He paused. How did he know how to do that? From his Special Forces days? His memory of that time was still so damnably miasmic.
He peered into the cabinet. It held a black suit, a white shirt, a tie, shoes, and socks. He touched the material of the suit, soft and elegant, as familiar as his own skin. He felt a prickling sensation at the base of his neck. He searched the suit and pants, going first to the pocket that — he supposedly remembered — held his FBI wallet. Nothing. The other pockets, all the little custom-made slots and pouches, were there. And all were empty. No ID, nothing.
He slipped off his hospital gown and put on the shirt, stroking the fine pinpoint cotton. Then came the pants, the Zegna tie, the jacket, the socks. As he picked up the John Lobb shoes, he thought of something, flipped over the left shoe, and detached the heel. There, nestled in a carved hollow, was a razor blade, a set of lock picks, two sealed ampoules of chemicals, and a tightly folded hundred-dollar bill.
He stared. Could this, too, be a product of his delusional FBI period?
Refastening the heel, he put on the shoes. He walked to the window, unlatched it, and swung it open. A breeze scented with hemlocks flowed through the vertical iron bars. He tried again to summon his last memory. They said he had been in there six months. Had it been winter, then? He tried desperately to remember, to see the landscape in front of him covered with snow, but could not.
Flexing his arms, he reached out and grasped two adjoining metal bars. They were wrought iron, of poor quality, and corroded. With all his force, he pushed outward with each hand. Slowly but surely, the wrought iron deformed under his immense strength until an opening large enough for him to slip through had been made. He let go, breathing hard. But now was not the time to leave. No — he needed answers first.
He fastened the window shut and drew the curtains. Moving cautiously, he went to the door of his room, tested the knob. Locked, of course. In ten seconds he had picked it with the aid of the paper clips, again marveling at his instinctual skill.
He cracked the door and peered out. The lights were on in the hall, and at the far end he could see a nurse’s station attended by a nurse and two orderlies. All were alert and busy. He waited, timing his exit until their attention was elsewhere, then ducked out of the door and pressed himself into the darkness of the next doorway. Another patient? With a deft twist of the paper clips, the lock opened, and he found himself in a room like his own, only much smaller. A man lay in the single bed. He, too, had a shaved head, but he looked thin and wasted, and his bare arm sported the old tracks of a heroin addict. His bed had been outfitted with the same medical device Pendergast had noticed in his own room.
With extreme caution, Pendergast exited the dark space and moved down the long hall. Each room he peered into was similar: a sleeping patient with a shaved head, frequently gaunt and wasted-looking.
This was getting him nowhere.
He paused to consider the possibilities. Either his version of reality was correct, or theirs was correct. Either way, unfortunately, seemed to indicate that he was crazy. He needed more information to choose which of the two insanities was real.
Stepping out of the last patient’s room, he stuck his hands in his pockets and — not sure, exactly, what he was doing, and yet strangely certain of his actions — strolled back down the hall toward the nurse’s station. The two orderlies — big strapping blond men, six-feet-four inches, a matched set — watched him approach, first with incomprehension on their faces and then with alarm. He saw that both men were armed.
“Hey… hey!” one of them cried, flummoxed at his appearance. “Who the hell are you?”
He strolled up to them. “Pendergast, at your service. The patient from room 113.”
In a practiced move, they parted and took up positions on either side of him. “Okay,” the first said, speaking calmly, “we’re going to take you back to your room, nice and easy. Understood?”
Pendergast did not move. “I’m afraid that’s not acceptable.”
They both moved a little closer. “Nobody wants any trouble.”
“Incorrect. I do want trouble. In fact, I positively welcome it.”
The first orderly reached out and gently grasped his arm. “Enough with the tough talk, friend, and let’s go back to bed.”
“I do hate being touched.”
The second orderly had now moved in, crowding him.
The orderly’s grip tightened. “Let’s go, Mr. Pendergast.”
There was a flicker of movement; the sound of a fist hitting a gut; the sudden wheeze of expelled air — and then the orderly buckled over and collapsed to the floor, grasping his diaphragm. The second orderly swung to grab Pendergast and a moment later was doubled up on the floor as well.
The nurse at the station turned toward an alarm, pulled it, and a siren began to wail. Red lights went on and Pendergast could hear automatic bolts shooting in various door locks. Almost instantly, half a dozen monster orderlies appeared out of nowhere and converged on the nurse’s station, where Pendergast stood calmly with crossed arms. They surrounded him, weapons drawn. The two orderlies on the floor continued to lie in a fetal position, gasping and sucking in air, unable to speak.
“Gentlemen, I am ready to go back to my room,” said Pendergast. “But please don’t touch me. I have a ‘thing’ about it, you might say.”
“Just get the hell going,” said one of the orderlies, apparently the leader. “Move.”
Pendergast strolled down the hallway, orderlies before and after. They entered the room and one turned on the light, the last one shutting and locking the door. The lead orderly gestured toward the open metal cabinet, at the foot of which lay Pendergast’s hospital gown.
“Strip off your clothes and get back in your gown,” he said.
Meanwhile, another orderly was speaking on a walkie-talkie, and Pendergast could hear him assuring someone that all was under control. The siren stopped and silence descended once again.
“I said, strip.”
Pendergast turned his back on the orderly, facing the locker, but made no move to take off his clothes. A moment passed and then the lead orderly stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him around.
“I said—”
He fell silent as the barrel of a Smith & Wesson .38—removed from one of the disabled orderlies — was pressed against his head.
“All the radios on the floor,” Pendergast said in a calm, firm voice. “Then the weapons. And all your keys.”
Unnerved at the sight of a gun in a patient’s hand, the orderlies quickly complied, the radios and pistols piling up on the Persian carpet. Pendergast, still covering the head orderly, sorted through the pile, pulling out one of the radios. He removed the batteries from the others and ejected the rounds from the revolvers, stuffing batteries and bullets into the pocket of his jacket. Sorting through the keys, he found a master, stuck it into the keyhole of his room door, and snapped it off. He turned the working radio over in his hands, found the panic button, and pressed it. The alarm shrieked back to life.
“Elopement!” he cried into the radio. “Room 113! He’s got a gun! He went out the window. He’s running toward the woods!” Then he turned off the radio, plucked out its batteries in turn, and tossed it on the floor.
“Good evening, gentlemen.” He nodded at them gravely, then unlatched the window again, and leaped out into the night.
As he pressed himself against the dark side of the mansion, the lawn and grounds suddenly blazed with floodlights. He could hear shouts over the sound of the alarms. Moving alongside the edge of the building, keeping behind the shrubbery, he worked his way along the bulk of the great mansion turned insane asylum. As he had hoped, security officers and orderlies were running across the lawn, flashlight beams dancing about, all operating on the assumption he had fled into the woods.