“Anything else. Anything I wouldn’t find in your computer?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. He glanced meaningfully at Tree Trunk. “And consider your answer very carefully.”
Alyssa sighed. “Yes, there is something more that you wouldn’t find on my computer. But not because it’s more secret, just because it’s preliminary. A new drug, which is very complex, very difficult to synthesize, was recently produced by our best team of chemists in Lawrence, Kansas. We’ve had spectacular results with it, on the nocebo side of the ledger. But they haven’t been written up anywhere. Mostly because we ran out of the compound. The chemists are making another batch, but our lab is the last in line to get our hands on it. So it’ll be six or seven weeks before we get more.”
“You said the nocebo side of the ledger. What does that mean?”
“A nocebo is basically the opposite of a placebo. It refers to negative effects powered by the subconscious instead of positive effects. Tell a man you have a potent drug that will ensure he can’t get an erection, and he won’t be able to get an erection. Tell a man he’ll get nauseous from a pill, and he’ll get nauseous—even if it’s a sugar pill. Again, the power of the mind is mysterious and immense. We’ve had great success getting people to believe in something positive. To do something positive. But we’ve had even greater success getting them to stop something they want to stop, on the negative behavior realm. This comes into play for things like nervous tics and twitches. Ones that are habitual, driven entirely by the subconscious. I was able to strip subjects of involuntary tics they’ve had for years. In a single session. Tics they had no hope of ever controlling consciously. With the snap of my fingers. Literally. Post hypnotic triggers work beautifully in these settings.”
Alyssa was beginning to feel light headed from loss of blood, but decided she had to keep talking until GQ was fully satisfied. “I’ve been fighting to declassify this work. The progress we’ve made has been astonishing. If we revealed our techniques for harnessing the placebo effect to the medical community, this would become the most powerful therapy in existence.”
“The pharmaceutical companies would find a way to discredit it,” said GQ cynically. “They would lose too much money if they didn’t.”
“Yes, they would lose money,” said Alyssa. “But I’d like to think they’d be happy that people were able to improve their health, and battle disease, by enhancing the power of their own minds to heal themselves.”
GQ laughed again. “You really are hopelessly optimistic. And hopelessly naive. I know my associate here won’t agree with me on this, but I’m really hoping my boss decides to let you live.”
He shook his head, almost as if he couldn’t believe someone like Alyssa Aronson actually existed. “So your goal is to find a way to brainwash people into becoming zombie puppets. But instead, you end up finding a way to unleash powerful cures that can outperform expensive drugs. This is so stupid, and so unlikely, it almost has to be true.”
“It is.”
GQ had been standing in the van, but dropped to the floor across from Alyssa, with his back against the sliding door. Tree Trunk maintained his vigil to Alyssa’s left.
“Okay,” said GQ. “I’m satisfied you’re telling me the truth about your work. So let’s move on,” he continued, raising his eyebrows. “Tell me how you know Theo Grant.”
17
A surge of electricity swept through Alyssa at the mention of Theo Grant. She had wondered when he would come up, since he was, without doubt, either behind her abduction or the reason for it.
GQ had certainly taken his time getting here, but he had finally arrived. Still seated on the floor of the van facing her, with his back against the sliding door, his posture suggested he was totally relaxed as he awaited her response. Alyssa wondered if the use of this name was a test. If so, it was a test she intended to pass.
“You mean Brennan Craft?” said Alyssa.
GQ studied her face as though it were under a microscope. “That’s right,” he said finally. “So when did you first hear of him? When did you first meet him?”
“A week or so ago. I read his profile on E-Matchups, an Internet dating site. He had read mine also. The computer suggested we might be compatible, and we both agreed. So we arranged for a date through the site. He picked me up for lunch four days ago.”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know him before then. I don’t want to have to hurt you again.”
“Please,” pleaded Alyssa. “I really didn’t know who he was. I still don’t. I swear it! Why would I lie about that? This was the first I knew of him.”
“During this lunch, did he tell you anything about himself?”
“Yes. But I learned later that everything he told me was a lie. Even his name.”
“Did he say what he wanted from you?”
“No. It was just another date. As far as I knew, he just wanted to get to know me to see if we were compatible.”
“He didn’t ask you for anything?”
She shook her head.
“Did he do anything . . . unusual?”
Alyssa looked puzzled. “I’m not sure I know what you mean. He was an interesting conversationalist. But that was all.”
GQ weighed this statement. “Did he know what you really did?”
“Not that he let on. We didn’t discuss this at all. We did talk about human behavior, which is what I told him I studied.”
“So how did things leave off?”
Alyssa managed to keep her face impassive. Was this just another test? Could it be they didn’t know about the raid at her house?
For some reason, she was reluctant to tell him. If he didn’t already know, this could be important to them. Was she really going to risk being cut again, or worse, to protect information just because she had a gut feeling that she should?
These thoughts raced through her mind in an instant, and she decided to take a chance. “He disappeared,” she said bitterly, trying not to cringe or show she half expected her arm to be grabbed and a new line of blood to appear. Technically, this was the truth. He had disappeared.
But GQ just nodded. “No e-mails, no texts, no calls? Nothing? Did the date go poorly?”
Alyssa couldn’t believe it. GQ really didn’t know what had happened. He only knew about the date.
“I thought it went great,” said Alyssa. “I was sure he would call. But the next day, a Black Ops major visited me and told me the guy I knew as Theo Grant was really Brennan Craft. Told me to stay away. That they had been monitoring my dating information and had flagged him as having a false identity. The major told me Craft was either a crackpot or trying to use me in some way.” Alyssa shrugged. “Maybe he was sent by a pharmaceutical company. To stop my work on the placebo effect.”
“Perhaps,” said GQ noncommittally.
“The major was very concerned about the situation. He told me Craft had gone to a lot of trouble to set up this date with me. He didn’t elaborate, but said Craft must have wanted something. That’s why the major set me up with two bodyguards. He thought Craft might try to come back and contact me again.”
“And this major told you nothing about Craft? Nothing other than he wasn’t who he appeared to be? And that he was concerned about Craft’s intentions?”
“Nothing,” said Alyssa in disgust. “I thought I deserved to know. But he told me information about Craft was beyond my pay grade.”
“And the major didn’t suggest why Craft might have had interest in you? What he hoped to gain?”
“No. I don’t think the major knew himself. I think he wanted to know, but he was at a loss. He did say that I was Craft’s type, though. I have no idea how he knew this.”
“Sure,” said GQ, rolling his eyes. “That’s the explanation. Brennan Craft just wanted to court you. He went to all this trouble just because he wanted to get laid.” GQ shook his head in amusement. “Wouldn’t that be ironic.”
Alyssa shrugged. “It’s as good a theory as anything else I can think o
f,” she said.
18
Alyssa Aronson regained consciousness, but her eyes remained closed as she struggled to remember where she was. After several seconds of this, she realized why she was having trouble.
Because she had no idea.
Memories of her interrogation at the hands of GQ and Tree Trunk came back to her. But how had it ended?
And then she remembered. They had used chloroform on her for a second time.
So they had let her live, after all. But now the million dollar question. Was she now their prisoner somewhere? Was it GQ’s intent to keep her alive, toy with her, let Tree Trunk live out his psychopathic fantasies? Let him carve her up like a pumpkin over days or weeks?
A part of her wanted to keep her eyes shut forever. Why risk the most unpleasant of truths. Why not construct a pretend reality within the cozy confines of her mind?
But as tempting as this was, she had to know. She was agnostic, at best, but just prior to opening her eyes a prayer entered her mind, unbidden. She was proving the old adage that there were no atheists in a foxhole.
Please God, she thought. Don’t let me still be captive. Please let this nightmare be over.
She threw her eyes open and was hit by a barrage of data immediately. She was lying on a sophisticated bed in a private hospital room, wearing a blue cotton gown, with an IV in her arm. Few places were as instantly recognizable as a hospital.
And the man sitting in the chair next to her bed, coming alert as he realized she was awake, was just as instantly recognizable.
Brennan Craft!
Alyssa shrank back, and her mind raced as fast as her heart.
Should she scream? Push an alarm for the nurse? If she didn’t calm down and get her vital signs under control, given the number of sensors to which she was connected, a nurse would be rushing into the room before too long anyway.
Craft was radiating an unthreatening, soothing calm at her, and even concern for her well-being. She felt her panic recede. After all, if he had wanted to kill her, he could have done so easily while she was unconscious.
Craft winced from her negative reaction to seeing him there. “You’re going to be okay,” he reassured her. “And I understand why you don’t exactly trust me right now.” He paused for a second and then smiled disarmingly. “And by ‘don’t exactly trust me’ I mean, “despise me with all the thrilling, unadulterated hatred of a thousand demons.’”
Craft had gotten that right. But what annoyed Alyssa the most was that she found herself responding to how he had said it. She was amused despite herself. He was so charming that she found herself liking him—even as she despised him.
“What do you want?” she growled, working the controls on the side of her bed to raise herself to a seated position facing him. “How did I get here?”
Craft opened his mouth to respond when she thought of yet another question. “What time is it?”
“The better question is, what day,” he replied. “Thursday morning.”
“Thursday morning?” she mumbled. Could it be? She had been abducted the morning before.
“I know you don’t trust me,” said Craft. “And you feel misled and betrayed. I get that. And I deserve it. But to help put your mind at ease—as much as possible given the circumstances—you should know that I’m not your enemy. And not only will I never hurt you, I will make sure that no one else ever does, either. And I couldn’t be sorrier about what you’ve been through. None of this was supposed to happen.”
She remembered him calling out for her frantically at her house, his concern for her welfare quite evident, even after having survived an exploding car and a war zone. And even though he was a certified loon, as far as anyone knew, he had yet to break any laws. All he had really done was to stay alive after some idiot had ignored orders not to fire on him.
Craft lowered his eyes. “But if we’re going to become friends and allies, I’m going to have to be completely honest with you,” he said.
“Friends and allies?” she repeated incredulously. She was about to say more but decided against it. He was charming and had considerable charisma, but he was also dangerously psychotic—which meant unpredictable. Disrupting whatever fantasy world he was creating might not be great for her health. Even worse than he had been for her health already. In the four days since she had met him, she had been shot, knocked unconscious by a tree, knocked unconscious by a sedative, slashed, and knocked unconscious twice by chloroform.
“So in the spirit of total disclosure,” continued Craft, “let me start with this. I’ve had you under surveillance for several days now. Monitoring your activities. Through street and store cameras. Through your computer and cell phone. The works.”
A look of horror and violation came across Alyssa’s soft features, and Craft cringed from this reaction.
“Why?” she said simply. “And how?”
“As to the why, after what happened, I thought it wise. I’m sorry for invading your privacy. But, as it turned out, it’s a good thing I did.” He paused. “As to the how, as I’m sure you’ve been briefed, I’m pretty good with computers. So I was able to tap into the grid.”
Craft shook his head and looked disgusted with himself. “I only wish I could have found a way to stop what happened to you. But I was taken off-guard. A camera caught you and your two . . . escorts . . . yesterday morning entering a parking lot. But after that you were out of range of any cameras. I checked back an hour later, but I wasn’t able to pick up your car, or you, again anywhere. I became alarmed. Given the number of street cameras in the vicinity of that lot, there’s no way you could have gone anywhere without passing by one of them within a few minutes. So I drove to the strip mall and found it swarming with police and medical personnel.”
Alyssa thought back to the Starbucks parking lot. “They didn’t make it, did they?” she whispered sadly.
Craft shook his head and sighed. “I’m afraid not,” he said, confirming what GQ had told her. “Whoever took you was very good. And very lethal.”
“How did you know where I was?”
“Despite my best efforts, I didn’t um . . . reacquire you . . . until you were admitted to this hospital, and passed your first camera. We’re in Covington, Kentucky, by the way.”
Covington. That made sense. GQ had wanted to put some distance between themselves and Bloomington, and Covington was a little over two hours away. And it was also home to the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky International Airport.
“So you have no idea how I came to be here?”
“Actually, I do,” replied Craft. “According to hospital personnel, someone found you near the banks of the Ohio river late last night. You were unconscious, had no ID or phone on you, and had lost a significant amount of blood. So an ambulance brought you here, where you’ve been getting stitches, antibiotics, blood—the works.” He flashed her a strained smile. “Checked in as a Jane Doe. So now you’re all patched up. Good as new.”
“Just to be clear,” said Alyssa. “You’re being hunted by the military. And while you’re eluding this dragnet, you managed to launch a one man surveillance operation the NSA would envy. You activated manhunt protocols allowing you to tap into every camera in existence and have them perform facial recognition analysis to identify me. And then, after you were alerted by your own personal grid that I had been picked up on a hospital camera, you decided you would saunter over for a friendly visit.”
“While my visit is friendly, I certainly didn’t saunter. I shattered every highway speed limit to get here. I arrived about four hours ago, and I’ve been letting you sleep and recuperate. But I was going to have to wake you soon anyway. Your own people are hunting for you like mad.”
“And yet you found me first.”
“They would have also found you when I did, but I cheated. I, um . . . intervened. I made sure the computers only reported suspected sightings to me, and not them.”
Alyssa digested this for several seconds. His skills w
ere even more impressive than advertized.
“Here,” said Brennan Craft, removing a plastic department-store bag from under his chair and handing it to her.
Alyssa took it without a word and looked inside. Clothing. Women’s clothing. She looked at him quizzically.
“When they put you in this hospital gown,” he explained, “they saved the clothes you were wearing when they found you. But I snuck them out and disposed of them.”
Alyssa looked confused, but only for a moment. “Are you worried the men who took me imbedded electronics in them?” she asked.
Craft nodded.
She had to admit, it was a wise precaution.
“I’ve thrown your people off the trail,” he said. “But they are very good, and have access to impressive resources, so they’ll find you soon. And the police want to interview you as well. They’ve been waiting while you sleep and recuperate, but they won’t wait much longer.” He paused. “So if you could put on these new clothes I bought you, we really need to get out of here.”
19
Alyssa took quick inventory of her situation. What now? Nutrition and probably antibiotics were still being pumped into her, and she did still feel a little weak. But she felt good enough to leave if required.
And she had been told to cooperate with Craft. The major had wanted him to abduct her. And to get into bed with him—literally.
Was it possible that Craft had sent GQ after her in the first place? What if he had been behind it all?
It was true that killing her bodyguards didn’t comport with his MO. But MO’s could change. On the other hand, GQ had grilled her about Craft himself, scratching his head over Craft’s interest in her.
But was this just a mind-game? Had Craft sent them to abduct her, and then let her go, simply so he could continue pretending to be the good guy?
Regardless, if he wanted her dead, she would be dead already. So she had no good excuse, even after what had happened, not to follow the major’s instructions. But she couldn’t cooperate too easily, or this would be out of character, and Craft would smell a rat.
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