Ben felt fear rise in his throat. It was hard to believe they knew the truth. Even after all these years, he hadn’t been able to find it, so how had they? “For example?”
“Where are these parents and grandparents that you mentioned? We can’t find their records. Anywhere.”
Ben balled up his fists. This guy was on his last nerve. “My grandparents died years ago. And my parents died in a car crash. I was three years old. Or do you think I was forging papers at that age?”
“Mr. Gellie —”
“They spun into a telephone pole at sixty-five miles per hour, and it split their old Dodge in half. When the cops found me, I was in the back half of the car, sixty feet away from the front half and on the opposite side of the road, screaming for my blankie. My parents had been smashed like pancakes.” He glared at the guy in the suit. “Go on. Tell me I’m lying.”
“That’s really a very sad story. Horrible in fact if it were true. But you know as well as I, that’s just a lie, isn’t it?” The condescension dripped from his lips with every word like thick maple syrup.
“Bullshit!”
Ben lunged forward against his restraints, fists balled and arms straining.
One of the restraints snapped.
It didn’t seem to faze Devereaux, although Ben could see the medical staff getting agitated in the background. “I understand your foster parents, the Fulchers, showed you pictures of the accident.”
“Yes.”
They hadn’t wanted to, Ben remembered, but like an idiot, he had insisted. His foster father, Mark Fulcher, had bribed someone on the police force to obtain the photos; he’d wanted to sue the Chrysler Company for not meeting safety standards on that old car. He’d known Ben’s parents before they’d died — Mark and Ben’s father, John, had gone to Georgetown together.
“Those pictures were faked,” Devereaux said. “It was before the digital era, so they had to do it on a lightbox with an X-Acto knife, then retake the photo. I took a magnifying glass to it. You can see the places that were touched up.”
That gave him pause.
Had everything he knew about his life been a lie?
Even as he considered it, Ben knew it didn’t matter. Fact was, he grew up with loving parents. It didn’t matter who they were or where they’d come from. That level of love and kindness can’t be faked.
“What are you talking about?” he asked ruefully.
“That accident originally happened in Missouri, Mr. Gellie. Not just outside Washington, D.C. In a couple of photos, you can see the license plates on the Dodge. They had to replace ’em. I did my homework and found the real photos of the accident in Missouri. With Missouri plates.”
“You’re lying!”
Ben didn’t know what else to say. His head was spinning. His parents were his parents. His foster parents were his real foster parents. He’d been to visit their graves. Hell, his foster parents had taken him to his grandparents’ grave site. They even made a real big show of it. Family history is important, blood lines, all that kind of stuff. There were no “holes” in his life story. None of this was real. It was all some kind of sick mistake. He started twisting his other wrist, not to escape so much as just to have something physical to resist. Otherwise, this guy’s lies were going to start working their way into his head.
Devereaux said, “Your parents weren’t born here. In fact, no one knows where your parents came from.”
“Then what makes you so certain they were doing something illegal?”
“They weren’t. Not yet, anyway. They were what we call now, sleeper cells. You know what that means?”
Ben didn’t want to answer, but he found himself answering anyway. “Yeah, they’re terrorists or spies who have been inserted into a specific location, where they have been integrated into the environment, normally taking on local mundane or routine jobs, until a trigger switches them to active duty. Sometimes that call might not happen for years; sometimes it might never come.”
“That’s right.”
“So, what? You’re trying to tell me my parents were part of a sleeper cell?”
Devereaux raised an eyebrow questioningly. “They could be. What do you think?”
“I think my parents died in a crash and you’re lying about everything.”
Devereaux shook his head. “That’s one thing that definitely didn’t happen.”
“So where did they go?”
“You’re not thinking this through, are you?”
Ben thought about it for a moment. His position. The interrogation. Everything. “You know where my parents went, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Ben had to know the truth. “Where?”
“They were called up into active duty. As a result, a lot of people died.”
“Where?”
“Bolshoi Zayatsky.”
“Bolshoi Zayatsky?” Ben repeated the words. They meant nothing to him, yet they sounded familiar. “Where the hell’s that?”
Devereaux smiled, lowered his mouth so that it was close to Ben’s ear, and whispered, “Russia.”
Ben grinned. “What would my parents possibly be doing in Russia?”
“They were called upon.”
“To do what?”
“Something horrible. Something intended to kill a lot of people.”
Ben said, “I don’t believe you.”
“That doesn’t change the fact it happened.”
“Where’s the proof?”
“I’ll get to that.”
“Even if they were terrorists, you have no right to hold me like this. I can’t be a terrorist by association.”
Devereaux’s mouth dropped open. His eyes widened. His smile was replaced by something close-mouthed, and almost reptilian. “Do you really believe that, Mr. Gellie?”
Ben crossed his arms defiantly. “I’m a lawyer — I know my rights.”
“All bets are off, and rights go out the window in cases of national security.”
“You think I’m a terrorist and a threat to national security. That’s crazy.”
Devereaux leveled his penetrating gaze to meet him. “That’s not very convincing, especially after some of the things that your foster parents have said in the last few hours.”
The second restraint popped. Now both arms were free.
“What did you do to them?” Ben asked.
Devereaux leaned forward. “I didn’t do anything. But I advise you to cooperate. As I said, there are some important people involved. And when important people panic… Bad. Things. Happen.”
Ben couldn’t take it.
His control snapped like one of the plastic Tuff-Ties. Ben’s discipline was strong, but the strain had come from an unexpected direction.
Pop.
Ben grabbed Devereaux’s tie and used it to yank himself over the side of the recliner. Devereaux was pulled off-balance and landed face-first in the seat. Ben turned, placing the heel of his foot on the man’s back and kicking hard. Already off balance, it knocked Devereaux onto the ground.
A pair of orderlies and a pair of doctors in long white coats waited for him, including the petite blonde. He wasn’t falling for that again. He grabbed a chair from along the wall and tossed it in their direction.
The doctors both dodged, but one of the orderlies caught the metal stacking chair and turned it around, so the feet were pointing out. He looked like an amateur lion-tamer. “I don’t think so.”
Ben grinned. He had always had lightning-fast reflexes.
Before the orderly could attack with the chair to subdue the wild beast, Ben had pulled the chair forward by the legs, then aimed the back up toward the man’s jaw, ramming the chair into it. The orderly’s head slammed against the closed door, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.