by Toby Neal
Other than my wheeled hospital bed, there was a wall-mounted cot folded up for storage. A steel toilet in one corner. A sink, with low, rounded knobs. The walls were covered with thick, oatmeal-colored carpet. The door looked securely locked, and I knew the look of a wire-gridded security-glass window.
I was in the psychiatric unit.
I felt panic rise in a wave. I breathed through the urge to thrash and fight my bindings.
I’d been put here for a reason. Something wasn’t right. Maybe I knew something I didn’t know I knew. Maybe the company or the army were worried about my adjustment back to the States after the ordeal—though shooting me up with tranquilizers and leaving me in an isolation unit, bound to a bed, didn’t seem very therapeutic.
I lowered my head, which was aching again, to assess my own physical state. I was definitely better. The IV was gone, and I could feel by moving that the wound in my side was closing. Other than the ache of my head, I felt fine.
The lights came up, softly. A knock came from the door—clearly just a courtesy, as I heard locks ratchet back. A familiar face appeared, and I strained to sit up.
“Dr. Wilson! Thank God. Can you get these damn restraints off me?”
“Michael. So good to see you.” Dr. Wilson was wearing a white lab coat over her usual floral wrap dress, and her blue eyes, while smiling, looked worried. “I’m here to assess you.”
“Assess what? I’ve been looking for someone to debrief me, tell me what the heck’s been going on since they took me by helicopter out of Honduras, but no one will answer my questions, and now they’re treating me like I’m crazy!” I tried to lower my voice. “Please take these off me. Surely you don’t think I’d hurt you.”
Caprice Wilson smiled and shook her head, her creamy blond hair glinting in the artificial light. She bent close. “Of course not. Let me just check these.”
She leaned close as she unbuckled one of the leather straps. Her breath, smelling faintly of minty toothpaste, tickled the hair of my ear. “We’re being monitored. I had to pull all sorts of strings to get in to see you. Stay very calm and I’ll answer everything I can,” she whispered.
I gave a slight nod. She unbuckled the restraints and pushed a lever that raised the back of the bed.
“Need some water?” There was a paper cup on the sink. I nodded, suppressing my questions. I trusted Dr. Wilson totally. She’d been my wife’s therapist before we met, and had proved herself a friend and colleague over the years since.
She filled the cup of water and brought it to me. I sipped. “Thanks.”
There was nowhere for her to sit, so she rested a hip on the edge of the bed. “What do you remember, Michael?”
Her voice was low, hypnotic. I knew she was doing some sort of mind juju on me, but this was Dr. Wilson. I trusted her. I shook my head carefully. “It’s a long story. A lot happened. Shouldn’t I be debriefing with one of the army guys?”
“They’re taping this interview. Since the staff reported you were agitated, I asked if I could do your main debrief and assess your current state of mind.”
“I’m glad it’s you. Thanks. Do you want the long or the short version?”
“I’ve been thoroughly briefed on the events and timeline of the kidnapping, so give me your short version first. Then I can help you with any knowledge gaps you might be missing.”
“Well, then, you can tell me how long I was sick. Because something’s not adding up.” I pulled the sheet aside and showed her my feet. “My feet should be wrecked. And I had an injury to my side, but not my head. I mean, someone clocked me on the head when we were taken, but that didn’t slow me down. I don’t know how my feet have had time to heal.”
Dr. Wilson looked at me for a long minute with those blue eyes Lei had often said could get a stone to talk. I shut my mouth stubbornly and waited for her answer.
“I need to hear your short version first before I tell you what I know,” she finally said.
“Okay. Well, I was teaching my seminar in one of the tents at Camp Trifecta in Honduras, location classified, when three armed choppers attacked us, using non-lethal ammo and tear gas. I tried to put up a fight, was hit and knocked out. They knew just who to grab. When I came to, I was in a pit.” I shuddered at the memory. “I was sick, and water was coming in from a palm frond thatch over the hole, and I got sicker.” I told how the four other men, calling for help, had gotten me out of the pit and I was put in a storage shed and eventually escaped. “I stole a compass knife off one of the guards, got out of the shed, disabled two more guards, blew up the choppers as a distraction, and broke out the rest of the men who wanted to escape. One man, Carrigan, in charge of tech, opted to stay at the camp.” Telling the story made it sound pretty extreme, and Dr. Wilson’s face was still, set in unreadable lines. I sped up the narrative. “Three men chose to escape with me, because I’d heard the captain at the camp say he was going to begin killing us the next day. MacDonald, Falconer, Kerry, and I struck out into the jungle. I had a headlight from one of the guards.” I described our journey and how we ditched pursuit, and how, one by one, my companions were killed.
“I got injured killing a baby pig. The mother slashed me with her tusks.” I indicated the strapping around my ribs. “My wound festered, and after Falconer and I made it across the Coco River to Nicaragua, he got some villagers to tend to my injuries and we thought we were home free. But the captain must have bribed people to look for us, because they found us there. He shot Falconer.” I gulped, remembering the man’s death. “Falconer deserves a medal. He saved my life. Brave to the end.”
Dr. Wilson plucked at the cloth on the bed. “When did you get your head injury?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the captain inflicted it in Nicaragua. I passed out after Falconer was shot. Then I woke up somewhere else.” I lowered my voice. “There was one thing that was odd.”
I gestured, and she leaned close. I whispered into the curve of her ear, “I thought I was with Americans, and they were trying to wake me up. For some reason I was unable to respond. But I could hear them talking. They posed a newspaper against me for a proof-of-life photo. I finally got my eyes open and heard a voice I knew. American, I’d swear it. But then they left. When I next woke, only one of them—Dr. Aquinas, he called himself—was there. He accompanied me on the rescue helicopter to Tegucigalpa. He sounded American but looked Latino. Then I was brought here.”
“And your feet?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know how my feet had time to heal.”
“That’s a remarkable story, Michael.” Dr. Wilson straightened up, looked me in the eye, and spoke clearly. “And I’m sorry to tell you, not a word of it is true.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Soga had taken Kiet to visit a woman friend who had a dog with puppies, and Lei knew her son was delighted to be out with his grandfather. Sitting in Soga’s living room, afternoon light falling in a lance across the enameled coffee table, Lei phoned Sophie Ang, her tech friend.
“Sophie, I’m here in Honolulu. Stevens is in the hospital.” She sketched the recent events of her husband’s return. “I’m getting the runaround about seeing him. Supposedly he’s getting cleared, debriefed, yada, yada, but no one will tell me where he is or let me see him. Can we meet for coffee? I want to know about all the players involved with the kidnapping. Did you find out anything more?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” Sophie’s slight accent thickened in excitement. “There’s been a lot of chatter on the accounts I’ve been monitoring. Let’s meet.” She named a coffee shop, and Lei grabbed her grandfather’s car keys off the wall board and headed out.
At the crowded coffee shop, Lei sipped an extra-foamy latte, gazing at her friend. Sophie Ang had a face like Nefertiti, and Lei wished she weren’t jealous of the woman’s height and sleek, muscular build, not to mention her tech skills. Sophie glanced up at Lei from the tablet computer she worked like an abacus.
“It seemed to me like these kidna
ppings were happening a little too often. I thought there must be a leak, intel on rich targets getting out to kidnappers. Someone, somewhere is getting a kickback. I found a couple of names that have been present at all the kidnappings in that part of the world.” Sophie tilted the tablet to show Lei a couple of pictures. “There are others, too, but these two were at all the kidnapping sites in the last five years.”
“Why haven’t they been taken in?”
“Because, from what I can gather, there has been zero evidence linking them to anything.”
“How can I get this information to—someone?” Lei frowned. “It seems pretty thin. I don’t want to endanger Michael further. He’s so vulnerable.” Lei’s eyes filled at the thought of her husband laid low. “He was pretty severely injured. He’s lucky to be alive, from what I can gather. I think there could be a bigger agenda going on, and I’ve got nowhere to go with my questions and concerns.”
“Sounds like something for the FBI to probe.” Sophie gave a smile that showed all her perfect white teeth. “I’ll let you know what I find. It’s always tough dealing with the military. They have their own system for everything—but I should be able to run an alert up the flagpole through the involvement of Security Solutions, which is a civilian business.” She frowned, looking Lei over. “You don’t look good, Lei. Is something wrong?”
“Besides my husband being kidnapped and injured overseas? No, just a heavy case right before I got here. Took a few emotional lumps on that, too. But it all ended well.” She described the skull case.
“You and your troubled teens. And dogs. You had to talk me into getting Ginger.” Sophie had adopted a rowdy and loving yellow Lab from the Humane Society on Lei’s recommendation. “Best thing I ever did. Well, I’ll be in touch.”
“Let’s go visit Marcella and the baby together as soon as possible,” Lei said. Her FBI-agent friend had given birth not long ago, and Lei was eager to see baby Jonas again. Just thinking of his new-baby smell brought a tingle to her breasts. She frowned at the odd sensation.
“Sounds like a plan. I want to get started looking into this.” Sophie stood. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something more.”
“Thanks.” Lei gave the other woman a quick hug. “I’ll see you soon.” She looked down at her buzzing phone. “It’s the army. I have to take this.”
Sophie waved and left, her lithe body cutting through the crowded coffee shop like a shark through water as Lei put the phone to her ear.
“This is Sergeant Texeira.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Westbrook. I’m calling regarding your husband.”
“Yes. I’m here on Oahu, but no one will tell me anything about what’s going on with him.”
“There have been complications. Meet me in the hospital lobby in an hour.” Westbrook ended the call.
Lei’s hands prickled as she ran out of the coffee shop. She had just enough time for a quick stop at the drugstore. It was time she knew what was going on with her body.
Dr. Wilson had just told me I was lying. I sucked in a breath as sharply as if punched in the gut, staring at her. “What the hell are you saying?”
Her eyes flicked to the corner of the room, then back to mine. I understood that she was signaling me that her words were for the benefit of others as well as myself.
“You were, indeed, attacked while teaching class. In the course of the attack, you were bashed on the head by one of the kidnappers after putting up a fight, and suffered a skull fracture. You were also shot, resulting in the wound in your side, which passed between your ribs. You were in a coma for the entire period of your captivity.”
I felt the blood drain out of my face. I reached up, feeling the heavy bandage around my head. “No. Not possible.”
“It’s true. Dr. Aquinas is the medical officer attached to your camp. He was also kidnapped by the Hondurans who held you and the other prisoners. His job was to keep you alive, which was a challenge, as the gunshot injury in your side developed into a life-threatening infection.”
I kept shaking my head, but that hurt. “And the other men?”
“Safe and sound. All of you are here at the hospital getting checked out and debriefed before returning to your families. Your transport took longer.”
I felt light-headed. “I saw them die.” How could all that happened have been in my head?
Dr. Wilson slid off the bed, went to the door, and knocked. It opened. She spoke out into the hall, and I heard an affirmative mumble.
“I’m so sorry you went through all that, Michael. I don’t know what to tell you, except that none of it happened but the first attack. I think the best way to convince you is to show you.”
I rubbed my hands over my face. The skin felt rubbery and numb. “Am I crazy?” I whispered. “Is this why I’m here?”
“No. You’re not crazy. You just—had a vivid dreaming experience during your coma.”
If it had been anyone other than Dr. Wilson telling me this, I wouldn’t have believed her. “Does Lei know I’m back?”
“Yes. She’s here in Honolulu, waiting to get clearance to see you. We need to go through a few more hoops to make sure you’re okay.” Dr. Wilson steadied me as I swung my legs to the side of the bed. I stood, apparently for the first time in a couple of weeks.
My legs almost crumpled. A wave of dizziness had me clutching the much smaller woman beside me. The door opened, and Falconer came in. He took three giant steps and caught me before I brought both of us to the ground.
“Falconer! You’re really alive!” The big black man heaved me up onto the bed, his mouth set in a familiar reserve that hid his true nature—generous and brave as hell.
“I hear you’re talkin’ crazy, Stevens. You lucky dog. Spent the whole time we were captive sleeping in a comfy bed while we were trapped in a box.”
“Not a pit?”
“No pit. Just hot, buggy, and bored as hell in a deserted old barracks building.”
“Great to see you awake, LT. You had us worried.” Young Tim Kerry entered, grinning. He was thinner than I remembered when I first met him at Camp Trifecta, but whole and alive. My eyes filled at the sight of him. I rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger, pretending they were itchy.
A third man came forward to my bed, hand extended. His cheeks were plump and rosy, his blue eyes friendly. “Don’t believe we met formally, but I saw you around the camp before we were captured. Devan MacDonald, camp manager. Glad to see you up.”
“Great to meet you,” I murmured. My last sight of MacDonald had been the croc biting into his bloated body. I rubbed my eyes again.
Falconer fussed around the bed. “Why do they have you stuck back here in the loony-tune section?”
“I still can’t believe you’re alive.” I couldn’t help reaching out to squeeze Falconer’s shoulder. Emotionally, he felt like a brother to me. So did Kerry. I looked around at the three of them. “I had this vivid dream while I was in the coma. We escaped the kidnappers. All kinds of shit happened. Falconer kept us alive—but never mind.” I shook my head and immediately regretted that motion. “Dr. Wilson, I believe you now. This explains why my feet are fine.”
Falconer swung my legs back onto the bed and pulled the sheet up over them. “We’ll have a beer when you’re out of here, and you can tell me all about it.” He cracked a smile, a flash of lightning in his ebony face, and lifted a hand as he left. I watched the three of them go. I finally let the tears overflow.
It was still hard to believe that the men I thought I’d known were entirely the product of a head injury. Dr. Wilson patted my shoulder, drawing my attention back to her.
“I have some cognitive exercises to take you through.”
We did those for a while: memory exercises, puzzle exercises, word associations. I began to tire, my memory slipping, and I badly needed to go to the bathroom. “Can we take a break?”
“Of course.” She hopped off the bed with an athletic grace that reminded me of Lei with a sharp pang. “I’ll
go tell the Security Solutions and the army people you’re more oriented now. I’m also authorizing you to be moved to a regular room.”
“Thanks. It sucks to get back and be treated like a head case. I just needed to know what was going on.”
“Speaking of head case.” Caprice Wilson leveled a finger and those steely blue eyes at me. “We’re going to discuss the reasons you took this job in the first place. We’re not done talking.” She left. I managed to get my wobbly ass to the toilet in the corner, relieving myself with my bandaged head leaning on the wall.
The whole damn escape had been imaginary. How screwed up was that? I thought back over the many unforgettable moments as we’d made our way through the jungle—beginning with Anchara appearing as a glowing moth, assuming human form, then showing me the way out.
I should have realized then that none of it was real.
But it had seemed so real, right down to mosquito bites I still felt an urge to scratch. Could I have been mistaken about Aquinas and the uniformed man, too? When did I really wake up?
Were there parts of my adventure that really had happened?
I groped my way back to the bed and fell into an exhausted doze, resting up before the next round of questioning.
Chapter Thirty
Lieutenant Colonel Westbrook, dapper in his brass-encrusted uniform, greeted Lei formally in the hospital lobby, but Dr. Wilson embraced Lei with the light, firm hug Lei had become used to in the years they’d known each other. She smelled of jasmine perfume and a tiny tang of anxious perspiration that Lei’s sensitive nose picked up in spite of the psychologist’s bright smile.
“Well, I have good news and bad news.” Dr. Wilson drew Lei over to a corner seating unit in the hospital’s bustling lobby. “Michael’s in the psychiatric unit.”
“Why is he there?” Lei tried to keep her voice even, worry making it sharp.
Dr. Wilson looked around, as if checking for someone overhearing them, but there was no one else in the well-worn area with its teetering stack of Insights for Children and battered National Geographic magazines. Westbrook tugged at his jacket. “I heard he’s confused and disoriented.”
