The Fifth Profession

“They heard more shots. On an upper floor. They didn't know what they'd be facing. Only two men, they had to go up warily. By the time they reached the third floor, they found it littered with corpses.” Rachel bit her lip. “Akira had been beheaded. Shirai had been cut in half. And three men with wooden swords were about to crack your skull apart. Taro's students grabbed guns from the floor and shot the three men before they could kill you.”

Savage's concentration wavered. He fought to keep his mind from swirling, desperate to know the rest. “But you still haven't told me. How did I get here?”

“One of Taro's students drove his motorcycle to a nearby village where they'd hidden your car. He brought the car back, put you and Akira in it, and drove you to Taro's while the other student followed on his motorcycle. Taro ordered them to return to the mountain, to retrieve the remaining motorcycle, and to arrange the bodies so it seemed as if some of Shirai's men tried to kill him while others tried to defend him. According to the newspapers, the authorities believe the deception, though no one can explain what caused the rebellion.”

Savage's consciousness began to fade.

“Taro took care of you,” Rachel said, “cleaned your wounds, set your arm, did whatever he could. It would have been too risky, have attracted too much attention, to take you to a hospital. But if you hadn't wakened soon, I'd have insisted on taking you to a doctor.”

Savage grasped her hand. His mind dimmed, turning gray. “Don't leave me.”

“Never.”

He drifted, sank.

And reendured his nightmare, or rather both of them, one on top of the other.

2

The next time he wakened, he felt stronger, more alert, though his body still ached and his skull throbbed. Rachel sat beside him, holding his hand. “Thirsty?”

“Yes… And hungry.”

She beamed. “I have to leave you for a moment. There's someone who wants to say hello.”

As Rachel left, Savage expected that she'd bring in Taro. Instead, to his delight, he saw Eko come in, her aged face strained with grief for Churi, but her eyes aglow with the pleasure of serving, of bringing Savage a tray upon which, he soon discovered, were a cup of tea and a bowl of broth.

Rachel stood next to her. The women exchanged glances more meaningful than words. With a gesture, Rachel invited Eko to sit on the futon and spoon broth into Savage's mouth. Occasionally Rachel helped by giving Savage a sip of tea.

“So Taro's men finally rescued you,” Savage told Eko, the warmth of the broth and tea making him sigh. At once he remembered that Eko didn't speak English.

Rachel explained. “I don't understand what the problems were in accomplishing the rescue, but the night you followed Shirai to the mountain, Taro's students arrived with Eko.”

“Akira”-emotion prevented Savage from speaking for a moment-”would have been overjoyed, immensely grateful. At least one good thing came out of this… God, I miss him. I still can't believe he's… Does she know Akira's dead?”

“She helped prepare his body for the funeral rites.”

“I wish I knew how to tell her I'm sorry,” Savage said.

“She understands. And she feels sorry for you. For your grief.”

“Arigato.” Close to tears, Savage touched Eko's arm.

She bowed her head.

“Taro's students came back with someone else,” Rachel said.

“What? Who?”

“It's complicated. When you're strong enough, you can see for yourself.”

“I'm strong enough now.” With effort, he managed to sit.

“You're sure?” Rachel asked. “I'm worried about…”

“Now,” Savage said. “Help me to stand. Too many questions haven't been answered. If this is who I think it is… Please, Rachel, help me.”

It took both Rachel and Eko to raise him to his feet and steady him. Each woman supporting him, he shuffled toward the sliding panel.

Light hurt his eyes. He faced a room in which cushions surrounded a low cypress table. Taro sat, legs crossed, on one side. And on the other…

Savage glared at the well-dressed, fiftyish, sandy-haired man he knew as Philip Hailey.

But Hailey looked haggard, unshaven, his suit wrinkled, his tie tugged open, his shirt's top button undone.

Hailey's hands trembled worse than Savage's did, and his eyes no longer were coldly calculating.

“Ah,” Savage said and sank to a pillow. “Another closing of a circle. Who are you?”

“You know me as…”

“Philip Hailey. Yes. And you were in my nightmare at the nonexistent Medford Gap Mountain Retreat. And you chased me at the Meiji Shrine. And Kamichi-Shirai-told me you're my contact, that you and I work for the CIA. Answer my question! Who the hell are you?”

Savage's anger exhausted him. He wavered. Rachel steadied him.

“If you don't remember, for security reasons it's best that we don't use real names, Doyle.”

“Don't call me that, you bastard. Doyle might be my name, but I don't identify with it.”

“Okay, I'll call you Roger Forsyth, since that's your agency pseudonym.”

“No, damn it. You'll call me by my other pseudonym. The one I used when I worked with Graham. Say it.”

“Savage.”

“Right. Because, believe me, that's how I feel. What happened to me? For Christ's sake, who did what to my mind?”

Hailey tugged at his collar. Hands trembling, he opened the second button on his shirt. “I don't have clearance to tell you.”

“Wrong. You've got the best clearance there is. My permission. Or else I'll break your fucking arms and legs and-” Savage reached for a knife on the table. “Or maybe I'll cut off your fingers and then-”

Hailey's face turned pale. He raised his arms pathetically. “Okay. All right. Jesus, Savage. Be cool. I know you've been through a lot. I know you're upset, but-”

“Upset? You son of a bitch, I want to kill you! Talk! Tell me everything! Don't stop!”

“It was all”-Hailey's chest heaved-”a miscalculation. See, it started with… Maybe you're not aware of… The military's been working on what they call bravery pills.”

“What?”

“The problem is, no matter how well you program a soldier, he can't help being afraid during combat. I mean, it's natural. If someone shoots at you, the brain sends a crisis signal to your adrenal gland, and you get terrified. You tremble. You want to run. It's a biological instinct. Sure, maybe a SEAL like you, conditioned to the max, can control the reflex. But your basic soldier, he suffers a fight-or-flight response. And if he runs, well, the ball game's over. So the military figured, maybe there's a chemical. If a soldier takes a pill before an anticipated battle, the chemical cancels the crisis signal that triggers adrenaline. The soldier feels no emotion, just his conditioning, and he fights. By God, he fights.

“The thing is,” Hailey said, “when they tested the drug, it worked fine. During a crisis. But afterward? The soldier's memory, the stress of what he'd been through, caught up to him. He fell apart. He suffered posttrauma stress disorder. Eventually he was useless. Haunted.”

“Yes,” Savage said. “Haunted. I'm an expert in that, in being haunted.” He aimed the knife toward Hailey's arm.

“I told you, Savage. Be cool. I'm telling you what you want to know.”

“Then do it!”

“So the military decided that the bravery pill worked fine. Memory was the problem. Then they got to thinking about posttrauma stress disorder, and they figured they could solve two problems at once. Relieve the agony of vets from Vietnam who couldn't stand remembering what they'd been through. And at the same time, guarantee that the bravery pill would work if something else removed the memory of the horrors that the bravery pill had forced them to think was normal.”

“Psychosurgery.” Savage's voice dropped.