Page 13 of Hot Zone

Time to find herself a hunk of bronze.

This search was supposed be a breeze. After all, she’d seen and handled the mate to her missing medallion, and she had a precise sense of the vibrational energy it put out. She would try again to locate it, concentrating fully this time.

Tessa sat down cross-legged in the middle of the bed and closed her eyes. Her consciousness expanded to take in the entire room, then the rooms around her, and before long, the entire palace.

For as long as she could remember, she had simply to know what object was missing—to see a picture of it or even get a good description of it—to be able to find it.

Buried objects could be a little tricky, as well as dismembered ones. She’d been worried when Professor Carswell asked her to find a piece of a missing disk, but when she found out it was bronze, she was much more confident. Metal and certain kinds of crystals gave out powerful energy fields that were a snap to sense.

The familiar trance settled over her, her “search mode.” When she was little, she didn’t know any better and hadn’t hidden her talent. But by the time her parents had moved her to her sixth new school district, she’d gotten the idea, and managed to grow up relatively normally, if somewhat isolated from ordinary people.

As an adult she’d successfully hidden her strange ability until the incident in Iraq. A squad of her men had gone missing in a sandstorm, and she’d set out into the blinding dust after them, alone. She’d walked right to them, and then turned around and led them unerringly back to base. And the jig was up. Rumors had circulated through the army of the oddball officer who could find lost things. Any lost thing. Anywhere. And in short order, the folks at Project Anasazi had found her.

And here she was. In the middle of ancient Greece looking for part of a lost bronze medallion. A far cry from finding misplaced inventory on an army post.

Where are you, little fella?

Hmm. She was getting only a faint buzz of energy at the moment. Athena Carswell had told Tessa she would be close to the medallion when she blinked into Persia but had warned her she might not be right on top of the bronze piece.

The code that was engraved on the last piece found could have been slightly misinterpreted. Or worse, the medallion piece could have been moved from its original location.

The aliens who’d hidden the pieces of the disk fifty thousand years ago had apparently done their best to place the medallions in ways that would ensure their remaining undisturbed. But unfortunately, humans liked shiny things and had a tendency to pick them up and carry them off.

Tessa opened her mind up fully, seeking what direction she should go to draw nearer to that which she sought.

She waited.

And waited.

Her brow crinkled in confusion.

She was getting nothing. Absolutely nothing. She never got nothing!

Panic jumped in her gut. Had Professor Carswell and company gone to enormous effort and expense to train her and send her here, only to have her fail? She was the supposed expert at this. She’d passed every test they’d thrown at her with flying colors when they’d checked out her bold claim that she could find anything.

What had gone wrong? Was she in the wrong time frame? The entirely wrong place?

Professor Carswell had been specific. Somewhere near wherever Tessa blinked in, the second fragment of the medallion could be found.

She’d gotten that reading on it so clearly when she’d first arrived last night. Why wasn’t she sensing the damned thing now? Surely it hadn’t been moved so far overnight that it was now out of her range!

She crawled off the bed, deciding to try again outside. But as she took a step toward the wooden door, a knock sounded upon it.

Her pulse jumped. For a hopeful second, she wondered if it was Rustam. Oh, come on. He was some half-drunk man who’d come on to her soon after she’d been bombarded with images of her first—and hopefully last—orgy. The kiss had been a complete anomaly. She was a military officer, for God’s sake. On a vital mission.

Okay, and wearing a filmy dress and no underwear.

Still. Their encounter had been a one-shot deal.

“Your ladyship. Be thee awake?” a female voice whispered.

Startled, Tessa unlatched the door and flung it open. A pretty young Persian woman stood there. She looked frightened.

“What can I do for you?” Tessa asked kindly.

The servant blinked. “Nothing. ’Tis I who serve you. Her Highness, Queen Artemesia, sent me to attend you.”

Tessa thought fast. Why would someone with as high a rank as Artemesia even be aware of her existence, let alone take enough interest to send a servant to her? Did it have something to do with Rustam’s visit to her room last night? This couldn’t be good. The idea was to stay as invisible as possible on this mission. Just slide in, find the medallion, and slide out. Tessa asked, “What’s your name?”

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