The Chemist Part 6

Not a true psychotic, she hoped. Just a fractured man who didn't want to give up the person he thought of as himself but who needed the release the darkness gave him.

She felt comfortable with this a.s.sessment, and it changed her plan a little. There was a great deal of performance to what she did. For some subjects, the very clinical and emotionless persona worked best-white coat, surgical mask, and shiny stainless steel; for others, it was the threat of the crazed s.a.d.i.s.t (though Barnaby was always more successful with that play; he had the face and hair for it-unruly spikes of white, I've-just-been-electrocuted hair). Every situation was slightly different-some feared the darkness, some the light. She'd been planning to go clinical-it was the most comfortable role in her wheelhouse-but she decided now that Daniel would need to be surrounded by darkness to let that side come to the surface. And Dark Daniel was the one she needed to talk to.

She did a little evasive driving on the way in. If someone had been tracking Daniel's clothes or possessions, she didn't want that person coming along any farther on this trip.

She considered the possibilities again for the millionth time. Column one, this was a very elaborate trap. Column two, this was for real and a million lives were on the line. Not to mention her own.

During her long drive, the balance finally shifted to rest solidly on one side. This wasn't a government agent in her car, she was sure of that. And if he was an innocent citizen, picked at random to draw her out, then they'd already missed their best opportunities to bag her. There hadn't been one attack, not one attempt to follow her... that she'd seen.

She thought of the mountains of incriminating information on Daniel Beach, and she couldn't help herself. She was a believer. So she'd better get to work saving lives.

She pulled into the farmhouse drive around eleven, dead tired and starving but 95 percent sure that there was no trail that could lead either the department or de la Fuentes to her doorstep. She looked the house over quickly, checking to see if anyone had broken in (and died, as he or she would have upon opening the door), and then, after disarming her safeguards, she drove the car into the barn. As soon as she'd pulled the barn door shut and reset the "alarm," she went to work getting Daniel prepped.

All the other tasks were done. She'd bought timers from a Home Depot in Philly and plugged lamps into them in several rooms of the farmhouse; like a traveler leaving for a few weeks, she made certain that the place looked occupied. A radio was plugged into one of the timers, so there would be noise, too. The house was good bait. Most people would clear that before progressing to the dark barn.

The barn would stay dark. She'd constructed a kind of tent in the middle of the barn s.p.a.ce that would hide light and m.u.f.fle sound, while also keeping Daniel completely ignorant of his surroundings. The rectangular structure was about seven feet high, ten feet wide, and fifteen feet long. It was constructed of PVC pipe, black tarps, and bungee cords, and lined inside with two layers of egg foam duct-taped into place. Rough, yes, but more functional than a cave, and she'd handled that in the past.

In the center of the tent was an oversize metal slab with black accordion legs that could be adjusted for height. It had been on display in the barn-for authenticity, no doubt-and was some kind of veterinarian's operating table. It was bigger than she needed-this vet had been dealing with cows, not kittens-but still quite a find. It was one of the items that had pushed her over the edge into renting this extortionate tourist trap. There was another metal-topped table that she'd set up as a desk with her computer, the monitors, and a tray of things that would hopefully only be props. The IV pole was next to the head of the table, a bag of saline already hanging. A wheeled metal cart from the kitchen was positioned beside the pole; a ma.s.s of tiny but ominous-looking syringes were lined up in easy view on a stainless-steel tray. There was a gas mask and a pressure cuff on the wire rack below the syringes.

And of course, the restraints she'd bought on eBay, prison-medical-facility grade, which she'd chained into place through holes she'd laboriously drilled into the stainless-steel slab. No one was escaping from those restraints without outside help. And that helper might need a blowtorch.

She'd left herself two exits, just openings in the tarp like the partings in a curtain. Outside the tent she had a cot, her sleeping bag, a hot plate, a small refrigerator, and all the other things she would need. There was a little three-piece bathroom attached to the bunkhouse, but it was too far away for her to sleep in, and there was no tub anyway, just a shower. She'd have to forgo her usual arrangements this weekend.

She used movers' straps to haul Daniel's inert form out of the car and onto a refrigerator dolly, b.u.mping his head a few times in the process. Probably not hard enough to cause a concussion. Then she wheeled him to the table, set it to its lowest height, and rolled him onto it. He was still deeply under. She positioned him on his back, arms and legs extended about forty-five degrees from his body, then raised the table. One by one, she locked the restraints into place. He would not be moving out of this pose for a while. The IV was next; luckily he was fairly well hydrated, or maybe he just had really great veins. She got the line placed easily and started the drip. She added a parenteral nutrition bag next to the saline. This was all the sustenance he would get for the next three days, if it took that long. He'd be hungry, but his mind would be sharp when she wanted it to be. She put the pulse oximeter on his toe-he'd be able to pull it off a finger-and the dry electrodes on his back, one under each lung, to monitor his respiration. A quick swipe of the electric thermometer across his forehead told her that his current temperature was normal.

She wasn't as practiced with the bladder catheter, but it was a fairly simple procedure and he wasn't in any state to protest if she did something wrong. There would be enough cleaning up without urine to deal with, too.

Thinking of that, she placed the absorbent, plastic-lined squares-made for house-training puppies-on the floor all around the operating table. There would definitely be vomit if they needed to go past phase one. Whether there would be blood depended on how he responded to her normal methods. At least she had working plumbing here.

It was turning chilly in the barn, so she covered him with the blanket. She needed him to stay under for a while longer, and cold against his bare skin wouldn't help with that. After a moment of hesitation, she got one of the pillows off a bunk-room bed, brought it back, and placed it under his head. It's just because I don't want him to wake up, she a.s.sured herself. Not because he looked uncomfortable.

She inserted a small syringe into the IV port and gave him another dose of the sleeping agent. He should be good for at least four hours.

Daniel's unconscious face was unsettling. Too... peaceful somehow. She couldn't remember ever having seen an alignment of features that was so intrinsically innocent. It was hard to imagine that kind of peace and innocence even existing in the same world that she did. For a moment she worried again that she was dealing with a mental flaw beyond any of her previous experience. Then again, if de la Fuentes had been looking for someone who others would instinctively trust, this was exactly the kind of face he would have wanted. It might explain why the drug lord had chosen the schoolteacher in the first place.

She slipped the gas mask over his mouth and nose and screwed a canister onto it. If her safety precautions killed Daniel, she couldn't get the information she needed.

She did a final patrol around the perimeter. Through the windows, she could see that all the correct lights were on in the farmhouse. In the dead stillness of the night, she thought she could hear the faint strains of Top 40 pop.

Once she was sure that every point of ingress was secured, she ate a protein bar, brushed her teeth in the little bathroom, set her alarm for three, touched her gun under the cot, hugged her canister to her chest, and then sank into the folds of her sleeping bag. Her body was already asleep, and her brain wasn't far behind. She just had time to slip on her own gas mask before she was totally unconscious.

CHAPTER 6.

By three thirty in the morning, she was up, dressed, and fed, still exhausted but ready to start. Daniel slept on, oblivious and peaceful. He would feel well rested when he woke up, but disoriented. He would have no idea what time or even what day it was. Discomfort was an important tool in her line of work.

She took his pillow and blanket away, acknowledging the regret this made her feel. But this was important; regardless of training, every subject felt great discomfort being naked and helpless in front of the enemy. Regret would be the last feeling she would allow herself for a few days. She closed off the rest. It had been more than three years, but she could feel things shutting down inside of her. Her body remembered how to do this. She knew she had the strength she would need.

Her hair was still wet from the quick color job, and the makeup felt thick on her face, though she wore very little, really. She didn't know how to do anything complicated, so she'd just smeared on dark shadow, thick mascara, and oxblood-red lipstick. She hadn't planned to adjust her hair color this soon, but black hair and the camouflage on her face were part of the new strategy. The white lab jacket and pale blue scrubs she'd brought lay crisply folded in her bag. Instead, she was in the tight black shirt again with black jeans. It was a good thing the farmhouse had a washer and dryer. The shirt was going to need a wash soon. Well, it needed one yesterday, actually.

It was strange how a little colored powder and grease could change an observer's perception of you. She checked herself in the bathroom mirror and was pleased by how hard her face looked, how cold. She ran a comb through her hair, slicking it straight back, then walked through the barn to her interrogation room.

She'd set up floodlights that hung from the PVC structure overhead, but she left them off now, just turning on two portable work lights that stood waist-high. The black duct tape and gray egg foam looked the same color in the shadows. The air temperature had dropped as the night progressed. There were goose b.u.mps on the subject's arms and stomach. She ran the thermometer across his forehead again. Still within the normal range.

Finally, she turned on her computer and set up the protocols. It would go to screen saver after twenty minutes of inactivity. On the other side of her computer was a small black box with a keypad on top and a tiny red light on the side, but she ignored that now and went to work.

There was a feeling that struggled to break through to the surface as she injected the IV port with the chemical that would bring the subject around, but she suppressed it easily. Daniel Beach had two sides, and so did she. She was her other self now, the one the department called the Chemist, and the Chemist was a machine. Pitiless and relentless. Her monster was free now.

Hopefully his would come out to play.

The new drug trickled into his veins, and his breathing became less even. One long-fingered hand fisted and pulled against the restraint. Although he was still mostly unconscious, a frown touched his features as he tried to roll onto his side. His knees twisted, tugging against the fetters on his ankles, and suddenly his eyes flew open.

She stood quietly at the head of the table and watched him panic; his breathing spiked, his heart rate increased, his body thrashed against his bonds. He stared wildly into the darkness, trying to understand where he was, to find something familiar. He stopped suddenly, tense and listening.

"h.e.l.lo?" he whispered.

She stood still, waiting for the right moment.

For ten minutes, he alternated between wildly yanking against the restraints and trying to listen around the harsh noise of his breathing.

"Help!" he finally called out loudly. "Is anyone there?"

"h.e.l.lo, Daniel," she answered in a quiet voice.

His head jerked back, stretching his throat, as he looked for where the voice was coming from. It wasn't the instinct of a professional soldier, she noted, to expose the throat that way.

"Who's there? Who is that?"

"It doesn't really matter who I am, Daniel."

"Where am I?"

"Also not relevant."

"What do you want?" he half shouted.

"There you go-you got it. That's the question that matters."

She walked around the table so he could focus on her, though she was still lit from behind and her face would be mostly shadows.

"I don't have anything," he protested. "No money, no drugs. I can't help you."

"I don't want things, Daniel. I want-no, I need information. And the only way you're getting out of here is if you give it to me."

"I don't know anything-nothing important! Please-"

"Stop it," she snapped loudly, and he sucked in a shocked breath.

"Are you listening to me now, Daniel? This part is really crucial."

He nodded, blinking fast.

"I have to have this information. There is no other option. And if I have to, Daniel, I will hurt you until you tell me what I need to know. I will hurt you badly. I don't necessarily want to do this, but it doesn't bother me to do it, either. I'm telling you this so that you can decide now, before I begin. Tell me what I want to know, and I will free you. It's that simple. I promise I will not harm you. It will save me time and yourself a lot of suffering. I know you don't want to tell me, but please realize that you are going to tell me anyway. It may take a while, but eventually you won't be able to stop yourself. Everyone breaks. So make the easy choice now. You'll be sorry if you don't. Do you understand?"

She had given this same speech to many, many subjects in her career, and it was usually quite effective. About 40 percent of the time, this was when the subject would start confessing. Not often finish confessing, of course, and there was always some exploratory work to do, but there was a decent chance the first admission of guilt and some partial information might be surrendered now. The statistic varied depending on who she was giving the speech to; roughly half the time with most military men, the first divulgence would happen before any pain was administered. Only 5 to 10 percent of the actual spies would say anything without some physical distress. Same numbers for religious zealots. For the low-level toadies, the speech worked 100 percent of the time. The man in charge had never once confessed a single detail without pain.

She really hoped Daniel was just a glorified toady.

He stared back at her while she spoke, his face frozen in fear. But then, as she was concluding, confusion narrowed his eyes and pulled his brows together. It wasn't an expression she'd expected.

"Do you understand me, Daniel?"

His voice bewildered: "Alex? Alex, is that you?"

This was exactly why one didn't make contact with a mark beforehand. Now she was off script.

"Of course that's not my real name, Daniel. You know that."

"What?"

"My name isn't Alex."

"But... you're a doctor. You helped me."

"I am not that kind of doctor, Daniel. And I didn't help you. I drugged you and I kidnapped you."

His face was sober. "You were kind to me."

She had to control a sigh.

"I did what I had to do to get you here. Now, I need you to focus, Daniel. I need you to answer my question. Are you going to tell me what I want to know?"

She saw doubt in his expression again. Disbelief that she would actually hurt him, that this was really happening.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know. But like I said, I don't know anything important. I don't have any bank account numbers or, I don't know, treasure maps or anything. Certainly not anything worth all this."

He tried to gesture with his trussed hand. Looking at himself as he did, he seemed to realize for the first time that he was naked. His skin flushed-face, neck, and a line down the center of his chest-and he pulled automatically against the restraints as if trying to cover himself. His breathing and heart rate started spiking again.

Nudity; whether black ops agents or just low-level terrorist gofers, they all hated it.

"I don't want a treasure map. I'm not doing this for personal gain, Daniel. I'm doing this to protect innocent lives. Let's talk about that."

"I don't understand. How can I help with that? Why wouldn't I want to?"

She didn't like the way this was going. The ones who clung to the claim of ignorance and innocence often took longer to break than the ones who owned their guilt but were determined not to sell out their government, or their jihad, or their comrades.

She walked to the desk and picked up the first picture. It was one of the very clear surveillance shots of de la Fuentes, a close-up.

"Let's start with this man," she said, holding the photo at his eye level and using one of the work lights as a spot.

Perfectly blank, absolutely no reaction. A bad sign.

"Who is that?"

She allowed her sigh to be audible this time.

"You're making the wrong choice, Daniel. Please think about what you're doing."

"But I don't know who that is!"

She fixed him with a resigned stare.

"I'm being completely honest, Alex. I don't know that man."

She sighed again. "Then I suppose we'll get started."

The disbelief was there again. She'd never dealt with that in an interrogation before. All the others who'd been on her table had known what they were there for. She'd faced terror and pleading and, occasionally, stoic defiance, but never this strange, trusting, almost-challenge: You won't hurt me.

"Um, is this some kind of fetish fantasy thing?" he asked in a low voice, somehow finding a way to sound embarra.s.sed despite the bizarreness of his circ.u.mstances. "I don't really know the rules for that stuff..."

She turned away to hide an inappropriate smile. Get a grip, she ordered herself. Trying to keep the movement smooth, as if she'd meant to walk away at that exact moment, she went to her desk. She clicked one key on her computer, keeping it awake. Then she picked up the prop tray. It was heavy, and some of the props clanked against each other as she moved it. She brought the tray to his side, rested the edge of it beside the syringes, and angled the light so the metallic implements shone brightly.

"I'm sorry you find this confusing," she said in an even voice. "I am in deadly earnest, I a.s.sure you. I want you to look at my tools."

He did, and his eyes grew very wide. She watched for some hint of the other side to break through, the Dark Daniel, but there was nothing. His eyes were somehow still gentle even in abject fear. Innocent. Lines spoken by Hitchc.o.c.k's Norman Bates flashed through her head. I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing.

She shuddered, but he didn't notice, his eyes fixed on her props.

"I don't have to use these very often," she told him, touching the pliers lightly, then stroking her finger along the extra-large scalpel. "They call me in when they would like to have the subject left more or less... intact." She brushed the bolt cutters on the hard syllable of the last word. "But I don't really need these tools anyway." She flicked her fingernail against the canister of the welding torch, producing a high-pitched pinging sound. "Can you guess why?"

He didn't respond, frozen in horror. He was starting to see now. Yes, this was real.

Only Dark Daniel must already have known that. So why wasn't he surfacing? Did he think she could be fooled? Or that his charm on the train had melted her weak, womanly heart?

"I'll tell you why," she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. She leaned in conspiratorially and held her face in a sweet, regretful half smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Because what I do hurts... so... much... worse."

His eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head. This, at least, was a familiar reaction.

She took the tray away, letting his focus move naturally to the long line of syringes left behind, glinting in the light.

"The first time will last only ten minutes," she told him, still facing away as she set the tools back on the desk. She spun around. "But it will feel like a lot longer. This will just be a taste-you could look at it as a warning shot. When it's done, we'll try talking again."