Talons of the Falcon (6 page)

As she stepped out of the elevator, the male nurse she’d met that morning came striding down the hall. “We weren’t officially introduced,” the tall, muscular attendant said. “But I’m Sergeant Wayne Marshall.” He held out a large, iron-hard hand.

“Eden Sommers,” she returned, breathing a sigh of relief as they clasped hands briefly. His suspicions must not have been aroused by her early-morning wanderings, nor must he have noted her use of his name earlier.

She studied his face, thinking that it could have been stamped out of hardy midwestern stock. His sandy hair was just starting to thin, his brown eyes were wide-set and his teeth were a bit uneven. Like everyone else here, he seemed to be holding back until she proved something to him.

She had felt the vigor in his grip. Lifting incapacitated patients must be a good way to build upper-body strength.

“Do you want me to stay for your interview with Bradley—at least until we see how things are shaping up?” he asked solicitously.

“No. We’re going to need privacy so he can talk freely.” She didn’t bother to add that the Falcon had warned her the sessions could be bugged. She’d just have to make sure that they didn’t contain any obvious references to her previous relationship with Mark, or to her real purpose here.

Marshall’s brow wrinkled. “Usually he’s pretty docile, but a few times he’s gotten, shall we say...out of control.”

“Well, if I need you, I’ll call.” Her tone of voice left no room for argument. “Now, where can I find the colonel?”

“There’s a small lounge at the end of the hall where he usually spends a few hours in the afternoon recovering from his morning physical therapy session.”

“That ought to do.”

Now that the moment had arrived, Eden hesitated before pushing open the heavy door. Trust was so fragile. This first private meeting would set the tone for everything that followed, and she desperately wanted it to go well.

The translucent curtains in the room were drawn against the afternoon sun, so that most of the light came from a pole lamp in the corner. The only occupant was sitting in an easy chair against the wall facing a television set, which was turned to a daytime soap opera. The room was large enough to hold only another few chairs, a leather couch and a battered coffee table.

A quick inventory told her that Marshall had indeed prettied up her patient for the occasion. His dark hair had been tamed to a straight line that slanted across his forehead, and his sweat clothes had been exchanged for a white polo shirt and jeans that were looped with a woven belt on the tightest notch. He was sitting up straighter than he had been in the wheelchair. That meant the shoulder strap had simply been a convenience for transporting him around. She hoped the chair itself had been a convenience, too.

Despite her mental preparations, her heart gave a painful lurch. Although he was staring in the direction of the TV screen, his face had the same blank appearance she remembered from that morning. Or was it quite the same?

She took a step closer, studying his expression. It was not like that of other withdrawn patients she had worked with. Somehow, inexplicably, he didn’t have the look of a man being helplessly controlled by events—but of a man who was exercising control.

The insight, coupled with her extensive briefings from Amherst Gordon, gave Eden a measure of hope. The Falcon had told her Mark, like his other operatives, had mastered an experimental mental technique for withstanding enemy brainwashing. If he hadn’t succumbed to the East Germans, this technique had been what had saved him. And if that was true, he would still be using it in this equally threatening situation at Pine Island, where he had no one to trust and no one to turn to. But now she was here to help him. And she had to get that message across.

Masking her thoughts, she walked to the television and flipped off the program. “I understand that security has been using some weird methods around here, but soap operas seem like cruel and unusual punishment.” Her little joke had no apparent effect. Ignoring his lack of response, she continued. “As I told you this morning, I’m Dr. Eden Sommers, and since we’ll be working together closely, I’d like to put the relationship on a first-name basis. What do you think about that?”

Still nothing.

Eden knelt down on the floor so that she was in his line of vision. She half expected him to glance away, but instead he seemed to look right through her. Was he deliberately tuning her out? Unfortunately, there were other possibilities that might account for the wall that seemed to separate them—torture-induced psychosis, for example.

“Mark,” she tried again, “we can take this slow and easy, but you’ve got to give it— You’ve got to give
me
a chance to help you.”

She felt his awareness of her come to the surface as though he were a deep-sea diver being forced upward by lack of oxygen.

There was an unexpected flash of anger in his obsidian eyes.

“Get out of here. Leave me alone,” he rasped. The gravelly quality of his voice sent a chill up her spine. The Mark Bradley she remembered had spoken in deep and resonant tones. This man could barely whisper. Yet if he had been silent for six months, that made sense.

Despite the sound of the words themselves, Eden was elated. As far as she knew, he had consciously responded to no one since he had been here, even during Downing’s tough interrogations. That meant she was even more of a threat to him than the security team was. Would that be possible if she were a total stranger? She doubted it. She held on to that doubt, unwilling to consider the other possibility Dr. Hubbard had suggested.

She was just about to use the opportunity Mark had given her, when she heard a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere else in the building. At the same time, the lights went off, plunging the room into semidarkness. Instinctively, Eden gripped Mark’s knees and felt him tense as she struggled to her feet.

“What the hell...?” Sergeant Marshall’s voice sounded in the hall. She whirled around just as he flung the door open. The light was dim but she could still make out one riveting feature of the silhouette in the doorway. In his hand was a standard service revolver. And it was pointed directly at Mark Bradley.

Chapter Four

“A
ll right,” the large man ordered. “Stay put until they let me know what’s going on.”

“I trust that means I’m allowed to sit down,” Eden countered with more bravado than she felt.

Marshall nodded tightly. “We can’t get downstairs, anyway. Move a chair over by the colonel so I can cover you both.” He gestured with a flick of the revolver.

After Eden complied, he eased his muscular form onto a wooden folding chair. From the way his feet were braced against the ground, she knew he was ready to spring up at a moment’s notice.

Eden cast a sideways glance at Mark. His shoulders were rigid and he was looking in the sergeant’s direction. Otherwise, he hadn’t moved. She wanted to reach out and lay a reassuring hand on his arm. Or perhaps she wanted to reassure herself by the physical contact.

“Isn’t this carrying things a bit too far?” Eden ventured.

“Security precautions,” Marshall snapped. The warning note in his voice signaled Eden to keep the rest of her questions to herself.

She repressed a flash of anger. The situation was bad enough, but this man’s attitude made it worse. If he thought this was an escape attempt, she could understand his concern. But he knew perfectly well that Mark was in no shape to go climbing down a second-story drainpipe—if he could have pried the heavy metal bars off the windows.

Was the sergeant simply the kind of man who enjoyed exercising power? Or was he compensating for the job title “male nurse”? She didn’t know him well enough yet to go beyond speculation.

Time seemed to crawl by. Eden tried to keep from looking at the gun, which seemed like an extension of Marshall’s hand. Every time her gaze encountered the blue-black steel of the weapon, it seemed to have increased in size. Despite the air-conditioning, which was still running, Eden felt a trickle of perspiration slide down her neck and into her collar. She didn’t move to wipe it away. In the dim light, she risked another glance at Mark. She could detect tension in the way he was rubbing the pad of his thumb against his ring finger.

Her mind flashed back to information she had found tucked into the back of his file, information that had made her want to bang her fists against the desk. The men she’d met at lunch had systematically subjected Mark to six- and eight-hour inquisitions. They’d taken two-hour shifts. Even though Mark had been in terrible physical condition, they’d denied him sleep and used every trick possible to try to trap him into compromising himself. He hadn’t broken.

Was being held at gunpoint just another ploy? Or did it have some unknown sinister meaning?

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than five minutes, the lights flickered on. Marshall looked up approvingly, but he didn’t put the gun away.

Now there wasn’t any excuse for being treated like this. “I believe the drill is over, Sergeant,” she observed, starting to get up.

“We’ll wait for official word,” he shot back.

Eden sighed and dropped back down in her chair.

Again the minutes dragged by. Below them Eden thought she heard movement and muffled voices. But she couldn’t be sure of that, or anything else.

Finally the elevator door wheezed open. Moments later Corporal Blackwell was standing in the doorway.

“You’re to come with me right away,” he said, looking directly at Eden.

“What’s this all about?”

“You’ll have to ask Major Downing,” Blackwell clipped out.

Eden stood up and faced the nurse. “I assume I’m free to leave?” She was unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Naturally, if the security chief wants to see you,” he answered blandly before turning to Blackwell. “Is everything secure?”

“Yes.”

Only then did Marshall lower his weapon and relax his posture.

Eden repressed a shudder. Staring down a gun barrel had frightened her—and she had masked that fear with anger.

What effect had this little drama had on Mark? She wasn’t free to try to find out right now. Instead she followed Blackwell down the hall and into the elevator. Not a word was exchanged between them. Once they reached the first floor, she almost had to run to keep up with the young man’s long strides. Eden had the feeling that the concessions she’d won that morning had been wiped away by some unlucky event beyond her control.

As they strode down the hall, another framed poster caught her eye. It showed a marksman riddling the center of a bull’s-eye with bullets. “Keep security on target” the message read. Eden felt her lunch curdle. Living with propaganda like this must have affected the way the men down here viewed Mark. He had come to Pine Island labeled “enemy.” They seemed determined to prove it.

Downing was conferring with Captain Walker, the new member of the security team, when she entered the room. Immediately the low-pitched conversation stopped and both men looked up in her direction.

“Sit down,” the chief of station ordered, gesturing toward a chair opposite the one Walker occupied.

“I think I have a right—”

“Sit down.”

Eden sat.

“Thank you.” Downing’s pale blue eyes never left hers as he reached down and brought out a familiar-looking plastic appliance. One end was blackened and charred.

“Is this your hair dryer?” he asked.

Eden was suddenly even more confused. “Yes. Why do you have it?”

“Because it damned near killed one of my men and shorted out the whole upstairs. Or didn’t you notice that the lights were out?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She had certainly noticed the lights. But she still didn’t understand what he was talking about.

Both security officers watched her reaction intently.

“Airman Ramirez went to your room to move your belongings to your new quarters,” Downing explained. “When he tried to unplug the hair dryer you’d left on the sink, it gave him a rather nasty jolt—and second-degree burns up his arm. Dr. Hubbard’s working on him now.”

Eden stared at the appliance that had suddenly been transformed into a weapon. “There was nothing wrong when I used it last night,” she protested.

Captain Walker’s mahogany brow wrinkled. She sensed that this interview was as uncomfortable for him as it was for her. “That may be so,” he conceded. “But this afternoon when Ramirez inadvertently switched it on, it certainly wasn’t working properly.”

“Are you trying to tell me it wasn’t an accident?” Eden challenged. And then, from the peculiar way they were looking at her, another idea took hold. “Are you suggesting that I’m responsible?”

Walker’s eyes never left her face. “There’s a special policy here at Pine Island,” he began, apparently ignoring her question. “Every duty station is monitored by at least one other individual.” He paused for a moment to let that information sink in. “I’ve checked with all stations. No one was away from his post at any time today. So if someone tampered with the hair dryer after you left your room in the morning, I don’t know when it could have happened.”

Eden considered his words. “Yes, but what motive would I have to injure one of your enlisted men? And come to think of it—” she turned to Downing “—you never told me my luggage was going to be moved. I expected to do my own packing.” As the implication of her own words sank in, she felt suddenly as though the wind had been knocked out of her. “God, if Ramirez hadn’t come in there to move my things, I’m the one who would have been burned,” she whispered.

The expression on the faces of the two men sitting across from her gave nothing away. In fact, either one of them could have set the trap.

For several heartbeats, no one spoke. “None of this makes much sense,” Downing finally mused. “But I think it’s worth noting that the incident coincides with your arrival.”

“And what inferences do you draw from that?” Eden managed.

“I never jump to conclusions,” the chief of station returned evenly. For a moment they stared at each other. Neither might want to admit it, but they both recognized that the incident had stirred up a bubbling cauldron of possibilities.