Headcase, p.25
Headcase, page 25
I felt too exposed, out in the open. I shouldn’t have left the safe house. I made my way back, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. I climbed over the fence and entered via the back door, then hid in a closet. Nothing happened, for hours, but my heart was racing the whole time. Enemy observers must know I was in here. They were waiting for me to make the first move.
Eventually I heard the front door open. Footsteps crept through the house. I shrank into the corner, cursing myself for choosing such an obvious hiding place, with no escape routes.
Someone wrenched the door open, and I squealed.
It was Zara. She lowered her gun when she saw me, hugging my knees at the back of the closet.
‘Christ, Blake,’ she said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Nothing.’ My voice came out too loud.‘Where were you?’
‘Meeting with Wilcox—we have a plan.’
‘A plan for what?’
‘To find out what Cho’s sister knows. I want to check you into a mental hospital.’
•
Zara took me to a nearby cafe. She must have figured some food would fix whatever was going on in my head.
She was right. After a bacon sandwich with bright red ketchup, I felt much better.
The cafe owner seemed desperate for business. I guessed she’d scheduled her grand opening to line up with the date all the new residents were moving in. She hadn’t factored in a delay caused by toxic insulation. Anyway, she gave us plenty of privacy.
‘Laurie’s card was used at a terminal not covered by CCTV,’ Zara said. ‘So that’s a bust. But we’ve recovered the spy plane.’
This wasn’t what I’d expected. ‘From the ocean?’
‘Right. The fuel tank was dry, and the ejector seat and the pilot were missing.’
I chewed a torn fingernail until it bled. ‘Any sign of why the pilot bailed out?’
‘I suspect there never was a pilot. We found slip lines within the fuselage and one of the canard wings,’ Zara said. ‘It looked like a manufacturing defect. It would have broken apart on the landing strip. The engineer we got to look at it said she was surprised it had even been able to take off.’
‘That explains why they were willing to dump it in the ocean.’
‘It does. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.’
Zara watched me carefully as she explained the plan. I would voluntarily admit myself to the hospital where Harmony Cho was staying. The Company would prepare a fake referral from a psychiatrist and pay for my stay via an insurance company. Inside, I would get close to Harmony. Once I knew if her brother had told her anything, I would stick a piece of paper to the window of my bedroom. That was the signal for Zara to come and sign me out, posing as a doctor. The whole operation was expected to take two weeks.
‘Why am I the one going into the hospital?’ I asked. ‘Why not you? Harmony might be more likely to trust another woman.’ The thought of getting locked up, however briefly, made me nervous.
Zara sipped her tea. ‘You can pull off crazy better than I can.’
I supposed she had a point. ‘What’s my cover?’
‘You’re Timothy Blake. Your parents died violently in front of you, you were abused in foster care, and you spent a few years homeless when you aged out. Now you have fantasies of violence and self-harm.’
I paused with the bacon sandwich halfway to my mouth.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘You want me to go in as myself?’
‘Why not? They can check it from any angle, and it will hold up.’
‘But what about after you get me out? They might come looking for me.’
Zara raised an eyebrow. ‘You think hospitals chase escaped patients who haven’t committed any crime and paid their bills in full? That’s an optimistic world-view.’
‘But it will be on my record forever.’
‘It will be on your record for precisely three months, at which point no one will notice when the Company has it wiped. Why are you being so difficult about this?’
I put the sandwich down, wondering if a direct accusation was the best tactic. Probably not. ‘You need me to identify the spy at Space City.’
‘No shit. Why do you think I want you to talk to Harmony Cho?’
‘If I get killed in the nuthouse, I can’t help you.’
Zara laughed so hard she choked on her croissant, showering me with pastry crumbs. When she recovered, she said, ‘You’re worried that someone at the hospital will be even more crazy and violent than you are?’
It did seem unlikely, when she put it like that.
‘I can’t take any weapons there,’ I said. ‘I’m guessing I won’t even have a phone.’
‘Listen.’ Zara reached over and squeezed my hand. She hesitated, as though about to confess a painful secret. Then she said, ‘I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?’
I could see the woman who had switched on the hypobaric chamber while I was inside. But I could also see a woman who genuinely cared about me. Which one was real? I found myself leaning back so I could see the whole picture.
She let go of my hand, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Anyway, it would be very difficult for an MSS agent to get to you inside this hospital, even if they somehow worked out you were there. Like you said, no weapons inside. Trust me—you’ll be safer in there than out here.’
CHAPTER 33
Now
This mucus is heavy when it flows backwards. What am I?
Dr Diaz has had a rough night. She comes in late, though only by a minute. Her eyes are slightly pink. Her slacks are a different shade of brown to her jacket, the contrast large enough to notice but too small to be deliberate, as though she grabbed them while thinking about other things. There’s a trace of powdered sugar on her collar and a smear of snot on her shoulder. She never wears much make-up, but today she has even less, and what little there is has been crudely applied.
‘Good morning, Timothy.’ Her smile seems forced.
I don’t return it. ‘You okay?’
‘Fine,’ she lies. ‘How are you?’
‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’ I squirm in my chair. ‘I’m not sure the new meds agree with me.’ If I can’t convince her to get me off the meds, someone will eventually notice I’m not taking them. Last time I felt drowsy for hours, even after vomiting them up. I struggled to see my own thoughts through the mist.
Diaz doesn’t take my concerns seriously enough to write them in her notebook. ‘Stick with it,’ she says. ‘Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.’
‘I’m a broke, one-armed cannibal trapped in a nuthouse,’ I say. ‘How much worse could things get?’
‘You reach for humour often,’ Diaz observes.‘Particularly when a topic might be uncomfortable.’
‘I wasn’t joking.’
Diaz sighs, like I’m frustrating her. It’s the sort of reaction she normally hides better. Soon the fake smile is back.
‘Maybe we could talk more about your parents,’ she suggests.
‘Why?’ I ask. It comes out sounding more defensive than I’d like.
‘Is there some reason you don’t want to?’
‘It just doesn’t seem relevant. They died when I was small. I don’t remember them.’
‘You don’t think the early loss of your parents might affect your mental state?’ Her tone is neutral, but I don’t think I’m imagining the sarcasm.
‘We could talk about Mrs Radfield instead,’ I say. ‘She ran the group home where I grew up.’
‘Sure.’ She makes a note. ‘What was she like?’
‘She didn’t tolerate disobedience. She was sometimes violent. She seemed keen to be rid of me, the whole time I was in her care. Which was a long time.’
Diaz scribbles frantically to keep up with me.
‘See?’ I say. ‘You say the absence of my parents is significant, but obviously Mrs Radfield’s presence mattered more.’
Diaz’s eyes narrow. ‘Why do—’ She cuts herself off. She likes to phrase her statements as questions, and her questions as statements, and this time she forgot to do the switch.
‘You seem … reluctant to be helped,’ she says.
I’m annoyed with her. Maybe because she doesn’t believe anything I say. Maybe because it’s off-putting, seeing your psychiatrist in a bad mood. How can she be qualified to fix other people if her own life isn’t perfect?
‘What do you expect to happen?’ I ask. ‘I’m supposed to describe my childhood, so you can point out that it was traumatic, and then I’m somehow cured? I don’t need you to tell me how fucked up my life is. I’m not an idiot.’
Diaz’s jaw is set, her shoulders square. I’m only now realising how relaxed her posture usually is. ‘You’ve decided that I can’t help you without giving me the opportunity.’
‘Some people can’t be fixed,’ I snap. ‘No matter how soothing your voice is, or how much thoughtful nodding you do. Some people are just bad, deep down.’
‘That’s true,’ Diaz says. ‘But you’re not bad, you’re just lazy.’
This is so far from what I expected her to say that it shuts me right up.
‘You want to believe you were doomed from the start,’ Diaz continues. ‘Dead parents, abusive foster home, boo hoo. It clears you of any responsibility—’
‘I take full responsibility,’ I object. It sounds phoney, like a soldier in a bad movie. But it’s my one redeeming feature, and I won’t let Diaz take it away.
‘No, you don’t,’ she says. ‘You hate yourself, but that’s not the same thing.’
I open my mouth for a counterargument that doesn’t come.
‘You tell yourself you’re a monster,’ she continues. ‘Because if you’re not, if you’re a regular human being with human faults, then you might feel obligated to improve. And that sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?’
I can feel my face twisting into a snarl.
‘I’ve met people who are too stupid or too sick to do the right thing, but that’s not you. You have decided you can’t change.’ Diaz points at the wall, towards the rest of the hospital. Where the sane patients are. ‘There are people over there dying of cancer. Heart disease. Alzheimer’s. You know what they’d give for a choice about whether to stay sick?’
‘You don’t know anything,’ I say, because it’s clear she knows everything.
‘I’m paid by the hour. You think I care if you get better?’ She folds her arms. ‘But I’m not going to lie to you just so you don’t have to feel guilty.’
This is ridiculous. I’m undercover. I’m not here for real therapy.
I stand up.
‘You can’t think of a joke to put between yourself and the truth,’ Diaz says. ‘So instead, you’re trying to leave. But you need to stay in that chair for another forty-five minutes.’
I remain upright. ‘You drank too much last night. This morning, you gave up on your diet and ate a donut. One of your kids is sick, but you sent them to day care anyway. Who are you to tell me what to do?’
She doesn’t ask how I know any of this. ‘And now, because I won’t let you go, you’re deflecting. It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? The idea that change is possible.’
‘Fuck you.’ I can’t think of anything else to say.
‘You’re angry with me,’ she observes. ‘An understandable reaction. But I’m surprised—the medication should be levelling everything out.’ She writes a note in her journal. ‘I’m upping your dose.’
‘Don’t.’ I sit back down. ‘I’ll behave.’
‘This isn’t a threat, or a punishment. I’m trying to help you.’
‘How can you help me when you don’t believe me? You’re trying to treat me for a disease I don’t have.’
‘The belief that you aren’t sick is a symptom of the illness.’
‘Is this a goddamn witch trial? It’s also a symptom of being healthy.’
‘Healthy people don’t believe they are cannibals who work for the CIA.’
No matter what I say, she’ll use it against me. So I clamp my mouth shut.
She watches, waiting for the silence to become intolerable. It’s a tactic I’ve often used on suspects. It won’t work for her. I don’t even break eye contact, just staring at her. The clock doesn’t tick, but I count the seconds in my head.
Two thousand, three hundred and twelve seconds later, Diaz stands up and opens the door.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Timothy,’ she says.
•
Harmony Cho doesn’t knock. She darts into my bedroom and closes the door behind her, turning the handle so as not to make an audible click. She’s wearing slippers, loose linen pants and a blue long-sleeved shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Perched on her head is the small-brimmed hat she only wears when she’s delivering mail to the doctor’s offices. I don’t think anyone official told her to do that. It’s not a uniform, but she wears it like one.
I stay on the bed, not making any sudden moves. ‘Hi, Harmony.’
‘Mail for you,’ she says loudly, holding out an envelope.
I take it. On one side she’s written Are you alone?
I nod. We are alone. No one could stop me from—
I squeeze my eyes shut, banishing the thought.
When I open them again, Harmony is listening at the door. Finally she seems to relax.
‘We’re good,’ she says. ‘But I have to get back to my mail route in five minutes, tops, or they’ll know something’s up.’
‘Is there anybody in particular you’re concerned about?’ I ask. ‘Someone who seems to have been watching you especially closely?’
‘The doctors pay more attention than the patients,’ Harmony says. ‘But I can’t narrow it down more than that.’
‘Who’s your doctor?’
She looks suspicious. I hold up my hands in surrender. ‘You’re right, don’t tell me. It might be safest if I don’t know.’
‘Out with it,’ Harmony says. ‘Who are you? Who do you work for?’
This is the risky part. I can’t just pretend to be a concerned citizen, or a friend of her brother’s. She’s already suspicious of me and is likely to see through either story. I can’t think of anything that will be more convincing than the truth.
‘I work for the CIA,’ I say.
She tilts her head back slightly—the first half of a nod. Gives me an I-knew-it sort of look. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I have some bad news. You brother is dead.’
Another I-knew-it look—this time less triumphant. ‘He used to visit me every week,’ she says. ‘As soon as he stopped, I knew they’d gotten to him. What happened?’
‘He was suffocated.’ I’m not great at bad news. ‘Someone put his body in a spacesuit and dumped him in the middle of a field at the Johnson Space Center. To make it look like he’d fallen out of orbit.’
‘Jesus.’ Harmony blinks away tears. ‘Robbie.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. It’s easy to forget the meat once had a life, a nickname, a family who cared about him.
She takes a deep breath. ‘Who did it?’
‘We think someone at the Johnson Space Center is working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Rob was killed because he knew something. Something the MSS didn’t want America to know.’ I leave that hanging for a second.
‘Probably lots of things,’ Harmony says darkly.
‘Probably,’ I agree. ‘But we think there was something quite specific. There are signs that they killed him in a hurry.’ I take another risk. ‘Whatever it was, we’re hoping he told you before they got to him.’
‘Me?’ Harmony frowns. ‘Why would he tell me?’
‘That obviously depends on what the information is. But I was thinking he might have told you to keep you safe.’
Harmony is silent for a long moment. Then she says, ‘Rob didn’t tell me anything.’
She watches me carefully to see if I believe her.
I squeeze my real fingers around my silicone ones. ‘Listen. Whatever it is, the only way to keep you safe is to expose it. Make it very public. If there are only a couple of loose ends, the MSS will try to tie them up. But if the whole world knows—’
‘I mean it,’ Harmony says. ‘Robbie never talked about his job. He would tell me about his neighbours, and our cousins. He’d sometimes talk about his friends from work, but never the work itself.’
‘Whatever he told you, it may have seemed innocuous at the time,’ I press. ‘Who were his work friends?’
‘He mentioned a Maia, a Chris, a Sam, a Paul, a Ryan, a Jack … but it was just normal office gossip.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Unless he was speaking in code.’
I can’t think of a reason for Rob to do that. ‘We think he saw or heard something that identified the MSS agent. Anything at all he said—’
Harmony clamps her palms against the sides of her head. ‘I’m telling you, there’s nothing.’
Her voice and body language suggest she’s telling the truth. And why wouldn’t she be? Sure, it made sense for Cho to warn her, but he may not have gotten the chance.
I was optimistic coming here. Foolish even. I got myself institutionalised for nothing. I’ll have to put the paper in the window tonight, so Zara will see it and get me out.
‘Wait,’ Harmony says. ‘Why would an MSS spy put Robbie in a spacesuit?’
I rub my face. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Try.’
This is probably all classified, but I’m past caring. ‘The Chinese government wanted us to think they have a crewed space station in a geostationary orbit right over our heads.’
‘But they do.’
‘No, they don’t. They made it look like they did, so we’d tell our last asset in China to start digging. That helped them identify and eliminate the asset.’
‘But they do,’ Harmony said again.
I hesitate. ‘Did Robbie tell you that?’
‘No, I told him. He said it was ridiculous. Impossible. But I know it’s true, because of the TV.’
‘The TV?’
‘Yeah. The one in the common room. It picks up certain frequencies—secret transmissions, bouncing off satellites. Sometimes you can see a slight flicker at the corner of the screen. The others haven’t noticed it, or they’re pretending not to, but I have. And it always, always happens whenever there’s a story about China on the news. Flicker, flicker. They have a space station, manipulating the signal. Replacing the story with one that’s more positive. Think about it—how could they do that if they didn’t have people up there all the time, filming their own news stories? Look at the news anchor’s hair. The way it stays up like that. You can tell he’s in zero gravity.’
