Thin Air (14 page)

"Martin, it's starting again! Come back!" He wiggled anxious fingers at him, then his hand seemed to be snatched from the right as the next man closed the circle.

The vibrations started through Yablonski again. He "watched "Martin," terrified, following him with his eyes as he seemed to move further away. "Martin!" he called again.

The quivering got violent and Hammond felt Yablonski's body tense under it. "What's happening with Martin?" asked Hammond.

Yablonski's eyes flicked open. "Get away from the bow—!" he yelled, then lunged forward but was "held back" by the circle.
      
.

"What's he doing?!" yelled Hammond.

"Don't jump—!" Yablonski ripped his hand free of Hammond's and the movement pitched Hammond off the bed to the floor. Yablonski was still "held back" by the man on his right. He lurched forward again and shrieked once more, "MARTIN!"

Then a shiver of horror shot through him. He screamed and threw up a hand to shield his eyes from something. His body jerked and then was viciously whipped about by an unseen force. His screams mounted—

The bedroom door was thrown open and Mrs. Yablonski stumbled in, staring wildly at her husband and sobbing, while Cas stood cowering and whimpering on the bed until he sank to his knees....

"That's not a nightmare," said Cohen. "That's a fucking pageant."

They were holding a conference in the bathroom. Slater was still in the bedroom, watching Mrs. Yablonski tend to her husband. They had got him quieted down without giving him another shot, and he was resting now, stretched out on the bed. Mrs. Yablonski was bathing the sweat from his face and whispering in his ear to soothe him.

"His dream sounds the same as Fletcher's," said Hammond quietly. "How could two men, living completely separate lives, have the same outlandish nightmare?"

"You're still assuming it
is
a nightmare," said Cohen.

Hammond eyed him uncomfortably. "Or something induced under hypnosis," he said.

"Or maybe they both lived it."

Hammond regarded him grimly, then closed the door and sat down on the john. "Impossible," he said.

"Well, that may very well be," Cohen retorted, "but I wouldn't be quick to rule it out."

"Are you willing to believe it?"

"It's not a question of what you're willing to believe. That's the way it appears. You have to prove it one way or the other."

"Please don't tell me my job," said Hammond. "I can't even figure out what we're being asked to consider. What happened? Disappearing decks, the guy quivering like a piano string, and what's all this stuff about Norfolk?"

Hammond jumped up and paced. "If this really was Navy, who in hell was behind it? And what's the big secret that for all these years had to be locked up inside that man's head? And Fletcher's!"

"I don't know, Hammond," said Cohen, "hut if someone was willing to go to these lengths to bury it, then maybe it did happen!"

It made a crazy kind offense. A group of men involved in a secret project many years ago, brainwashed to wipe the event from their minds—only it resurfaces in the form of nightmares, requiring frequent relaundering. Enter Dr. McCarthy. But who was he working for? The Navy itself?

Hammond opened the door and looked out at Yablonski again. Researching a man's records, digging facts, finding the men who had bugged his office, putting the collar on Dr. McCarthy—these were things he could deal with. But disappearing ships, psychological tampering, people with the same nightmares—he was in over his head.

Cohen handed him the list of questions and said, "I believe it's your turn now. We've unlocked the door. You push it open."

"DE-166."

Yablonski's head rolled over slowly and one milky eyeball fixed itself on a point somewhere over Hammond's head.

"DE-166," Hammond repeated. He was in Cohen's seat now. Slater was still manning the recorder. Cohen was leaning against the wall, prepared to grab Yablonski if he showed signs of excitement. Mrs. Yablonski had been prevailed upon to leave. She was downstairs in the kitchen.

"DE-166, USS
Sturman."

A long silence with Yablonski licking dry lips. Then he croaked, "...The ship..."

"The ship? What ship?"

"Sturman
...Philadelphia..."

"The Navy Yard?"

"Yes..."

"When! Yablonski?"

"...1953."

"You were assigned to the
Sturman
, DE-166?"

Yablonski nodded.

"At the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1953?"

"Yes."

"But that's not the truth, Cas. You told us you spent that time in Boston, didn't you?"
 

"I..." Yablonski's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Which is it, Cas?"

He licked his lips again and moved his head.

''Can't you get your story straight? Come on, which is it?"

Cohen made a motion for him to go easy; Hammond ignored him.

"I...was a harbor pilot in the Boston Navy Yard—"

"Oh, come on, Yablonski! That's bullshit! That's what he
told
you to say. You
were
in Boston, but you were in Philadelphia, too—isn't that true?"

"I...yes."

Hammond glanced at Cohen and saw him relax.

Success was short-lived. He could not coax a description of McCarthy out of him. The doctor had walled that up too well. But Yablonski was able to describe Harold Fletcher, right down to the man's vanity about his hands.

"He used to manicure them all the time. He was even dating this little manicurist in Philly..."

Yablonski was able to remember other names, too. Olively and Terkel surfaced again, and Martin....At the mention of Martin, Yablonski quivered on the bed.

"What's the matter, Cas?" asked Hammond. "What about Martin? What happened to him?"

Yablonski's head rolled; his eyes went back into his head. His hands tensed, clutching the sheets. Cohen stood up straight, ready...

"Martin, Cas. Tell me what happened. Why does he scare you? Did he hurt you? Come on...."

"...Martin..."

"That's right. Let's have it. Tell me and it won't hurt anymore."

"Won't hurt....Martin...he was the only one...."

"Only one what, Cas?"

His head rolled faster now and he was starting to get the shakes. He broke out in a cold sweat, then groaned, loud and long. Cohen dropped a hand, ready to grab Yablonski's arm.

"The only one
what?"
presssed Hammond.

"Went zero...
ZERO!"
The scream started low in his throat, reaching out, trying to escape—

Cohen was ort him first, but he thrashed around so violently that it took both of them to hold him down. The scream broke off and he was yelling at the top of his voice. Hammond was electrified listening to a broken jumble of barely comprehensible phrases—

"Zero...Gonel...Rinehart warned us...don't get locked out!...Terkel suicide...Olively and Butler...walking through walls...Rinehart...those bastards!...They knew!...The prdject..."
 

Yablonski grabbed Hammond and pulled his face close and Hammond could smell the bile in his breath. His eyes were wide and his nostrils flaring as he screamed, "What happened to me? What happened to me—?"
      

He fell back on the bed, laughing hysterically. He was too weak to thrash about anymore, so Hammond and Cohen let him go. He laughed himself into" helplessness while Hammond stood up to regain his composure. Then he leaned directly over Yablonski and said, "Who was Rinehart?"

"He...ran the project..."

"What project, Yablonski?"

Yablonski's helplessness vanished so suddenly that Hammond barely had time to jump out of the way. Yablonski leapt off the bed and flung himself against the wall, screaming, "THIN AIR! MARTIN JUST VANISHED! STEPPED OFF THE DECK AND WENT ZERO—!"

Yablonski went rigid. His screams broke off, and finally he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

They stood there in silence, all three of them staring at the rag doll on the floor as they became aware of their own breathing. Cohen was first to draw himself up and move to Yablonski. "Christ, Hammond, you don't leave me much to work with...."

He and Slater pulled Yablonski up and dragged him back to the bed. He looked harmless now, a tired, middle-aged man who'd reached inside himself and found hell.

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Hammond.

"Rebuild the brick wall around that...
experience."
Cohen spat out the word distastefully. "Have to plant the suggestion that it's real, that he lived it, and that it can't hurt him anymore. It'll take time before he's willing to unlock those doors himself, but we'll give him all the keys."

Slater fumbled in the black bag and produced a small, battery-powered light device. Cohen settled it into his palm and flipped it on. The light spun around on a cycle, appearing to go on and off at a constant rate. He switched it off and looked up at Hammond.

"It's all real, Hammond. I don't know how, but he lived through all that."

Hammond was almost ready to admit it to himself, but he asked, "What makes you sure?"

"He gave only one answer by rote, the one about his duty in the Navy. That's the only thing that was actually planted. He retold the dream in his own words:
his
images colored by
his
language. But there's something else I should have caught even earlier: there would be no point in implanting a nightmare and then working so hard to make him forget it."

Hammond stared at Yablonski's quiet form as Cohen continued, "However, someone who suffers from a bad experience can be induced to forget it—for his own well-being. That's what your Dr. McCarthy has done, drawn a screen over something in this man's life that he would be better off forgetting."
 

"Probably right," said Hammond, "except I don't think it was done for Yablonski's well-being, but for someone else's."

Cohen did not reply. He shook Yablonski awake and held him so he could see the milky eyes, then aimed the cycling light at them.

Hammond backed out of the room and left them alone.

In the early afternoon, Hammond walked Cohen and Slater back to the car, asking them to analyze the tapes of their session and break down Yablonski's comments into topics.

"I want every name he mentioned on a separate list. I want locations cross-referenced with dates. I want questionable statements broken out but in context, and then I want a complete transcript in order. Send the names over to our Data Center in the Hoffman Building with a request to check them through BUPERS. I want a follow-through on each one from 1953 up through today."

"Okay, boss," said Slater. "And if the patient has a relapse, give him these." He gave Hammond a bottle of pills. "One at a time and four hours apart."

"Thanks, fellas. For everything."

They shook hands, started the car, and drove away. It had been agreed that Hammond would stay behind to give Yablonski moral support.

He turned from the disappearing car and looked back at the house. It was quiet now; there was no indication of the drama that had unfolded only a few hours ago. Yablonski and his wife were downstairs in the den, listening to music. Cohen had sedated him enough to keep him relaxed and had forced him to take his mind away from what he'd been through.

Hammond gazed out at the pond and Wondered about the facts in Yablonski's dream. What in the world had he been involved in back in 1953? Why the incredible secrecy? Why had there been only one doctor on his case over twenty years? Was the Navy trying to cover up a terrible mistake in its past?

Was it the Navy at all?

He sat down in the den with the Yablonskis. They were on the sofa. Cas had an arm around his wife and she was resting against his chest. He watched Hammond, waiting for the next move.

"I would like to set up a meeting with your Dr. McCarthy," said Hammond.

"Why?"

"The man is a phony. His credentials don't show up anywhere at BUPERS. Nobody I've talked to has ever heard of him. And for more than twenty years, he's caused you and your wife unnecessary grief. I want to put a stop to it."

Yablonski eyed him narrowly. "What's all this got to do with Naval Intelligence?"

"Somebody's been tampering with Naval records. And lives. Your old mate Fletcher is dead. And I believe McCarthy's responsible."

Yablonski scowled at Hammond, but it was his wife who got up and faced him, quivering with emotion. "You can't..." She choked on the words. "You can't put him through any more. I won't allow it!"
 

"I'm sorry," said Hammond, rising and facing her. "But your husband may be in danger, Mrs. Yablonski. Fletcher died shortly after he talked to me. Your husband has made inquiries at BUPERS that touched off an alarm. They know their hold on him is weakening—they're waiting to see what he does."