The Room of White Fire Page 7

  The S-434 was configured for four, but we were alone. It had dual flight controls. The cabin noise wasn’t bad for a light turbine chopper and Dr. Briggs Spencer’s voice was clear and forceful, but we used headsets anyway.

  “I didn’t learn to fly until I was in my forties,” he said, banking hard to the west. “I was stationed at Fairchild outside of Spokane and I knew some Apache pilots. Off-the-radar kind of arrangement, literally. Now, that is one enormous head-and-body rush that you’ll never forget—flying a gunship. I’d buy one, but it wouldn’t be practical for business. Terrible fuel economy. Check this out, though.”

  He nodded to a holster bolted to the helo frame on his left, in which rested a large semiautomatic handgun. Spencer smiled, leaned back a little, and reached to the fuselage just above the weapon. He slid open a small window, not much larger than a gas-tank lid, made a gun of his forefinger, and pointed it out the hole. That cheerleader-winning smile again. “Coyotes,” he said. “There’s hillsides near my home crawling with them. At night I get down low, hit the spotlights, and give them hell. Nice to be a southpaw sometimes.”

  “Odd hobby for a psychologist.”

  “I told you, people change. There’s a gun port on your side, too. Maybe we’ll go out some night, shoot some varmints.”

  “No, thanks. Did you buy this helo with your money from running the torture programs?”

  “Don’t be squeamish. It wasn’t torture. It was detention and interrogation.”

  Words, meaning everything and nothing again. “Bullshit is bullshit, whatever you call it.”

  “Yeah, well, I made an ungodly sum from it. CIA just threw money at us—at everyone over there. Our base contract was worth eighty million, and we were paid bonuses for what they called ‘useful intelligence.’ Bear in mind that I’m nothing but a garden-variety psychologist graduated from a state school. A decent first baseman with a GPA of two point four. My only gifts are a stubborn streak and that people like me. Now, some of that government money I used for black-site maintenance, bribes, subcontractors—everything you’d expect. But Tim and I cleared about twenty mil each. We closed Spencer-Tritt Consulting in 2009, one step ahead of Obama. When DoD came after me for breach of contract, the CIA paid the legal fees. Five million. I won. Invested in some lucky IPOs that went huge, opened the door to start-ups. At that level it’s who you know. Allowed me to get into things I love. Which is tech and medical—drones and drugs. Medevac hardware conversion—helos again. Pharmaceuticals, mostly psychotropic therapies for schizophrenia and depression. I founded residential mental illness facilities where we actually make you better, not worse. Got three of them up and running and the fourth underway. Exclusive and expensive because exclusive people demand expense. I made a fortune off the United States government and turned that into a hundred fortunes more. Funny part is, the CIA always thought of me as a bargain. And let me be extremely clear on one thing—we did not torture. We applied enhanced interrogation techniques, developed by Dr. Tritt and myself. They were rational and legal and they worked. They saved American lives. Don’t believe the gutless media or the politicians. Nothing they say about us is true.”

  Only a guilty conscience talks that long without being asked a question. “Except the eighty million.”

  “Yes, good, the money was very true. But believe it or not, I didn’t bring you all the way up here to talk about myself. Have you seen Clay?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Paige told me you’ve discovered a lady friend of his. Is this a friend from his past or a new acquaintance?”

  “New, unless she’s a good liar.”

  “How long have they known each other?”

  “One month of talking through the fence at your hospital.”

  “But no past connection?”

  “Not that I’ve found.”

  “Give me her name. I’ll run it through DeMaris.”

  “She spoke to me confidentially.”

  “Is she a hostage?”

  “She doesn’t think so.”

  “How did you know to look for them at the Waterfront?”

  I shrugged and looked down at tawny foothills buttoned by dark green oaks. I had to conclude that the tail cars at the Waterfront were his, but I said nothing. I’d had employers like Briggs Spencer before—controllers who want to know not only everything you’ve learned but how you learned it. It’s their way of confirming that they could have learned it themselves if they’d only had the time, thus you are an overpaid fool. “So, Doctor, does Arcadia offer a military discount?”

  The psychologist peered at me again over his glasses. “You mean for Clay? I can’t do that. Rule number one: Business is business.”

  He drew the stick back and shoved it right. My body swayed left, inner gyros working, then I felt the gut-drop again as the light craft banked into heavy air. It was like one of those carnival rides that go around fast and pin you to the wall. “But I can tell you, the profit I make on Arcadia and my other hospitals is pocket change compared to other things I do. It’s more a passion than a business.”

  “What’s the monthly charge for a partner to live in Arcadia?”

  Spencer looked at me. “That’s not something my conservators want disclosed. And more important, implied when you admit a loved one to Arcadia is the idea that this kind of shit doesn’t happen. Partners don’t just walk off, Mr. Ford. I promise their families they can’t. Now Rex Hickman is putting enormous pressure on me to find Clay and return him to Arcadia.”

  I waited for his disapproval of my not having delivered Clay to him already, his subtle employer’s threat. And I didn’t care if the psychologist fired me on the spot, as long as I got a ride back home. I looked down on Vail Lake, a sapphire-blue gash in the hills. Compared to the torturer beside me, Clay Hickman was more forgivable. Clay was an earnest overachiever most likely driven crazy—truly, actually, crazy—by war. Violent? Yes. Dangerous? Maybe. But this wasn’t the first time I’d been hired to find someone more admirable than the people looking for him. I didn’t care if I worked another day for Briggs Spencer or not.

  Then he pushed the stick down and left, which dropped the little Sikorsky into a steep descent. It looked like he was aiming for the lake. He pegged the engine, earth on tilt, chopper shuddering.

  “The first goal of interrogation is to establish control over the partner,” he said. “When the control is total, his will dissolves. He must come to see you as controlling every element, from what he hears and sees to what he feels and thinks. What he eats and drinks. When his diapers are changed. When he is slammed into a wall or left overnight chained naked to a concrete floor. Finally, the detainee must see that you control whether he lives or dies. When he knows that you are in control of his life, he will begin to feel helpless. We taught our partners helplessness, Mr. Ford. Learned helplessness. Our goal was not simple information and confession, but exploitation. The full exploitation of the partner—for propaganda, recruiting, penetration. It all derives from helplessness, which can be taught. No one understood us, though our success was visible everywhere you looked. I say it all the time and I’ll say it again: We saved American lives. But enough. It’s all in my book. Hard Truth. Out this month, huge media, big tour. The times have caught up with Briggs Spencer. I got a nice advance, and film rights went big. I’m getting sequel offers, speaking offers. The new president has reached out to me for cabinet recommendations. Heady stuff. And I intend to profit from every bit of it.”

  I watched the earth rising up at us. The little Sikorsky wasn’t built for this kind of thing: the dizzying, disorienting yaw, and the g-force pressure. But he wouldn’t see me sweat. I focused my attention on the rough hills beneath us, grass and chaparral. This season’s rain was poor again, and by summer a spark would be all it would take to set it off. Whoosh. Adios north San Diego County.

  Then, time to jab: “Was Clay a part of your progr
am?”

  “No. He was a flight mechanic in Iraq. I didn’t meet him until three years ago, when his father asked me to examine him at the state hospital. Rex and Patricia Hickman wanted something better for their son. Something that would help him. I had opened Arcadia two years earlier.”

  I wondered if Spencer had fallen for the same falsified service record that I’d been handed by Paige Hulet. Then I wondered if Spencer had created that record himself. If so, he was a solid liar, both on the page and now. I wondered how such a skill might have influenced Hard Truth.

  Spencer smiled at me, eased out of the dive, then pointed the helo back toward Fallbrook. He turned and gave me another long look. “You don’t scare easily. I know you’ve played in the sky before.”

  “I’ve got good insurance up here. You.”

  “Soundly reasoned.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “I need two things, Mr. Ford. One is to find Clay. I want one hundred percent of your time devoted to him. Your pay is now doubled, to guarantee your full attention. Two, I need you to call me immediately when you’ve located him. Do not call Paige. Do not call DeMaris.”

  If I’d had any doubt how badly Briggs Spencer wanted to find Clay, my unasked-for raise erased it. And his demand that I call him first, not his director of medical services, not his head of security. Their three-way competition was more than just intriguing. It seemed desperate. Even in a quick glance I saw the intensity on his face. And the coldness in his eyes through the chilly yellow light of his aviators.

  “Why not call Dr. Hulet or DeMaris?” I asked.

  “Because you work for me, not them. It’s best for Clay. DeMaris is a dullard. And Paige is scary smart but she tends to take her partners too seriously. Too personally, for her own good. Clay needs a steadying hand.”

  “And then what? I locate Clay, you come take him back to Arcadia?”

  “That’s what the Hickmans want. It’s where he belongs. Best treatment in the world and a damned nice place to get it.”

  From what little I’d seen of Arcadia and its staff so far, I could have agreed. Though the idea of a private asylum run by a bona fide ex-torturer seemed more than a little off to me.

  “I want to put an idea in your head,” he said.

  “I don’t want your ideas in my head.”

  “Listen. There are rewards to be gotten on earth—genuine treasures—far beyond your paltry hourly wage. Beyond what you imagine is possible to attain. Beyond that vast ache you feel in your heart for Justine.”

  Rage, Wrath & Fury rose to attention inside me. They are the rude, ugly creatures who clambered into me the moment I heard that Justine was dead. I named them. They haven’t left since. Right then, in that helo with Briggs Spencer, they were very angry. Even for them. A lot of things set them off, Justine’s name among them. “Don’t say her name again.”

  “I say what I want in my own helicopter.”

  “Not her name.” I set my right ankle over the other knee, let the cuff of my pant leg reveal the gun.

  Spencer took a long look at it, then at me. “You surprise me. I could make a call and have your license for this. And up here in the sky, I’m your lifeline. So all you’re really doing is bluffing.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  He looked ahead, not at me. He glanced at the gun on his left. “You keep her alive inside you. Don’t you understand that? You control who she is and who she becomes.”

  “Don’t say her name again.”

  “No, hell no. You win. But thank you. I understand you better now.”

  The sun was a fat orange ball in the eastern sky. Below us, Interstate 15 traffic was humming along smoothly. Fallbrook came into view. A minute later I could see my hills and the thickets of oak and sycamore and the random network of narrow two-track roads that linked Rancho de los Robles together, then the house and the barn and the pond.

  “Roland, you’ve impressed me today. I see that, after you’ve gotten Clay back, I might need you on my team again. Where you would have a chance to flourish, and become familiar with those treasures I mentioned.”

  I ignored him. We came in low over the water. The rotor chop dashed the reflections of the willows and cattails on the banks. I saw my tenants sitting around the picnic table under the palapa, their five curious faces all tracking the approach of the shiny Sikorsky.

  Spencer set the craft down softly. He worked a card from his wallet and wrote something on the back and gave it to me. He looked at me once again. “My Air Force friends? They called the action ‘smoke.’ Put me in the smoke, Mr. Ford. I love it there. Find Clay Hickman and lead me to him. It would be the best thing for everyone involved.”

  11

  What kind of crackpot paints his helo copper?” asked Grandpa Dick. “And what’s so hard about the truth?”

  Breakfast time under the big palapa by the pond on Rancho de los Robles, all Irregulars present. Dick and Burt Short were the breakfast team most days, which meant scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, tortillas, and salsa.

  “It’s a new book by a psychologist,” said Burt Short, giving me a flat look. “And that Sikorsky 434 turbine will set you back nine hundred and thirty thousand new.”

  “A book about Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Lindsey Rakes said absently. The cuffs of her fine cowgirl shirt from the night before were rolled up, her hair lopsided from sleep, her sunglasses dark. Apparently she’d run the gauntlet of casinos between her lawyer and here without success. “Pass the tortillas.”

  “Here you go, honey,” said Grandma Liz. “I can make you a Bloody Mary that might help.”

  Lindsey stared at Liz but said nothing.

  “Anyone wants to hike after breakfast let me know,” said Wesley Gunn. “I’m down to a hundred and fifty-seven days with both eyes.”

  “I still think that Tijuana doctor I know could do you some good,” said Burt. “How about you skip the hike and I’ll drive you down for a consult?”

  “All Mexican doctors are quacks,” said Dick.

  “Of course they’re not,” said Liz. “Some are educated in America.”

  “Illegally and for free,” said Dick.

  “Don’t you two ever stop?” asked Lindsey. “You’re worse than a hangover. You are a hangover.”

  Wesley Gunn regarded Burt from behind the very dark lenses of his prescription glasses. “Okay. Let’s go see the Mexican doctor.”

  Burt set his coffee cup down and smiled. He’s a round-faced little man with a raspy voice and laugh. “Let’s finish breakfast and mosey south. I’ll call him.”

  “Can I go?” asked Lindsey. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

  I loaded up my plate and poured another cup of coffee. During good weather we spent more time here at the picnic table than in the cavernous dining room inside. I sent a text message to an acquaintance at the San Diego Union-Tribune to whom I had spoken frankly and on record about the shooting of Titus Miller. I asked him if he could get me an early copy of Hard Truth. He said he’d send the paper’s review copy along, but I told him I’d pick it up instead.

  When my phone buzzed I stepped away from the picnic table to answer. The voice I wanted to hear most was Sequoia Blain’s. Wish granted. But I braced myself for the worst.

  She sounded worried but said she was okay. Was with Clay in a motel in Ojai—a three-and-a-half-hour drive north from Fallbrook. Not sure why they were there. Not afraid, exactly, but she was worried because Clay was agitated and emotional and he was definitely coming off his meds. He’d been using her phone, but was secretive about who he was contacting.

  She gave me the name of the motel and room number, and said Clay thought he was ready to meet me, but I had to call when I got there. In case he changed his mind. “He wants you to bring a voice recorder. Mr. Ford, you’re not just going to show up with the cops and arrest him, are you?”


  My temper was rising and Clay was the target. His demands and evasions. Sequoia’s protective complicity was wearing thin, too. “If he hurts you I will.”

  “Because he’s . . . breakable. You know what they did to him in that so-called hospital? Arcadia? They shocked him and drugged him for three years. He’s afraid no one will believe him.”

  I rallied my patience because I thought it would get me closer to Clay faster. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Sequoia. Tell him I’m depending on him to protect you. Tell him very clearly.”

  “You can’t take him back to the hospital. What are you going to do?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that. But Sequoia was wrong: I could take him back to Arcadia. I’d contracted to do just that, so profession and compensation came to mind. The Hickman family apparently wanted him to stay in that swanky prison of a hospital—and as conservator, Rex Hickman was in control of almost every aspect of his son’s life. Legally, Clay was powerless. There was the very real possibility that Arcadia was still the best place for him. No power was granted to me except fulfilling the terms of my agreement with Arcadia, and a moral obligation to keep Clay Hickman from hurting himself or Sequoia or anyone else.

  “I’ll hear him out,” I said.

  “I want you to. But his mind changes fast.”

  I grabbed my work travel duffel—packed and waiting under my bed—then drove fast to the Union-Tribune office in San Diego and picked up the swank readers’ copy of Hard Truth. On the cover was a moody black-and-white photograph of Briggs Spencer trotting handsomely beneath the blades of a helicopter. Resolution on his face. Gray hair tousled, and tie streaming, a blurred gallery of darkly overcoated men in the background, watching Spencer while he looks into the camera.