|
FREE: The Name of Trust
by Barbara A. Barnett
|
|||||
|
John shifted in the hard-backed chair and crossed his arms, as defiant as he could be in a State-mandated hospital robe that might as well have been paper for all of its sturdiness. "Look, I don't know why they brought me here. I'm fine." "You killed a man, John." The doctor sat on the edge of his oaken monstrosity of a desk, pinstripe-clad legs dangling. Those legs were as long and slender as the rest of him, adding an inappropriate allure to the neat suit and the rectangular-framed glasses that normally would have been too bookish for John's tastes. "I can't release you until we talk about that." John eyed everything except the doctor—books and awards and certificates, all against a backdrop of deep wood paneling, and all imprinted with the State's silver eagle-head emblem. The honors bore no name, only a designation: Doctor 47321. Psychiatry. "John?" One familiar syllable, yet the soothing way the doctor said it drew John's gaze back to him. Under other circumstances, John would have been willing to talk to the doctor for hours just to hear that posh accent. But his contacts in the underground had given him protocols for situations like this, first among them to say as little as possible. "What do you want me to say?" John crossed his arms tighter, wishing he could hide the circles of sweat expanding around his armpits. He had heard the rumors about people suspected of treason being admitted to mental hospitals like this one—a perfect cover for State-sponsored questioning through torture. "I told the authorities everything." The doctor grabbed a data pad from his desk and tapped through its contents. The creases around his eyes deepened as he read, and John wondered if the doctor was older than he looked, perhaps pushing forty as he was. "Outside of your work for the State," the doctor said, "it would seem that you've led a rather quiet life. At least until this morning when you killed Scott Davies, a man you claim to have met last night at Club Mulino." The doctor glanced up from the data pad. "I'd like you to talk to me about what happened. About any feelings of guilt you might be having, any—" John snorted. "Am I supposed to feel guilty for killing a spy?" "Why do you think he was a spy?" "Well, for starters, there was the spying." Not quite a lie, John told himself—at least not when he left out the way he had covered his tracks to make it look as if Scott Davies had been the one passing on information to the underground. "And then there was the part where he pulled a gun on me when I caught him going through my files." "And you claim you shot him in self-defense while wrestling the gun away from him?" "That's right." Still not a lie—just a reminder of how careless he had been walking into a place like Club Mulino. Just this once, he had thought, letting Scott buy him one drink, then another, wanting to be with a man again so badly that the risk seemed worth it. Then he woke to an empty bed just before dawn and found Scott in his office, hacking into files John thought he had hidden too well to be accessed so easily. "Your research is valuable enough that the State might have been willing to overlook a certain degree of deviancy in your personal life," Scott had said, gun raised and nose wrinkled in disgust. "But this . . ." He gestured toward John's computer, where the screen's blue glow illuminated an incriminating trail of communications with the underground. "This they won't overlook." Heat rose in John's cheeks at the memory. "He didn't even tell me his real name. He said it was Kevin." "Perhaps he gave you a fake name because he didn't end up at your apartment for the reason you claim." The doctor glanced at the data pad again. "You told the authorities that you invited Mr. Davies back to your apartment because he was too drunk to drive home. It's a rare man who would do that for a stranger in this day and age." The doctor set the data pad aside, then fixed his full attention on John. "And Club Mulino has a reputation for being frequented by a certain—fringe population, shall we say?" John laughed—a short bark to mask his nervousness. Admitting that he had slept with another man would land him in a mental ward just as quickly as treason would; his lover Chris had learned that the hard way. "So is that why I'm really here?" John asked, noting the wedding band on the doctor's left hand, envying how much easier it would be if he had that kind of State-approved normalcy to hide behind. "Not because I killed a man, but because the State thinks I'm some kind of deviant?" The doctor folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward. "Just tell me the truth, John." "I've done that already." The doctor sighed, took up his data pad again. "Let's talk about a former colleague of yours: Christopher McCallister." John's stomach clenched, but he forced himself to meet the doctor's dispassionate gaze with one of his own. "What about him?" "Shortly before his suicide in a State hospital, Mr. McCallister confessed to having been involved in a long-term affair with another man—a man he refused to name. He did, however, admit to calling this man on the night of his arrest." The doctor gave John a knowing look. "That call was traced to a public phone several blocks from your apartment." John's mouth went dry. Two years later and he could still hear Chris's panicked voice warning him to avoid the rendezvous they had planned; he could still feel the phone booth's glass enclosure shrinking in on him the way the doctor's office seemed to now. "So?" "So before his arrest, Mr. McCallister worked quite closely with you on developing the N84 series of assault rifles." "And that's all it was. Work." The lie felt like a knife ripping through John's gut. He grew queasy remembering how hard it had been to laugh along with the slurs his coworkers had muttered about Chris after his death. The only person John had been able to trust, and he couldn't say a kind word about him. "I never asked him about his personal life. I didn't care." "And you don't think it's rather curious how these deviant underground spies like him and Scott Davies keep finding their way into your life?" "Considering the kind of things I have access to, no." "I'd like to talk about Scott Davies again." The doctor slid off his desk, his gaze fixed on the data pad. "You've been doing weapons research and development for the State for eight years now. Scott Davies was a wedding planner. Now exactly how did he manage to access your work without any kind of security clearance?" John bit back a laugh of disbelief. Of course the State had a cover story for an agent like Scott—a ridiculously innocent one that would make framing him that much harder. "I don't know." "I'm no expert, but I've been told that it would be next to impossible for someone to access your work files from your home terminal without logging onto the State network." "I told you, I don't know." John's voice grew louder—too loud, he knew. "He got hold of my security codes somehow." "I work in a far less sensitive area than you," the doctor said, circling John's chair, "yet my wife was never able to get enough clearance to drop off my lunch when I forgot it." John glanced around the room, chest tightening. Doctor 47321, everything proclaimed—everything except a child's drawing tacked to the wall behind the doctor's desk. The drawing showed a house and the sun and two stick figures holding a smaller figure's hands, all rendered with straight lines and perfectly formed circles. The depictions should have been in the impossible colors and imperfect proportions John remembered imagining as a boy, but like so many other children, a lash across his knuckles had taught him not to produce anything other than State-prescribed items in State-prescribed colors. "Your kid is quite talented, Doctor . . . " John raised a questioning eyebrow. The doctor took a seat in the high-backed leather chair behind his desk and set the data pad aside. "You know I can't tell you that." "See, I just don't get that policy. A doctor can leave his kid's artwork out, but he can't tell me his name." John stared at the drawing, then at the doctor's wedding band—the only hints of a life outside the office. "So what's your kid's name?" The doctor took off his glasses, and John tried not to flinch. Without them, his large, round eyes and narrow face made him handsome in the way Chris had been. "We were talking about you, John." John fixed the doctor with a hard stare. "Do you even really have a family?" "We're not going to talk about that." The doctor leaned back in his chair, hands folded in front of him, manner poised and patient. "Perhaps instead you could tell me what you talked about with Scott Davies, convince me why you would have invited a stranger into your home. Did he remind you of your favorite uncle?" John bit the inside of his lip. Did he remind you of your favorite uncle?—one of the code phrases an underground agent would use to identify himself if meeting in person became necessary. John forced himself to keep his expression even. He wanted to give the agreed upon response; the words felt as if they were churning along with the contents of his stomach, threatening to spew forth. But if his communications with the underground had been compromised, the doctor could be waiting for him to betray himself by reacting. Another trap, just like Scott Davies had been. The doctor rubbed his eyes with his right hand, gave a brief tug to his right ear, then refolded his hands—casual movements on the surface, but also the underground's signal that the room was bugged. John dug his teeth deeper into his lip. Of course the session was being recorded; he'd be surprised to learn otherwise. And if the doctor was with the underground, he'd have to keep putting on an act for whoever was watching, slipping the cues to John as casually as possible. "John?" John stared at the doctor, a man he would have been tempted to buy a drink for had they met at Club Mulino, then at everything around him: the child's dictated drawing, the certificates for an anonymous doctor, the silver eagle head stamped on everything. John clenched his fists as his fear gave way to anger at the drawings he had never made and the life with Chris the State had taken away. "No," John said at last, giving the reply to the code phrase, "not my uncle. He reminded me of my grandfather." The doctor smiled, and the cruel tilt of his lips sent a shiver up John's spine. He leaned over his desk and pressed a button on the intercom. "I need to sedate Mr. Baird for transfer." John stiffened and grasped the arms of his chair. "You can't lock me up in here," he said, the desperation in his voice rising with each word. "Please, I'm not—" "We clearly have a lot more to talk about." The doctor took a syringe from the top drawer of his desk. John heard the door click open behind him, then the sound of heavy footfalls entering the room. He leapt to his feet. Two orderlies seized him by the arms and forced him face-first onto the floor. John thrashed, but one of the orderlies shoved his head against the cold tile and held it still. "I'm going to help you, John." The doctor's voice sounded close to his ear, soothing despite the needle prick at the base of his neck that followed. "Trust me."  John opened his eyes to a blur of light and darkness, then closed them again with a groan. Ears ringing and head throbbing, stomach threatening to heave up its contents, feeling as if he were in motion even though he was sitting still—he wanted to believe it was nothing more than a mundane hangover, but the doctor's voice put an end to his hope for the ordinary. "Sorry about the needle." "Right." John rubbed his temples until his ears stopped ringing. Wherever he was, the only sound was a steady thrum. "How are you feeling?" the doctor asked. John would have responded with an incredulous laugh if he thought he could do so without vomiting. "Oh, just swell." He tried to stretch out, but his feet struck something, and his hand slapped against a cool, flat surface. A window. John opened his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, and the blurs he had seen earlier came into focus—headlights against dark pavement and streetlights flickering past, just long enough to offer a glimpse of the tree-lined roadside. He was in the passenger seat of a car, unrestrained, and the doctor was at the wheel. John straightened in the seat, and his foot struck something else—his clothes folded in a neat pile. "I can pull over if you're feeling sick," the doctor said. "No." John snatched up his clothes; his hospital robe was bunched so far up his thighs that the doctor must have gotten an eyeful getting him into the car. He wriggled into his boxers, then his pants, hurrying when he noticed the appraising glance he was drawing from the doctor. He had seen that look before. From Chris it had been honest, but from Scott Davies it had been a lie. "Just tell me how the hell I ended up in a car instead of a mental ward." "A falsified transfer order, two orderlies who never question their superiors, and one extremely bribable security guard." The doctor checked the rearview mirror. "Someone will catch on eventually—I had to call in a lot of favors to make sure I was the doctor assigned to you—but we should be able to get to the nearest safe house before that happens." John pulled on his shirt. He crumpled the hospital robe and turned to throw it in the backseat, but the doctor grabbed his wrist. "Put it in the glove compartment," he said, one hand still on the wheel. "There's a security checkpoint between us and the safe house." The car passed under a streetlight. John thought he saw something glint inside the doctor's suit jacket, but the doctor put his hand back on the wheel and his jacket fell closed. A gun, John wondered, or just his imagination? "There's an ID in there for you too," the doctor said, nodding toward the glove compartment. "A fake." John opened the compartment and shoved the hospital robe inside, as far back as possible. His relief at being rid of the thing made his nausea ease some. Toward the front of the compartment, he spied an ID with his photo. Beside it, half-hidden beneath a travel-sized pack of tissues, was a vehicle registration card with the doctor's photo. John pushed the tissues aside so that he could read the name on the card. "Alexander Michael Handleton. Is that really your name?" "I prefer Alex." The doctor—or Alex, rather—gave him a wry smile. "Has a much better ring to it than Doctor 47321, don't you think?" John pocketed his new ID and closed the glove compartment, but his gaze kept returning to Alex's jacket—there was a slight bulge on the left side, about where he had noticed the glint a moment before. "Well, now that you're the one answering questions, Doctor Handleton, why should I believe that you'd risk yourself to help me?" "Do you have any idea how important you are to the underground?" Alex glanced at John, face creased, then checked the car's rearview mirror, as if he feared his words alone might bring a swarm of State officers out of the darkness. "I was ordered to break cover. My position had its uses, but the things rattling around in your brain are a bit more important." "More weapons." John slumped back in his seat, casting a sidelong glance at Alex. If the man was putting on an act, it was a damn convincing one. "That wasn't even what I wanted to do with my life, you know. But earn the right test scores and the State doesn't give you a choice." "So what did you want to do?" "Some kind of artist, maybe—not that you can be a real one anymore. Not the way I'd like, at least." John thought of the child's drawing in Alex's office. Had Alex put his family at risk for the underground, or was that drawing one more reason not to trust his claim that he was helping John? "I never got an answer the first time, Doctor—what's your kid's name?" Alex laughed. "I don't have any children. The drawing was done by one of my patients." "Wife?" "Divorced." Alex grinned at him, and his gaze lingered on John a moment before he turned his attention back to the road. "People tend to ask fewer questions about why you're not dating when they think you're still pining over your ex." Alex held up the hand with his wedding band for emphasis, and his jacket opened slightly with the motion. Another streetlight, another glint. John grasped the door handle, palms sweating. It had to be a gun. "So are you really even a doctor?" "Completed my degree six years ago. The anonymity of the State medical system was a surprisingly ideal place for a dissident like me to stay off the radar. Until now, at least." John glanced down. His door was unlocked. "How did you pass the psych screening?" "Even the best State tests can be fooled." "So you're a good liar then." John looked out the window—nothing but a thin line of trees and darkness beyond. They could be anywhere. But when John thought of how convenient everything about Alex sounded, he suspected the roadside's uncertainty might prove more trustworthy than his companion. "So tell me, Doctor—did they teach you how to use that gun of yours while you were learning how to psychoanalyze people like me?" Alex cringed, shook his head. "Look, I know what you must be thinking, but you—" "How far to this checkpoint you mentioned?" John asked, gripping the door handle tighter. "Another fifteen miles, at least." Alex's gaze flitted between John and the road ahead. "But you have to trust me, John. There are—" John opened the door and jumped. He struck the pavement, then tumbled down an earthy slope, arms flailing, branches and gravel catching on his clothes and scraping his skin. He slammed against a tree, and pain streaked through his chest. Somewhere behind him, brakes screeched. John coughed out grass and looked up toward the roadside. The headlights of Alex's car turned off. A car door clicked open, clicked shut, and footfalls followed. John staggered to his feet. His muscles ached, and his skin burned with scratches from the roadside bramble, but he forced himself forward. Every stride felt slower than the next, obstructed by another tree or another shrub. Every twig underfoot cracked too loudly. His foot snagged on a stray branch and he toppled forward, face-first onto the ground. Cold, moist dirt chilled his skin; it coated his mouth with the taste of grime and seeped into his nose. John pushed himself up, staggering backwards as he gasped for the breath the fall had knocked out of him. From behind, a hand clamped over his mouth and an arm hooked around his throat. "You're going to get us both killed, damn it," Alex whispered in his ear. John tensed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a gun in Alex's hand. "There's a regular patrol in this area," Alex said, his breath hot in John's ear. "So we're going back to the car. Slowly." John nodded. He let Alex pull him along, and after a few steps, Alex's grip on him eased—just a touch, but enough. John bit the hand covering his mouth and slammed his elbow into Alex's stomach. Alex gave a short shout of surprise, and John grabbed for the gun, wrested it free. He spun round and backed away, the barrel aimed at Alex. "I've already shot one man today, so don't think I won't use this." Alex raised his hands in the air. "I'm on your side, John. You have to believe me." "Believe the man who drugged me?" John's head pounded, but he held the gun steady. "You could have taken me out the hospital's front door with the State's blessing for all I know." "And why would they let me do that?" Alex asked, his voice steady, placating. "Because it'd be the perfect way for someone like you to infiltrate the underground. You help me, they believe you're really with the cause." John's voice shook with anger at the calm in Alex's demeanor, as if he didn't believe John would shoot. "Or maybe you were just waiting for me to reveal the right bit of information before you shot me in the head and dumped my body on the roadside." "Or maybe I'm really on your side." Alex took a step forward, then another, hands still raised. "You must have trusted someone enough to have become involved with the underground in the first place. Why not—" John clicked the gun's safety off, and Alex stopped. John's breaths became quicker, shorter. He wanted to believe Alex so badly that his body ached from more than his jump out of the car; he wanted to trust him the way he had Chris all those years ago. But he couldn't help thinking of Scott Davies, of how convincing that man's act had been until they were standing like this, one with a gun pointed at the other. A click sounded behind him. John glanced over his shoulder, and everything that followed seemed to move in two speeds at once—so fast that the moment passed in only a few seconds, yet so slow that John could recall every detail. A shot from a gun other than his own. Alex pushing him aside, crying out, dropping to his knees. A metallic flash—the State's silver eagle caught in the dim light of the nearby roadside. John fired three shots toward the emblem, and a figure slumped to the ground. John stood shaking, weapon still raised and aimed, the burnt, powdery scent of gunshots filling his nose. Finally, when nothing else moved in the darkness, he glanced down at Alex, who was still on his knees, hands pressed to the side where he must have taken the shot—a shot, John realized with a pang of guilt, intended for him. "Are you all right?" Alex nodded and took in a heavy breath. "Let's just get out of here." "Wait." John picked his way through the darkness, gun at the ready. He found the other shooter splayed out beside a tree—a man in the black fatigues of the State police, the silver eagle head imprinted on the right sleeve. John kicked the body. Nothing. He leaned down, slowly, and felt the neck for a pulse. Nothing. The unwanted memory of leaning over Scott Davies and discovering the same struck John with dizzying intensity, and he swallowed back a surge of vomit. "What are you doing?" Alex called out, voice shaking. John tucked Alex's handgun into his waistband, then grabbed the pistol the officer had dropped. "State-issued firearms have safety protocols for situations like this." He unlatched a panel on the gun's hilt. Inside, a tiny yellow light blinked. "If a sidearm is discharged and the officer doesn't reset the system within a fixed time, an alert is automatically sent to the nearest headquarters, bringing a whole swarm of State police to the scene." "So you can reset it?" "Are you kidding?" John pressed a button down until the blinking light changed to a steady green. "I helped design the system." John wiped his prints from the gun with the edge of his shirt before setting it down. He glanced back at Alex, who was still bent over, still clutching a wound John hadn't yet seen. John took Alex's gun from his waistband and checked the hilt. No panel. Wherever he had gotten it, it hadn't been State-issued. At least not officially. "John?" John took a deep breath. "Let's get out of here." John stuck the key in the ignition, but hesitated before starting the car. He had slipped Alex's gun into his waistband and pulled his shirt over it, and he tried not to fidget as the metal dug into his back. Alex shifted in the passenger seat, his bloodied shirt and hastily bandaged side hidden beneath a coat he had gotten out of the trunk. The bullet had only grazed him, but he looked pale. "Sure you're all right?" John asked. Alex nodded. "And you're sure we can still get through that checkpoint after this mess?" "Just make sure you give them the right name." John took the ID Alex had given him out of his pocket. He squinted at the tiny type and tried to memorize the details of his new identity—one that, despite the situation, brought a smirk to his lips. "Reginald Chambers. Do you really expect me to trust you after you stick me with a name like that?" Alex gave a weak laugh, then clutched his side and cringed. His gaze grew somber. "Can you trust me?" John frowned as suspicion squirmed its way back into his head. Scott Davies had gone so far as to sleep with him; would Alex have been willing to take a bullet for the same agenda? "Your name—what is it really?" Alex shook his head, smiling in a way that made him look amused and incredulous at the same time. He took off his wedding band and turned it over in his hands. "My first name really is Alex, my last name isn't Handleton, and that's all I'm going to tell you." He opened a storage compartment in the console between their seats, tossed the ring inside, and grinned at John. "For now." John drummed his fingers against his fake ID; lies seemed as easy to produce as they were to believe. But when he thought about his own lies—the ones he had told to help the underground, the ones he and Chris had told to protect each other—he found himself returning Alex's smile. Because some lies were worth the risk. "Trust." John took Alex's gun from his waistband and placed it inside the storage compartment with the ring, where they both could reach it. "I think I can do that." The Name of Trust © Copyright 2010, Barbara A. Barnett Learn more about Barbara A. Barnett and her work at: www.babarnett.com
|
|||||
|
© Copyright 2010, Zefram Media LLC |
|||||
