Chapter 10

Wells Ward...

Ian returned to the grey, padded cell, where he found McLean examining his patient. He acknowledged Carter's nod, then glanced down at the priest, huddled in the corner, holding their friend, while the doctor worked.

Dammit!... The old man was looking worse now than when in the depths of chemotherapy. As for himself, Kincaid couldn't even put a name to the face of his own exhausted despair. This was his penance for a life nourished by "blood sports", as he had once jokingly called his post-Legacy career. How many good soldiers had he sent to their deaths in Angola, Laos, Bosnia?... How many agents lost, their fates unknown, in East Germany, North Korea, Iraq? That had been the game. They had understood the risks, and had been well paid, but this time, Derek had asked for his help... had even paid handsomely for that help... had trusted a friend to watch his back... and Ian Kincaid, spy master and master spy, had fucked up. Now Derek was paying the price and all Ian could do was watch the bravest man he'd ever known... a brilliant mind... disintegrate into a terrorized insanity.

"Look, Derek... Ian's back." Joseph's melodic voice was now hoarse.

Kincaid searched the former precept's face, praying for some sign that he'd heard... that he was in any way conscious of what was happening... of where he was... of who was present. Instead, the hazel eyes with their dilated pupils stared blankly ahead. His body constantly rocked back and forth, while he crooned in a monotonous hum.

"He's quiet for the moment," said McLean, slipping his penlight back in his pocket. "The indicatory brain patterns have been within acceptable parameters for the past twenty-four hours.... I'm going to remove the helmet, but... be alert, gentlemen.... Carter will be standing by with a fire extinguisher." The doctor unfastened the chin strap and slid the device from his patient's head, then removed the soft, neck brace.

"I think Derek noticed.... Maybe he's made the turn," the priest said after a long moment. Then he shook his head. "No... dammit!... I'm grasping at straws."

McLean looked over at the old man and saw a flicker of hope fade to despair. "Don't give up on him yet, Father," he advised the priest. "Remember... this is a man who has never gone 'by the book'." He gave the frail shoulder an encouraging, comforting squeeze as he rose to his feet. "I'll leave you with him... watch him closely.... If there are any problems... yell."

Kincaid nodded. He saw the glance that passed between McLean and Carter as his hand picked man held the door open for the physician. Uhmmm.... What secret do they share, he wondered. Was it simply that Carter recognized the hollowness of McLean's hopeful words... or did Carter now have other allegiences?

He'd leave that for later. There were other worries now. He hunkered down beside Joseph and looked into Derek's face. "Derek... listen.... I've spoken to Boyle.... He's on his way.... He'll be here in a few hours... American Airlines 111... New York to Heathrow," he babbled, uncharacteristically. "Maybe he can help, where we can't.... Buck up... Dutchman... don't let him see you like this."

The groaning and rocking ceased with a suddenness that surprised them. Derek froze; he was rigidly still, totally silent. There was no movement... nothing. Time seemed to stand still... stretched to eternity... in the eerie silence.

"Jesus!... What?..." Kincaid shook his head in confusion. "Carter?..." He looked over at the orderly, who took a step closer, but with a gesture cautioned the others to remain calm. "Take it easy, sir." He's done this before... for hours.... Don't over-react."

Ian looked back at his friend. "Is he breathing?... Derek!..." He roughly grabbed his friend's chin, twisted the mask of a face towards him. "Derek!..." With his other hand, he felt his chest for the rise and fall of breath, then searched for a pulse along the jaw line... in the neck... and found nothing.

"I think he's stopped breathing.... This damned jacket... I can't tell.... Carter!"

< < + > >

White on white on white.... Shadows were shades of white... quivering white mists.... Were they his friends?... Ian?... Joseph?... Carter?... Nick?... William?...Who?... They were pale ghosts... not of this world... not of his world.

"Help!... Let me out!... I'm trapped!" his mind wailed. "The Horsemen ride!.. They fly!... Stop them!"... Sounds!... Were they voices?... Was it his own voice?... loud... echoing... distorted.... Other voices... distant... soft... sounds like fluffy, white cotton.... Suddenly blackness replaced the white.... Iron weighed him down.... Once more the iron mask became his reality. His vision was reduced to two small squares. He gasped for breath and struggled to shout from a mouth that could not open. In the tiny squares of light he saw the white posts again... the pillars... so tall... side by side... row upon row. Fire!... Boiling clouds!.. Shrieks of eternal pain.... Oh... God!... Red eyes before him... staring from the choking blackness that now engulfed him... the shriek of rending metal... the searing flames of Hell... the Portal!... He had to tell them!... He struggled upwards... tried to fight with arms that wouldn't move... tried to shout.... "Fire!... White pillars!... Not the portal!... Dooood!... Doooooth!.... Death!... Nick!... No!!!!... Stop them!... I am... not... Mr. MIM!"... but all his own ears heard was a garbled moan... a strangled hiss. He had to show them, as he had tried before.... Show them in blood... the blood that will come!... but his body was held tight, scourged, enmeshed in razor wire... wrapped in bloody entrails. There was no way out of this tomb to which he had consigned himself... the catacomb of himself... within himself.

He had clawed his way so far down... searching his center, his very soul... seeking the merest hint of the monsters that had been housed in West... a vestige of West himself. It had been a quest to eradicate the warped creature that West had created within the soul of Derek Rayne... the 'ID' that he had named Mr. MIM... Mr. Man in the Iron Mask. "I am not Mr. MIM!" Derek's mind had screamed. Where were his voices?... Those golden voices that had anchored him as he had drilled deeper and deeper, seeking a black core... the beast within... seeking the truth about himself... about his deeds.... Always their lush harmonies had pulled him back, had allowed him to penetrate the veil around his mind, if only for a moment... but no more.... He was trapped like an animal in a cage... the cage of his own mind and body?... Or... was this the fulfillment of a long ago dream?... Was this the Black Cell?... No living contact... nothing save nakedness, fleas, and stone cold blackness for all eternity? Had he found the truth... and it was madness... or was it the truth he sought?... He had been willing to do anything to end the torture West had inflicted.... He had been willing to sacrifice Alex on the altar of a madman to save himself.... He had sold his soul... and this was Hell!

< < + > >

Before Carter could move, Derek gasped as if no amount of oxygen could fill his lungs. "I am not Mr. MIM!" he screamed and with his shoulder slammed Joseph against the wall as the old man tried to sooth him. "Stop them!" He surged to his knees, twisting this way and that, trying with every ounce of weakening strength to escape the canvas jacket whose straps and buckles bound him tightly.

Kincaid dragged the priest away to safety as Carter tackled Derek. The orderly threw himself across his patient's chest, using his weight to press him down onto the matting, but the precept lashed out with his knees and caught Carter in the groin.

The former soldier cursed away his pain, but held firm. "Code Red!" he shouted to the microphones.

"Ian!... The wall!... Fire!" Joseph shouted.

Kincaid scooped up the fire extinguisher and sprayed the blue flames, lapping up the wall.

A moment later, Dr. McLean, Malcolm, and another orderly burst into the room. As Malcolm pinioned Derek's shoulders to the floor, the other man quickly bound his trashing legs together with a sheet. Carter then rolled away to nurse his injury. Still Derek fought, arching and twisting away.

"Ow!!!... Shit!" Malcolm cursed, shoving Derek's head into the padding. "He bit me! Goddammit! He drew blood!"

"Oy!... Watch it!... Do that again and I'll draw your friggin' blood," Ian coldly warned the man, then turned to McLean and softly asked, "Can you give him anything?"

* * *

Once the patient was under control, with the neck brace and the helmet firmly back in place, the doctor knelt beside him. With his penlight he checked Derek's pupils, then felt for his carotid pulse. "No... can't risk it. He's had too much," the doctor replied. "Too much to little affect." He looked up at the two old men. "His heart's racing, pulse is erratic.... In my whole career, I've never had a patient so loaded with tranquilizers.... I've no idea how his body or mind is functioning at all. I think it's best if we all leave him."

"Leave him?..." Fr. Thomas repeated, baffled by the thought. "He'll hurt himself."

"No more than what we're doing to him now," said McLean. "We'll leave the jacket on, but free his legs.... The helmet and collar will offer extra protection.... Now... Mr. Kincaid... Father... out!... Please.... Carter... you too. Malcolm and Kurt can handle it."

"We must stay," Joseph protested. "All this... the room... the jacket... the helmet.... It's all triggering memories."

"No," said the doctor. "It's too dangerous... for you... and him.... Out!... You can come back when he's calmed.... He'll wear himself out."

"Or drop dead," Malcolm muttered angrily, thinking of the HIV tests he'd have awaiting him if Derek should come up positive in his next test.

Dr. McLean grasped Fr. Thomas' elbow and steered the priest toward the door. "Carter.... Mr. Kincaid," he said firmly.

Once in the corridor, they all turned back to await Malcolm and Kurt, who quickly freed Derek's legs and hurried to the door as the precept rolled over and struggled to his feet.

As the doctor slammed the door and locked it, Ian and Joseph felt their hearts ripped in two at the sound of a body thudding against the padded walls. Over the monitors and microphones they could hear his garbled ravings. "I am not Mr. MIM!... Not MIM!... Fire!... Not the portal!... Death!... Nick!... No!!!!... Stop them!... Help!... Let me out!... Hulp mij!... Alstublieft... Gott!" At last all intelligible sound was lost amidst anguished wails and groans... screams of rage and pain.

"The portal... Mr. MIM again," Joseph whispered. "He can't escape West's prison... that damned mask... now it's merged with the memory of a past that's not even his own?"

McLean noted the ashen faces of the two old men, who now truly looked old. Even Kincaid could no longer conceal his age under the facade of distinguished virility. "I'm taking charge... as a physician.... You two...," the doctor said, firmly ushering Ian and the priest down the corridor. "We'll find you each a room.... You'll eat a hot meal... and I'll get you something to help you sleep.... No objections," he added, feeling both men begin to resist, "or I'll forbid you both any further access to Dr. Rayne. I don't need any more patients on my hands."

< < + > >

Journal of Nick Boyle

American Airlines Flight 111
Tuesday - Somewhere over the Atlantic

Well, I've been "in transit" for 10 hrs. By "my" time, it's still yesterday, but I've flown into tomorrow. I really hate "time". It's an OK concept when you stay in one place, but it gets weird traveling & it gets downright mind-boggling when you get into the physics shit. Even when you live thru it, you don't know if you're coming or going, been there or dreamed it. What's past & what's future makes no sense at all.

I just ate some cardboard and rubber chicken called 'Chicken Royale'. There's a movie playing on the mini-screen in front of me. Some guy's saving the world from a comet.... Jesus! I hate flying... as a passenger, that is. Particularly, a passenger in coach.

I'm god-awful tired. My mind's still in SF. I wish the rest of me was... blissfully innocent... anywhere but heading towards... what?

Kincaid's call woke me around 3am Mon. morning... by the current, local time almost 24 hrs. ago. He wouldn't tell me much. Just "Get over here. Now. Fly commercial... on one of your 'other' passports. Don't tell anyone, not even Alex." You want to talk about a bolt out of the blue? I managed to get a 1pm flight for NYC out of SFO, with a connection to Heathrow. I lied thru my teeth to Alex & Rachel... said I needed to talk to van der Linden in person about the books. Phone calls & faxes just weren't hacking it.

Then, I called van der Linden from JFK during the layover. I thought maybe I could pump him without giving anything away. I found out one thing. He knows a whole hellava lot more than I do, but he's not talking either. He agreed to back up my story to Alex about the meeting this morning to discuss the finances. Good God! You want to talk about tight lipped! But even over the phone, I could catch the tension. Willem is normally a nice man, laid back, talkative. High finance is his sport. He loves it, but not in a greedy way. Like Derek, he likes to use money to help people. But the man was totally off kilter. I think he wanted to tell me more.

Something's really wrong. I feel it in my gut. Something's happened to Derek. I know it. Did he test HIV positive... or did he all along? No... they'd have been testing us... Sloan, me, Alex, Ingrid.... But maybe he's got AIDS now & Kincaid lied - something not unheard of. Watson's strain was supposed to be fast & strong. Maybe it just took it a while to catch hold.

Damn them all... Derek too! Why did he have to go over there... to that place? He could have come home, had the skin grafts at Stanford... or if he wanted to get away, we could have gone to Sedona or stayed up on that gloomy, little island Kincaid had. He could have gone to UCLA & shacked up with Maggie for a while. Why England? Oh, he explained how the Hospital of St. Michael & St. George was a swanky retreat... privacy assured... more comforts than home... close to London, so he could consult with the Ruling Council. Bullshit!... the Council's out after blood - his blood. They want him to step down, but they have to be careful because of who and what he is. He has to be forced out with decorum.

But Wells Ward is at that hospital too... down some corridor that, beneath the disinfectant, stinks of stale piss and cabbage.

Since I've been wearing this damned ring, I've been reading the files... lots of files. Derek finances the hospital, partly on his own, through Luna, partly through the Legacy. Over the years he's poured millions into equipment & studies of those poor schmucks in Wells Ward. I always knew Derek had his financial fingers in a lot of pies, but I never guessed how many or how much. Now, I see why he presents such a problem for the Ruling Council. He's a "hero" to a lot of grunts like me & he has the deep pockets to give him real leverage.

Somehow, he's got them over a barrel. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was blackmailing the bastards. Maybe! There seems to be some sort of 2nd group... basically Derek & the trustees of the Luna Foundation, whoever they are. Somehow, financially, they overlap the Legacy & a bunch of other groups. They hold the purse strings, keep secrets, double deal. No fucking wonder Derek fits right in! Here I was Derek's "Chief of Security" and I never realized what a really, big deal the Luna Foundation was. God! Was I dumb! With all that, why in the hell did Derek choose to be a "field officer" in the Legacy? Was he an inside plant, a mole, what? Or was it his hobby... maybe he's a secret thrill seeker. I'll never understand him or anything else. Not sure I want to.

I have to believe Derek's doing what he said, "Getting himself together, sorting things out in the lap of luxury," but....

"But"... what an enormous word. I have to believe Derek when he swears that West tortured him, but didn't rape him, didn't sodomize him. I had to believe him when he said he was OK, didn't I? But, even if West didn't do that, what he did was worse. To be beaten and abused the way Derek was... to have endured that iron mask for weeks... the weight of it, the claustrophobia of it... to endure the degradation of that hell... a hell created by that monster to tear him down to the level of a mad beast... to watch and "feel" others being butchered... to be tied to a corpse, covered by its rotting guts as it was eaten by rats... and to have known its name! Then to face the prospect of AIDS. If my mind can hardly bear it, what's it like for him?

Dear God, did it break him? Did the torments of a madman destroy Derek Rayne, when Satan himself couldn't?

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