Acts of Honor (24 page)

“Like what?”

“Intrusions, such as flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance, and hyperarousal—where the patient exhibits physiological signs of hyperviligence or elevated startle response.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“I’m telling you that none of these patients should have been diagnosed as PTSD patients.”

“I suspected that.” He let out a little grunt. “What happened to them?”

He suspected that?
Then why not mention it? Why recruit her? Until now, she had been under the impression, and Foster baldly had stated, that he needed her help. PTSD patients need a PTSD expert. Logical. But not the case. So if he didn’t need her skills as a PTSD expert, then what did he need? Why her? “I don’t know what happened to them—yet.”

“Suspicions?”

“Tons of them. But at the moment, none firm enough to discuss.” Especially since most of them involved him. “Fontaine’s notes in the charts are sketchy at best—essentially worthless—and he shipped out one of my patients—Fred. ADR-22. I never even got to see him.”

“Why was he shipped out?”

Again, she sensed Foster’s lack of surprise. “An arrhythmic heartbeat found on an electrocardiogram.” Unease threaded her voice. “You wouldn’t know anything about him being moved, now would you?”

“How could I?”

She twisted the silver phone cord, letting it slide between her fingertips. “You’re resourceful.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

Foster was lying. Sara stabbed the toe of her sneaker into the sandy dirt. It lifted a little cloud of dust. Did it take an act of Congress to get anyone to tell the truth anymore? “Fontaine nearly put one of my patients into a diabetic coma. He lied about his involvement and blamed the nurse. William is his name. He got demoted and fined. You need to fix that, Foster. It’s not just. The fault was Fontaine’s.” She explained how Fontaine had written and then deleted the 70/30 prescription order.

“Did you file an incident report?”

“Of course. And Fontaine has given me hell for that, too. I think he’s planning to bring me up on charges. Probably a court-martial.”

“For filing a mandatory report?”

“For refusing to obey a direct order to delete a mandatory report that I filed.” She hiked up the mouthpiece and blew out a sigh. “I suppose you’re disappointed because I didn’t spend a lot of time boning up on Braxton right away. But honestly, Foster, a doctor wouldn’t do that. It’d be out of character.”

“Not for a major.”

“Oh.” Well, hell. He had her there. “I guess I’m having a little orientation problem with the military aspects. There’s a lot to it all—most of it unnecessary.”

“If you still believe that, then you do have a lot of adjusting to do, and a lot to learn.”

The breeze whipped her hair over her face. She shoved it back from her eyes. “You’re disappointed in me, but I’m not as naïve as you think.”

“Oh?” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Did you really think I’d come here, not trusting you, without knowing anything about what I was walking into?”

“There is no unclassified data on Braxton, Sara.”

“But there is information available.”

“What kind of information?”

“Oh, the usual. Built right after World War Two as a training facility, though it’s doubtful it was ever used for that. It was in all the papers. Then, in the sixties, some senator from California started asking questions about the place, and suddenly it dropped off the map. Official word, I hear, is that it’s been closed down since the early seventies. Of course, that’s when it became the Braxton Facility we know it as today.”

Foster didn’t say a word.

“What I don’t understand is why there are still remnants of a grass airstrip near the pond to the southwest of the main facility. Easy to spot that from the air, I expect. And I don’t understand why there’s a helicopter pad, though you’ll say it’s to transport patients too ill for ground transport. Of course, if access in and out is restricted, then not many patients get transported, do they?”

“Transports do occur. Mostly by air.”

“What, Peter Pan drops ’em in?”

“No, we use people with appropriate clearances.”

“In other words, Shadow Watchers.”

No answer.

Sara didn’t need one. His silence spoke volumes. She stared at the guy who had been on the phone earlier. Pacing alongside the road and clearly agitated, he lit a cigarette. Its red tip glowed in the dark. “Not that you’ll care, but I’m also disappointed in you.”

“Why?” Foster sounded stunned.

Sara supposed he was stunned. He probably hadn’t had those words directed at him very often in his life. Having second thoughts about disclosing her true reason for that remark—telling Foster she had pegged his operative could get Joe and her killed—she opted for an alternate reason. “You sent me in here unprepared.”

“For what? You’re a doctor, acting in that capacity.”

“Have you spent any time here?”

“No.”

“Well, let me clue you in.” Sara toed the wall below the phone with the tip of her shoe. “This place is weird. Aside from the two hundred twenty-seven patients, four hundred employees live here. At least, that’s my understanding, and yet none of them seem to have any family. There’s not a single kid in the housing block, or in the facility’s quarters. Come to think of it, there’s not a sign of anyone who’s even married.”

“There are no married people there, with the exception of Dr. Fontaine. But I believe his wife already had left for vacation when you arrived.”

Confirmation. Some people
were
allowed to leave Braxton. Fontaine’s wife had. That news was a relief.

“Braxton isn’t a healthy environment for children,” Foster added.

“What about spouses? Out of four hundred people, why is only Fontaine married?”

“Fontaine is a lifer. The others aren’t allowed to leave the facility.”

Not allowed to leave?
That disclosure had shivers sliding up her spine. Well, what about Mrs. Fontaine? She’d left. “How long do they stay there?”

“However long their tour of duty happens to be.”

Sara was on to something. She sensed it. “Some people are here for a year, maybe two.”

“Some are there far longer,” Foster countered. “Is there a point to this?”

“Yes, there is. You people are crazy, Foster. You can’t lock people up like this and call it part of the job. It’s not natural.”

“Not only can we, we do.” He paused. “Now before you take my head off, listen. They don’t know where they are. We have to keep it that way because if we don’t, then Braxton and the men in it are vulnerable to attack, and so are their relatives. All of the staff volunteered, and each of them receives additional pay for the hardship tour there. It’s an equitable solution, Major. Everyone wins.”

Afraid she could answer the question already, Sara forced herself to ask it anyway. “What do you do if someone finds out where they are?”

“Cancel them.”

Sara knew he was going to say that god-awful word. She hated it as much as she hated
unsalvageable.
Her grip on the phone tightened, and she worked at keeping her voice level. “And when their tour of duty here is up, do you cancel them then, too?”

“It isn’t necessary. They have no idea where they are.”

Did he think she was stupid? “Shank flew her damn plane here,” Sara reminded him. “How can you say she has no idea where she is? Are you going to kill her, Foster?”

The sound of him swallowing carried through the phone. “Employees only become a threat on learning of, or on leaving, their location, Sara. Keep that in mind during your interactions with the men and women serving there.”

So Shank never could leave Braxton. Ever.

When she didn’t say anything, Foster went on. “Look, we’re not ogres. Don’t make this worse than it is. It is an equitable system.”

But they
were
ogres, and the system
wasn’t
equitable. Shank was a lifer, too. Not by choice, like Fontaine, but because she had flown her plane to her new assignment. Now, she either stayed there for the rest of her life, or she died.

“What about Mrs. Fontaine? She knows where she’s been.” And policy was to cancel all who knew.

“She’s an exception.”

And Sara wasn’t.

That truth reached up from the depths of her soul and bit her hard. Foster was going to let her do this assignment and then kill her for knowing about Braxton. And she had no one to blame but herself.

She’d known from the beginning he couldn’t be trusted and that he was keeping something crucial from her. She’d known it. But she wasn’t going to just accept this edict of his. No way.

So how did she prove what he was doing? How could she gather enough evidence to stop him?

“Is there anything else to report?”

Sara snapped out of her thoughts. “A couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you have any idea why my patients would react adversely to the colors red and white?”

“I’m not sure.”

Too smooth. And evasive. Very telling for Jack Foster. He knew exactly. Sara clenched her jaw. Just once, she wished the man would play straight with her. “But you do have suspicions about it.”

“When I know the facts, I’ll pass them along.”

“You’ll pass along the information on all of the PTSD patients you promised, too, right?”

“I’m working on it.”

Sure he was. Of course he was. Fat chance. He was interested in
these
patients, not ones suffering from PTSD or their families. It’d be a cold day in hell before she got the statistics and data she’d requested. She bit back her frustration on that and at him for not sharing his suspicions. If he would share, then at least she would have some clue about what she was working with here. “What about the phrase ‘I wept’? Does it mean anything to you?”

Foster didn’t answer, and Sara had the strangest feeling he couldn’t answer. She waited him out. Damn it, sooner or later he’d get tired of listening to line static and say something.

Finally, he did. “I’ll check into it.”

“And will you correct the injustice about William? He was a victim, Foster.”

“At the appropriate time, I’ll see to it that William is compensated and his rank is reinstated.”

“Why not now?”

“Because then Fontaine will know I’ve got an operative working inside Braxton. Aside from the complications that will cause, he’ll be even harder on William.”

That made sense. “Okay, but when you do fix this, William gets back pay.”

“Agreed.”

Foster had been firm but sharp and fair, and Sara couldn’t fault his logic. At least, not regarding William. She twisted to see what was moving around her, but everything was still and quiet, except for the crickets. You’d think that after all this time, she’d be able to get a fix on Foster. But even now she floundered, uncertain if he was honorable or an ass. Either way, she had to know the answer to a question she had avoided. “Foster?”

“Yes?”

Her hand went slick on the receiver. The guy who had been on the phone walked out of the store and climbed into a white pickup with red clay dirt splattering its sides. “When exactly do you view me as becoming a threat?”

No answer.

Sara’s skin prickled. “Not that I’ll believe you anyway, but I want your word that when this is over, I’m going to walk out of here.”

“Good night, Sara.” Foster hung up the phone.

She stared at the receiver a long time. Before asking, she had felt reasonably certain that he would give her his word. But he hadn’t. This turn of events she hadn’t expected, and she had no idea how to change them. The bottom line, it appeared, was that once you knew about Braxton, you were a risk. And once you were positioned inside it, there was only one way to get out.

To die.