Talons of the Falcon (7 page)

It was Eden who finally broke the silent exchange. “While you’re making up your mind, I’d like a lock installed on my bedroom door,” she said.

“That won’t be necessary. The rooms in the medical wing come equipped with locks. Blackwell’s already moving your things, except the hair dryer, of course, to the room next to Colonel Bradley’s.”

His words held a note of dismissal, and Eden was grateful. She wanted to be alone to think about this frightening new development.

* * *

E
DEN HAD PLANNED
to spend the afternoon drawing up a formal schedule for working with Mark. But after returning to the office Dr. Hubbard had given her, she found she couldn’t concentrate. Finally she put her papers aside and went back upstairs.

As Blackwell unlocked a door near the end of the hall and handed her the key, she caught him looking at her strangely. Was he holding her responsible for what had happened to Ramirez? Briefly she considered bringing the issue out into the open. But in this case, she decided with a sigh, further discussion would probably do more harm than good.

After closing the door, she looked around the room, trying to focus on something besides the frightening incident that had marred her first day here. To her surprise the large, airy bedroom was a lot more pleasant than the one on the other side of the main house. Apparently the original furnishings had been retained up here. The bureau, double dresser and easy chair were real antique white wicker. The four-poster double bed with its beautifully crocheted spread carried out the theme. It matched the draped swag curtains at the window.

Had Marshall or one of the other enlisted men been moved out of here? Eden wondered with a grin. She could just imagine they’d been quite willing to escape this frankly feminine setting.

One door led to a walk-in closet, the other to a white-tiled bath with both a claw-foot tub and a shower stall. A second door of the bath connected her room to one that was evidently Mark’s. Eden stood for a moment looking at his quarters. This bedroom was quite different, with heavy mission oak furniture and a wide-planked pegged-pine floor. But its most distinguishing characteristic was utter lack of personality. She had almost expected to see Mark’s air force jacket draped over the valet in the corner, but the valet was bare. The dresser top, too, was completely clear. The barrenness gave her an eerie feeling, as though the man who lived here had no personal possessions whatsoever.

When she stepped back into the bathroom, she realized that, except for a toothbrush, toothpaste and a hair brush, there were none of the usual toilet articles she might expect to find. It seemed they weren’t trusting him with a razor.

Even though the quarters were nicely furnished, the environment was claustrophobic. She could leave when she wanted. Mark was locked up every night. How must that make him feel?

She had returned to her own room and begun unpacking when she heard the outer door to Mark’s quarters open. With the doors to the bathroom still ajar, Marshall’s words floated to her quite clearly.

“I will say you’re walking a lot better, when you make the effort. But you’re going to have to stop dragging that right leg if you want to compete in a marathon, Colonel,” he needled.

There was no reply. But the male nurse must be used to the one-way conversation.

“I understand they’re moving Dr. Sommers’s things into the room next door,” he went on. “She’s sure a looker, even if her hips are a little narrow for my taste. But her breasts make up for it, don’t you think?” The speaker paused and chuckled. “Just about every guy here would give a month’s pay to get into her pants. But then we’re a pretty horny bunch.”

Eden felt her cheeks burning. It was one thing to sense the reaction to her from the all-male staff. It was quite another to overhear a monologue best suited to a men’s locker room.

Marshall was still talking. “So, are you going to find out what turns the good doctor on, now that you’ve got a connecting room?” he asked, laughing. He answered his own question. “Not likely,” he said. “If you ever had what it takes to be a man, you don’t anymore.”

Eden held her breath, waiting for some reaction. But there was no reply to the crude comment.

When she finally heard Marshall’s footsteps fading down the hall, Eden put her hand on the doorknob. Yet her training and experience stopped her from rushing into Mark’s room and letting him know that she had overheard. As with any other returnee from hostile captivity, it was imperative to go slowly. What she needed was to establish a bond between them during their therapy sessions before leading him into anything that might be painful.

Turning back to her own room, she forced herself to go on with her unpacking. But while her hands were busy, so was her brain—grappling with everything that had happened since she’d arrived.

Over the next few days nobody mentioned the hair dryer again, and Ramirez appeared back on duty with a bandaged hand but no comment. It was as if the incident had never happened, except that she was now drying her hair with a replacement model Walker had silently handed her one day after lunch.

She couldn’t help feeling isolated. Even though Downing had introduced her to the men, the enlisted staff was coolly polite, nothing more. And the officers seemed to guard their words in her presence. More than once she walked into a room and found that conversation had suddenly ceased.

It didn’t take Eden long to realize why the duty here was so taxing. The staff members were just as much prisoners as Mark. There was no time off for good behavior. Even on weekends, one day was pretty much like another. And no one could go into town on leave to break the monotony.

During this time, however, she did achieve an important goal—setting up the agreed-upon communication link to the Falcon.

“Would it be possible for me to make a trip to the medical library at Augusta?” she casually asked Downing one morning after breakfast.

“Why?”

“A colleague is about to publish some research that might be important to this case. I’d like to check it out.”

“I’m sorry. You can’t leave the base.” His blue eyes challenged her. “But we can call and have it sent,” he added.

Eden hadn’t expected the concession, and for a moment she was thrown off-balance. “That could take days. Besides, I’d like to see what else is available.” She paused for a moment. “If I had access to a computer terminal, I could get what I need from a medical data base.”

“You mean something like the Medlars system Dr. Hubbard uses occasionally?”

Eden marveled. Was he actually taking the bait so easily? “You have a terminal here?”

“Oh, we’re not quite as isolated from the outside world as our location would suggest,” he said with some pride. “We have a modern communications center with several terminals and over a dozen outside links.”

“I’m impressed. Does that mean it would be convenient for me to use the Medlars system periodically?”

“Yes. Dr. Hubbard can handle that. Tell him I’ve given you clearance.”

Eden smiled gratefully and then turned away quickly before the chief of station could see her look of triumph.

The computer terminal was in an alcove off the communications center. As Eden accessed the data base with its up-to-the-minute wealth of medical information, her fingers trembled slightly on the keys. Getting permission to use the computer had been relatively easy. Pulling off this deception was another matter.

She resisted the impulse to glance to her right at the stocky, barrel-chested Captain Yolanski, one of the senior security officers. He was at his own terminal, apparently writing a report. If he got up and strolled in her direction, she didn’t want anything suspicious on the screen.

First she did a global search that would pull out references to psychological literature on brainwashing, torture and hostages. After saving the reference material to a file, she began drafting what looked like an innocuous message to the author of one of the articles. However, its destination was an electronic mailbox that could only be accessed from the Aviary.

She and the Falcon had agreed that certain signals would be embedded in the messages. The word
clarification,
for example, would indicate the start of her real communication. Any reference to
treatment
or
treated
would actually refer to herself. The word
patient
would be a code word for Mark.

Eden had put considerable time into composing her initial message. She wanted desperately to ask about Walker. But there were no agreed-upon code words for the purpose.

She began to type.

Dear Dr. Goldstein, I read with interest your discussion of conversion reactions among returning hostages. There are a few points I would appreciate some clarification on:

1. Do any of the subjects you have treated still feel their life is being threatened in bizarre ways?

2. How do you deal with patients who are almost completely uncommunicative?

3. What do you do when treatment time must be limited by major complications?

“Major complications” were, of course, Maj. Ross Downing.

Eden shot a quick glance toward the other computer terminal. Yolanski appeared to be editing his text.

Quickly she risked one final question, knowing that anyone who looked over her shoulder might wonder about the odd capitalization in the text.

4. What are the additional problems involved when a patient is confined to a Wheelchair or needs to use a Walker?

She had no idea whether the Falcon would be able to decipher that last bit of subterfuge. But at least she had to make the attempt.

Eden also wanted to ask what to do when the record—read: Falcon—has omitted certain important facts about the patient’s history. But Yolanski had begun stacking his papers. Quickly she keyed in the sequence that would send the message to the Aviary.

Yolanski stood up and ambled in her direction. “Find anything interesting?” While the question was innocuous enough, the look he gave her was assessing.

“Oh, quite a bit. I’m going to ask for the full text on a couple of these,” she returned, striving to keep any sign of nervousness out of her voice. “I assume I’ll be able to browse through them tomorrow on-line.”

As Eden walked back toward the main house, she sighed. Probably she’d gotten her messages across, but she found no satisfaction in the one-way monologue. She longed to be able to discuss her concerns and fears with
someone.
But there was no one here she could trust.

Ross Downing, she knew, would have jumped at the chance to hear her inner debates. But that was simply too dangerous. She couldn’t even ask what progress he was making on the damn hair dryer investigation.

The whole incident was making her imagination run wild. Did someone know the real reason why she was on Pine Island? Or was just the eventuality of bringing Mark Bradley out of his unresponsive state so threatening that it called for drastic measures? Had one of the men here actually tried to kill her? Was she simply being warned? Or had someone tried to throw her off-balance so that she wouldn’t be able to work effectively with her patient? She wasn’t even able to discount the possibility that Walker, under orders from Downing, had lied about the hair dryer in order to observe her reaction.

It didn’t help that the coded message she received the next day from the Falcon was disappointing. He simply acknowledged the receipt of her communiqué and mentioned that he’d be sending along draft copies of some pertinent papers over the next few days. There was no mention of Walker.

Eden had hoped for a lot more. She had never felt more alone than when she switched off the terminal for the second time. But she was here for the duration. If she had to rely on her own resources, so be it. She couldn’t afford to let uncertainty drive her crazy. So she turned her thoughts and efforts to her primary mission—Mark Bradley.

The patient, however, like everyone else at Pine Island, was doing nothing to make her mission easy. At the first session after Marshall had held them at gunpoint, she’d tried to get some reaction from Mark.

“I was frightened,” she began, letting him hear her own vulnerability. “How did it make you feel?”

She saw his lips draw together in a thin line, but he didn’t answer.

She tried again. “Have you ever been in a situation like that before?”

She watched as he settled his dark gaze on a point somewhere behind her head. She had the impression that he was tuning her out completely, as though he had mentally switched off a television broadcast.

It was no better at the next session, or the next. Even though she was seeing him twice a day, once before his morning physical therapy and again in the late afternoon, she was making virtually no progress. Techniques that had worked in other cases got her nowhere with Mark. No matter what verbal tack she took, he refused to do more than passively listen. Sometimes there was no indication that he was even aware of her physical presence in the room.

She tried springing random questions on him. “Did you ever have a dog when you were a boy?” she asked one afternoon. Long ago, in another life, they’d talked about their childhood pets. She’d made him laugh with stories about the succession of alley cats she and her brother had adopted. He’d told her about his family’s dogs. His favorite, a golden retriever named Ginger, had been run over on the morning of his tenth birthday. He had canceled his party and spent the day at the vet’s. In the afternoon he’d helped make the decision to put the animal to sleep. The puppy his father had brought him the next week had never quite replaced Ginger in his heart.

Now his fingers worried at the place where his class ring had been, but beyond that he gave no indication that her question had any personal meaning.

“So what about your friends?” she tried the next morning. “Are there any you wish you could talk to now?” Again she remembered vividly the stories he’d told about Jerry Jennings and the feeling of bucking the crowd the two of them had experienced back at Ohio State. They’d been in ROTC together in the days of campus protests against the war. And it had almost been a relief to graduate and go into the service, where most people had respect for the uniform.