there were people who could see things as if they were able to transport themselves to another place on the planet, but to actually have to communicate with one as if everything they said was a fact made Stratton feel self-conscious, as if he was having a conversation with a mad person just to humour them.
‘You’re saying this American air base is in England?’ Stratton asked, ignoring his discomfort and doing his best to take this seriously.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why? Why they put it in England?’
Stratton added another mental note about Gabriel. He was literal. ‘No. Why do you think it is an American air base in England?’
‘I can’t see signposts. It doesn’t work like that. If you were to think of a place, anywhere in the world, that you have been to, or even just heard or read descriptions of, a beach, a mountain range, a living room, whatever the images you had in your head, that’s what I would see. I can’t hear voices or the words in a person’s head, just images and emotions. Do you understand?’ Gabriel was beginning to sound like a teacher talking to a young student.
Stratton did not, but at least Gabriel was talking. ‘You can read anyone’s mind then?’ he asked.
‘It’s not mind reading. I don’t know who I can access or why I can access them. In this case it seems to be connected with something very evil.’
Stratton didn’t know what to make of Gabriel. Clearly the man believed in himself, and obviously several people high up in British and American intelligence did too. That negated whatever Stratton thought of all this. All he could do was get on with his job, once he had identified what that was. ‘So why an American air base in the UK?’ he asked.
‘Because it was filled with American personnel, soldiers, airmen, US flags.’
‘But what puts it in England?’
Gabriel went back to his packing. ‘The vehicles, the trucks and the cars, were driving on the left side of the road,’ he said as he neatly folded a shirt before placing it into another compartment of his holdall.
‘Why not Japan?’
‘Red phone boxes,’ Gabriel said. ‘There are some things I am able to work out for myself,’ he sighed. ‘You ever decoded remote viewers before?’
‘No.’
Gabriel shook his head. This was becoming more amateurish by the second. ‘Decoding is everything. You’re here because of your local knowledge. Your job is to interpret what I see.’
‘And you don’t have any hint of what the danger is?’ he asked.
‘I said no.’
‘Then how do you know there’s danger?’
‘Because he does. He knows it’s dangerous. It’s the danger itself that I’ve tapped into, more than anything physical.That’s why it’s so strong. It’s the most dangerous thing he’s ever done in his life, and he’s done many dangerous things. I can feel it in him, burning like a furnace.’
‘He?’
‘I don’t know who he is either.’
Stratton guessed that might be his answer. ‘You know where this danger is?’ he asked, pressing on.
‘No. It’s not with him. He’s looking for it, or at least he was last time I viewed him. He believes he knows where it is and how to find it, and he is determined to succeed. All I can tell you about the danger is that he’s touched it before but never experienced it.’
‘Do you know anything about him at all?’ Stratton asked, starting to treat it as a game to keep his interest up.
‘He’s foreign. I’m certain of that. I can’t hear voices or discern languages, just the emotion. Emotion has no language barriers. Yes, some races are more emotional than others, but I’m looking at an individual. He’s introvert. Lonely I think. He’s interesting. And dark, of course. Very dark. Dark and deep as an abandoned mine. And dangerous. I could get lost looking inside his head . . . There’s a lot of fear there . . . anxiety. Sadness too, and anger. He’s tormented, that’s for sure.’
‘How do you know it’s a man?’
‘He has the desires of a man.They’re different than the desires a woman has for another woman. You understand that much at least.’
Arsehole, Stratton added to Gabriel’s mental notes. However, the man was genuinely afraid of something and fear alters a person. ‘What do you think he’s afraid of?’
‘That’s the part that’s most confusing. Some of the fear is mine. I’m having trouble controlling it. It’s getting in the way.’
‘Why are you afraid?’
‘I don’t know.’
Stratton looked away, doing his best not to appear unconvinced, but