“Do you have anything to say?” she asked gently when his breathing was more even.
His answer came out in exhausted, breathy gasps. “It’s not me. Swear. I’m not—planning—anything. Don’t know the drug guy. Wish I could help. Really, really, really—wish I could help. Really.”
“Hmm. You’re showing some resistance to this method, so maybe we’ll try something new.”
“Re… sistance?” he croaked in disbelief. “You think… I’m resist… ing?”
“Honestly, I’m a little worried about messing up your head with hallucinogens—seems like there’s already enough trouble up there.” She tapped her fingers against his sweaty scalp as she spoke. “Maybe we have no choice but to try old-school…” She continued to absently tap his head as she glanced at the tray of tools on her desk. “Are you squeamish?”
“Why. Is this—happening to me.” Totally rhetorical, he wasn’t looking for an answer to his broken whisper. She gave him one anyway.
“Because this is exactly what happens when you plan to release a lethal influenza virus in four American states, potentially killing a million citizens. The government takes exception to that kind of behavior. And they send me to make you talk.”
His eyes focused on her, horror suddenly overtaken by shock.
“What. The. Actual. Hell!”
“Yes, it’s horrific and appalling and evil, I know.”
“Alex, really, this is nuts! I think you have a problem.”
She got in his face. “My problem is that you aren’t telling me where the virus is. Do you have it already? Is it with de la Fuentes still? When’s the drop? Where is it?”
“This is insane. You’re insane!”
“I’d probably enjoy life a lot more if that were true. But I’m beginning to think they sent the wrong doctor. We need the doctor for crazies here. I don’t know how to get the other Daniel to show up!”
“Other Daniel?”
“The one I can see in these pictures!”
She whirled and grabbed a handful from the desk, jabbing the computer once angrily in passing.
“Look,” she said, shoving them toward his face, peeling off one after the other and dropping them to the floor. “It’s your body”—she smacked one photo against his shoulder before letting it fall—“your face, see? But not the right expression. There’s someone else looking out of your eyes, Daniel, and I’m not sure if you’re aware of him or not.”
But there it was again, the recognition. He was aware of something.
“Look, for right now, I’d settle for you just telling me what you see in this picture.” She held up the top photo, Other Daniel skulking in the back door of a Mexican bar.
He looked at her, torn.
“I can’t… explain it… it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You see something I don’t. What is it?”
“He…” Daniel tried to shake his head, but it barely moved, his muscles were so fatigued. “He looks like…”
“Like you.”
“No,” he whispered. “I mean, yes, of course he looks like me, but I can see the differences.”
The way he said it. Of course he looks like me. The transparent honesty again, but something still withheld…
“Daniel, do you know who this is?” A real question this time, not snark, not rhetoric. She wasn’t playing psychiatrist—badly—now. She felt for the first time since the interrogation started that she was actually onto something.
“It can’t be,” he breathed, closing his eyes less out of exhaustion and more to block out the picture, she thought. “It’s impossible.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me,” she murmured.
He opened his eyes and stared at her searchingly. “You’re sure? He’s going to kill people?”
So natural, his use of the third person.
“Hundreds of thousands of people, Daniel,” she promised, earnest as he was. She used the third person, too: “He’s got access to a deadly virus and he’s going to spread it for a psychopathic drug lord. He already has hotel reservations—in your name. He’s doing this in three weeks.”
A whisper. “I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t want to either. This virus… it’s a bad one, Daniel. It’s going to kill a lot more people than a bomb. There’ll be no way to control how it spreads.”
“But how could he do this? Why?”
At this point, she was nearly 65 percent convinced that they were not talking about one of Daniel’s multiple personalities.
“It’s too late for that. All that matters now is stopping him. Who is he, Daniel? Help me save those innocent people.”
A different kind of agony twisted his features. She’d seen this before. With another subject, she would know that his desire to be loyal was warring with his desire to avoid more torture. With Daniel, she rather thought the war was between loyalty and wanting to do the right thing.
In the perfect stillness of the night, as she waited for his answer, through the weak sound barrier of the foam, she clearly heard a small prop plane overhead. Very close overhead.
Daniel looked up.