Talons of the Falcon by REBECCA YORK Read Free Book Online Page B

a white polo shirt and jeans that were looped with a woven belt on the tightest notch. He was sitting up straighter than he had been in the wheelchair. That meant the shoulder strap had simply been a convenience for transporting him around. She hoped the chair itself had been a convenience, too.
    Despite her mental preparations, her heart gave a painful lurch. Although he was staring in the direction of the TV screen, his face had the same blank appearance she remembered from that morning. Or was it quite the same?
    She took a step closer, studying his expression. It was not like that of other withdrawn patients she had worked with. Somehow, inexplicably, he didn’t have the look of a man being helplessly controlled by events—but of a man who was exercising control.
    The insight, coupled with her extensive briefings from Amherst Gordon, gave Eden a measure of hope. The Falcon had told her Mark, like his other operatives, had mastered an experimental mental technique for withstanding enemy brainwashing. If he hadn’t succumbed to the East Germans, this technique had been what had saved him. And if that was true, he would still be using it in this equally threatening situation at Pine Island, where he had no one to trust and no one to turn to. But now she was here to help him. And she had to get that message across.
    Masking her thoughts, she walked to the television and flipped off the program. “I understand that security has been using some weird methods around here, but soap operas seem like cruel and unusual punishment.” Her little joke had no apparent effect. Ignoring his lack of response, she continued. “As I told you this morning, I’m Dr. Eden Sommers, and since we’ll be working together closely, I’d like to put the relationship on a first-name basis. What do you think about that?”
    Still nothing.
    Eden knelt down on the floor so that she was in his line of vision. She half expected him to glance away, but instead he seemed to look right through her. Was he deliberately tuning her out? Unfortunately, there were other possibilities that might account for the wall that seemed to separate them—torture-induced psychosis, for example.
    “Mark,” she tried again, “we can take this slow and easy, but you’ve got to give it— You’ve got to give me a chance to help you.”
    She felt his awareness of her come to the surface as though he were a deep-sea diver being forced upward by lack of oxygen.
    There was an unexpected flash of anger in his obsidian eyes.
    “Get out of here. Leave me alone,” he rasped. The gravelly quality of his voice sent a chill up her spine. The Mark Bradley she remembered had spoken in deep and resonant tones. This man could barely whisper. Yet if he had been silent for six months, that made sense.
    Despite the sound of the words themselves, Eden was elated. As far as she knew, he had consciously responded to no one since he had been here, even during Downing’s tough interrogations. That meant she was even more of a threat to him than the security team was. Would that be possible if she were a total stranger? She doubted it. She held on to that doubt, unwilling to consider the other possibility Dr. Hubbard had suggested.
    She was just about to use the opportunity Mark had given her, when she heard a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere else in the building. At the same time, the lights went off, plunging the room into semidarkness. Instinctively, Eden gripped Mark’s knees and felt him tense as she struggled to her feet.
    “What the hell...?” Sergeant Marshall’s voice sounded in the hall. She whirled around just as he flung the door open. The light was dim but she could still make out one riveting feature of the silhouette in the doorway. In his hand was a standard service revolver. And it was pointed directly at Mark Bradley.

Chapter Four
    “A ll right,” the large man ordered. “Stay put until they let me know what’s going on.”
    “I trust that means I’m