At the Clearest Sensation Read online

  He must have noticed her attention, “Not a chance in hell.”

  She was almost tempted to cast him in a small cameo just to tease him, but Jennie was suddenly very talkative.

  “I think we can use this tunnel twice. Once in the opening, setting the tension as Isobel proceeds south at the start of the case, unaware that she’s already being followed—page eleven. Again, but going in the other direction for the page eighty-four car chase. It would start inside the steam plant, jump to the cars, and then up the reverse tunnel, which ends near the Opera House for the final scene. It could be very dramatic.”

  “Now all we have to do is fill in from page eleven to eighty-four,” Devlin quipped.

  Jennie flapped her manuscript at him and turned back to the screen.

  Isobel thought about it. The north and southbound lanes were actually stacked in a fifty-six-foot concrete tube bored under the city. The southbound lanes were on top, so there was less of a descent to enter the tunnel.

  The northbound lanes, that would appear later in the manuscript, descended deeper, to travel below the southbound ones.

  “I like the metaphor.” All she had to do was indicate the varying depths with her hands for Jennie to get it. Her rapid paging through the screenplay caused Devlin to laugh. It was as if he welcomed Jennie’s odd ways rather than merely tolerating them.

  Was that how he felt about her, pleased by her not being part of the human norm? It had always made her the outsider, the one who didn’t belong. But she’d never considered embracing it. Instead, she’d done her best to hide her differences and conform.

  She flipped the question around. Was it pleasing that she couldn’t read him? Perhaps.

  If that—

  “What a goon,” Michelle was looking at the screen. They were passing the man who had walked along the high-speed traffic lane inside the tunnel. No reflective vest or other warning gear. He strode along in a black t-shirt, jeans, and heavy boots.

  Isobel barely remembered him.

  “He had a serious case of something,” Devlin observed. “He spun around to watch us pass as if we’d thrown food at him while going sixty. I can’t imagine he recognized Isobel. The daylight at the end of the tunnel would have been reflecting off the windshield at that point.”

  “It wasn’t interest,” Hannah said softly. “I turned and caught a glimpse of him face-to-face through the rear window.” She trailed off and wrapped her arms together as if she was cold.

  “What in Sam Hill does he have against beautiful women?”

  “It was…” but she couldn’t seem to complete the sentence.

  “Was what, hon?” Jesse draped an arm across her shoulders.

  She leaned into him briefly, a gesture Isobel had only seen her make a few times. Hannah wasn’t much for leaning on anyone, not even the man she loved and had married.

  Isobel opened up and felt that Hannah wasn’t feeling thoughtful, she was unnerved—jagged black spikes overlaying her Kelly-green reliability. What did it take to unnerve a Delta operator?

  “I don’t know how to explain it.” Rather than turning to Jesse, she turned to Ricardo. “You’ve seen it. Like religious mania but on the battlefield.”

  Ricardo grunted as he chewed on that for a moment. Everyone knew to give him a bit of time to find his words.

  Devlin started to speak, but stopped at Isobel’s headshake.

  Ricardo took Michelle’s hand and began toying with it. She must have asked him a question telepathically because he nodded before speaking.

  “The jihadis and the religious crusaders called it ‘Battle Ecstasy.’ Those who faced the Vikings, the Celts or Scots, and others called it ‘Battle Frenzy.’ I think that the Irish legends came closer, calling it the ‘Battle Fury.’ Had a unit commander who called them ‘Glory Killers.’ The ones who live for the joy of battle and wielding death. Never had much truck with that type.”

  Hannah shivered and Isobel realized that she herself was rubbing her arms against goosebumps.

  “One screwed-up soul. Glad we don’t have any of those in this movie,” Devlin shrugged breaking the mood. “We don’t, do we, Jennie?”

  She actually flipped to the cast list at the front and scanned it. “No. No frenzied warriors.” Then she must have heard herself. She made a show of looking over the scene summary as well. “And no maniacal battles. Unless you’d like to star in one, Devlin?”

  “Not me. That Candid Camera scene was more film that I ever wanted,” but then he did turn serious, serious and a little sad. “Met enough guys like him out there on the streets. Maybe not that kinda messed up, but way out there. Feel sorry for whatever poor bastard ends up in his sights. Guy must hate the world or something.”

  Isobel didn’t want to think about any of that, and restarted the video to lead the others through what else they’d seen yesterday.

  They ended going through it several times, even penciling in primary camera angles on the shot sheet for several of them.

  Jennie had always favored continuous takes for impact.

  And Isobel was a fan of one-take filming.

  The combination was hard on the actresses and the crew. Despite that, the actress in her liked the freshness, the aliveness that it brought to the performance. Knowing there was only the one take, the energy was high and the pressure would translate well to the genre.

  And since she’d underwritten the film, the businesswoman in her liked the savings of minimizing expensive resets and retakes.

  But each time through the video she’d shot, she had to look away from the man at the end of the tunnel.

  During lunch break, Devlin was sitting alone on the back deck. He didn’t want to make assumptions or get in the way.

  Yeah, load of crap.

  He wanted to get his hands back on Isobel so badly that the only safe answer was distance. Distance and—

  “Who the fuck are you?” Michelle dropped a plate in his lap with a monster egg salad sandwich on a Kaiser roll and a large bag of vinegar and sea salt Kettle chips. She made a show of shaking the can of Coke hard before tossing it to him.

  Then she dropped into the chair next to him with the same lunch, except he’d assume her can was unshaken, and crossed her red boots.

  “Thanks, Red,” he set the unopened Coke aside carefully and bit into the sandwich. “Devlin Jones. Part-time movie fixer, do a little boat building, some specialty welding, whatever comes to hand.”

  “And Isobel just ‘came to hand’?”

  “A) Question for Isobel. B) None of your goddamn business as far as I’m concerned. And C) Do you enjoy being such a redheaded-temper-tantrum cliché, Red, or are you doing this special for me?” He looked up from his sandwich when she didn’t answer.

  She finally muttered a soft, “Crumbs.”

  “What?”

  “I hate, really, really hate that you’re right.”

  “Way I see it, Red, you’re just trying to protect your best friend. Gets you a lot of points in my book. Except I don’t see Isobel as the kind of woman who needs a lot of protection. Could probably do with a little less of it from all of you.”

  “You don’t get it, jerk,” she’d apparently decided she was enjoying her temper. “Isobel Manella is special, seriously special.”

  “Might have figured that out for myself,” he opened up the bag of chips and layered some into his sandwich. The salt-vinegar-crunch was a nice addition.

  “No, I mean—” And she huffed in frustration. Two would get him ten she was fighting for some way to be discreet.

  Devlin considered letting her dangle, but he was getting to like her fire and loyalty. “Look, Red, why don’t you ask your husband what he thinks about all this? I’ll wait. Go ahead, ask him.” He reached out and flicked a finger against her temple.

  Her eyes shot wide as she stared at him with her jaw flapping in the wind.

  “Welcome to the game, Red.”

  “I wish you’d stop calling me that,” she recovered enough to t
ake a first vicious bite out of her own sandwich.

  “Would’ve long ago if it didn’t piss you off so much.”

  She chewed on that one and her sandwich for a while, before offering him a smile. “Could get to like you, Mr. Devlin Jones.”

  “Mutual, Red.”

  “Then again, maybe not.”

  Chapter 13

  Waiting.

  Just waiting.

  His government, the US government, had taught him well. They’d trained him, steeped him, in the power of waiting.

  It wasn’t the waiting that was hard, it was the patience. It gnawed at him like the wolf who’d almost taken him out on the Mirny, Siberia, mission. It had been a silent battle to the death less than fifty meters from a fully armed Russian patrol. But they’d trained him well, and he’d returned with proof of the deadly poisons that the FSB created in that closed city, and a permanent limp.

  They’d taught him waiting again when he’d gone from loyal subject to lab rat. When they’d burned his gift out of him, scraped it clean with chemicals meant to enhance it, reproduce it. And when it was gone, and they’d discarded him into a deep and dark cell, he had waited.

  Three years he’d been caged in the dark before opportunity had shone her smile upon him. He’d left a dozen scientists and guards buried in a fifty-meter crater in the Nevada desert. He alone had walked out, walked across that vast burning desert undetected. His government had taught him well.

  He’d disappeared into the warp and fold of civilians, unknown, unremarked.

  Knowing it was all gone, that his gift would never return, he had merely existed.

  Until he’d felt…her!

  He no longer had the gift, but he’d felt it in her like a beacon of wildfire. All he could feel was that she had everything he’d lost.

  A signal that he knew would let the evil ones track her, lock her into a lab, and dissect her soul until only a screaming shell remained.

  No, it was better if she was saved now. Never knew that dark hole underneath the shifting soils of the Nevada desert.

  His government had taught him that the only easy day was yesterday.

  They’d taught him that lesson very, very well.

  He waited.

  Chapter 14

  Rather than waiting for the full crew to arrive, Isobel decided to start shooting some of the simpler scenes. Everything the team could do themselves saved money.

  As they were shooting the script in order, mostly, that meant that she would start driving from the top of Queen Anne Hill, descending into the city, running past the Opera House—with no other hint that the climax and aftermath would happen there—and then weave over to the southbound tunnel.

  No need for any permits or police escorts for that drive as they weren’t going to be speeding, stopping unexpectedly, or breaking any other traffic laws. She didn’t even have to run any lines, because the opening sequence was all internal dialog and all shot from behind as a roll under the opening credits.

  Isobel would record that audio during the edit.

  She slid into the seat of Devlin’s beautiful Chevy just as dawn etched the sky.

  “Don’t you be dinging up my, baby, you hear?” Devlin rubbed a loving hand over the fender. After a second night together, she knew the touch of those roughly strong hands. Would it bother a man like him if she pointed out what a tender lover he was? Tender yet wonderfully teasing? Probably.

  She’d have smiled at him, but that wasn’t her character and she was now Rosamarie Cruz.

  “Hear you. I still can’t believe you’re letting me drive this.” She’d never felt better or more ready to start shooting a scene.

  Without asking, Jennie had simply incorporated his car into the script. They’d originally talked about a Columbo-style beater, but hadn’t settled on anything. Instead of the scheduled trip to the crappy used car lots that Devlin had assured her were strung for miles along Aurora Ave, she was now sitting at the helm of his ’57 Chevy.

  She imagined the heat of his hands on the thin wheel, her fingers overlapping his.

  Yes, she’d have to pursue that idea the next time they were in bed together. Their first night had been about satisfying sexual urges, and sleep. The second had been pure fun. She was looking forward to what more there was for them.

  The movie! She ordered herself for the tenth—or so—time since waking curled up in his arms.

  Part of her character was being an ace mechanic. Former military motor pool, so Rosamarie had skills. Recently former, so she had no new path yet in the confusion of the civilian world. That’s why Isobel had spent long hours with the ex-military of her team, trying to get her head inside that shift.

  That’s what had been missing from Jennie’s script. She’d had the story—at its heart, a tale of disenfranchisement from one form of a life to another. But not the detail of emotion that Ricardo, Hannah, and the others had and, much to her surprise, were still going through.

  The meta-layer of her own life’s transition from strictly being an actress over to producer and co-director was not lost on her.

  By the end of the movie… Maybe by then she’d have some clue of what her own future should look like.

  For now she’d focus on the film’s beginning.

  Michelle sat in the back seat with one of the Red 8K cameras. It would capture her from behind for the whole drive so that the audience felt as if they were along for the ride.

  Hannah, Devlin, Ricardo, and Katie were in a rented Jeep Wrangler. Hannah drove. In the back, Ricardo was handling communications, and she supposed that Devlin was along to make sure she didn’t ding his car. They’d folded back the top and pushed the front windshield down so that Katie had an unimpeded view with the camera from the passenger seat.

  Anton and Jesse were up in the team’s Black Hawk. It already had a hi-res camera built into the surveillance package. Timing was going to be everything here.

  The Black Hawk couldn’t linger over downtown Seattle airspace. So, when it started its overflight, they had to be ready and on the move. Over Queen Anne, it could delay in the narrow slot between minimum ground clearance below and the air traffic control area above for the approaches to two major airports. Once they headed for the tunnels, the helicopter was going to be responding to air traffic controllers for a landing at Boeing Field. It could follow her drive only once, then it was done.

  “Ricardo said the helo is ready to start its run,” Michelle spoke from the back seat.

  “Rolling?”

  “Rolling,” Michelle confirmed.

  Isobel started the car. They pulled out of the Queen Anne hill parking lot; the condos had once been a high school building and looked it. No location shots planned inside, so all they’d done was hang out in the parking lot for a bit. Devlin had suggested it for the sweeping view of the city’s high rises and highway swoops. The metaphor of her plunging down into its morass had appealed to Jennie.

  The light was perfect. It would start golden, but be stark-reality bright by the end of the drive into downtown.

  She loved the feel of the Chevy’s big engine. It wasn’t all graceful and quiet like modern engines. You knew it was cranking over, making the car shudder as if anticipating a release.

  “Not on this run, baby,” she patted the dashboard.

  “Good, nice human touch,” Michelle announced from the back seat behind her camera.

  Isobel resisted the urge to glare at her as she turned onto the main street and descended the cliff-steep front of Queen Anne Hill down into an old-town commercial district thick with cars. The Chevy’s first gear wound up the engine’s rpm until it was almost a fever pitch. They’d probably have to tone that down in the final mix or it would be too much too soon.

  The base of the hill was a locals’ area, too far from the main core of the city to be a tourist haven. In three blocks she spotted at least ten restaurants she wanted to try: Italian, breakfast hole-in-the-wall, Mexican—it looked amazing.

  She’d mem
orized the turns, but Ricardo fed them to her through Michelle anyway.

  A left turn took her along the north edge of Seattle Center. A playhouse, the ballet, and the Opera House all slid by on her right. Here was the film’s ending.

  In the following Jeep, Katie knew to make sure she had a clear pan of its modernist frontage and the high-hung wire nets on which nighttime colors and patterns could be projected.

  Getting the opera’s cooperation had been easy, half of their income came from donations, not tickets. Isobel had simply offered them a six-digit donation—she liked supporting the arts anyway. After that, she could have blown up the Opera House and they might not have complained.

  A few blocks up, she turned right and merged onto southbound Route 99. Just before it plunged into the tunnel, she wanted to check on the helicopter overhead, but that would be a break of character. On the sly, she checked that the Jeep Wrangler was still in position.

  No!

  That was Isobel.

  She was now Rosamarie. Perhaps her emergence from the buffered cocoon of the military would have her being paranoid and checking behind her—clearing her six—more suspiciously. She made a point of it, not even noticing the Jeep and her teammates riding along anymore. She was now Rosamarie Cruz and didn’t trust anyone or anything.

  She was an ex-military, ace mechanic, heading south through Seattle to a job interview. A job interview that was going to go terribly wrong.

  Then she plunged into the tunnel’s darkness.

  “He’s in a hurry.”

  Devlin glanced forward to see Hannah checking the rearview mirror.

  He twisted around to see what she was looking at.

  Coming fast out of a parking lot, a bright yellow Hummer did a four-wheel drift onto the ramp and was approaching fast behind them.

  “Don’t let him screw up my shot,” Katie called out, but didn’t look away from her camera’s viewscreen. She wore a Steadicam rig that let the camera float smoothly despite any bumps in the road and most jostles by the operator.