Mad Powers (Tapped In) by Mark Wayne McGinnis

who had tortured and later killed a pretty young nurse named Jill. In the time it took me to access his mind, make sense of all its firing synapses, and process the subsequent imagery that was spewing forth, I knew I no longer needed to visit the Internet Café.
    In a flash, in a mind-bending rush that could best be compared to falling off a cliff, wind buffeting my face, my eyes watering as adrenalin elevates my pounding heart rate into the stratosphere, the pieces come together. And then, as I plummet faster and faster toward my inevitable fate, and the ever-approaching solid ground below, I remember. I remember the man who’s standing before me. I remember everything. I hesitated and watched a line of blurry shadows, moving in rhythm to the sounds of the highway above; countless indecipherable black shapes, dancing across the concrete. As if a shroud had been lifted, sight granted to a blind man, I welcomed home the lost memories of my lifetime.
    “You look like shit, Harland,” I said.
    “Thank you. Get in the car. You’re driving.” He raised the Glock to underscore his demand. “Slowly. No quick movements.”
    I slowly walked in his direction, crossing the street. He moved away from the open driver- side door—his weapon now at his side, pointed at my chest. I needed to take as much time as possible—I still had some mental catching up to do.
    I ground my teeth as more memories surfaced. Yes, I had killed his Veronica in Moscow—done so without any hesitation. Harland was there to witness her death, first hand.
    As he cradled her lifeless body in his arms, I did my best to get him away, but he was lost in misery—frenzied, and vowing to kill me. As approaching sirens blared, I took flight—needing to go to ground. He had been well aware of my suspicions that day: she was a double agent. He was just as adamant that I was mistaken. Abruptly, she had pulled a weapon—she knew the jig was up and she had every intention of taking me out—right then and there.
    Espionage is often a tangled web of half-truths, if not outright deceit. Moles are commonplace. At any given time, the CIA has an infestation of many. The rank-and-file agent-asset is often unaware of who is, and who is not, suspected of being a double agent. But Veronica, an eight-year CIA operative, had fooled everyone. She was that good. In an almost freakish chain of events, I had discovered her true allegiance. She was actually an agent for the SVR, the CIA’s Russian counterpart. If I lived, her cover would be blown, would fall apart like a house of cards, and her corpse found floating dead in the Volga.
    Mere hours before her death, Veronica had already blown Harland’s and my cover. The SVR was everywhere. Safe houses had been compromised—I had little in the way of viable options to evade capture and certain death. I had one slim hope. I had made a friend, of sorts. Ladislav Skykora, another agent, was a Slovakian national and no friend to Russia. I made it to his small flat. Reluctantly, he kept me out of sight. Since his phones were tapped and he was soon put on the watch list, communications with the Agency would have to wait. Two weeks later, Skykora informed me that I had been Agency disavowed: determined to be a rogue agent. Putting the pieces together now, it was evident that Harland did make it safely out of Russia. He’d also lied, saying I killed Veronica and that I, not she, was the traitor.
    It would be many months before I could get out of Russia. There was also a heavy price exacted for my yearlong refuge there. If and when I got out of Russia, I had a job to do for Ladislav Skykora: a mission, of sorts, that would take place in Kingman, Arizona. After that, Skykora, and the people he worked for, would validate my innocence. Do what they could to clear my name with the Agency.
    Harland took another step back as I approached. He gestured with his gun for me to get in behind the wheel.
    I paused in front of him, looked into his