Читать книгу Sight Unseen - Gayle Wilson - Страница 13

“Exactly what does Mr. Gardner think I can do for you?”

After directing him to the couch, Raine McAllister had perched on an ottoman that belonged to one of the two tall fan chairs in the sunroom she’d led him to. Although there was no ocean view from here, the atmosphere created by white wicker furniture, with its pale-green and yellow cushions, left no doubt this was a beach house.

The room was both elegant and comfortable. During the day, it would be full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Tonight their jalousies had been closed against the darkness, but with the woodwork painted white and the walls a nearly colorless shell pink, the effect was still spacious and airy.

“I’m trying to gather information about The Covenant.”

There was a heartbeat of silence. Ethan wasn’t sure if that was because she didn’t recognize the name or because she was reluctant to reveal to a stranger that she knew anything about the organization.

Given the cloak of secrecy that shrouded The Covenant’s operations and considering how dangerous he believed the group to be, either was a possibility. He was hopeful, of course, that the latter of the two explanations was the one that made her hesitate.

“That’s why he sent you? To find out if I can provide you with information about… I’m sorry. What was it? A covenant?”

Despite what the old man had implied, Raine McAllister seemed genuinely puzzled by the reference. The sinking feeling in the pit of Ethan’s stomach reflected his disappointment.

“The Covenant,” Ethan corrected. “He gave me your name and address and indicated you might be able to help with an ongoing investigation that otherwise, quite frankly, seems to have reached a dead end.”

“So…Mr. Gardner sent you here for my help, but he didn’t tell you how or why I might be able to give it? And you didn’t ask.”

He couldn’t quite read her tone. Bemused, perhaps? Or maybe amused, he amended. Because he’d come all the way down here from Washington based only on an old man’s recommendation that she might be able to help him?

At the same time he was aware that he’d been let in only because he’d invoked the name of Montgomery Gardner. He didn’t want to destroy whatever advantage that had given him by saying something that could be construed as derogatory about the old man. Not before he was sure this really was the wild-goose chase he was beginning to believe it might be.

“Since Mr. Gardner is both a former DCI and a lifelong resident of the D.C. area, when he suggested I talk to you, I assumed you had either worked at the agency or had some specialized knowledge that he believed might be useful.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, as she appeared to think about what he’d just said.

“I suppose in a way I did work for him. I guess I just never looked at it like that.”

“You didn’t consider what you did at the agency work?”

Even as he posed the question, he was trying to figure out how this woman could have worked for Monty Gardner, whose tenure at the CIA had ended almost twenty-five years ago. He would have guessed her to be in her late twenties. Early thirties at the outside. In either case, she would have been far too young to have been an operative during the old man’s regime.

“As far as I was concerned, we played games.”

“Games?”

“They’d point to some place on a map, and I’d describe to them what was there.”

Suddenly everything he hadn’t understood when she’d opened the door clicked into place. And he felt like a fool that he hadn’t put it together sooner.

Short of divine intervention or clairvoyance, Griff had said, I’m not sure how we pierce that veil of secrecy. And in response, the old man had denied any special pull with the Divinity and had suggested they contact this woman.

Both he and Griff had missed the significance of the thing Gardner hadn’t denied knowledge of. Clairvoyance. Raine McAllister was a clairvoyant.

Ethan knew very little about the CIA’s experimentation with parapsychology—other than the fact that it had occurred in response to the Soviet Union’s psychic research. And the time frame in which it had taken place fit into the era when Gardner had been the head of the agency, he realized.

It even made sense of the picture in the old man’s file. It was obvious Raine had been a little girl when she’d taken part in those experiments.

There was something about the exploitation of a child, despite the genuine concerns about national security during those years, that troubled him. It must have bothered Gardner, as well. Why else would he have kept in touch with this woman all this time?

“You were part of the CIA’s psychic research program.”

He had thought the old man must be onto something, especially in view of what had happened after his and Griff’s visit. Now it seemed that must have occurred, not because Gardner had any information to share, but simply because they’d asked him if he did.

“Something which, judging from your tone, has apparently fallen out of favor,” she suggested.

“A long time ago,” he said. “Probably because it didn’t prove to be as valuable as they’d hoped. I never realized the project involved children.”

His discomfort with that scenario undoubtedly showed. She smiled as if amused at his naiveté.

“I take it Mr. Gardner also failed to mention what I was doing before they brought me to Langley.”

There was an almost challenging tilt to Raine’s chin. Ethan wasn’t sure where she was headed with the question, but since Gardner had given him no clue about her, either before or after she’d been involved with the CIA, he told her the truth.

“He said nothing about you beyond his hope that you could help with the matter I mentioned. Information about The Covenant.”

“Maybe he was trying to spare me embarrassment.”

“Embarrassment?” Where the hell was this going?

“I told fortunes. Read palms and auras. I even read the cards.”

“Tarot?”

Despite the polite tone of his question, Ethan was furious at how much time he’d wasted coming down here. What she was saying now was only what he’d expected when he had finally realized her connection with the agency. Carnival sideshow quackery.

“Occasionally I’d see something about the person I was reading that was…tragic. The first beating I ever got was for telling someone they were going to die,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t know any better. I didn’t understand the concept of entertaining the customer.”

The word beating had tightened the muscles in his stomach, although it had been uttered without any inflection. Maybe she’d used the term in jest. An exaggeration of the spankings that were fairly typical methods of discipline when they’d both been children. Something in her eyes belied that comforting thought.

“So you see, I liked playing Mr. Gardner’s little games,” she said. “They were undemanding. And they were safe.”

“Then perhaps you’d be willing to play another.”

Despite his anger and skepticism, Ethan found he was holding his breath as he waited for her answer. He must be even more desperate than he’d thought.

“For you?”

“For your country.”

Her mouth was a little wide in proportion to the rest of her features. The corners ticked up quickly before she looked down at her hands, intertwined in her lap. Slim and tanned, they seemed as delicate as her face. When she looked up again, the smile had disappeared.

“Like performing a parlor trick, you mean? Reading the cards perhaps.”

Although the tone was again almost free of inflection, the wording clearly mocked what he’d just asked of her.

“You seem amused by the idea of helping your country.”

He sounded like some bureaucratic jerk. Maybe he was, but there was nothing in the least bit funny to him about what The Covenant was trying to do.

Respect for the old man had caused him to seek this woman out. And it had kept him here, even after he’d learned the truth. Under no other circumstance would he have approached some so-called psychic for help. After what had happened to Gardner, however…

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to be flippant. Exactly what do you believe I can do for my country?” The tone of the last was clearly sarcastic, despite her apology.

“I’d ask that what I’m about to tell you remain in strictest confidence.”

She lifted one hand as if to indicate their surroundings. “Just who do you think I might tell?”

“I’d like your word that you won’t tell anyone.”

Again the corners of her mouth quirked and were then controlled. She was openly making fun of him. And since Ethan wasn’t accustomed to being a source of amusement, it made him uncomfortable.

Granted, he had always taken his responsibilities, both with the agency and then later with the Phoenix, very seriously. Maybe too seriously. That didn’t ease the spurt of anger he felt at her unspoken ridicule.

He wondered if he were overreacting because she was a woman. A woman who in any other circumstances he would have been attracted to.

The admission was surprising, but once he’d made it, he realized how accurate it was. Physically, everything about her appealed to him. It was only the other that made him uncomfortable.

“Then you have it, of course.” She folded her hands together in her lap again and leaned forward as if eager to hear what he had to say.

The pose didn’t fool him. Nor did it mitigate his anger. He hadn’t come here to be mocked. Not about something that was an integral part of who and what he was—

The realization was sudden. And stunning.

As soon as he had realized what she’d done at the CIA, he had expected to be amused at any claims she would make about her abilities. She had very neatly turned the tables on him instead. Deliberately giving him a dose of his own medicine? he wondered.

He’d been careful not to reveal his skepticism that her “gifts” could prove useful. Careful neither by word nor tone to indicate that he would have walked out immediately after learning about them except for the old man’s confidence in her and what had happened two nights ago. So unless she was prescient—

Again, the natural conclusion of that train of thought surprised him. He glanced up, meeting clear green eyes, and found that, although her face was completely controlled, they were full of laughter. As if she knew exactly what he’d been thinking.

It was both disconcerting and annoying. He wasn’t accustomed to being manipulated, yet that was exactly how he felt. As if she were the one conducting the interview. As if she were the one making the evaluation.

As if she had found him wanting.

“You were about to tell me about the needs of my country, Mr. Snow,” she prodded at his silence.

He took a breath, trying to gather his wits. He had to balance his innate distrust of everything Raine McAllister represented with the very real concerns he had about national security if The Covenant wasn’t stopped.

And, too, there was his respect for Montgomery Gardner’s judgment. If the old man was right—if it was remotely possible this woman could help—then he had an obligation to pursue this.

“We have reason to believe that members of The Covenant are funding, if not actively carrying out, domestic terrorism. We believe they are doing so in an attempt to provoke a response from our government against not only the known terrorist groups, but against the entire Muslim world. To set off an American jihad, if you will.”

That was the word Bertha Reynolds had used during the final confrontation with Phoenix agent John Edmonds. Jihad. Holy war.

“The agency I work for,” Ethan continued, choosing his words with care, “had some success several months ago in identifying a few individuals involved in that plan. At the time we were hopeful they were the only members of The Covenant who were in on the plot. That their actions were an aberration in an otherwise legitimate and benign charitable foundation.”

When he glanced up, he realized that she was listening intently. At least she was no longer making fun of him.

“Recently,” he went on, thinking about the most telling evidence they’d gathered, “there have been at least two bombing attempts that we believe may be tied to the organization. The problem is we can’t prove any of this. They’ve taken great pains to ensure that their membership list remains secret. We’ve had no success identifying their leaders. Then…Mr. Gardner suggested you could help.”

“And now that you know why he suggested that?”

Ethan had a feeling that if he attempted to prevaricate, she’d see right through him. Maybe literally.

“My first inclination would be to discount the possibility. I’m not sure I have that option any longer.”

Her head tilted, questioning what he’d just said.

“Less than twenty-four hours after he gave me your name, Mr. Gardner was attacked in his home.”

“Attacked?”

That, at least, was something she hadn’t known. There was a fleeting sense of satisfaction until he remembered the seriousness of the old man’s condition.

“In an upscale Virginia neighborhood that has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. Nothing was taken from the house although there were a multitude of valuable objects around. In short, there was no sign that what happened was anything other than a personal attack.”

“He isn’t dead.”

It hadn’t sounded like a question, but he answered as if it had been. “He’s in critical condition. Given his age…”

There was a long pause. Her eyes, locked on his face, had lost any tendency to laughter.

“And you believe someone did that because you’d gone to talk to him.”

“Given the timing, it makes sense.”

“Because you talked about me?”

“Or about the organization we’ve been tracking. I’ve no doubt that I’ve asked enough questions during the last few months to make them suspicious. Maybe they followed me there. Or it may be that Mr. Gardner was targeted because of his ties to the agency I work for.”

The crease he’d noticed before formed again between her brows. “The CIA?”

“A private investigative agency.”

“But…” Her lips closed over the question.

“Run by someone who also had very close ties to the CIA.”

“A private agency? You said your investigation was driven by national security concerns.”

“You don’t have to be a government operative to want to protect this country and its people from further acts of terrorism.”

“But you were,” she said. “A government operative.”

“At one time.”

He didn’t elaborate. He wasn’t willing to discuss why he had left the CIA.

It had had nothing to do with the disbanding of Cabot’s elite counterterrorism team. Ethan had left on his own almost a year before that edict against the External Security Team had come down. And only at the urging of someone he respected as much as he respected Griff Cabot would he ever have become involved in clandestine operations again.

“But he will be all right, won’t he?”

She meant Gardner, he realized.

Your guess is as good as mine. That answer was no less mocking than some of those she’d made to his appeal. He didn’t offer it, however.

Despite his distaste for almost everything he had learned about Raine McAllister, he couldn’t shake the notion that he owed it to the old man to treat her, and this entire bizarre episode, with at least some degree of respect. Professional courtesy for a former DCI? Or guilt over the possibility that his and Griff’s visit had played a role in the attack that had injured Montgomery Gardner?

“From what everyone says he’s a tough old bird,” he hedged.

“You don’t know him?”

“Not really. I’ve only met Mr. Gardner a few times. Mostly on social occasions at the home of the owner of the agency, Griff Cabot, and his wife.”

She smiled. “As a child, I was always so jealous.”

It took him a second to make the connection. “Of Claire?”

“She was his granddaughter. We’re about the same age. And she had a right to his time and his interest.”

Which she had wanted for herself?

“I always wondered if she knew about me,” Raine continued. “And if so, exactly what she knew.”

“I don’t understand.”

He didn’t. Not her relationship with the old man or her remarks about being jealous of his granddaughter.

“After it was over…” She paused, her eyes again seeming to contemplate a time other than the present. “He paid for my schooling. First, at a very fine girls’ boarding school in Virginia, and then later at Wellesley.” Her eyes lifted to Ethan’s. “I’m afraid I didn’t fit very well at either. I always thought Claire would have.”

There was no doubt about that, Ethan acknowledged, remembering the poised and beautiful woman who had married Griff Cabot when he’d literally come back from the dead. Despite the very real ideological differences each had brought to that union, theirs seemed to be one of the most successful marriages he’d ever seen.

“When do you want to leave?”

Raine’s question, totally out of context in their discussion of Claire Cabot, caught him off guard.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or were you just planning to point to some names in a copy of Who’s Who?”

He’d been doing better in the role of stiff-necked bureaucrat, he realized. Playing straight man to her mockery wasn’t nearly so appealing.

“You’re coming to Washington,” he attempted to clarify.

“I thought that’s what you wanted.”

He had come expecting to be provided with information that would give him a handle on the inner circle of The Covenant. It was obvious now that was something this woman didn’t possess. What she did have was a supposed psychic ability Monty Gardner believed in strongly enough to have sent him down here.

And now, because she thought she owed the old man something or maybe because she considered him something of a father figure, she was offering to use her “gift” to help Ethan break the code of silence surrounding the dark heart of an organization he’d spent the past six months investigating. The problem was, no matter what the old man believed about her abilities, Ethan himself didn’t think she was capable of doing anything like that.

“I don’t—” he began and then stopped. “Actually, I hadn’t thought that far.”

Back to idiotic straight man, trying to come up with some way of letting her perform her mumbo-jumbo that didn’t involve hauling her back to D.C. He didn’t even want to think about how her act would be greeted by the hard-nosed ex-intelligence agents of the Phoenix.

“I’ll try not to embarrass you, Mr. Snow. I promise you that I’ve learned a great deal since my Tarot-reading days. And I’d really like to see him,” she added softly, her voice more subdued than it had been at any time during the course of their conversation. “It might be my last chance to tell him how much he’s always meant to me.”

“Of course,” Ethan said.

No matter the fallout from this, he realized, given his guilt over the timing of that attack, there really was nothing else he could say to that particular appeal.

RAINE SLIPPED THE CHAIN into the slot on the front door and turned the dead bolt. Normally, despite the isolation of the house, she never thought about those precautions. With all that had happened tonight, she did them automatically.

As soon as she heard the sound of the car’s engine kick over, she turned off the outside lights. She stood a moment in the darkness, listening as Ethan Snow backed his car out of her driveway and onto the two-lane, blacktopped beach road.

When the noise of his automobile had faded into the distance, she retraced her steps to the back of the house. The studio was exactly as she had left it, the figure of the runner still draped under its cloth covering.

For a moment she avoided looking at it, allowing her eyes to move around the room instead, focusing briefly on the completed sculptures. Trying again to find the peace this place had always given her.

Despite her avoidance of the statue that had precipitated the vision, that peace still eluded her. Moving decisively, she crossed the room, intending to uncover the runner. As she approached the figure, however, her steps slowed, almost without her conscious volition.

Although she took a fortifying breath as soon as she reached the pedestal, she didn’t allow any other hesitation. She quickly lifted the cloth, revealing the sculpture.

There was no repetition of what had occurred at sunset. Nothing at all unusual happened.

The flowing lines of the figure seemed as pleasing to her as they had last night. Proportioned. Graceful. Displaying exactly the strength and athleticism she’d been trying for.

She circled the stand, examining the statue from every angle. When she reached the front, for almost the first time since she’d shaped the features, she looked at the runner head-on.

Her heart seemed to falter before it resumed beating, but at an increased rate. Although she moved closer, there was no doubt at all about what her eyes had told her.

The straining face of the runner she had fashioned two days ago, the figure that had metamorphosed into the vision of that dark, bottomless pond, was clearly that of the man with whom she had just agreed to travel to Washington tomorrow.