George Chesbro - Bleeding in the Eye of a Brainstorm

I nodded. "And that's the reason the Chill Shop wants her."

Sharon Stephens frowned. "I don't understand what you mean. What's the 'chill shop'?"

"The Company's BUHR-Bureau of Unusual Human Resources."

"I worked for the CIA, yes, but I've never heard of this BUHR."

"Well, Doctor, my guess is that they're the people who paid for the work you did at Rivercliff. Listen up, and you may learn something." I paused, extended my hand toward the frail younger woman. "Emily, will you help me? I need to know if these two people who came for you answer my questions truthfully."

Emily looked at Sharon Stephens, who nodded. Then the dark-haired woman took my hand, and I led her over to where Punch and Judy were strung up to the ceiling beam. She sat down on the floor at their feet, next to the tape recorder, crossed her legs, and stared up into their faces. Punch and Judy, looking decidedly unhappy, stared back at her.

"What about you two?" I asked, looking back and forth between the two assassins. "You ever heard of the Chill Shop?"

Neither answered. I clucked my tongue in disapproval, waggled the stun gun at them, then stepped toward Punch.

"Yes!" the man said quickly. "We. . work for them. It's like you said."

I glanced down at Emily, who looked up at me and nodded her head.

"Excellent," I said, and crouched down close to the recorder. "Hello, Captain. This is the arrogant, publicity-seeking, interfering dwarf prick speaking. I trust I have your attention. I have here for you a couple of early Christmas presents, along with their taped confessions-inadmissible as evidence, of course, but they should help you get your very own confessions. Now you'll know everything I know, and I'm sure you'll put the information to good use. I'm leaving Punch's gun here next to the tape recorder, and I'll bet you a dinner that ballistics tests will match it to the bullet found in the skull of the corpse in the Dumpster. Ho-ho-ho on you."

Judy moaned, whispered, "They'll pay you … a great deal of money if you … let us go."

"Sorry, lady," I replied, straightening up. "I'm incorruptible in my quest for truth, justice, and the American way. Now, I think you get the picture. I'm going to ask you some questions, and the two of you are going to answer them. Answer them truthfully, and you get to go on to the next set of questions. Simple. But if my friend Emily tells me you're fibbing, then I will ask the ladies to step out of the room, I tickle you with your own little toy, and you do the electric boogaloo. Frankly, I'd enjoy that. It doesn't matter which one of you lies; you both get zapped. So, for your sakes, I hope you're fond of each other."

I started with a few simple questions about Lorminix, the Chill Shop, and Rivercliff that I already knew the answers to-a test for Emily as well as the two assassins. Punch and Judy got the answers right, and after each one Emily looked at me and slowly nodded her head. My human lie detector seemed to be in good working order, and my subjects reasonably cooperative, so I got serious.

When I asked for the names of the personnel at BUHR, Judy told me they didn't know, that they'd been hired by a middleman. Emily looked at me, shook her head. I clucked my tongue, then asked the psychiatrist and Emily to go into the kitchen. That was all it took. Judy started giving names, from the director of the operation right down to the various secretaries. Emily just kept nodding.

Twenty-five minutes later I had exhausted my repertoire of questions. I not only had the goods on BUHR and key people at Lorminix, but also the names of virtually every outfit and government agency Punch and Judy had ever worked for, as well as the identities of their victims. The information on the tape was going to keep a lot of law enforcement agencies in a number of countries busy for some time, but it was of only limited use to me at the moment. I was happy to hear that Philip Mayepoles had been the only patient the assassins had found, less pleased that nothing they had told me was going to help me solve the problem of obtaining a fresh supply of the patients' medication in the time I had left. Punch and Judy knew the names of a lot of players, because they'd been plying their trade for some time, but they knew almost nothing about the technical details of Rivercliff, nor did they know if any more of the drug could be found in the United States-or anywhere else, for that matter.

I turned off the recorder, set Punch's gun down next to it, then called Felix MacWhorter to tell him what he could have if he cared to send some of his people downtown. I also suggested he send a paramedic or two. Then I hung up and turned to the two women. "Let's get out of here."

"Where are we going?" the psychiatrist asked.

"To a safe place."

At first Michael was speechless when he saw Emily and their psychiatrist, but then he let out a whoop of joy and rushed over to them. There were lots of hugs and kisses, and a few tears, and then it was time to get down to the business of organization.

The brownstone was getting crowded. After introducing the new tenants to the old, the guards, and Francisco, I left it to Margaret and Michael, who enjoyed seniority, to work out sleeping arrangements. I explained the house rules about staying away from open windows, not answering telephones or the door, and then I took Sharon Stephens with me down to my office, closing the door after me. I sat down behind my desk, and she sat stiffly, her knees close together and her hands in her lap, in a chair by the wall to my left. Her green eyes at once mirrored both relief and anxiety.

"Thank you for rescuing us, Dr. Frederickson," she said with a quick, nervous smile that showed the fine white teeth Peter South-worth had mentioned.

"You're welcome, I'm sure," I replied evenly.

"I. . have so many questions."

"I know the feeling."

She clasped and unclasped her hands, looked down at them. "You don't think much of me, do you?"

"I don't know what to think of you. You saved those people's lives, and you've been going to a lot of trouble and risking your own life to try to keep them alive. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for you, and people like you, they wouldn't have been prisoners in danger in the first place. What was a nice girl like you doing in a purgatory like Rivercliff?"

"I didn't know what kind of work I was going to be doing when I was assigned there, Dr. Frederickson-and I'd only worked there a short time. I answered an ad in one of the medical journals; it said the CIA was looking for physicians, especially psychiatrists. I wrote them a letter, filled out an application, and went for an interview. I'm sure thousands of government employees have done the same thing. Psychiatry is a very difficult branch of medicine to make a living in these days. I assumed I would be treating CIA personnel and their families. I was never told anything about this BUHR, this 'chill shop.' To me, the CIA was just the CIA, with everybody focused on the same mission, which was to protect the nation's security. I was excited, thinking I was actually going to be doing important and worthwhile work for the government."

"The CIA is a whole other country unto itself, lady. They have some very strange customs and notions there."

"I was naive. By the time I realized what was going on, and what I was expected to do, it was too late. I was already in place at Rivercliff. I'd signed what seemed like dozens of security pledges, and I assumed they had me. I felt like a prisoner myself. I was afraid. A number of times I thought of quitting, and even mentioned it to my supervisor once, but he made implied threats that the CIA would make a great deal of trouble for me if I quit, and that I would have difficulty going back into private practice. Somebody else I talked to about quitting said there could be legal consequences because of the papers I'd signed."