He eyed her curiously. “Do you think like a cat?”
Anastasia glared at him and her voice rose in anger. “That’s a pretty dumb question. I may have fur, but just because I look like this doesn’t mean I have the overwhelming desire to climb a tree or chase mice. I also can’t communicate with other cats, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she added.
“Well, it had crossed my mind,” Farrell said in a mild tone.
“Let it cross out,” she snapped back. “I’m a girl…just a furry one.”
She fell silent after her outburst and withdrew into a tiny ball on the cot, her legs tucked up under her. The agent cleared his throat and looked at Harry. Harry had no idea of what to say, but he did feel sorry for the girl. Whatever she’d done, clearly it wasn’t her fault. Of that, he was sure. He took a seat beside her and placed his hands in his lap, not knowing what else to do with them.
As a peace offering, Farrell asked her if she wanted something to eat. “You got any hamburgers?” she asked. “Cooked ones, okay?” Then she nudged Harry with her elbow. “What do you want?”
He couldn’t think of a thing for a few seconds. Fumbling for a response, he pulled the words “hot chocolate” out of his head.
Anastasia nodded her head. “You have good taste.”
Harry felt his face turn hot and focused his gaze on his hands. Farrell observed them both with wry look on his face and said, “Well, since we have no more orders and our waiters at Chez FBI are ready, I’ll make the call,” and he whipped out his cellphone to place the order.
Soon the food arrived and everyone ate their dinner quietly. Anastasia sat in her chair, legs crossed like any woman would…fur and all, and partial cat features aside, she exuded a kind of warmth and more troubling, a scent that Harry found disturbingly attractive.
Farrell didn’t seem to find her attractive. He waited patiently and at the end of the meal the questions started. Outside of her name, though, she didn’t volunteer any information…or couldn’t. The more questions he asked, the more agitated she became, saying she didn’t remember a thing and eventually she started to shake all over, quite violently.
Finally, he stopped the twenty-questions bit in order to let her calm down and shook his head in frustration. “You know, I don’t know what to think anymore. The only thing I’m pretty sure of is that you’re some kind of spy,” he said, staring at her. “You have no memory, you’ve got super strength and reflexes, and you’re a transgenic…whatever…it all adds up to someone sending you here, and it wasn’t for vacation purposes.”
Anastasia suddenly got off the cot and he backed up, his hand hovering around his belt where he’d put the Taser. Harry remained where he was, watching the action go down.
“How can I be a spy when I don’t remember anything?” she asked, her voice rising in anger. “What am I supposed to remember?”
Farrell smiled grimly. “You remember details.”
The agent went over to the computer, typed something in, and then called the girl over. Harry went with her and saw a picture of the interior of an office building. “Look at it for five seconds,” he ordered.
Reluctantly, she obeyed and then he closed the top. “Describe the contents of the main floor,” he ordered. “Describe everything in as much detail as you can.”
Anastasia shut her eyes and her body immediately went rigid. In a monotonous voice, she recited every facet of the room right down to the last plant and what genus it was. Finally, she opened her eyes, blinked, and shook her head as if trying to rid it of the bugs inside. “Did I say anything?”
“You have total recall,” Farrell murmured. “You have no memory of who you are or where you came from, but you remember everything right down to the last little atom. That makes you a spy in my book.”
Anastasia said nothing and stared at the floor. Finally, she picked her head up and looked at Harry. “You said you were some kind of scientist. Can you make me normal?” Her eyes spoke of desperation, as did her voice.
For a moment, uncertainty gripped at Harry’s soul. If there was one place where he always felt confident, it was in the lab, at the computer, doing what he did best, and now…he felt lost. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I have to study your DNA more and see what they—uh, I mean, whoever, uh, did this—um, what they did to you.”
Anastasia grimaced. “I don’t remember what I looked like before. I don’t remember anything. All I remember is waking up and seeing myself in a mirror.” She turned her head away and her voice got low and started to shake. “But I know what I look like now. I’m a freak.”
Farrell didn’t bother to offer his opinion. Harry didn’t know what to do…and finally he got up, went over to her side, and put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not a freak,” he said softly. “You’re not.”
The sound of Farrell’s cellphone interrupted things. He opened it up and spoke quietly into it. “We have something,” he said after hanging up and his mood brightened considerably. “Interpol just gave us details. Someone’s come in, and he may be able to help us.”
Two seconds later, a knock sounded at the door. Farrell opened it and ushered the visitor in. Tall and rail-thin with a hatchet face and dark brown hair, he appeared to be in his mid-fifties, and wore a cheap-looking suit and vest with an antique watch hanging out of the vest pocket. The two men quietly spoke to each other and then Farrell turned around and pointed to his guest.
“Harry, Anastasia, this is Oleg, our contact,” he said. “He used to work for the KGB years back. He was a doctor for them, defected to our side, and that’s all you have to know for now.”
Harry was confused. “So what makes you think she’s a spy?”
Farrell didn’t bother looking at him. He kept his gaze focused on the prisoner. “What I told you before makes sense. She has a Russian name, she can remember details, and she’s obviously been programmed to do something. Don’t get fooled just because she’s a girl.” Then he waved at the other man. “Do what you have to do.”
The former KGB agent didn’t speak right away. “This…may not work,” he said after hesitating a moment. “I’m not sure…”
“Get on with it!”
Oleg asked Anastasia to sit on the cot. Harry moved aside, and Oleg repositioned the chair across from Anastasia, took the watch out, and let it dangle from his hand. He waved it back and forth in front of her face, muttering softly in his native language. She continued to stare at the pendulum, her eyes growing glassier by the second.
Harry remembered the old hypnosis tricks he’d seen on television. This is so much BS, he thought…but after observing the action, he soon realized this was no joke. Her head soon sagged and she seemed to be asleep.
Oleg put away the watch fob and turned to face the FBI agent. He spoke English reasonably well with only a slight accent and a few grammatical mistakes. “This is something I learned many years ago. I am doctor, but often we trained agents who had been drugged beforehand and used hypnosis to implant memory blocks and triggers to open them. Please be patient.”
He spoke softly to Anastasia in his native language. She kept her head down, didn’t say anything for a moment, and then words came out in a halting monotone, accented and quiet. Harry gasped—it was true—she was Russian! Even though he didn’t like Farrell, he had to admit the man’s instincts had been correct.
The questioning continued, and the word Nyet came up a number of times. Harry knew what it meant. It was Russian for no and it meant to him, if to no one else, that she didn’t know who’d done this to her.
After five minutes, Anastasia’s body started to shake, and then she fell silent. The ex-spy took out the watch fob again, tilted her chin up, and began the procedure all over again. She gradually stopped shaking, and after five minutes he snapped his fingers and she woke up, blinking rapidly. Farrell asked impatiently, “Well?”
Oleg looked at him and stated flatly, “She is definitely Russian, from region near Siberia. I know that accent fr
om people I trained with. That is all she could tell me about her origins. She has no memory of family, where she went to school…nothing.”
“What about her mutation?” Farrell pressed. “Does she know who did this to her?”
The ex-KGB man shook his head. “She remembers being in some kind of laboratory with dull yellow lights. There was wood all around, perhaps walls or perhaps a cage. She remembers some kind of large animal-man. That is all.”
Harry recalled her words. The images she said she had seen—had they been real or just implanted memories? He didn’t know. The doctor sat back and Harry, not knowing what else to do, went over to Anastasia’s side. Tentatively he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”
She didn’t respond to his touch, just sat there, mute and unresponsive. Farrell took it all in and his face remained impassive. Harry thought he was either colder than a dead fish or a total jerk. Given the choice, he’d go with the latter. For now, though, he concentrated on the girl near him.
Finally, the agent turned to Oleg and asked, “So is she a spy or what?”
The other man shrugged and threw up his hands. “I do not know. It is obvious that there has been some kind of experimentation done. I had heard of such things going on, but I was never part of it. My branch was into espionage and I was doctor in charge of healing wounded agents, helping to debrief them through hypnosis after they had returned from mission. This is something new to me.”
“But how did she get here, and why does she speak English so well?” Harry wanted to know. He’d seen the truth—or part of it, anyway—but didn’t really get the entire scenario.
Oleg shook his head. “That I do not know, either. Whoever brought her here could have had her smuggled in on a freighter, or perhaps she grew up here and was kept inside all this time. I cannot tell you. Much of our research was classified, and we were put on—how you say it—need-to-know-basis?”
Farrell nodded. “Continue.”
The doctor indicated Anastasia with a wave of his hand. “All I know is that she had been put under some kind of hypnotic control before. In KGB, we often used drugs such as Temazepam, sodium pentothal, acetylcholine which helps block memory, and other narcotics, along with sensory deprivation and shock treatment.”
He spoke very casually about the experiments, as if describing how to dissect a frog. Perhaps Anastasia had heard or perhaps her mind woke up from the hypnotic trance, but whatever the case, she started to shake and Harry clumsily put his arms around her as a gesture of support. She broke down and wept, and this time she clung to him as a person would cling to a life vest to keep from drowning. The whole idea of experimentation pissed him off more and more by the second. They’d ruined her life! “Nice to know you care so much about your people,” he said.
Oleg snapped, “It is what we did. I did not like taking part in it then and I take no pride in it now. It was something we did in order to make spy, and I am sure your people performed same tests on their spies.”
“Let’s pigeonhole that for now,” Farrell cut in. His voice sounded raw and tired. It seemed that all he wanted was the correct answer, and he wanted it now. “Is there any way you can unlock her mental blocks?”
The other man shook his head. “I would have to say no. There may be key word or key phrase or number which will cause her to open up. It may also cause her mind to collapse. Our people were always made aware of penalty for talking to foreign governments, and KGB made sure they would not talk. In any case, there could be one word or any number of words or numbers, but I do not know which ones. It might take hours, days, even months to unlock secrets, if there are any.”
Farrell rubbed his face tiredly. “Would you suggest any kind of drug use now?”
Oleg shook his head. “No, I would not. It is too great a risk. I ask you, though, if we could do more hypnosis later on. It might help loosen mental blockage.”
The man in black uttered a few expletives in frustration, but then his tone softened somewhat. “We’d appreciate the cooperation, Oleg.”
“I will do my best.”
Anastasia picked her head up. She’d stopped shaking and glared at both men. “Did anyone ask me what I wanted? Did anyone ask me to become this?”
She pushed Harry away gently, got to her feet, and swept her hands up and down her body. “Look at me! How am I supposed to fit in anywhere? I woke up in some room and the next thing I know you’ve got me caged up like an animal. I can’t go out in public, I don’t know who I am, so what more do you want out of me?”
“The truth,” Farrell answered coldly. “We want the truth.”
Her yellow eyes filled with rage. The agent took a step back, his hand near his gun belt. She saw the gesture and halted. “How do you expect me to tell the truth since I can’t remember it in the first place?”
“It’s in there, somewhere,” the Fed told her, pointing at her head.
Her voice rang with bitterness. “Yeah, maybe it is, but all I know is that I was born in Russia. I just found that out now. I don’t remember speaking Russian—but this guy,” she pointed at Oleg, “says I can. Everything about me has been erased, like I never existed. The police caught me two days ago. You should have shot me when you had the chance.”
Tears suddenly poured from her eyes. She spun on her heel and walked into the cell. She didn’t even bother to close the door, just sat on her haunches and started to cry, and her body shook uncontrollably. Harry started to go over, but she waved him off. “No, don’t come near me!” she yelled.
He stood there, helpless, and his keeper along with the ex-KGB spy stood up and went to the door. “I, uh, think it’s time to get some coffee,” Farrell said, and this time his voice sounded a bit less hard-edged. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
Farrell and Oleg went out, the door softly closing behind them. Anastasia continued to cry and Harry went to his computer. He sat down in front of it, gazed at it blankly for a few seconds, but didn’t switch it on. In the back of his mind, he felt just as guilty as those who’d done this to her.
Anastasia remained in her cell and Farrell came in a few minutes after her breakdown to see if her mood had improved. It hadn’t. She refused to speak and hugged her knees, wrapped in her misery. He eyed her without a shred of pity and beckoned Harry outside. Reluctantly, he went.
After closing the door, Harry asked, “So what did you ask me out here for, a pep talk on how to be nice?”
Farrell rubbed his face tiredly and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen them up. “Look, kid…Harry…I know I come off as a hardass at times, and I apologize. But I’ve been at this job thirty years and part of my job is to interrogate prisoners, pump them for info, and get at the real truth.”
All Harry saw was a man using his position to abuse someone else…but he listened anyway. “So what is the truth, your version of it—or hers?”
The agent shook his head. “I really don’t know, but what I don’t know, I don’t trust. Call me paranoid, but I find it pretty strange that a girl from nowhere who looks like that suddenly pops up with no memory of where she came from and only knows her first name, but somehow has the power of total recall. It’s hard enough for someone trained in espionage to do it. Not many people can, so yeah, what would you do in this situation, just let her go?”
There it was—the million dollar question. In Harry’s mind, he understood what the agent was getting at, but also believed Anastasia when she said she didn’t remember anything. It had all been a set-up, he figured, and…
Farrell snapped his fingers for attention and his face took on a serious mien. “I don’t trust her, I’ll tell you that right now. Outside of her being as strong as she is, she’s dangerous. I’m also going to tell you something which you’re not gonna like and this is for your own good. Don’t get too close to her.”
Harry felt a sudden rush of embarrassment and shrugged his shoulders, mumbling, “We’re not close—”
“Not yet,” the a
gent interrupted and not unkindly at that. “I’ve seen how you look at her. She’s sort of cute in her own way, and you’re both about the same age. Hey, if you’re into animals…”
“She’s not an animal!” Harry balled up his fists and wondered where all his anger came from. Oh, yeah, being locked up for something he hadn’t done and seeing someone else locked up for being what she was royally pissed him off. “You try being stuck in a cage and see what it does to your sense of humor. You and your goons ripped me off of my life, so yeah, maybe I’m not too happy seeing someone else get the same treatment.”
In spite of Harry giving up inches in height and pounds in bodyweight not to mention combat training, Farrell backed off and held his hands up as a peace offering. “Okay, I was out of line. But she isn’t totally human, either. You know that.”
Reason broke through and Harry’s rage cooled. In his mind, though, Anastasia was still a girl, and after what she’d been through, he privately resolved to help her if he could. In a way, he felt responsible. He’d been doing the same research, only he never—perhaps naively—figured anyone would reach this level.
Farrell pointed at the room. “Do me a favor. Go back inside and talk to her. If there’s anyone who can get through to her, it’s you. She seems to trust you. I’ll go upstairs and see what our defector doctor says.”
Harry nodded and went inside. Anastasia glanced at him briefly as he entered and then quickly shifted her position to face the wall. He sighed softly, flipped open the top of his computer, and set about analyzing all the data in an effort to find a link in the genetic chain that would solve the riddle of her transformation.
An hour later, he was still working on his hypothesis, on the verge of getting what he wanted when a hand fell on his shoulder. Startled, he turned around. Anastasia, eyes still red from her previous crying bout, had come out to stand beside him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She gave him a wan smile. “As long as I don’t look in the mirror, I’m fine,” she stated.
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