The Room of White Fire

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “I’m afraid for the people around him.”

  “I hope you find him in time.”

  “In time for what, Dr. Hulet?”

  “I don’t know. The worst fears come from what we do not know.”

  I doubted that, shrugged.

  “And Mr. Ford? I have a few more true words for you. My name is Paige Ann Hulet. I don’t think you are an ass or an ape. And it’s been five years, but I used to be a good dancer.”

  The sound of her words seemed to hover for a moment before being consumed by the sound of the air conditioner in Clay Hickman’s room. “I don’t get you,” I said.

  “Truths are always complicated.”

  “Some are simple.”

  “Tell me if you find one.”

  15

  Clay’s laptop computer, bolted to the desktop for security, was an older machine. He had scratched elaborate doodles on it with a sharp object. So much for pen and pencil forfeiture. But the laptop had medium-speed Internet capability, good graphics, and email set up with an Arcadia.org address. His desktop wallpaper was an Air Force SERE emblem featuring an eagle trapped within barbed wire. The slogan at the bottom read: RETURN WITH HONOR.

  I saw that his last email had been sent on the previous Monday at 8:05 a.m., the day he escaped. I recognized the recipient—San Diego KPBS TV host Nell Flanagan. I was a fan of her show.

  Dear Ms. Flanagan,

  I enjoyed yesterday’s piece about the Navy dolphin training program. I would like to remind you again of the much better story that I have to tell you. (See my earlier email.) I may be out of touch for a few days and wanted to give you plenty of time to consider.

  Best,

  Clay Hickman

  The next-to-most-recent email was sent just ten minutes earlier, to one John Vazquez.

  Yo Vazz,

  Just checking in. Head is clearing as the walls close in. Gods on the lawn and black hoods in the shadows. Dr. Paige my guiding light. White fire to Deimos!

  Soon,

  Clay

  The word soon jumped out at me. How soon? And was John Vazquez an old war friend? The old war friend?

  Vazquez had replied two hours later, about the time Clay and Sequoia Blain were digging Clay out of Arcadia.

  Hey Claymore,

  They’re working me to death here but I got nothing better to do. Laura mostly happy and Michael is great. Have yourself a kid some day. Glad the head is clearing. Mine okay. Miss the smoke but anything beats White Fire. I can come down to San Diego and see you sometime. Don’t say “soon” if you don’t mean it!

  Later,

  Vazz

  In Clay’s address book I found John Vazquez in Redwood Valley, California. North of Ojai, in the direction Clay and Sequoia were headed. I emailed Vazquez on my phone, told him Clay Hickman was in trouble and I was trying to help him. I told him there was a possibility that Clay was on his way there. I asked Vazquez to contact me immediately.

  More silence from Sequoia. I texted her again:

  Where are you and where are you going?

  Back on the computer I scrolled through Clay’s sent and received emails over the last months, noting that John Vazquez was his most frequent correspondent. Clay’s second-favorite correspondent was Daphne, the estranged sister who had never visited Clay in Arcadia.

  Hi Clay,

  I like the pictures of your paintings but I wish you were happier and could paint happier subjects. Maybe if you got yourself some yellows and whites you’d find yourself with more optimism. I’m glad you have a good doctor. I miss you but I understand why you don’t want to see me. I am happy now that I’ve separated myself from Rex and Patricia and Kayla. So relieved to be free of them. Mel and I are very happy and my own paintings are selling very well at the gallery. I can’t believe I’m 30 this Wednesday!

  Hugs,

  Daphne

  I noted that there were no solicitations and no junk mail, and that Clay’s trash box was empty. It figured that DeMaris, and probably Paige Hulet, screened his correspondence, trying to keep Clay insulated from the world.

  Randomly, I read some of Clay’s sent mail, going back in time from his Monday email to John Vazquez. Names I recognized: Paige Hulet, Evan Southern, and Timothy Tritt—Briggs Spencer’s former partner.

  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 s
hows 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.”

  16

  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.

  Four round tables stood in the middle of the room, each with a tall sign: A–G, H–N, etc. At each table waited an all-white staffer, a small bouquet in a plastic vase, a snack basket, and a plastic tub filled with drinks.

  Also a stainless steel case about the size and shape of a shoe box, where, I assumed, the drugs were kept. Psychotropics, sedatives, stimulants, anticonvulsants, antianxiety drugs, mood stabilizers, pain-numbing opioids, and who knew what else. I had been surprised at the number of drugs in Clay Hickman’s formulary. Next to the pill lockers stood inverted stacks of small white cups.

  I took a seat under a sunny window, arranged my visitor’s badge to be visible, and watched. Music played softly—rock melodies on synthesizers, lyrics redacted like the last two years on Clay Hickman’s service record. The patients and the staffers carried on polite, familiar conversations, which gave the room a subdued, professional hum. Could have been a convention of pediatric oncologists or funerary wholesalers.

  I couldn’t get Paige Hulet’s simulations of truth out of my mind. I wondered what she was hiding. The only solid fact I’d really gotten from her was that she cared deeply for Clay. Fine. But why had she given me a falsified service history? Did she really not know? Why no file notes on Clay’s “rote” details of Ali Air Base? Why no mention of electroconvulsive therapy? I also couldn’t help wondering what, exactly, she meant by saying she’d once been a good dancer. Ready to try again? Well, that was a changeup.

  It was strange that all three of the deities here—DeMaris, Hulet, and Spencer—had insisted that I notify him, her, or him first when I’d located the man they all wanted to find. Me. No, me. No, me.

  And it was beyond strange that Clay’s soon-to-be-a-celebrity, multimillionaire healer had once been his superior at a black-site prison in Romania.

  My brain swimming with bullshit and prevarication, I looked out at the weird opulence of Arcadia’s “med hour,” where fifty-nine ailing pilgrims would soon be downing the powerful drugs that shaped their lives.

  Two beefy white-clads stood at ease along each wall, hands folded in front of them and eyes sharp.

  Alec DeMaris strode in, packed into a trim brown suit and flanked by two more white-clad orderlies. He seemed to be making an important point. When he saw me, he stopped, dismissed the men, and came over. Sat one chair away.

  “Darn, Roland—you’ve got two strikes. One at the Waterfront and another up in Ojai. Don’t tell me we have to double your pay again.”

  “That’s okay, Alec. I’m making a fair wage.”

  “But what are you doing here in the one place you know Clay Hickman isn’t?”

  I looked over at him. “They call this Investigation 101, Alec. You ask questions and sometimes you get surprising answers.”

  “Surprise me, then.”

  I ignored him instead.

  Mostly the partners were entering the room alone. Some talked and pointed and nudged each other. Some raised their chins and strode to their destinies. Most were dressed casually, though there was one Native American woman in beaded buckskin, a tiny old ballerina, and the two young Charger and Padre fans I’d seen before.

  “The Jock Brothers,” said DeMaris. “I caught them snorting Ritalin in the toolshed not long ago. I heard them inside—arguing National League versus American League pitching.”

  They came in our direction and stopped in front of us.

  Charger leaned over and looked at me. From the recess of his helmet stared two curious blue eyes. I saw that the helmet had been signed by Philip Rivers. “Chargers?” he demanded. “Or Padres?”

  “You know it,” I said. “Go Bolts. Go Friars.”

  “What else is he going to say?” asked DeMaris.

  “He’s just checking,” said the one with the Hoffman jersey. His cap looked like a re
al MLB issue, right down to the red clay ground into the fabric.

  “Why don’t you gutterballs go harass someone else?” asked DeMaris.

  Hoffman chortled. Rivers stood up straight, chest out, turned to DeMaris. “You may be head of security, but you have no right to treat nobody like anything,” he said.

  “Not so sure I’m clear on that, Phil,” said Demaris. “Move along, you two.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Hoffman, offering me his hand. I shook Rivers’s hand, too. Hoffman put out his hand again, so I shook it once more.

  “Enjoy the games, gentlemen,” said DeMaris, standing. “You, too, Ford. Get in line. Score yourself some fentanyl if you want to feel like you’re having sex on a cloud while eating a cheeseburger. At least, that’s how I’ve heard it described.”

  —

  Edward Frizell from Pasadena—otherwise known as Evan Southern from Alabama—spotted me and took the chair beside me. He wore a light blue seersucker suit, a button-down white shirt, and a regimental tie. In one hand he carried a neatly folded San Diego Union-Tribune. Between the first two fingers of his other hand was a handsome tortoiseshell cigarette holder that matched the frames of his glasses. The cigarette itself, I noted, was candy, with a dab of red dye for an ember. He crossed his legs, rested the paper atop one knee, and drew on the mouthpiece. “Should I conclude that you haven’t found him?”

  “I missed him by six hours.” I told him about the Waterfront, Clay’s new friend, his Ojai run.

  He pursed his lips. “I suspected he’d seek out female companionship.”

  “Why is he so afraid of his parents?”

  Evan looked up toward the ceiling, seemed to be scanning it for something specific. Cameras, mics, and drones, I thought. “He dreaded their visits. He would have seizures beginning a week or two before they were to take place.”