“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 ou
t 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.”
Thirty-eight
She walked toward him through the seething fog of dreamlight.
“Don’t trip over the body,” he said.
“Where is it?” Gwen looked around.
“At your feet.”
She glanced down and then raised her fathomless eyes. “Yes, I see it now. That’s the trouble with entering someone else’s dream. I can usually grasp the big picture, but I have to depend on the dreamer for the little details.”
For some reason that amused him. “Little details like dead bodies?”
“Right. Okay, I’ve frozen the scene for us so that you can take your time examining events. Now, it would be very helpful if you gave me a tour.”
“Things don’t look quite the same as they do in the usual version of this dream,” he said. “I don’t feel the same, either.”
“That’s because this is a lucid version of the dream. You are aware that you’re dreaming. You can exert some control. Because of that perspective, the experience feels different than it would under normal dream conditions.”
“If you say so.”
“The tour, Judson,” she prompted quietly.
He looked around, getting his own bearings in the eerie dreamscape. The scene was frozen, just as Gwen said, but he knew exactly where he was. The timeline was clear. The explosion had not yet occurred. If it had not been for his para-vision, he would not have been able to see anything except the beams of light radiating from the two flashlights, his own and Spalding’s. The dead man’s flashlight had fallen from his hand. So had the crystal weapon.
The interior of the cavern was spacious. It stretched up into the darkness as far as twenty or thirty feet. But the entrance from the outside world was a tight, twisted passage barely large enough to allow a man to pass through.
With his senses heightened, he could see the pool that marked the entrance to the flooded portion of the cave. He was standing at the edge. The water was infused with a faint, acid-green radiance—the natural energy of the rocks made visible to his special sight. When he looked down, he could see the opening of the Monster’s throat below the surface.
“I’ve just used the ring to flatline Spalding’s aura,” he said. “The stone is still hot. The crystal gun went cold just before Spalding died. But it’s too late. The energy released by the gun and my ring has ignited the atmosphere. I can feel the growing heat and the instability. The aurora is forming.”
“Like the northern lights?”
“Yes. But this is composed of paranormal energy waves. I sense that an explosion will occur very soon. What I don’t know yet is if that explosion will be powerful enough to affect the normal wavelengths of the spectrum. But I do know that it might be strong enough to kill me or, at the very least, fry my para-senses. My intuition tells me that my only hope of riding out the blast is to go into the flooded portion of the cave. If I can get enough rock and water between me and the explosion, I might have a chance.”
“Where is the entrance to the flooded cave?” Gwen asked.
“I’d be standing on the rim of the pool.”
“Describe it to me,” Gwen said.
“They call it the Monster for a reason. The locals say it swallows divers whole. Some people say there is an exit to the sea, but no one has ever been able to explore it to the end. Only a handful of people have attempted to get through the cave system. Most were forced to turn back. Those that didn’t disappeared.”
“But at this point, you are not planning to swim out of here.”
“No. I just want to go deep enough to ride out the paranormal explosion I sense is coming. I’m already in my wetsuit because I was preparing to look for the dead analyst. I grab my gear and a flashlight and I go into the pool. I make it into the throat of the Monster. I can feel the explosion and hear it even though I’m underwater. There’s a shock wave from the blast, but the water and the rock protect me. When it’s over, I surface.”
“All right, we are now in that phase of your dream. You are surveying the dry portion of the cave. Tell me what you see.”
“Not a whole hell of a lot. Something about the aurora damaged my para-vision. I’m psi-blind.”
“Oh, my, I hadn’t realized you’d lost your other vision.”
“Took me damn near a month to recover. I wasn’t sure I would.”
“No wonder you retreated to that little town on the coast for a while,” she said. “And no wonder you’ve had a few bad dreams.”
“Speaking of which—”
“Right. Back to this dreamscape.”
“I’m psi-blind, but I’ve still got my normal vision and I’ve got the flashlight.”
“What does it show you?”
“Spalding’s body. His flashlight is nearby but it’s dead. The explosion destroyed it. I see the crystal weapon, too. It rolled over there by that pile of rocks. But I’m not paying a lot of attention to the body or the weapon because I’ve just realized that I’m going to have to swim out through the underwater cave system.”
He stopped because there did not seem to be much point describing the endless nightmare that was the long swim out of the cave.
“How do you know which direction to swim?”
Gwen asked.
“In the water I can feel the current. It’s slight but steady. I follow it.”
“Not knowing if you’re going to come to a narrow place in the cave that you won’t be able to get through,” Gwen whispered.
Even through the dreamtime atmosphere, he could hear the shiver in her voice.
“I didn’t have any choice,” he reminded her. “Let’s finish this dream therapy thing.”
“Sorry. Sometimes I get a little too caught up in a dreamscape. Okay, I think I’ve got the lay of the land, so to speak.”
“Context.”
“Exactly, context. You are about to go back into the water to make the long swim out to the sea but you are still at the surface, looking at the dry portion of the cave. Do you catch another glimpse of the object that you know is important?”
“Yes.” Excitement rushed through him. “Yes, now I see it. Something small and white that doesn’t look like it should be there.”
“Take a closer look at the object.”
The dream sequence shifted fluidly around him. He looked away from the frozen curtain of aurora energy and turned to focus on the shadows that shrouded the dreamscape.
“It’s over there on the other side of the pool,” he said. “It looks like the corner of a piece of paper. I can only see a small edge. The rest is hidden under a rock.”
“Hidden?” Gwen pounced on the word. “Are you sure?”
“There’s no way it could have landed where it did by accident. It’s near the spot where they murdered him.”
“Who?”
“The analyst.” Judson came out of the dream on a rush of adrenaline and psi. “He wasn’t dead yet, but he knew he was going to die. He tried to leave a message for whoever came looking for him. I have to get back into that cave.”
“You’re going to swim back through those flooded tunnels?” Gwen asked.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. In case you hadn’t heard, my father runs one of the biggest mining engineering companies in the world.”