Double blind

Chapter Forty-nine

Consciousness returned to Simon Whatley in the form of pain.

Deep, throbbing, and — evidently thanks to whatever mixture dripped into his IV tube — essentially controlled pain; so controlled he felt tempted simply to lie there on the firm but yielding mattress and allow the soothing drugs to work their wonders on the frazzled synapses of his severely battered nervous system.

But something drifting around in the back of Simon Whatley's sedated mind kept demanding his attention.

Something about a plane ride.

And a meeting.

And some letters that had something to do with his being-what? — early?

No, not early.

Late.

Simon Whatley's eyes flew open…

Oh my God. Where am I?

… and then immediately slammed shut in response to the agonizing burst of pain the light caused to shoot through the back of his eyeballs and then ricochet repeatedly in the center of his brain.

His deep and heartfelt moan caught the attention of one of the floor nurses.

"Hi there, sport, how are we doing this morning?" she whispered in a professionally gentle and concerned voice as she automatically felt for his pulse.

Morning? Thank God. Maybe I'm not too late.

He tried to whisper a question, but his lips and tongue simply refused to cooperate.

"What's that, hon?" The nurse put her head down next to Simon Whatley's bandaged face.

He tried again, this time forcing the air through his vocal cords with an effort that sent another streak of pain ripping through his muddled brain.

"Time is it?"

The nurse glanced down at her watch.

"Five-thirty, almost exactly on the nose."

Five-thirty. Five-thirty. What time do I have to be there? Eleven in the morning? Whatley sagged down into the mattress in relief. Thank God. Plenty of time to call Smallsreed, tell him… wait a minute. Five-thirty? How can that be? It was seven forty-five when…

"Nurse?" he rasped again.

"Yes, hon?"

"Are you… sure… it's five-thirty?" It hurt his mouth very badly to articulate the words, but he had to know.

The nurse glanced down at her watch again.

"Five-thirty-two, to be precise, on what is supposed to be a beautiful Tuesday morning. But before you start…"

Tuesday?

No, can't be. It's Monday morning. Has to be Monday morning.

Simon Whatley felt his chest constrict in fear and pain.

What happened? Got off the plane in Dulles at seven-forty-five. I remember that. Terrible ride. Goddamned kids. Filthy smelly toilets. Too tired to read the drop-box messages. Got into the cab. Driving to the hotel… was going to read the messages… reaching into my jacket pocket when the cab swerved… everything went crazy… upside down…

Accident.

Oh God, no.

"Nurse, get me a phone!"

He thought he yelled the words at the top of his lungs, but in fact, what barely sputtered through his painfully swollen lips and missing teeth sounded like little more than incomprehensible muttering.

The nurse laid a soothing hand across Simon Whatley's forehead. "Take it easy, hon. Don't try to talk."

"Need a phone!"

Another burst of sputtering, but this time she heard the word "phone" clearly.

"Listen," the nurse stroked his feverish brow, "you just rest. I really don't think you're up to talking with anybody yet."

"Please!" He implored the caregiver with his reddened eyes, putting every bit of energy he could muster into an effort to speak clearly through his damaged mouth. "I need a phone. Right now! Please!"

Three time zones to the west, another seriously injured man experienced equal difficulties communicating with the people trying to provide him with basic medical care. But in this case, however, the breakdown in communications didn't occur because of a lack of understanding.

Special Agent Wilbur Boggs knew exactly what the young man in the military fatigues wanted to know.

And the young Army Ranger — recon team designation one-six — sitting in the chair in front of him knew exactly what the severely injured federal wildlife agent thought about his persistent questioning. Boggs had been very explicit in his commentary, which was why he was now wearing a wide strip of duct tape across his mouth.

In fact, only the numerous loops of duct tape that held the middle-aged agent's muscular arms and legs securely to the chair kept the absolutely furious Boggs from demonstrating in much more explicit — not to mention extremely violent-detail, exactly how much the young man's questioning displeased him.

But the restraining loops of tape didn't prevent the enraged and nearly exhausted wildlife officer from driving his forehead into his first inquisitor's face, smashing the young Army Ranger's nose in a virtual explosion of blood, and causing him to retaliate with a savage backhand to the face that sent Boggs rocking backwards in his chair just as First Sergeant Aran Wintersole entered the small shed.

Unimpressed by his soldier's carelessness, as well as his lack of control, Wintersole had immediately ordered the chagrined and bleeding soldier outside, and replaced him with one-four — his other injured instructor — along with orders to get the information out of Boggs in whatever manner proved necessary.

That had occurred almost two hours ago and, as Boggs appeared no closer to talking now than before, the frustrated young soldier abandoned his threats and pressure points, braced his plaster-covered hand against Boggs's cast… and ripped the nail off the federal agent's right little finger with a pair of pliers. That, to the young soldier's absolute amazement, only fueled the severely injured agent's stubborn resistance.

It was a mistake to bring the female in, the young soldier thought, looking over at the bound and gagged young woman who, if anything, was making more of an effort than Boggs to get loose and tear into her captors. She's as bad as he is, if not worse. And having the two unidentified agents in here, too, isn't helping things either. They're just egging him on. But he wasn't about to voice that opinion. Not with Sergeant Aran Wintersole in the room.

Sighing to himself, one-four prepared for the next phase, which would almost certainly mean carrying out his threat to do precisely the same thing to the young woman's right little finger if he — Boggs — didn't get with the program.

Suddenly, another figure entered the shed.

"Does anybody here know where I can find Sergeant… hey, what's going on here?" Henry Lightstone demanded from the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" the youthful inquisitor responded. "You're supposed to be with the Brigade."

The young soldier started up out of his chair, immediately suspicious and on the alert because Wintersole had made it very clear that their newly hired replacement was to be given run of the Chosen Brigade's training facility, but he was not to be trusted with any sensitive aspect of their mission.

But before one-four could do or say anything else, First Sergeant Aran Wintersole intervened.

"It's all right, David," Wintersole said as he came up beside Lightstone. "Come on in." He reached around and pulled the shed door shut. "So how are the Brigade members getting along with their night field problems?" the hunter-killer team leader asked calmly.

Henry Lightstone spent a few moments staring at the four figures who were bound to the chairs — noting that the glassy-eyed and bandaged older male strapped into the chair farthest away from the door and the young soldier whose wrist he had broken in the Dogsfire Inn both had fresh blood all over their plaster casts — before he finally answered.

"They're stumbling around a lot, mostly running into trees and getting in each other's way, but nobody's broken a leg or shot anybody yet — which is pretty amazing all by itself."

"How's their spirit holding up?"

Lightstone shrugged. "Probably a lot better than their physical conditioning, but that's not saying much. By the way, I may have insulted Colonel Rice when he offered me a major's rank to join up with the Chosen Brigade. I told him a single stripe would be fine, because every military brigade ought to have at least one private, but I don't think he noticed. Fact is, I get the impression this business of taking prisoners really threw the entire group off their stride," Lightstone added pointedly. "Which brings me to a relevant question. Am I interrupting some critical part of the exercise here?"

He nodded his head in the direction of the two chair-bound figures.

Wintersole shrugged. "No, not really."

The fearsome pale gray-eyed soldier seemed to hesitate for a brief moment, as if not quite certain how he wanted to play the situation. But then he went on in what Lightstone thought was an amazingly calm and controlled voice.

"We have an interesting problem here, Henry. It seems a competing paramilitary group in the neighborhood doesn't think much of the Chosen Brigade's brand of politics or religion. So instead of simply agreeing to disagree, this other group decided to send three of their members to infiltrate the Brigade and monitor their activities."

"I thought you said she was one of the Chosen Brigade women." Lightstone rubbed his aching ribs gingerly as he watched Special Agent Natasha Marashenko's eyes widen in recognition over her duct-tape gag as she reacted to the name "Henry" by turning and staring.

"She was supposed to be." Wintersole appeared to contemplate the fiercely glaring figure who had finally stopped struggling against her bonds. "But it was dark, and we didn't pick up on the switch until we found the woman who was supposed to be part of the exercise out cold in the bushes."

"She doesn't look like much of a spy to me." Lightstone's comment earned him a furious glare from the captive Charlie Team agent.

"None of them look much like federal wildlife agents, either, as far as I'm concerned," Wintersole commented.

Lightstone blinked. "Federal wildlife agents?"

"That's their story, although all four of them apparently forgot to bring along their Special Agent badges or whatever it is they carry for ID. Oh, and by the way, they'd like us all to know that we're under arrest."

"For what, holding a training exercise?"

"Apparently we carried out our roles a little too realistically for their tastes." The hunter-killer recon team leader smiled.

"I don't understand." Henry Lightstone donned a thoroughly confused look. "These people from a competing militant group tried to infiltrate the Chosen Brigade posing as federal wildlife agents? What the hell kind of sense does that make? I mean, how did they… hey, wait a minute, didn't you say three?"

Wintersole nodded his head solemnly.

"According to our sources, the old fart in the far chair was supposed to infiltrate another couple into the Chosen Brigade during our exercise this evening. The woman next to him — the one you captured — and presumably one of these other two supposed federal wildlife agents" — Wintersole smiled again — "who happens to be named Lightstone."

Henry Lightstone felt a cold chill run down his spine, but he forced himself to remain calm and unresponsive.

"For what I assume are obvious reasons, the Brigade leadership would like to identify this third infiltrator," Wintersole went on. "We have a rough ID — male, white, six foot, one-eighty- which both of these guys more or less fit, but nobody here wants to cooperate. And then, as luck would have it, who pops in at just the right moment but you."

"Me?" Lightstone cocked his head curiously, already judging the relative positions of Wintersole and his already-injured young martial-arts instructor, whose right hand had been converted into what was now, unfortunately, a fairly handy club.

Wintersole nodded. "Whoever comes up with a positive identification of Lightstone gets a five-thousand-dollar bonus. We've been interrogating these two for the last couple of hours on a fairly casual basis and getting nowhere. We were getting ready to try a more serious form of persuasion when you showed up."

A decidedly cold look passed through Wintersole's eyes. "However," he went on, staring directly at Lightstone now as if trying to gage his reaction, "before we do, and taking into consideration the amount of damage you took to your ribs from this little hellion a couple of hours ago, I thought you might like a shot at that bonus money first."

"Five grand, just to find out which one of those other yahoos out there is named Lightstone?" A contemplative look appeared on Henry Lightstone's face as he continued to stare down at the four captive agents — all of whom, for very different reasons, continued to glare right back at him.

"That's right."

Henry Lightstone shrugged. "Tell you the truth, I'm kind of tired of listening to this one screaming in my ear." He nodded his head toward Natasha Marashenko. "And those other two don't look like the cooperative types, but if I can have this old fart to myself for an hour or so," he added as he walked over and removed the gag from Wilbur Boggs's mouth, "I think I can make him talk."

A fierce bloody smile formed on the federal wildlife agent's lips as he looked up at Lightstone and said in a nearly exhausted but clearly unimpressed voice:

"I don't think so, asshole."