Talons of the Falcon (11 page)

The last time they had been on a beach together, he had looked different—carefree and happy. That had been on Cape Cod, where the two of them had spent a long Columbus Day weekend. The water had been too cold for swimming, but neither of them had minded. They’d spent hours walking along the sand, arms around each other to ward off the nip of autumn in the air.

She longed to put her arm around him the same way now. Instead she sighed and sat down. After a long moment he lowered himself a bit stiffly to the sand beside her. She watched as he dug his fingers into the soft grains and then let them cascade through his fingers. The gesture made her vividly aware once again that this was the first time he’d been out of close confinement in months. She would have liked to let him enjoy the freedom. But there was so little time.

“Do you know who planted the bug in the cane?” she finally asked.

He hesitated. He had kept his own council for so long that it was hard to share even obvious information. “Downing at least,” he finally replied in the raspy voice that was already becoming familiar. “Who knows who else might be listening in.”

Eden shuddered, yet at the same time she couldn’t suppress a surge of joy. Now that they were away from prying ears, he was actually going to talk to her. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. But he didn’t give her the chance.

“All right, let’s have it. What’s the Falcon to you?” he challenged.

“He sent me here to help you.”

“Convince me.”

Eden looked at him blankly for a moment. She’d hoped the Falcon’s code name would be sufficient password. Apparently Mark needed more. “How do I do that?”

“Let’s see how you answer a few questions. What’s the Falcon’s name?”

“Amherst Gordon.”

“And what about Karen McGuire?”

“Constance McGuire, his assistant,” she corrected.

“And his valet Cicero.”

She had to laugh at that one. “His parrot, you mean.”

“And where is their operation?”

“The Aviary is in Berryville, Virginia.”

“I still can’t be sure whether you’ve met him or you’ve been carefully coached.”

The matter-of-fact statement made her review their exchange in another light. Suddenly she realized the same could be true for the man who was quizzing her. He might have been trying to trip her up. Or he might have been verifying crucial facts. If he wasn’t Col. Mark Bradley, she’d probably just confirmed Intelligence information that was only supposition in some East German file.

A shiver went through her body, and it wasn’t from the wind blowing off the ocean.

For endless moments they sat in the sand looking at each other searchingly. In the intensity of the exchange, Eden had forgotten all about the crashing of the breakers against the rocks. Now they sounded like a symphony of dissonant percussion instruments. The tide was creeping in and the waves were getting closer. Overhead a gull circled.

The expression on the face of the man across from her was unreadable. But doubt and hope fought for control of Eden’s countenance. She had anticipated so much from this first private meeting. But it wasn’t going the way she had expected.

It was her perplexed vulnerability that triggered his decision. He might be a fool to trust her. But even if she really wasn’t on his side, he reminded himself, he might be able to use her. “All right,” he relented. “I’ll assume that you’re an ally until you prove otherwise.”

She hadn’t known she was holding her breath. Now it came out in an audible sigh of relief. “Mark, I have to make another report to Downing in a few days. And I’ve got to show some evidence that he’s going to be able to get what he wants out of you.”

“He’s never going to get what he wants out of me!”

She shuddered at the vehemence in his voice. But all the resolve in the world wouldn’t help him against what Downing had planned. “Do you know what RL2957 is?”

“No.” But he did, although he thought the Joint Chief of Staff had scrapped that particular project.

“It’s an experimental truth serum—with some devastating side effects like acid trips that last forever. Downing has the okay to use it on you.”

“When?”

“He’s given me two weeks to change his mind. That’s why you’ve got to help me convince him that my therapy is working.”

“So what was your diagnosis of the patient?”

Quickly she summarized yesterday’s exchange with the security team.

When she was finished, he laughed hollowly. “Is that what you think about me?”

“No.”
I still don’t know what to think.
She reached over and touched his wrist. She could feel the heat of the sun on his skin. With those scars and his incarceration, he was probably going to burn. Next time she’d try to remember to bring some lotion.

“Please trust me,” she whispered.

“I want to.”
God, if only I could.

A strong incoming wave suddenly lapped at their clothing and they both jumped up.

Eden turned to see Yolanski standing fifty yards away up on the rock wall. He was looking intently down at them, all pretense of a morning stroll abandoned.

“Enough sun for today, I think,” Eden said. Together they turned and made their way slowly back toward the house.

* * *

“W
ELL
,
WHAT DO YOU
think?” Major Downing leaned back in his chair and looked at the other members of the security team.

“A disaster,” Price spoke up. “We don’t have a thing on the tape but crashing surf and birdcalls.”

“Maybe we could sell it to one of those sound effect companies,” Yolanski suggested.

Price shot him a withering look. Walker repressed a grin.

“I don’t think it’s all that bad,” Downing cut in. “In the first place, I’m going to insist that Dr. Sommers conduct her afternoon sessions upstairs in the usual room. That way we’ll be getting half of what they’re saying. But even if we lost them this morning, I’m encouraged. Bradley
looked
different when he came back from that outing. Did you notice it?”

“Yes,” Walker agreed. “There was something more open about his expression. And his eyes didn’t look quite so empty.”

“He looked more guarded than vacant,” Yolanski agreed.

“What do you think she was
doing
to breathe life into him out there?” Price broke in.

Downing waved his arm in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care if she was giving him mouth-to-crotch resuscitation—just so long as it gets results.”

There was a chorus of male laughter around the table.

“So that’s why you moved her into the room next to his,” Yolanski joked.

“As a matter of fact, more than one soldier has been brought back from the dead by a good-looking woman. Never underestimate the power of healing passion.” He paused for a moment. “So I had nothing to lose by giving the good doctor a chance to see if that’s where her inclinations lay.”

There were more snickers around the table. “And I thought you had been getting ready to try your luck with her yourself,” Yolanski said.

“Business before pleasure,” Downing mused philosophically.

* * *

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Eden hesitated for a moment as she pulled open the door to the therapy room. Until her discussion with Downing after lunch, she had assumed she and Mark would have another private session. Now they’d be back to playing games. Only the stakes were higher. She was going to have to show some progress. But maybe there was a way to accomplish her purpose and his, too.

Mark looked up expectantly when she walked in.

“There’s been a change in plans. Major Downing is concerned that you might overexert yourself. So he’s asked us to stay inside for our afternoon sessions.”

Her patient’s features were immediately guarded. Was she lying? Was this some new trick?

“But I don’t want to lose the momentum we established this morning,” she continued.

He waited.

Eden took a deep breath. Even with this setback, she wasn’t going to allow them to regress to square one again. “With similar cases I’ve found it useful to start by talking through what happened before the trauma took place. Your folder has given me some idea of what happened during the time period before your accident. Let’s see if we can bring it into focus.”

Mark shook his head vehemently from side to side.

“Don’t be alarmed. I’ll do most of the talking. You just have to answer yes or no. And if a question is too painful, we can come back to that point later.”

The closed expression that she had first seen on Mark’s face was starting to settle over his features like a papier mâché mask hardening into place.

Instinctively she reached out for his hands and squeezed them so hard that her nails dug into the flesh of his palms. Anger flashed briefly in his eyes.

“Trust me,” she mouthed without saying the words aloud.

When she let go, just a bit of tension went out of his shoulders.

“Why don’t you lie down on the couch?” she suggested. “I think you’ll be more comfortable.”

“You mean so that you can play headshrinker?” There was a raw edge to his voice.

Eden shook her head. “No. I’m not going to sit behind you. I’ll be right where we can see each other.” Turning, she pulled a wooden chair over toward the couch. She didn’t look around, but she heard Mark get up and follow her.

She offered him a pillow and waited until he seemed comfortably settled.

“Are you ready?”

He nodded curtly.

“Fine. Then let’s start with a few facts for the record,” she began.
And let’s hope you’ll tell me what the Falcon needs to know about whether you completed your assignment for him.
“I do hold an Alpha clearance. So you don’t have to worry about compromising national security.”
Or your own security.

Their eyes met. Could he read between the lines? Did he realize she wouldn’t do anything to endanger him? “Your name is Mark David Bradley and you hold the rank of lieutenant colonel in the air force. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Your last duty assignment for the air force was project Orion.”

“Yes.” Of course, Mark Bradley had also been on special assignment for the Peregrine Connection. But she’d been careful to specify air force. He looked up at her in acknowledgment, and she nodded.

“You had been sent on TDY to Berlin in September?”

“No, October.”

She went on. “You were there to coordinate engineering specs with our West German allies.”

“Yes.”

“October is a lively time in Berlin. Did you get a chance to take in the Octoberfest?”

His eyes questioned her. What was she getting at?

She just smiled and gestured with her hands, palms upward. Let Downing make what he would of that.

“Yes.”

“You also accomplished your mission?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“Did you renew any old military or air force acquaintances?”

“Not really.”

“Make any new friends?” The question slipped out and Eden realized suddenly that it was strictly for her personal information. Had he been seriously involved with anyone else since their affair?

He looked her straight in the eye as if reading her thoughts. “No.”

“You found out what you needed to know?”

Again he seemed to make a decision. “Yes.”

And what did you do with that information, Mark?
she desperately wanted to ask.
Is it safe?
But that would have to wait—until they were alone and he trusted her more.

“You were hitching a ride back on a cargo plane from the U.S. facility at Tegel Air Base?”

“Yes.” His voice was a whisper, as if the very mention of that place had brought back terrible memories.

“The preflight procedures were perfectly routine?”

“Yes.” Again he barely mouthed the syllable.

Eden reached out and laid her hand over his reassuringly for a moment. “An engine caught fire on takeoff?” she guessed. No one really did know what had happened, except that the plane had crashed almost immediately on East German soil.

“No. A bomb.” His eyes closed tightly as though to shut out the horror. But it was too late. He had shied away for so long from what had been done to him. Now suddenly here was someone offering to share the burden. For a moment he didn’t even know whether the story was true or whether he’d simply memorized the script. It didn’t matter; his anguish was real.

“The bomb was planted under my assigned seat. But I’d decided to nap instead of look out the window. So I was in the back, where it was dark. I think we’d just started our climb when the bomb went off. The explosion was deafening.” He put his hands over his ears, and his face contorted with remembered agony. He wanted desperately to stop, but the words kept pouring out. “It tore a hole the size of a garage door in the side of the plane. I was strapped in or I would have been sucked out. But maybe a clean death would have been better. We lost altitude right away. There was fire everywhere. God, it was a flying inferno, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” Perspiration beaded on his forehead.

“Mark,” she called, but he didn’t seem to hear. And when she reached for his hand again, he clutched her fingers in a death grip. But it might have been the arm of his airplane seat. He wasn’t on Pine Island anymore. He was in the middle of hell.

It was as though a logjam of denied memories had broken loose. His tight control had finally snapped. Eden had thought the remembering would be therapeutic. She hadn’t been prepared for him to let go like this so quickly. Suddenly she was afraid of what he might say, and who might hear it.

“Fire everywhere. The smell of burning flesh, and it’s your own.”

She heard him suck great gasps of air into his lungs as though he were still trapped in that fire and fighting for each breath.

“God, then the impact,” he choked out. “It must have thrown me out of the plane. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything else.” But there was suddenly something else that was burning like a brand on the backs of his closed eyelids. It was a number: 002-72-52. He had no idea what it meant. It could have been a combination lock, a bank account, his patient I.D. number. The significance was beyond his grasp. But he knew it was important—and deadly.