Welch, D [Shadow People 03] Shadow Twins Read online

  “This whole hotel is under surveillance,” Paris replied. “The Iranian authorities don’t trust foreigners.”

  Caesar rose to leave. “Let’s hope they didn’t catch the altercation in the elevator,” he said.

  Paris waved a hand in dismissal. “We control what we can. If they approach us, we’ll say the person was a sneak thief and we were trying to apprehend him. My chief concern is where we’re going to keep her.

  Caesar shrugged. “Maybe we can put her in the closet. Surely they won’t have surveillance cameras there.”

  Audrey leaped to her feet. “You’re not stuffing me in some goddamned closet.”

  Sensing her control start to unravel, Paris again doused the rekindled embers of her fear. “Look, it’s only for a couple of hours until we can figure out a way to hide you. You may be able to trick people’s minds into ignoring you, but you can’t do that to a video camera.”

  Audrey’s lip quivered. “I can’t stand confined spaces. I’ll go crazy.”

  Caesar rolled his eyes. “We’ll leave the door open. We’ve got to try. You can’t be found in our rooms. The authorities will jail all of us and we’ll never leave Iran.”

  Paris watched as she struggled. He intervened once more with his Adept skills in another attempt to calm her.

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  Moving into Caesar’s room, Paris used his disguised shaver to interrupt the surveillance monitors. Planning their next step, he sat with Caesar on the room’s single bed because Audrey dragged the room’s only chair to a corner.

  Parking it, she sat with her arms crossed as far away from both of them as possible.

  Getting into Iran hadn’t been easy. He and Caesar had posed as Canadian businessmen traveling to Iran to check out opportunities in the agricultural sector, selling farm equipment. Relationships between Iran and Canada had deteriorated to the point that only a limited number of trade agreements could be even considered. With the help of the Adept of the North American Shadow Association, Grieg Pearson, they’d managed to find a linkup. When they weren’t visiting agribusinesses, they collected intelligence.

  Now with this unexpected development their plans were in a shambles. Audrey’s presence complicated things beyond reason. There was no way Paris could leave her behind when he left Iran. Beyond the humanitarian reasons, was the fact that he couldn’t risk having her captured by the Iranian authorities. She represented a mystery, an enigma that could have profound effects on the whole Family.

  “Do you suppose that Baha’i contact of yours could hide her temporally?” Paris asked.

  Caesar spread his hands. “I don’t know, but maybe he knows someone who can. I’ll have to leave the hotel, though. I can’t call him, he’s under surveillance by the Revolutionary Guard and his phone’s likely tapped.”

  Paris turned to Audrey. “Do you think you can be quiet and stay in the closet until he returns?”

  “By myself?” she asked. “I’m certainly not staying here with you.” She pointed to Caesar. “What if someone searches the room while he’s gone?”

  Paris rose from the bed, walked over to Caesar’s open laptop computer, and turned it on. He glanced at Caesar. “Tom installed some software in our laptops. It links the cameras together wirelessly. I’ll be able to monitor your room from my room. If anyone tries to search it, I’ll take care of it.”

  Caesar nodded. “I’ll be gone for a while. Making contact with our source is complicated.” He turned to Audrey. “How about you? Do you need anything to eat? It may be a while before you can use the loo.”

  Audrey sighed heavily. “I’m starved and I need to use the toilet... right now.” She dashed into the bathroom.

  Caesar ordered a room service meal and with further encouragement from Paris’ mind, they parked Audrey in the closet. They made arrangements for her to signal if she needed out by closing and opening the closet door.

  In his own room, Paris occupied himself by sending coded emails to the Shadow Council, reporting the new turn of events and requesting help.

  While he waited for him to return, he monitored Caesar’s room with the laptop.

  Paris reflected on how much his life had changed since the discovery no more than a year ago, that he was a descendent of a race of people called Shadows, an offshoot of humanity that could hide in plain sight from normal humans.

  Paris never second-guessed his motives, he was what he was and he accepted that. Maybe his Kentucky childhood had made him naive. Certainly he’d been clueless when he’d gone to Iraq, but the stress and fear of that experience had taught him to submerge his normal reactions during tense confrontations. He’d have been useless as an Army Ranger officer if he couldn’t, but he’d never lost his humanity, consciously choosing to suppress his fear and sense of compassion when the situation demanded it. It was a valuable skill if one didn’t make it a habit. Now, as protector and Adept head of his Shadow Family he found himself back in the role of a leader.

  From the time he’d become the head of his Family, he’d been embroiled in a Shadow underworld, learning the extent to which it had impacted the history of the human race.

  Forced into it, he’d acquired the skills that had made him a full Adept and a head of a Shadow House, but he couldn’t have realized the extent to which it would endanger his friends and loved ones.

  After meeting his half-sister, Kitty Trudeau in Las Vegas, he’d turned his attention to probing what Elizabeth had termed the impossibility of Kitty’s existence. She was a near genetic twin of Alex and him. Now, with Audrey in the focus, what had been merely impossible had changed to something like science fiction.

  Hunched over his laptop and concentrating on the emails, he almost didn’t hear the soft knock on the door of his room.

  Opening it, Paris allowed Caesar to slip in. “Did you discover anything?”

  “It’s better than I’d hoped,” Caesar replied. “Our contact couldn’t help us hide Audrey, but he found out where Aunt Dorri’s living.”

  At first, Paris found Caesar’s words jarring, but then he realized that he had spoken the truth. Dorri was the sister of Caesar’s mother and therefore his aunt. Neither of them had ever met her, only learning of her existence during the past month. It still seemed a little strange to hear Caesar say it.

  “Right...Your aunt and my mother-in-law. I have a feeling that things are never going to be the same after this.”

  Caesar chuckled. “It hit me after he told me how to find her. Anyway, we may be able to hide Audrey with her until we can figure a way to get both of them back to America.”

  Paris rose from the laptop. “Let’s go to your room and talk it over with Audrey.”

  Taking the shaver with them they entered Caesar’s room.

  “You can come out now,” Caesar said.

  Paris heard her heavy sigh as she scrambled out of the closet. “What’s next?” she asked.

  “We’re going to hide you with a friend until we can find a way to smuggle you out of Iran,” Paris replied.

  Audrey resumed her seat by the corner and sat hunched over. She replied with a voice laced with sarcasm, “And how are you going to do that? I haven’t any identification. No passport, nothing. I’ve been living since I escaped by remaining invisible and stealing food.”

  “Escaped?” Caesar asked. “Escaped from where?”

  “From that damned hospital they kept me prisoner in,” Audrey replied.

  Paris felt a pang of compassion for her. Her life must have been a nightmare. It was a testament to her inner strength that she remained as rational as she was. Thinking about it, he realized that he would expect no less from a near carbon copy of his sister. “We’ll figure it out, but you’re going to have to tell us how you got here and we don’t have the time now. We need to put you somewhere safe.”

  Audrey directed a questioning look at him. “You know, I’ve been thinking. I’m starting to believe you’re not the same monster who abused me.” Her mouth drew in a f
irm line. “But that doesn’t mean I trust you. You’ll have to earn that.”

  “Thanks...I think,” Paris said.

  He rose from the bed and paced the room. “The next question is, do we leave for Dorri’s place now or do we wait until the morning?”

  “I vote for now,” Caesar said. “In the morning there’ll be too many people going about their business. I’m uneasy about staying in this hotel any longer. If they didn’t catch the altercation in the elevator, they’re sure to wonder about the frequent glitches in their surveillance system. Fortunately, they won’t suspect our true objective is Dorri, and our contact said they’d stopped watching her years ago. After all, she’s a virtual prisoner in the apartment she’s living in.”

  Paris considered Caesar’s advice. If they left now while it was dark, they’d be observed by fewer people. He could erase the memory of their destination from the mind of the taxi driver and implant a false one. If Dorri’s apartment wasn’t watched, they might be able to stay there for a while until they could sort this out. Although the arrangements for Dorri’s escape had already been set in place, they hadn’t counted on something as astonishing as Audrey. He had a suspicion they’d stumbled onto something big but he’d didn’t have a clue as to what it was.

  However it worked out, he and Audrey were destined to have a very long conversation.

  “Okay, we’ll go. I just hope we won’t have any trouble gaining access to her place at night.”

  Caesar rubbed his temples with his fingers. “I suppose we’ll have to trust to luck. If necessary, we’ll return to the hotel but I’d prefer to leave and not return.”

  Paris didn’t believe in luck, only careful planning, but it seemed they’d have to improvise. “Okay, we’ll dump the phony business brochures and take a change of clothing in the briefcases. We need the laptops and passports, but all the rest we can leave here. We’ll need to work in the dark, so lights-out in the rooms while we do it.”

  He thought about Audrey. “Audrey, you wear the chador and walk three steps behind Caesar. That way, for the surveillance cameras, you’ll look like his wife, but make sure you’re not visible to the Normals. The Shadows..? Well..., leave them to me.”

  * * *

  They stood at the entrance to Dorri’s apartment building, choking in the dust left by the taxi. Even covered by the chador, Audrey shivered with the nighttime cold. Caesar put his arm around her in an attempt to provide some warmth, but she shrugged it off and moved to the side, hugging herself.

  Illuminated by spot lights on each corner, the three story complex appeared to be impregnable. Paris looked up at it, trying to get an idea of how to enter the place without detection. It was built like a rectangle. Most of the normal apartment complexes had an inner courtyard shared by the residents with walkways on the sides. In this instance, only the one main entrance was visible. He couldn’t see an alternate way to get to Dorri’s apartment.

  “Bloody hell,” Caesar muttered. “I never considered this.”

  Audrey scanned the windows. “Looks like we’re screwed. There’s no way to climb and even if there was, where would we climb to?”

  “It’s built like a fortress,” Paris said. “There must be political prisoners in there. Looks like we’ll have to resort to plan B.”

  Caesar raised his eyebrows. “And that would be...?”

  Paris tapped his temple with his finger. “Using this and the front door.”

  Walking to the front entrance, he mentally scanned the lobby area, searching for a mind-glow. Finding one, a Normal, he implanted a compulsion in the man’s mind to open the door, linking the urge to a memory.

  The man opened the door and bowed them into the warm lobby, muttering something in Farsi. Paris turned to Caesar. “What did he say?”

  Caesar frowned. “He thinks you’re some kind of mullah, I didn’t catch the name.”

  Audrey directed a curious glance at Paris, but he ignored her, directing his attention to Caesar. “Now we need to find out where Dorri’s apartment is. Any ideas?”

  Caesar shook his head. “No, our contact didn’t have that information. Maybe we can find a directory.”

  The Normal, who remained under Paris’ mind control, led them to an office where a listing of the apartment complex’s occupants was written. Unfortunately, the listings were in Persian script and none of them could decipher it.

  Caesar stared at the listing. “I can’t read it, so what do we do now? Just knock on each door until we come to the right one?”

  Paris struggled to think of a solution. “Can’t you make him read the list and find her?”

  Relieved, Caesar replied, “I didn’t think of that. Okay, I’ll ask him which apartment she’s in.”

  As Caesar spoke to the lobby attendant, Paris could sense suspicion. To counter, he implanted the impression the attendant spoke to an important Iranian official. From that point, the man willingly complied with Caesar’s orders, scanning the list and addressing him.

  Caesar spoke one word to the attendant, and turned his attention to Paris. “He says she’s on the third floor, fourth apartment on the right as you exit the elevator. He also says that the third floor is where all the highly sensitive political detainees are housed.”

  Paris worried they’d be trapped, but he saw no alternative. “Can’t be helped, I suppose. Let’s hope they don’t try to harass all the political types. I need to erase the events of the past few minutes from this guy’s memory and then we can check out Dorri’s apartment.”

  Chapter 3

  Dorri

  Dorri Rowan closed the book she’d been reading, brushed her long gray hair over her shoulders, and padded barefoot to the tiny kitchen to make some tea.

  She’d grown accustomed to loneliness. During and after the religious fervor that had swept Iran she’d been a prisoner, denied contact with anyone outside of Iran.

  After the attempted rescue of her and the successful rescue of her sister and their infant children, she’d been incarcerated by the Iranian Shadow Houses.

  In a vindictive rage they’d patterned her mind to prevent her from leaving her apartment and refused to reveal her existence despite numerous diplomatic efforts instigated by her husband, Edward.

  During the past thirty years, her only links to sanity and a normal life had been the sporadic visits of Edward’s friend, Ali and the clandestine delivery of the bundle of letters from her husband. While hoping for release, she’d read each letter multiple times and had created a hidden scrapbook of the pictures of her daughter and nephew as they’d grown.

  But for the past year, since the Houses had moved her to this new location, she hadn’t had a single word from her family. She worried that the change had broken her only link to them.

  The first ten years had been the most agonizing. Promises of rescue from Iran and the subsequent letdowns, the encroaching control of the Iranian government by the Shadow Houses and radical Muslims, the restrictions upon women and the persecutions of religious minorities; all had conspired to almost crush her.

  Somehow she’d found the courage to fight back and for the past twenty years Ali had delivered articles she’d written about oppression in Iran out of the country for publication in newspapers and magazines. Hidden in her apartment was the compact miracle of a laptop that Edward had smuggled to her, along with a tiny device in which she could store her writing. In desperation, she’d also addressed letters to the United Nations, the British Foreign Office and the United States State Department.

  Over a year. A year in which I haven’t had word from Edward. She fretted as the months without news grew longer, but knew she had to keep hope alive or despair would destroy her.

  The whistling teapot interrupted her thoughts. After preparing a glass of fragrant jasmine tea, she was about to head to her bedroom to write a new article, when a soft knock came from the apartment door. Startled by the sound, she wondered who it might be.

  Ali? God. I hope it’s Ali, but how did he find me?<
br />
  Cautious, she opened the door, keeping the safety chain in place. Through the crack she saw a tall, handsome, younger man staring back at her. He looked familiar, but she worried. Maybe it was one of the Houses or Revolutionary Guards, come to arrest her. She suppressed her fear to keep her voice from trembling.

  “Yes? Who are you and what do you want?”

  At first he only stared. Then he shook his head and spoke quietly in heavily accented Farsi. “My name is Caesar, Aunt Dorri. I’m the son of Sanjar and Shazelith, and I’ve come to take you out of Iran.”

  Of all the spoken words she’d ever imagined, the words from his mouth seemed impossible. The blood drained from her head and she staggered, suddenly dizzy. Paralyzed with indecision, she was unable to move her hands to the chain on the door.

  Caesar spoke again. “Please Aunt Dorri, I need to come in. Please open the door.”

  Dorri looked carefully at him. She superimposed his face upon the image in her mind of her brother-in-law more than thirty years ago. Sanjar’s calm strength and smiling face on her wedding day was a memory she’d never forgotten, indelibly etched in her brain.

  This man could definitely be his son.

  Regaining control of her limbs, Dorri reached a shaking hand to the chain holding the door closed and unhooked it. Upon opening the door, she saw he was accompanied by another shorter man wearing dark glasses and a young woman cloaked in a chador with the head covering thrust back. She moved to close the door, but the one who called himself Caesar blocked it with his hand.

  “Please Aunt Dorri. These people are my friends. We need your help. May we come in?”

  Shaken, she hesitated. If he were truly Shalizeth’s son, then how had he managed to pass the guard in the lobby? Only government and clerical officials ever gained entrance to the third floor of the building.

  However his thick accent and the nervous way that his companions scanned the hallway spoke of unfamiliarity with the environment and a sense of urgency. Damning herself as a gullible fool, she relented and opened the door wider. The three people hurried into the room and she closed the door behind them.