Double blind

Chapter Fifty

At precisely 5:44 East Coast time that Tuesday morning, Simon Whatley's call was finally routed through to Regis J. Smallsreed's Georgetown apartment.

Less than an hour and a half later, Whatley found himself transported upward in an elevator and wheeled into a large, dimly illuminated private room in a very secure and restricted area of Fairfax County Hospital reserved for persons of wealth and influence recovering from their socially acceptable or unacceptable ailments in a manner more befitting their station in life.

From Whatley's prone position, he could see the concerned faces of Congressman Smallsreed and Sam Tisbury.

"Hello, Simon, how do you feel?" Tisbury asked solicitously.

Whatley tried to mumble something through his swollen lips while Smallsreed spoke to the white-coated orderly.

"Those are Mr. Whatley's personal effects," the young orderly explained, handing the congressman a large plastic bag.

"Thank you. We'll take care of everything." Smallsreed ushered the hospital employee toward the door as he spoke.

"And please, don't let anyone disturb us for the next hour," the congressman ordered as he began to shut the door. "But…"

"We'll call if Simon needs anything," Smallsreed smiled reassuringly, then firmly shut and bolted the door in the orderly's face. He then drew all the curtains and turned off all the lights, leaving only the overhead night lights as a dim source of illumination in the serenely wallpapered room, while Sam Tisbury spread the contents of the bag on the foot of Whatley's bed.

Moments later, the door to the adjoining bathroom opened and a tall, gracefully moving figure emerged.

"Does he have the drop-box messages?"

Whatley immediately recognized the voice as that of the ominous shadow-dwelling presence in Smallsreed's office, and sucked in his breath.

"Right here." Tisbury held up the three envelopes.

"I tried…" Simon Whatley mumbled, but the three men in the room ignored him.

"What do they say?"

"Just a second." Tisbury tore open the first envelope, unfolded the piece of paper and read out loud: "'What's the game? Blindman's bluff?'"

"Blindman's bluff? What kind of message is that?" Aldridge Hammond demanded irritably.

"Must be some kind of code," Smallsreed suggested.

"If it is, nobody gave us the key. And there's no signature either," Tisbury added as he ripped open the second envelope. "This one's from Wintersole." He quickly scanned the contents, then read out loud, "'Please send us the agent profiles ASAP. We need them to positively identify Lightstone.' "

Smallsreed looked down at Simon Whatley as though seeing him for the first time that morning.

"I thought you said you delivered those profiles to the drop box last Wednesday," he accused the injured man.

"I did… I mean, we did… I had one of my aides…" Simon Whatley mumbled frantically, but the congressman turned back to Tisbury.

"What's the date on that second letter?" he asked.

The revenge-seeking industrial executive examined the letter again.

"Last Thursday. Five days ago."

"What about the first one?"

Tisbury examined the first envelope and letter again. "No date, no postmark," he reported.

"How the hell does that happen?" Confusion dimmed Regis J. Smalls reed's ruddy features. "If it went through the post office, it has to have a postmark, doesn't it?"

"Maybe they didn't pick up their mail that next morning for some reason. I mean, I know we…" Simon Whatley continued protesting his innocence from his prone position on the hospital bed, but Smallsreed silenced him with a fierce glare while Tisbury opened the third envelope.

"What the hell…" the wealthy industrialist whispered as his eyes quickly scanned the letter.

"What does it say? Read it out loud," the ICER chairman ordered from the back of the room.

"It says 'Better yet, would the congressman and the bagman like to play, too?' "

"WHAT?" Regis J. Smallsreed almost screamed in outrage as he ripped the letter out of Sam Tisbury's hand.

"No date on it either," Tisbury informed the other two in an amazingly calm voice as he examined the outside of the third envelope, "but it's postmarked last Saturday… and while I'm no expert, I'd say the handwriting looks identical to that on the first one."

But Smallsreed didn't hear him. Instead, he grabbed the front of Simon Whatley's hospital gown and was in the process of wrenching his severely injured district office manager into an upright position while roaring "congressman and bagman, my ass! What the hell is that all about, Simon, you stupid bastard?" when the bolted door to the room clicked open and a brilliant white light suddenly filled the darkened room.

From his upright position, Simon Whatley had a brief but terrifying view of Aldridge Hammond's very pale brown eyes, yellowish brown hair and mottled complexion before the almost ghostly figure turned away, shielding his eyes and cursing.

Sam Tisbury lunged for the door, shut off the lights again, and intercepted the startled youth about to extract his master key from the door lock and enter the room.

"We told you not to interrupt us," Tisbury snarled at the young orderly.

"Uh, yes sir, I know, I'm sorry, sir," the orderly nodded frantically, his eyes still wide-open in shock from Tisbury's sudden confrontation, the memory of the incomprehensible words he felt sure he heard Congressman Smallsreed yelling, and his brief glimpse of his patient being hurled backwards onto the bed in the dimly lighted room before he switched on the lights. "But this briefcase just arrived from the tow yard, along with a suit bag and an overcoat. I know you didn't want to be disturbed, but according to the ID tag, the briefcase belongs to Mr. Whatley, and I thought you might want to.. "

"Thank you, we'll see that Mr. Whatley gets it." Sam Tisbury took the briefcase and, after using his upper body to force the young orderly back out into the corridor, immediately shut and bolted the door.

"Keep that damned door closed!" a furious Aldridge Hammond ordered. "Barricade it if you have to."

"No problem." Sam Tisbury slammed the briefcase onto Whatley's bed, causing the terrified congressional district office manager to flinch and barely stifle a scream of pain. "Check that out, Regis," the wealthy industrialist ordered Smallsreed as he took up a protective stance with his arms folded and his back against the door.

Regis J. Smallsreed snapped open the briefcase and immediately saw the fat manila envelope.

"What's this?" he demanded, glaring at Whatley as he held up the envelope. "Something else you didn't tell us about?"

Simon Whatley tried to stammer an explanation of how he fell asleep on the plane, and didn't have time to read the materials and prepare a summary before getting into the accident, but…

Totally disregarding his underling's babbling, Smallsreed tore open the envelope.

"There's a message and a bunch of photographs," he announced as he began to read the handwritten note. His face turned beet red with rage as the words sank home.

"It's a message from Wintersole," Smallsreed snarled as he glared viciously at Whatley. "He says he's still waiting for the agent profiles, but he's enclosed some surveillance photos they took of the agents in the hope that somebody out here can make the ID. The goddamned letter is dated," the congressman went on, his eyes narrowing dangerously, "last Saturday — three fucking days after you said you sent him those profiles, you worthless piece of shit!" Smallsreed screamed as he wadded up the letter and threw it into the face of a stunned and now completely mortified Simon Whatley.

"But… but…" Whatley stammered desperately, but Smallsreed turned his back on him and flipped through the photographs, examining the labels on the back of each one, and separating them into two piles.

"Okay, Simon" — Smallsreed finally waved the larger of the two piles in front of Simon Whatley's bandaged face — "here's the way it goes. You will get these photos to someone in the Department of the Interior who can positively identify Special Agent Henry Lightstone. I don't care who you go to or how you do it, but if you want a job tomorrow morning, you will get Lightstone positively identified, and you will do it now."

Sam Tisbury suddenly came to life.

"Wait a minute," he exclaimed. "What the hell… give me those things! Christ, what am I thinking? I know what that bastard looks like!"

Tisbury took the stack of photos out of Smallsreed's hand, rummaged through them quickly, then looked up in frustration.

"He's not here."

"But he must be. Wintersole said…" Smallsreed started to protest, but Tisbury shook him off.

"I'm telling you, the bastard's not here! Christ, Regis, you think I don't know what he looks like? I still see the son of a bitch in my

… Wait a minute!" Tisbury suddenly pointed toward the smaller stack of photos on Simon Whatley's bed. There he is! That's Henry Lightstone!"

Confusion constricted Regis J. Smallsreed's porcine features as he picked up the top photo and examined the label on the back again.

"No, it's not." He shook his white-haired head confidently. "According to the label, this is some local guy — the boyfriend of the woman running the post office."

"You idiot!" Tisbury screamed, his eyes bulging with rage as he snatched the photo out of Smallsreed's hand and flapped it in the congressman's face. "Listen to me, goddamn it! I'm telling you, this is Henry Lightstone!"

"But what in the world would he be doing…" Smallsreed started to protest, but then the light suddenly dawned.

"Goddamn it all to hell," he whispered.

As it happened, the man who caused Congressman Regis J. Smallsreed to take the Lord's name in vain was very much aware of the dawning light, too.

Only in Henry Lightstone's case, he couldn't do much about it because his light came from the soon-to-be-rising sun and resulted from bad timing.

By the time he helped Wintersole get the bound and gagged Donato, LiBrandi, and Marashenko — who, as far as Lightstone was concerned, outdid themselves struggling, kicking, and otherwise fighting their captors — transferred to the hand-dug, belowground, Vietnam-era "tiger" cages where Brigade members now proudly guarded their new prisoners… and then checked the night-exercise area, where the last of the students made valiant efforts to attain their assigned objective… the east horizon had begun to lighten perceptibly.

Which would be a problem, Lightstone realized, as he and Wintersole walked back to the shed housing the crusty old bastard Lightstone thought was Wilbur Boggs, because darkness played a crucial role in his plan, plus he had no desire to beat up a fellow agent.

He tried to disregard the idea that Wintersole might test him with a ringer… or worse, just make him torture someone out of a warped sense of amusement.

"How's he doing?" Lightstone asked as he entered the shed ahead of the hunter-killer recon team leader, hoping at least to eliminate the first possibility.

"He passed out," the obviously exhausted young Ranger replied. "It's your turn now."

Henry Lightstone walked over to the figure slumped in the chair, lifted up the bruised head, casually peeled back the badly swollen and bleeding upper lip, then smiled when he discovered the two missing upper front teeth.

Wilbur Boggs opened one eye, gave Lightstone a wide, bloody, and gap-toothed smile, then drifted away again.

Okay, Boggs, I seriously doubt any of the Chosen Brigade volunteered to sacrifice their front teeth just to play a role for some maniac Army Ranger first sergeant, so you're probably the man Charlie Team's been looking for… which means one more problem resolved, Henry Lightstone thought. Now all I have to do is figure out how to identify myself to you and keep the rest of Charlie Team from saying anything while I'm wearing this damned microphone.

He sensed Wintersole and the young Army Ranger coming up beside him.

"What time is it?" Lightstone asked, contemplating the slumped form of Wilbur Boggs.

Wintersole glanced at his wristwatch.

"Oh-four-forty hours."

"You in a real big hurry to get that information?"

"The sooner the better," the hunter-killer recon team leader replied. "Why?"

"I don't think this guy can stay conscious any longer, much less talk, no matter what we do to him, and I'm about half-asleep myself. So what do you say we tuck him away for a few hours while we all get some rest and regroup?"

Wintersole hesitated, and appeared ready to order Lightstone to begin his interrogation anyway, when the younger Army Ranger spoke up.

"We're all getting a little ragged, First Sergeant. And we still need to get all of that, uh, hardware rigged and tested by this evening."

Wintersole nodded his head slowly.

"And besides," Lightstone added, "I think I know how to get this guy to tell us anything we want to know."

"Lots of luck on that," the young Ranger commented.

"What do you have in mind?" Wintersole's pale gray eyes expressed far more interest than usual.

"You familiar with the expression 'psychological warfare'?"

Wintersole nodded.

Yeah, I'll just bet you are. Lightstone allowed himself a few moments to watch Wilbur Boggs's ragged breathing settle into a steady rhythm before he turned his attention to the man who — for whatever reason — clearly represented the greatest threat to Charlie and Bravo Teams.

"Good. Then I'll let you guess what I plan to do once I find myself a nice, big, poisonous snake."