Talons of the Falcon (23 page)

The old fear clawed at his soul again like a raging tiger. Erlich. The man’s name brought back terror, but the deepest fear stemmed from more than that. Now that his strength had returned, Mark knew that he’d kill Erlich or die in the attempt rather than let him infiltrate his mind again. And Eden had just promised to make him believe she was Erlich.

“The hell you will. You haven’t the vaguest idea of what you’re asking to get into.”

“Yes I do, Mark.”

“If you really hypnotize me into thinking you’re that bastard, I could kill you, Eden.”

She didn’t doubt what he said, but she had just as much determination as he did. “I realize that. But I’ve been thinking about how to make it safe.”

A muscle in his face twitched. “You’ve been
thinking
about how to make it safe? You’re going to turn me into a homicidal maniac, and you’re not absolutely
sure
how to reverse the process?”

“I think `homicidal maniac’ is a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you?”

“No.”

She chose to ignore his objection. “When I put you under, the first thing I do will be to give you a trigger phrase that will bring you instantly out of the trance. The phrase will be `I’m Eden.’ When I say it, you’ll know who I am.”

He didn’t look convinced. He had so many doubts about what had happened in Leipzig. But one thing he knew instinctively: when the blinding rage came out, he wasn’t going to be able to control it. “And how can you be sure—how can
I
be sure it will work?”

“Before we get into anything heavy, we’ll try it several times. I’ll tape-record it, and you’ll be able to hear that it worked.”

Only part of the tension went out of his face. He was torn apart by what this woman was willing to risk for him. Yet she was offering him a chance to unlock that secret part of his mind that was a stranger to him—and probably a lethal enemy to his future.

He had told Eden at Pine Island that he wasn’t the man she had known before. Despite his recent victories, nothing had really convinced him otherwise. Something unspeakable had been done to him in Hans Erlich’s clinic. Did he dare find out what? Either way, the consequences were terrible, but he knew which choice he was going to make.

He sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll go along with your crazy plan, but only if you take some more precautions. You’re going to have to tie me up, in case that trigger phrase of yours doesn’t work instantaneously. That way, I won’t be able to get at you.”

She wet her lips. The idea of strapping him down went against all her instincts. But she knew he was right. What’s more, giving him a measure of control over the situation was a way of minimizing the threat for him.

“Then we’ll do it your way,” she agreed.

The preliminary tests went as she had predicted. With a little practice, she was able to put him under, almost as easily as he had done it himself. When she played back the recording of the exchange, he could hear for himself that the trigger phrase had brought him out of the trance.

“So are you ready for the real thing?” she asked when they’d turned the recorder off.

His face was pale, the scars standing out like angry welts. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

There was a comfortable chair in the living room with wooden arms. They had agreed that she would secure him there with the heavy cord they’d found in the toolshed.

Mark instructed her on how to tie him so the bonds would hold. Before she put him under, he tested the ropes and was satisfied.

She stepped back and studied his face. He looked like a man who was waiting for someone to pull the switch on the electric chair.

“Mark, it’s going to be all right. I promise.” She bent over and gave him a tender kiss.

“You’re going to have trouble convincing me Erlich did anything like that,” he quipped, but she could hear the tension in his voice.

Despite the success of their previous trial runs, it was harder this time to put him under. He was resisting. But she wasn’t willing to give up and finally did succeed.

First she oriented him to the date, place and time. Then she used his own words to describe the crash. As she spoke, she could see terrible spasms of pain rack his body. He was back there again, and it took all her strength of will to continue.

“Let me introduce myself,” she went on. “I am Dr. Hans Erlich. I will personally see to every detail of your convalescence.”

She heard a growl deep in Mark’s chest, and his arms pulled against the bonds. All at once she was very glad that she had agreed to restrain him.

“Your wounds are extreme,” she explained. “You are in great pain, Colonel Bradley, no?” This was the hardest part she had ever played.

Mark didn’t reply, but she saw the answer.

“I can ease that pain. All you have to do is cooperate with me.”

“No. Never.”

“Bravely spoken, but you’ll come around to my thinking sooner or later.” The words were like sawdust in her mouth. But she had to say them.

There was worse to come, and she didn’t even know what the script was.

“We have been enjoying each other’s company for three weeks now, Colonel Bradley,” she kept on, subtly dispensing with a large block of time. “Why don’t you summarize what you have told me.”

“I’ve told you nothing,” Mark spat out.

“Really, nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“But you have learned from me, Colonel.”

“Yes.” The admission was torn from his throat in a burst of agony.

“Then, perhaps you will be so good as to repeat the lessons.”

Mark’s eyes were glazed, his breathing shallow and rapid. For a few moments, he could only groan in pain. He was
there
again with Erlich. He saw the pale face with its light eyes and almost nonexistent brows.

He was strapped on a gurney on his way to the operating room, and Erlich was right beside him, padding softly down the corridor.

The man tied in the chair began to speak. But this time he was not saying the words of Mark Bradley but those of Erlich.

“Today we are going to work on your face. Such a shame it is so smashed up. It will require many operations. It hurts me not to let you have any anesthetic, but until you give me some information about your mission, I simply can’t allow you anything to lessen the discomfort. Suffering is a great teacher, don’t you agree?”

In horror Eden watched Mark writhe in the chair. God, plastic surgery with no anesthetic. Erlich must be a fiend from hell to use such tactics.

She sat frozen in her seat, listening as Mark recounted more vivisection, more agony—and always the questions that he wouldn’t answer. But there was something else going on besides the quest for information. It was something that not even Mark could fight.

“I don’t know exactly who you were working for—CIA, air force Intelligence, or someone else—but it doesn’t really matter. They don’t count anymore. They have abandoned you. They have left you in my care. And even if I can’t get you to tell me what your mission was, I believe that we can work together very successfully from now on. You belong to me now. You will act on my orders. When we return you to your own people, they won’t know that you have switched your allegiance to me.”

“And what have I asked you to do?” Eden whispered.

“Deliver to you what I left in Berlin. Other instructions will follow.”

Mark glared across at Erlich’s colorless face. Hating him. Wanting to smash that look of satisfaction into a thousand pieces. His arms strained at the bonds that held him now. Strange to be sitting up. Where was the hospital bed? But details like that didn’t matter. He was going to get that bastard sitting across from him so calmly like the angel of death he was.

“Do I know what the delivery is?” Eden/Erlich prodded.

It was a trick question. What was Erlich up to now? “You know I haven’t told you,” Mark growled.

“But you will, Colonel.”

No. He couldn’t let it happen. His silence was the only victory he had to cling to. His mind spun. Erlich thought he could keep this up because Mark Bradley was weak and helpless. But by some miracle he had gotten his strength back. He could feel it surging in his arms. He had freed himself once before—on Pine Island. He shook his head in confusion. Somehow the sequence of things had gotten tangled up in his mind, but it didn’t matter. He had to deal with Erlich here and now before the angel of death destroyed him.

With a tremendous effort, he wrenched at the ropes once more. They held. But the arms of the chair broke apart.

Eden gasped. It all happened so quickly, there was no time for her to speak the trigger phrase. One moment Mark was tied down. The next, he was across the room with a murderous look in his eyes and reaching for her. Pieces of turned wood hung around his wrists. They crashed against her body as his hands closed around her throat.

The air to her lungs was instantly blocked off. She couldn’t speak, and the blows she rained on his chest might as well have been puff balls.

Above her Mark was mumbling imprecations—mixed with a jumble of numbers. 002-72-52, 002-72-52. If she hadn’t been struggling for her life, they might have sounded familiar.

All she knew was that she had convinced Mark Bradley too well. He was going to kill Erlich. He was going to kill
her.

The room swam. She felt her eyes bulging, her head filled with pounding blood. Desperately she tried to mouth the words that would save her. But nothing came out.

Mark looked down at the face of the man he had sworn to kill. Something was wrong. Something he couldn’t understand. Victory didn’t feel the way he had imagined it.

For a moment his hands loosened around the doctor’s throat. In an instant, he heard a choked syllable come from the swollen lips.

“Eden...” That was all she could manage.

Something snapped in Mark like a piece of movie film tangled in a projector. The Leipzig hospital room vanished. The Irish cottage materialized around him. He looked down. His hands were around Eden’s throat. He was choking her to death. For a heart-stopping instant the terror in her eyes drilled into him, and then she lost consciousness.

* * *

W
HEN SHE CAME TO
, her face was wet. Someone was rocking her and sobbing. It was Mark, and she knew the moisture on her cheeks was from his tears.

She stirred slightly. She wanted to tell him she was all right, but when she tried to speak, only a tiny gasp came out. Her throat hurt terribly.

“Eden, forgive me, Eden.”

She groped with her fingers and found his hand, squeezing with all the strength she had. It wasn’t much.

He moved then, and the remnants of the wooden chair arms rattled. Impatiently, he stripped them away. Then his arms went around her again, holding her close against his heart.

The reaction had begun to set in. She couldn’t hold back her own tears. She finally understood now what Erlich had done to him—and what she had put him through herself.

But right now he was still caught up in the guilt of the horrible thing he had almost done to her. She pressed more closely against him, trying to let him know that it was over.

“How can you?” he rasped. “How can you still trust me after I tried to strangle you?”

“I love you.” It was a thin whisper. But he heard, and his heart contracted painfully. He shifted her so that his eyes could meet hers.

“How can you?” he repeated.

“Easy.” She laughed. It was a hoarse croak. “Talk later.”

He carried her to their bed then. Brought her water. Smoothed hand cream on the bruises on her neck. She saw the effort it took for him to keep from breaking down again when he did that.

“My fault,” she whispered, fighting overwhelming exhaustion. But when he tried to leave her alone, she gripped his sleeve.

“Do you want me to stay?”

She nodded. It was safe to sleep now.

While she lay quietly against the white sheets, he looked down at her, seeing the peaceful expression on her face. How could she feel safe with him now? Yet she must.

His mind went back over what had happened—and also over the words and images her bravery had unlocked. Since she’d first come to Pine Island, she’d refused to take no for an answer. She’d pushed against all his resistance. She’d forced the memories out of him, and now just about all of his experience in East Germany was there. The recollections were terrible, but he could face them. The trauma had been dulled by time, and he even had a small sense of victory. The hypnotic techniques he’d learned from the Falcon had helped block the incredible pain. He knew that now—and that he hadn’t told his captor anything.

However, he also knew what he had been afraid to contemplate: he was in some way still linked to Hans Erlich. The knowledge only strengthened his conviction that he couldn’t take Eden with him to Berlin.

For several hours he sat on the edge of the bed watching her sleep as he thought about what he had to do. He left her side only to light a hurricane lamp when the late-afternoon shadows darkened the room.

When she finally opened her eyes, he held his breath. How was she going to react to him now that the shock had worn off?

She read the anxiety in his expression. “I’m fine,” she assured him. Her voice was almost back to normal.

“What can I do for you?” he whispered.

“Make love to me.”

Her simple request brought a look of incredulity to his face. “God, Eden, a few hours ago I was trying to kill you.”

“Not me—Erlich.”

He sighed. No matter how she tried to excuse his actions, the outcome had almost been fatal for her.

“Mark, I knew what kind of chance I was taking. I deliberately put you back in that man’s clutches.”

“Eden...”

“Let me finish. He was threatening your very survival. The will to survive is one of the most basic of man’s instincts. That’s why you attacked. And it was Erlich you were going after, not me.”

He shook his head. “Intellectually, I know you’re right. But I can’t help feeling frightened—and horrified—by what I almost did to you.”

“I was frightened, too, but we came through it together.”