Once A Spy Part 30

'Well * I'm a disappointment to him, to say the least. You know, he graduated from MIT with a crateful of awards. I barely made it through a year of college. He's a patriot and a hero. I play the horses, and not that well. He's the fastest gun in the East. I'd never even used a gun until yesterday, and the times I needed to, it was a disaster. At best, I was too shaky to shoot straight. Up on the ridge tonight*or last night, I guess it was*he flickered on and s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun away from me just in time to shoot that meth guy*then he led us down the mountain like a Sherpa. When we were attacked at that battlefield, he was napping. I couldn't defend us. Suddenly he grabbed the gun from me and figured out a way for us to escape. While I sat there cowering, he said, There's nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result.''

'It's Winston Churchill,' Fielding said. 'I've heard him recite that one before.' He sat back, interlacing his fingers behind his head*not the posture of a man who had just seen the light or otherwise had been convinced. 'I want to share something with you, Charlie. In all of the years I worked for Duck, he mentioned you just three or four times, and all he ever said was that you were good at math. But I knew a few things about you anyway. One was you always avoided the disagreeable or difficult in life, finding refuge at the racetrack, for instance. Another was you considered seeing him one day a year, on Christmas, to be one day too often. Yet now, lo and behold, you're false flagging Red Mafiya Mafiya thugs, pretending to go to ground at a nowhere fleabag, and blabbing to the thugs, pretending to go to ground at a nowhere fleabag, and blabbing to the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post to induce us to capture you, then launching a veritable paramilitary a.s.sault on the Manhattan Project complex, all in an effort to rescue your not-so-beloved father. Meanwhile you could have gotten away with a small fortune in cash and diamonds, and millions on top of that if you know where he's squirreled his stock options h.o.a.rd, as I suspect you do. So I have to conclude something's changed.' to induce us to capture you, then launching a veritable paramilitary a.s.sault on the Manhattan Project complex, all in an effort to rescue your not-so-beloved father. Meanwhile you could have gotten away with a small fortune in cash and diamonds, and millions on top of that if you know where he's squirreled his stock options h.o.a.rd, as I suspect you do. So I have to conclude something's changed.'

Charlie wasn't sure where Fielding was headed. 'Maybe he and I got off on the wrong foot for the first thirty years,' he allowed.

Fielding stood. 'He had us fooled all these years. Everyone always thought that all that mattered to Drummond Clark was getting revenge against his crazy pinko parents. But in the past two days, he's shown something else mattered to him. He showed it with his episodes of lucidity. Each was triggered when his son was in harm's way.'

Fielding had hit the nail on the head. Charlie felt it. He felt terrible, too, that he'd failed to see it himself. And he suspected he was about to feel a lot worse.

14.

Charlie lay on his back lengthwise atop the conference room table, his wrists and ankles bungeed to its legs. He'd been stripped to his boxer shorts. Most of his skin was covered in goose b.u.mps, and not because he was cold. It was a reaction to the telephone on the chair to his left, a rotary device that could well have been in the complex since the '40s. The cord was plugged into the wall, not at a phone jack but at an electrical outlet. In place of the usual coil and handset was a rubber wire that hissed subtly, like an asp. The ghoul in the lab coat they called Dr. Cranch loomed over Charlie and dipped the copper mouth of the wire toward his face. on his back lengthwise atop the conference room table, his wrists and ankles bungeed to its legs. He'd been stripped to his boxer shorts. Most of his skin was covered in goose b.u.mps, and not because he was cold. It was a reaction to the telephone on the chair to his left, a rotary device that could well have been in the complex since the '40s. The cord was plugged into the wall, not at a phone jack but at an electrical outlet. In place of the usual coil and handset was a rubber wire that hissed subtly, like an asp. The ghoul in the lab coat they called Dr. Cranch loomed over Charlie and dipped the copper mouth of the wire toward his face.

'This will deliver a near-lethal amount of electrical current,' Cranch said to Drummond, who was handcuffed to the chair at the foot of the table.

'A placebo is used as a control in drug experiments,' Drummond said, the fifth time he'd done so since Charlie was brought in, each time with greater distress.

'Sir, we need to hear about Placebo, the operation,' Cranch said, 'or, more specifically, whom you've told about it.' Repet.i.tion had progressively deadened his delivery.

'I just don't know what else I can tell you.' Drummond sighed.

Charlie wondered whether his rescue effort possibly could have made things any worse than they were now.

'Just a light spray,' Cranch said to Dewart, who sat to Charlie's right.

Dewart gave a gentle pull at the trigger of a plastic plant mister. The water was warm, yet the droplets caused Charlie's bare legs to s.h.i.+ver. Cranch touched the copper tip of the wire to Charlie's right thigh briefly, as if he were testing the ink in a pen. The tip emitted a buzz no louder than a gnat.

Charlie shot straight into the air. If not for the restraints, it seemed, he would have hit the ceiling. Hot, maddening pain filled his blood vessels, and his body began to convulse. It felt like muscles and tendons were being ripped from bones. An involuntary wail rose from deep within him, unlike any sound he would have imagined he could make, or that any animal could.

A velvety blackness materialized around him. A cool and comfy refuge. Unconsciousness. He welcomed it.

Before he could settle in, his spine cracked back onto the tabletop, and he was again in the fierce glare of fluorescent lights. All his joints felt like they'd been dislocated. He tried to breathe. He retched, then inhaled air hot and heavy with the smell of his own burned flesh. His body settled, but a thrum continued inside his temples. Bells rang in his ears. The worst was the stinging in his eyes. Some sort of lingering electrical current?

Cranch and Dewart looked at Drummond, presumably for his reaction. He stared at his shoes as if he sought to avoid seeing his son suffer.

'Please, just talk to Mr. Cleamons,' Drummond begged Cranch. 'I have his home number in my office.'

Cranch looked to Dewart. 'Cleamons?'

Dewart shrugged. 'We'll find out.' He gestured at the two-way mirror: Make a phone call.

Charlie knew who Cleamons was but didn't see how mentioning it would do any good*even if he could move his mouth. Also, they would know soon enough. Lionel Cleamons had been Perriman's district sales manager. He dropped dead one afternoon in his office more than a decade ago.

15.

Charles would die, Drummond speculated, if the man in the white laboratory coat used the crude stun device a second time. The younger fellow, to Drummond's left, seemed inclined to do nothing about it. He just sat back sipping Gatorade. die, Drummond speculated, if the man in the white laboratory coat used the crude stun device a second time. The younger fellow, to Drummond's left, seemed inclined to do nothing about it. He just sat back sipping Gatorade.

Drummond wondered: Who are these men? Gamblers Charles has fallen in with?

No, something told him. This had to do with his own work.

He recalled pa.s.sing his office at Perriman Appliances earlier, then being led down the back stairs to this subterranean facility.

The Manhattan Project complex was rumored to extend beneath the Columbia campus as far as West 112th Street, where Perriman was situated.

Or was it on East East 112th Street? 112th Street?

Yes, East, he decided.

He'd worked there a long time.

How long, five years?

No, more than that. Eighteen. No, no, no, twelve.

He demonstrated the appliances in the showroom, then went on-site with building owners and property managers. He ensured that their specifications were met.

The man in the laboratory coat kept asking about 'Placebo.' Maybe it was a code for something new in R & D. The new nanotechnology in the wash and rinse cycles? Probably not. Nanotechnology was already trumpeted throughout Perriman's advertising and promotional campaigns.

Could the Manhattan Project have something to do with it?

Manhattan Project *

At Columbia University.

Columbia University was originally called King's College. The name was changed for reasons of patriotism after the American Revolution *

Which commenced on April 19, 1775 *

The shot heard 'round the world *

At the Old North Bridge in Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts *

An interesting piece of information about Concord*

Drummond felt his thought process derailing.

It was hard to concentrate to begin with. And Charles's scream still resonated within him.

It reminded him of another scream.

The memory began with dawn, as if beamed from a old film projector, sputtering through the blinds and into the drafty waiting room in the maternity ward at Brooklyn's Kings County Hospital. Drummond was sitting there alone, savoring the silence. For most of the night, the waiting room had been a hive of expectant fathers. Nurses had brought bundles one by one. Each man, seeing his son or daughter for the first time, declared the moment the happiest of his life. Drummond antic.i.p.ated no such sentiment. He wasn't bent toward giddiness. But that was only a small factor: 2 percent, he estimated. The other 98 percent was fear.

That he felt fear at all was confounding. Displacing fear was second nature to him.

He'd been timid initially, as a boy, a voracious early reader living a largely internal life. But when his parents fled the country without him and a spinster aunt capitulated and took him in, he commenced a campaign to prove his worth. He drove himself to be first in his cla.s.s, first in his weight group, first at anything*if he found himself walking parallel to a stranger on the sidewalk, he would be first to the corner. He would even finish his ice cream cone before other children. Winning intoxicated him; the greater the challenge, the greater the high. By his first day at Langley, perilous situations practically whetted his appet.i.te.

On learning Isadora was pregnant, however, he felt standard-issue fear, like anyone else's. He was at a loss to explain it. He hungered to succeed as a parent, especially in light of his own parents' record.

In the ensuing months he sought a remedy. The problem, he theorized, was his lack of enthusiasm for the baby*he couldn't summon so much as a spark. Attributing this to insufficient data, he read everything on the subject. The only applicable wisdom he found, repeatedly, was 'If he can afford it, the new father is wise to hire a baby nurse.' 'If he can afford it, the new father is wise to hire a baby nurse.'

Now, with just hours to go, he was scared as a cat.

The squeal of crepe soles in the hallway outside the waiting room momentarily diverted him from his predicament. Probably it was the nurse coming to update him on Isadora's status. 'Another few hours still,' she would say*he hoped.

She entered with a swaddled bundle in her arms. 'Mr. Clark, it is my great honor to introduce you to your son,' she said. She had delivered the line to new fathers thousands of times, but the joy was fresh, and augmented by a particularly musical Indian accent*Gujarati, he was certain of it.

He had thought learning that the baby was a boy might stir him. It made no difference. And the squirming, tomato-headed creature itself kindled none of the love at first sight on which he'd pinned his last atom of hope. If anything, the sight validated his fears.

'Would you like to hold him?'

He put on exuberance. 'Of course!'

His arms became stiff as shelves, and on contact with them, the baby began a cry that might have been mistaken for an air-raid siren.

'This is just wonderful,' Drummond exclaimed; he could spew lies at a poly and leave examiners swearing he was the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.

Registered Nurse Aas.h.i.+yana Asirvatham, however, did not appear to be fooled. 'It's time for baby's bath,' she said, offering Drummond an out.

As soon as the baby was safely away, strangely, Drummond felt a desire to hold him again. Within a few weeks that desire exploded into a dizzying love. Ironically, his challenge became keeping a lid on the sentiment, lest his enemies exploit it.

The memory had the effect of turning night into day in his mind as he sat in Conference Room A at the foot of the table originally crafted for the Jersey City narcotics dealer known as Catman because of his fondness for leopard skin.

Drummond sat up slightly to better get the lay of the land. He maintained the appearance of staring dully. Even if he could get his hand free of the cuff, he would need to grapple immediately with young Dewart, who almost certainly had a sidearm. The guard standing outside the door, onetime IRA heavy Jack O'Shea, would be in the room within five seconds, his own firearm drawn. And of course Cranch had the 'h.e.l.le-phone,' as everyone here liked to call the torture device. Drummond's own prospective weapons included the chairs and table, though the latter would be too heavy to budge even without Charles atop it. Also within reach were three dry-erase markers, a half-full bottle of Gatorade, and a plastic plant mister, the last item probably purchased at the twenty-four-hour DrugMart at West 110th and Broadway specifically for use with Cranch's device*to Drummond's knowledge, the plants in the Manhattan Project complex were all plastic.

The Gatorade had promise.

16.

'You've left me with no choice but to increase the voltage to a level he may not survive,' Cranch told Drummond. me with no choice but to increase the voltage to a level he may not survive,' Cranch told Drummond.

Charlie craned his neck*the simple act felt like being choked*and glimpsed the interrogator tweaking the rotary dial on the telephone.

Drummond's eyes were gla.s.sy and rimmed red. He sucked a finger, as if to pacify himself. He'd never done that before, and, Charlie reckoned, never would, given the unsanitary nature. So maybe he had something in the works. Also, albeit slightly, he had sat up. But where the flicker of hope should have been, Charlie felt nothing. What could Drummond Clark, even at the height of his powers, do to get out of this fix?

'How about this?' Drummond asked Cranch. 'By placebo operation,' is it possible that your people mean a medical operation performed more for the psychological benefit of the patient than for any physiological effect?'

Cranch sighed.

'Can you at least give me some sort of hint?' Drummond pleaded.

Cranch gestured and Dewart pumped the plant mister five or six times. Charlie's chest glistened. Cranch moved the tip of the wire toward Charlie's heart.

Charlie tried to will himself into unconsciousness.

Drummond sat upright in his chair, abruptly, as if he he had been shocked. Cranch jumped in surprise. Dewart nearly lost hold of his Gatorade. Like Charlie's, their eyes flew to Drummond. had been shocked. Cranch jumped in surprise. Dewart nearly lost hold of his Gatorade. Like Charlie's, their eyes flew to Drummond.

Drummond took in the room with unmistakable sharpness. 'Ernie, why are we interrogating my son?' he asked Cranch. His voice was ragged, like he'd just risen from a long slumber.

Each time he'd flickered on before, Charlie recalled, it was with an awareness of the immediate past. So the Rip van Winkle act was almost certainly an act. But to what end?

Drummond tried to rub his eyes. The cuff snapped his hand back into place. 'Or should I be asking, Why are you interrogating me?''

'First, allow me to say that I'm flattered you remember me, sir,' Cranch said.

'Dr. Ernest Cranch, you come happily to mind every single time I look in a mirror to shave and see no scar whatsoever from that Croatian hooligan's blade. Now, what is going on here?'

'There's an urgent need that we know whether and to what extent Placebo has been compromised.'

Drummond seemed shaken. 'Placebo has been compromised?'

'If you could tell us what you last recall of it?' Cranch said.

'Yes. Of course. Tell me, what's today's date?'

'The twenty-eighth.'

'Forgive me. Of which month?'

'Forgive me me, I should have begun there. It's December 28, 2009.'

'Good Lord,' Drummond exclaimed. 'The last I remember, the leaves had just begun to fall.'

Cranch's eyes drifted to the rotary telephone, leaving Charlie with a fresh coating of goose b.u.mps. 'Mr. Clark, please,' Cranch said. 'You've had several clear-cut and extensive episodes of lucidity since autumn. Per my clinical experience with Alzheimer's patients, I would expect*'

He stopped abruptly as Dewart slid from his chair, fell hard to the floor, and didn't move.

Charlie supposed either the pain or the painkillers had gotten the better of Dewart. Then the Gatorade bottle rolled from Dewart's hand, and Charlie had a better idea of what had happened: Drummond had just pretended to suck his finger as a means of pacifying himself. Really he tripped the spring-loaded release on his molar and, with incredible sleight of hand, while feigning focus on his shoes, he deployed his L pill. Once Dewart sipped the Gatorade, Drummond stalled until the saxitoxin took effect!

Cranch too eyed the rolling Gatorade bottle, possibly thinking the same thing. The thickest part of Drummond's iron seat back flew into the interrogator's head, crus.h.i.+ng his skull from the sound of it.

With the c.u.mbersome chair still cuffed to his wrist, Drummond dove at Dewart's body and s.n.a.t.c.hed the Glock from the dead man's waistband. Bouncing up, he swung the chair as hard as he could into the mirror. The gla.s.s exploded like a bomb, spraying thousands of bits into the adjoining observation room.

From his seat in one of the recliners there, Karpenko rushed to take up his big AK-74. Two thunderclaps from Drummond's Glock and Karpenko keeled over, spouting a rooster tail of blood. He fell into the recliner, flipped it over, then came to rest onto its upturned swivel base, almost certainly dead.

A third report from the Glock and the fair-haired guard, surging into the conference room from the hallway, fell as if clotheslined. Blood streamed from his forehead, turning the front of his powder-blue rugby s.h.i.+rt maroon. He was definitely done for. Still Drummond pounced on him. He retrieved a set of keys from the guard's pants pocket, freed himself from the handcuff, then hurried to unbind Charlie.

Incredulity acted as a pain remedy for Charlie. 'Good thing I came to the rescue,' he said.

The observation room preoccupied Drummond. Charlie followed Drummond's gaze to the smoldering cigar in an ashtray on the arm of one of the empty recliners. The door was open.

'Fielding?' Charlie said.

'Yes.'

'Why didn't he shoot back?'

'In his mind, what happened here is a positive step. Now the real inquisition can begin.'