Michael Palmer - The Last Surgeon

“I give up,” Jillian conceded quickly. “I’ll have to pass on the Pearl Bucks.”

Beaming at his own ingenuity, Pearl marched over to the row of bathroom sinks and wrapped his hand around one of the opaque plastic soap containers.

“Showtime,” he announced.

Turning the container clockwise a full 180 degrees, Pearl pulled the stainless steel mount out three inches from the sink backsplash. A spring-held door next to Pearl, camouflaged to look like part of the black-tiled wall, popped open without making a sound. Jillian, who was standing only a few feet away, stepped back in surprise.

“That’s amazing,” she said.

“We used to have some pretty serious business going on down there.”

Pearl eased open the hinged doorway with his fingertips, then flicked on a light switch on the upper wall of the stairwell. Jillian followed him down a short flight of well-built wooden stairs that descended into a dimly lit antechamber with a cement floor. Proceeding cautiously, she had to duck low to avoid colliding with the exposed lightbulb dangling by a dust-covered cord. Through a small alcove she emerged into a much larger storage room. Boxes of paper goods and other bar supplies were neatly stacked on plastic shelving units that lined the jagged stone walls. Abutting the only wall without shelving, Manny Ferris lay sleeping on a thin mattress resting atop a rusted metal bed frame. Jillian was grateful she had been prepared for his disfigurement.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Pearl said with surprising gentleness, “customers are wondering where you at. Did you forget to set an alarm?”

Manny jumped up, rubbing his eyes, mumbling something Jillian could not understand.

“Did you hear it?” Pearl asked. “Did you hear him speak Arabic?”

“What?” Jillian said.

“Arabic. He can barely put two words of English together, but every now and then the poor bastard blurts out sentences in Arabic.”

“How do you know?”

“We have a lot of Arab clients. One day, one of them heard him. Said he didn’t have much of an accent either.”

“Amazing,” Jillian said.

“That’s one of the reasons I think he was brainwashed. Maybe the Arabs did something to him when he was over in Iraq, fighting. Who knows?”

Manny’s eyes were glazed from sleep, but Jillian suspected they would not become more lucent even after he’d been awake for hours. Nick was right, vacant was the best description for Manny Ferris.

Nick.

“I’ll go find out about your friend,” Pearl said, reading her thoughts. “You stay here with my cousin. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

Pearl hurried up the stairs before she could respond.

“Hello, Manny,” Jillian said, keeping her voice intentionally calm and nonthreatening. “I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to talk to you about some pictures that I took.”

Manny gazed at her blankly.

“Got to get to work,” he mumbled.

“Of course,” Jillian said, walking over to him, “but before you do, I have some pictures I want to show you. They’re of the Lincoln Memorial. Do you know that building?”

She could see the color begin to drain from his face. He took several cautious steps backward, pinning himself into a corner.

“No… yes… no.”

“Don’t worry, Manny. Nobody is going to hurt you. I just want help knowing why you don’t like that building. Can I show you some pictures? They won’t hurt you. I promise.”

“No! Don’t want to help.” Manny’s voice was hoarse and strained.

Slowly, Jillian reached out and took his hand. He made no attempt to pull away. After a minute his tension began to abate.

“Come,” she said. “Sit down here next to me.”

A few more seconds and the frightened Marine did as Jillian asked and stared at the photos she had printed earlier that day at the Lincoln Memorial.

“Is there anything about what is in these pictures that upsets you? Think, Manny, it’s important.”

Nothing.

Jillian began to lose hope, but when she arrived at the pictures taken from the rear of the memorial, Manny’s tension returned and he began to shake. She showed him the final shots of the day, taken from the bike path across the Potomac. Manny looked at the first picture and began to sob.

“Please… no more…”

Jillian felt her pulse quicken as she studied the man.

“It’s this shot, isn’t it, Manny? This one from across the river. This is a view you remember. Did something happen to you out there?”

“Please…”

“Tell me, Manny,” she implored, “What was it? What happened to you there?”

Manny Ferris could not or would not answer. Then the connection between them was broken by footsteps descending the wooden staircase. Billy Pearl appeared, grinning broadly.

“My bouncer, Felix, remembered your friend from the last time he was here and threw him out. He’s across the street. Felix says he was a real troublemaker-a pain in the butt. You sure he’s a doctor?”

Jillian laughed. “He drives around in a huge RV clinic taking care of poor people.”

“Bad Felix. Well, at least that’s one mystery solved. Did you get what you needed from Manny?”

“I’m not sure,” Jillian replied. “But I think I know where to start looking. Let me check my hospital and see if there are any doctors who might be able to help Manny.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. Come back anytime. I’ll have Felix bring your friend back in. Drinks are on me.”

“Thanks,” Jillian said, “but I think he’d be just as happy with a few hundred Pearl Bucks.”

Phillip MacCandliss hated the zoo. It wasn’t the notion of captive wild animals he hated, it was the specific place itself-the National Zoo off Connecticut Avenue. He hated the commotion and the bratty children. He hated walking on an unending bed of peanut shells, and the overpriced crap food and cheap souvenirs. But mostly he hated the smell-the odiferous stench of beasts, pissing on straw beds, buzzing with flies. Something about the rank smell reminded him of the majority of the vets who relentlessly harassed his office begging for handouts.

He assumed that his intense distaste for the place went back to the trips he had taken there with Denise and the girls before she had left and poisoned them against him. But it really didn’t matter. He hated the place and that was that.

Why his CIA contact had picked the zoo as his meeting point he had no idea. An unfortunate coincidence was his best guess, but by no means his only one. They had ways of knowing things-everything. It was what they did.

Apart from receiving a mysterious iPod, delivered to him via interoffice mail the day after taking the assignment, this meeting was the most spylike thing he’d done. The device came with a single preloaded song, titled simply “Play Me.” By listening to that track, MacCandliss learned how to use the iPod as a two-way radio, as well as how to arrange a rendezvous with his contact in the event of trouble. The song vanished from the iPod after one listen. It was very Mission Impossible , and MacCandliss loved being a part of it all, even if only a peripheral part. Now, though, there was legitimate trouble.

MacCandliss had never had reason to use the emergency number before. After dialing, he hung up at the sound of a tone and synced the iPod with his computer, as he had been instructed. The sync operation added a new track to the iPod playlist. It wasn’t a song, but a computer voice detailing the specific location at the zoo, and the time when his contact would be waiting. He synced the iPod again to erase the track.

His instructions were to proceed into the zoo from the Lot B entrance at precisely eleven o’clock, buy a box of Cracker Jack, and then take Olmsted Walk past the Reptile Discovery Center. At that point, he was to put the iPod headphones on and await additional instructions. MacCandliss wondered about the early hour. He had heard that crowds were the friend of the Agency. To his surprise, there were already hordes of people strolling the paved walkways, along with field trips that included what seemed to be every grammar and middle school student within fifty miles of the city.