Chapter Seven

"Stringfellow Hawke," said Ann. "Your name is Stringfellow Hawke. I told you that last week. Don't you remember?"

String was trying. From her seat in an unobtrusive corner of the room, Elena could see that he was truly struggling to stay with them and understand what the other woman was telling him. She doubted that Ann realized it, though. She was starting to sound frustrated.

"You're a pilot for a little air service in Los Angeles that does charter flights and stunt flying for movies. You live on your own in a cabin in the mountains outside Los Angeles. You were in a motorcycle accident nearly six months ago. Then my so-called father and his pet doctor got their hands on you and drugged and hypnotized you until you couldn't remember anything, then they brought you here. My God, Hawke, I've already told you this at least three times! Why aren't you remembering?"

Elena had been thrilled when Ann had eventually shown up at the clinic again. She had arrived in the middle of the afternoon, just as Elena was about to take String back to his room for his afternoon rest. Not that he really needed it, but that hour was set in stone at the clinic, a time when the patients were safely locked away in their rooms and the staff could take a break, or change shift without disruption. The three of them went back to String's room, but unlike Karen, there was no way that Elena was leaving. Ann hadn't been happy about that; she said she needed to talk to Tommy Vine in private. Elena informed her that she was not allowed to leave her patient unattended with a visitor, and then sat down in her corner.

"Okay," Ann said finally. "But you have to promise that you won't tell anyone what you hear. It's a matter of life and death."

Elena was puzzled by this melodramatic claim. "Whose?" she asked.

"Mine," Ann replied bluntly. "Maybe his too."

"I won't say anything," she promised.

Ann rolled her eyes. "Right. How do I know you won't go running straight to Dr. Fairling?"

Elena was puzzled by that too. "Well, I won't. For one thing, she's gone and won't be back for a couple of months. But why should I, anyway?"

"Because Dr. Fairling is the reason Hawke is ‒ " She gestured at String. " ‒ the way he is. The reason he can't walk. The reason he can't remember his own name. And if she finds out I've been here, talking to him, I'm dead."

Elena took a deep breath. "I need to hear this. I always thought there was something wrong with the way she was treating him. If you know who he is and what's happened to him, then please, please, I want to hear it. And anyway," she added, sitting back as an unwelcome thought occurred to her, and illogically stung by the injustice of not being trusted by this woman, after all she'd tried to do for String, "how do I know that what you're telling him is the truth? Maybe Dr. Fairling just sent you to ‒ to mess some more with his head, or something." She stopped, appalled. She shouldn't have said that. She didn't even know where the thought had come from.

"Let her talk," said String unexpectedly. Both women jumped. It was the first thing he'd said all day.

So the conversation proceeded, in an atmosphere thick with mutual suspicion.

Ann told him his name, and where he lived and what he did, and how he had ended up at the Green Hills Nursing Home and Clinic. Then, when he went blank on them, she told him again. It all sounded completely bizarre to Elena. Who was this John Bradford Horn and why had he wanted to hurt String so badly? And yet it made sense. It explained why nothing was being done to help String get better; why, in fact, he always seemed worse after his sessions with the doctor. Why there were so few signs of physical injury from the car accident she assumed he had been in.

What String thought of it all, there was no telling.

Ann hadn't told him everything she knew. If he got better, he'd be able to fill in the gaps himself. If he didn't ‒ well, none of it would matter anyway. One of the things she left out was any mention of Airwolf. She was having a hard enough time dealing with Stringfellow Hawke in his current condition; she really didn't want to see him become "irrational with terror", as Dr. Fairling had put it.

"You should go to the police," said Elena.

Ann stared at her. "You must be joking. They couldn't protect him."

"But you've got to do something! If Dr. Fairling is really doing what you say she is, you can't let it go on! You've got to get him away from here!"

"I can't protect him either," said Ann. "There's no place to hide that my father couldn't find him. And me." She shivered.

"Well then, does he have any other friends that would help?" Elena persisted. "Any family? What about the people he works for?"

"I really don't think it's a good idea to contact them," the other woman replied, a bit evasively, Elena thought. "There's nothing they can do. And he has no family." Horn's original dossier on Hawke had included some sketchy information about his MIA brother, but Ann didn't think that any help was likely from that quarter.

"There must be something someone can do."

"Well, when you figure out what it is, you let me know. I've had enough of this." She stood up and reached for her coat. Halfway to the door, she stopped and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I just didn't think it would be this hard. I thought all I'd have to do would be to tell him what had happened, jog his memory, and he'd be okay. And then he could get himself out of this mess."

"You said you read all of Dr. Fairling's reports," said Elena quietly. "You must have realized what kind of shape he'd be in."

"I know, but ‒ you don't know what he was like before. I think he was about the strongest, bravest person I'd ever met. A real fighter, really ‒ resourceful, I guess is the word I want. Just a natural-born hero type." She smiled slightly. "I thought he'd be able to deal with it. That somehow he was faking it, that he'd managed to con that Fairling woman into thinking he was worse than he really was, or else that she'd exaggerated his condition because she wanted Horn to think everything was going well. Wishful thinking, I guess."

"I'm still here," rasped String. "Quit talking about me like I'm not."

Ann started. "Well then, Hawke, you tell me. Got any bright ideas?"

Silence.

"Uh huh. Well, like I said, when you get one, you let me know. I'm leaving."

"Wait a minute," said Elena. "What about the black machine he talks about sometimes? Do you know what that is?" It was the one mystery about String that she was most desperate to solve, because it was the one thing that seemed to terrify him.

"It's a helicopter," said Ann reluctantly. "If he ever starts getting his head straight, you ask him about Airwolf. Now I'm leaving. Hawke, I just ‒ I hope I helped you."

"Are you coming back tomorrow?" asked Elena, confused. It sounded as if the other woman was making her final goodbyes.

"Not me. I'm heading for Antigua. I can't get warm around here." The door shut behind her.

"Wait a minute!" Elena rushed out into the hallway and caught her arm. "You can't just leave like this! String still needs you. There must be more that you can tell him."

Ann shook off the hand on her arm. "You just don't get it, do you? I've done everything I can do for him." Everything except call in the cavalry, that is, because this cavalry is likely to shoot me along with the Indians. "And now I'm going to try to convince daddy dearest that I've just headed to the Caribbean straight from Aspen, and I've never been anywhere closer to here than New York City. I want to try to forget this place even exists."

Elena shook her head, but couldn't think of anything to say that would convince the other woman to stay. "I'll let you out, then," she sighed. During the afternoon rest period all the doors in the clinic were locked.

Ann looked up and down the corridor of blank closed doors, and shivered as if the sight gave her a physical chill. It was like two rows of pastel-painted cages, she thought. Hawke, I'm sorry. I wish there was something more I could do. I wish I'd never come.

When Elena opened the door to the entrance lobby, Ann all but bolted out the front door.

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What Ann had told him ought to have been an anchor to reality. It felt more like the anchor was a mirage, fastened in quicksand.

She'd told him his name wasn't Tommy Vine, it was Stringfellow Hawke. It meant nothing to him, and much of the time he couldn't remember what she'd told him. What kind of a name was Stringfellow, anyway? Kid called that must have gotten plenty of teasing growing up.

Ann. Ann, or Angelica? Ann meant nothing to him, either. But the other ‒ the name, and the face. Both familiar. He knew he'd met her before. Knew he knew far more of her than just her face. For once he was able to snag a memory from his mind: just another piece of flotsam that surfaced from time to time, like the lake and the cabin, but at least this one had come on command, and he could take it, turn it over and examine it.

Ann, standing in an austere windowless bedroom, with tears running down her face.

"I know you said you could handle the deception. I want you to know that I hate it as much as you do. And I just want to know if there's still a chance for us . . . Is there?"

"Why?"

"Damnit, I want you! I care about you! And because . . . I'm afraid you may not come back."

"I'll be back."

"Do you care about me?"

His answer had taken quite some time to give, and just thinking of it produced a startlingly intense echo of a reaction in his body, even now. Oh yeah, he definitely knew more of Angelica Horn ‒ or Ann Strete ‒ than just her face.

Good thing it was the middle of the night, and he was alone. He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, then gave in with a groan and began to ease himself with his own hand.

And yet there was something wrong here. The memory was sullied somehow. Angelica ‒ Ann ‒ had done something to him, something that hurt. When he thought of her beautiful face and flawless body, he felt lust, but also shame, humiliation, and a cold, abiding anger. And ‒ regret? He couldn't remember the reasons for it, not yet. But it meant that he couldn't trust her. Had anything that she'd told him been the truth?

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Elena told him Dr. Fairling would be back in just over two months. String's grasp of the passage of time was still rather tenuous. Tomorrow was no problem. Next week was a vague concept. Two months was almost unknowable. And yet the thought hung over him like an ominous thunderhead. Dr. Fairling, with her innocuous, bland face ‒ even now he couldn't quite bring it to mind; the image was blurry, out of focus. It was her voice that he heard in his nightmares, twisting and digging and driving its way right down to the roots of his mind.

He had to find a way to escape before she started in on him again, because if he was still here when she came back, he knew he would be here for the rest of his life. Or until she decided to do something else with him. But as far as being able to get away from this place went, he wasn't in much better shape than he'd been when he'd arrived ‒ whenever that had been. Much longer than two months, anyway.

He didn't sleep well. The real nightmares were infrequent, but his dreams often seemed restless and vaguely anxious. When he couldn't sleep, he stared at the ceiling, trying to work his way through the fog that permeated his memory.

Think, goddamn it. There must be a way. You've gotten out of bad situations before.

Oh yeah? Like what?

He couldn't think of any examples. Whatever device his brain used to dredge items out of his memory might have provided him with a red-hot recollection of Angelica Horn, but was utterly failing him here.

Lake, eagle, cabin . . . no, stop it, that's not what I need . . . not going to help.

A machine. A black machine. Flying.

He took a deep breath, feeling himself break out in a sweat, starting to shake all over. Stop it. It's not really here. Not even the black machine can get you, if it's not here.

Flying.

Ann said I was a pilot. I am a pilot.

His memory heaved up another fragment. A big, bulbous machine, painted drab brown and olive green. Huey.

But he wasn't the one flying it. Another man sat at the controls. A few years older than String, with prematurely gray hair and calm eyes that were a darker blue than String's own. Something about the man made String want to weep, but he didn't know why.

Think. Try harder. The Huey's not yours, not anymore. This man can't help you.

Another machine. This one was smaller and sleeker, white, red and blue. Like a flag. "Well, it's sure one of a kind, Dom. Everybody can see you coming."

"In this business, kid, that's a good thing."

Dom. This man's name is Dom. He can help me.

Who is Dom? Where is he? Have to find him.

Dom!