Page 103 of Silent Threat
Had he said those words at all, or was it some kind of false memory? Was he now, in addition to flashbacks, hallucinating too?
He almost regretted ever coming to Hope Hill, ever letting the shrinks stir up the past in his head.Almost, because he couldn’t regret meeting Annie.
How many SEALs were at Bagram the last time you were there?
OK, he had not said that. He closed his eyes and could see someone’s lips move, forming the question.
Cole could clearly envision a man’s mouth. But he couldn’t see the face that went with it.
The walls of the terminal closed in on him. He grabbed his phone to call Annie, then swore. He needed her new number, dammit. She was the only person he 100 percent trusted at Hope Hill.
Cole leaned his forehead against the cool window, not hearing the rain outside, but feeling the vibrations as the heavy drops hit the glass. When and where had he been questioned? He wanted to pin down the sudden flashbacks. He needed to recover the memory of the face that went with the lips that asked him questions nobody should have asked him.
The last time he’d been questioned like that ...
A flashback from one of the endless torture sessions of his captivity slammed into him. Cole broke into pacing again. He needed to work off the excess energy that sought a violent outlet, exhaust some of his murderous rage. He needed a clear head.
When was the last time you were at Bagram? How many troops were there at the time?
Had he answered that? He couldn’t remember. Frustration pumped through him.
Who was the senior brass at the base?
Cole knew the answer. But had he told?
You were shot down in a chopper. Black Hawk? How many of them did the base have?
He stopped as lightning crackled through the darkening sky, the floor shaking the next second. He could actually hear the thunder, but only as if from a great distance, or as if he were deep underwater.
The thought that speared through his mind hit him as hard as if he’d been struck by that lightning bolt. He didn’t remember where or when those questions had been asked, but he clearly rememberedlip-readingthem.
His hearing hadn’t been injured until they were escaping. The damage had happened in a drag-out, to-the-death fight with one of the guards. So the questioning Cole was remembering so suddenly couldn’t have happened during the six months he’d been a POW.
The memory had to be more recent. When and where?
Hope Hill.His subconscious mind kicked up the answer. Hope Hill had a traitor who dealt in information.
Cole’s mind buzzed like a whole flock of incoming choppers as he thought about all the pills he’d taken while he’d been at Hope Hill. Any number of people around him could have switched out a sleeping pill for something else. What had he been given?
Scopolamine came to mind, used in the twenties by police departments to interrogate suspects. Not only did it loosen people’s tongues, but they couldn’t remember the interrogation afterward. It was banned for police use now. Any evidence gained with the help of scopolamine was inadmissible in court, but the drug was still around, used in small doses to prevent severe motion sickness.
A traitor slash spy could certainly gain access to a couple of pills easily enough. Except that the traitor at Hope Hill was Trevor.
Or was he?
Trevor had had a scar on his lower lip, part of the injury that had put titanium pins in the kid’s neck. But the mouth in Cole’s newly recovered memories, the mouth that had asked him those revealing questions, had been unblemished.
So not Trevor, then.
Cole let that thought settle in for a few seconds.
If Trevor wasn’t the bad guy here, could he have been a victim?
What if Trev too had been drugged and used? What if he too remembered answering traitorous questions? Cole stifled a groan at the implications of his trail of thoughts. What if Trev hadn’t committed suicide? What if the traitor had killed Trev?
Trev had been planning that barn ...
Cole sent his CO a text.Think we got the wrong guy. It’s not Trevor.Then he added,I’m at the airport. Heading back to Hope Hill.
