Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

Also, another email to the TV host Nell Flanagan, in which Clay said he had a story that would “melt your face”:

It involves a secret part of the Iraq War that took place in Romania. It is 100 % true. There is a graphic component. My story also involves a San Diego — area celebrity who is not a baseball or football player. I have written to you before about this and would appreciate that you write back. I am ready to speak on the record. I am ready to bring the fire.

White fire to Spencer?

Nell Flanagan had not responded. I wondered why not.

Sampling the emails randomly, I saw that many were vague, somewhat premonitory, and occasionally ominous.

To Vazquez:

I feel the changes coming on inside me. I don’t know whether to dance or gouge out my eyes.

Or to sister Daphne:

I heard this song about how it takes a lifetime to get some things right. I believe this. I believe I still have time to get things right.

To Vazquez again:

Monstering wasn’t for me. That was one of the differences between us Air Force guys and the rest of them. The contractors scared the shit out of me. No rules but the ones they made.

I forwarded twenty emails to the sixth-floor security office to be printed. Then copied Clay’s inbox and outbox logs and sent them, too. I imagined Alec DeMaris or one of his security people examining each page as it came off the printer. I figured a fifty-fifty chance that someone would shred them and make me start over.

Next I snooped through Clay’s documents. He had been keeping notes for all of his three years at Arcadia. I scrolled through scores of them, some brief, some long.

Written during his first week here:

I like Arcadia, after all the cells I’ve been in the last two years. You expect rough treatment from police and mental ward workers because they’re all afraid of you. Which makes you want to put a real scare into them. Here it’s different. Who do I run into my first day? Morpheus! He hadn’t changed a bit since White Fire! Arcadia must screen the employees for happy attitudes. Happiest-place-on-earth kind of thing. I like my doctor. Calvin Whipple, old guy. He’s got these tiny little eyes like a chameleon and I want to laugh. And guess what? I still can’t get rid of Sox the cat! From White Fire, remember him? Later, when I came home and got the apartment in San Diego, Sox was there, waiting for me. When I got thrown in jail, he’d be there, too. I went to the ding wing out in Chino and there he is, Sox the cat again. Waiting for me! Now he’s here in Arcadia. Skinny and sitting there staring at me just like always. Black, white feet and tail tip, green eyes. Same Sox. Remember? Bizarre. Just when I think my brain boil is simmering down, Sox shows up and reminds me what a nutcase I am!

I picked out another file, dated nearly two years later:

And just when I look up at the mountains here around Arcadia, just when I feel the sun on me, and I’ve talked to Dr. Hulet and I’m just chillin’ with Evan, all of the damn sudden there’s Aaban, chained up by his wrists, screaming at us to let him use his bucket. What incredible willpower he had. What strength.

Or this:

Dr. Hulet has me on a new combination of drugs but they don’t seem to be helping. I feel like I’m dreaming all the time. I don’t fully understand how all of them work and I have been prescribed so many. Back when Dr. Whipple was in charge he told me not to worry about my meds — we could always adjust and find the right mix. Morpheus still slips me some of the good stuff. But sometimes it makes me feel earthquakes in my skull. Once, a voice told me to eat myself, so I tried. But Dr. Hulet explains the drugs to me, and she shows me on the computer how the molecules are put together, and how they interact in the body. It’s a lot to keep track of. She sometimes seems puzzled by how I react to the drugs. There are lots of side effects. I believe in her. She is trustworthy and beautiful and the best thing that has happened to me since I joined the Air Force. I’d ask her to marry me if I weren’t insane!

I browsed some of Clay’s downloaded picture files, too. There were scores of drawings of Greek mythological characters, photographs of ancient Greek statuary, current-day travel and tourist information for Greece. Clay also had modern illustrations of Greek characters, many of them monstrous in ancient, prehuman ways. Some were suggestively sexual, some more overt.

There were also photos of rock and hip-hop artists he liked, baseball and basketball stars. Tropical sunsets, bright reef fish, coral, and eels.

Still no word from Sequoia, so I tried again:

11:05 AM

Where are u?

I went back to Clay’s computer. Another collection of Greek imagery. A photograph of a statue of Pan having intercourse with a goat gave me the creeps. The look on Pan’s face. I found images of Deimos and Phobos.

Deimos.

Briggs Spencer answered on the first ring. “Have you located him?”

“Why did you lie about Clay and Romania?” I asked.

“Clay is no longer in Romania, Mr. Ford, if you haven’t heard. He’s in California and you’re supposed to find him.”

“You were Deimos, god of terror. Living it up at White Fire, the not-so-secret prison.”

Spencer chuckled. “Mr. Ford, you only know one small portion of the truth. Your minor role in this story is to find Clay and return him to Arcadia, where he can get the finest care in the world.”

“In a hospital run by a torturer.”

He was wordless for a while. “We all have our pasts. In the wars I spent some time with the human soul. I know exactly how to break it or to heal it. I have chosen to become a healer.”

“Your partner ran off on you, healer.”

“And you ran off on your partner, Mr. Ford. I’ll be honest with you — my biggest question in approving your hire was what you did that night in San Diego. Was your partner right in shooting Titus Miller? Did he save your life? Were you right to not fire? Did you risk the life of your partner? Were you right in saying that the shooting was undue force? Or should you have bowed to the blue religion and covered your partner? I still don’t know. That is your past. I hired you to locate, not to judge. So, can you bring me Clay Hickman or can you not? The decision is yours and I won’t ask again.”

“I’ll honor the contract.”

A pause. “Good. You may still see those treasures I spoke of earlier.”

“I don’t want your treasures.”

“No matter how much he has, a man will always want more.”

“You’re the proof.”

“I am that.”

“What’s white fire?” I asked.

He was quiet again. “Capitalized, it was CIA code for the prison. We also came to use those words to mean something irresistible, or unbearable.”

“Like one of your ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’?”

“We were so much more than that.”

“Because Clay wants to bring it to you. The white fire.”

Another silence. I’d never been more curious about what thoughts were streaking through someone’s silence. I had the feeling that Briggs Spencer was on the ropes. “I know. I’ve offered to meet with Clay. But he’s refused. He says he’s not ready. But I have no idea, Mr. Ford, what he is getting ready for .”

“You must have some idea.”

“Here are two: Do your job. And stop wasting my time and money.”

The pre-lunch medications break in the Lyceum was one of four such sessions offered every day at Arcadia. The Lyceum was large and sunny, with views of the mountains through two glass walls. TV monitors were suspended from the ceiling as in airport waiting areas, all tuned to children’s programming.