Thin Air (10 page)

Yablonski pulled away, staring at her, then around the room in confusion. He moved to the hallway, then glanced back. "I'm going up to bed."

"Mr. Yablonski." Hammond stopped him. "The next time you get these dreams, don't call McCarthy. Call me." He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his wallet. He left a card on the table.

Yablonski stared at it from the doorway, then his eyes met Hammond's and seemed to reflect a great sadness, as if he knew the worst was only beginning.

He left the room and Hammond heard Mrs. Yablonski stifle a sob. He turned to her—she was rubbing her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Mrs. Yablonski, I'll have to depend on you. It's imperative he doesn't see McCarthy next time it happens."

Mrs. Yablonski looked at him with alarm and stood clutching the sweater about her shoulders. Finally, she nodded. "He's difficult," she said. "He's always been."

"With reason, I think," Hammond said and smiled in reassurance.

He left quickly, driving back to Otis over unlighted roads, intending to bed down at the Transient Officers' Quarters. A problem took root in his overworked mind. Somehow, Dr. McCarthy had already lost one patient that Hammond knew of.

How many others?

6

Hammond's footsteps echoed hollowly down an empty corridor of the Boston Naval Hospital in Chelsea. He passed two deserted nurses' stations, their desks covered, strands of wire hanging from open telephone junction boxes on the walls. Heavy steel fire doors blocked connecting corridors, locks securing them to clasps on the wall.

He had flown up to Boston from Otis, borrowed another car, and driven out to this ancient facility in Chelsea—all before eight a.m. Curiosity had defeated sleep and hunger. As he walked through the deserted wing to get to the Psychiatric Center, Hammond got the impression that this was a terribly unsavory place to conduct therapy. For Yablonski, in an awful mental state, walking these halls must have increased his fears a hundredfold and made him desperate to see the doctor.

And how did McCarthy work it? On twenty-four-hour call to Yablonski here in Boston and Fletcher in Los Angeles and to who knows how many others in different parts of the country. The nation's only interstate shrink. Did he keep a private jet in the basement?

He hoped McCarthy would be here, but he found himself doubting it. Certainly it was too early even for a resident.

A young officer sat with his back to the door of the admittance office.

"Where can I find the duty officer?" Hammond asked.

"That's me, sir. Lieutenant Spaulding. Can I help you?"

"I'm from NIS headquarters in Washington." Hammond flashed his ID and Spaulding checked it casually. "Can you tell me where I might find Dr. Lester McCarthy?" Spaulding looked blank. "I believe he's a member of your psychiatric staff."
      

"Sorry—never heard of him, sir."

"Are you sure?"

Spaulding nodded.

"Do you know every doctor on staff?"

"Hope so, sir. I've been here two years."

"Could he be a consulting associate or something like that?"

Spaulding shook his head. "I'd know the name, sir. And there aren't that many. I guess you noticed the sealed-off corridors. We're being phased out. Caught in the fiscal meat-grinder. Of six men originally on the psychiatric team, only two are left: Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Brown. The other four have been reassigned. And none of them is named McCarthy."

"Could he have been handling outpatients?"

"This is a Navy hospital, sir, not a private clinic. He'd sever get authorization."

Hammond glanced down one of the empty corridors and frowned. Two men with the same insane dream, the same doctor. Now McCarthy was beginning to sound as unreal as the nightmares.
      

"I'd like to check on a patient, Lieutenant. Would you mind showing me the medical files?"

Spaulding hesitated, hot sure whether this was in order.

"Official business." Hammond smiled.

Spaulding took him to the file room and waited while Hammond searched through the
Y's
. He found no records on Yablonski. No file, no card, no chart. He slammed the drawer shut. What kind of crazy game was this?

"Anything else, sir?"

Hammond rubbed his chin and tried to think. No doctor, no records—he'd gone down a blind alley. But at least Tie could check out McCarthy's purported base of operations.

"I'd like to see the psychiatric wing," he said.

Spaulding led him down another corridor. A burly Navy Corpsman unlocked the security door and looked Hammond up and down. They were in a large room opening into a labyrinth of corridors. The lady or the tiger, thought Hammond. He heard low animal moans coming from the hallway on his left, and he checked the sign that read "Permanent Ward." Permanent, indeed. Whoever was making those noises would be there till the building came down. And from the looks of it, that would be soon.

"You want to see the ward, sir?" Spaulding asked furtively.

"What else have you got up here?"

"Just the consultation rooms, sir." The Corpsman pointed down to the end of a sealed-off corridor. "Beyond the fire door. I'll have to open it up for you."

He fished out a key ring and the three men walked down the hallway. Hammond and Spaulding waited while the Corpsman opened the lock and rolled back the heavy door. "Light switch on the wall, sir. Consultation rooms start after the first right turn."

"We'll lock up when we leave."

"Thanks, Lieutenant." The Corpsman hurried back to his post.

The sealed-off section smelled musty from long disuse. Hammond and Spaulding made the right turn and stopped before a large wooden door Hammond's eyes took in the rest of the corridor. At its far end was an exit which presumably led out of the building.

Hammond wrinkled his nose. Could Yablonski have been mistaken about the hospital?

Spaulding opened the door to the consultation room and stepped aside. "They're all pretty much the same," he said.

It was bare with, the exception of two chairs and a table up against a mirror that ran almost the length of one side of the room.

"That's a two-way mirror, sir. Observation from the other side. Access through one door in the back of this room and another out in the hallway."

Hammond peered at the back wall. "I don't see it."

Spaulding smiled, walked to the paneling, and ran his finger down a seam next to the end of the mirror. There was no knob. The door fit flush against the corner. "Want to see the observation room, sir?"

"No thanks." Hammond stepped out to the hall and waited for Spaulding. "What about the exit?" he asked.

"Secured. Along with the rest of this section."

"Mind if I check it?"

Spaulding glanced down the hall, but Hammond didn't wait for his answer. He walked to the door, depressed the bar lock, and pushed out. The door opened and a breath of cold damp air rushed in. It wasn't locked at all.
 

Hammond began to see the picture. With that kind of access, and with a proper uniform and ID, McCarthy could have the run of the hospital. Who would question him?

The lieutenant kept up a steady stream of apologies all the way back to his office. "Damn, that's careless, sir. I'll see that door is secured right away—"

"The hell you will." Hammond cut him off. "You won't mention this to anybody. Understood?"

Surprised, Spaulding just nodded his head. "Whatever you say, sir," he answered weakly.

One hour and forty minutes later, Hammond was back in his Pentagon office. The receptionist handed him an envelope, telling him it had come over by police messenger.

"Anything else?"

"Three phone calls from a Mrs. Fletcher. She'd like you to contact her. She said you have the number."

Hammond dialed his apartment. While the phone was ringing, he tore open the envelope. It was from the coroner's office. He scanned the Xerox copy of Harold Fletcher's autopsy report and found what he was looking for on the second page.

Cause of death:
cardiac arrest.

Someone, probably Detective Lieutenant Medacre, had underlined the two words with a felt-tipped pen. What a nice touch, thought Hammond.
      

The phone kept ringing. Obviously, Jan was not at the apartment. He hung up, stuffed the report back into the envelope, and popped it into his desk. Jan would have to wait. He buzzed Ensign Just-Ducky and asked her to contact two men at the Naval Research Laboratory, Intelligence Division.

"Cohen and Slater," he said. 'Tell them I want to see them in my office at eleven-thirty."

His eleven a.m. meeting with Security was a complete waste. They had come up with no clues, no leads, and no motives. The lab had identified two of the bugs—they were a standard make in the bugging fraternity. But the third one, the little chip that Collins had handled, had them "Stumped. They wanted more time, so Hammond gave it to them.

After they left, Hammond grabbed a note pad and
 
started jotting down everything pertaining to the case. A knock at the door broke his concentration.

"How's your hammer hanging, Nick?"

Hammond looked up at the two men standing in the doorway. "Well, if it isn't the Gold-dust Twins," he said.

Larry Cohen and Tom Slater slouched in. Cohen was the taller of the two, with a pleasant, open face and a pair of light blue eyes that looked out on the world with blank innocence. Slater was shorter by a head, with shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair. A neatly trimmed black beard framed his round face.
 

Hammond waved them into chairs and said, "It's unbelievable. How can we all be in the same Navy? When did you grow that foliage?"

"When he realized how many nickels he could save on razor blades," Cohen said dryly.

"Ignore him, Nick. He's jealous."

Hammond was looking at two of the best-trained specialists in their field. Mind-benders. They could take apart a subject's mental blocks, with oar without drugs, uncover his darkest secrets and either cure him or restore the safeguards—as required.

"So, Nicky," said Cohen. "What's cooking?"

Hammond told them everything: his meeting with Fletcher and the man's appeal for help; his subsequent denial; the irregularities in the service records; Fletcher's mysterious death; the elusive Dr. McCarthy; and Hammond's first meeting with Yablonski. He held back telling them anything about the bugging of his office or his involvement with Jan.

"Let me get this straight," said Cohen. "Two men from separate parts of the country, with completely different backgrounds, have service-related nightmares. A Navy psychiatrist treats both of them. This treatment has been going on over an extended period of time. He's on twenty- four-hour call, sees them, then disappears until the next time he's needed, just like Batman, right?"

Hammond nodded. "What do you think?"

"I think you've been smoking funny cigarettes."

Hammond didn't even smile. "I have my own ideas," he said, "but you're the experts. You tell me what's going on."

Cohen nodded. "Okay. What you've described sounds like a classic example of post-hypnotic trance coupled with an autosuggestion override designed to lock up both ends."

Hammond looked from one to the other. "Plain language?"

"It's quite simple," said Slater. "These nightmares are held in check by inducing a post-hypnotic state that dims the memory—"
      

Cohen interrupted: "But if you can't get deep enough into the conscious or subconscious mind to erase that memory, it resurfaces."

"You're assuming the nightmare is rooted in a memory," said Hammond.

"Well, it comes from somewhere," barked Slater.

"Where does the autosuggestion come in?"

Slater leaned forward. "Conditioned reflex. Push a button, get a banana. Have a nightmare, call the shrink."

"McCarthy's your key," said Cohen, "Their key, really. He's the control. And he's built a nasty little package."

"Suppose we wanted to unravel it. How would you guys go about it?"

 
Cohen eyed Hammond carefully. "You mean with your man Yablonski? Using a great deal of caution, Nick."

"Risky?"

"Oh, ever so. You told us yourself. When you met with Yablonski, you asked him what McCarthy looked like and he couldn't remember. If somebody sees you on a regular basis for twenty years, you should be able to describe him—unless, of course, there was something planted in your mind to prevent that."

"A deep block?"

"Exactly. Built in. And who knows what else friend McCarthy is dabbling with? Yablonski could be a mental land mine. Step down too hard and
boom!
He comes off the wall with his brains in little pieces."

"You fellows have anything to counteract that?"