Veil

Chapter 19

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The nerve cells in his body reacted to the icy water that splashed over him, shocking him awake, like the flame of a blowtorch. Veil's head snapped back and slammed against the bars of his cage, and he barely managed to choke off a scream as his back arched and the muscles of his burned, feverish body objected to this insult by twitching and knotting in torturous spasms. The moment he could control any movement at all, he was licking like an animal at the droplets of water on his shoulders, arms, and the backs of his hands.

"You ready to talk to me, Kendry?"

Veil raised his head and squinted up into the sun. Parker was leaning on the top of the cage, looming over him. Veil opened his mouth to speak, but only gagging sounds would issue from his dry throat and past his swollen tongue. A long-handled ladle suddenly came out of the sun and appeared in his field of vision. Veil grabbed for it, spilling half its contents onto the ground. He gripped the bowl with both hands and drank what was left; the ladle was pulled away as he sucked air. To his surprise, another ladle was offered. He drank until the bowl was empty, sighed, and rested his head against the bars. "Thank you," he managed to say.

"Don't thank me," Parker replied curtly. "You know it's still just part of the routine. I gave you just enough water to get your head straight and your vocal cords working. There's no need for you to suffer like this, and frankly, I don't much enjoy watching it. You may be in the cage, but you're the one with the key in your hand. You can open it anytime you want to. Do I have to remind you that any man can be broken?"

"You won't listen to me."

"I wouldn't listen to you before because you were getting ready to throw some bullshit in my direction. I may listen to you now. We'll see what your opening notes sound like. Tell me the truth and I'll give you all the water you want. You'll get food and medical attention. You'll get your clothes back, and you'll get out of that cage so you don't have to cook all day and freeze all night. If you don't tell me the truth, you're going to die right there on the ground. I swear it, Kendry. Dying of thirst isn't chicken soup, but you'll be doing it to yourself. From the looks of you, I'd say you have another night and day left in you. But you won't let it go to the end. No man could. You'll talk finally, so why not do it now and save both of us all this bother?"

Veil breathed deeply, dropped his chin on his chest, and tried to focus his thoughts through a mental haze of fever. "I tried to tell you the truth yesterday. You just walked away."

"Oh, shit, Kendry, are you going to—?"

"Listen to me, Parker!" Veil croaked. He swallowed hard and managed to work up some moisture in his mouth. He licked the roof of his mouth. The small amount of saliva disappeared like water into sand, but he was able to talk without each word ripping his throat. "I wish to God I could make up some story about working for the KGB, because that's all you seem to want to hear. But I can't; I just don't know that much about today's KGB. If I tried making up something, you'd know for sure I was lying, and I'd be in even worse shape than I am now, if that's possible. I haven't done any intelligence work since the early seventies."

Veil held his breath, half expecting to hear Parker walking away. But Parker stayed where he was.

"Tell me about your experiences with intelligence," the Army officer said quietly.

"I worked for the CIA."

"Wrong," Parker said disdainfully. "We've checked you out."

"My records have been doctored."

"I know that. The fact of the matter is that you were a turncoat. You went over. There's still some mystery as to how you got off so easily, and who was protecting you. I'm sure you'll clear up that little mystery for me during the course of this conversation. Like now."

"What you think I was or did isn't the point, Park—" Veil swallowed again, but he had no saliva left. His throat felt as if it were swelling shut, and he dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. "What's important is that I did work for the Agency. They disapproved of something I did. I was put on a heavy shit list under sentence of being executed at some time in the indefinite future. End of story—except that's the reason I had to come back to the Institute after I'd killed your man."

"Then you admit that you killed him?"

"For Christ's sake, Parker. You know I did."

"Don't be a smart-ass, Kendry. If I remember correctly, you claimed at the time that it was a freak accident. I just wanted to set the record straight. You're the one who's going to die if I don't get the right answers, not me. So just answer my questions. Why come back after it looked like you were home free?"

"I need water," Veil said in a barely audible whisper. "Can't . . . talk."

Parker thought about it, then filled the ladle from a bucket at his feet and passed it down through the bars. Veil had to suppress tremors in his throat as he drank.

"More," Veil whispered. "Please."

"Earn it. What were you after?"

"Information; reasons. At first I thought the man might be a CIA agent sent to carry out my sentence. Then I realized it didn't make sense for the Agency to pick tight quarters like the Institute to kill me when they had all the time in the world and all of New York City to work in. It meant he was a double—"

"Bullshit."

"—sent by his controller to kill me. Somebody who knew my background made me and assumed—mistakenly—that I was here on assignment to flush out their organization. You've got guys with black hats in here, Parker. You've been infiltrated."

"I'm really sorry I gave you that water, jerk," Parker said with genuine disgust. "You're not as thirsty as I thought you were. It's a mistake I won't repeat. You really are a glutton for punishment."

"What I'm telling you is the truth," Veil said quickly, as Parker started to walk away. "It has to be. I came back to look for proof. Why is my story so goddam difficult for you to even consider?"

Parker suddenly wheeled and kicked savagely at the bars beside Veil's head. "Because we have proof that you're a Russian agent, jerk!" he shouted with unexpected and explosive rage. "They recruited you after you were booted out of the Army. You think I'm crazy? You think I'd make any man suffer what you're suffering without absolute proof that he was a dangerous enemy with secrets that threaten the security of my country? Your buddies are the barbarians, Kendry, not us. What you're going through is the kind of shit the KGB puts some of our people through, so we're just returning the favor. It's too bad you probably won't be alive to go back and tell them how much it hurts."

"Parker, you dumb son of a bitch, listen—"

"You're an idiot, because you think I'm going to eventually back off. You're wrong, buddy. You're going to go right on suffering until you die, or until I get the information I want. I want to know what network you're a part of, the name of your controller, and what specific information you were asked to gather. That's for openers. Later we'll get into more general discussions of KGB operations. You see, Kendry, you really have been wasting my time and your water by trying to bullshit me."

Veil closed his eyes for a few moments and again tried to focus his thoughts, this time on the question of whom Parker could have talked to. He was afraid he knew the answer; his unknown enemy had found a way to kill him without even coming near the cage or firing a bullet. "What proof?" he asked quietly.

"Never mind," Parker answered in a somewhat defensive tone. "I've got it."

"Who told you I was KGB?"

"How did you find the tunnel?"

"I just found it. I'd been looking for a way to get in here, and I got lucky."

"Where have you been hiding since you killed the Mamba?"

"At the hospice."

"How'd you get up there?"

"Pilgrim arranged it. He wants to know what's going on almost as much as I do."

"Why didn't he come to me?"

"You'll have to ask him."

"I'm asking you, jerk."

"I need water, Parker. I'm losing my voice."

"No way. You haven't paid for what I gave you before."

"I don't know why Pilgrim didn't want to talk to you."

"Take a guess."

"You know him better than I do, so you must know that he sometimes has funny reasons for doing things. I used to think that I understood his reasons. Now I'm not so sure."

"Does he know you're over here?"

"He'll probably guess, but I didn't tell him I was going."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure I trust him any longer."

"Why."

"Personality conflict."

"Well, he can guess all he wants to," Parker said in a low, ominous tone. "By the time I let him in here again, you'll either be dead and buried in the riverbank, or on your way to Washington for some really serious interrogation about your bosses and your network. Your choice."

"Damn it, Parker, I don't have even one boss, much less a network." Suddenly Veil found himself laughing—a high-pitched, tortured, hiccupping sound that would have sounded more like laughter if he weren't dying of thirst and exposure. "You know, man, you're unbelievably dense, and you're really starting to piss me off. Somebody's pulling your pud, and you're determined to kill off the one man who could help you find out who it is."

"Pilgrim's a fool," Parker said, more to himself than to Veil. "He'd give away the whole candy store."

"You're the one with the sucker in the shop, Colonel—not Pilgrim. Think, for chrissake! Did you send that Mamba after me?"

Parker's silence was eloquent.

"Of course not," Veil continued. "Do you know who did?"

Again, Parker's silence was his answer.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Veil said with a sigh, struggling for breath and against the impulse to gag. Each sound he made now translated itself into pain, but he had to keep talking, had to somehow make Parker listen and understand. "I'll bet you don't even know how your man got up on that mountain; I certainly don't, and neither does Pilgrim. But you do know that he went there and that he was after me. Why—if not for the reasons I'm giving you? He was a double agent, sent by his controller to kill me because the controller thought I was after him. Whoever fed you that shit about me being KGB could be the man I'm after."

"It doesn't have to be that way," Parker said tightly.

"What doesn't have to be what way?"

"Your scenario of what happened."

"Fine. Tell me what the Mamba was doing on Pilgrim's mountain. Do you think he got lost during a training exercise and stopped by the pool to ask me directions?"

"He was a double agent, all right, but he was your man."

"My man?" Veil coughed and tasted blood as his lower lip split in two places.

"You were his controller."

"Come on, Parker. Appearances to the contrary, it can't be that easy to seed an agent into your operation here. Once having done so, why should I kill him?"

"That's one of the things you're going to tell me right now, Kendry. And if you don't, you've had your last drop of water in this lifetime."

"You're crazy, Parker. How in hell could I be that joker's controller? I've been living in New York for more than fifteen years."

"Right. The question is what you've been doing in New York."

"I thought you said you'd checked up on me. I'm a painter; I've been painting, stupid."

"What else? What did the Russians have you doing in New York? And why should they assign this Mamba to you?"

Veil choked off a curse and shook his head in frustration. Arguing with Parker was futile, and the fever in his mind and body told him that it was long past time for him to roll out the heavy artillery. "Parker, you fucking idiot, I want you to call a man by the name of Orville Madison. CIA. I don't have the slightest idea where he's posted now, but Langley will have the information. He was my controller. You're DIA, and you should have enough juice to get the Agency to cooperate with you. Madison hates my guts, but I don't think he'll lie to you—assuming he'll talk to you in the first place. Madison will give you the straight story on me, right up to the minute I arrived at the Institute."

"How would he know?"

"Because he's had me flagged from the day I was thrown out of the Army and the CIA. I have no doubt that he's bugged every place I've lived in and knows the birthmarks of every person I've met with since then. Madison can probably tell you what I had for breakfast some Sunday morning ten years ago. He'll tell you I'm not KGB. The same person who sent the Mamba after me is trying to kill me now in a different way, by framing me and getting you to kill me."

"Orville Madison, huh?" For the first time, Parker seemed interested in what Veil had to say.

"If you can't get to Madison right away, try getting in touch with a man by the name of Lester Bean. Bean may be easier to trace, if you go right to your boss in the Pentagon. Bean was a colonel, and my CO in Vietnam."

Veil waited, but there was no immediate response from Parker. "Orville Madison—CIA," Veil repeated. "Lester Bean, at one time an officer in the U.S. Army. Call them, Parker. Learn the truth. And then please bring me some water, because I'm really not feeling too well."

And then Veil passed out.