Page 66 of Trapped

“Do you remember the mission?”

His gaze turned inward again, and she could see he was straining to bring the scene into focus. After half a minute, his face contorted. “No!”

“Okay. Don’t get upset.”

His jaw hardened. “Don’t tell me what to feel. Just tell me what happened next—because I sure as hell don’t know. Luntz is the last thing I remember. He was standing in front of a screen with a light pen in his hand. I guess he was doing a Power Point presentation, but I don’t remember what he said.”

“You said someone named Fromer was there.

“Fromer. I remember him. He was a hothead. I knew he was trouble the minute I saw him.”

“In the scene at the briefing, he apparently attacked you. Could that have really happened?”

He flapped his hand in frustration. “I don’t know.”

“You said, ‘You did it.’ What did that mean?”

He answered with a curse. “I don’t know! All I know is that I went for the gun. Well, I don’t know that. What I remember is waking up with the gun in my hand.”

“I should have put it away.”

“No. We had it there for protection. We need the gun. And you weren’t expecting anything like that—were you?”

“No.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Anybody else go berserk on you during hypnosis?”

“You didn’t go berserk.”

“Oh yeah, what would you call it?”

“I don’t know. Something . . .. unusual happened to you.”

He snorted. “You’re trying to put the best possible face on this. But the truth is—I’m sick. And dangerous. Whether or not my mind is free of the damn medication. And you should be running in the other direction as fast as you can.”

She shook her head. Ignoring the last part, she said, “Don’t put the worst possible interpretation on it. Or to put it another way—stop assigning blame.”

He flapped one hand in the air. “What do you want me to do?”

The light had grown dim in the cabin, and she wanted to see his face more clearly. She thought about getting up and lighting one of the oil lamps that sat on the shelf. But she stayed where she was because she didn’t want to interrupt the conversation at such a critical point. They were close to some vital information—if they could just figure out how to do it.

She reached out a hand toward him and watched him follow the movement with his eyes.

“Let’s try to figure out what part Fromer played in what happened to you. Maybe the incident between you took place in Afghanistan and not where you were being briefed.”

“We were in Maryland for the briefing.”

“Ah. Another fact. Do you remember exactly where?”

“Somewhere out in the country. I . . . remember thinking that it looked like an abandoned location. But inside it had been . . . modernized.”

“What does that mean?”

“I guess that they wanted it to look like a dump on the outside, so no one would think they were using the interior.”

“Good. What else?”

He sighed. “I can picture the briefing room. A table at the front. Chairs. A computer. A screen.” He flapped his arm. “But I can’t remember anything Luntz said.”

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