“We already have someone doing that at the mountain house,” Bishop said.
Though he hadn’t been there very many times, Tony was fairly certain that Bishop kept either permanent or semipermanent technical and maintenance people onsite at the mountain house, which was a remote but huge complex, dug into the mountain so that it was even more vast than it appeared, with an impressive command center that nonetheless was also a home that could probably house more than a couple dozen people indefinitely and in comfort. And though he’d never heard anyone say, he was also fairly certain that the house was privately owned by Bishop and Miranda, and that whatever went on there was not an official part of FBI functions.
He hadn’t asked before and didn’t ask now.
“What else are they doing?” Galen asked.
With a faint smile, Bishop said, “Working on official identity credentials for the six non-SCU people summoned.”
“Credentials?”
“They’ll officially be private investigators with Haven. On the books if anybody wants to check.”
Tony murmured, “All six? Add in Hollis, Reese, and Galen, and that’s nine investigators descending on a town that hasn’t asked for help. Yet.”
But Galen was clearly thinking along different lines. “I guess not even you could make them FBI agents with a wave of your hand.” It wasn’t a disrespectful tone, exactly, just a Galen tone.
Bishop’s faint smile remained. “No?”
Galen eyed him, a slight frown pulling his brows together.
Miranda intervened to say calmly, “We’ve set most everything in motion, pretty much all we can do from here. I say we get to the jet, fly up to Vermont to pick up Olivia Castle, then head for the mountain house tonight.”
Tony asked, “Do we pick up anyone else along the way?”
Bishop looked at him, clearly undisturbed by Galen’s continued frowning stare. “No. Reno Bellman has already headed west in the other jet to pick up Dalton Davenport, Logan Alexander, and Sully Maitland. I doubt they’ll reach the mountain house before late tomorrow.
“I spoke to Victoria Stark; she was already heading north, on the road leaving New Orleans. She’ll probably be at the airstrip near the mountain house by the time we land.”
Tony lifted an eyebrow. “Determined, stubborn, independent, or all of the above?”
“All of the above.” Before Tony could ask anything else, Bishop said, “We need you to stay here at Quantico, Tony. Quentin and Diana are on their way in. Isabel and Rafe. Possibly others as they wind up their investigations. Depending on how long this takes.”
“And what’re we supposed to do here?” Tony asked.
Bishop’s reply sobered him a lot more than he cared to admit.
“You’ll coordinate with us at the mountain house to begin forming a second line of defense. In case those summoned aren’t able to . . . hold the line.”
* * *
? ? ?
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7
It was still fall even in Kodiak, Alaska, but a chilly one, and the temperature had been dropping all day. Still, when Dalton Davenport wrenched open the front door of his small cottage in response to an imperative fist pounding on the wood, his breath was only slightly visible in the low light of the front porch fixture. It was dark, it was getting late, and Dalton was very clearly in no mood for visitors.
Even a visitor he knew. Maybe especially a visitor he knew.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snapped.
“Hello to you too, Dalton.” Serenely undisturbed by the greeting, Reno Bellman strolled in, pretty much forcing him to give way or be touched. And he hated to be touched. He all but slammed the door behind her and followed her into the small but comfortable den, whose best feature was a large picture window that overlooked the beautiful harbor far below, not much of which was visible currently except a number of twinkling lights.
Reno was a tall, willowy woman with shoulder-length black hair and exotic green eyes. Not conventionally beautiful, but completely unforgettable.
Dalton hadn’t seen her in two years.
“Well, if you’re going to get away from people, at least you found a nice view,” she commented, standing with her hands in the pockets of her light jacket as she faced the picture window. “At least, I assume the view would be nice if we could see it. The harbor, I think.”
“How did you find me?” he asked roughly.
“I found you two months after you bolted from Chicago.”
“I didn’t—”
“It wasn’t long after that last conversation in person with Bishop, as I recall. It apparently occurred to you that he was not about to give up on you. Maybe it even occurred to you that I wasn’t going to give up on you. So you bolted without a word. Or even a note left on the pillow.” Her voice remained serene. “For future reference, Dalton, should you ever need it, going to bed with a man and waking up without even a note is rough on a woman with even the strongest ego, especially when her bedmate flees the city.”
He couldn’t see her face. “Reno—”
“You bolted. To Alaska, of all places. You do realize he knows exactly where you are, I hope? Those sat phones he gave us contain nice FBI-strength GPS trackers. And no matter how much you might want him to butt out of your life, you hang on to that phone like we all do. Just in case.”
“Never mind Bishop. Reno, what are you doing here?”
No expletives, she noted. Maybe he was mellowing. “Oh, just visiting.”
“Fuck that. You’re here for a reason and I damned well want to know what it is.”
Or maybe not.
She swung around to face him, a challenge in the tilt of her head. “Tell me you didn’t experience something very strange earlier today, and I’ll get back on that damned floatplane and be on my way back to the mainland and the far more comfortable jet waiting there for me.”
He scowled at her.
Reno decided he hadn’t changed much in two years, at least not physically. He was still too thin for his height of just under six feet, though his wide shoulders and strong bones made that fact less obvious than it might have been. His thick brown hair needed cutting as usual, and his hazel eyes, which still changed color according to his mood, were dark and angry under slash-straight, frowning eyebrows.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he snapped.
She nodded. “Ah. So you did get the summons. Just guessing, but I’d say you got slammed by the worst headache of your life, saw some very weird and very bright colors, and heard voices or whispers, a whole lot of them, telling you that you have to go to Prosperity.”
“I,” he repeated grimly, “am not going anywhere.”
Pulling one hand from her pocket, Reno gestured with a thumb over one shoulder to a small desk in a corner of the den. “And that’s not a map of the southeastern US of A spread out on your desk. I take it you found Prosperity? A hitherto peaceful little mountain town in North Carolina?”
If an already-murderous glare could get worse, his did.
Reno wondered idly why she’d never been afraid of him. He was a very dangerous man, after all, far more so than even Bishop knew. Or, at least, she thought so. “Come on, Dalton, if you were curious enough to look for Prosperity, then you’re curious enough to at least wonder what it’s all about.”
For several moments it appeared he was too angry and determined not to care to give in, but then he winced and reached up to rub his left temple briefly, and some of the rage drained away, leaving his eyes lighter but his face weary. “I don’t want to go,” he muttered.
“Still no luck with the shield, huh?” Reno didn’t have much of one herself, but she knew both that she was in the rather amazingly small percentage of people he couldn’t read, and that her own abilities made her a pure receiver, so she didn’t broadcast to telepaths anyway.