Fatal Strike (11 page)

She gripped his shoulders, which she could barely fit her fingers around. Her inner thighs, wound around his waist, felt every detail of him through the shapeless jersey fabric of her pants, right down to the holstered gun at his side and the studs on his pants. She was still weak and hollowed out from Greaves’ attack, but Miles ran faster than ever.

All she could do was hang on. Try not to disgrace herself.

 

Thaddeus Greaves surveyed the ruins of the dining room. Coffee carafe overturned. Fresh orange juice, hurled across the pristine white tablecloth. His ham steak, grilled to perfection, was stabbed through with multiple shards of window glass. Glass glittered in the bread basket, the fruit salad, the black truffle and mushroom omelet.

Had he not shielded himself telekinetically the instant he heard the gun, he too would be full of those shards. It had been a question of nanoseconds, or perhaps a touch of precognition. His telekinetic abilities could stop bullets, so he stood in the middle of the shattered window frame, in silent invitation. No bullet that came his way would ever reach him, but the muzzle flash would be a useful indicator of where the attacker was located, saving precious time.

The shooter did not take the bait. After a minute or so, Greaves walked down the stairs, to the sound of various other windows shattering. He stopped at the corridor on the first floor, startled by the still body and bloodied face of Briggs, a member of his personal security unit, sprawled across the corridor. Briggs was a telepath, quite a strong one. And even he had gotten no warning of the attack to come.

In the security center, Dexter lay moaning on the floor. Yeats was unconscious on the ground. Useless idiots. Not a peep from his current telepathic sentinel, either. His staff was worse than useless.

Anabel’s sprawled body downstairs was a distasteful sight, if not unexpected. He stepped carefully around the blood, not wanting to soil his loafers, and peered into the gaping door of Lara’s cell.

Only Hu lay inside, wheezing and whimpering.

Greaves ran upstairs and out onto the grounds, by now lit by floodlights. His remaining staff ran around, frantically trying to give the impression that they were doing their job. It was too late to maintain that fiction. But there would be time enough to express his displeasure later.

He sent his perceptions ranging. Wide and diffuse, like ripples in a pond. On, and on . . . approaching the edge of his range.

Yes.
There she was. He’d savored Lara’s distinct flavor on that exciting telepathic ride through her inner dreamworld. Amazing power. So like Geoff’s. Such potential, if only she could be reasoned with.

It was just a matter of time, of course. He would be charming, patient, and eventually she would bend. And if he could unlock her shield . . . the thought elated him. She was the only person besides Geoff who had ever blocked him. If he could penetrate her shield, learn its secrets, perhaps he could breach Geoff’s, too.

And there was the element of her sexual appeal. Her mental and emotional signature was delicious. Subtle overtones, delicate aromas.

He would have Lara Kirk, and power over the future. The power to put things right, at his fingertips. Geoff, too. All his.

Lara seemed to be alone. There was no other mental signature near her, but she had to have gotten help, given the shooter, the broken, bleeding bodies of his staff. How had she coordinated such an escape from her isolated cell? She must have powers she had hidden. She’d seemed so beaten. He’d caught no whiff of hidden weapons, hatching plots. He clamped down on her, adding coercion to the mix.

She was so strong. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He laughed. It felt good, to use his mind as it was meant to be used. Like a rousing game of tennis. Finally, something real to push against.

There was a delicate balance to be found. He did not want to damage her beautiful, unusual brain, but she had to learn obedience. He had to be a little cruel to get his point across. He pushed harder . . .

And she winked out. As if she had never been there.

His eyes popped open.
What?
He groped, lunged, swept feelers where he had been before, then in every imaginable direction.

Nothing. Gone. Hiding behind that fucking shield of hers.

He pressed further. To the limits of his range, and beyond, straining, until his heart thudded. A red haze of rage before his eyes.

Minutes went by before he could identify it, but only vaguely. It was more like an absence than a presence. A dark spot, denser than nothing, like a cloak of invisibility.

He could barely locate it, let alone breach it.

But he could fish for the others. There was the shooter, and the one who had attacked his staff. He would troll for her team.

He lunged, swept, reached. It was a broad area, but he was highly motivated. Back and forth, around . . . nothing still . . .
yes!

Unshielded, on the hillside opposite. Male. Moving quickly downhill. This was the sniper who had destroyed his windows, and spoiled his breakfast. Who might have killed or maimed him, but for his telekinetic shield. The sniper’s mind was surprisingly difficult to grasp. It was so fiercely focused on the job at hand, it was empty of all else, rendering it elusive and transparent. But Greaves got a grip on him.

He clamped down on the man’s mind, relishing the jolt of surprise that quickly turned to anger. The man was strong, with psi elements, but not on a conscious level. Greaves felt them like the overtones of a resonant voice. Excellent candidate for psi-max.

The gunman struggled, in vain. Greaves pinned the man with part of his mind, and ranged further. He found another, then two more. One had a well-developed psi talent, limited training, and a strong shield, but nothing on the order of Lara’s. The other two were like the gunman. Raw, undeveloped talent, but no defenses. Not against him.

It felt good, as angry as he was, to clutch them all and
squeeze.

I
t took focus to lope through rough, unfamiliar terrain in the dark with a traumatized girl on his back and evil goons who may or may not start shooting at them. Being hyper-conscious of her body touching him did not help. There was no time for this juvenile shit.

Get down,
he scolded.
Later for that.
He needed every available red blood cell for the big head right now.

The slope was leveling off. They were approaching the riverbank. He smelled motor vehicles, exhaust, gas, rubber. Men. Her face was pressed against his shoulder. Her lips. As if she were kissing him.

It occurred to him that his bandwidth had been getting progressively bigger, ever since he’d started talking to her. Now, with her clinging to his back, his augmented senses did not feel freakish and painful at all. They felt right, like he’d grown to fit them. It felt appropriate, to see in the dark, to hear so acutely. The tidal wave of constant data didn’t jar him. And the smell of her hair, oh God—

The wide creekbed stretched out before him. He saw the dim outline of two vehicles in the trees, on the other side. One was his own.

Something was off, but he didn’t nail it down until the dark figure came into focus not far from the vehicles, sprawled on the tumbled boulders. It was Connor, clutching his head. Trying to crawl.

Miles put on a burst of desperate speed. “Connor?” He leaped over the rocks, and crouched beside his friend. Lara slid off his back and crawled to Connor’s other side. “Connor? What’s wrong?”

“Head,” Connor rasped. “Pulling.” He jerked his hand in the direction of the house that hung on the top of the hillside above. Blood ran from Connor’s nose and down his neck.

“Greaves,” Lara whispered.

Miles scooped his arms beneath Connor’s armpits, trying to hoist him to his knees. “We’ve got to get out of that bastard’s range.”

“Davy.” Connor’s voice was a breathless grunt. “Sean. Aaro.”

Miles stuffed the fear he did not have the luxury to feel, and braced himself against Connor’s weight. It had never occurred to him that he was putting his friends in danger of this magnitude. They’d always seemed so invulnerable to him. Godlike, even.

“Let me help,” Lara said.

“Concentrate on not breaking both your legs,” he said.

She wiggled her shoulder beneath Connor’s arm. Connor glanced at her, and shot an eloquent look in Miles’ direction “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“Shhh,” Miles hissed. “Move!”

They hustled toward the vehicle. Lara tugged the back door open. Miles heard noise on the hillside as he bundled Connor into the back.

He shoved Lara down on the floor of the vehicle, then crouched down to listen and sniff the air. He had to pull something brilliant out of his ass, right now, but nothing was coming to him, and the sound of shushing boughs and snapping twigs was getting louder.

Aaro.
He couldn’t have said how he suddenly knew it was Aaro coming down the hill, but he did, and he almost wept with relief.

“Look after him,” he said to Lara. “I’m going back for the others.”

He sprinted toward the sound. They emerged from a grove of young firs. Aaro was half carrying Sean, and staggering beneath the other man’s weight. Sean’s nose bled. Aaro’s face was a rigid mask of endurance. He was hurting, but functioning better than Sean.

Of course. He was shielded.

Miles slid an arm beneath Sean’s shoulder, hoisting him up. “It’s Greaves,” he told Aaro. “Long-distance mind-reaming.”

“Can’t talk,” Aaro ground out. “He’s squeezing me even through the shield. Oh man. Hurts. Fuck this shit.”

“Amen,” Miles agreed fervently.

A few minutes of frantic stumbling got them back to the car. Lara was holding Connor’s head, pressing a wad of pale cloth to his nose. Her eyes were big, shadowy pools. Haunted and afraid.

Miles addressed Aaro. “Get yourselves out of range,” he said, hoisting the groaning Sean into the passenger side.

Connor opened his pale green eyes. “Davy,” he wheezed.

Of course it would have been Davy to volunteer to create the distraction. Davy was the best shot of all the McCloud brothers, which was saying a lot, since they were all kick-ass with both long- and short-range guns. Davy had gotten much closer to Greaves than the others had been. If they had been felled by Greaves’ mind-reaming, God knows how Davy had fared. Greaves was much stronger than Rudd, and Rudd had left Miles in a coma.

“I’ll go for him.” Aaro’s voice was rough.

“No,” Miles said. “I’ll go.”

Aaro waved his hand at Lara. “Finish the job. Get the girl clear. I’ll do clean-up. I have a shield.”

“My shield’s better,” Miles said. “Take Lara, Sean and Connor, and get the fuck out of range. I’ll get Davy. Give me my car keys.”

Aaro glowered at him. “Getting bossy, punk?”

“Yeah.” He waggled his fingers for the keys.

Aaro was too messed up to argue. He pulled the keys from his pocket and tossed. Miles snagged them out of the air.

He bolted up the hill, chest pumping, every souped-up, tricked-out capacity he had bent upon calculating Davy’s location. The first window that had shattered was on the top floor, on the side, a vaulted picture window that faced the opposite hillside, not the canyon. Davy would have had to climb the hill to get that shot. He also would have hauled ass back down as soon as the job was done. Miles factored in the moment when Greaves’ mental attack had begun, which would mark the spot where Davy presumably stopped.

A few breathless minutes, slapping through the trees, chest heaving, legs pumping, and he almost tripped headlong over Davy’s prone body. The guy had made it fifty meters further down toward the rendezvous point than Miles had calculated. Typical McCloud.

He fell to his knees. “Davy! Can you hear me?”

Davy’s body was rigid. “Pulling,” he gasped. “Can’t move.”

Miles dragged him upright, somewhat helped by how rigid he was. Good thing it wasn’t dead weight, considering Davy’s mass.

It was impossible not to make noise crashing through the underbrush with Davy staggering beside him. Miles could hear their pursuers drawing closer. One was at about a hundred and twenty meters, another was at ninety. Probably in body armor, with infrared, and/or thermal imaging. Both moving much faster than he and Davy could. He eased Davy onto the ground, and put his finger to his lips. “I’ll go take care of our company,” he whispered.

No time to answer the frantic questions in Davy’s eyes. He darted away, weaving low and silent among the scrubby trees and foliage.

A shelf of granite protruded from the hillside, above the best probable path. If he was high enough, the man might not even look up to catch the heat signature with his thermal imager.

Miles scrambled up the rocks, grateful for the intensive rock-climbing he’d done over the last several weeks, and stretched himself out on the lip of granite. It was barely wide enough. He was glad for the camo jacket, and the ski mask.

The man emerged from the shadows of the trees. Silent, swift. Only Miles’ augmented senses could have picked him up in the dark. He listened to the soft pad of booted feet, the guy’s rapid heartbeat. He was bulked up with body armor, a helmet. And scanning telepathically. The probe slid right over Miles’ shield, not registering him.

The realization slid abruptly into place. So that was why he’d been able to take them by surprise and penetrate the place solo. They had thought that they had the ultimate secret weapon, with their psi, that it made them invulnerable. But a weapon was a weak spot if relied upon with any kind of arrogance. The precise reason he’d always been ambivalent about guns.

Miles emptied his mind of everything but the muted crunch of dry grass and pine needles, waiting . . .
crunch
. . .
crunch
—

He dropped softly down behind the guy, and wrenched the man’s helmeted head around.
Crack.
Miles lowered his limp body to the ground, and picked up the short assault rifle. An H&K G36. He quelled the noise in his mind so he could hear the other guy’s approach. Time enough later to stress about having taken a human life.

The other one was coming down from the left, on a collision course with Davy. He had some different kind of psi, more along the lines of coercion. Miles crept around the outcroppings, seeking a visual.

He finally caught sight of him, armored and bristling with guns and gear. Still wearing infrared goggles, though, to Miles the dawn seemed as bright as noon.

He positioned himself behind a fallen log. The guy had an armored breastplate, as well as a helmet, but Miles didn’t want to kill again. Not unless he had to. He dropped his sights to the guy’s thigh.

Poised, inhaled. Sought the stillness between breaths.

Bam.
The guy jerked, and fell, thrashing on the ground with a muffled shout. Miles ditched the H&K, and raced back to Davy.

“Fixed them,” he said, in answer to Davy’s questioning glance.

He heard no other pursuers. Those two had been the vanguard. He heaved Davy onto his feet, and they recommenced their stumbling race. He still felt the pressure of Greaves’ furious attack, beating impotently around the armor of his shield. The guy still had a fix on them, as long as Davy was in his telepathic grip.

Their staggering progress was agonizingly slow. The truck came into view when they turned the corner of the creekbed. The others were gone. He hoisted Davy into the passenger’s seat. The pickup bounced and groaned over rocks and young trees as he steered it through the forest.

“I’ll get you to a hospital,” he told Davy, when they lurched back up onto the gravel roadbed.

“He’ll watch the hospitals.” Already Davy’s voice sounded stronger. “He’ll be looking for anyone with brain injuries, stroke. That’s what I’d do, if I were him. Forget the hospital. Just put distance between us and that scumbag.”

That was a plan he could get behind. He floored it.

 

It was outrageous. Unprecedented. In spite of the psi stranglehold he’d had on their minds, in spite of his psi-enhanced soldiers, one of whom was now dead, they were slipping away from him.

“They’re almost out of range,” Greaves huffed to Silva, as the man pounded along beside him toward the garage. “Get everyone mobilized. Two vehicles going north, two going south.”

He flung open the passenger side of the Jeep. Silva leaped into the driver’s side, bawling orders into his wristcom.

The engine revved, the vehicle backed out, picked up speed . . .

The car dragged. Tires thudded heavily, scraping.

Silva cursed under his breath, braked, leaped out. The cursing got louder, with an edge of fear. He kicked the back tire. “Slashed,” he said. “Both back tires.”

“Another vehicle, then,” Greaves said, from behind his teeth.

But no. The back tires of all six of the parked vehicles had been slashed. His staff scurried to change them, but it would make no difference now. Seconds had counted. Those seconds were lost now. He would not even bother to accompany them once they ventured out.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” Silva ventured.

Greaves ignored him, maintaining a flat, fatalistic calm. Just a tendril of his consciousness stayed connected with those hardy souls who had somehow crept into his inner sanctum, and proceeded to fuck him up the ass. The contact grew thinner, fainter . . . and it was gone.

Bumping up against the limitations of his gifts felt like an insult.

He walked back into the house with a slow, measured tread, calling for Levine on the wristcom.

“Yes, sir?” Her voice was suitably subdued.

“Do we have any staff with strong telepathy in their profile in Kolita Springs, or south of here on Wheeler Road? Before any of the highway exits.”

“Ah . . . ah, yes, I think that Coburn and Mayfield could—”

“Get them in place, fast, to monitor all the highway exits. Unless these bastards take the back roads, we’ll pin them and identify them as they get onto the highway. They’re moving fast. We have maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

Greaves strode into the house. His staff had found their wits again. The wounded ones had been transported to the infirmary.

Greaves peered inside, watching the medics examine the bloody lump on Anabel’s head, the bullet that had sliced through the meat of her thigh. The battered face and broken ribs of the whimpering Hu.

Worthless trash. Worth keeping only until they had been questioned about the invaders, the contents of their pathetic brains laid bare. Everything that they had seen and sensed, even subliminally.

Four out of the members of Geoff’s rotating medical team were hard at work with the injured. Two of them attended his son at all times, in eight-hour intervals. Geoff and his med team accompanied Greaves everywhere, in a vehicle that seemed an RV from the outside, but was actually a high-tech, cutting-edge hospital room. Each one of his residences had a special room for Geoff—climate controlled, disinfected, filled with all the equipment his son needed to stay alive.

He was at a loss for something to do with his anger. Every outlet had been blocked. He had difficulty breathing. They had slashed his tires, shot his windows. Beaten and shot his employees. Taken Lara, his beautiful prize. And ruined an excellent meal.

The rudeness. How he
hated
rudeness.

He punched the code into the keypad of Geoff’s room. Inside, Maura and Daniel were dutifully massaging Geoff’s wasted limbs.

Geoff’s skin was a pasty, blue-veined, grayish white. His long form was skeletal. Assiduous massages, stretching, and electric stimulation kept his tendons from tightening and turning him into a clawed, hunched cripple, so that when he finally did consent to come out of his mental fortress, his body would be ready to receive him. As ready as his father’s will and resources could render it.