Brain Storm, Cat Gilbert [read books for money TXT] 📗

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TWO DAYS LATER, I was ready to concede how wrong I’d been. We’d gotten through the banking in Dallas without incident and even made a stop at the Dillards outlet, where we all managed to fill out our wardrobes with surprisingly little damage to our wallets.

Jonas and Trinity had managed to carve out an uneasy truce, and Mama D was having the time of her life between watching the two of them trying to avoid each other and discovering the joys of being on the road.

Things were going smoother than anyone had a right to expect with one big exception. After spending the past 24 hours looking for Mac’s contact at the Agency, we’d come up empty handed. Not only could we not find him. It was like he’d never even existed.

We’d pulled up in Wichita Falls, a town about two hours northwest of Dallas. Off the beaten track, but close enough to the major highways to get on the way quickly once we knew where to go. It wasn’t bad as towns go, but after being there for two days straight, I was getting antsy to get on the road.

“We’ve got to be missing something here.” Jonas threw the pen he’d been using to jot down notes with onto the desk in disgust. “You sure you’re not forgetting something?”

It had to be the sixth time he had asked Mac the same question, and I was somewhat surprised that Mac hadn’t hit him by now. I know I was ready to.

I watched as the pen rolled off the desk and went back to reading the Dallas newspaper that I had picked up in the hotel lobby earlier, ignoring them both. I had bought a notebook computer in Dallas before we left town so I could research in private. I hadn’t realized at the time that my room would become our home base of operations. When Jonas and Mac arrived at 9:00 a.m. bearing breakfast and coffee, I’d already been online for most of the night with absolutely no reward for my scratchy, bloodshot eyes. Trinity had popped in around 10:00 leaving Mama D watching Price is Right in their room. She had stretched out on the bed and proceeded to stare at the ceiling. I didn’t blame her a bit.

I listened now with half an ear as Mac went over it again. We were looking for Caleb Brown Ph.D., a white Caucasian male, age somewhere between 40 and 50, with black hair and gray eyes. At 6 ft. 2 and weighing in at about 180 pounds, he wouldn’t be that hard to find in a crowd, but he was definitely proving to be something of an enigma on the computer.

Apart from knowing that Brown was a Handler that had recently retired, he hadn’t been able to supply any additional information other than that Brown had been recruited into the Agency because he was so highly respected in his field. His research into Parapsychology was cutting edge. Papers had been published, awards had been won, and there wasn’t a scrap of evidence that I could find to prove it. I hadn’t logged into my usual search programs, in case they were being monitored, but even so, if he was half the brain that Mac was claiming, I should have gotten some hits on him.

I had a bad feeling that it didn’t matter how many times Jonas asked him to go over it, it wasn’t going to help. If Mac hadn’t remembered something by now, he wasn’t going to, and it probably wouldn’t matter even if he did. We were beating a dead horse. I needed to face the fact that Caleb Brown had disappeared just as thoroughly as Denzel.

As soon as his name popped into my brain, my pulse quickened and the exhaustion that had clouded my thinking was gone in an instant. Jonas had said that Denzel’s name was Marcus. Marcus Adams from Omaha and that’s all they had been able to find out. A name and a place. Everything else had been wiped or didn’t exist. Perhaps they’d done the same thing with Brown, and that’s why we couldn’t find him.

As the pieces began to come together in my head, I didn’t know whether to be happy about it or frustrated that it had taken so long for me to figure it out. Relief poured through me at the knowledge that we were finally making some progress. I still didn’t know where Caleb Brown was, but I was 99% sure I could guarantee where he wasn’t.

I turned to get Mac’s attention only to find I already had it. At some point they had stopped talking and were now sitting quietly, watching me.

“What is it? What did you think of?” Mac asked, apparently sensing my excitement.

“We’re not going to find him this way. It’s a dead end.” I dropped the paper and stood up, crossing the room to the computer desk. “Tell me about the Agency. Who did Brown report to? Who else works there? I need some names here.”

He thought for a minute and began jotting names on the notepad. “I don’t know many. There’re only a few people I know of besides Brown, and that’s only because I met them when they recruited me, or I reported to them at some time. Everything’s very hush-hush. They operate on a strictly need to know basis, to protect the Clients. I have a feeling about this one here,” Mac underlined one of the names he had just written down for me, “and no, I’m not going to tell you why until you do your thing. Then we’ll compare.”

I shooed Jonas out of the way and slipped into the vacated chair. My mind was spinning as I pulled up a search engine and typed in the first name on the list.

“How do you know Brown? Why’d you choose him?” I asked Mac, as I waited for information to start popping up on the screen. “What made you think you could trust him?”

“He’s the string I pulled to get assigned to you.” He sat down on the bed behind me and continued to explain at Jonas’ bewildered look. “There are Handlers in the agency and Watchers. Guys like me. The Watchers, do exactly that. We watch, and we send in reports. The Handlers evaluate the reports and give advice or whatever. Clients are assigned to Handlers according to their abilities. Brown was your Handler, Sam. He’s the one who sent me to check on you in the first place.”

“What do you mean he’s the string you pulled?” Jonas’ question had me sending Mac a warning look over my shoulder. I didn’t like keeping secrets from the others, but the Empath connection between us was something I wanted to keep quiet a while longer.

“Normally Watchers are randomly assigned to Clients. Some Clients progress into their abilities and others never do. From what I saw, Sam here, was going to be one of the former, and I figured as long as I was looking at a long term assignment, it might as well be one with some potential. I convinced Brown that I was the right man for the job and voila. Here I am.”

“Yeah, here you are,” Jonas snorted in amusement. “Bet you never figured on this.”

“No, can’t say that I did, but you have to admit, it’s certainly not boring.” He turned his attention back to me. “To answer your question, Sam, I don’t know that we can trust him. He’s what you said you wanted. He’s someone who can train you, and there’s the added bonus that he’s familiar with you. He’s the one I sent my reports to, or at least, that’s who I used to send them to. When I was called back to the Agency, he was gone. I was told he’d retired, but no one ever contacted me with new instructions or a new Handler for you.”

“You mean when you were unexpectedly called back just before Marcus showed up. When did you send in your last report?” I asked. “Did you say anything that would alert them?

“It was just before I got called back and yes, my report would have alerted them of a change in the situation.”

I was most of the way through his list