Mind's Eye (9 page)

He stared at her with absolute resolve. “I promise you, Megan, you’re going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.
I swear it
. This is all my fault.”

“It
isn’t
,” she said, her voice now faint. “
You
didn’t shoot me.”

Hall carefully lifted her from the floor and sat her in her wheeled desk chair, placing her large purse gently on her lap to hide her injury, and pushed her between the bodies of the men he had killed and out of her office. He suspected Megan Emerson hadn’t been pushed any distance in a desk chair since she was nine or ten, if ever, but this was by far the best method of transportation available.

“Thanks for coming back for me,”
broadcast
Megan telepathically, too weak for speech but still able to get her thoughts across.

“I’m just sorry I was so late,”
he replied in the same way
. “I was already a mile away when they began to examine Radich’s car in your lot. I picked up their thoughts and knew their bloodhound device would lead them right to you. I got back as fast as I could.”
Even though he was using telepathy, it was easy for Megan to detect the undertones of guilt and self-reproach in his words.

“What’s your blood type?”
Hall thought to ask.

“O positive
.
”

A man appeared in the corridor as Hall continued wheeling Megan as fast as he could toward the exit, but he didn’t waste time slowing down. Not surprisingly, the man’s mouth was agape, not entirely able to believe what he was seeing. “It’s my turn for a ride next,” said Hall as he raced by the other occupant of the hallway.  

The man turned to follow their progress, but didn’t respond. Although Megan couldn’t read minds, she was pretty certain he was thinking something like,
What a couple of morons
, or
That is some messed up shit
.

They made it to the car parked outside, and Hall lifted her into the passenger’s seat and belted her in. He slid in behind the wheel and started the car. “Hang in there,” he pleaded as the car began to move.

10

“We’re missing something,” said John Delamater. “Was your man at  the mini-mart any good? This Cody Radich?” he asked Vasily.

“Very,” replied the Russian. Unlike several of the men on the current manhunt, who had no connection to Vasily, Radich had worked with him often.

“Get him on speakerphone,” ordered Delamater. “Don’t give my name, but vouch for me and tell him to answer my questions.”

Four minutes later Radich’s voice issued from a speaker that Delamater had placed beside his beloved chessboard on the small wooden table. Vasily insisted that Radich repeat everything that had happened, down to the smallest detail, along with his every thought and impression, no matter how insignificant. Delamater leaned close, with his right hand rubbing his chin, as he listened to the man’s account of what had transpired.

When he had finished, Delamater gestured to the phone, and its mute button.

“Hold on,” said Vasily as he muted the connection.

“If Radich is telling the truth,” said Delamater, “I can’t see how Hall made him. He has to be hiding a mistake.” He motioned again for Vasily to unmute.

“Any chance your gun was visible?” Delamater asked Radich.

“None.”

“Any chance you were pretending to read the wrong magazine? One that didn’t make sense for you?
Ladies Home Journal?
Vogue?
”

“
Popular Mechanics
,” hissed Radich, in a tone that made it clear he was offended by these questions, but he was enough of a professional to keep his temper in check when speaking to someone he would have to assume was Vasily’s boss. “And before you ask, the magazine was right side up.”

“Any chance you looked out of place?”

“No. I was dressed casually. No tattoos that would suggest I was military or mercenary. Nothing.”

Delamater had Vasily put his assassin on hold once again. What was he missing? There was something about Radich that gave Delamater a sense he was competent and really hadn’t made any blunders. Delamater was a good judge of character and had learned to trust his instincts, which had served him well. He turned to the Russian. “Do you think he’s covering up a mistake?”

“I don’t,” said Vasily without hesitation. “He’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with. Smart, experienced, and detail-oriented. I spoke with him earlier. He’s as mystified as we are.”

Delamater gathered his thoughts and motioned for Vasily to unmute. “Okay,” said Delamater. “So somehow, miraculously, this guy gets the drop on you. Even though he has no way to know you aren’t just a harmless customer? Is that what you’re saying?”

 “That’s what I’m saying,” replied Radich woodenly.

“And you just
took it?
You didn’t make any move against him? Against a marshmallow like this guy?”

“I was going to,” came the frustrated reply. “But the instant before I was about to try to disarm him, he jumped out of range. Like he knew I was going to attack before I did. It was uncanny.”

Radich paused. “And as I explained to Vasily, your intel on this guy is
shit
. Based on the intel, I tried to get him off-balance by suggesting the safety on Baldino’s gun was still on. According to the profile I was given, this guy shouldn’t have even known which end of a gun to
point
. Not only did he know Baldino’s Glock didn’t have a traditional safety, he knew it had a fucking five-pound trigger pull. This is lower than most guns, which is one of the reasons the Glock is so popular. But
I
didn’t even know the exact spec on the trigger pull.”

Delamater tilted his head in thought. “How do you know he was right?”

“I looked it up afterward. He was right.”

Delamater’s eyes brightened for just a moment. An important piece of the puzzle had clicked into place. He thanked Radich and motioned for the Russian to end the connection.

Vasily opened his mouth to speak, but Delamater held up a forestalling hand. He needed to complete his thinking without interruption.

Hall’s four implants were working, after all
.

It was the only way to explain how Hall could pass as an expert, could possess detailed information on Baldino’s gun. The bastard had his own personal Internet connection.

Hall had lied when he had said the system wasn’t working.

But why?

Being able to stealthily surf the web, using thoughts alone, would confer a considerable advantage on someone. But it was hard for Delamater to believe this had been responsible for
all
of Hall’s success. Access to the Internet couldn’t help him dodge bullets.

But regardless, this could change Delamater’s calculations dramatically. He would now have to weigh additional options to determine if a change in strategy was in order.

Delamater had human resources at his disposal that Vasily couldn’t even begin to guess at. If you kept palms well greased and didn’t ask for much in return, it was easy to corrupt even those thought to be incorruptible. People were greedy and power-hungry, especially the ones who had risen to positions of prominence. Unless you truly believed in something to the deepest depth of your being, as did Delamater, all men were whores in the end.

There was an old joke that had always struck Delamater as defining of the human species. A man asks a woman if she would sleep with him for ten million dollars. She agrees. He then asks if she would sleep with him for a dollar. She is aghast. “What kind of woman do you take me for?” she asks. To that, the man responds, “We have established what you are, madam. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

Such was true of humanity in general. He was a rare exception, but the vast majority of humanity would do
anything
for the right price, be it money, power, prestige, or sex. The idea of a man selling his soul to the Devil was a mainstay of fiction, and people found it plausible that someone would strike such a bargain, even when they knew exactly who it was they were dealing with.

But before he committed to a course of action, he needed to speak with his brother. Seek the council of the only man alive whom he fully respected, and whose respect he truly valued. He needed to inform him of this triumphant new development.

His brother was working hard on a project of his own, one with far less lofty goals than Delamater’s own project, but one whose chance of success was far higher. His brother had always believed he was wasting his time on this project. That despite his obvious genius at getting past the first monumental hurdle, it still wouldn’t matter: what he hoped to achieve with implants was still fifty years away and couldn’t be rushed, no matter what the strategy. Delamater had no doubt this stunning new development would get his brother to reevaluate his position, possibly even to drop what he was doing and join Delamater’s efforts.

“Vasily,” said Delamater finally, breaking from his reverie. “I need you to go out to Bakersfield immediately and take personal charge of operations. Amateur hour is over,” he finished, knowing full well they had not sent amateurs, but also that Vasily was a cut above the rest. He gave the Russian a curt nod of dismissal.

Vasily rose. “I’ll call you when I’m on the ground.”

He took a few steps toward the door to let himself out, but turned before he reached his destination. “I may have misread your expression when the call ended. But it looked like you had figured something out. Something important. If so, it could be vital that I know about it.”

Delamater nodded. “You’re right,” he said, shooting Vasily an icy stare. “You did misread my expression.”

11

Hall pulled out into traffic with Megan Emerson in the passenger’s seat. She had closed her eyes, but because he couldn’t read her mind unless she was broadcasting to him, he wasn’t sure if she was still conscious. Returning to her office had reduced his chances of survival, but he had never considered any other course.

Did this tell him anything about himself?

He took it as a good sign, but he wasn’t sure it made any kind of definitive statement about who he was—or who he had been. Would a coward or a thief
remain
a coward or a thief, even if his memory slate was wiped clean? Or could he somehow become courageous and noble?

Could not knowing you had a history of cowardice allow you to suddenly become brave? Were bravery and altruism learned qualities or innate ones?

He knew he had no time to consider these questions now, or even to appreciate the software in his implants that made no attempt to search the web in response to his ponderings, realizing he wasn’t looking for answers in cyberspace.

After he had left Megan’s office he had attempted to find himself on Facebook, as he had with her, using La Jolla and San Diego as locations to narrow it down, but he hadn’t had any luck. It had seemed like half of San Diego was named Nick Hall. But even after scanning through them all, he had gotten nowhere. Perhaps he didn’t live there after all. Or he was one of the few people on earth without a Facebook account.

He called up directions to the nearest hospital, but even as he did so he concluded that taking Megan there would be a mistake. He vaguely remembered that hospitals were required to alert the police whenever they were visited by gunshot victims, and confirmed it on the web moments later.

After a few minutes deep in thought he arrived at a plan, which he didn’t like at all, but which was the best he could come up with. He had no idea how much time he had, but he had to err on the side of extreme urgency.

Hall searched cyberspace and located a nearby motel that was dirt cheap and off the beaten path, the Kern River Motor Lodge. He pulled into its gravel lot seven minutes later, having risked racing there at twice the speed limit where traffic would allow and having ignored five red lights.

He left Megan in the passenger’s seat and entered the tiny shack that was the lobby, asking for a room that would minimize neighbors and maximize privacy. The attendant, an obese middle-aged man with a braided beard, didn’t seem to find the request the slightest bit unusual. Nor that Hall checked in as John Smith, paying in cash. All of which led Hall to believe that the motel did plenty of business with prostitutes serving married men concerned about their anonymity.

Hall had chosen even better than he had hoped.

He pulled around to the end of the stubby, L-shaped line of rooms and carried Megan inside. Her eyes fluttered open for a few seconds while he moved her, and she might have tilted her chin the slightest bit in a nod, but he couldn’t be sure.

The room was small and dark, with nothing but a bathroom, bed, end table, and a small TV that looked to be ten years old. It smelled of mildew.