~ Chapter 52 ~

Louise tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the shock she was feeling from registering on her face. Had Alex really just told her that his mysterious captors had erased his fiancée's memories? It sounded like something you'd read about in a science fiction novel. Surely, it wasn't a possibility in the real world – was it?

"I can see by the look in your eyes that you're skeptical, Dr. Sadick, and I can't say that I blame you. I know it must seem like the plot to an old Star Trek episode, but I assure you – not only is it possible, it's also a fait accompli. If I hadn't witnessed it myself, I'd have as many doubts as you. Unfortunately, I had to live with the result, up close and personal, and it wasn't pretty."

"I don't understand how they could have done this. It was years ago. You're telling me that they had such advanced knowledge of the workings of the human brain back then? I thought that I'd read something only recently about an innovation in this area."

"You'd be amazed at what goes on in the shadowy underground of this country that no one is privy to. These guys… well, let me just say that they were way ahead of their time. They knew what they were doing, alright – even though I didn't have a clue as to what I was watching when they performed the procedure right in front of me."

"What did it look like?"

"They placed a bunch of electrodes on different parts of her head, all attached to a variety of machines. They pushed buttons and flicked switches."

Louise watched sympathetically as Alex shivered at the memory.

"It was over so quickly," he murmured, his voice dropping to a whisper. "So much damage done in a matter of minutes…"

His eyes took on the haunted look that Louise had spied in them so often during the last few hours and, as she expected, he lapsed into silence. She waited patiently, knowing he would resume his explanation when he was ready. Rising from her chair, she moved to a corner of her office and, taking a glass from the cupboard above her, filled it with water and placed it in front of him. He sipped from it gratefully.

"Thanks. I needed that."

"You're welcome. I know it hasn't been easy for you, reliving such painful incidents from your past."

"It's been hard enough living with all of this inside me, but to have to put it into words… Let's just say this is an experience I hope I don't have to repeat any time soon."

"Do you feel up to continuing?" she asked him gently.

"Yeah, I do. Once they'd finished, they unhooked all of the equipment. She was just lying there, so very still, pale as a ghost. My heart went out to her, but my guard dogs held me securely in place. There was no chance that they'd let me near her."

Not wanting to interrupt the flow of his thoughts, Louise nodded for him to go on.

"I needed to know what they'd done. I bombarded them with questions, but they kept giving me the same answer. 'Just wait.' So, I did. I stared at her, watching for any sign of movement, any indication that she was coming out of the fog she was in. At some point, I began to wonder if they'd committed murder before my very eyes."

Louise gasped, then quickly covered her mouth to stifle the sound.

"She was alive. Just barely. There were moments, later on, when I believed that killing her might've been the more humane thing to do, but they hadn't. She was still breathing. Eventually, a doctor came into the room and injected her with something. Within seconds, she was stirring, yawning and stretching as she opened those beautiful eyes…"

Yet another tear escaped, trickling down Alex's cheek before he could stop it. Impatiently, he wiped it away.

"Their next actions surprised me. At a sign from the doctor, the goons who'd been holding me lifted me roughly to my feet. I figured the show was over, and they were about to take me back to wherever they intended to keep me captive. Imagine my shock when they led me to the door that separated me from Marlena."

"They were letting you see her?"

"Yes. But if you're thinking that they'd undergone a sudden transformation, you couldn't be further from the truth. They needed me… they needed me to…"

"To what?"

"I was the test. To establish whether their experiment had been successful. They needed me in that room, to see if Marlena remembered me."

"And?"

"I had no idea what their machines had done to her. In my naïveté, I foolishly assumed that the worst was over, and that they were, for some unknown reason, going to release us both. Talk about a misguided fool..."

He reached for the glass and took a long gulp of water, preparing himself for what was to come.

"As soon as they opened the door, I rushed to her. They made no attempt to stop me. I crouched down, took hold of her arms, turned her towards me… and was met by a stare so blank, she might as well have been a stranger."

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. His beloved Marlena, still as a statue, eyes vacant. There was no smile in greeting, no warm embrace. It was as if she didn't recognize him at all.

"Marlena?"

"Yes?" Her brow furrowed as she gazed at him, as if trying to place who he was and why he was speaking to her.

"Marlena, sweetheart…"

A hint of fear crossed her face at this term of endearment.

"Why are you calling me that? Do I know you?"

His heart sank. Slowly, he raised himself from his squatting position and, loosening his grip on her, backed away. In a fury, he turned on the men, wanting to hear them admit to their misdeeds, and hoping their confession would jog her memory. But it was not to be. They quickly ushered him out of the room before he could utter a word.

Tears now stained Louise's cheeks, but she was oblivious to them. Her heart went out to this man, whose life had been so cruelly manipulated by circumstances beyond his control. How could she impose any form of sanction on him, knowing the tragedy he'd suffered?

"What did you do next?" she queried.

He laughed, but the sound was hollow.

"I screamed. I cursed. I threatened to kill them all with my bare hands. None of it did any good. They refused to give me answers. In fact, they simply watched in silence as I raged at them. When my anger was spent, they pulled out their guns and led me back to the car."

"Where did they take you?"

"To one of their top-secret research facilities, buried deep in the mountains. I saw no one but my captors for the next six months."

"Six months! What were you doing there all that time?"

"At first, they had me working on some bogus research. They seemed determined to stick to their original story, that there was something drug-related that I'd been delving into that was of interest to them. Of course, that was only a smoke screen. Their real intent was far more sinister."

He stopped to take another drink of water, breathing deeply in order to calm himself before continuing.

"Their goal was to turn me into one of them."

"And what were they, exactly? Besides manipulative, evil and deadly, that is."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, surprised that she hadn't made the connection.

"They were spies. Secret agent, 007 types, caught up in a world of intrigue and deception. For whatever reason, they'd decided that I'd fit right in. As you might expect, most people didn't jump at the chance to join their organization, so their recruiting tactics were… unorthodox, to say the least."

"But obviously very persuasive."

"You're quite right. They'd shown me what they were capable of, and I knew it would be foolhardy, not to mention potentially deadly for the woman I loved, if I were to defy them. So, I played their game, studied hard, and became one of the best damn agents they'd ever trained."

He made this declaration without a hint of arrogance, but rather as a simple statement of fact.

"Once I'd graduated from their program, they sent me to hot spots all over the globe. I lived a solitary life, unable to let my guard down for fear my cover would be blown. The only thing that kept me from descending into madness was her."

"Dr. Evans?"

"Yes. Shortly after I began my first assignment, I surreptitiously put the Agency's contacts to good use, and tracked her down. From that moment on, I was kept informed of her every move. I had agents send me reports about her, under the guise that she was part of a mission I was working on. I became particularly adept at subterfuge, and none of them was ever the wiser. Until I met Frank…"

"Frank?"

"A fellow agent, one who'd been at it much longer than I had. He was the first person to see through my act. Fortunately, he was also a hopeless romantic, in spite of the business we were in. Once he discovered my secret, he offered me his assistance and his support, no questions asked."

"You were lucky to find such a friend."

"Frank was a true gentleman among that gang of cold, heartless bastards. He kept me sane. He also gave me hope."

"Hope?"

"Hope that I would someday manage to free myself from the bonds that chained me to the Agency… Hope that I could, in due course, be reunited with my true love…"

"And?"

"And I did both, with Frank's help. He's a huge part of the reason that Marlena and I are together now."

The logical part of Louise's brain was fighting a losing battle with her heart. This man had experienced a staggering amount of misery, and it would be incredibly unfair to deprive him of his newfound happiness. Still, two complaints had been filed against him, and clearly, they bore some basis in fact.

"Well, Dr. North, you have me on the horns of a dilemma. While I can understand your desire to be with Dr. Evans, you do realize that you've crossed the bounds between doctor and patient, do you not?"

"Yes, I'm aware of that. My coming back into her life as her therapist, given our past history and my desire to resume our former relationship, was definitely a conflict of interest. Not to mention the fact that I held an unfair advantage over her, in that I had complete recall of our time together, while she had none."

"You seem to have summed up the case against you rather succinctly."

"In my own defence, I have transferred her care to someone I trust implicitly, and that person had already taken over her treatment at the time these particular complaints were filed, Dr. Sadick."

"How do you know when the complaints were filed?"

"Remember who you're talking to, and what my background is. My powers of deduction are quite well developed."

She couldn't help but notice the small grin forming at the corners of his mouth. He was apparently not afraid of any sanction she might impose. On the contrary, now that he'd confessed his tortured past, a sense of relief appeared to have settled over him. A part of her longed to see how accurate his assessment would be.

"Alright, Doctor, I'll bite. When were the complaints filed?"

"Given the seriousness of the accusations, you would have been required to summon me here on the double. Any delay would've called your judgment into question. Therefore, the complaints must have been filed within the last two days. More than likely, they came yesterday."

Louise made no attempt to hide her admiration.

"Well done! Anything else you've deduced?"

"Since you ask, I'm fairly certain that one of the complaints was filed by a man named John Black."

The startled look that flashed across Louise's face served as confirmation that Marlena's husband was at least partially responsible for the situation Alex now found himself in.

"You realize that the complainants' names are confidential. I can neither confirm nor deny your suspicions."

"Of course. I understand."

"I also want you to know that, if it were solely up to me, I would dismiss these complaints due to extenuating circumstances."

"But you can't. I broke the rules, and there can be no special treatment. So, what's my punishment?"

"Dr. Alex North, you have been found guilty of a breach of professional ethics. Your licence is hereby suspended, and you are prohibited from engaging in the practice of psychiatry for a period of two years."