“I’m sorry,” he tried to say again, but in the midst of this sharing, this ultimate melding of minds, it sounded completely hollow and unnecessary. What happened had happened. There was nothing to feel guilty about, although…
She knew his darker secrets as well, and he felt them extracted from his psychic reservoir and filling her mind.
The worse things that had made him cringe.
The theft of the Emerald Tablet from under Caleb’s nose; outwitting his traps and stealing it — only to have unforeseen consequences. The fire, Lydia burning to death and poor Alexander having to watch helplessly.
Xavier’s heart felt caught in a vise.
There were things to atone for. Other things he tried desperately to keep from her.
But maybe, just maybe, Diana with her lips pressed against his and her gentle fingers pressing against his chest, could understand. Like no other, she shared his mind, knowing his motivations, if not his methods, were pure.
Maybe, just maybe, sharing his past and his anguish would allow her to overcome her own psychic onslaught and give her the perspective she needed to see past it all, to gain control as he had done through years of practice. And maybe…
They had to hurry.
…she would push it all aside, concentrate on the objective and give them a chance.
“I see it,” she whispered.
“What?”
“The President. But not him, there’s a man…”
Xavier got a glimpse of it too. Sharing her mind sharing his vision.
A man in red. Horned helmet and a shadow over his face.
Her soothing voice, now tinged with excitement. Like a stargate recruit in the zone, understanding she was seeing her first successful objective. “The lake, the mountain range, from high above. I know it.”
She gripped his arm tighter, and her breath spilled out cool and almost frosty, as if she were there, at a great height soaring over the land.
“The Andes. Peru. Cuzco and Lake Titicaca. I see…”
“Smokestacks,” Xavier repeated, breathing in the same crisp air, tinged now with the scent of pollution. “A factory, and a walled compound. Trucks and cannisters and convoys ready to depart. Where is he?”
“Inside.” She pressed her cold cheek against his and whispered in his ear. “See it?”
He did.
Intense security on the lowest level, once past the manufacturing floor, the vats and the powders and the pill production lines. So many locals working in cramped conditions packaging and counting and sealing bottles. Retina scan and handprint access to the elevator. A long descent. Another floor. Guards with AK-47s before the door to a circular room with a vault door that cannot stop their sight.
Something in the center of the dimly lit chamber. Tubes and wires feeding an upright tank, backlit by somber lights the color of amethyst. The nude man inside, floating calmly.
Something around his neck, glittering a fierce jade.
“Found him,” both Diana and Xavier said in unison, as the image of a red samurai suit mounted on a mannequin remained in their vision, not far behind the tank.
“Tell Caleb,” Xavier whispered in her other ear, just before he moved his lips around to hers. “I’ve got this, but he has to be ready for consequences.”
“What are you going to do?” came the question back, but Xavier was already gone.
His body slumped back in her arms as his spirit fled, racing across time and space, ascending and descending, feeling the whirling atoms (or bits and bytes) of the universe hurtling by as consciousness drove matter — and overcame its restrictions.
A yard or two thousand miles made no difference.
Locked doors, hundreds of feet of bedrock, armed guards and vault doors made no difference.
He was there.
Gliding across the chamber, drawn to the emerald glow.
Focus.
The man in the tank was an empty shell, his own consciousness projected elsewhere, taking over the most powerful man in the world, ready to launch hell upon the globe.
And this was how Xavier would stop him.
13
Caleb prayed he was wrong, but he knew — as Phoebe reminded him — unfortunately he was rarely wrong.
He watched the screen as Xavier left the room, hoping he could pull it together and do what only he could do. He wished he had some of that power, as his father had, or some trace of what the Custodians could do. For whatever reason, everyone had their own specific gifts, and maybe like any talent or skill, the psychic mind compensated and focused on the things it did best.
In Caleb’s case… well, he still wasn’t sure, but this — he had a feeling in this case, his powers weren’t needed. Something else was called for desperately.
Leadership.
And guile, if he had learned any of that throughout his last few missions. Against Mason Calderon, Boris Zeller, Robert Gregory and even George Waxman. All expert manipulators and deft con men capable of getting the ends to their satisfaction despite the means.
In this case he had to act fast, or the world would never be the same.
He made sure the speaker connection to the White House Command Bunker was active, and then made sure he still had the President’s attention. Fortunate that it was, he — whoever it was occupying the leader’s mind — still wanted to gloat or play the game a little longer.
Buy time for Xavier.
Also…
He had his phone out, to his side and outside of view. Direct patch to the secure sat-link to Edgerrin. Texting as he talked: 25th Amendment… Pres not Pres, none safe save X
“Mr. President, I assume you know who I am?”
The man the entire world had come to know, love or hate him, smiled back. A smile of a wolf patiently awaiting his meal to stop suffering and just die.
“The one and only. The master mystic himself. The lord of locating, the historian with the histrionics. The savior of the lost books and the… murderer of keepers.”
The last cut hard, and whatever doubts Caleb had were gone with the wound to his heart, with the taste of Lydia, with the flash of her eyes, the color of emerald.
He steeled himself, moved closer to the camera, to the screen, eye to eye.
“What do you want?”
The smile never faltered. The gaze held — and Caleb didn’t care. Let him gloat. Let him linger on his success at possessing the one man who could end the world with a button. The more time he wastes, the more time for us to find him.
Cocky bastard.
“I want what you want, Caleb.”
He stepped back. Took a breath. Felt the air of this sacred and mysterious place weighing on him. Not even a member, at this moment he still felt like the champion of the Masonic Order — and all of humanity’s future.
“You know me that well?”
The President grinned. “I do. I knew your father, too. And you know what they say about falling apples and trees.”
That shook Caleb. “How did you know him?” How old was this guy for real?
“In another life,” was his only response, but he said it in such a way that Caleb felt it was a clue.
“You know, Mr. Crowe. You and your team, you’re special no longer, now that your little stunt decimated the protection humans have had for so long.”
“Protection?”
“From themselves. From each other. From…” He stepped back and spread his arms. “…from everything. And I mean everything, with a great big capital E.”