“I’ll be happy to,” Juliana said. “I’m sorry Sebastian is giving you problems.”
“Don’t worry, he’s just a boy,” Alise said, and Juliana laughed, as did Alise’s other little followers. Sebastian cast a look of disbelief at Juliana, but she ignored him.
“I think I’m done.” Sebastian stood and returned his slightly-eaten meal to the dumbwaiter. The little rope-powered elevator would return their dirty dishes up to the kitchen.
“So am I.” Mia followed him out to the hallway, though she hadn’t eaten at all.
“Have fun, you two,” Alise said, and the other blond girls snickered.
“It’s like she’s under a spell,” Sebastian said quietly to Mia as they walked down the hall, away from the dining room and back toward the dormitories. “I mean, I’ve felt Alise’s power before, and I know it’s very...”
“Sexy?” Mia asked, and he couldn’t help laughing.
“Yeah. Strong. Like opium. It feels like Juliana’s completely out of touch with herself. And me.”
“Don’t worry, I’m still here.” Mia smiled. “I’ll talk to her. And she’ll come back to her senses...Alise has touched me before, and it does wear off eventually.”
“It’s good you’re here, Mia,” Sebastian said. “Without you, I’d be going crazy.”
“You might still be going crazy.” She smiled as they reached the double doors to the girls’ hall. “I’ll see you at breakfast. Don’t worry about Juliana.”
“I’ll try.” Sebastian reached out and hugged her, without thinking about it. He’d never hugged her before. She leaned her face against his neck, wrapping her arms around him tightly and holding him much longer than he’d expected, while his healing energy seeped into her body. She gave him a dazed smile as she finally pulled herself away and stepped through the door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Esmeralda stood in the high concrete room and stared at the dead body on the gurney in front of her. A sheet covered him to the chest, hiding the bullet wounds that had killed him. She’d been told nothing about him, but he looked Arabic to her, or maybe Pakistani.
Two scientists, two U.S. military intelligence officers, and General Ward Kilpatrick watched her from across the room, as did a digital video camera.
“Anytime, Miss Rios,” Ward said.
Esmeralda sighed. She didn’t want to help this man, who’d had her drugged and kidnapped from her home. She had no idea where in the world they were, and there were no windows anywhere to give her any clues. The lack of windows made the place even more creepy and sinister. She had a constant bad feeling, as if the place were haunted by angry ghosts. At night, in the dark, she spent hours laying awake in terror, expecting something to grab her.
Her kidnappers belonged to some kind of secret government agency, the same people who’d recruited Tommy. Ward had approached her in person a week after Tommy left, asking if she was ready to join him, but Esmeralda had turned him down. So he’d had men kidnap her instead.
Now she was cooperating reluctantly, out of fear of what he might do if she didn’t. She kept asking him to let her see Tommy, but Ward just smirked and said she had to “earn” a visit with him. This involved reading bodies that Ward brought to her, while his researchers monitored her through sensors attached all over her body.
Esmeralda took a deep breath, placed her hands on the corpse, and closed her eyes.
Immediately, she saw flashes of life in a city of bombed-out and blackened buildings...Afghanistan. He was Pashtun, not Arab.
“I see Kabul,” she told them. “Now, another city, Herat, full of ancient towers, not so destroyed...He traveled back and forth, buying and selling...Dishes? Dishes and teapots from Iran. He preferred Herat. He died in Kabul.”
“He brought weapons from Iran to Afghanistan,” said one of the intelligence officers who’d brought the corpse to the base. “A gun dealer.”
Esmeralda’s forehead wrinkled as she concentrated. “No...I don’t see anything like that.”
“He has to be the guy. We worked hard to track him down. A paid informant assured us he was a gun runner.”
“Maybe you should ask for your money back.” Esmeralda opened her eyes.
“We were told he was involved in guns and heroin,” the officer told her.
“No. He did make a sport of sleeping with the wives of other men. Perhaps that is why someone wants him dead.”
The intelligence officers looked at each other.
“This girl’s a fake,” one of them said to Ward. “She doesn’t know anything.”