21

Reese had always loved New York. The twenty-four-hour rhythm matched her own psyche far better than the more laid-back Southern California vibe. New York’s avaricious edge was sheathed in an extremely elegant bling. Like a carbon steel sword kept in a scabbard of silk and emeralds. She crossed the hotel lobby and smiled in anticipation of unsheathing her own hidden blade.

Reese entered the Plaza Hotel’s main restaurant, her stride stretching the fabric of her dress to its limit. She wore a silk sheath of midnight blue, so dark as to appear black under certain lighting. Not that any male in the Plaza’s main restaurant was particularly concerned about the color. The poisonous looks shot her way by matronly diners only added to the night’s pleasure.

The Plaza had recently undergone a complete renovation that cost over two hundred million dollars. The main restaurant shouted money in typical New York fashion, as in, too much is never enough.

When she had tracked down Byron McLaren in the hotel bar an hour and a half ago, the man had appeared positively stricken. But now he rose from the table and greeted her with a kiss and a smile and the words, “My day has just gotten a billion percent better.”

The maître d’ leaned over close enough for Reese to smell his hair gel as he bowed her into her chair. Byron beamed with pride of temporary ownership as he announced, “Let’s pick up where we left off. The lady will have a glass of your finest champagne.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Matter of fact, bring her a whole bottle.”

“One glass is fine,” Reese said. “But thanks just the same.”

Now that he had recovered from whatever had rocked his world, Byron McLaren was actually quite handsome, in a preppy sort of way. Reese knew a lot of girls went for that boy-who-never-grows-up look. But she was not one of them.

Of course, Byron’s real magnet was the fact that he was extremely rich.

He had let that one slip within the first ninety seconds of Reese sliding into the seat next to his that afternoon. At the time, however, the man had seemed to be reading off somebody else’s script. Reese had let him assume she found him attractive, or at least liked the look of his wallet, which had gradually brought the man back to life. He swiftly began what was no doubt his standard windup, regretting how he couldn’t fly her up to this great little bistro outside Boston, as delivery of his new Gulfstream was two months late. Something about the factory only having one set of the special gold fittings he had ordered, and they’d given them to the sultan of Brunei, can you imagine?

Byron gave her a full-frontal inspection and said, “I’ve got a weekend booked at a resort on Tortuga, and I was just sitting here wondering who I could find—”

“Actually, Byron.” Reese leaned forward and gave him a smile strong enough to draw glances from other tables. “This meeting is not entirely pleasure.”

She gave him a minute. Byron recovered well, which was good, because there was a lot of ground left to cover. He said, “So your coming on to me in the bar, that wasn’t a chance thing.”

She scratched a fingernail down the back of his wrist, enjoying the subtle shift of control. “No, Byron. It wasn’t.”

“What, you’re looking for venture capital, is that it?”

“Not at all.”

“I swear, you people. New York is like a hive for desperate fund seekers.” He showed a lot of affected movement when he was nervous, unnecessary motions that took up a great deal of space. Like an actor who suffered from an inferiority itch whenever the spotlight moved away. Byron shot his cuffs, lifted his hands and smoothed his hair, then flung his right arm over the banquet. “My, if this doesn’t just cap off a perfect day.”

“Byron, did you hear what I said?”

“I’ll give it to you straight and save us both a lot of trouble. I do all my finance work through Citi. I invest where they say. And I never let chance encounters develop into funding.”

“Actually, Byron, the part about Citi handling all your money is not true.” She always preferred to hold such confrontations in public. Meeting her prey in the spotlight of their choosing reduced the power of their scenes. They feared embarrassment heaped upon whatever horror she had to bring. Which in Byron’s case was quite a lot. “How much do you actually know about your wife’s research?”

“Gabriella? She doesn’t have a thing to do with my investment capital.”

“I’m not here about your portfolio. I already told you that. Please answer the question.”

Talking about his wife clearly heightened the man’s unease. That was unexpected. “I financed her project.”

“Byron, I want you to try real hard and move past the money issue. I asked you about her research.”

“I know enough. And this isn’t amusing any longer.”

When he attempted to lift his arm to signal the waiter, Reese froze him with three little words. “Bank of Geneva.”

The sensation really was exquisite. Grabbing a man by a most sensitive body part—the wallet. And wrenching with delicate precision.

Reese drew a folded sheet of paper from her purse. “These are your accounts, Byron. All five of them. Surely you recognize the numbers.”

“B-but this is . . .”

“Completely confidential. I know.” Moments like this were what kept her in the game. She was offered jobs all the time, usually by Combine members. This was what held her. The rare moment when the Combine’s power was truly hers to wield. “Now here, see at the bottom of the page, this series of zeros? These were your account balances exactly an hour ago.”

Byron’s skin went waxy as the blood drained away.

Eighty-seven million dollars. Secreted away and supposedly safe in a tight little Swiss bank on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Gone.

She anchored the page with her cell phone. “You can call and check this out, Byron. We’ve got time.”

Wordlessly, Byron slipped from the booth and stormed from the restaurant. Or tried to. Reese had the distinct impression that something had already disarmed and wounded the man. Whatever he had been through that afternoon had marked him deeply. She was debating whether she should call in and have Patel try to discover what that might have been, in case it affected their own situation. But Byron chose that moment to return to the table.

He slumped into his seat and took a heavy slug from his glass. Spent a few moments staring at nothing. Drank again. Reese realized the man had had some work done on his face, and by someone extremely good. She saw the faint trace of scar tissue along his hairline, accented by the man’s evident strain.

Byron asked, “Who are you?”

“That’s not important. Right now you need to focus on just two items. First, I obviously represent some extremely powerful interests. Second, what these people have taken away, they can give back.”

His voice had aged a thousand years. “You’ll restore my money?”

“Every cent,” she lied. “Just give us what we want, and we’ll vanish. Poof. We’ve never even met. Your life goes back to fun and games and all the Swiss gold one bad boy can spend. And you can spend a lot, can’t you, Byron?”

“You’re not from the IRS?”

“No, Byron. Now that’s enough of your questions. Tell me about your wife’s work.”

“I don’t get it. Gabriella’s research isn’t worth this.” He struck the accounts sheet with a trembling hand.

“Your wife represents a threat. That threat must be eliminated. As soon as that happens, your accounts will be restored.”

“Gabriella is a psychologist. Before she started on this project, she worked with rats.”

“Listen very carefully, Byron. You recall how the Vero Beach hospital’s fund-raising chairman approached you and said you could have the medical school’s teaching unit named after you for a ridiculously low sum. Not to mention how he let you have the top-floor research unit basically for free. That was our doing.” She let that sink in. “I’m sharing this with you because I want you to understand just how vital we consider Gabriella’s work to be. Now I want you to focus. Good. Tell me about her project.”

“They’re after quantifying certain experiences that the world considers totally off-the-wall. They call them ascents. Their aim is to make them measurable events. Create an environment where the events can be both repeated and computed.”

Reese let him ramble on. Actually, they knew far more than he ever would. And further information was not what was required. But there was nothing to be gained by revealing this to a newly broken man.

Byron did not so much finish as run out of steam. Perspiration was not normally served as part of the Plaza’s first course, but Byron used his napkin like a towel, wiping himself from hairline to neck. It was too soon for the man to enter meltdown.

“So you’ve assumed all this was just another quasi-spiritual sham. You figured, hey, give the girl her toys, play the hero, get a nice write-off, maybe score with some of the cute researchers. What’s wrong with a little harmless fun, right?” She moved in tight. “But they’ve made some fundamental progress into areas we can’t permit, for reasons of national security and our own corporate interests. Areas such as teleportation.” Reese straightened. “Here comes the headwaiter, Byron. You need anything?”

Byron had left polite etiquette behind a long time ago. He snarled at the waiter, “Go away.”

This being New York, the maître d’ simply bowed and said, “Very good, sir.”

When they were alone, Reese said, “Their work is in the early stages. We think it can still be halted in time. But we’re not certain. We need to move fast.”

Byron again applied the napkin to his forehead. “This is nuts.”

Reese moved in closer, using her looks to calm and stabilize her victim. To any observer she was simply another cute young blonde nestling up to a guy having a stroke. “Soon after they arrived at what was an absolutely perfect Vero research center, Gabriella came up with this incredible stunt of bringing in Charlie Hazard. Don’t look so surprised, Byron. I told you we had surveillance in place. They tested Hazard according to these impossible protocols of hers, and then that same night everybody pulled out. A state-of-the-art facility designed specifically for her work, paid for by her loving but not-so-loyal husband. Somehow your wife became aware of our interest, and did so at a level beyond either the physical state or time. You see why we’re so worried here, Byron? Your wife and her team have been successful at spatial and temporal shifts. She can go anywhere, see anything. No secret will ever be safe again.”

Reese stopped because Byron was no longer listening. His eyes stared into the distance, far beyond their table. She asked, “What is it, Byron?”

“This explains something she’s done.”

She saw him reaching for his soaked napkin and handed over her own. “We’re certain your wife and her team have left the country. We need—”

“Gabriella hasn’t.”

“What?”

“Or that man. Hazard. They haven’t left.” His waxy coloring returned. “I saw them.”

“You’re telling me Gabriella is here? In New York?”

“This afternoon. They were in my suite.”

While she recovered from that bombshell, Reese’s phone started ringing. Weldon Hawkins was listening in and now felt it necessary to intervene. Reese cut the connection and stowed the phone in her purse. “Go on.”

“I couldn’t figure out how she knew where to find me. I didn’t tell anybody where I was staying. But she popped up out of the blue. With that man.”

“Gabriella appeared in your suite with Charlie Hazard.” Light dawned, and Byron’s current state suddenly made sense. “She caught you with another woman, didn’t she. And it must have been earlier today, before you hit on me in the bar. My, but you’re a busy little boy.”

“She had the divorce papers already written up. It was either sign or they’d go public with the video that man Hazard was shooting.”

Reese gathered up her purse and rose from her chair. “We’ve got to assume they’ve already left town. We want you to find out where she’s moved her team.”

“You’ll give me back my money?”

“I already covered that.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

Reese was glad for a reason to laugh. “Get real, Byron. And get us that location.”

Reese waited until she had settled into the limo’s backseat to turn on her phone. It rang instantly.

Weldon said, “Teleportation?”

“Hang on a second.”

The limo driver settled in behind the wheel and asked, “Where to next, Ms. Clawson?”

“Just head uptown.” She lifted the phone. “So what would you prefer to call it?”

“All we know for certain is, the user’s awareness is no longer tied to their physical state.”

“This goes well beyond precognition, Weldon. You just heard Byron confirm what we heard on our monitoring system. Charlie Hazard arrived in their lab, and in his first experience he shifted to another room and read a sign they didn’t even print until he was under. What’s worse, Gabriella saw all of this before it actually happened. She knew where to find him, she knew he would go for it, she knew he would read the sign, she knew we were watching.”

Weldon knew all this as well as she did. He liked to test his assumptions with such discussions. He also had a tendency to cough his words when nervous. Little verbal barks, like the beast in him was barely under control. “I’ve just ordered your crew to search the local hotels.”

“Seeing as how Hazard and the woman have stayed one step ahead of us this far, I kind of doubt they’ll make a mistake now.”

“You’re saying we shouldn’t bother?”

“Of course not. Tell them to check the bus and train stations. Limos, taxis, the works.”

“Are you returning tonight?”

“Tomorrow. We need to be certain they’ve actually left town.”

Weldon hung up. No farewell, no acknowledgment of a job well handled. Reese started to detach her lapel mike, then decided Patel needed to be a part of her final phone call. She asked the driver, “Where does a girl go for the hottest nighttime action in town?”

The driver grinned into his rearview mirror. This was clearly a question he liked. “Lady, this is New York. You got to be more specific than that. You want jazz hot, club hot, R & B hot, down-and-dirty salsa hot—what you like?”

“I’m in the mood for spicy.” She kicked off her shoes. “Salsa sounds perfect.”

The driver was Hispanic and proud of it. His grin grew broader. “I got just the joint.”

“Great.” She pulled a miniature earpiece from her pocket, fitted it into place, then spoke into her lapel mike. “Patel, you there?”

“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”

“Find General Strang and patch him through to my phone. We’ve got some serious business to discuss.”