The Solomon Effect Read Online Free Page A

Security thinks these guys have a terrorist attack scheduled for Halloween? No way. That’s tootight of a timeline. Someone’s not playing straight with us on something.”
    “If the bad guys had everything lined up, it could be done.”
    Jax wasn’t so sure. “I assume we’re already scrutinizing the gold bullion markets?”
    “Yep. No one’s admitting to knowing a thing. But then, if the bad guys are selling the gold to the Chinese or through some African outfit, we won’t hear of it. We don’t control things as much as we like to think we do.”
    “How about going at it from the other end? How many ships in the world are capable of salvaging a sub that size?”
    “The DCI’s got some guys drawing up a list.” Matt glanced at the clock. “But we’re hoping to have a different kind of lead coming in the next hour or so. It’s going to be your assignment to follow up on it.”
    There was something airy about Matt’s tone that set off Jax’s warning bells. “A different kind of lead coming from where?”
    Matt’s gaze faltered away.
    Jax picked up the pile of files and books, and slid off the edge of the table. “Out with it, Matt. What aren’t you telling me?”
    “The Vice President has asked Colonel McClintock to task Tobie Guinness.”
    A couple of books skittered off the pile of files in Jax’s arms and clattered to the floor.
    “Good idea,” said Jax, hunkering down to retrieve the dropped books. “A phantom Nazi sub loaded with stolen gold probably isn’t quite enough to get Division Thirteen laughed out of the Company. Why not add a touch of woo-woo?”
    “Remote viewing is not woo-woo. It’s science. And you know it.”
    “Right.” Just because Tobie had managed to scuttle theKeefe Corporation’s nasty little scheme last summer didn’t mean Jax bought into the whole “alternative states of perception” business. With every passing month, he’d found himself growing increasingly skeptical, increasingly convinced there must be some other explanation for what had happened. “Maybe we can find an astrologer and a tarot-card reader to consult while we’re at it.”
    Matt made an incoherent noise deep in his throat, but said nothing.
    Jax straightened. “This is why the Director wanted me assigned to this, right?”
    “You got it.”

4
    Naval Support Activity, Algiers Point, New Orleans:
Saturday 24 October 4:30 P.M. local time
    Colonel F. Scott McClintock, United States Army, retired, stared through the one-way mirror at the small soundproofed room before him. October Guinness sat at one end of the table, a pad of paper and a pencil on the surface before her, a microphone clipped to the collar of her shirt. She was a small woman with a boyish body and honey-colored hair, which she wore pulled back in a casual ponytail. Dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, she looked more like a college student than a Naval officer. She was also the best remote viewer McClintock had ever worked with.
    Most people had an imperfect understanding of remote viewing, seeing it as a magical ability to transcend time and space in order to gather information about a “remote” target. Only, there was nothing magical about RV .
    The U.S. government’s awareness of the practice dated back at least to the end of World War II, when they’d captured a bunch of documents detailing some interesting Naziexperiments in the application of extrasensory perception to intelligence work. But what really caught the attention of the guys in the Pentagon was when the Soviets started investing in “psychic” stuff big-time back in the seventies. All the U.S. intelligence branches—the CIA, the Army, the NSA—had sunk money into the procedure over the years, although they were very careful never to use the word “psychic.”
    The term “remote viewing” was a nice, sanitized expression coined by two of the physicists working on the phenomena for the government out at Stanford Research Institute. As they defined it,