The Orpheus Deception (35 page)
Read The Orpheus Deception Online
Authors: David Stone
“Well, psychological damage. In similar cases, and I’ve seen a few come out of the same wing at Changi—they make something of an art of it there—the post-traumatic reaction sets in over the next few weeks. You’ll get rage, grief, hysteria, shame, a burning sense of personal violation almost identical to a victim’s response to rape, depression. Followed by a prolonged period of apparently miraculous recovery. Then—not always but often—a few months later, when it all sinks in and the fog clears and the long-term impact really registers, they kill themselves.”
Dalton took it all in and thanked her for her analysis in a reasonably steady voice. She had slipped out then, to sit in the sun and smoke cigarettes and get her anger under control. Kwan had tactfully, and wisely, withdrawn, and Dalton was alone in the pool house with what was left of an old friend.
Earlier in the day, in anticipation of his medevac extraction, Lopez had reduced the morphine drip enough to bring Fyke back up to the surface without letting the pain come back too. Dalton watched the cardiac monitor for a while and then saw the number blip from 63 to 79 in a second. He looked at Fyke’s face and saw that Fyke’s eyes were open and looking right at Dalton.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Fyke said, in a whisper, his mouth twisting into a leer. “It’s the crocodile.”
“Ray,” said Dalton, softly. “You look like shit.”
Fyke’s lips tightened, showing white as he grinned.
“So do you. You need to back off the heroin. Where the hell am I?”
“You’re safe.”
“With you in the room? I bloody doubt it. Are we still in Singapore?”
“For now. They’re bringing in a chopper. One of ours. Marines. From now on, you’ll be with our people and nobody else. We’ll go to Seletar. They’ve got a Gulfstream there. The crew is ripping out seats to make room for your bed. Miss Lopez is going with us, all the way to Guam—”
Fyke’s monitor beeped. His heart rate had spiked to over 100.
“What’s the matter, Ray? Should I get Miss Lopez?”
Fyke shook his head, his eyes closed.
“Guam? We’re going to Guam?”
“Yes.”
“Military?”
“Yes.”
“Mikey, they’re gonna rip me apart.”
Dalton, who knew exactly what Fyke meant, was silent. Fyke opened his eyes and looked across at Dalton, a wild glitter in his watery blue eyes.
“You
know
what I mean. I went dark, took a lot of stuff with me. In my head. They’re gonna want to know what I told the gooks. And I don’t even
know
what I told the gooks. Before they cut me. After that, I didn’t care what they did. No. Don’t say it. Lyin’ to a sick friend is a mortal sin. Thing is, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to know in the first place. Mikey, I don’t wanna go to Guam. Can you fix it so I don’t?”
know
what I mean. I went dark, took a lot of stuff with me. In my head. They’re gonna want to know what I told the gooks. And I don’t even
know
what I told the gooks. Before they cut me. After that, I didn’t care what they did. No. Don’t say it. Lyin’ to a sick friend is a mortal sin. Thing is, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to know in the first place. Mikey, I don’t wanna go to Guam. Can you fix it so I don’t?”
“Ray, look at you. You need serious medical help. You need it stateside. Yeah, they’ll debrief you. That’ll be tough. But, in the meantime, you have to get stitched together. Healed—”
Fyke’s chest heaved under the sheets.
Dalton realized he was laughing.
“You don’t get
healed
from what the gooks did to me. I told you. They
cut
me. They fed my dick to a dog. Never liked those goddam Dobermans.”
healed
from what the gooks did to me. I told you. They
cut
me. They fed my dick to a dog. Never liked those goddam Dobermans.”
“Ray, listen to me, nobody fed your dick to a dog.”
Fyke tried to sit up, fell back, his face bright red, his breathing shallow.
“I
saw
it done, Mikey. They used clamps to hold my eyes open. Cut my tackle off with a pair of shears!”
saw
it done, Mikey. They used clamps to hold my eyes open. Cut my tackle off with a pair of shears!”
“They didn’t cut your dick off, Ray.”
“Did too, Mikey. I checked, and it was gone.”
Dalton stood up, walked over to the bed.
“Ray, can you sit up?”
“No. Leave me be. I’m not lookin’. I know the little soldier is AWOL.”
“I heard your dick was pitiful tiny. You might have missed it.”
Fyke gave him a sideways look.
“Who told you my dick was pitiful tiny?”
“When they buried Gordie Hughson in Arlington. You had your full Black Watch on. Your kilt blew up. Everybody in the Honor Guard saw it.”
“Shrinkage! That was shrinkage. It was the eighth of December! And there was a stone-cold wind, ripping in straight off the Potomac”
“Okay. Let’s find out. Can you sit up?”
A silence while Fyke thought that over
“I can if we do it slow.”
Dalton—slowly—gently—raised Fyke up into as much of a sitting position as he could stand. Pain was coming off the man like heat off a radiator, but he didn’t make a sound. Dalton pulled the sheet down all the way to the foot of the bed. Fyke had his eyes closed.
He was also holding his breath.
“Open your eyes, Ray.”
Fyke shook his head.
“No.”
“They drugged you, Ray. Gave you acid. Fucked with your head. Open your eyes.”
Fyke slowly opened one eye, looked down at his belly. Exhaled. The expression on his face would have been funny if Dalton hadn’t been so distracted by the damage that had been done to Fyke’s entire torso; he looked like a side of raw beef. Fyke opened his other eye, stared down for a time.
Then Dalton lowered him back.
Fyke was quiet for a while.
“Man. I could have sworn.”
“You’re all there, Fyke. For what it’s worth.”
“Everything’s the wrong color. Have I got gangrene?”
“You never kicked a man in the balls before?”
“Of course. But I never checked on his
fooking
pigmentation afterward. And you’re an unsympathetic git, Mikey. Always was.”
fooking
pigmentation afterward. And you’re an unsympathetic git, Mikey. Always was.”
“I missed you too.”
They sat for a time in amiable silence. Whatever had been done to Fyke had not changed the essential man. He was still there. Fyke pressed a button that pumped up the morphine drip a notch. Gradually, his heart rate slowed down to a steady 75.
Time passed.
“Mikey . . . ?”
“Ray?”
“I’m not going to Guam.”
“No choice, Ray.”
“No. I’m not going to let the Meat Hook lads roast me over a pit at Anderson Field. I’ve had enough of being beat up. You got any money, Mikey?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Ill-gotten, I don’t doubt. Can you get me into a private hospital?”
“I’ll stay with you, Ray, all the way to—”
Cora. On a gurney, in Florence.
Fyke was shaking his head.
“They won’t let you. Soon as we get to Guam, they’ll peel you off, and down the rabbit hole I go. Have you got a pistol, then?”
“For what?”
“So I can shoot myself.”
“With those mitts on? Not bloody likely.”
Fyke raised his hands, stared at the mass of bandages, put his head back on the pillow, blowing air out through pursed lips.
“Christ. I’m a wreck, ain’t I?”
“You are, Ray. You are.”
“Will
you
shoot me, then? Give me the misery cord, like a good Christian lad? Let me go to my God like a soldier.”
you
shoot me, then? Give me the misery cord, like a good Christian lad? Let me go to my God like a soldier.”
“Nope. Won’t shoot you myself. Sorry.”
“Heartless bastard. Would you give a dyin’ man a cigarette, then?”
“You’re not dying.”
“I am too. Death is in this room, Mikey. I can smell it.”
“No it isn’t. Your bedpan needs changing”
“Well, give us a smoke, then!”
“Don’t have any.”
“You’re a lyin’ Sassenach dog. I can smell them on you.”
“I’ll give you one when we get to the airport.”
Silence, then, and Fyke’s cardiac monitor beeping solemnly. His numbers dropped gradually to 67, and looked like they’d stay there. Fyke was SAS, and there is no one in the modern world remotely like the SAS. He was a tenth-century man. Dalton thought he would have been right at home in a Viking longboat, looting monasteries and chasing green-eyed girls up and down the stones of Skellig Michael.
“Ray, can I ask you a question?”
“Fire away.”
“Why’d you go dark?”
Something filled the room then, an invisible presence, a force. It felt like grief and bitter shame. Dalton waited it out. Fyke would tell him or not.
“Not now, Mikey. There’s a good lad.”
Dalton let it go. They’d get it out of him in Guam, one way or another.
“Okay. Subject dropped. You need some more morphine, Ray?”
Fyke shook his head. Another silence while each man dealt with his private horrors. Dalton knew he couldn’t leave Ray Fyke to be put to the Question in some soundproof cell at Anderson AFB, but he also knew he couldn’t
save
him from it either.
And Cora was waiting in Florence.
save
him from it either.
And Cora was waiting in Florence.
“Mikey . . . I never sunk that ship. I’m not wearing that tag, not for love nor money. I did my duty. I’m a drinker, but I’m not a drunk.”
“Then what happened to it?”
“They
fooking
took it, didn’t they? Right by the Kepulauan Lingga Lightship. Middle of a storm. Butchered everybody. Dyaks and Malays did it, and they did it for those bloody Serbs.”
fooking
took it, didn’t they? Right by the Kepulauan Lingga Lightship. Middle of a storm. Butchered everybody. Dyaks and Malays did it, and they did it for those bloody Serbs.”
“Serbs?
What Serbs?”
What Serbs?”
“Majiic. Vigo Majiic and his boys. Some other hatchet-faced hard-ass, with a prissy little goatee, had an MP5, looked like he was running the show too. The Serbs took my ship, Mikey. You know we saw enough of those bastards when we were in Pristina. Organized. Cold. Took my ship, killed my crew. Poor old Wang. Last I saw of her, I’m clinging to a speedboat in the middle of the South China Sea. Do you believe me, Mikey?”
Dalton spent a while thinking about Serbian mobsters like Branco Gospic and Stefan Groz and celebrity assassins like Kiki Lujac, and how often he and his friends were colliding with Serbo-Croatian thugs these days, in Venice and Florence and on tankers in the South China Sea. The rectangle of barred sunlight had moved across the bed and now lay partly across Fyke’s face. His eyes were open, and they glittered in the light like shards of blue glass. “Yes,” said Dalton, finally. “I believe you.”
“Good. Thank you for that. So the question before us, Mikey?”
“Yes?”
“What the hell are we gonna
do
about it?”
do
about it?”
28
The National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland
Nikki Turrin had been summoned to the AD of RA’s office. Mr. Oakland had relayed the summons but, being a vengeful little prick, had not told her the reasons for it. So Nikki was following Mr. Oakland’s busy, beige-clad, oversized rear down a long and Berbercarpeted corridor past rows and rows of closed doors and through the kind of portentous hush that filled the upper levels of the NSA like incense from a requiem Mass. Nikki had her heart in her throat, and her chest was tight with anxiety, but she was not so distracted that she did not notice that Mr. Oakland’s bubbly butt looked like two suckling pigs wrestling in a sack, and that when he walked he took tiny stutter steps instead of the easy, loping stride of an actual human, and his beige Dockers were just a hair too short and he was wearing white ribbed athletic socks and a pair of brand-new Bass Weejuns with double-thick rubber soles to give him some height, and his jacket was a bilious orange-plaid number that may have actually been cut from the kind of bedspread you’d find in a cheap motel in Bakersfield, if she’d ever been in a cheap motel in Bakersfield, wherever Bakersfield was.
California, she decided, as Mr. Oakland’s clenching butt cheeks signaled a rubbery screeching halt outside the double-wide doors that led into the outer offices of the AD of RA himself.
Mr. Oakland turned and looked up at Nikki, his blue eyes bright with envy and malice, his round red mouth puckered tight.
“You’ll be going in alone, Miss Turrin.”
“You’re not coming?”
Mr. Oakland checked his watch, blinked up at her.
“No. I have a prior meeting. Memo me on what’s said.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking past him at the doors with a weight in her heart. She refrained from asking him what the hell she had done. Mr. Oakland stepped around her without another word and scurried off in the direction of the elevator bank, fat little legs pumping. He reminded Nikki of the white rabbit in
Alice in Wonderland.
She reached out and pushed against the door and stepped into a plain, spartan-looking anteroom with a secretary’s desk, behind which sat, as one would expect, a secretary. She looked up at Nikki as she came into the room, a plain, spartan-looking older woman with shining silver hair swept up behind and sterling silver reading glasses set low on an aristocratic nose. She had a good, strong face and warm gray eyes, and she studied Nikki over her reading glasses, her mouth shaping into a sympathetic smile.
Alice in Wonderland.
She reached out and pushed against the door and stepped into a plain, spartan-looking anteroom with a secretary’s desk, behind which sat, as one would expect, a secretary. She looked up at Nikki as she came into the room, a plain, spartan-looking older woman with shining silver hair swept up behind and sterling silver reading glasses set low on an aristocratic nose. She had a good, strong face and warm gray eyes, and she studied Nikki over her reading glasses, her mouth shaping into a sympathetic smile.
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