Trial Run (9 page)

R
eese entered the facility's central atrium. The entire building was windowless. The threat of claustrophobia was lessened by muted colors and sweeping ceilings and inward-facing balconies. The sense of space was deceptive. Each segment of the building was tightly restricted. The absence of patrols meant nothing. Every corner, every inch, was monitored.

She found Karla, her chief techie, drinking coffee with Jeff, her security chief. Karla Brusius was half German, half Persian. She had been raised by her father, a mathematician at the University of Cologne. Her mother had returned to Tehran when Karla was nine, searching for a sister who had been picked up by the religious police. Karla's mother was never heard from again. Her father had never stopped mourning. Karla had attended the University of Maryland in an attempt to escape her father's suffocating sorrow, which was where she had been recruited. Her hatred for the Revolutionary Council was cold, reptilian, unending.

Karla greeted her with, “The colonel is in the Treatment Room.”

Reese already knew that. “Let's take a walk.”

As they started away, the security chief said, “The natives are getting restless.”

“Good.” This was what Reese had been waiting for. But she couldn't allow herself to be diverted just now. Not with her job on the line. “Take them to the Departures Lounge. Get them ready for one more trial run. Tomorrow we'll test their limits.”

Reese had been assigned the building's second and third floors. Her section included a self-contained dormitory, security rooms, labs, electronic monitor stations, and the area known as the Departures Lounge. No one had anticipated needing the additional rooms where she was now headed. Perhaps they should have. But hindsight was for the bureaucrats warming chairs in Washington. Here on the front line, you played the hand you were dealt. The upshot was, one unexpected segment of Reese's group was now located in jury-rigged rooms on the ground floor. Needless to say, these new rooms were where the Washington brass visited first.

She went through the process of vocal and retinal scans before being passed through the two sets of doors. The hospital odors that awaited her were a silent and constant rebuke. As were the pair of hard faces that ignored her approach. “I wasn't expecting to see you today, Colonel.”

“You're not the only item on my agenda, Clawson.” He used his chin to point through the glass wall. “I see you've managed to lose another trial subject.”

Reese turned to stare through the plate-glass wall. She had no need to study the supine figures in the row of beds. She saw them in her sleep. She simply wanted to divert her attention away from the man. “No one is lost, Colonel.”

“Dress it up in whatever fancy term you want. We've still got another body to account for. How many does that make?”

“I assume you can count.”

“You might think your buddies on Capitol Hill have got your back. But soon as I complete my report, they'll see this for the debacle it is.” Colonel Mark Morrow was a human bulldog, right down to the stubby square build and the face that was all jaw and bad attitude. “Nothing would bring me more pleasure than to have you brought up on felony charges. You and all your team. You hear what I'm saying, Clawson? Delighted.”

“I still have four days.”

“That's right. You do. Enjoy them while you still can.” He tapped his Marine Corps ring on the window, pointing to the comatose figures by the nurse's station. “You cost me two of the few and the proud.”

“You ordered me to use those soldiers as trial subjects, Colonel. Against my express—”

“Four days from now, Clawson, I'm gunning for you. Coming, Kevin?”

“In a minute.”

“Don't waste your time with this one, that's my advice. I don't care who she knows or who she might have once been. Four days from now, she's toast.” Colonel Morrow marched down the hall.

Kevin Hanley pointed at the two empty beds at the room's far end. “Expecting more casualties?”

“We're doing the final set of trials this morning. It's where we lost the others.”

“Are you sure it's worth the risk?” He surveyed the nine beds. “I mean, how many failures does it take for you to raise the white flag?”

Reese hesitated. Kevin Hanley was a mystery. She had accessed his file and found whole years had simply been expunged. The man had apparently spent his life dealing on the borderlands between national intel and private industry. He was trained as an electrical engineer and had worked on a dozen different projects, mostly related to cryptography and code breaking. That was just what she had been able to access.

Kevin had the ability to vanish in plain sight. He was in his late forties and stood an inch under six feet. He was slightly overweight
and tended toward ill-fitting jackets and mismatched ties. Reese knew he was divorced, with two sons who lived with their mother in Chevy Chase. Kevin had the bland features of a pudgy little boy who had never fully grown up. There was nothing to suggest he was anything more than a bureaucrat with scientific training who was now grinding out the years until he could pull his pin and vanish from the face of the earth.

Except for the missing years.

Which was why Reese decided to reveal, “They're not all failures.”

That turned him around. “What?”

“We have the initial components of a team.”

“Why haven't I heard about this?”

“Because there is success and there is success. And I don't want the colonel out there running around the Pentagon, shouting about half measures.”

He nodded slowly. “You're trusting me with a lot here.”

“That's right, Kevin. I am.”

His smile was perhaps the most attractive thing about him. “If I can get rid of the colonel, you mind if I come by, watch you in action?”

She thought that one over, decided, “This time, day after tomorrow. Upstairs.”

“Thanks. Appreciate it.” Kevin started to pat her shoulder as he departed, then thought better of it and made do with a nod.

Reese spent another few minutes gazing at the room beyond the glass wall. It had been intended as a lecture hall. Now it held eleven beds, two of which were still vacant. The other nine held six men and three women. They were all hooked up to identical equipment. Reese could hear the beeping monitors through the glass partition. At the room's far end, a bored nurse sat behind her desk and turned the pages of
Vogue
. Her nine charges were all stable. Their heart rate monitors chimed almost in cadence. Their breathing was steady.

Beside her, Karla murmured, “Why won't they wake up?”

Reese did not respond.

Karla said, “Where do you think they are?”

She glanced at the techie. Karla Brusius was not particularly attractive and did little to improve the basic components. Her brown gaze was framed by large tortoise-shell eyeglasses that had gone out of style thirty years ago. Reese could not have cared less. Karla was loyal, diligent, and very sharp.

Reese said, “We've got four days to find out.”

C
harlie Hazard dreamed of Gabriella's eyes.

He and Elizabeth flew cattle class from Zurich to Los Angeles. Charlie had a professional soldier's ability to sleep under almost any conditions, which was good, because their departure had left them little time for rest. The instant their flight hit cruising altitude, Charlie cranked his seat back as far as it would go, which wasn't much. He shut his eyes and was gone.

In his dream, he spoke to a new member of their team. Most of the male subjects tracked Gabriella's every movement, their expressions a unified plea for her to make them her very own personal lap dog. In his dream, Charlie talked with one such subject. Charlie shared what he found most enchanting about the lady, how her eyes held an almost Oriental cast, an upward slant framed by perfect cheekbones and hair like spun onyx. He was pointing out the long eyelashes, the way her eyes cast languid glances his way, soft invitations to stay close, to care for her, to be her favored protector. Then the dream altered, a quiet flash of insight, and Charlie was standing before her. Just the two of
them now, and Gabriella stood revealed. He saw how her aloofness was essential to holding their team together. She cared for everyone and was there for them all. Whatever she wanted at heart level was secondary to what the team required.

In his dream, Charlie spoke with a force that resonated through his entire being, a gentle grenade of insight. He said, “You will never be mine.” And she responded as he knew she would, with the same look, the same yearning, the same silent message that she had made her choices long ago. All that was left was for him to make his own.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that Elizabeth was watching him. “You okay there?”

“Sure.” Charlie dry-scrubbed his face. “Just tired.”

“All of a sudden, you started making sounds like you were crying.” When he did not respond, she dropped his tabletop and slid over a meal. “They came by a while ago with food. I didn't want to wake you. Not for this stuff.”

“Thanks.”

“I got you chicken. It was that or congealed pasta.”

“Chicken is fine.” He was not hungry, but he peeled off the container top and ate anyway. Charlie could feel her eyes on him. He did not mind. They had lived in each other's pockets for almost a year now.

Elizabeth was a biologist who specialized in pharmacology. Her beauty held no welcome, for she met the world sharp-edged and constantly armed. Any trial subject or crew member foolish enough to try their Italian charms was swiftly evaporated. But Charlie found her intelligent, focused, perceptive, utterly trustworthy, a rock in times of crisis. Like now.

She said, “Would you go through that last ascent of yours again?”

“Yes.” He waited until he had finished eating. When the flight attendant passed, he asked for a cup of coffee. He folded his paper napkin and set it on the plate. Elizabeth sat and waited. That was another thing Charlie liked about her. She was utterly comfortable with silence. She showed a warrior's ability to wait.

Charlie described the ascent. He did not mind doing so. This was the fourth time he had talked it through, and each time he thought of something new. The flight attendant returned with his coffee, then another offered them water. Otherwise they were not disturbed. The flight's noise created a cocoon within which they talked in utter privacy.

When he was done, she nodded slowly, then began drawing a design on the tabletop with one finger. “So the power sucking you into this tornado was guilt.”

“Call it remorse. Regret. Sorrow tied to a wrong deed. They all work just as well.”

“I've got to tell you.” Elizabeth spaced out the words. “That really rocks my boat.”

Charlie sipped at his coffee.

“I mean, if anybody has a reason to be trapped by guilt, it's me.”

“Get in line,” Charlie said.

“What if it happened to me next?”

He wanted to offer comfort. But he also wanted to remain honest. All he said was, “We don't know if there ever will be another. We've been working on this now for over a year. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened. The question we need to be asking is, why Brett, and why now?”

Elizabeth kept drawing her invisible design. “Do you think what's happened to me has anything to do with this?”

“I've been wondering about that. I don't see a connection. But it just won't leave me alone. How maybe the timing was important.”

Elizabeth did not speak again for the rest of the flight. They landed in LAX, picked up their luggage, and took a taxi to the airport hotel she had booked for them. As they stood in line for check-in, she asked, “So what's your thinking on the timing issue?”

Charlie had to smile. Eleven hours and six thousand miles, and the woman's laser focus did not waver. “You're the scientist here. You know the drill. You don't discount a possible correlation. But you also don't let coincidence create links that aren't there.”

She waited until they signed in and picked up their keys and were in the elevator to say, “That was the mistake of medieval medics. They tied healings to whatever was closest. And didn't search out the underlying cause.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said. What he thought was, this was a lesson he needed to keep in mind.

They had been assigned rooms next to each other. Charlie slipped his key in the lock and asked, “What's the plan?”

“The ascent was specific. This afternoon at five, I make the first step.”

Charlie's watch read nine in the morning, LA time. “In that case, I think I'll catch a few hours' sleep, then hit the gym.”

“Give me a call, I'll go down with you.” When he started through his door, she added, “Thanks, Charlie. For not making me do this alone. And for not asking questions I can't answer. I mean it. Thanks a lot.”

He turned back. And saw in her expression something he could not identify. “It's what I do.”

Three hours later Charlie woke and phoned Elizabeth's room. He dressed in gym gear and found her waiting in the hallway.

They stopped by the snack cart in the front lobby. Charlie bought her a muffin and a coffee. Elizabeth stood beside him at a narrow circular table. The lobby was on the second floor, above a conference center and a gym that catered to the surrounding businesses. Outside the lobby's massive windows, the sun shone in a pale blue sky. Charlie could see the tops of several dozen imperial palms. The lobby was large and very full and framed in marble. The noise was a cacophony that isolated them completely.

Elizabeth broke off a segment of her muffin and said, “You need to go back and observe Brett in the lead-up to his vanishing act.”

He nodded. “I thought of that.”

A trio of businessmen approached the coffee cart. They paused in
their discussion to inspect Elizabeth. Charlie could understand why. Her gym shorts accented legs that looked sculpted. If the woman carried any excess body fat, he could not see it. Her hair was a silver-blonde spray. She stood very erect, her frame both muscled and intensely feminine. If Elizabeth even saw the businessmen, she gave no sign. “You should probably investigate what Brett was doing before his ascent. See if there's any connection.”

“I asked Massimo and his team to cover that base.”

She broke off another piece of her muffin. “Massimo. Great.”

Elizabeth's attitude toward the Italian students was shared by most of the other team members. The group remained the only ones who could ascend and co-mingle. If they could do anything else, either jointly or individually, no one had identified it. All ascent instructions were ignored in their quest to come together. Otherwise they were friendly, cheerful, and ever eager. They helped the cook and washed dishes and scrubbed floors and broke into song as they worked. The rest of Gabriella's team treated Massimo's group like mascots.

Charlie said, “Give them a specific task, they do just fine.”

Elizabeth lifted her coffee cup and huffed softly.

“Gabriella thinks they are going to play a vital role.”

Elizabeth drank her coffee and did not respond. The whole team knew what Gabriella thought about Massimo and his group. Charlie knew they thought Gabriella doted on them to a ridiculous degree.

Charlie directed them to the rental agency in the hotel lobby and booked a car. Then they went downstairs. The gym was as vast as everything else about the hotel. A battalion of Exercycles and jogging ramps marched down the outer glass wall. Elizabeth draped her towel on an empty Stairmaster, unfolded a warm-up pad, and began stretching. Charlie moved to the free weights. He had no interest in bulking up. He used free weights as part of his own warm-up system. He used light weights and did forty, fifty reps of each position. Shoulders, lats, chest, arms, thighs. Charlie avoided his reflection in the surrounding mirrored walls. He disliked the scars that emerged from his tank top
and the memories that were bound to them with the intensity of flash grenades. A woman on the nearest mat angled toward him and spread her legs, then smiled as she gripped one foot. Charlie wondered if he would ever consider such unwanted offers as anything more than reminders of past mistakes.

When he was sweating and breathing deep, he walked over to the empty space by the mirrored rear wall. The area was clearly designed for exercise classes but was empty now except for a long-legged woman using the bar to perform dancers' stretches. He paced off the free area, his head down, making a careful sweep of how much space he could safely take up. He moved over to the side wall. He stared out the lone window at the sunlit traffic and held the position until his mind cleared. There was no crowd, no blaring music. No room.

He did a series of stomach exercises. Then he began a series of simple strikes, taking it slow, working them like stretches. Charlie held each pose to where his body was forced to find impossible balance. Drawing everything down to the center. To the core. Planting himself in the earth of LA. Being entirely where he was.

He moved into a series of katas. Gradually he accelerated. Allowing himself to extend his reach, flying up on the kicks, launching himself fully now. Spinning and weaving until the light took shape and became his adversaries, and even they could not match his speed.

He finished by decelerating, then moving back into simple strikes, then a series of stretches. A long continuous flow that he maintained until his breathing and his heart rate were back to normal. At which point he realized the entire gym was watching him.

Elizabeth stepped off her machine, wiped her face with the towel, and walked over. “Ready to go?”

They had the elevator to themselves. They were silent until Elizabeth pointed at a spot above Charlie's collarbone where the sweat-drenched T-shirt revealed a deep cavity. “What caused that?”

“IED. Iraq, sixteen klicks from the Syrian border.” Normally Charlie hated any attention drawn to his various injuries. But something about this woman and her conflicting mix of feminine beauty and prickly strength erased his normal reserve. “I had been up country for less than a week. We went out on patrol. Benny Calfo, my NCO, was on point. He claims I smelled the blast before it happened. I remember a click. Benny swears there wasn't any sound. I shoved him into a ditch. I caught a frag.”

“Those burn marks on your neck are from the blast?”

“Some of them. The rest are from a traffic accident.” The one that had killed his wife.

The elevator doors opened. Elizabeth followed him down the hall. When he stopped in front of his door, she said, “You don't have any idea at all, do you.”

“Sorry, I don't track you.”

She punched the plastic key into her door, like she was angry. Furious. With him. “You want to step in here a minute?”

“I should shower.”

“This won't take long.” She didn't wait but entered the room. When Charlie followed her inside, he found her standing in the middle of the room. Her arms were banded about her middle so tightly her shoulders and her neck were corded and bunched. Charlie figured he was about to catch incoming fire. But for the life of him he could not figure out what he had done wrong.