Secret Passage. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ through. His hair, a strange silvery color, was a striking counterpoint to the black turtleneck he wore, but the most remarkable thing about his appearance was the color of his eyes—one blue, one green and both cold as ice.

      As their gazes collided, a shiver went up Zac’s spine. He wasn’t one for making snap judgments, but he had an immediate aversion to the man. In spite of the expensive clothes and carefully styled hair, there was something…unseemly about his appearance. As if the man’s sinister nature lurked just beneath the surface, waiting to suck in the unsuspecting.

      A nasty customer, Zac thought, and he’d met more than a few in his time.

      As if reading his mind, the man smiled. “Well, well, well,” he said in a voice that might have belonged to the devil himself. It was smooth, oily, decadent. “The infamous Zac Riley.”

      “You know me?” Zac said with a frown. If their paths had crossed, he was glad that memory hadn’t survived.

      “Perhaps the explanations are best left to Dr. Von Meter,” the man suggested.

      “Yes, perhaps they are,” Von Meter agreed. He turned back to Zac. “This is Roth Vogel, Zac. He’s here to assist in your briefing, but first, we need to get you settled. We have a room prepared for you upstairs. I’ll send someone to your apartment to pack up your things—”

      “Like hell you will.” Zac shot to his feet. “I don’t know what kind of scam you’re trying to pull, old man, but I don’t want any part of it.”

      He spun, but before he could cross the room, the door slammed shut, apparently of its own volition. He whipped around to find a gun pointed at his chest. His gaze lifted to Vogel’s and the man’s eyes gleamed in anticipation. Zac knew that look. He’d seen it before, on a man who’d tried to slit his throat in a dark alley one night for the twenty bucks he had in his wallet. Tried was the operative word.

      “What the hell is this?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Some kind of shakedown? I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve got about ten bucks in my pocket. You think you can take it, have at it,” he challenged Vogel.

      “Put that thing away,” Von Meter barked. “There is no need for violence.” When Vogel reluctantly complied, the old man said to Zac, “I apologize. You aren’t a prisoner here. You’re free to leave any time you wish.”

      “In that case, hasta la vista.” He gave them both a quick salute.

      A muscle twitched at the corner of Vogel’s left eye—the blue one—as if he was having a very hard time suppressing his temper. Or his trigger finger.

      A nasty customer indeed, Zac thought as he strode through the doorway and down the hallway to the foyer, expecting to hear, at any moment, the sound of footsteps in hot pursuit. But no one followed him or tried to stop him as he drew open the front door and walked out.

      Once on the frosty street, he hailed a taxi, climbed into the back seat, then, before they could drive off, he got out again. Ignoring the driver’s indignant curse, Zac returned to the house and rang the bell. The same maid answered the door, and this time Zac let her take his coat. When she showed him to the study, Von Meter was alone once more.

      “Allow me to apologize again for Roth’s behavior.” He motioned Zac to a seat.

      “What the hell was that all about?” Zac demanded.

      Distaste flickered across Von Meter’s face. “You’re referring to the gun.”

      “And the slamming door. How’d you manage that little trick?”

      “It wasn’t a trick. Roth is a very gifted telekinetic.”

      “A telekinetic, huh? And here I thought he was just your everyday asshole.”

      “He is temperamental, I’ll grant you that. Impulsive. Insubordinate. Ambitious. A loose cannon, I believe is the term used these days.” Von Meter sighed. “But he has his uses.”

      “Forget about Vogel,” Zac said bluntly. “What do you want from me?”

      “I want to help you,” Von Meter replied. “You want to know about your past. I can supply the missing details. But first, I need to know what you do remember.”

      “Why?”

      “How would I know where to begin, otherwise?”

      Zac supposed the explanation was logical enough, but he still didn’t trust the old man. “I don’t remember much,” he admitted reluctantly. “My parents died when I was just a kid. I was raised in a series of foster homes until I turned eighteen. After I left the system, I drifted for a while, then joined the navy. Eventually, I ended up working in the intelligence community before I was recruited into a classified special ops program, code name Phoenix.”

      When he paused, Von Meter nodded encouragingly. “Please go on.”

      “The training was conducted in a series of underground bunkers at the old Montauk Air Force Station on Long Island. I remember very little about my time there or the missions we carried out, but I do recall being on board a submarine at some point. There was an accident. Some kind of explosion. We crash-dove to the bottom of the North Atlantic where we were trapped for days. Most of the crew died. A hundred and something men. I think there were other survivors besides me, but I never saw them. I spent weeks in the hospital where I was subjected to long periods of isolation and rigorous debriefing sessions. After a while, I lost track of time and the details of the accident began to fade. Some days I had a hard time remembering my own name.” He paused as the feelings of loneliness and confusion washed over him once again. Then he shrugged them away. “That’s about it. I was later discharged from the navy.”

      “They said you were mentally unfit to serve.”

      Zac got up and walked over to the window to stare out at the snow. The discharge still rankled five years later.

      Von Meter spoke from behind him. “You mentioned something about Project Phoenix. It was, and is, an operation much larger in scope than a special ops program.”

      Zac turned from the window. Something the old man said rang a bell. “How so?”

      “Project Phoenix is a privately funded, covert organization comprised of scientists, military personnel, and leaders from business and technology—some of the finest minds in the world. The advances we’ve made in psychotronics, telekinetic studies and interdimensional phasing, just to name a few, are far more vast and intricate than most people could even begin to imagine.”

      Zac wondered if he was dealing with a lucid mind here. The things the old man spoke of were impossible. And yet…something inside him warned that Von Meter spoke the truth. And that truth was somehow directly related to Zac. That was why he was here.

      He studied the old man for a moment, trying to gauge his sanity. “Even if what you say is true, what does any of that have to do with me?”

      “The goal of Project Phoenix was to create an army of secret warriors—super soldiers if you will—with psionic abilities. Once their training was complete, their memories were erased and they were sent back home or back out into society until such time as they were needed. That’s why you’re here, Zac. You are being called back into service.”

      “Wait СКАЧАТЬ