Chapter 9

Tahir and the Captain were poring over the reports that were coming in. Apparently, Tahir’s earlier actions had put a short stoppage to the doctor’s group’s plans for a time. They had been at it for a couple of hours, when Tahir noticed a report of a body. It took him a moment to read through it, turning toward the Captain, he drew his attention.

“This report details a body that was found, what seems strange is that the body had no brain at all. It was almost as if the cranial cavity had been vacuumed clean.” Tahir said.

Handing the report to the Captain.

Looking it over he glanced up, “you think it’s the work of the doctor’s group?”

Tahir shook his head, “No, actually it sounds more like the group’s leader. It was something that was floating on the fringe of his mind when I tried to delve in,” Tahir said feeling just a little sick, remembering the evil he had felt when he’d touched the man’s mind.

“You never said anything about that,” the Captain said looking at Tahir a moment, “that was all you got?”

“Yes, unfortunately he slipped, like I do and I lost contact. He is in no way as strong as I am, but the abilities he has, will make him much harder to deal with.” Tahir sighed; the depth of anger in that man went far beyond anything he had ever felt before.

Reaching out, his mind flew across the country to the building where he had lost the man. Going in, he began to look through all the rooms. Most were unoccupied but one he came to wasn’t. Moving into the room proved harder than he thought.

It wasn’t impossible, but it took a lot of his energy to get through the walls and doors. Obviously he had been expecting someone to try and break in, one way or another. The few brief looks he got in the room revealed less than he had hoped for.

Withdrawing he had felt the Captain touch his arm. “You still with us?” the Captain had been asking, “Hello? you ok?” more concern in his voice, than he had wanted to express.

Damnit he hated when Tahir did this. It was bad enough when he just vanished, that he could handle but when he zoned out, sighing he shook his head.

“Yes, I am here, now. I went to find out what I could about the leader of that group. It appears that he was expecting something or someone. He has a decent shield around his place, it was tough but I got through. He doesn’t stay in that place as much, but he had a picture of an older woman there.”

“Any idea who she is?” the Captain broke in.

“No, but she appears to be of some importance to him.” Tahir replied “I didn’t see any id or papers but I briefly saw what appeared to be a letter on a table. It had the word Ro on it; it also appeared to be on official government paper, though I never got close enough to see which one it was from.”

The Captain nodded thinking a minute. Typing on his laptop, he brought up every one of the DC departments, emblems. “Did the paper look anything like any of these?” turning his laptop toward Tahir he sat back and waited.

“Hmmmmm, well...” Tahir started to tick off any that didn’t look anywhere near it. “Ok, it’s a toss-up between these two, as I said I didn’t really get that good a look at it.”

The Captain looked at the two homeland security emblems, they weren’t all that much alike, but at a distance one might be mistaken for the other. “Let’s see, we have homeland security and this other one is for ICE homeland security” The Captain said looking up from the emblem page.

“ICE? What exactly is that?” Tahir replied looking at the Captain perplexed.

“Ah, well that’s the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.” Snapping his fingers the Captain’s face brightened, “Didn’t you say that he spoke to you in Romanian?” Tahir nodded, “It shouldn’t be that hard, to find out who he is and what’s the motivation behind all this shit.”

Picking up the phone he started to call contacts he had in Washington. Tahir walked out, and down the hall. He needed the exercise, his leg had already gone to sleep once. Tahir was about to go see Kim when he felt a sharp twinge at one of the other centers.