“Yes, but he can’t listen in here because he’s going to be busy talking, Hell. He’s switched to using de Clerq for all emergencies and updates. If anything happens here, de Clerq will let him know.”
That made sense. This way he wouldn’t be distracted by all the communications going on by every sector and if they needed to get hold of him, they could pass the information on quickly to Drew de Clerq, who covered the operations from Center through satellite.
“Something’s happening down there,” one of the other operatives noted.
She trained her binoculars on the circular stage and saw a flurry of movement at one corner. Some of them had that weird glow she’d been seeing, and she couldn’t quite focus on their facial expressions. She blinked several times.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Hang on. Something coming in from de Clerq.”
Due to earlier prep work, de Clerq would be able to tap in on certain peoples’ private conversations. This move was to enable them to know the actions of the different groups of security detail taking place around them to lessen the chance of getting into each other’s way. Eight Ball, COMCEN’s computer, could pretty much give instantaneous translations of several languages and conversations at the same time, thus upping their chances to pick up any anomalies and incidences. COMCEN had no intention of allowing any other agencies to get their hands on the trigger, if it made it to Skopje.
“The Macedonian security just caught a woman strapped with explosives trying to enter,” de Clerq reported. “She claimed to be from a separatist arm of the KLA and was after the Kosovo representative here.”
“Think she’s the decoy?”
“Eight Ball calculated it at eighty-five percent, seeing that Dragan Dilaver is KLA and Greta is probably partly affiliated.”
All this seemed to connect with everything the injured Hawk had told them in the earlier uplink Helen had listened in on. Dilaver was a KLA man and of course, if Greta was sending a decoy ahead, she would use a KLA agent.
“So if this is the decoy, and we have the trigger, is our mission over?” she asked.
“We don’t have the trigger yet, Hell,” de Clerq replied. “Hawk McMillan recently reported in that he was close but hadn’t gotten to the dropped crates yet. Also, he’d been sabotaged, so Jed had sent Number One down to help retrieve the trigger immediately. Stay in position while I report in to Jed.”
So that was what Jed had been on the phone about earlier. How many missions was the man taking care of in his head? One foot in Skopje, one hand in Velesta, one eye on her, the other eye on various other targets, one finger in some kind of deal with someone in Deutsche International—he was the walking, talking multitasking robot.
Not last night.
Helen grinned. Okay, there were moments when he was actually human.
Despite his façade, there was much more to this exasperating man than the cold, ruthless commando he showed on the outside. She was intrigued by all the things she’d discovered recently, and she planned to find out more. It was strange, how he turned from a make-believe naked avatar into a real live person, and she was comfortable with both. Well, as comfortable as one could get with a man such as Jed. It would never be easy, she realized that now, especially at moments like this, when the thought of him made her...she frowned, lifting one hand...glow. What the hell. She was glowing.
She waved her hand, watching the trail of light that the motion created. She looked at the crowd below. Now that she looked for them, those odd flashes of colors she had seen earlier were more pronounced, but instead of dissipating like before, they hung, like color bubbles, around some of the people.
Was it the serum affecting her perception? She hadn’t seen any glow like this that first time she’d used it, but a one-time usage didn’t mean anything conclusively. Besides, this time, she was using it before a remote-viewing session, so she wasn’t totally exhausted mentally and physically.
She looked down and studied herself. Yes, she was definitely emitting some kind of glow. Now that she was concentrating on it, she could feel some sort of charge. Heat. It didn’t feel dangerous. In fact, it felt natural, a part of her. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the sensation. It was enjoyment. Satisfaction. What was giving her these feelings? She projected her senses outward, the way she did when remote viewing, looking from the inside.
Jed in bed with her last night. His body on hers as he took his time pleasuring her. She could feel the orgasm that rocked her, the same powerful surrender, except this feeling was...a memory.
Suddenly, like channels crossing wires, she saw Jed walking with another man toward a waiting limousine. Her senses screamed, warning of danger.
Helen’s eyes shot open. She licked her dry lips and listened to the erratic pounding of her heart. That had felt so real, as if she was actually having sex again. She stared at both her hands, then took in the rest of her body. She was glowing even brighter. What. The. Hell?
Grabbing the binoculars, she did another sweep of the crowd, ignoring those odd bursts of light, studying the stage and those on it. Everything appeared normal.
“See anything, Heath?” she asked.
“Negative.”
“You don’t see anything that’s odd at all?” she insisted.
“Negative. What do you see, Hell?”
People that glow. And oh, she was glowing too. Hell shook her head. Something had happened, was happening. Her inner voice had interrupted a...dream? Illusion? Whatever it was, that charge of heat hadn’t been spontaneous remote viewing.
“Nothing,” she muttered, but her body was still giving little tremors.
