"Enough," Rose cut in. "I want an answer, Director, and I want it fast."
"Look, I haven't the power for a decision like this. I need to go higher."
Rose glanced at her watch again. "You have precisely two hours. Then he dies."
"Just make sure he lives until you get my damn — "
Rose hit the receiver, cutting him off. "Four seconds until the trace was complete. That will really piss him off, don't you think?"
Maybe. Maybe not. It depended on how fast the satellites got into action.
Rose reset the laser. "I'm afraid there's a lot more to do, the least of which is ensuring you don't bleed to death within the next couple of hours. Can't have my insurance policy expiring before its proper time now, can I?"
The woman was certifiably crazy. He replied, "It's not something I want, I can assure you of that."
She gave him a thin smile. "No doubt," she said, and squeezed the trigger.
Gabriel swore and rolled away from the beam. His injured arm hit the floor, and agony exploded. Then the second burst of laser fire hit, sweeping him into unconsciousness.
* * * *
Sam studied the warehouse through the mustang's rain-washed window. Even with the headlights on high beam, the building was little more than a hunched shadow in the stormy night."I can't see what coming out here is going to achieve," Jessie said, leaning on the steering wheel to peer through the windshield. "We went over everything already. There's nothing here to find."
"Maybe." She had to try, at the very least. "You'd better wait here. No sense in the two of us getting wet."
Jessie's gaze was dubious. "You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." She opened the car door. The wind snatched it from her hands, flinging it fully open. She winced. "Sorry about that."
Jessie shrugged. "There's a flashlight in the glove compartment. Grab that."
She did, even though she didn't really need it. With all the lightning, the night was almost as bright as day. She climbed out and slammed the door shut. The wind tore at her hair, blowing it in all directions. The rain sheeted down, sluicing off her coat and soaking into her boots. Yet in the wildness, there was power. She could feel it, running across her skin, crackling across her fingertips. She breathed deeply, drawing that energy inside, feeling it surge through every pore, every fiber, although she wasn't entirely sure how this would help her find Gabriel.
She walked toward the warehouse. The wind howled through the shattered windows lining the front of the building, an eerie sound that had goose bumps fleeing across her skin. Mixed with this moaning was the high pitched scream of metal as the wind tore at the roofing. It sounded like the dead being tortured.
Shoving her hands in her coat pockets, and half-wishing she'd brought some gloves, she made her way down the side of the building. It briefly protected her from the full force of the wind, though the night was still bitterly cold. Thunder peeled in the distance. She began counting the seconds, but she had barely gotten to three before jagged lighting split the night sky. The center of the storm was only a few miles away. Whether this would make any difference to what might happen, she wasn't sure.
She reached the back and came out of the protection of the building. The wind slapped against her, forcing her to stagger several steps before she regained her footing. Lighting tore through the sky again. In the residue brightness, she saw the ramp and loading bay. This is it. This was where Gabriel had gotten shot.
She walked forward slowly, not toward the loading bay, but away from it. He'd been flying when he'd been hit, striving upwards to escape the loading bay. He wouldn't have come down close to it.
Overhead, thunder rumbled again. The power of the storm echoed through her, a force that filled her, completed her, in way she couldn't even begin to understand or hope to explain. When she clenched her hands, sparks danced across her knuckles, a visible sign of the energy coursing through her being.
It scared her. Terrified her. But if this power helped her find Gabriel, then she'd use it and worry about the consequences later.
She splashed through puddles, following the rain-slick pavement toward the rear of the property. Hopefully, there she'd find a clue that Stephan and Jessie had missed.
The fence line came into view. The double gates leading out of the property were padlocked. She turned left and walked along the perimeter, following instinct and hoping it wasn't leading her astray.
Again, the sky rumbled. In the following flash of lightning, she saw something flapping wildly in the wind torn darkness. A piece of material, caught in the fence.
She splashed quickly through the mud. The material was dark gray and felt like silk. The sort of material Gabriel favored in his jackets. She tore the strip free and rubbed it between her fingers. He must have snagged his jacket against the fence as he fell. Hopefully, his jacket was the only casualty.
Thunder reverberated. Its power shuddered through her, and energy, as bright as the lightning itself, sparked again between her fingertips, this time dancing over the small strip of material.
Power hit her with the force of a hammer. She grunted and dropped to her knees, splashing mud into her face. She ignored it and clenched the material tight, struggling to breathe under the weight of the energy running around her, through her.
Images struck — jagged pieces of information that knifed through her mind. A suburb full of red brick houses. A street name. A factory perched between two supermarkets. A "For Sale" sign out front, bearing the number fifty-two. Gabriel, pale and unconscious, stretched out on a gray carpet.