Chapter X
There were six of us crouched against the corner of the building watching the corporal throw the dice. No one was betting, they had already fleeced each other bone dry before I’d arrived but we were having just as much fun as the die came up to my stated calls.
Private Raines asked, “Are you predicting it or making them come up what you’re calling?”
“Huh,” I said. “Never thought about that. I just see the next couple of rolls before you throw them.”
“You’d be great to take to Atlantic City,” he sighed and Corporal Steinberger pushed him.
“They’d think you rigged it, Raines. Or was cheating. Can you do it with cards?”
Private Ames pulled out his pack, shuffled and held up the first card hidden.
“Two of clubs, nine of spades, Ace of spades, three of diamonds,” I recited the next ten cards and he flipped them over to show every one I’d called. Their faces grew serious.
“I’m shipping out next week for Afghanistan,” Jacobs drawled in his Arkansas accent and I hesitated. I’d not wanted to know which of these newly made men were not coming back but maybe, if I told them, I could keep them safe or at least not dying if I warned them.
I picked up his hand, removed my glove and our skin met with an electric shock that both of us felt. I dropped the contact quickly and rubbed at my hand.
“You save your squad, Jacobs. You receive a Purple Heart but if you don’t shoot the kid, you’ll lose both your legs above the knees.” I took a deep breath and tried to dismiss the feeling of a bomb exploding my legs off.
His face blanched. “What kid?”
“Look for the kid in the red hat. When you see him, shoot. Don’t hesitate, don’t think, just do it. He’s wired with Semtex. Make sure you fasten your helmet and drop.”
“I’ll remember,” he said grimly and the others crowded around me, wanting to know their futures but I couldn’t, cried out when they badgered me and they stood in confusion when I bawled.
I tried to explain what it did to me to tell someone they were going to die, when, where and how terribly. As yet, I hadn’t learned to lie; not everyone wanted to know or would believe me.
“Cale, we’re sorry,” they said and attempted to pat me but I shrank from their touch.
The sergeant came around the corner and his swift perusal took in the cards and dice lay on the ground, my crying form and his barked questions caused the men to jump to attention.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Nothing, sir!” Corporal Jacobs shouted.
“Then, why is the FBI’s VIP guest crying?”
“Homesick,” I blurted out. “His accent reminded me of home.”
“Pick up your…toys and go find something to do before I find a use for those new toothbrushes that came in,” he snapped.
“Sir. Yes, sir.” All six of them snapped a salute and trotted off, several gave me backward glances with worried frowns.
“I hope you weren’t gambling with my men,” he told me.
“No,” I denied. “I don’t gamble.”
How could it be gambling when I always knew the outcome? Besides, what did I need money for; I had over 260 million sitting in trust for me.
“The Acting Director sent me to find you, Mr. Snowdon,” he added.
I sniffled, wiped my eyes on the long sleeved FBI shirt and stood up.
He made no move to touch me, just stepped aside so I could precede him onto the graveled paths that circled the barracks.
It was a short walk back to the FBI building and the trainee whose room I had been assigned to share was waiting in the lobby.
There was a formal handing over of my body from one to the other and she passed me the official badge with my photo on it that let me in and out without an escort.
I’d had the run of the base since I’d sent Director Kelstrom to the hospital with his heart attack. He was doing well, between the aspirin he’d swallowed to thin his blood and the care the EMTs had given him as it had started, no damage had been done to the heart muscle. If I hadn’t been there, he would have died on his floor and not been found until it was too late. He would retire and live a long time after.
Today was the first time I’d seen my roommate in daylight. Usually, she came in after dark and left before daylight. She was in classes all morning, P.E. in the afternoons and training exercises after that. Her goal was to work in the Crimes against Children Unit and her specialty was Psychiatry. She had carefully refrained from questioning me, just said hi and goodnight, made sure my clothes were laid out, clean and my bed made even though I told her I could do it myself.
I was taken to the Director’s office; the AD had taken it over until the new one was appointed. It was a large room behind glass partitions with a nice desk and chair, computer and several phones, one of which was a fax. A picture of President Bush was on the wall next to the last Director of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. He wasn’t alone; there were three other men with him. I looked for Jed, he wasn’t there.
I was introduced to the head of Behavioral Science, another doctor and the special agent in charge of some task force. This AD was named McCormick; he was from the NYC office.
“Please sit down, Cale,” the AD asked and I felt an instant chill. I did not like these men and as I hesitated, one of them actually pushed me into a chair.
“Where’s Jed?” I asked, afraid.
“He’s on his way to Tennessee. I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with us till he returns.”
He placed a box on the table and pulled out evidence bags that he carefully opened and set each item in front of me.
There were eight objects, from a baseball cap to a set of keys, a knife whose point whispered to me with deadly fascination; bloody clothes, one shoe and a fingernail.
They forced me to touch them one by one and the impressions I got off each one drove me deeper and deeper into despair until I shrank in the chair and did nothing but cry.
“It’s enough,” the SAC said uneasily. “He can’t take any more.”
“Take him to his room, feed him. We’ll continue in the morning,” the AD decided.
Images of dead and dying children, tortured women deluged my mind; I could not shut them out. I tore at my head trying to get them out and they reacted by restraining me. I fought that, kicking, biting and screaming until the entire floor crowded into the room and spilled out into the hallway observing me.
Eventually, he called the on-site doctor who gave me a shot of Valium and I melted in their arms, hung limp, my mouth open and mewling. I was brought to the infirmary, stripped, tied down behind the rails of the hospital bed. I could not sleep; the images continued to race across my mind’s eye, I saw each and every murder behind all eight objects, repeated endlessly. The doctor fussed over me, checked on me every fifteen minutes, and seemed surprised when he found me semi-awake.
“Go to sleep,” he told me. “Stop fighting the drug. I can’t give you another shot.”
When morning came, the nurse was not happy to see me wide awake, my eyes staring at nothing.
“Didn’t you sleep?” she asked me and the doctor came out of his office, shaking his head.
I could hear everything but it was like I was on the other side of a plate glass window listening in on someone else’s conversation.
“No. He’s been like that all night. Won’t eat, either. What did they do to him? He was hysterical when they brought him in; I had to sedate him with Valium and then Ativan.”
“And he didn’t sleep? Cale, honey, want to sit up and eat?” She lifted my bed, sometime during the night, the man had removed my restraints but I had not noticed.
“He’s withdrawn, non-responsive. Cale, look at me.” Her tone was sharp, commanding.
Slowly, I turned my head, not making eye contact, not even when she grasped my chin and pulled my face around.
“The AD wants him in his office at 8:45 a.m.,” she said. “But I don’t think he’ll get far with him. Whatever they did, it shouldn’t be repeated.”
She took my vitals and he did not look pleased. “He’s got a low grade temp, I’m going to keep him in bed, tell the AD he’s sick and can’t be released,” the man decided. “Put him on an IV of lactated Ringers, set up a Pen drip.”
He flashed a penlight in my eyes and pushed me gently on my chest until I was lying flat. I offered no resistance; I was a silent observer in a tiny corner of my brain that was still plugged in.
“I don’t know how to deal with this. Maybe someone from Behavioral Science---a Psyche Specialist. Cale? Can you hear me? You need to wake up, Cale.”
He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and I blinked slowly until his face receded to a tiny circle at the end of a tunnel and popped like a child’s soap bubble.
*******
I could still hear; it almost sounded like a foreign language, snatches of conversations that sometimes made sense and others not. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Won’t sleep, won’t eat, and won’t respond. You move his arm, it stays there.”
“We’re putting in a feeding tube today, transferring him to a private hospital in Maryland where they can deal with his kind of care.”
“Schizophrenic?”
“Catatonic withdrawal. “Hello, Mr. Cale Snowdon. I’m the Paramedic that will be transporting you to the Potomac Rehab Center. It’s a couple of hours but you’ll be nice and comfy in our big ambulance.
“Patient’s name?”
“Cale Austin Snowdon. Age 13, date of birth, 5-12-95. Federal Bureau of Investigation Guarantor. Huh.’
“Cale, can you tell me your name, DOB?”
“Forget it, he’s catatonic. Hasn’t moved or talked on his own in two weeks.”
“Oh. Poor kid. Those eyes, they see right through you. Kind of creepy with nobody home behind them. At least, he’s going to a really ritzy place, they treat everyone there like gold.”
“This one’s on the government payroll. Goes under an assumed name, has 24 hour guards, best of everything. I hear the NSA is interested in him, too.”
“Wonder why?”
“You need to watch the news more. He’s some kind of psychic genius.”
“Some kind of psychotic, you mean. Hey, brain boy, anybody home?”
*******
“Good morning, Cale. It’s sunny, temps in the eighties, a lovely day. Want to go outside for your breakfast? We can sit in the gardens.
“I’m going to give you a sponge bath, then get you dressed and up, here we go. Doesn’t that feel good? Warm and clean. Put your arm in the sleeve. Now your feet in these cushy slippers. Hold on to me while I transfer you to the chair. Oops, got your lines caught under your elbow. There, all straightened out. We won’t take a blanket, it’s really warm out.
“Hi, Pete. We’re going out for breakfast. This is Pete, Cale. Remember him? He’s your physical therapist.”
“Any change, Chrissie?”
“No. But I never give up, you know me, I love lost causes.”
“Has he eaten anything?”
“No. Just his stomach tube feedings. I’ve tried to get him to eat but it just sits in his mouth till it dissolves. Poor kid, he’s thin as a stick. We’re worried about pressure sores.”
“I’ll walk with you. The gardens are so pretty this time of year.”
“Any change, Doctor?”
“No, Director McCormick. No response to stimuli, drugs or psychotherapy. Only thing we haven’t tried is ECT and that’s not legal under the age of 18.”
“You don’t think he’s faking it?”
“No! Whatever brought him to this was so traumatic, so severe that he refuses to face reality. There are cases you know, where the mind simply snaps. He may never recover. What happened to him? If I knew, I might be able to reverse it.”
“I doubt that. Not unless you’re a mind reader.”
There was a pause. “He had a special bond with two people. I wonder if they could reach him.”
“Who?”
“A little girl he saved from a rapist and the SAC agent who rescued him. Cale, Jed Deleon has been reassigned but I can transfer him back to your case. And I can bring Penny here to see you. Do you hear me?”
“Penny?” it was a thin whisper that made their voices rise in anticipation.
“Cale?”
“His eyes are still blank, no response. Try again. Penny. Penny’s here to see you. Wake up.”
“If there’s no change by the end of the week, I’m ordering ECT.”
“You’ll have to get a court order.”
“You want one from your local Podunk judge or the AG of the Supreme Court?”