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  That had been nearly twenty years ago, now. She’d always been so beautiful, so perfect. I couldn’t stop kissing her tender skin.

  She stroked my face with her slim fingers. “Rob-bert!” She giggled softly. Her voice was as tiny, yet as lively as she was. “Didn’t you get enough last night?”

  I knew her levity would be brief — it seemed she would only allow short asides from the guilt that haunted her daily — so I took advantage of the moment. My arousal grew as I gave her my best Boris Karloff, Frankenstein-monster groan and mouthed her flesh like a man insane with passion.

  “Silly!” she squeaked with laughter. “You’ll be late.” She raised her shoulder and squirmed away, and her humor stole back into the place guilt kept it prisoner. “How’s the head?”

  I figured I wasn’t getting anywhere — that I had opened the door to her old self for as long and as wide as it would go, and it had slammed back shut. Besides, she was right. I didn’t have the luxury of idle time this morning. So I readjusted my eyeglasses and left a parting love peck on the hollow of her neck.

  After clearing the sleep from my throat, I kept my lips close together to hold in the morning breath and said hoarsely, “Not bad, really.” My throat was dry and scratchy. It felt as though I hadn’t spoken in days.

  “Good. Now use the handholds in the shower, okay, Robert?”

  I frowned at her. She was treating me like a klutz.

  “And you’re not going to overdo it today, right?”

  I grunted. What little sexual stimulation that had blossomed, diminished quickly.

  “Need help?”

  I shook my head.

  “Your breakfast will be ready by the time you’re dressed.”

  I grunted again and found myself staring at her shoulder.

  My Harvey wannabe said, Something’s different. Something’s changed.

  Having such a vocal inner voice wasn’t normal — now, I was sure. However, the voice was correct.

  I asked, “Didn’t you use to have a mole there, Mish?”

  “Where?”

  I pointed to the top of Michelle’s right shoulder. “I always thought it was sexy. Did you have it removed or something?”

  She looked up at me, and the modest smile returned briefly. “No, dear. You must be thinking of one of your other girls.” She rapped me on the fingers with the back of her brush, and the surprise stung.

  “Ouch!” I said. I took her by the jaw tenderly, as if embracing a rare and delicate moth, and I gave her a long kiss.

  I’m tellin’ ya, there’s something different here.

  When we parted, we gazed into each other’s eyes, and I said, “You’re the only one for me, darling.”

  As I departed, she replied, “Of course I am.”

  Mush-shee!

  In the bathroom, I placed my eyewear on the vanity. After relieving myself of a night’s build-up of fluids, I turned on the shower and adjusted the water to a comfortable warmth. I stepped through the new tempered-glass enclosure and shut it, then found a bar of Dial soap in the caddy.

  Look closer, Superman.

  Still not used to the strangeness of having this inner voice, my eyes searched even the shower stall for its source. But then I took the soap bar from the caddy and briefly inspected it. Edges sharp, it was dry — brand new, fresh out of the wrapper. And glancing around me, I noticed the shower door had no water on it, no droplets, no little streams. But Michelle had just taken a shower. Her back was still wet.

  I noted the small squeegee stuck to a suction-cup hook on the wall and then frowned, thinking of the new, paranoid personality inside my skull. Ease up a little, I told my alter ego. She’d obviously finished the old bar of soap and replaced it with a new one. And she’d squeegeed the stall after showering to keep down the lime and scum buildup.

  My uninvited persona was becoming irritating. And what was this Superman thing? I didn’t care for the nickname and certainly didn’t plan to live up to it. I mentally pictured a switch on a man-sized, white rabbit and turned my version of Harvey off. Yet, I was sure he’d be back.

  As I replaced the soap, I spotted a small piece of tissue paper lying in the holder, and it appeared to have writing on it. It had been under the soap bar, possibly stuck to it when Michelle put it there. I grinned. Perhaps it was a little love note.

  When I picked up the tissue and held it close to read without my glasses, I discovered it was a note, but I didn’t recognize the printing as Michelle’s. The letters were irregular, almost scribbled. The paper was torn in several places as if the writer had been in a great hurry. It said, Everything you know is lies. Trust not in what you hear or see, but solely in your emotions — within them is the only real truth. Be ready. They will come for you soon. Destroy this immediately.

  As I stepped back in amazement, the shower spray hit the tissue paper in my hand. The note melted instantly into a small mass, and I dropped it, disappointed I hadn’t gotten a chance to examine the message further.

  Some sort of a hoax? Who could’ve left it? When? Was it meant for Michelle? But she should have seen it. I could rationalize nothing else except that there was an intruder hiding inside our house.

  Chapter 2

  In wooded seclusion, Major Jackson, Staff Sergeant Chambers and Lieutenant Carpenter knelt next to two dune-buggy-like desert patrol vehicles. The DPVs were heavily armed, both with fifty-caliber machineguns in back and with modified grenade launchers in front of the passenger’s seats. Eavesdropping on all of the town’s communications, the lieutenant wore headphones attached by a long lead to a notebook computer and a small satellite dish — the SatCom unit. Fifty feet in front of the men stood the protective barrier surrounding Gold Rush — a twelve-foot, electrified, chain-link fence topped with razor-sharp concertina wire.

  “Jet lag, sir?” Lieutenant Carpenter asked.

  Jax looked to the lieutenant and then followed his gaze. Sunny McMaster sat in the farthest vehicle, her head against the headrest on the passenger’s side, her eyes closed. This time she wore a green sweat suit and running shoes, which were more suited to her new mission than the military attire she’d worn three days earlier.

  But something was wrong. Sunny’s head shook violently, still against the headrest.

  Jax sensed a problem more serious than jet lag, but he didn’t know what. He stood, and the lieutenant took off his headphones. Both men hustled to her.

  Jax gently held Sunny’s head still, but her closed eyes raced from side to side as if in REM sleep.

  “Convulsions, sir?” Carpenter asked. “Some kind of epilepsy?”

  Jax frowned. He touched the side of Sunny’s face. It was cool and clammy. “I don’t know.” He patted her cheek gently. “Sunny. Sunny, wake up.” He slapped her a little harder. “Wake up, Sunny!”

  Her eyelids opened, but her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body lurched, muscles and limbs stiff and tense.

  Jax shook her shoulders. “Jesus, Sunny, what’s wrong?”

  Her eyes finally centered and her body relaxed. She blinked and shook her head, then leaned forward and placed her hand on her forehead.

  “You okay, Sunny?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yeah — yeah. Okay.”

  “Here. Drink some water,” Jax said and motioned to Lieutenant Carpenter.

  The lieutenant placed a full canteen into Jax’s proffered hand, and Jax opened it, then tried to steady the plastic flask for Sunny. She grabbed it ravenously, taking too much, and it ran from the sides of her mouth. She coughed.

  “What’s going on, Sunny?” He wondered briefly if she was an epileptic and somehow had kept it secret from him all the years he’d known her. “You up for this?”

  She blinked again and frowned. “Of course I’m up for this. Just a damn headache.”

  Briefly, he examined her face. In fifteen years she hadn’t changed much, hadn’t seemed to age. Jax certainly could see what his best friend had found so inviting about this woman. She was always so co
ol and laid back, yet with a slap-on-the-back sense of humor and a real down-to-earth sort of intelligence. Now, her large green eyes looked tired, and the humor was gone from her face leaving only a pressure building inside as sure and as strong as Mt. Kilauea’s — and she needed to be one hundred percent for what she was about to do today. Otherwise, not only was the mission at risk, but also her life and the lives of hundreds.

  “But Sunny — ”

  “I felt his presence, Jax. I know he’s here.”

  She must have been dreaming, hallucinating. “You . . . felt him?”

  “Yes. I know it sounds strange, but I’m sure he’s here, Jax. He’s really here, this time.”

  A long moment passed as Jax considered her words. What Sunny and Dan had between them was truly special — but telepathic?

  His list of options short, he told her, “Okay, we’ll proceed if you’re sure you can handle it. You realize radio communication is out?”

  “I can handle it. I won’t need a radio. I’ll find this guy who’s supposed to be so important, and I’ll bring him back before you can say aloha. Let’s quit wasting time, and let me get going.”

  Jax didn’t like the chance for success of any of their other options, but he hoped using Sunny wasn’t a mistake.

  “Sunny, I’m going to be very honest with you. I wouldn’t have brought you along if it wasn’t for one of the remote viewers insisting that, for this mission to work, you must be the one to make contact with Robert Weller.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing.

  “Some will say what we’re doing is treasonous even if we do succeed — our success will likely come at a very burdensome price. I’ve cut you in on nearly everything I know . . . because I felt I had to if I was going to ask you to risk your life. You’ve been let in on a lot of top secret information — now you know nearly as much about this project as I do . . . and a lot of dirty little secrets that we must never divulge.”

  Jax waited for a reply, an indication she understood.

  Sunny finally gave a solemn nod.

  Jax brought out a small black box from his field-jacket pocket and opened it. He plucked out a ring, a simple gold band with a tiny, red-rubber plug attached. Opposite the plug, the ring was wrapped with a small piece of black cloth tape. After pulling off the rubber plug, he inspected the half-inch-long hypodermic needle point sticking from the ring. He then replaced the protective piece of rubber, ensuring its receptive groove meshed with the corresponding land on the ring so that it would not come off accidentally, and he handed the band to Sunny.

  “Put this on,” he said. “It contains a tracking chip so we can keep tabs on your location — but it doesn’t work well if there are too many obstructions. Unfortunately GPS doesn’t work around here because of some sort of interference they’ve created — a smoke screen filled with some kind of magnetic particles. Oh, and, be careful of the needle.”

  Sunny slid it onto her middle finger.

  Jax said, “Keep the point in toward your palm, and pull that little plug off when you’re ready. Inside the ring is a tiny reservoir containing a couple of drops of sulfuric acid. The subject has an implant much like the stemoceiver they experimented with back in the days of the MK-ULTRA project. Of course that was fifty years ago, so this one is bound to be much smaller and more powerful. Be sure you stick the needle point as close to the center of that implant as possible.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Just below the external occipital protuberance,” Jax answered and gave a sideways smile when Sunny frowned at him. “Sorry. The lump where your neck meets the base of your skull. I hadn’t heard of it either until yesterday.”

  Sunny felt the back of her head. She put her hand flat against her skull and seemed to be getting an idea of where on the subject the needle should impact.

  “The center of the implant should be about an inch below that little bump,” Jax instructed. “You need to slap it hard to ensure it works. If you feel you’ve missed the first time, try it again — a third time if you have to. Even a very small amount of the acid will short out the circuitry and make his receiver inoperable. Our remote viewer tells us we must do this in order to release Biotronics’ control over the guy.”

  Sunny thumbed the ring while scrutinizing it. “Acid? Transponder-tracking, acid-needle ring? Where’d you get this, Best Buy?”

  “The transponder was an add on — it’s under the tape. I borrowed the ring itself from Gunny Sampson. You knew he collected war memorabilia of all sorts. This particular piece of jewelry came from his collection of antique spy weapons. I told him about the implant and this is what he came up with. It originally contained a very deadly concentration of blowfish poison. The OSS found it on the body of a Nazi spy during the closing days of World War II. They think he was on a mission to assassinate Eisenhower.”

  Sunny seemed shocked. “Jax, what are you asking me to do?”

  “Don’t worry, Sunny. It’s not poison this time. The acid is a diluted solution. At the most, it’ll cause a minor burn.”

  “And what do I say when I whack him — ‘How ‘bout those Yankees?’ It’s going to sting like hell.”

  “Tell him there was a wasp or a spider. Maybe better, a bee.”

  Sunny shook her head. “God, I hope this works.”

  “I can’t lie to you, Sunny. This is the most complex mission I’ve ever attempted — by a long shot. That’s why we had to go rogue. I knew our own government wouldn’t back us. Hope of success is small, but whether or not we will succeed isn’t the question. We must.”

  Jax reached over Sunny to a plastic file folder between the seats. He pulled out a smudged report of around twenty pages. It was stapled in one corner, the other corners curled up and creased as if it had been handled on a number of occasions, and not many of those times from behind a desk. In the middle of the top sheet was typed Project Brainstorm in what might have been a size twelve, Courier font. Below that was Robert Weller. In each of the four corners, TOP SECRET was stamped in large, red letters.

  Jax placed one foot next to Sunny’s on the floor of the DPV and laid the report on his thigh in easy view. He began, “His name is Robert Weller, and he is the key to Biotronics’ entire, incredible undertaking.”

  The major turned the top sheet. This page contained a poor quality, black-and-white photo in the upper left corner with the name Robert Weller underneath.

  Sunny squinted at the picture. Her gaze seemed to shift reluctantly from the photo to Jax. “I was hoping, somehow . . . it would be a picture of Dan.”

  “Robert Weller, Sunny.”

  She nodded. “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “At this point, the only information we have to go on is from our remote viewers, and they are unsure.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “I’m sorry, Sunny. All other intel sources are cold. And the information the RVs are receiving is unusually sketchy, even for remote viewers. None agree. One says a clone, another is calling him a replica. The others seem undecided and are only calling him the key.”

  “Mystery man, huh?” Sunny said, and stroked the face in the photo with her index finger.

  Personal information filled the rest of the page; birth date, birthplace, parents’ names and backgrounds, address, where he went to school, occupation, social security number, wife’s name, child’s name, blood type and general health.

  She shook her head and sighed. “Your remote viewers came up with this?”

  “No. It was smuggled out. CIA picked it up yesterday afternoon along with a note saying we ‘must rescue him immediately.’ We have an asset — a friend — on the inside. We just don’t know who it is.”

  “What about Dan?”

  “We think our most direct route to success is through Weller. All of the RVs do agree on this point: we get this guy Weller, and we’ll be able to save nearly everyone, including Dan.”

  Jax turned the page. This sheet had even more per
sonal info on it. It included Robert Weller’s likes and dislikes, his favorite sports teams, best friend’s name, his parents’ names and how they died, wife’s parents’ names and backgrounds, more detailed information on his son, including the boy’s injuries from an automobile accident, and how it had affected Robert and his wife Michelle. The following pages were more detailed and read like some sort of short story.

  Sunny looked up at Jax. “It’s all here. His entire life. All that’s missing is what the hell he has to do with this thing.”

  “Hopefully, we’ll discover that very soon,” he told her.

  Sunny took a deep breath. “What’s the plan?”

  “Find him and make contact. But don’t push any of this project or the rescue operation on him. He won’t find it credible. Don’t go too fast. Convince him you know him from someplace. Maybe you’ll say some things he’ll somehow connect with, and you can work on those. One of our RVs has recommended that you tell him you knew him from college, that he and your husband were friends, and — ”

  “Do you think it’s wise to deceive him? I mean, I’m not a good liar. I don’t know if I can pull it off.”

  “Just remember, in order to save Dan, you’ll have to get this Weller character back to safety so we can find out what he knows. It’s the only way we can find Dan since the remote viewers are unclear on his location.”

  Sunny seemed convinced, nodding slowly.

  “The RV also suggested you tell him that you were once lovers.”

  Sunny faced him with a scowl.

  “Think about it, Sunny. Certainly, the best way to pull him in is for you to gain his trust. But if that doesn’t happen, you need to at least make him curious enough to go along with you. It might work.”

  She looked back at the report and said nothing.

  “If you can bring him back here, we’ll have time to question him in safety. But, if for some reason you can’t, you’ll need to take him to a safe, isolated location so we can grab him. But as soon as we break the ridge with our helicopters — even with our jamming and counter-sensor devices — it’ll stir up the biggest hornet’s nest you ever saw. Then we’ll have to interrogate him on the run. At that point, we’ll be forced to pull out all the stops and make a full assault against the Biotronics facility. In that scenario, many lives on both sides will be lost. It is a last resort.”