Dream Eyes

Thirty-seven

He needed answers, and it wasn’t like he was having any luck getting them on his own, Judson thought. Time to call in the services of an expert. Gwen was one hell of a talent. And he trusted her.

He turned back to the window.

“What, exactly, do you mean by context?” he asked.

“I know that your dream is connected to whatever happened on that last job with your no-name-agency client, but that’s all I’ve got. I need more if you want me to guide you through a trance.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what happened. But I don’t see how it will help you interpret my dream.”

“Take your time.”

He fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts and memories. After a while, he started talking. He knew that he would not stop until he had told her everything.

“You know that Sam and I do—did—some investigative work for an off-the-books government agency,” he said. “What you don’t know is how we got the client.”

“I assume you don’t advertise Coppersmith Consulting services online.”

“No. The director of the agency, Joe Spalding, recruited me and two other guys, Burns and Elland, in our senior year in college. Spalding was a quietly powerful figure in the intelligence community. He had been green-lighted to set up an experimental covert ops department staffed with agents he believed had some paranormal talent. It was supposed to be an updated version of the old CIA remote viewing project.”

“How in the world did he identify potential agents like you?” Gwen asked.

“Spalding’s real secret asset was that he was a talent himself,” Judson said. “A strong one. He could recognize other people with similar psychic profiles if he got close enough to pick up the energy of their auras. He set up shop on a handful of college campuses, offering to pay students to take what he called an experimental psychology test that was designed to determine if a person had any psychic talent. I signed up out of curiosity to see if his test really worked.”

“You knew you had some talent, so you were testing his test,” Gwen said.

“Yes. The test, as it turned out, was a fraud. It was the old tell-me-what-card-I’m-holding-up-now experiment.”

“Useless, according to Evelyn.”

“Right. But Spalding wasn’t depending on the results of his test. He was trying to find other people with what he called hot auras. A lot of nontalents showed up to take the test, of course, but he also got a few people who, like me, were drawn to the experiment because we wanted to know more about the psychic side of our natures.”

“Spalding recognized you when he saw you,” Gwen said.

“Yes. He found Burns and Elland at another campus. He offered all three of us a thrilling career filled with action and adventure as well as the opportunity to use our psychic talents in the service of our country.”

“I gather you couldn’t resist the offer,” Gwen said.

“Hell, no.” He turned around to face her. “I was twenty-one and looking for all the things Spalding promised. Mom tried to talk me out of joining the agency. But Dad was all for it. He said it would be good experience since I seemed fated for a career in the security field. And it was good experience. For a while.”

Gwen smiled. “You were living every young man’s dream. You were a real psychic secret agent. Very cool.”

“Good times, yeah. Spalding understood that I preferred to work alone, and he let me run with my assignments. He didn’t ask questions. All he cared about was results. I always got results. But after a couple of years, I realized that I wasn’t cut out to work for someone else. I liked the investigation process, though.”

“Because it suited your talents,” Gwen said. “It was satisfying work.”

“Yes. But I knew that I didn’t want to work for Spalding or anyone else forever. I wanted to be my own boss. In the meantime, Sam had finished getting his fancy degrees in geology and engineering. We all knew that he was destined to head up the Coppersmith R-and-D lab, but like Emma and me, he didn’t—couldn’t—work directly for Dad.”

“You Coppersmiths care a lot about each other, but you’re all too strong willed to take orders from each other,” Gwen said.

“Like Mom says, we’re all chips off the old rock and Dad is a very hard chunk of stone. As it happened, Sam was thinking about setting up his own consulting firm, but there’s not a lot of demand for paranormal crystal consultants outside the Coppersmith R-and-D lab. Spalding, however, saw a use for Sam’s talents in the field. It was Spalding who suggested that Sam and I set up a private investigation business and work for him on a contract basis.”

“Coppersmith Consulting.”

“Trust me, the word consulting covers a lot of gray territory. Spalding liked the idea of a contract arrangement because it was so easy to hide off-the-record investigations that way. Sam and I went into business. Spalding was our main client. Things went along swell for quite a while. But about a year ago, things started to change.”

“What happened?” Gwen asked.

“The changes were subtle at first. As contract consultants, we realized we were out of the need-to-know loop on a lot of stuff. But we had our intuition. We started to get uneasy about some of the jobs. Started turning down work from Spalding unless we could get enough background out of him.”

Gwen smiled. “You and Sam wanted to know what you were getting involved in when you agreed to take a job. You wanted context.”

“Sounds familiar?”

“Yep. So, to recap, I’m getting the impression that over time your relationship with Spalding and his little agency became somewhat strained.”

“Right.” He started to prowl the room. “But we all managed to make it work for a while. The bottom line for Spalding was that he needed us. We were the strongest talents he could put on a case and he knew it. If he wanted results, he used us, and if he used us, we demanded context.”

“What about the other agents?”

“Burns and Elland turned out to be the canaries in the coal mine. I noticed the changes in them first.”

“What kind of changes?”

“I had worked with both of them long enough to have a sense of their paranormal strengths as well as their limitations. Their abilities were similar to your friend Sawyer’s—preternatural night vision and hearing, lightning-fast reflexes. They could disappear into the shadows.”

“What happened?” Gwen asked.

“I went into the office one day to get a briefing from Spalding on a new investigation. Spalding was on the phone when I arrived. Burns was there. He offered to pour a cup of coffee for me. When I took the mug from his hand, I sensed something in his energy that just seemed somehow wrong.”

“Define wrong,” Gwen said.

“Unstable. Unhealthy. Unwholesome. He looked bigger, too, like he’d been lifting weights. There was some kind of heat in his eyes that I’d never noticed before. I asked him if he felt okay. I wondered if he might be coming down with a heavy-duty virus.”

“How did he respond?

“It was as if I’d flipped a light switch. He went from calm and friendly to furious, like I’d insulted him. I thought he was going to take a swing at me. Then Elland came into the room and said something like, Take it easy, buddy. Burns turned around and stomped out of the room. After he left, I saw that Elland was suffering the same kind of fever, but he was a little more in control.”

“Were they sick?”

Judson paused again in front of the window.

“Damned if I know,” he said. “If it was an illness, it was a fever that affected their paranormal senses. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to spend any time around either Burns or Elland. We Coppersmiths are a healthy bunch, but that day in Spalding’s agency I started wondering if people like us—people of talent—might be vulnerable to fevers of the senses that normal people don’t have to worry about.”

“A reasonable concern. When did you run into Burns and Elland again?

“When they tried to kill me on that Caribbean island,” he said.

“Wow. Okay. Go on.”

“Shortly after that small scene at the agency, Spalding contacted me about an urgent, high-priority investigation. An intelligence analyst from another agency was missing. The working theory was that either he had gone rogue with some extremely sensitive information or else he’d been murdered. Spalding wanted me to find out what had happened. As usual, my job was to get answers. Sam and I don’t do apprehension or arrests.”

“You’re just the consultants.”

“Just the consultants,” he agreed quietly.

“This was that final job that Coppersmith Consulting took for the no-name agency?” Gwen said. “The one where you went off the radar for a while?”

He glanced at her, surprised. “You know about that?”

“I didn’t at the time. I was in Hawaii. But when I got back, Abby said that you had dropped out of sight for a while in the course of your last case and that something had gone wrong but that you had returned safely. Everyone said that you were taking some time off over on the coast to come up with a new business plan for Coppersmith Consulting.”

“All true,” he said.

“Except for the part about the recurring dreams.”

“Except for that part.”

“Tell me what happened on the island,” Gwen said.

“I followed the missing analyst there. The story was that he had gone on a cave-diving trip. The islands in that part of the Caribbean are riddled with underwater caves. They attract a certain breed of diver.”

“The thought of going into an aboveground cave is more than enough to give me the jitters. I can’t even imagine going into one that is filled with water. Panic-attack city.”

“It’s not for everyone or even every diver,” he said. “At any rate, it didn’t take me long to discover that the analyst had disappeared shortly after arriving on the island. The local police had conducted a brief investigation, discovered he’d gone cave diving and concluded that he had drowned attempting to swim through a flooded cave system the locals called the Monster. I was told that he was not the first reckless tourist who had vanished that way.”

“But you were suspicious?”

“I’d done some research on the missing analyst,” Judson said. “He was an experienced diver, but he had never been into cave diving. It seemed unlikely that he would have attempted to dive the Monster, even less likely that he would have gone in alone. There’s adrenaline junkie and there’s dumb adrenaline junkie. Based on what I had learned about him, the analyst was not dumb.”

“Did you find him?” Gwen asked.

“I found the place where he had been murdered. It was inside a cave at the entrance to the Monster. But his body was gone. I was pretty sure that whoever had killed him had taken the corpse down into the flooded part of the cave and wedged it there so that if it was ever discovered, the death would look like an accident.”

“You decided to search for the body, didn’t you?”

“That was the plan.” Judson resumed his prowling. “But I never got the chance to put together a search-and-rescue operation because Burns and Elland arrived. They had been tailing me. They intended to get rid of me the same way they did the analyst. I was going to disappear into the Monster. Just another adrenaline junkie diver who took one too many chances.”

“How did you survive?”

“The old-fashioned way. I had a gun. I used it.”

“Yes, I suppose that approach still works.” Gwen exhaled slowly. “You shot them both?”

“Yes, but here’s the thing, Gwen, I didn’t kill them.” Judson stopped. “I got the information I wanted out of them and then I called the local cops. I waited until the emergency responders had arrived on the scene and explained that Burns and Elland had murdered the man who had disappeared into the sea caves. I flashed the fancy agency ID Spalding had given me, and the locals were satisfied. I swear, the last time I saw Burns and Elland, they were still alive and on the way to the hospital. Neither of them had life-threatening injuries.”

Gwen frowned. “They didn’t make it?”

“No. I wasn’t around to witness what happened, but I found out later that both men went crazy after about a day and a half in the hospital. They both died within forty-eight hours. Suicide. Burns hung himself. Elland slashed his own wrists. Big medical mystery as far as the local authorities were concerned.”

“Hmm. You have no idea what happened?”

“The nurses said the two men kept screaming for their special meds. They said their boss had the drugs they needed. They gave the hospital staff a number to call, but no one ever answered.”

“Because by then their boss, Spalding, was dead?” Gwen said gently.

“Yes. Before they were taken away in an ambulance, Burns told me that the plan was to dump my body in the same underwater cave that they had used to conceal the analyst. They knew they had to make my death look very, very good.”

“They were obviously aware that your father and your brother would tear Spalding’s agency and the whole island apart looking for you if they had any suspicions about how you had died.”

“Don’t forget Emma and my mother,” he said dryly. “They’ve both got claws, trust me.”

“I believe you,” Gwen said.

“But Burns and Elland had convinced themselves that if my body was found strapped into a full set of diving gear, everyone would be forced to conclude that I had tried to retrieve the analyst’s body on my own and died in the attempt. It wasn’t long before I found out that Spalding was laboring under the same assumption. He was very sure of himself there at the end when he told me how the plan was going to work.”

“Back up,” Gwen said. “How did you happen to run into Spalding?”

“He was waiting for me in the cave. I went there with my own dive gear, planning to take a look around just under the surface of the cave pool. I knew I had to find the analyst’s body as quickly as possible. Evidence, including the paranormal kind, vanishes fast in the water. I had just gotten into my wetsuit when Spalding showed up.”

“He was on the island, too?”

“He had followed Burns and Elland to make sure everything went as planned. He said he knew I might turn out to be more of a problem than they could handle. He also said this was his last agency operation. He was closing down the store.”

“Did he know that Burns and Elland were in the hospital?” Gwen asked.

“Yes. He also knew that if they were still alive, I had probably gotten enough information out of them to find the analyst’s body.”

“He tried to kill you?” Gwen asked.

“Sure. But first I asked him what the hell was going on. He talked. Told me that he was going to take a new position as the director of security for an ultra-classified division of a pharmaceutical firm. He said the company was developing a line of designer drugs aimed at enhancing psychic talents in individuals. He said that the firm had a version of an effective formula but there were still a number of side effects.”

“The kind that caused Burns and Elland to go mad and take their own lives?”

“They were on the drug,” Judson said. “Evidently it is highly addictive. Withdrawal leads to insanity, followed by death. In any event, the CEO of the firm had determined that an experienced security expert who not only had some real talent of his own, but who also possessed a working knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community, would be invaluable to the organization.”

“That description obviously fit your old boss like a glove. Was Spalding on the drug, too?”

“Yes.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Not much.” Judson gripped the edge of the window and looked out at the river. “He was in a hurry. He said he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He intended to stage his own death after he got rid of me. He planned to start his new career in the private sector with a new identity.”

“But first he had to kill you without leaving any evidence. How in the world did he plan to do that?”

“He had a weapon. It was crystal-based technology. Looked like a flashlight. He said it was a gift from the CEO who had hired him. Next thing I know, he’s aiming the device at me. I felt a jolt of icy energy. I thought it would freeze my heart, literally.”

“Like the wind chime storm at Louise’s house?”

“No, that energy was chaotic and discordant—unfocused. The radiation from Spalding’s little crystal gun was very focused and very powerful.”

“What did you do?”

Judson touched his ring. “That was when I found out what I could do with this crystal. I used it instinctively, intuitively. I pushed energy through the ring. The wavelengths somehow neutralized the forces of Spalding’s weapon. But that wasn’t the end of it. The currents of the flashlight gun were reversed. Sam says the effect would have been similar to a wave of water hitting a swimming pool wall and rebounding back in the opposite direction.”

“The reversed currents overwhelmed Spalding’s aura,” Gwen said. “That’s what killed him.”

“Yes. I wasn’t thinking about the science at the time because that was when I realized I’d maxed out whatever luck I’d been running on up to that point.”

“For heaven’s sake, what else could go wrong?” Gwen asked.

“On that last job? Everything. Energy started building fast inside the cave. I got a few seconds’ warning because I could feel the rising psi levels. A weird aura formed. I grabbed my gear and went into the cave pool to ride out the blast. But when I surfaced a short time later, I saw that there had been a massive fall of rock. The cave entrance was sealed by several tons of stone. The explosion had released some toxic gasses. There was only one way out.”

“Oh, my,” Gwen whispered. Her eyes were stark. “You swam out through the underwater cave?”

Judson crossed the room and lowered himself into one of the wingback chairs. “I’d talked to some of the locals about that particular cave system because I knew I was going to have to dive it to look for the body. I was told that there were indications that there was an exit to the sea. But the system had never been fully explored or mapped. There were no cave lines from previous dives.”

Gwen shuddered. “Trapped in an underwater cave system would be my worst nightmare.”

“No,” he said. He met her eyes. “Your worst nightmare—my worst nightmare—would have been spending what was left of my life buried alive, inhaling toxic fumes and knowing that no one knew where I was.”

She took a deep breath and nodded once. “Okay, I stand corrected. Being buried alive might be a tad worse than getting trapped in an underwater cave. But still.”

“But still. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to repeat the experience on my next vacation. I survived thanks to the dead analyst. He’ll never know it, but I owe him my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Burns and Elland didn’t bother to drain his tank after they killed him. They left the flashlight on the body, too. They wanted to make the accident look real just in case someone did come looking.”

“No wonder you have nightmares,” Gwen whispered.

“Sometimes I dream about that swim through the cave system, but the bad dream, the one you found me in last night, takes place just before I went into the water to try to swim out to the sea. I catch a glimpse of something small out of the corner of my eye. At the time I don’t think about it. I’ve got other priorities.” He tightened one hand into a fist. “But later, in my dreams, I relive that moment, and I know that whatever I saw or thought I saw is important.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for in the dream?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it a million times.”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, his fingers lightly linked. “Do you really think you can help me find whatever it is I’m searching for in that damn dream?”

“I can help you look for it,” she said. “But there’s no guarantee that there is anything to find. Your nightly search might be merely a manifestation of the stress of what happened to you that day. One way or another, I should be able to help you break the endless dreamscape loop, though. That should give you some closure to the dream.”

“Do it,” he said. “Now.”