Rawls pulled back, opened his mouth. How was he supposed to answer that?
“For Christ’s sake, you ass. You’ve trusted my visions for years. Trusted me without question, without corroborating evidence, without proof—why the hell wouldn’t you give me the same benefit of doubt when it came to what you were seeing?”
Rawls’s mouth slammed shut. He grimaced. Rolled his shoulders. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Bullshit.” There was a glint of anger in Zane’s eyes as they touched his face.
“It isn’t,” Rawls pointed out tightly. “Your visions happen. There’s your proof.”
“You didn’t know that the first time you acted on them,” Zane snapped back. “You trusted me. I trusted you. That’s what saved our asses back then.”
Fair point. But still, Pachico was different. The whole situation was different. “You knew what you were seeing was real. Was about to happen.”
Zane cocked his head, reined the anger in. “And?”
“I didn’t. Hell, for days I was certain I’d had a psychotic break. Certain the bastard was a product of my broken mind.”
The anger faded from Zane’s face. He ran a hand over his hair. “You should have told me.”
“Hell no,” Rawls said flatly. “You’re my LC. You’d be obligated to relieve me of duty. Report the incident up the chain. You’d have no choice but to turn me in. I’d lose my spot in the beach boat. Lose my spot on the teams. And you know damn well I’d never get the okay again, even if Pachico had disappeared before I stepped in the headshrinker’s office.”
Zane’s sharp crack of laughter echoed between the concrete walls surrounding them. “Has it escaped your notice that we don’t currently have a damn chain of command to report to?”
That stopped Rawls, but just for a moment. “When we’re clear—”
“Have you been paying any attention to what’s going on at all? It won’t matter if we’re cleared,” Zane broke in, frustration and anger throbbing in his voice. “We’re on fucking national television. Our faces everywhere. When we’re cleared, the story will be even bigger than it is now. We’ve lost any fucking chance of getting back to our squads—period. We’re fucking done.”
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
IT DIDN’T OCCUR to Rawls, until he was sitting in the motorized cart across from Wolf, that Zane hadn’t said whether he believed in ghosts. Or more specifically—Rawls’s ghost. The conversation had gotten off track, and then their private little chat had been disrupted by a shift change at the medical bay.
Zane had left, without much more said, but they both knew the discussion wasn’t over—merely shelved for the moment.
Wolf showed up an hour later to escort him to his first séance. Not that they called it that, but hell, they wanted to summon a ghost . . . wasn’t that exactly what a séance did?
He didn’t bother to ask any questions as Wolf drove. His escort had proved—repeatedly—that he wasn’t much of a talker, let alone an explainer.
Instead, he took the opportunity to check Shadow Mountain out. Not that he could see much. The landscape was comprised mainly of shiny black walls, with embedded caged lights. The corridor Wolf took was wide—two lanes separated by a solid yellow line. White-striped paths to the right and left were designated walkways, or so he assumed from the volume of people they passed walking along them. Corridors branched off the main street, because that’s what it was, a damn street—underground, inside a mountain.
They passed a wide section with defined parking spaces along the sides and a wide, almost translucent section of the wall that slid open every few seconds disgorging a steady stream of people, along with the rich, thick scent of cooking. Rawls’s stomach growled loud enough to catch Wolf’s attention, reminding them both they’d lost dinner and breakfast.
But Wolf pressed on.
They passed a good two dozen golf carts identical to the one Wolf was driving, as well as others twice as long, and then a few with rows of seats for extra passengers.
As one would expect from a facility this size, it bustled with men and women, although far more of the former than the latter. The ages ranged from midtwenties to midsixties. Most wore jeans and Tshirts or sweatshirts. Some wore overalls, others basic green fatigues. The lack of uniforms was a dead giveaway that the place wasn’t military.
The army, navy, and air force were damn proud of their regalia.
Nor were all the people he saw Native American—although most looked like they were.