer audacity and incongruity of the statement, which had the desired effect. She held her scream as surprise and panic gave way to rationality, and she reflexively tried to make sense of what Hall had just said.

She was about five foot five and very petite, with raven hair, cut short, a flawless complexion, and an alertness and energy that seemed to gush out of her. Hall judged her to be in her mid to late twenties. She could best be described as cute, but not beautiful. The type who could end up being appealing to a man, or not so much at all, depending on if her personality enhanced her appearance or detracted from it.

And he was still unable to read her, despite the considerable effort he was now making. Thoughts from hundreds of minds in the building were swirling in his head, but hers failed to register in any way.

“A friend?” she repeated in confusion, taking in Hall’s sordid appearance and being far from reassured by it. “I’ve never seen you before in my
life
.”

Hall’s eyes widened. He couldn’t read her mind while she was silent, but when she had spoken he had “heard” the familiar, just-discernible echo of her words. This indicated that he
could
read words from her mind, but only when she focused them enough for imminent speech.

 “Well, yeah . . .” replied Hall. “What I meant was that I’m, um . . .
friendly
. You know. Not a danger. That sort of thing. Wrong office. I’ll just leave now.”

She nodded, a visible look of relief on her face. He didn’t doubt she was relieved. It wasn’t every day that a man who looked like he had been through a war barged into her office. Who could blame her for being happy to see him go?

And then her hopeful look changed to one of horror, as if she had seen a ghost, but only for an instant. She quickly flashed him an awkward smile to cover up her reaction, but he had caught the movement of her eyes just before her expression had changed.

She had seen the handle of the Glock sticking out of his waistband.

What incredibly bad luck! Not only had this freaked her out—and rightly so—it also ensured she would call the police the second he left her office.

“You saw my gun, didn’t you?” he said with a sigh, and this had the effect of ratcheting up the girl’s fear even higher. She shook her head no, looking as though she was certain she was about to be killed by a psychopath.

“Look, I promise you that you won’t get hurt. Really. I’ll leave, and it’ll be like I was never here. But before I do, I need
you
to promise not to try to make my life more difficult after I’m gone.” He rolled his eyes.
As if it’s even possible for my life to
get
more difficult
, he thought.

“I won’t,” she assured him. “I promise. Absolutely!” she added emphatically.

Hall decided he needed to level with her. It was the only way. He reached over and locked the door. He could no longer rely a hundred percent on his psi ability to warn him of approaching minds. The woman in front of him was living proof of that. She shrank back in ill-disguised terror. Hall shook his head. Locking the door
before
he tried to win her over wasn’t exactly putting her at ease.

“Let me explain what’s going on. And then I’ll leave. Okay?”

She nodded.

He took a deep breath, knowing that honesty in this case would only make things worse, since no more ridiculous story had ever been told. If he was fast enough on his feet to think of a plausible lie that could win her trust, he would have tried it, although he suspected the entire point about winning trust was actually
telling the truth
. Besides, his mind reading, limited though it was in her case, should be able to turn skepticism into belief in a hurry.

“I woke up about two hours ago in a . . .” He paused for several seconds. Finally, wincing, he came out with it. “Okay. I woke up in a dumpster. Which doesn’t exactly make me James Bond, I guess.”

She tried to keep her face impassive, but a hint of disbelief and disgust flashed over her features.

“Wait,” he continued, as though even he was having trouble believing what he was saying, “it gets worse. I returned to consciousness without any memory of how I came to be there.” He sighed heavily. “Actually, without any memory of who I am at all. Total amnesia.”

She studied him closely, as though if she stared at him intensely enough, she could somehow peel back any deceit.

“I managed to wash myself pretty well and get a change of clothes,” he continued, nodding toward his outfit. “Which obviously don’t fit all that well.” He smiled. “But trust me, anything beats clothing that has spent time in a dumpster.”

She faked a smile back at him as he continued. “And somebody—who hired a
group
of somebodies—wants me dead. They don’t want to rob me, or talk to me. They simply want to kill me. And as soon as possible. I took the gun you saw from one of the people after me. I came in here to lie low, since I stupidly forgot to take the cell phone from the last guy I stopped from killing me, and he called in my position.”

“That’s
terrible
,” said the girl, trying to sound sincere but failing miserably. Hall wasn’t sure of her occupation, but it wasn’t acting. “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

Hall shook his head. “Look, I know you don’t believe me. How could you? You’re sure to think I’m insane. Believe me, I thought the same thing. I want an open exchange. I promise not to hurt you, but I want you to be skeptical until I can convince you. I won’t hold it against you. So let’s have a dialogue. Ask questions so I can satisfy you that I’m being honest.”

“Okay,” she said guardedly, trying to figure out how best to play this invitation. “Any idea
why
they’re trying to kill you? And how is it that you’ve been able to survive against trained killers?”

“The answer is the same to both of these questions. I discovered when I came to in the dumpster that I can . . . well, I can read minds. I’m sure it’s something I couldn’t do before.”

“Uh-huh. So you’re reading my mind right now?”

Hall frowned. “Actually, no. You’re the exception to the rule. The one person out of hundreds whose mind is closed to me. I don’t know why.”