Free Firestorm by Iris Johansen

worry about. “And I'd be edgy regardless of how much protein I'd had. I have the right.”
    “Yep.” He wheeled the service cart into the room and kicked the door shut with his foot. “That you do. But food always helps.”
    It did help. She hadn't realized she was hungry until she started to eat. She finished the chicken sandwich and the tomato soup in minutes.
    “Not so shaky now?” Silver poured her a cup of coffee.
    There was no way she was going to admit that she had been shaky before. “I'm perfectly all right.” She lifted the cup to her lips. “You didn't eat much.”
    “I robbed the minibar in my room while I was waiting for you to shower and pull yourself together.” He poured his own coffee. “I've got a passion for cashew nuts.”
    “Really? I wouldn't think you'd have a passion for anything.”
    “You're wrong. But you have a right to your opinion, and it probably makes you feel safer to imagine me as cold and clinical.” He smiled. “I have a passion for all kinds of things. I'm nuts about NASCAR races, baseball, scuba, opera, dogs, and blondes who look like Gwyneth Paltrow. I just don't have much time for them.”
    “Too busy digging around where you don't belong?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Then why can't you find Trask?”
    “Ah, we're back to ground zero.” He lifted his cup to his lips. “I can't sense him. I'm blind to him. Besides, it's not my talent.”
    “I can't believe you didn't try to get one of your psychic buddies who could sense him.”
    “Oh, I did. No luck. So I've had to try to do old-fashioned detective work, but we've still come up with nothing.”
    “Then why not call in someone who has more experience, like the police?”
    “We did. Police. FBI. ATF. Secret Service. They all batted out.”
    “And why would any of those government agencies even be interested in trying to catch Trask?”
    He didn't speak for a moment. “Do I have a commitment from you?”
    “If he's the man who burned Jason's house down.”
    “I think you know he is.”
    Yes, she knew. The tendrils of emotion and memory had been unmistakable. She had not been able to decipher or even recognize some of the splinters of consciousness, but the ugliness, the hatred of Silver had been clear. “Why does he hate you?”
    “I've come close to catching him a couple times. He likes to think of himself as untouchable. It's important to his ego.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I've studied his profile and I believe I can forecast the way his character would change given the circumstances.”
    “What circumstances? And why would any government agencies be involved?”
    “James Trask was the head of a scientific project funded by the Defense Department. About a year ago the project was scratched and Trask and the other scientists were given their walking papers. He was furious. He packed his bags, slipped away from his CIA tail, and disappeared from view.”
    “Why would the CIA be tailing him?”
    “Because he had information that might be useful to a foreign power. Just because we decided not to pursue the Firestorm project was no sign it wouldn't be attractive to any number of other countries.”
    “Firestorm?”
    “Trask was trying to develop a radio-transmitted method of spontaneous combustion. The method also transformed the molecules, which produced intense heat. He claimed he would be able to target small isolated areas or, with a larger transmitter, an entire city.” He added grimly, “Talk about scorched earth.”
    “He did it, didn't he?” She was remembering the strange way the fire in Jason's house had spread. “He'd completed the project before they stopped it.”
    He nodded. “He'd done it. He was working on it on his own as well as at the lab. He gave the other scientists just bits and pieces so that he was in sole control. That was why he was considered a security risk. He didn't want his work buried in a locked file cabinet somewhere. He wanted it used and credit given where it was