Talons of the Falcon

by Rebecca York

  “Enough sun for today, I think,” Eden said. Together they turned and made their way slowly back toward the house.

  * * *

  “WELL, WHAT DO YOU think?” Major Downing leaned back in his chair and looked at the other members of the security team.

  “A disaster,” Price spoke up. “We don’t have a thing on the tape but crashing surf and birdcalls.”

  “Maybe we could sell it to one of those sound effect companies,” Yolanski suggested.

  Price shot him a withering look. Walker repressed a grin.

  “I don’t think it’s all that bad,” Downing cut in. “In the first place, I’m going to insist that Dr. Sommers conduct her afternoon sessions upstairs in the usual room. That way we’ll be getting half of what they’re saying. But even if we lost them this morning, I’m encouraged. Bradley looked different when he came back from that outing. Did you notice it?”

  “Yes,” Walker agreed. “There was something more open about his expression. And his eyes didn’t look quite so empty.”

  “He looked more guarded than vacant,” Yolanski agreed.

  “What do you think she was doing to breathe life into him out there?” Price broke in.

  Downing waved his arm in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care if she was giving him mouth-to-crotch resuscitation—just so long as it gets results.”

  There was a chorus of male laughter around the table.

  “So that’s why you moved her into the room next to his,” Yolanski joked.

  “As a matter of fact, more than one soldier has been brought back from the dead by a good-looking woman. Never underestimate the power of healing passion.” He paused for a moment. “So I had nothing to lose by giving the good doctor a chance to see if that’s where her inclinations lay.”

  There were more snickers around the table. “And I thought you had been getting ready to try your luck with her yourself,” Yolanski said.

  “Business before pleasure,” Downing mused philosophically.

  * * *

  THAT AFTERNOON Eden hesitated for a moment as she pulled open the door to the therapy room. Until her discussion with Downing after lunch, she had assumed she and Mark would have another private session. Now they’d be back to playing games. Only the stakes were higher. She was going to have to show some progress. But maybe there was a way to accomplish her purpose and his, too.

  Mark looked up expectantly when she walked in.

  “There’s been a change in plans. Major Downing is concerned that you might overexert yourself. So he’s asked us to stay inside for our afternoon sessions.”

  Her patient’s features were immediately guarded. Was she lying? Was this some new trick?

  “But I don’t want to lose the momentum we established this morning,” she continued.

  He waited.

  Eden took a deep breath. Even with this setback, she wasn’t going to allow them to regress to square one again. “With similar cases I’ve found it useful to start by talking through what happened before the trauma took place. Your folder has given me some idea of what happened during the time period before your accident. Let’s see if we can bring it into focus.”

  Mark shook his head vehemently from side to side.

  “Don’t be alarmed. I’ll do most of the talking. You just have to answer yes or no. And if a question is too painful, we can come back to that point later.”

  The closed expression that she had first seen on Mark’s face was starting to settle over his features like a papier mâché mask hardening into place.

  Instinctively she reached out for his hands and squeezed them so hard that her nails dug into the flesh of his palms. Anger flashed briefly in his eyes.

  “Trust me,” she mouthed without saying the words aloud.

  When she let go, just a bit of tension went out of his shoulders.

  “Why don’t you lie down on the couch?” she suggested. “I think you’ll be more comfortable.”

  “You mean so that you can play headshrinker?” There was a raw edge to his voice.

  Eden shook her head. “No. I’m not going to sit behind you. I’ll be right where we can see each other.” Turning, she pulled a wooden chair over toward the couch. She didn’t look around, but she heard Mark get up and follow her.

  She offered him a pillow and waited until he seemed comfortably settled.

  “Are you ready?”

  He nodded curtly.

  “Fine. Then let’s start with a few facts for the record,” she began. And let’s hope you’ll tell me what the Falcon needs to know about whether you completed your assignment for him. “I do hold an Alpha clearance. So you don’t have to worry about compromising national security.” Or your own security.

  Their eyes met. Could he read between the lines? Did he realize she wouldn’t do anything to endanger him? “Your name is Mark David Bradley and you hold the rank of lieutenant colonel in the air force. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your last duty assignment for the air force was project Orion.”

  “Yes.” Of course, Mark Bradley had also been on special assignment for the Peregrine Connection. But she’d been careful to specify air force. He looked up at her in acknowledgment, and she nodded.

  “You had been sent on TDY to Berlin in September?”

  “No, October.”

  She went on. “You were there to coordinate engineering specs with our West German allies.”

  “Yes.”

  “October is a lively time in Berlin. Did you get a chance to take in the Octoberfest?”

  His eyes questioned her. What was she getting at?

  She just smiled and gestured with her hands, palms upward. Let Downing make what he would of that.

  “Yes.”

  “You also accomplished your mission?”

  He hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Did you renew any old military or air force acquaintances?”

  “Not really.”

  “Make any new friends?” The question slipped out and Eden realized suddenly that it was strictly for her personal information. Had he been seriously involved with anyone else since their affair?

  He looked her straight in the eye as if reading her thoughts. “No.”

  “You found out what you needed to know?”

  Again he seemed to make a decision. “Yes.”

  And what did you do with that information, Mark? she desperately wanted to ask. Is it safe? But that would have to wait—until they were alone and he trusted her more.

  “You were hitching a ride back on a cargo plane from the U.S. facility at Tegel Air Base?”

  “Yes.” His voice was a whisper, as if the very mention of that place had brought back terrible memories.

  “The preflight procedures were perfectly routine?”

  “Yes.” Again he barely mouthed the syllable.

  Eden reached out and laid her hand over his reassuringly for a moment. “An engine caught fire on takeoff?” she guessed. No one really did know what had happened, except that the plane had crashed almost immediately on East German soil.

  “No. A bomb.” His eyes closed tightly as though to shut out the horror. But it was too late. He had shied away for so long from what had been done to him. Now suddenly here was someone offering to share the burden. For a moment he didn’t even know whether the story was true or whether he’d simply memorized the script. It didn’t matter; his anguish was real.

  “The bomb was planted under my assigned seat. But I’d decided to nap instead of look out the window. So I was in the back, where it was dark. I think we’d just started our climb when the bomb went off. The explosion was deafening.” He put his hands over his ears, and his face contorted with remembered agony. He wanted desperately to stop, but the words kept pouring out. “It tore a hole the size of a garage door in the side of the plane. I was strapped in or I would have been sucked out. But maybe a clean death would have been better. We lost altitude right away. There was fire everywhere. God,
it was a flying inferno, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” Perspiration beaded on his forehead.

  “Mark,” she called, but he didn’t seem to hear. And when she reached for his hand again, he clutched her fingers in a death grip. But it might have been the arm of his airplane seat. He wasn’t on Pine Island anymore. He was in the middle of hell.

  It was as though a logjam of denied memories had broken loose. His tight control had finally snapped. Eden had thought the remembering would be therapeutic. She hadn’t been prepared for him to let go like this so quickly. Suddenly she was afraid of what he might say, and who might hear it.

  “Fire everywhere. The smell of burning flesh, and it’s your own.”

  She heard him suck great gasps of air into his lungs as though he were still trapped in that fire and fighting for each breath.

  “God, then the impact,” he choked out. “It must have thrown me out of the plane. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything else.” But there was suddenly something else that was burning like a brand on the backs of his closed eyelids. It was a number: 002-72-52. He had no idea what it meant. It could have been a combination lock, a bank account, his patient I.D. number. The significance was beyond his grasp. But he knew it was important—and deadly.

  Despite himself he whispered the digits aloud.

  “What?” Eden prompted.

  He groaned and pulled his free hand up over his eyes, but not before she saw the moisture trickling from behind the closed lids. Her own face was damp, too.

  “Mark. It’s all over. It’s all over,” she said soothingly, her hand gently stroking his. He didn’t immediately open his eyes. But she was sure he was aware of his surroundings again. His breathing had begun to steady, and the deeply etched lines of stress in his face softened slightly.

  Eden leaned over and gently pressed her cheek against his. His arm came up to clasp her shoulder. And for a moment he seemed to accept the comfort that she offered. His head turned slightly and she wondered fleetingly if he might be going to kiss her. Instead his lips made the barest sound next to her ear. “Someone here wants to make sure it’s not over.”

  Chapter Seven

  Under other circumstances Eden would have felt elated by Major Downing’s change in attitude when he approached her that evening after dinner. In one sense, anything would have been an improvement over the imperious way he’d been acting. Ever since she’d arrived, he’d hovered in the background like a silent tiger stalking her and Mark. Now that she had begun to make some “progress,” the chief of station was suddenly less assured. Officially she wasn’t supposed to know he was listening in on the sessions upstairs in the medical wing. So he couldn’t come right out and ask what she’d done to change the status quo, but curiosity was written all over his face.

  “Colonel Bradley certainly looked remarkably improved after that walk you took on the beach this morning,” Downing said, fishing.

  “Yes, the sea air seems to have done him a world of good,” Eden returned with a smile.

  “Can’t you tell me if anything significant happened out there?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  He gnawed on his lower lip. He knew she was making astounding progress. He’d heard her afternoon session himself. Why didn’t she want to talk about it?

  Eden watched his expression. In a way it gave her a great deal of satisfaction to play dumb and watch the major beg for table scraps like a hungry mongrel, but maybe teasing Downing was simply too dangerous. In fact, if she gave him no satisfaction, he might start coming to his own conclusions; and they could be too close to the truth.

  “I consider my sessions with Colonel Bradley confidential, but I did make an exciting breakthrough this morning that I’d like to share with you,” she offered.

  “Go on.”

  “One of the articles I accessed from the Medlars system suggested trying hypnosis on recalcitrant cases like our patient. I was afraid he’d resist the approach, but down on the beach with the rhythmic crashing of the waves, it was easy to put him under.”

  “And?” Downing couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice.

  “He started talking. With the right encouragement, I think he may let me take him back through his experiences of the last eight months.”

  Downing looked thoughtful. His burning curiosity satisfied, he was quickly reverting to type. “That’s good news. Now that Bradley’s dropped the silent act, we might be able to get somewhere with the interrogation team.”

  “That’s rather shortsighted,” Eden shot back.

  “Oh?”

  “We’ve only crossed the first barrier in the hundred-meter hurdles, Major. If you step in with the interrogation team, we’re never going to finish the race,” Eden cautioned. “I’ve just earned Colonel Bradley’s trust, and the bond is fragile—and so is his recovery at this point.”

  Downing’s jaw muscles clenched. “Don’t forget, winning that race of yours isn’t our main mission. I’m willing to bet that Bradley’s memory is selective. If he’s not giving you what I need, we’ll have to fall back on other measures.”

  It wasn’t an idle threat. Even though Downing was biding his time for the moment, he held the real power here. Eden was still going to have to walk the thin line between returning Mark to normal and satisfying the chief of station’s demands.

  * * *

  ALTHOUGH MARSHALL pointedly left the cane beside the door the next morning, Mark just as pointedly ignored it. He’d spilled his guts to Eden yesterday, he thought in self-disgust. God knows what she’d be able to get out of him today.

  For months he’d treated his memories like a man locked up with a canister of poison gas. In German it would be called Gift Gas, and the irony didn’t escape him. It was the Leipzig legacy still controlling him four thousand miles away. Uncorking that German canister might well be a death sentence, for himself and maybe for others.

  Until Eden had arrived, his inner resources had kept the seal on that lethal container intact. He’d fooled himself into thinking that the pressure wasn’t building to the bursting point, but he no longer had those illusions. Day after day he’d had to fight his reaction to the new member of the staff at Pine Island. It wasn’t just her perceptive blue eyes that seemed to penetrate to his very soul. It was the growing conviction that she sincerely wanted to help him; and, dammit, it was his awareness of her as a woman.

  But maybe that was precisely the problem. He hadn’t just bottled up his memories, he’d bottled up his emotions, as well. In fact, turning himself into an automaton had been all that had saved him from Downing’s security team so far. But Eden Sommers had succeeded where the major and his minions had failed. That bastard Marshall hadn’t been the only one who’d noticed how Dr. Sommers filled out her clinging knit tops, or how her jeans hugged the round curve of her bottom, but he was a lot more tuned to Eden than a clod like Marshall ever could be. From behind his emotionless mask, he’d made a study of her. He knew the graceful way she moved, the stormy look that came into her eyes when she was exasperated, the way her long, tapered fingers felt in his when she was trying to comfort him.

  The night she’d come into his room to quiet his nightmares, he’d sent her away, but the memory of her warm body covering his had haunted him ever since. He’d played that scene over and over again in his mind, and in his fantasies he hadn’t let her go. More than once he’d been helpless to stop the intimacy from reaching its logical conclusion. Achieving physical release had vented only a little of the pressure. What he craved was the warm, living, breathing reality of Eden Sommers. He wanted to bury himself in her softness and shut out for a few moments all the forces that were trying to destroy him.

  The question on her lips when she entered the recreation room was too perceptive for comfort. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “Badly.”

  The acerbic tone brought a look of compassion to her face. “That was a tough session yesterday afternoon.”

>   He didn’t reply.

  “Would you like to get out for a walk again this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  This time she also ignored the cane. When they were out of the shadow of the main house, Mark paused and took a deep breath, filling his lungs once again with the salty air. He wasn’t going to admit it, but breaking his confinement had made a tremendous difference. Today he gained the line of the breakers more quickly. Instead of sitting down when they reached the stretch of beach beyond the stone wall, he kept walking. Here the hard-packed sand was strewn with colorful shells. Stopping for a moment, Eden picked up one that was shaped like a delicate coil. Mark didn’t wait.

  Eden straightened and then hurried to catch up. For a few minutes she kept pace with him in silence. Then she cleared her throat. “Let’s not overdo it.”

  “I think I’ve recovered sufficient strength for a stroll on the beach.”

  “Mark, what’s the matter?”

  “What a question.” His foot kicked at a little pile of seaweed on the sand.

  She laughed. “Where would you like to start?”

  He turned and faced her. “Don’t try to take me back to East Germany.” In the hot August sunlight, beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip.

  “But you’ve got to confront what happened.”

  “No.”

  “Listen, maybe you’re not tired, but I’m not used to conducting peripatetic therapy sessions. Could we sit down?”

  Mark looked back toward the rock wall. It was a good hundred yards behind them. If someone had planted a particularly sensitive microphone there in anticipation of his quarry’s return, he was going to be disappointed. Mark shrugged inwardly. He didn’t intend to say anything important this morning, but you never knew what the loquacious Dr. Sommers was going to come up with.

  When he sat, it was with his body angled away from her, his eyes fixed on the ebbing and flowing surf. Eden knew that closed, guarded expression all too well. She had miscalculated yesterday and pushed too hard. What she had gotten from Mark hadn’t been worth it, because now she had lost him again.