As he continued his prowling trek up the mountain, he was more than a little surprised to see several types of plants and trees that grew only in the rain forests with high humidity. Jonas slowed down to get a better look. This section of forest could easily be part of some bioexperiment that had been going on for years. It was as if he’d stepped into a beautiful, mythical garden. Exotic flowering plants circled the bark of the trees, climbing high toward the canopy, draping branches in variegated or dark leaves and bright, velvety blossoms. The trees were also varieties that thrived only in warm, humid climates, yet they appeared extremely healthy, trunks wide, branches strong and leaves abundant.
His first thought was that he’d stumbled into one of Whitney’s experiments. He knew Whitney was into plants, heard he kept greenhouses all over the world in his hideaways, where he grew all sorts of plants and flowers, including some of the rarest and most exotic breeds in the world. Hell, he’d even named the girls he’d bought from orphanages after flowers. Some people might have thought that proof of a nurturing soul, but only if they didn’t knowthe sort of cruel, torturous experiments Whitney inflicted on those same girls. All in the name of science and patriotism.
Peter Whitney. A modern-day Mengele wrapped up in an American flag.
Suppressing the sneer that curled his lips, Jonas clamped down on the rage thoughts that Whitney stirred up. This was neither the time nor the place for him to get distracted by old injustices. Because if Whitney was behind whatever was going on up here, he, Jeff and Kyle were in more danger than they suspected.
He took a careful look around, his senses flaring out, utilizing every enhancement he had in order to find any hidden traps and to identify any poisonous plants. He knew one or the other was there. More likely both. He could feel the danger surrounding him.
He pulled up the mental file of poisonous plants he kept in his head and scanned through it as he looked around. He and his team traveled all over the world and trekked through a lot of wild and dangerous places. Often they encountered a variety of environmental dangers while on a mission, including plants so toxic that one unwary scratch could cost someone an arm. Sometimes it seemed like everywhere they went, even the plants were out to kill them. Because of that, Jonas had made a point of studying books on botany, committing to memory every hazardous or helpful plant, tree, shrub or flower they might encounter.
He studied the various flowering bushes and the vines winding their way up the trees. Many of the specimens growing up high were epiphytes, plants that lived by extracting moisture out of the air rather than requiring soil for their roots. The kinds of flowers and vines he was observing just didn’t grow in the Lolo National Forest. Certainly, they didn’t grow in this particular high-altitude climate. Intense snow was common several months out of the year, and these exotics needed consistent care, warmth and humidity.
Jonas could feel the rising heat in the mist. At this altitude,temperatures should be dropping, but instead, the air was warm and getting downright hot the deeper into the interior he went. Whoever was able to control the temperature inside the groves of trees over such a wide range had a powerful gift. They weren’t just manipulating temperatures in a controlled environment. They were manipulating the climate of several square miles of open forest and sustaining that manipulation over time. He didn’t know too many of his fellow GhostWalkers capable of such a feat—if any.
He moved slowly, feeling his way with all of his senses. Plants had alarm systems, just the way animals and people did. They could shrink back from heat or cold, from loud noises, or extend their leaves or vines toward appealing music. He had always been able to hide himself from people and animals, even birds and reptiles, but he’d never considered having to include plants.
He tuned his mind to the mist and humidity. Someone had bound nature itself to them. The respect and admiration he felt rose the more he examined the full extent of the shimmering illusion hiding the grove. He was looking at an outdoor greenhouse in an impossible location where few hikers would stumble across it. Two full teams of GhostWalkers made their homes miles below, surrounded by the same national forest, yet they had no idea the phenomenon was above them. The garden had been builtafterthe teams’ compounds had been established, because he knew both had sent men up the mountain to ensure they had escape routes prior to building.
Jonas was capable of binding nature to him. He hadn’t known any other GhostWalker could, not even the newer ones Whitney had perfected. He could only enhance what psychic gifts each individual already possessed. As for the gene doping, in the beginning, he’d thrown everything but the kitchen sink into the mix. He was much more cautious with his last two teams. Jonas, being a member of the first team, had no idea what was inside of him. Hehad discovered hidden talents accidentally and practiced hard at developing them or controlling them, whichever was needed.
The mist contained not only the illusion and the warning, driving anyone away from the area, but also the humidity, pushing the temperature up so that moisture collected in the air throughout the trees. Was there a trap for the unwary? Had vines moved overhead?
Jonas tuned his body to mimic the same molecular structure of the mist so he could disappear into it. He moved deeper into the interior of the forest and the garden. The deeper he got into it, the more he realized the garden had to have been there for some time. Someone had worked on it lovingly with a great attention to detail. Numerous footpaths wound through the forest floor, created by someone tending the various bushes and flowers.
He followed one of the paths winding in and out of the trees. He remained alert for traps and was careful not to trip alarms, but he increased his speed. He needed to find who had bound nature to them and set the mist, and where the GhostWalker team was hiding and what they were up to. Unexpectedly, he came upon several very exotic plants, flowers that were considered so rare they were only known to grow in one or two places in the world, yet here they all were.
Jonas spotted a ghost orchid growing high in a tree, an epiphyte that required not only high heat and humidity but a certain type of fungus in order to prosper, none of which occurred naturally in the Lolo National Forest. Not far away, a beautiful jade vine was wrapped tight around another tree, its pendulous clusters of claw-shaped flowers hanging a good three meters long. The jade vine was found naturally only in the rain forests of the Philippines, yet here it was in Montana not just surviving but thriving, its magnificent hanging blooms an incredible shade of deep blue.
Jonas recognized the black bat flower. So rare as to be considered endangered in the wild, it was also quite difficult to cultivate.Thirty centimeters in diameter, the flower resembled its namesake bat, with droopy whisker-like stamen that could measure as much as seventy centimeters in length. He also spotted the Rothschild slipper orchid and a flowering Franklin tree. He found it incredible that the variety of flowers from various countries could be successfully cultivated side by side, let alone in this forest. Clearly, someone, for some reason, had brought these rare flowers to this altitude and manufactured the conditions required to grow them.
Of all the incredible blooms growing in this unprecedented garden, he was most surprised to find the Middlemist Red Camellia. Considered by most to be the rarest flower in the world, there were only two known surviving specimens of Middlemist Red in existence, and neither was growing in the wild. But here they were, several shrubs of them, planted close together and looking very healthy, with glossy leaves and spectacular showy blooms. Although the flowers looked like beautiful roses, the plant was really a camellia. And despite being named Middlemist Red, the blooms were actually a deep, bright pink.
Jonas inched closer to the rare camellias. As he approached, the shrub’s branches parted slightly, revealing a shadowy entrance hidden behind them. He went very still. The circle of shrubs were cleverly concealing the presence of a little house built into the side of the mountain. The small dwelling appeared to be constructed entirely from plants native to the forest. Evergreen tree boughs had been woven tightly together to form the walls and roof, vines threading through to tie them securely. Plants grew across the top of the roof, effectively hiding the lodging from aerial or satellite photography. The back of the house was tucked away beneath a rocky overhang, while the dense hedge of Middlemist Red shrubs completely concealed the dwelling from all other sides.
Jonas studied the little house, not moving a muscle. He doubted if the structure contained more than one or two rooms, unless itwent back farther into the mountain. That was his biggest worry. Considering the mist, flowers and the woman commanding wild animals, the idea that Whitney was involved was logical. That meant the house could be an entrance to a far greater complex belowground. This could be the threat he was feeling, although it was still vague and distant. So far, he’d only sensed the presence of one woman.
He knew that women Whitney had experimented on had escaped his compound. He also knew that, rather than trusting the GhostWalker teams who aided their getaway, the women had followed their original plan and scattered to make it as difficult as possible for Whitney to reacquire them. The women were distrustful of any GhostWalker, any of the soldiers Whitney had experimented on. Who could blame them?
Jonas knew the women had all been taken from orphanages as children, raised under horrific conditions, used in Whitney’s scientific experiments so he could perfect his enhancement methods before he tried them on his soldiers. He raised the girls in a stark environment, training them to be soldiers, only to decide later to use them in his breeding program.
At first Whitney had paired specific couples, using pheromones so they would be attracted physically. He had hoped to create surgical strike teams composed of bonded couples, a man and a woman, so it would be easier for them to slip into any country without being identified as soldiers. The paired couple’s skills and enhancements would complement one another and enable the pair to handle any mission more effectively than an entire team of special ops soldiers. For all his evil, Whitney was an unswerving patriot. By creating bonded-pair teams of more efficient, more powerful supersoldiers, he was certain he would be saving American lives.
Later, he decided the next step in perfecting his enhancementprogram was to experiment on the children of the soldiers he created. He no longer bothered ensuring the women were attracted to the men he paired them with in his breeding program. It was no wonder the women didn’t trust anyone who had been enhanced by Whitney.
Jonas inhaled slowly. The camellias gave off no real fragrance. None. Still, he was certain there was a wholly feminine feel to the mist and weaves of illusion, to the binding of nature. It was too light, too subtle, to be a man’s hand. He had to be cautious. Whitney had trained female soldiers, and there could still be one or two active in his ranks. His heart wanted to accelerate, and he had to actively fight to keep the adrenaline from moving fast through his veins. He felt as if he were on the verge of a great discovery.
He couldn’t take chances. Kyle and Jeff were with him. Not only were their lives in his hands, but his team counted on him. He forced air through his lungs, careful to modify each exhalation to match the temperature and vapor content of the surrounding mist. He had no choice but to settle in and wait. That was what predators did. They had patience. They waited for prey. He was a phantom, unseen. He’d disappeared into thin air, and he could outwait anyone or anything.
2
Camellia Mist paced back and forth in the confines of her small house, feeling a bit like a caged animal. She felt a threat approaching across the periphery of her senses, but not a single one of her warning systems had raised an alarm. There were three men camping just inside the lines of her property. It had never happened before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t. Besides, the threat didn’t feel as if it were coming from them.
The men were sick and disoriented, at least from what she could discern from the reports of the owls and wolves she had keeping a close eye on them. One of the men in particular looked to be in bad shape. He was apparently the most affected by the sonic disruptions she’d woven into the mist. She didn’t like making innocent hikers ill, but she had to keep them away from her gardens—and from her. She hoped they would camp for the night and get back on the main trail. In the morning, she planned on doubling the mist around them, leaving just a slight opening to lure them away from her refuge.
Still, she had this terrible, nearly overwhelming feeling of doom. That was never good. She didn’t have premonitions often, but when she did, they weren’t without cause. She felt... hunted. Had Whitney found her? She couldn’t imagine that he would. She had been very careful not to leave any trace behind. So very careful.
She’d avoided people, lived off the land, become a complete recluse. She was almost entirely self-sufficient up here in her secluded little garden, and the few times she needed supplies she couldn’t harvest, hunt or make herself, she snuck into town at night and broke into stores, avoiding the cameras, careful to take only what she absolutely needed to survive. She always took enough supplies to see her through several months so she wouldn’t have to make trips during the winter months, when the snow was deep and shut down the trails and roads.
