Authors: Vicki Hinze
Sara lay on a gurney
in a room absent of anything that wasn’t white. She had regained consciousness a short time ago, but she kept her eyes closed. Her thoughts were scrambled, though not nearly to the extent Jarrod had suffered. She owed him for that. He had gone into this blind, and because he had, he’d given her the ammunition to fight them. She wasn’t a hundred percent, but she was going to be okay. She had suffered their worst and survived.
And now she knew what was being done and who was doing it, though not why. Using a combination of psychological-warfare tactics, sensory-deprivation therapies, and noninvasive microwave laser technology capable of stimulating specific thoughts, Dr. Owlsley was pushing the boundaries. His strategy was simple and effective. Strip a person of dignity, defenses, and any sense of control, and then, via laser, see what parts of their brains are active and what triggers a desired emotional response.
Her mind drifted. Sara didn’t fight it. The gurney was moving, rolling out of the building. The sun felt warm on her face.
A helicopter’s props whipped in the distance. The sound moved closer and closer. The gurney tilted. They were putting her inside, taking her back to Braxton.
Jarrod was at Braxton. Alive and waiting for her. She knew it deep down, with every beat of her heart. If he were dead, she would sense it, know it, and she didn’t. She knew he was alive
. . .
and worried. He would help her until she was normal again. He was safe. Safe. She could rest.
Sara awakened.
Her mind was clearer. Not right. Not totally coherent. But better than it had been earlier. The medications were wearing off. Whatever they had been, they were short-term. Now, she had to worry about triggers. Jarrod’s had been colors and keywords. What were hers? Did she have any?
She tried to orient to her surroundings without opening her eyes. Vibrating. The sounds of the whirring props. Smells of fuel and aircraft. Still on the helicopter.
“She doing okay?”
Sara recognized the woman’s voice. She had watched Sara shower.
“Fine,” a man answered. “Just sleeping off the medication. We like to keep them quiet during transport. Dealing with episodic rage at fifteen thousand feet isn’t our idea of a good time.”
“She’s no threat,” the woman assured him. “She’s a vegetable.”
Good, Sara thought. They were convinced. Episodic rage at any altitude sucked, but especially when it was suffered as the result of abused noninvasive microwave laser technology. Sara had read the preliminary hopes for the technology, and it had brimmed with the promise of saving thousands of lives in battle by arousing fear or the desire to surrender in the enemy, making it paramount to survival. But used improperly, pushing patients beyond their limits of endurance, the technology permanently impaired, inflicted severe and irreversible mental dysfunction. It reduced a vibrant, vital human being to a vegetative state. Fathers and husbands and sons. Men like David. Like Lou, and ADR-40.
David had been a victim early on in the research. Then the men had started getting better—coming out of the therapy less severely damaged. But once again, the pattern shifted, and each man suffered more than the last, left IWPT more damaged than the one before him.
Why?
Sara again drifted. Heard the drone of the propellers turning, the voice of the pilot talking into a radio to ground control. Ground control’s static-ridden response.
It was almost as if Owlsley had to hurry. She remembered the yellow cast to his skin and asking him if he’d had liver function studies done lately. He was ill; that much was obvious. But was his illness the reason for rushing his research, or was his contract about to expire? Or was it corruption? Maybe he intended to sell the technology, and he had an impatient buyer. Men had done worse for greed.
Greed.
Money. Fontaine. Research money. Facility money.
Sara thought back to the conversation she had overheard on first standing in Fontaine’s office. He had been on the phone, raging at Carl Owlsley about a lack of money and demanding more of it.
Owlsley
could
be pushing the bounds, attempting to gain more research funds. But to gain any real money, he would have to sell the technology.
Dear God, he was going to black-market the technology. Maybe that’s why Foster hadn’t shut the operation down.
If anyone with the technology needed an assassin, by using the laser to trigger aggressive behavior, they’d have one. Effecting assassinations didn’t fit the profiles of what she had read about Owlsley, or with her observations of the award-winning egomaniac Fontaine. Yet, she could see either of them selling this new technology on the black-market. To secure their personal agendas, they would deny—even to themselves—what would be done with the technology once it had been sold.
It fit. God help them all, this black-market sale made sense. She let out an inadvertent groan.
“Was that her—the noise?”
“No. She’s a vegetable, I told you.”
Someone listened to her heart with a stethoscope, and she felt yet another needle sting in her arm.
Within minutes, the mild confusion returned and, exhausted, Sara took advantage of the time to rest. Soon, she would have to feign severe impairment. For now, she would take solace in knowing Jarrod had endured worse, and he had survived. She would survive, too.
Sara came around slowly.
The gurney was rolling down a bumpy path. They were outside. She smelled the god-awful pines. Cranking open an eyelid, she saw Shank pushing the gurney.
“I told you,” Fontaine said from behind Sara. “She never arrived at IWPT for training, Shank. Local authorities found her in her car about twelve miles from there. They contacted IWPT because she was in uniform, and it was the nearest facility. No one saw anything, and no one knows what happened to her. The AID—a Lieutenant Kane—is investigating.”
Lieutenant Kane? The enemy. Was he one of Foster’s men? Either way, Foster was investigating. Foster. Should she rejoice, or mourn?
Lieutenant Kane had known about Shadow Watchers and Red Haze. That
had
to have come from Foster. She should mourn.
Sadly, but definitely, she should mourn.
Shank got a sleeping Sara settled into a room on the second floor.
As soon as the falsely concerned Fontaine left for his quarters and she had verified it, Shank left Reaston watching over Sara and made a beeline for Joe.
Koloski was on duty in Isolation. For that, Shank felt grateful. She’d just as soon shoot William as to deal with him or his antics right now. “Buzz me through, Koloski,” she said, not slowing her hurried steps.
She passed the heavy metal doors and rushed down the hallway to Joe’s room. As soon as the alarm sounded, she shoved the door open. “Sara’s back. Fontaine’s saying she never got to IWPT.”
“What?” Jarrod jumped to his feet.
“It’s bull.” Shank motioned for him to come with her. “Sara’s drugged to the gills.”
Reaching into the torn-out cave between the wall pad and Sheetrock, he asked the question he feared being answered. “Is she okay, otherwise?” He pulled out a pair of sneakers and jerked them on, heading toward the door.
“Mildly confused,” Shank said, following him out of the door. “I think it’s more medication than damage, thank God. At least, it looks that way. Orders say she’s a vegetable, but she’s not. She’s slurring her words, and her thoughts are pretty random. She was resting when I left.”
“You left her alone?” Jarrod doubled his stride.
“Of course not. Reaston’s guarding her. Fontaine’s in his quarters, but Mick Bush is patrolling, so I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Jarrod passed the metal doors. “We need to get her outside.”
“Now?” Shank sounded stunned.
Jarrod figured she was stunned. “Now, or sooner.” Passing the Plexiglas barrier, he nodded to Koloski, who lifted his hands, questioning. Jarrod gave him a thumbs-up, his hollow heart now full. Sara had survived.
Jarrod pushed Sara out
through the exit door in a wheelchair. When he neared the pond on the stone path, he stopped. She slumped to her side, and Shank pulled the lap belt across Sara’s thighs. Sara whimpered.
“No. No straps.” Jarrod shoved the belt aside. “They strapped her in the chair.”
“Torture?” Shank’s eyes clouded.
Jarrod nodded, and then squatted down in front of the chair. “Sara?” He softened his voice. “Honey, look at me.”
No response.
He kept talking, working at it to keep his worry from his voice, using soothing tones and gentle words, explaining all that had happened.
The more he talked, the less glaze covered Sara’s eyes, and the more horror filled Shank’s. He talked on, until both cleared completely, and Sara was lucid.
“Jarrod.” She reached for him. Hugged him tightly. “You’re not dead.”
A knot swelled in his throat. When he could, he swallowed it down. “I’m fine,” he said, hugging her back, warning himself not to hold her too tight, not to crush her to him. “Are you all right?”
“A little confused,” she said against his neck. “We were right. Dealing with the emotions was the key.”
“Are you sure?” He cupped her face in his hands, saw Shank step away and turn her back, giving them a moment of privacy. “When I got hit with that stun gun, I saw them take you. I couldn’t stop them.” His hands trembled. “Oh, God, Sara. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop them.”
Sara gave him a weak smile, touched his beloved face with her fingertips. “It was you.”
Too emotional to speak, he nodded.
“Shank?” Sara glanced toward her. “Come here.”
Shank rejoined them. “You seem okay. Are you really?”
“I think so. They gave me these injections. I’m not sure what they were, but they caused temporary amnesia. Some were strictly sedatives. At least that’s what they felt like—drug hangover and all.”
“Was it worth it, Sara?” Shank asked. “Going through all of that there?”
“I think so.” Sara looked up at Shank. “I know what they’re doing and who they are. Definitely Owlsley and Fontaine. Maybe Foster. Lieutenant Kane is working for him
and
Owlsley. Kane knew about Shadow Watchers and Red Haze.”
“Foster set you up.” Jarrod frowned, furious. “The son of a—”
Sara interrupted. “I’m ninety percent sure they’re intending a black-market sale of the technology. What I don’t know is to whom, or when.” A thought occurred to Sara. “But Foster might know.”
Jarrod blinked hard, then blinked again. A suppressed memory flashed into his mind, filling in a blank. “Foster will know. This is Operation Red Haze, Sara. It’s why he sent me to IWPT.”
A cold chill shimmied up Sara’s spine. Of course Foster knew. Of course he did. He spied on spies, for God’s sake. He had always known. Since David, he had known. So why hadn’t he stopped them?
Shank worried at her lip. “Intel says in two days Fontaine and Owlsley are going to D.C. for a briefing. I’m doubtful. There’s no reason for the two of them to attend any one briefing. Braxton stands alone.”
“The sale.” Sara looked from Shank to Jarrod. “They’re arranging the sale.”
“It’s possible,” Jarrod said. “If the AID suspected Fontaine and Owlsley of wrongdoing and corrupting the program—it’s extremely sensitive, Sara—calling in Foster would be a logical step.”
Sara gripped the arm of her wheelchair, looked down at the IV line taped to the back of her hand, rehydrating her. “Sorry, but that doesn’t sit right with me.” She looked back at Jarrod. “If the AID knew about this corruption, then there would be no reason for Foster to bring me into it. He’d use AID resources, not an outsider. The only reasonable explanation is that Foster is involved, and the AID is unaware.”
Jarrod stood up, his knees cracking. He mulled that over, stuffing a hand into his slacks pocket. “Are you suggesting Foster is working with Fontaine and Owlsley?”
Sara responded to the incredulity in Jarrod’s voice with dead calm. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“Sara, no.” Jarrod’s expression turned grim. “I know this man. I’ve trudged through hell with him hundreds of times. Duty and honor mean something to him. He would never do anything like this for money.”
“Not for money,” Shank interceded. “But he might do it for respectability.”
Jarrod turned to Shank. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“This research has been going on for over five years. We know that because of Fred. What if Foster was working
with Fontaine and Owlsley, but now he’s up for that star? He wants to make general more than anything else in the world. He always has, and anyone who knows him is aware of it. What if he wants to disassociate from this project and come out of this lily-white? Wouldn’t he send in another Shadow Watcher and claim his involvement was a covert operation all along?”
Jarrod looked poleaxed. In physical pain. Sara understood that. Shattered illusions cut close to the bone. “I considered that, Shank,” Sara said. “And for a while, I believed it might be true. But I don’t anymore.” Sara swept her hair back from her eyes, struggling to stay awake. She was so tired. “When I was at IWPT—in the metal building where they do the laser experiments—I saw a man in uniform with Dr. Owlsley. He seemed familiar. Remember, Joe, you mentioned that, too—about the second man seeming familiar?”