Carol Ericson - Under Fire

Her knees finally buckled and she grabbed for the credenza as she sank to the carpet.

Max’s long stride ate up the distance between them, and he placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay? We should’ve saved this conversation for morning, after some sleep and some food.”

When she didn’t respond, he nudged her. “Can you stand up?”

She nodded, but the muscles in her legs refused to obey the commands from her brain.

He crouched beside her, slipping one arm across her back and one behind her thighs. She leaned into him and he lifted her from the floor and stood up in one motion.

He was careful to hold her body away from his as he carried her to the bed, but for her part she could’ve nestled in his arms forever. She wanted him to hold her and tell her this was all a joke.

He placed her on the bed with surprising gentleness. “Why don’t you get some sleep, and we’ll talk about this over breakfast?”

She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Tell me the truth. Tell me the whole ugly truth about what we were doing in that lab and why you stayed with Tempest.”

He backed up and eased onto the edge of the bed across from hers. He blew out a long breath. “I stayed with Tempest even after I discovered their agenda because they wanted me to. Tempest controlled my mind and my body. They still do.”

“No.” Ava squeezed the pillow against her body, her fingers curling into soft foam.

“It’s a form of brainwashing, Ava, but it goes beyond the brain. It’s my body, too.” He pushed up from the bed and plucked up a lamp with a metal rod from the base to the lightbulb. He unplugged it and removed the shade. Gripping it on either side with his hands, he bent it to a forty-five-degree angle. Then he held up the lamp by the lightbulb, which had to still be hot, and didn’t even flinch.

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “Dr. Arnoff’s vitamin formula—stronger, faster, impervious to pain.”

He released the bulb and the distorted lamp fell to the floor. He examined his hand. “So, he did tell you.”

“That’s what he was working on, but he told me it was years from completion.”

He held up his reddened palm. “He completed it.”

“What you’re telling me—” she swung her legs over the side of the bed “—is crazy. You’re saying that Dr. Arnoff’s formula created some kind of superagent and that Tempest sent these agents out into the world to do its bidding?”

“Yes, but I told you it’s more than physical.” He tapped the side of his head. “Tempest messed with our minds, too.”

She bunched the bedspread in her hands. “How? That didn’t happen in our lab.”

“No. That occurred in the debriefing unit in Germany where we went after every assignment.”

She pinned her hands between her knees as her eyes darted to the hotel door. Max Duvall could be crazy. This could all be some elaborate hallucination, one that he’d shared with Simon Skinner. Then her gaze tracked to the metal rod of the lamp, which he’d folded as if it were a straw. So, he was crazy and strong—a bad combination.

“How did they do it? The brainwashing?”

He squeezed his eyes closed and massaged his temple with two fingers. “Mind control—it was mind control and they did it through a combination of drugs, hypnosis and sleep therapy.”

“What is sleep therapy?”

“That’s my name for it. The doctors would hook us up to machines, brain scans, and then sedate us. They said it was for deep relaxation and stress reduction, but...” He shook his head.

“But what?” She wiped her palms on the bedspread. The air in the room almost crackled with electricity.

“It didn’t do that. It didn’t relax us, at least not me and Simon. After those sessions, a jumble of memories and scenes assaulted my brain. I couldn’t tell real from fake. The memories—they implanted them in my brain.”

She gasped as a bolt of fear shot through her chest. “They wanted you to forget the assignments.”

“But I couldn’t.” He shoved off the window and stalked across the room, pressing his palms against either side of his head. “Simon and I, we remembered. I don’t know how many others did.”

He really believed all of this, and he blamed her for administering the serum. Maybe the men at her house had been there to protect her from Max. The pressures of the job had driven them both off the deep end. Simon had snapped, and Max was nearing the same precipice.

“I-is that what drove Simon to commit violence? The implanted memories?”

“No.” He pivoted and paced back to the window, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead. “The implanted memories were fine. It was the flashes of reality that tortured us.”

If she kept pretending that she believed him, maybe he’d drop her off at the airport without incident. She could make up family somewhere, a family that cared about her and worried about her well-being. A fake family.

“The reality of what he’d done for Tempest pushed Simon past the breaking point?”

“It’s the serum.” He turned again and swayed to the side. He thrust out an unsteady hand to regain his balance. “Simon tried to break the cycle, but you can’t go cold turkey. I told him not to go cold turkey.”

A spasm of pain distorted his handsome features, and Ava tensed her muscles to make a run at the door if necessary. “I’m not sure I understand, Max.”

“The pills.” He wiped a hand across his mouth and staggered. “I need the pills. I’ll end up like Simon without them.”

She braced her hands on her knees, ready to spring into action. The pills, again. He’d been going on about blue pills at the lab when he rescued her, too.

Max was talking gibberish now, his strong hands clenching and then unclenching, his gait unsteady, sweat dripping from his jaw.

“What pills?” She licked her lips. Her gaze flicked to the door. If she rolled off the other side of the bed, she could avoid Max, pitching and reeling in the middle of the room. Then she’d call 911. He needed help, but she didn’t have the strength or the tools to subdue him if he decided to attack her.

“Pocket. The blue.” Then he pitched forward and landed face-first on the floor.

Chapter Five

“Max!” She launched off the bed and crouched beside him. If he decided to grab her now, she wouldn’t have a chance against his power.

His body twitched and he moaned. He had no power to grab her now. She could make a run for it and call hotel security. The hotel would call 911, and he could get help at the hospital from a doctor—a real doctor.

Max’s dry lips parted, and he reached for her hand.

And if any part of his story was true? She knew the secrecy of that lab better than anyone. Those two men with the automatic weapons had been waiting at her house, for her. Max had saved her.

She curled her fingers around his and squeezed. “I’ll be right back.”

She ran to the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. She held it under a stream of cool water and grabbed a bottle of the stuff on her way back to Max. She swept a pillow from the bed and sat on the floor beside his prone form.

He’d rolled to his back, so at least he wasn’t unconscious.

Pressing two fingers against his neck, she checked his pulse—rapid but strong. She dabbed his face with the wet towel and eased a pillow beneath his head.

“Can you drink some water? Are you in any pain?” She held up the bottle.

“The pills.” His voice rasped from his throat.

They were back to the pills? “What pills, Max?”

His hand dropped to his side, and she remembered what he’d said before he collapsed. His pocket.