Extrasensory (31 page)

Dan!

“She said my name.” Dan put his face next to Mia’s again, his fingertips on her mouth. “I heard her say it.”

With what must have been superhuman effort, she reached her right hand up to grab his lapel.

“Look. Look at this.” His voice was filled with hope. “She must be waking up. She’s grabbing onto me.”

“Dan.” Mia’s voice was barely audible but what they heard sounded like a rusty saw dragging across metal.

“See, I told you.” He kissed her mouth. “I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

“Blocks,” she rasped. “Water. Moving.”

Dan slid a glance at Faith. “Could she be having a vision under all that medication?”

“It’s possible. It’s not unheard of, although I don’t know as much about it as some of the other women in the Circle.” She had a look of amazement on her face. “I can’t imagine the strength it took for her to do this.”

Mia wouldn’t release her death grip on his jacket. Her lips moved although her face was contorted with pain. “Blocks,” she repeated. “Water. Floating. Numbers.”

”Should I call Aunt Vivi and have her get someone over here?” Faith wanted to know.

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t want any more people here except us right now. I heard what she said.” He kissed Mia and uncurled her fingers from his jacket. “I hear you, sweetheart. The numbers. That’s what you mean, right? The baby blocks and the numbers. You saw water and the numbers moving over it.”

She lay back exhausted, her face covered with perspiration. “Hurts,” she managed to get out.

Then the machines began to go crazy and her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Faith!” Dan hollered.

“I’ll get the nurse again,” Faith said, already on her feet.

But the nurses were already there, along with two men Dan assumed were a resident and an intern. When he saw them rolling in a crash cart, Dan nearly stopped breathing.

“You’ll have to move,” one of the nurses told him.

He backed up against the wall, next to Faith, who quietly slipped her hand into his and squeezed. His eyes followed the organized chaos around Mia’s bed, heard the orders being barked out, saw them ready the defibrillator and yell, “Clear.” Other orders were called out and people moved swiftly to obey them. They worked like a well-oiled machine, each person doing a specific job.

During the next few minutes Dan felt as if time had stopped. Not a man given much to religion anymore, he found himself uttering fervent prayers, promising God anything if only Mia could be spared.

At the moment he was sure he would lose his mind, he heard someone say, “She’s stable. Let’s keep her this way. Good work, everyone.”

The crash cart was rolled out of the room and all but one of the nurses left, carrying various pieces of equipment. The one Dan had met who was assigned to Mia was checking the IV fluids and injecting medication into one of the lines.

One of the men who’d worked on Mia walked back in the room and over to Dan, an angry look on his face. “Have you any idea of the serious nature of this patient’s condition? What did you do to her? And why isn’t she in ICU?” Dan felt Faith’s hand slip into his and knew she was doing her best to keep him from punching the man and to remind him to rein in his temper.

“And you are?” Dan asked, every muscle in his body tense.

“Dr. Richards. I’m on Dr. Cardoza’s team and the resident charged with the care of this patient. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m her fiancé and I can assure you I know just how serious her condition is. She’s not in ICU because there’s a killer after her. That’s why we have two guards on the door. And you can believe I did
not
aggravate her condition in any way. She seemed to be trying to force herself awake and was agitated. I was just calling the nurse when this happened.”

The doctor took a long, hard look at Dan’s face and apparently decided arguing with him was not a good option to choose. “We’re just lucky we brought her back. But I’m going to increase her sedation and talk to Dr. Cardoza about changing some of her meds. If you’re going to be in here with her, you have to make sure she doesn‘t get agitated again.”

“Let me tell you,” Dan said, a muscle jumping in his cheek, “that young woman means everything in the world to me. I have no intention of jeopardizing her in any way at all.”

He realized the doctor was just doing his job and didn’t know him from Adam but Dan had to restrain himself from punching his lights out.

When everyone had left the room he moved back to his place beside Mia. Faith pushed one of the chairs behind him and he collapsed into it, leaning his arms on the side rails of the bed. Then he dropped his head to his forearms and did something he hadn’t done since he was ten years old. He cried.

* * * * *

By the time he returned to the hotel, Dan had managed to get his emotions under control, thanks in large part to Faith Halloran. He had stood in the hospital room, torn between wanting to glue himself to Mia’s side and knowing he had a job to get done. If only he could be in two places at the same time.

“I’ll call you if anything changes,” Faith assured him, seeing the look of conflict on his face. “I promise. But Mia nearly killed herself to give you a message. Don’t let it go to waste. Go back and get to work on it.”

Only twenty years of Marine discipline gave him the strength to do what he had to do next. He kissed Mia once more, then strode from the room, his mind already shifting gears.

In his car he called Andy and gave him the latest clues on the puzzle of Mia’s visions.

“Have the Dragon run every combination. Blocks. The numbers. Tumbling. Water.

Someone steering. Somewhere in there is the key and we’re missing it.”

“If it can be found,” Andy told him, “the Dragon will find it. He and I hold all the mysteries of the universe. I’m also doing a random search for sites that record precognitive visions. Maybe we can find something that matches closely enough to take it from there.”

“Well saddle the old guy up and get going. This is urgent.”
Like everything else right now,
Dan thought grimly.

In his suite he found Rick alone going through more computer printouts.

“Mark’s gone down to the police station to sit in with Holcomb’s task force. What’s that all about?”

Dan gave him a brief report on it. “Either he wants our help or he wants to keep track of us. Either way, it’s better to be working with him than against him. I think Mia getting shot rattled him.” He shucked his jacket, took off his tie and rolled up his sleeves before pulling a chair up to the table. “All right, where’s the notepad with Mia’s doodles on it?”

Rick fished under the scattered papers and handed it to him. “How is she?”

“She’s…”He stopped took a breath and began again. “She’s…holding her own.”

“Something happened,” Rick guessed, noting the pain in his partner’s eyes.

Dan’s fists clenched around the pad. “I nearly lost her while I was there. She about killed herself trying to wake up and tell me something. I called Andy so he could feed it into the Dragon but we need to take a look at it too.”

“My God. I’m sorry, Dan. I… She’ll be fine. She seems like a fighter.”

“She’d better be.” His voice broke and he stopped to pull himself together again.

“All right. This must be damn important, so let’s see if we can make any sense out of it.” Talking back and forth so they didn’t leave anything out, they listed every one of her visions and the actual events they’d honed in on, then added in the new information. But at the end of an hour they were still no place.

“Andy’s doing another search with the Dragon for precognitive sites that list other visions and trying to match these up. Maybe we’ll come up with something there.” Rick tossed his pen onto the table. “Let’s give it a break a little and see what the Dragon comes up with. If Chase is so uptight about his guest list, maybe we should go over it again, only in greater detail. Andy sent us everything he found and then some.” They were both aware that time was running away from them. They had forty-two hours and the clock was ticking. Before they knew it Friday would arrive and they’d be out of options. Neither of them thought there was a way to steal Oscar at the demonstration but at this point they weren’t eliminating anything. They split the list, which contained intimate details of everyone attending on Friday. Andy had quickly learned exactly what they meant at Phoenix when one of the partners said, “Get me everything.”

“Mostly corporate CEOs and high-level military personnel.” Dan made tick marks next to some of the names on the list, ones he thought were key players. “I can’t see any red flags here but I can certainly understand why Chase is nervous. The success of this demonstration could bring in billions to Carpenter Techtronics. They could end up being a world leader in this field.”

Rick got up to get a soft drink from the mini-fridge, popped the top and took a long swallow. “How much do you figure Oscar could bring on the open market?” Dan shrugged. “You mean if someone wanted to keep it away from all other competition? Other countries, even? Probably untold billions. More than Chase could get legitimately. Because whoever got Oscar would be in the catbird seat. They could manufacture it themselves and sell it, if they wanted. If the head of a country buys it, he could use it to detect any covert operations. Or they could just use it to protect themselves.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Think about an organization like a drug cartel. Oscar could always let them know when someone’s coming, how many there were, record conversations, take pictures. No one could ever get near them without being blown away. Or if it goes to an arms dealer, he’d never be able to spend all the money he’d make with it.”

“On the other hand,” Dan pointed out, “it would be worth billions to the government if they could contract Carpenter to manufacture it. Think how it could be used to protect both our troops and black ops units in any number of situations.”

“So if someone from Carpenter is involved in this, they get to keep every dime for themselves and screw the company, right?”

“That’s about it. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out which one it would be. Shit.” He shoved all the paper aside. “Call Andy and see if he’s done the in-depth on the key people yet. You can also check if the Dragon’s come up with anything on Mia’s numbers vision, especially the latest one with the water. Although I don’t think he’s had enough time to really run it yet.”

“Enough time.” Rick snorted. “Boy, don’t I wish we had
that
.” But at that moment Dan’s cell phone rang. He pressed the Talk button with a sense of dread, as he’d been doing with every call since Mia was shot. But this one was from Mark.

“Just wanted to let you know that the slugs they dug out of Nate Wilson, the bomber, were from a .22 caliber.”

“Small gun.” Dan was surprised. “Whoever shot him had to be right next to him to be that effective with a gun that small.”

“Obviously not someone he expected to kill him. They don’t have any leads here, although they’re going to canvass the workers at the airport again. And see if any of the remote cameras caught anything. How about calling Andy and asking him to see if anyone at Carpenter bought a gun like that recently?”

“Okay. Rick and I were discussing the fact that we think someone there is either leading the charge or involved in it. I just asked Rick to give Andy a call. He’ll do it right now.”

“We’d better come up with something soon. The demonstration’s the day after tomorrow. Right now we have less than forty-eight hours to find the answers.”
Chapter Sixteen

Jesus Obregon was a man who led a simple life, living with his family in a plain but nice adobe house in Galveston. He had often wondered why Maria, his wife, a registered nurse, had chosen to marry him, a man with barely a high school education.

But there was no questioning the love between them and he thanked God for her every day.

He was also blessed by the fact that their children—two daughters and a son—gave them no trouble at all. While other parents battled gang influence or the creeping influence of the drug cartels, his children excelled in school, worked after-school jobs and showed their parents much love and respect.

If Jesus wished for anything, it was to be able to reward all of them for being the people they were and for enriching his life. This job, which he’d had now for a year, had been a step upward from construction work. The salary was twice what he made before and he really didn’t have much to do at all. Keep the boat maintained and be sure it was ready whenever the owners wanted to take it out.

And there were always handsome tips for his work.

But this, now. This latest thing had to be something of great importance. The
senor
had brought a small wooden crate to him, sealed on all sides. He told him to sleep on the boat and not let the crate out of his sight. And best of all, he’d given Jesus a large sum of money and told him he would double it if nothing happened to the crate when he came back on the weekend.

So for two days he’d lived on the boat, eating good food and watching satellite television. And staring at the crate. Surely something that warranted so much extra pay was worth a fortune. Jesus readily admitted he wasn’t the smartest man in the world but surely he could figure out a way to cut himself in on whatever the action was.

Maybe at last he could have the money he wanted for his family. Maybe at last he would be the hero he’d always longed to be.

And so he sat and stared at the crate, wondering if there was a way to open it without leaving a trace.

* * * * *

“I got it!”

Andy was never excited. Very little rattled the cage of this super-geek who could make computers sing like opera stars and find the most obscure scrap of information.

But two hours after the last call, the high pitch of his voice was Dan’s clue that this was something beyond normal results.

“Okay, Sherlock. What have you got?”

“The dreams! Oh, man.” Andy’s voice almost vibrated over the phone. “I got it.”

“You mean
Mia’s
dreams? Her visions?”