"I have a new line of questions for you, since you've tired of the ones I've asked you before." Dr. Zithers was visibly shaken, but she kept her emotions in check by the thread of her professionalism. He hair was back in that tight knot at the back of her head, but it looked mussed, like someone had ran their fingers through it. She kept the tears locked away, although Sam could see them hovering on the rim of her eyelids. Something had scared her. "Mr. Fisher…"
"So we're back to being formal, are we?" Sam could sleep on any surface, including the truces of a busy highway underpass, but he could not sleep on this cot. He only slept in spurts and when he did sleep, it was full of nightmarish and ghoulish dreams. "OK, shoot doc. What do you want to ask today?"
"I see you didn't eat your meal today?" Her voice wavered, as she looked from Sam's untouched food to Sam. "I would like you to eat."
Sam whistled. "Is that your question? It isn't all that great. I'm not even sure that is a question." He was leaning against the wall near the door, one leg bent with his foot propped up on the wall behind him. "I wasn't exactly hungry."
"You should try to eat anyhow."
"It's not like I'm doing anything too strenuous. We're just chatting." He was feeling much more like himself today. It was definitely the food, he concluded by the expression on her face. After eating, he always felt a little light headed and very talkative…which he was not. Sure he was a little hungry right now, but he could handle it. "Maybe I'll eat something later." He lied. "Why don't you ask me what you really want to ask me?"
"Take a seat, Mr. Fisher." Dr. Zither's was not herself. Her face was cold hard marble and there were no smiles for him today. "We'll start with a simple question."
"OK."
"What are your parent's names?"
"Why do you need to know that? Weren't you sent in here to spy on the NSA?"
"Answer the question Fisher."
"Wow, I love being bossed around by a lady." He grinned. "It's kind of refreshing, after all the times I've been told what to do by Lambert. No offense, but you're a whole hell of a lot nicer looking than he is." She didn't even crack a smile at that. He thought she was quite rude calling him Fisher. He didn't have much to look forward to in this forced confinement and she was taking away her good-hearted temperament. "I'll tell you, although I'm sure you already know. Nathan and Diana Fisher." He stated.
"How was their relationship with each other?"
He shrugged. "Fine, I guess."
"You guess?"
"My mother left when I was seven or eight. My father never spoke of her again." There was no pain or detectable emotion in his voice. "My father died ten years ago. I never asked him about my mother."
She had forgotten her notes for a moment and was watching him. "Do you miss them?"
"I don't miss him."
"So, you don't miss your father, but do you miss your mother?"
"I don't remember anything about her, so how could I miss her? You can't miss something you don't remember having." Sam flicked a fleck of lint off of the blanket on the cot.
"Seven is kind of old to not remember anything about your mother. Aren't you the least bit curious to know what happened to your mom and why she left? You should remember something." Doctor Zithers inclined closer. She was attentive again and not just taking notes. "I bet if you try hard enough, you can remember some small shred of your mother."
"No."
"Try for me." Her hand skimmed over his. "Just try."
"I don't have to try. I don't remember a God Damn thing." Sam's face was ruddy with anger and his eye was twitching. "You're getting on my last nerve." Sam flipped her hand over, palm up and pressed his fingers to her wrist. She struggled, but his vice-like grip didn't allow for wiggle room. "Tell me what this is really about.""You're hurting me." The pressure was enough to bruise but not enough to do any real damage. "I don't know what you're talking about." She looked ready to panic. All her attention was on her wrists. She was trying to break free, without appearing to exert any energy.
"Why don't you contact the orderly?"
"I can't." The doctor's voice was slightly high pitched and whining.
"Why not?" This line of questioning sounded familiar to him and something clicked in his head. "You can't contact him without your hands freed."
"You're right, Sam." She composed herself to the best of her ability. "The pendent on my necklace...all of the doctors have them in case of emergency." Her head tilted and her face looked as indifferent as a porcelain mask. "Is this an emergency?" Sam felt as though she had used his given name as a way to become friendly with him again. "Sam?"
"No. That's not necessary. "Sam dropped her hands. "So Jerika, I can call you Jerika can't I?" He saw her flinch slightly. That was almost the exact wording she had used on him his first day here. "Tell me what I want to know."
"I have a theory that your problems with your so-called marriage, stem from your parent's relationship with you and with one another. Your mother left you when you were young and you never really got over that..." Dr. Zithers tried to move the subject on to him. "Your mother left, so in your mind your wife should leave you. I'm thinking that maybe, you're reenacting your parent's strife."
"There you go again. Ypu're a very fickle woman. You know that's not what I mean." His voice held a hint of anger and a touch of laughter. Sam was not happy, but he was flabbergasted at her naive attitude. "I'm surprised at your commitment to your role. You're very good."
That cracked her. "Sam, please..." Dr. Jerika Zithers was pleading with her eyes. "I didn't want to..." She threw herself at him, pressing her lips to his in a tumultuous, one-sided kiss. Sam didn't respond to her touch, not that his body didn't respond, but that he mentally shut off that section of himself. She gripped his forearms, tightly latching on to him like he was a life preserver on choppy waters. "Sam." Her whisper mingled with his own breath. Tears tainted her lips as she forced another kiss on him. "Kiss me, Sam. Love me like a woman." Her actions were nearly insane now. "I know you have love in you."
Sam Fisher was a man and with her luscious body pressed against him, he felt like throwing her on the cold concrete and ravishing her right there, but he pushed such thoughts out of his head. "Who do you work for? What information were you trying to get from me, Doctor?"
"Jerika! Call me Jerika." She fumbled with the ties on his pajama bottoms, but only managed to tie them into a tight knot, that could only be cut loose. He stood up quickly and pushed her hands away from him. She actually ripped her blouse open and shoved her breasts in his line of vision. "I love you."
"Bullshit." He held her wrists captive, so she couldn't get so close to him. She would have a nice matching set of bruise bracelets. "Who put you up to this?"
"I'm an awful human being, Mr. Fisher." Her head slumped forward, knowing defeat and shame. "I've kept you drugged this whole time, to get information for my boss."
"What kind of information? What did you tell them?"
"I told them nothing. I took notes, like I was supposed to, but I never turned in any of it." She sobbed. "I swear it. I was supposed to ask you about the people you work with...other agents of the NSA."
"I don't know any of the other NSA agents. I've never met a single one of them. I work alone." Sam held both of her wrists in one fist and lifted her chin with his free hand. "I don't have any information, other than what Lambert tells me." Tears dripped down her chin and he felt a fleeting moment of pity for her. "If I knew any of the other agents, I wouldn't know anything more than their names. I wouldn't know anything about their missions or whereabouts. They don't know anything more than that about me and you can tell that to whatever organization you work for."
"When they realized that Carly had very little information about the Third Echelon, they had you brought in. Your contact was replaced by our own man." She sniffed and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You're the only agent we had any information on, since Carly seems to like you a whole lot. Everything I knew of you, was because of that kid."
"Why would you go through with this elaborate trap and not follow through with it?" He pinched her chin in a painful hold. "Tell me something that isn't a lie."
"We knew about Lambert, but we couldn't get a hold of him." Her eyes met his briefly. "Carly St. John goes to school with my cousin. My cousin helped her study for a final exam and I guess her books got left behind in his dorm room. The silly girl had a bookmark page with letterhead from the NSA. It was easy enough to get information out of her. A whopping dose of lies and barbiturates, can work any tongue loose." Sam let her go and she sat back down in the chair. It was like being a third party listener in a church confessional. "She didn't know what hit her, once I had a hold of her." Dr. Zithers laughed and cried at the same time. "My cousin informed me of what he had seen and my boss had her picked up, after I relayed the data to him. Do you know, that Carly thinks of this as a kind of game and that it's a sort of stepping stone to what she really wants to do? This isn't a permanent career for her."
"She told you about me, but that still doesn't tell me why you didn't turn me in to your superiors." Sam picked her up by the shoulders and shook her. "Well?"
"She likes you a lot, Sam." Jerika slipped out of his grip and slithered to the floor. "I think I more than like you, Mr. Fisher." She whimpered, groveling at his feet. "You're right though. She's way too young for you, but I'm not. I'm not too young for you, Sam!" The doctor threw herself at his ankles, sobbing. "I've never been with a man. You can be my first."
He bent down and picked her up again, so she was standing on her own two feet. "Get up."
"I..." Hiccup! "I never loved anyone." Hiccup! "I don't..." Hiccup! "Don't want to die a virgin." Jerika threw her arms around his middle and buried her face in his chest. "They'll kill us both, now." She hiccupped a few more times, but eventually caught her breath. "Do you know what it's like to work in a mental institute practically your entire life?"
Sam didn't know, but he could guess by his brief stint at the institution, what it was doing to her. "I have an inkling."
"Are you going to kill me now?" Her voice was steady and she was resigned to her fate. "I'm as good as dead as it is. I rather you do it. I'm sure you're very efficient and painless compared to what they'll do to me." She trembled like the last autumn leaf on a tree.
Sam's heart reached out to her, but he had to get out of here. He couldn't take her with him and he couldn't leave her here. "That orderly heard many of our conversations."
"He's deaf. He couldn't tell anyone anything of what we said."
"Deaf? But, he knew what I was saying the other day, when he took me to the restroom."
"He reads lips, but I assure you that he knows nothing. My notes were always with me or locked in my desk drawer." Her head was resting on his chest, listening to the rhythmic thumping of his chest. "I'm the only one who knows anything of what you told me and you didn't tell me anything more than what we already knew. Any personal information will be of no use to my overseer."
"Where is my OPSAT and other gear?"
She looked like she might burst into tears at the thought of his leaving, or maybe it was the thought of dying. "In my office."
"Where's your office?"
"I'll take you to it. I'm the only one who can open the door."
She's a very pretty woman. Sam admitted to himself. "One last request." Sam led her to the door. She waited for him to ask what he wanted. "Let's stop by the john. I really have to go."
