Lyn Stone - Under The Gun

It was early afternoon when he appeared at the door to her room.

“Hey, Will, come on in.” She watched Grayson guide him over and place his hand on the back of the empty chair. “Have a seat. Jack pulled some photos he thought might match my little portrait of our perp. I’m waiting for them to download.”

Grayson left them alone, and she shifted impatiently in the computer chair while she waited for the pictures to appear. Jack had formatted them for high resolution and that would take awhile.

“Well, is he there?” Will demanded, obviously as eager as she was to find out whether their shooter was in the array of possible subjects Jack had collected from various data banks. The chair beside hers squeaked as he scooted it closer. Their shoulders touched; his leg brushed hers.

Holly shifted a bit, breaking contact, though she could still feel his warmth next to her. “We’ll soon know.”

Jack needed more details than she had transmitted earlier after she had debriefed Will. She hoped he might have remembered something else since then.

“Describe who you saw that day,” she suggested as they waited.

He sighed. “Okay, one more time. The strike team was late. The plane was loaded. We either had to disable it or put the terrorists out of commission. We counted six guys, the number we’d been notified were involved in the transport. We shot up the plane first. A firefight ensued. We took them down. Firing ceased.”

“Go on,” she encouraged.

He swallowed hard. “Matt and I approached the plane, verified the missiles were inside, then I called you.”

He paused and looked as if he was gearing up to recount the rest.

Holly put a hand on his arm. “How long after the firing stopped were you and Matt hit?”

Will paused for a few seconds, his brow furrowed. “At least seven, maybe ten minutes. We had time to check for survivors and secure the wounded guy, look inside the plane, then call it in.”

“But you had a warning.”

“I saw a shadow move near the hangar. We weren’t wearing night vision equipment. You know how it screws you up if there’s a sudden flare. A flashlight can blind you and make you a target. Firing commenced. Matt threw himself at me and took us both to the ground. That’s all I remember.”

“Okay, now what did you see in the hospital? In your mind, you saw this guy coming down the hallway.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I knew where he was in relation to us, I guess. I felt his intent while he was psyching himself up for the kill. Matt always said that he could grasp things like that when a subject’s emotions ran high. It was just feelings, and…glimpses of what he was seeing, I think.”

Holly studied Will for a long minute. She was sort of surprised he was willingly describing his episode of extrasensory perception in as careful detail as he had the actual events at the airfield. “What were the visuals?”

Will shrugged. “The weapon. I got a fix on that, unless my mind’s playing tricks. Some kind of plastic deal, I think. Featherweight. Weird looking. He was really proud of it, as if he’d made it himself. Almost laughing at how simple it was to get it past the detectors.”

“Excellent, Will. That’s exactly what he had,” Holly said softly, encouraging him to continue. “Anything else? Try to remember.”

He turned inward, she could tell, concentrating hard. “Anger. Contained fury, though. He had to kill me.”

“He was afraid you’d glimpsed his face that night,” she guessed. “He had to get to you before you recovered and were able to do exactly what I’m about to do right now—match his face with an identity.”

“How would he know that I hadn’t already done that?” Will asked. “He’d have to have a contact at the hospital, or with somebody who was keeping close track of my condition.”

“Right. I’m sure that’s what Eric’s following up on.” She glanced at the monitor, where the first picture had materialized. “Here we go.”

“What did he look like?” Will asked.

“Average height. Bushy eyebrows. I’m pretty sure the hair and mustache were fake. His shoulders sloped, sort of like a no-neck athlete, you know?”

Will sat quietly beside her as she examined the five photos Jack had sent with his first message. “Not any one of these guys,” she reported with a puff of frustration.

She opened the next e-mail, with more files attached. “Rats. This could take forever.”

For a long while there was no sound other than the click of the keys and her own occasional hum of disappointment.

Then Will said, almost to himself, “If I could get something of his, something he touched… I don’t know if I can read him that way, but did he drop anything?”

Holly thought for a minute. “Shell casings at the airport? He would have touched those while loading. The dart from the nurse’s neck?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just a thought, something to try, but it’s pretty far-fetched. Tell Jack to send what he’s got, just in case. Eric’s probably tried everything already, since clairvoyance is his bag. Mine is… I don’t really know what mine is,” he admitted with a grunt. “If it’s anything at all.”

“It’s not like Joe’s snapshot images, is it?” She shook her head before he answered. “No, that’s pre-cognitive, and so are Clay’s visions, except that he has to seek them out, and then they’re too symbolic to mean much until after the fact. But yours seem to be real-time telepathy.”

“Added to remote viewing, apparently,” he added. “Like Matt’s.”

“Can you read me?” Holly asked. “Try it.”

He was silent for a while, then sighed. “No. Nothing. What are you thinking?”

“That we’ll ask Jack for the objects, anyway. It’s certainly worth a shot,” Holly said, and promptly fired off an e-mail to that effect.

She really should encourage Will to keep trying to get in touch with his newfound ability and explore it to the max. “If it’s not too painful for you, would you tell me about Matt and how you both dealt with his perceptions?”

“He had them and I didn’t. At least I never picked up on anything from other people. With Matt, I pretty much knew what he was thinking most of the time. We didn’t talk about it, it just was.”

“And you never even attempted to do what he did?”

Will shook his head. “Hell, no. He caught a lot of flack because of it when we were kids. He never denied it, though. It was part of him and he used it, just took it for granted most of the time.”

“Maybe you suppressed your ability early on because people gave him such a hard time about it,” Holly guessed. “That would be a natural reaction.”

“Spare me the pop psychology.”

“That’s my bag, in case you never noticed. People actually pay me for it.”

As usual, Will ignored her tone. “We were thoroughly analyzed by experts, believe me. Matt enjoyed confusing them. He really got into those so-called studies.”

“Matt was a show-off,” Holly said with a smile. “You were always the quiet one.”

“Were?”

She patted his arm and sighed. “Yep. You realize you’ve discussed more personal stuff with me in the last few hours than you have in all the time I’ve known you? And that’s a good thing, Will.”

“Forced proximity, I imagine. Nothing else to do.”

“No, it’s more than that. Different,” Holly argued. “You and I have been on secluded ops before with plenty of time and opportunity for conversation, and you hardly said anything at all about yourself.”

“Maybe you never let me get a word in,” he teased, then sobered a little. “I think I get what you’re trying to say. Maybe I’m even reading you a little right now. You’re worried I’m taking on Matt’s characteristics. Trying to be him now that he’s gone. I was his shadow for so long and now the substance of us is gone.”