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constructed at great cost, surrounded the entire property, its top embedded with sensors should anyone have the balls to try to breach it. Not too far from the house, trees had been cut down to build a landing strip and a hangar for Kurt’s private jet and his helicopter. It allowed him the freedom to travel on his own schedule and also provided a facility for those few he invited to land their own planes.
    Some might have chafed at the isolation, but for Olberman it suited his purposes perfectly. He had the magnificence and grandeur of the Rockies as a backdrop and the assurance that he was well protected from his enemies. Oh yes, he had enemies. A man didn’t do what he did without accumulating them. But no one could get to him here.
    He smiled. This was his paradise, his kingdom, and even thinking about it gave him great pleasure. And an ideal place for what he had in mind. All he had to do was sweep up Lauren Cahill, install her in private quarters in the house, and make her available to those who would pay handsomely for her services. And with the hangar and landing strip the “clients” could come to him. The lovely Miss Cahill could live out her days here until such time as her powers failed. Then he would find someone else to replace her.
    But first, he had to satisfy himself that she was the real deal.
    Turning back to his desk he pressed a button on his intercom. Vivian Jackson, his no-nonsense assistant, answered at once.
    “Yes, Mr. Olberman?”
    “Please come in. I have an assignment for you.”
    * * * * *
     
    Lauren poured coffee into three mugs and handed them to the men sitting at her kitchen table. Then she sat down with her own mug between Troy and Mark. Directly across from her was a man she was meeting for the first time, the darkly good-looking Dan Romeo. Six five, olive-skinned with dark hair and darker eyes, a former Force Recon Marine, he was the nominal leader of the group, although they all had equal decision-making powers. She knew two partners were absent. In addition to Mark, former Delta Force, and Dan, the partnership included flyboy Mike D’Antoni, who’d trained with England’s crack SAS, and finally Eric “Rick” Latrobe, former Special Ops and a trained sniper.
    Each brought highly specialized skills to the agency known simply as Phoenix. A good name for a group that rose from the ashes of war and one that now contracted to both private citizens and the United States government for jobs that had to be conducted “off the books”.
    Dan had made her feel at ease immediately. She recalled being told his wife had precognitive abilities, the gift that allowed her to see future events before they happened. Her visions usually came to her in bits and pieces and sometimes only as clues that she had to decipher. But Mark had also mentioned that her visions had helped Phoenix wrap up an espionage case. Faith and Mark also used their telepathic communications gift when the agency needed it.
    She wondered about Rick Latrobe’s wife, Kelly. They lived in Maryland, along with Mike and Kat D’Antoni, so she was unlikely to meet them. Still, she couldn’t help being curious.
    Now the three men were holding a council of war in her kitchen with an efficiency that was at once both comforting and frightening. Before this, she’d always just hidden from the crowds and the stalker, closing all the drapes, working in near darkness, answering calls only from her family. Eventually everyone got tired and left her alone. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that this time everyone had stepped up their game. More reporters. Bigger mob. More vicious and more frequent vitriol from her stalker.
    “Aren’t you all making just a little too much of this?” she asked finally, cradling her mug as if the warmth of the liquid could ease the chill suddenly invading her body. “Mark, you know I’ve been through this before. In a few days, the media loses interest and focuses on someone else. And my so-called