Recursion(21)

The man asks, “Did you go to the home of Joe and Franny Behrman in an official capacity?”

“How’d you know I went there?”

“Just answer the question.”

“No. I was satisfying my own curiosity.”

“Did any of your colleagues or superiors know about your trip to Montauk?”

“No one did.”

“Did you discuss with anyone your interest in Ann Voss Peters and Joe Behrman?”

Though he spoke to Gwen about FMS on Sunday, he feels confident in his assumption that no one could possibly know about their conversation.

So he lies. “No.”

Barry has the tracking software activated on his phone. He has no idea how long he’s been unconscious, but assuming it’s still early Tuesday morning, his absence from work won’t be noticed until late afternoon. In theory, hours from now. He has no appointments scheduled. No drink or dinner plans. It could be several days before his absence pings on anyone’s radar.

“People will come looking for me,” Barry says.

“They’ll never find you.”

Barry breathes in slowly, steeling himself against the rising panic. He needs to convince this man to release him, with nothing but words and logic.

Barry says, “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what any of this is about. But if you release me now, you will never hear from me again. I swear to you.”

The man slides off the stool and moves across the room to the computer terminal. Standing before an immense monitor, he types on a keyboard. After a moment, Barry hears whatever apparatus is attached to his head begin to make a barely discernible whirring, like the wings of a mosquito.

“What is this?” Barry asks again, his heart rate ticking up a notch, fear occluding his better thinking. “What do you want with me?”

“I want you to tell me about the last time you saw your daughter alive.”

In a pure and blinding rage, Barry strains against the leather straps, struggling with everything he has to disengage his head from whatever is holding it in place. The leather creaks. His head doesn’t budge. Sweat beads on his face and runs down into his eyes with a salty burn he is powerless to wipe away.

“I’ll kill you,” Barry says.

The man leans forward, inches away, a blue-flame coldness in his eyes. Barry smells his expensive cologne, the toasted sourness of coffee on his breath.

“I’m not trying to taunt you,” the man says. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Fuck you.”

“You came to my hotel.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure you told Joe Behrman exactly what to say to lure me here.”

“Tell you what—let’s make this choice as straightforward as possible. You answer honestly when I ask a question, or you’ll die where you sit.”

Trapped in this chair, Barry has no choice but to play along, to keep staying alive until he sees an opening, a chance, no matter how small, to get free.

“Fine.”

The man lifts his head to the ceiling and says, “Computer, start session.”

An automated, feminine voice responds, New session beginning now.

The man looks into Barry’s eyes.

“Now, tell me about the last time you saw your daughter alive, and don’t leave out a single detail.”





HELENA





March 29, 2009–June 20, 2009





Day 515


Standing in the vestibule of the superstructure’s western loading bay, Helena zips into her foul-weather gear, thinking the wind sounds like a deep-voiced ghost, roaring on the other side of the door. All morning, it’s been gusting to eighty—hard enough to blow someone her size off the platform.

Dragging the door open, she stares into a grayed-out world of sideways-blowing rain and connects the carabiner on her harness to the cable that’s been strung across the platform. Despite anticipating the power of the wind, she isn’t ready for the sheer force that almost sweeps her off her feet. She leans into it, bracing herself, and moves outside.

The platform is cloaked in gray, and all she can hear is the raving madness of the wind and the needles of rain slamming into the hood of her jacket like ball bearings.

It takes ten minutes to cross the platform, a series of hard-fought steps against a constant loss of balance. She finally reaches her favorite spot on the rig—the northwest corner—and sits down with her legs hanging over the side, watching sixty-foot waves smash into the platform legs.

The last two members of Infrastructure left yesterday, before the storm’s arrival. Her people didn’t just object to Slade’s new directive to “put people in a deprivation tank and stop their heart.” With the exception of her and Sergei, they resigned en masse and demanded to be returned to the mainland immediately. Whenever she feels guilty for staying, she thinks of her mom and others like her, but it’s a small consolation.

Besides, she’s pretty sure Slade wouldn’t let her leave regardless.

Jee-woon has flown inland to find personnel for the medical team and new engineers to build the deprivation tank, leaving Helena alone on the rig with Slade and a skeleton crew.

Out here on the platform, it’s like the world is screaming in her ear.