Talons of the Falcon (12 page)

Despite himself he whispered the digits aloud.

“What?” Eden prompted.

He groaned and pulled his free hand up over his eyes, but not before she saw the moisture trickling from behind the closed lids. Her own face was damp, too.

“Mark. It’s all over. It’s all over,” she said soothingly, her hand gently stroking his. He didn’t immediately open his eyes. But she was sure he was aware of his surroundings again. His breathing had begun to steady, and the deeply etched lines of stress in his face softened slightly.

Eden leaned over and gently pressed her cheek against his. His arm came up to clasp her shoulder. And for a moment he seemed to accept the comfort that she offered. His head turned slightly and she wondered fleetingly if he might be going to kiss her. Instead his lips made the barest sound next to her ear. “Someone here wants to make sure it’s not over.”

Chapter Seven

U
nder other circumstances Eden would have felt elated by Major Downing’s change in attitude when he approached her that evening after dinner. In one sense, anything would have been an improvement over the imperious way he’d been acting. Ever since she’d arrived, he’d hovered in the background like a silent tiger stalking her and Mark. Now that she had begun to make some “progress,” the chief of station was suddenly less assured. Officially she wasn’t supposed to know he was listening in on the sessions upstairs in the medical wing. So he couldn’t come right out and ask what she’d done to change the status quo, but curiosity was written all over his face.

“Colonel Bradley certainly looked remarkably improved after that walk you took on the beach this morning,” Downing said, fishing.

“Yes, the sea air seems to have done him a world of good,” Eden returned with a smile.

“Can’t you tell me if anything significant happened out there?”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

He gnawed on his lower lip. He knew she was making astounding progress. He’d heard her afternoon session himself. Why didn’t she want to talk about it?

Eden watched his expression. In a way it gave her a great deal of satisfaction to play dumb and watch the major beg for table scraps like a hungry mongrel, but maybe teasing Downing was simply too dangerous. In fact, if she gave him no satisfaction, he might start coming to his own conclusions; and they could be too close to the truth.

“I consider my sessions with Colonel Bradley confidential, but I did make an exciting breakthrough this morning that I’d like to share with you,” she offered.

“Go on.”

“One of the articles I accessed from the Medlars system suggested trying hypnosis on recalcitrant cases like our patient. I was afraid he’d resist the approach, but down on the beach with the rhythmic crashing of the waves, it was easy to put him under.”

“And?” Downing couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“He started talking. With the right encouragement, I think he may let me take him back through his experiences of the last eight months.”

Downing looked thoughtful. His burning curiosity satisfied, he was quickly reverting to type. “That’s good news. Now that Bradley’s dropped the silent act, we might be able to get somewhere with the interrogation team.”

“That’s rather shortsighted,” Eden shot back.

“Oh?”

“We’ve only crossed the first barrier in the hundred-meter hurdles, Major. If you step in with the interrogation team, we’re never going to finish the race,” Eden cautioned. “I’ve just earned Colonel Bradley’s trust, and the bond is fragile—and so is his recovery at this point.”

Downing’s jaw muscles clenched. “Don’t forget, winning that race of yours isn’t our main mission. I’m willing to bet that Bradley’s memory is selective. If he’s not giving you what I need, we’ll have to fall back on other measures.”

It wasn’t an idle threat. Even though Downing was biding his time for the moment, he held the real power here. Eden was still going to have to walk the thin line between returning Mark to normal and satisfying the chief of station’s demands.

* * *

A
LTHOUGH
M
ARSHALL
pointedly left the cane beside the door the next morning, Mark just as pointedly ignored it. He’d spilled his guts to Eden yesterday, he thought in self-disgust. God knows what she’d be able to get out of him today.

For months he’d treated his memories like a man locked up with a canister of poison gas. In German it would be called
Gift Gas,
and the irony didn’t escape him. It was the Leipzig legacy still controlling him four thousand miles away. Uncorking that German canister might well be a death sentence, for himself and maybe for others.

Until Eden had arrived, his inner resources had kept the seal on that lethal container intact. He’d fooled himself into thinking that the pressure wasn’t building to the bursting point, but he no longer had those illusions. Day after day he’d had to fight his reaction to the new member of the staff at Pine Island. It wasn’t just her perceptive blue eyes that seemed to penetrate to his very soul. It was the growing conviction that she sincerely wanted to help him; and, dammit, it was his awareness of her as a woman.

But maybe that was precisely the problem. He hadn’t just bottled up his memories, he’d bottled up his emotions, as well. In fact, turning himself into an automaton had been all that had saved him from Downing’s security team so far. But Eden Sommers had succeeded where the major and his minions had failed. That bastard Marshall hadn’t been the only one who’d noticed how Dr. Sommers filled out her clinging knit tops, or how her jeans hugged the round curve of her bottom, but he was a lot more tuned to Eden than a clod like Marshall ever could be. From behind his emotionless mask, he’d made a study of her. He knew the graceful way she moved, the stormy look that came into her eyes when she was exasperated, the way her long, tapered fingers felt in his when she was trying to comfort him.

The night she’d come into his room to quiet his nightmares, he’d sent her away, but the memory of her warm body covering his had haunted him ever since. He’d played that scene over and over again in his mind, and in his fantasies he hadn’t let her go. More than once he’d been helpless to stop the intimacy from reaching its logical conclusion. Achieving physical release had vented only a little of the pressure. What he craved was the warm, living, breathing reality of Eden Sommers. He wanted to bury himself in her softness and shut out for a few moments all the forces that were trying to destroy him.

The question on her lips when she entered the recreation room was too perceptive for comfort. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Badly.”

The acerbic tone brought a look of compassion to her face. “That was a tough session yesterday afternoon.”

He didn’t reply.

“Would you like to get out for a walk again this morning?”

“Yes.”

This time she also ignored the cane. When they were out of the shadow of the main house, Mark paused and took a deep breath, filling his lungs once again with the salty air. He wasn’t going to admit it, but breaking his confinement had made a tremendous difference. Today he gained the line of the breakers more quickly. Instead of sitting down when they reached the stretch of beach beyond the stone wall, he kept walking. Here the hard-packed sand was strewn with colorful shells. Stopping for a moment, Eden picked up one that was shaped like a delicate coil. Mark didn’t wait.

Eden straightened and then hurried to catch up. For a few minutes she kept pace with him in silence. Then she cleared her throat. “Let’s not overdo it.”

“I think I’ve recovered sufficient strength for a stroll on the beach.”

“Mark, what’s the matter?”

“What a question.” His foot kicked at a little pile of seaweed on the sand.

She laughed. “Where would you like to start?”

He turned and faced her. “Don’t try to take me back to East Germany.” In the hot August sunlight, beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip.

“But you’ve got to confront what happened.”

“No.”

“Listen, maybe you’re not tired, but
I’m
not used to conducting peripatetic therapy sessions. Could we sit down?”

Mark looked back toward the rock wall. It was a good hundred yards behind them. If someone had planted a particularly sensitive microphone there in anticipation of his quarry’s return, he was going to be disappointed. Mark shrugged inwardly. He didn’t intend to say anything important this morning, but you never knew what the loquacious Dr. Sommers was going to come up with.

When he sat, it was with his body angled away from her, his eyes fixed on the ebbing and flowing surf. Eden knew that closed, guarded expression all too well. She had miscalculated yesterday and pushed too hard. What she had gotten from Mark hadn’t been worth it, because now she had lost him again.

She looked down at the tube of suntan cream in her shirt pocket. She’d brought it along to smooth on Mark’s face to protect his skin from the sun. Now she knew that her touch would definitely not be welcome.

* * *

T
HE CHIEF
of station’s face registered his disdain. “This isn’t grand rounds at the hospital, Doctor. I just want a simple medical opinion about giving Bradley the RL2957. Answer yes or no.”

Dr. Hubbard cleared his throat. “It’s not as simple as yes or no.”

“Why not?”

“Because a thousand things could go wrong.”

“Like what?”

“You’ve read the case studies. Bradley’s cardiovascular system may not be able to withstand the dose you’re proposing. His brain may be irreparably damaged. This information he gives you when he’s under has only a seventy-five percent chance of being accurate.”

Downing waved his arm dismissively. He didn’t want to let this has-been physician interfere with what he had to do. Yet it was incumbent on him to make a show of asking for a consultation—for the record, in case anybody decided to sift back through the Pine Island logs. Considering what was riding on this assignment, he had a pretty good suspicion that might turn out to be the case.

“A
medical
opinion, Doctor,” he said now. “I just want a medical opinion. The stuff arrived yesterday, and I want to know if Bradley’s body can withstand its effects.”

Dr. Hubbard shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Downing had been treating him like a two-bit veterinarian ever since he’d arrived here—and he hadn’t exactly protested. He’d decided a long time ago that it was safer to go with the flow. Now he thought of the performance appraisal the major would be writing on him at the end of this tour. He’d already been passed over for promotion twice now. If it happened again, he’d had it as far as the air force was concerned. What would become of his wife then? She needed round-the-clock nursing care, and that cost money. If he were forced out of the service, he’d be scraping for cash, and he’d be of use to no one. The thought made him set his jaw. The worst wasn’t going to happen, he assured himself.

Then he thought about Eden Sommers and the dedication she’d brought to this case. Before she’d arrived, he’d been able to convince himself that Mark Bradley was just an unfortunate son of a bitch caught in a web of circumstances. Now it wasn’t so easy to remain detached.

“I thought you were going to give Dr. Sommers two weeks,” he ventured.

“She’s stalled again. If something positive doesn’t happen by the end of the week, all bets are off.”

“Are you going to tell her that?”

“No, and I want this conversation kept completely confidential. Do you understand?”

The doctor bit back the scathing remark on the tip of his tongue. “Yes.”

* * *

T
HE EXCHANGE
between Downing and Hubbard would have chilled Eden to the bone, had she known about it. Instead she was simply left to ponder her own assessment of Mark’s condition. Physically he was much better. The scars on his face had blended in with his normal skin. Now that he had gained a little weight, his features had almost the old harmony she remembered. From the strength of his uncompromising jaw to his aquiline nose, he was once more a handsome man. When he walked, he held himself straight and tall. And almost all trace of his limp was gone. Since his hair was wet when she came in for their afternoon sessions, she had to assume he was being allowed to use the pool as she had suggested, but he didn’t say anything about the new concession to her.

Although she tried a number of conversational gambits during the next two days, she met with no better success than she had on the beach. The bond she’d begun to establish had just been too fragile. Mark didn’t really trust her enough to share his fears. With another patient there would have been no question about pulling back. It would be much more effective to let the healing process unfold naturally in its own good time, but time was one of the luxuries Pine Island lacked. She had to keep fighting.

Though Eden knew nothing definite about Downing’s plans, she was good at picking up vibrations. She didn’t like the assessing looks the chief of station and Price were giving her. More than once she thought Dr. Hubbard was about to confide some privileged piece of information, but he always turned away before he could get the words out.

However, the long-awaited message from the Falcon tipped the balance. She had been depressed after her fourth unsuccessful session with Mark and had almost decided to lie down before dinner instead of checking in with the Medlars data base, but some sixth sense had urged her to log on.

The communication she had been waiting for was embedded in the text of a letter from “Dr. Goldstein.” It looked like four lines which had been garbled in transmission, but the seemingly meaningless character sets could be easily decoded using a simple key; and that key was found in one of the standard psychology textbooks Eden had brought to Pine Island. A duplicate volume was on Constance McGuire’s desk back at the Aviary. Gordon’s assistant had simply used the date at the top of the letter as a page number in the book and encoded her message using alphabetical substitutions keyed into the first eight letters of the top line of that page. To read the message, Eden had to check the date and turn to the same page so she could reconvert those substitutions to the letters of the plain text. Without the psychology book as a reference, the code was virtually unbreakable by anyone else without a computer powerful enough to test every possible letter combination.