Skykeepers

CHAPTER SIX Six and a half years ago Quantico, Virginia

The e-mail had been carefully devoid of information, giving Michael nothing more than a time—

midnight—and a meeting place in Hogan’s Alley. Which set off all his internal alarms. He might’ve thought it was from Esmee, the hottie trainee he’d been in heavy flirt mode with since his arrival in Quantico, except that the e-mail address belonged to his superior’s superior, who he highly doubted was looking for a quickie behind the post office. So he set out on schedule, and watched his back.

Built by a slew of Hollywood set designers in the late eighties, Hogan’s Alley covered ten or so acres of the 385-acre training academy shared by the FBI and the DEA. The Anytown, USA, facade offered plenty of training opportunities, including a bank that was robbed an average of twice a week during heavy training rotations. With no exercises on the schedule for that night, the alley was deserted, but the power was on, the lit storefronts casting eerie shadows on the fake cars parked beside sealed-shut post office boxes. The fall air was unseasonably warm even this late at night, bringing the scents of cut grass, dust, and gunpowder.

As Michael crossed the road, headed toward the theater where the meeting was supposed to take place, he was pretty sure he was under surveillance. Not just by the cameras that monitored everything that went down in the alley, but by watching eyes of the corporeal variety. He could feel them in the prickle at his nape and the stir of tension in his gut. His hands curled into loose fists, and energy flowed through him, warming for a fight.

Down, boy, he warned himself, knowing he was already too close to hair-trigger. Ever since he’d started FBI training, his hotter, harder instincts had risen to the surface. Now, those instincts had him staying in the shadows as he approached the theater entrance, which was seriously dated, like much of the fake town.

A man stepped from the darkness near the entrance. “Stone?”

In his mid-forties, hawk nosed and bald, just shy of six feet but muscled and balanced like a fighter, the stranger wore black, insignialess fatigues beneath a nondescript gray jacket. Michael felt vaguely overdressed in blue dress pants and a patterned oxford. But he’d been expecting to meet with his superior’s superior—which this guy definitely wasn’t. He wasn’t a nobody, though. His eyes were hard and narrow, his bearing military, and he projected a definite air of command, one that had Michael tempted to stand at attention, even though his military service had been limited to a short stint of ROTC in college, which had ended when he’d gotten booted for fighting.

He compromised by standing ready, a balanced position drummed into him by a long line of martial arts instructors who’d attempted to teach him to channel his aggression, with varying degrees of success. “I’m Stone. Who’s asking?”

“I’m Maxwell Bryson. I want to talk to you about your psych tests.”

Shit, Michael thought, disgusted. A shrink. But behind the disgust was fear that he’d blown it before he’d really gotten a chance to prove himself. He’d done his damnedest to skew his test answers toward the norm, responding based on the surface part of himself, not the fighter within, figuring the safer part of him was the one they’d want in the bureau. He’d tried to be so careful. Apparently, he hadn’t been careful enough. “What about them?”

“Don’t bullshit me. It wastes both our time.”

Inwardly, Michael cringed. He hated the idea of washing out of the program, not just because of the embarrassment factor, but because there were parts of it he really liked, aspects of the training and the job he thought would suit him better than anything else he’d tried so far. But beside the dismay rose a twisting curl of anger, and a parade of sensory flashes kaleidoscoped through him: the sensation of gripping the guy by his black fatigues, putting him up against a wall, getting in his face, taking it further. He’d have to deal with the backup he could sense in the shadows on the opposite side of the street, and the camera footage, but . . .

Knowing it was exactly that sort of thought process that’d gotten him into this mess, Michael cut it off midstream, even though it was tempting. Damned tempting. But at the same time his less reactive, more rational self had caught a piece that didn’t fit, making him think there was something else going on. He met Bryson’s eyes. “You didn’t have the boss’s boss e-mail me to meet you out here so you could kick me out of the program for fudging psych results. So what’s the deal?”

“Then you admit you answered dishonestly?”

“My answers were honest to a point,” Michael hedged, figuring the guy already knew that much, if he was asking.

Finally, Bryson’s expression changed from cool blankness to a flash of satisfaction. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Does this honesty-to-a-point have anything to do with all the fighting you did during your first year or so of college?”

Something stirred in Michael’s gut; he wasn’t sure if it was warning or interest. Wary, he said, “Shouldn’t there be an office and a couch involved in this session?”

The older man made a face. “I’m no shrink. I’m the guy who can give you what you want.”

“What do you think I want?”

“Tell me about the fights.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Michael broke first. Telling himself it was no big deal, he shrugged. “They were just fights. Too much alcohol, not enough supervision. You know the drill.”

Without Tomas around to nag him to hit the dojo daily, the aggression had all but taken over. He’d tried to control it and failed, tried to drown it in cheap beer and found that only lowered his inhibitions.

“I’m not talking about thrashing a couple of frat boys. I’m talking about the fight club you got into after that thrill wore off. You came close to killing a man, didn’t you? Scared yourself straight back to martial arts and mind control . . . but that’s wearing thin now, isn’t it?” Bryson’s eyes bore into his.

“The further you get into the academy training, the more the monster wants to come out, right? You can tell me. Trust me, I understand. And I can help you.”

Michael went very still as his overdeveloped fight-or-flight—emphasis on fight— response threatened to kick in, and his dominant self struggled to control the impulse. He counted his heartbeats. When they slowed slightly, and he could hang onto his grip on himself, he glanced at one of the cameras covering that portion of Hogan’s Alley. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tape’s not rolling,” Bryson said succinctly. “It’s just you and me.”

Oddly, Michael believed that. “What about the guy across the street?”

“He’s one of mine.”

“Who the hell are you?” This had to be a total put-on, a trap conceived by the psych types, maybe even a training exercise for the Behavioral Sciences Unit, or some such shit. But even as Michael told himself that, part of him was thinking, What if it’s not a put-on? What if it’s real?

“I’m your best chance at using your natural talents to their fullest,” Bryson answered. “I run a small, select unit of men that at present operates under an arm of Homeland Security, although we work outside the scope of the more official paradigms, and have persisted through various administrations, often invisible to even the president. We’re . . . let’s just say we keep the peace in ways the other branches won’t touch.”

“You’re talking about black ops.”

“Among other things.” Bryson’s expression returned to relentless neutrality. “Ever since the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, we’ve been looking to expand our ranks, but we require a . . . certain type of individual, so to speak.”

And there it is, Michael thought. “A man with the potential to become a killer.”

Ever since childhood, he’d been aware of the urges. He’d never acted on the impulses, hadn’t done anything on the watch list for serial killers—but there had been times he’d wanted to. Badly.

Bryson shook his head. “Anyone can become a killer, given the right circumstances. What I need is someone who can do the work this country needs him to do, then put it aside and function normally otherwise.” He