Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

“But no past connection?”

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Give me her name. I’ll run it through DeMaris.”

“She spoke to me confidentially.”

“Is she a hostage?”

“She doesn’t think so.”

“How did you know to look for them at the Waterfront?”

I shrugged and looked down at tawny foothills buttoned by dark green oaks. I had to conclude that the tail cars at the Waterfront were his, but I said nothing. I’d had employers like Briggs Spencer before — controllers who want to know not only everything you’ve learned but how you learned it. It’s their way of confirming that they could have learned it themselves if they’d only had the time, thus you are an overpaid fool. “So, Doctor, does Arcadia offer a military discount?”

The psychologist peered at me again over his glasses. “You mean for Clay? I can’t do that. Rule number one: Business is business.”

He drew the stick back and shoved it right. My body swayed left, inner gyros working, then I felt the gut-drop again as the light craft banked into heavy air. It was like one of those carnival rides that go around fast and pin you to the wall. “But I can tell you, the profit I make on Arcadia and my other hospitals is pocket change compared to other things I do. It’s more a passion than a business.”

“What’s the monthly charge for a partner to live in Arcadia?”

Spencer looked at me. “That’s not something my conservators want disclosed. And more important, implied when you admit a loved one to Arcadia is the idea that this kind of shit doesn’t happen. Partners don’t just walk off, Mr. Ford. I promise their families they can’t. Now Rex Hickman is putting enormous pressure on me to find Clay and return him to Arcadia.”

I waited for his disapproval of my not having delivered Clay to him already, his subtle employer’s threat. And I didn’t care if the psychologist fired me on the spot, as long as I got a ride back home. I looked down on Vail Lake, a sapphire-blue gash in the hills. Compared to the torturer beside me, Clay Hickman was more forgivable. Clay was an earnest overachiever most likely driven crazy — truly, actually, crazy — by war. Violent? Yes. Dangerous? Maybe. But this wasn’t the first time I’d been hired to find someone more admirable than the people looking for him. I didn’t care if I worked another day for Briggs Spencer or not.

Then he pushed the stick down and left, which dropped the little Sikorsky into a steep descent. It looked like he was aiming for the lake. He pegged the engine, earth on tilt, chopper shuddering.

“The first goal of interrogation is to establish control over the partner,” he said. “When the control is total, his will dissolves. He must come to see you as controlling every element, from what he hears and sees to what he feels and thinks. What he eats and drinks. When his diapers are changed. When he is slammed into a wall or left overnight chained naked to a concrete floor. Finally, the detainee must see that you control whether he lives or dies. When he knows that you are in control of his life, he will begin to feel helpless. We taught our partners helplessness, Mr. Ford. Learned helplessness . Our goal was not simple information and confession, but exploitation . The full exploitation of the partner — for propaganda, recruiting, penetration. It all derives from helplessness, which can be taught. No one understood us, though our success was visible everywhere you looked. I say it all the time and I’ll say it again: We saved American lives. But enough. It’s all in my book. Hard Truth . Out this month, huge media, big tour. The times have caught up with Briggs Spencer. I got a nice advance, and film rights went big. I’m getting sequel offers, speaking offers. The new president has reached out to me for cabinet recommendations. Heady stuff. And I intend to profit from every bit of it.”

I watched the earth rising up at us. The little Sikorsky wasn’t built for this kind of thing: the dizzying, disorienting yaw, and the g-force pressure. But he wouldn’t see me sweat. I focused my attention on the rough hills beneath us, grass and chaparral. This season’s rain was poor again, and by summer a spark would be all it would take to set it off. Whoosh . Adios north San Diego County.

Then, time to jab: “Was Clay a part of your program?”

“No. He was a flight mechanic in Iraq. I didn’t meet him until three years ago, when his father asked me to examine him at the state hospital. Rex and Patricia Hickman wanted something better for their son. Something that would help him. I had opened Arcadia two years earlier.”

I wondered if Spencer had fallen for the same falsified service record that I’d been handed by Paige Hulet. Then I wondered if Spencer had created that record himself. If so, he was a solid liar, both on the page and now. I wondered how such a skill might have influenced Hard Truth.

Spencer smiled at me, eased out of the dive, then pointed the helo back toward Fallbrook. He turned and gave me another long look. “You don’t scare easily. I know you’ve played in the sky before.”

“I’ve got good insurance up here. You.”

“Soundly reasoned.”

“Why are we here?”

“I need two things, Mr. Ford. One is to find Clay. I want one hundred percent of your time devoted to him. Your pay is now doubled, to guarantee your full attention. Two, I need you to call me immediately when you’ve located him. Do not call Paige. Do not call DeMaris.”

If I’d had any doubt how badly Briggs Spencer wanted to find Clay, my unasked-for raise erased it. And his demand that I call him first, not his director of medical services, not his head of security. Their three-way competition was more than just intriguing. It seemed desperate. Even in a quick glance I saw the intensity on his face. And the coldness in his eyes through the chilly yellow light of his aviators.

“Why not call Dr. Hulet or DeMaris?” I asked.

“Because you work for me, not them. It’s best for Clay. DeMaris is a dullard. And Paige is scary smart but she tends to take her partners too seriously. Too personally, for her own good. Clay needs a steadying hand.”

“And then what? I locate Clay, you come take him back to Arcadia?”

“That’s what the Hickmans want. It’s where he belongs. Best treatment in the world and a damned nice place to get it.”

From what little I’d seen of Arcadia and its staff so far, I could have agreed. Though the idea of a private asylum run by a bona fide ex-torturer seemed more than a little off to me.

“I want to put an idea in your head,” he said.

“I don’t want your ideas in my head.”

“Listen. There are rewards to be gotten on earth — genuine treasures — far beyond your paltry hourly wage. Beyond what you imagine is possible to attain. Beyond that vast ache you feel in your heart for Justine.”

Rage, Wrath & Fury rose to attention inside me. They are the rude, ugly creatures who clambered into me the moment I heard that Justine was dead. I named them. They haven’t left since. Right then, in that helo with Briggs Spencer, they were very angry. Even for them. A lot of things set them off, Justine’s name among them. “Don’t say her name again.”

“I say what I want in my own helicopter.”

“Not her name.” I set my right ankle over the other knee, let the cuff of my pant leg reveal the gun.

Spencer took a long look at it, then at me. “You surprise me. I could make a call and have your license for this. And up here in the sky, I’m your lifeline. So all you’re really doing is bluffing.”

“It’s up to you.”

He looked ahead, not at me. He glanced at the gun on his left. “You keep her alive inside you. Don’t you understand that? You control who she is and who she becomes.”