Catnip (8 page)

Reluctantly, she obeyed and then he closed
the top. “Describe the contents of the main floor,” he ordered.
“Describe everything in as much detail as you can.”

Anastasia shut her eyes and her body
immediately went rigid. In a monotonous voice, she recited every
facet of the room right down to the last plant and what genus it
was. Finally, she opened her eyes, blinked, and shook her head as
if trying to rid it of the bugs inside. “Did I say anything?”

“You have total recall,” Farrell murmured.
“You have no memory of who you are or where you came from, but you
remember everything right down to the last little atom. That makes
you a spy in my book.”

Anastasia said nothing and stared at the
floor. Finally, she picked her head up and looked at Harry. “You
said you were some kind of scientist. Can you make me normal?” Her
eyes spoke of desperation, as did her voice.

For a moment, uncertainty gripped at Harry’s
soul. If there was one place where he always felt confident, it was
in the lab, at the computer, doing what he did best, and now…he
felt lost. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I have to study
your DNA more and see what they—uh, I mean, whoever, uh, did
this—um, what they did to you.”

Anastasia grimaced. “I don’t remember what I
looked like before. I don’t remember
anything
. All I
remember is waking up and seeing myself in a mirror.” She turned
her head away and her voice got low and started to shake. “But I
know what I look like now. I’m a freak.”

Farrell didn’t bother to offer his opinion.
Harry didn’t know what to do…and finally he got up, went over to
her side, and put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not a freak,”
he said softly. “You’re not.”

The sound of Farrell’s cellphone interrupted
things. He opened it up and spoke quietly into it. “We have
something,” he said after hanging up and his mood brightened
considerably. “Interpol just gave us details. Someone’s come in,
and he may be able to help us.”

Two seconds later, a knock sounded at the
door. Farrell opened it and ushered the visitor in. Tall and
rail-thin with a hatchet face and dark brown hair, he appeared to
be in his mid-fifties, and wore a cheap-looking suit and vest with
an antique watch hanging out of the vest pocket. The two men
quietly spoke to each other and then Farrell turned around and
pointed to his guest.

“Harry, Anastasia, this is Oleg, our
contact,” he said. “He used to work for the KGB years back. He was
a doctor for them, defected to our side, and that’s all you have to
know for now.”

Harry was confused. “So what makes you think
she’s a spy?”

Farrell didn’t bother looking at him. He kept
his gaze focused on the prisoner. “What I told you before makes
sense. She has a Russian name, she can remember details, and she’s
obviously been programmed to do something. Don’t get fooled just
because she’s a girl.” Then he waved at the other man. “Do what you
have to do.”

The former KGB agent didn’t speak right away.
“This…may not work,” he said after hesitating a moment. “I’m not
sure…”

“Get on with it!”

Oleg asked Anastasia to sit on the cot. Harry
moved aside, and Oleg repositioned the chair across from Anastasia,
took the watch out, and let it dangle from his hand. He waved it
back and forth in front of her face, muttering softly in his native
language. She continued to stare at the pendulum, her eyes growing
glassier by the second.

Harry remembered the old hypnosis tricks he’d
seen on television. This is so much BS
,
he thought…but after
observing the action, he soon realized this was no joke. Her head
soon sagged and she seemed to be asleep.

Oleg put away the watch fob and turned to
face the FBI agent. He spoke English reasonably well with only a
slight accent and a few grammatical mistakes. “This is something I
learned many years ago. I
am
doctor, but often we trained
agents who had been drugged beforehand and used hypnosis to implant
memory blocks and triggers to open them. Please be patient.”

He spoke softly to Anastasia in his native
language. She kept her head down, didn’t say anything for a moment,
and then words came out in a halting monotone, accented and quiet.
Harry gasped—it was true—she
was
Russian! Even though he
didn’t like Farrell, he had to admit the man’s instincts had been
correct.

The questioning continued, and the word
Nyet
came up a number of times. Harry knew what it meant. It
was Russian for no and it meant to him, if to no one else, that she
didn’t know who’d done this to her.

After five minutes, Anastasia’s body started
to shake, and then she fell silent. The ex-spy took out the watch
fob again, tilted her chin up, and began the procedure all over
again. She gradually stopped shaking, and after five minutes he
snapped his fingers and she woke up, blinking rapidly. Farrell
asked impatiently, “Well?”

Oleg looked at him and stated flatly, “She is
definitely Russian, from region near Siberia. I know that accent
from people I trained with. That is all she could tell me about her
origins. She has no memory of family, where she went to
school…nothing.”

“What about her mutation?” Farrell pressed.
“Does she know who did this to her?”

The ex-KGB man shook his head. “She remembers
being in some kind of laboratory with dull yellow lights. There was
wood all around, perhaps walls or perhaps a cage. She remembers
some kind of large animal-man. That is all.”

Harry recalled her words. The images she said
she had seen—had they been real or just implanted memories? He
didn’t know. The doctor sat back and Harry, not knowing what else
to do, went over to Anastasia’s side. Tentatively he reached out
and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

She didn’t respond to his touch, just sat
there, mute and unresponsive. Farrell took it all in and his face
remained impassive. Harry thought he was either colder than a dead
fish or a total jerk. Given the choice, he’d go with the latter.
For now, though, he concentrated on the girl near him.

Finally, the agent turned to Oleg and asked,
“So is she a spy or what?”

The other man shrugged and threw up his
hands. “I do not know. It is obvious that there has been some kind
of experimentation done. I had heard of such things going on, but I
was never part of it. My branch was into espionage and I was doctor
in charge of healing wounded agents, helping to debrief them
through hypnosis after they had returned from mission. This is
something new to me.”

“But how did she get here, and why does she
speak English so well?” Harry wanted to know. He’d seen the
truth—or part of it, anyway—but didn’t really get the entire
scenario.

Oleg shook his head. “That I do not know,
either. Whoever brought her here could have had her smuggled in on
a freighter, or perhaps she grew up here and was kept inside all
this time. I cannot tell you. Much of our research was classified,
and we were put on—how you say it—need-to-know-basis?”

Farrell nodded. “Continue.”

The doctor indicated Anastasia with a wave of
his hand. “All I know is that she had been put under some kind of
hypnotic control before. In KGB, we often used drugs such as
Temazepam, sodium pentothal, acetylcholine which helps block
memory, and other narcotics, along with sensory deprivation and
shock treatment.”

He spoke very casually about the experiments,
as if describing how to dissect a frog. Perhaps Anastasia had heard
or perhaps her mind woke up from the hypnotic trance, but whatever
the case, she started to shake and Harry clumsily put his arms
around her as a gesture of support. She broke down and wept, and
this time she clung to him as a person would cling to a life vest
to keep from drowning. The whole idea of experimentation pissed him
off more and more by the second. They’d ruined her life! “Nice to
know you care so much about your people,” he said.

Oleg snapped, “It is what we did. I did not
like taking part in it then and I take no pride in it now. It was
something we did in order to make spy, and I am sure your people
performed same tests on their spies.”

“Let’s pigeonhole that for now,” Farrell cut
in. His voice sounded raw and tired. It seemed that all he wanted
was the correct answer, and he wanted it now. “Is there any way you
can unlock her mental blocks?”

The other man shook his head. “I would have
to say no. There may be key word or key phrase or number which will
cause her to open up. It may also cause her mind to collapse. Our
people were always made aware of penalty for talking to foreign
governments, and KGB made sure they would not talk. In any case,
there could be one word or any number of words or numbers, but I do
not know which ones. It might take hours, days, even months to
unlock secrets, if there are any.”

Farrell rubbed his face tiredly. “Would you
suggest any kind of drug use now?”

Oleg shook his head. “No, I would not. It is
too great a risk. I ask you, though, if we could do more hypnosis
later on. It might help loosen mental blockage.”

The man in black uttered a few expletives in
frustration, but then his tone softened somewhat. “We’d appreciate
the cooperation, Oleg.”

“I will do my best.”

Anastasia picked her head up. She’d stopped
shaking and glared at both men. “Did anyone ask
me
what
I
wanted? Did anyone ask
me
to become
this
?”

She pushed Harry away gently, got to her
feet, and swept her hands up and down her body. “Look at me! How am
I supposed to fit in anywhere? I woke up in some room and the next
thing I know you’ve got me caged up like an animal. I can’t go out
in public, I don’t know who I am, so what more do you want out of
me?”

“The truth,” Farrell answered coldly. “We
want the truth.”

Her yellow eyes filled with rage. The agent
took a step back, his hand near his gun belt. She saw the gesture
and halted. “How do you expect me to
tell
the truth since I
can’t remember it in the first place?”

“It’s in there, somewhere,” the Fed told her,
pointing at her head.

Her voice rang with bitterness. “Yeah, maybe
it is, but all I know is that I was born in Russia. I just found
that out now. I don’t remember speaking Russian—but this guy,” she
pointed at Oleg, “says I can. Everything about me has been erased,
like I never existed. The police caught me two days ago. You should
have shot me when you had the chance.”

Tears suddenly poured from her eyes. She spun
on her heel and walked into the cell. She didn’t even bother to
close the door, just sat on her haunches and started to cry, and
her body shook uncontrollably. Harry started to go over, but she
waved him off. “No, don’t come near me!” she yelled.

He stood there, helpless, and his keeper
along with the ex-KGB spy stood up and went to the door. “I, uh,
think it’s time to get some coffee,” Farrell said, and this time
his voice sounded a bit less hard-edged. “We’ll leave you two
alone.”

Farrell and Oleg went out, the door softly
closing behind them. Anastasia continued to cry and Harry went to
his computer. He sat down in front of it, gazed at it blankly for a
few seconds, but didn’t switch it on. In the back of his mind, he
felt just as guilty as those who’d done this to her.

Anastasia remained in her cell and Farrell
came in a few minutes after her breakdown to see if her mood had
improved. It hadn’t. She refused to speak and hugged her knees,
wrapped in her misery. He eyed her without a shred of pity and
beckoned Harry outside. Reluctantly, he went.

After closing the door, Harry asked, “So what
did you ask me out here for, a pep talk on how to be nice?”

Farrell rubbed his face tiredly and rolled
his shoulders in an attempt to loosen them up. “Look, kid…Harry…I
know I come off as a hardass at times, and I apologize. But I’ve
been at this job thirty years and part of my job is to interrogate
prisoners, pump them for info, and get at the real truth.”

All Harry saw was a man using his position to
abuse someone else…but he listened anyway. “So what
is
the
truth, your version of it—or hers?”

The agent shook his head. “I really don’t
know, but what I don’t know, I don’t trust. Call me paranoid, but I
find it pretty strange that a girl from nowhere who looks like that
suddenly pops up with no memory of where she came from and only
knows her first name, but somehow has the power of total recall.
It’s hard enough for someone trained in espionage to do it. Not
many people can, so yeah, what would you do in this situation, just
let her go?”

There it was—the million dollar question. In
Harry’s mind, he understood what the agent was getting at, but also
believed Anastasia when she said she didn’t remember anything. It
had all been a set-up, he figured, and…

Farrell snapped his fingers for attention and
his face took on a serious mien. “I don’t trust her, I’ll tell you
that right now. Outside of her being as strong as she is, she’s
dangerous. I’m also going to tell you something which you’re not
gonna like and this is for your own good. Don’t get too close to
her.”

Harry felt a sudden rush of embarrassment and
shrugged his shoulders, mumbling, “We’re not close—”

“Not yet,” the agent interrupted and not
unkindly at that. “I’ve seen how you look at her. She’s sort of
cute in her own way, and you’re both about the same age. Hey, if
you’re into animals…”

“She’s
not
an animal!” Harry balled up
his fists and wondered where all his anger came from. Oh, yeah,
being locked up for something he hadn’t done and seeing someone
else locked up for being what she was royally pissed him off. “You
try being stuck in a cage and see what it does to your sense of
humor. You and your goons ripped
me
off of my life, so yeah,
maybe I’m not too happy seeing someone else get the same
treatment.”