Page 5 of Hunter

She had made him feel a strange lightheadedness. It came again, and he almost stumbled. With renewed concentration, he got the rhythm back and managed not to dwell on her for a full thirty seconds. When she tiptoed back into his mind, he reminded himself sternly that she was not part of his world. He would never see her again. So he could stop thinking about her, he told himself.

But she stayed with him. She had stirred up something inside him, something that had been buried deep. Like the memory of a scent that would sometimes tickle the back of his throat, then drift out of reach. Or the music that rose to the surface of his mind the way mist drifted from a pond in the woods and swirled in thick currents. He had never heard that music in real life. It was nothing like the classic rock Beckton played on the radio. Or the country western songs some of the men liked. Yet it must come from somewhere.

His feet assaulted the blacktop as he picked up the pace in time to the music in his head. The familiar rhythm helped soothe him, and he forced his mind to more important matters. Logic. His work, Project Sandstorm.

He ran toward that goal. It was burned into him. Everything he did was focused on completing the assignment he had been given. Sandstorm was important. Essential. The reason for his existence. He must carry out the job for which he had been preparing all these months—or he would die trying.

Then it would be over. The drills on hand-to-hand combat. The survival classes. And all the other details that spelled the difference between success and failure.

His instructors, Beckton and Winslow and the rest of them, would not be there. None of the scientists or the lab technicians would travel with him to a country halfway around the world called Gravan. He would be on his own. He would have to make all the decisions on weapons, logistics, and deployment. And he would have to calculate the odds of success, weigh each individual detail—like the number of guards at each entrance to General Kassan’s palace.

It seemed as if he had been training for this assignment all his life. It was his destiny. And going over the details brought him a feeling that bordered on serenity. Yet complete peace eluded him.

On a deep, instinctive level he sensed that something important inside his brain had been changed. He didn’t understand what had happened, exactly. And he wasn’t ready to cope with it. Yet he had learned above all else to accept the world as he found it. And he knew that his feeling of inner harmony had been shaken in those few minutes when he had encountered Kathryn Kelley—when he had looked at her, talked with her.

But there was a balance to the equation. If he had lost something, he had gained something as well—an important component, he realized now, that he had lacked. It was still too unfamiliar for him to name. And he didn’t know exactly what had changed or how it would affect his behavior. Yet as he put more distance between himself and the woman, he sensed that nothing would be the same again.

Chapter Two

There was nothing besides a modest white sign with black letters to set the administrative offices apart from the rest of the buildings, Kathryn thought as McCourt directed her to a visitor parking space near one of the drab red-brick structures. Like the gatehouse, the entrance was equipped with a metal detector—in case she’d acquired a gun on the drive from the entrance.

“William Emerson’s office is the third one on the right,” McCourt told her.

She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

“Just doing my job,” he returned crisply.

She immediately regretted the sarcasm. It was a bad idea to start a new job by sniping at other staff members. But the man had been rubbing her wrong at every opportunity.

He stayed in the small lobby, keeping his eye on her as she headed down the dull gray corridor. Not until she opened the door marked Chief of Operations, did he abandon the guard duty.

A petite brunette secretary, who looked like she could chew nails in an emergency, asked her to take a seat. Kathryn sank onto one of the worn leather couches in the anteroom. As the minutes ticked by, she thought about the way she’d been approached for this job. Emerson had called her out of the blue and offered her a lot of money to accept a short-term assignment at Stratford Creek. When she’d initially turned him down, he’d upped the pay to a figure that had made her blink. At the same time, his insistence had stirred a responsive wariness, and she knew she wouldn’t be here at all if James Harrison hadn’t scared the spit out of her.

Emerson had been so anxious to get her to Western Maryland that she’d expected to be ushered into his office the moment she set foot in the anteroom. In fact, he kept her cooling her heels for a good twenty minutes.

She was paging through a battered copy ofTimemagazine when he finally appeared.

“Dr. Kelley. Bill Emerson,” he said, holding out his hand.

She rose, working to hide her annoyance as they shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologized.

“Not at all.” Her first thought was that Emerson and McCourt must have the same barber, since their crew cuts looked identical—although Emerson’s was gray instead of sandy blond. While he was dressed in a blue blazer, gray slacks, and highly polished black shoes, he looked like he’d be more at home in a military uniform.

He was probably in his late fifties and was only a few inches taller than Kathryn’s own five foot seven, she judged. But he appeared taller because he stood with his shoulders thrown back as if expecting a surprise visit from the Secretary of Defense.

When he ushered her into his office, the plaques and photographs on his wall confirmed the hypothesis that he’d been in the military.

“You’ve recently left the army?” she asked.

He smiled. “Yes. I’m a retired colonel. But I couldn’t stand playing golf and trading war stories at the Army and Navy Club. When they asked me to head up this project, I jumped at the chance.”

As she scanned the framed citations and plaques, she gathered that he was proud of his achievements. If she were given a chance to study the memorabilia, she could probably reconstruct a good part of his service record, she thought.

Had he been given the Stratford Creek assignment as a reward or because the project needed a strong hand at the helm, she wondered.

“I’m glad you were able to join us,” he said with a satisfied smile. “I’ve been perusing your record again, and it’s very impressive.”

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