Read Online FaceOff by Dennis Lehane, James Rollins, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, R. L. Stine, Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, Peter James, Steve Martini, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Joseph Finder, Lee Child, Raymond Khoury, Linwood Barclay, Steve Berry, John Sandford, M. J. Rose, Lisa Gardner, F. Paul Wilson, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart, Linda Fairstein - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dennis Lehane, James Rollins, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, R. L. Stine, Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, Peter James, Steve Martini, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Joseph Finder, Lee Child, Raymond Khoury, Linwood Barclay, Steve Berry, John Sandford, M. J. Rose, Lisa Gardner, F. Paul Wilson, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart, Linda Fairstein
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must be. You’re awakening from a long, long nightmare. We’re here to help you back to reality. Try to sit up. Have a drink of water.”
Pendergast sat up and Helen adjusted the pillows behind him. He now took a closer look at the room. It was elegant, paneled in oak, with leaded glass windows opening to a sweep of green lawn and flowering dogwood trees. He noted that the windows were discreetly barred. A Persian rug covered much of the gleaming parquet floor. The only indication that this was a hospital room was an odd-looking medical instrument, set into the wall by the head of his bed, with dials, tiny lights, and a series of electrodes dangling on long, colored leads.
His gaze was arrested by a strange sight: in a satin wing chair in the far corner sat a ventriloquist’s dummy. The dummy had brown hair and scarlet lips. It was wearing a doctor’s white coat with a stethoscope draped around its neck. Its mouth hung open, revealing a dark hole. Its glassy blue eyes underneath arched eyebrowsstared directly at him, unblinking. It sat up very straight, its legs sticking straight out, its polished brown shoes decorated with painted orange laces.
At that moment, the door opened and a man strode in, a big, cheerful fellow with a fringe of hair around a bald pate. He was dressed in a blue serge suit with a red bow tie, a red carnation in his boutonniere. He carried a clipboard.
Diogenes rose and extended his hand. “Hello, Doctor. We’re so glad you’re here. He’s awake and, I daresay, a lot more lucid than before.”
“Excellent!” said the doctor, turning to Pendergast. “I think we’ve achieved a real breakthrough here.”
“Breakthrough? Not at all. This is some sort of induced hallucination, some scheme to affect my sanity.”
“That,” said the doctor, “is the last gasp of your delusion talking. But that’s quite all right. May I?” He indicated a seat next to the ventriloquist’s dummy.
“I am perfectly indifferent to your comfort,” said Pendergast. “Do as you wish.”
The doctor sat down, unperturbed. “I’m so glad to see you able to recognize Helen and Diogenes. That in itself is a huge step. Before, you couldn’t even see them, so powerful were your fantasies of their being dead. Now, if I may, I’d like to explain all this to you while you’re lucid.”
Pendergast waved a hand.
“Yours is a deep and complex case—perhaps the most complex in my experience. What I am now summarizing is the result of months of painstaking reconstruction. During your time in the Special Forces, twenty years ago, you suffered an unbearably traumatic experience. We’ve covered that thoroughly and don’t need to touch on it again. Suffice it to say, the experience was so dreadfulit presented a threat to your sanity, indeed to your very existence. You left the Special Forces. But the trauma produced in you an extreme form of PTSD, which lay deeply buried and untreated. Like a cancer, it worked away on you over the years. Being a man of means, you could afford not to work—and enforced idleness may have been the worst thing for you. You became delusional. Your primary way of dealing with this untreated PTSD was to become, in your own mind, an all-powerful FBI agent, who rights wrongs, kills without mercy, and rids the world of evil. This fantasy took over your very existence.”
Pendergast stared at the doctor. As much as he wanted to disbelieve, there was a disturbing logic to it. As proof, here were Diogenes and Helen, two people he’d believed dead, in the room, living, breathing, and to all his senses absolutely real. He couldn’t deny the reality of his own eyes. And yet . . . his memories of his FBI days, which the earlier litany of Diogenes had opened to him as if by a floodgate, were just as strong.
“You’ve been in a dark place,” the doctor said, tapping his pen on the clipboard. “But you’re making real progress at last, thanks to my course of treatment. In fact, things
Pendergast sat up and Helen adjusted the pillows behind him. He now took a closer look at the room. It was elegant, paneled in oak, with leaded glass windows opening to a sweep of green lawn and flowering dogwood trees. He noted that the windows were discreetly barred. A Persian rug covered much of the gleaming parquet floor. The only indication that this was a hospital room was an odd-looking medical instrument, set into the wall by the head of his bed, with dials, tiny lights, and a series of electrodes dangling on long, colored leads.
His gaze was arrested by a strange sight: in a satin wing chair in the far corner sat a ventriloquist’s dummy. The dummy had brown hair and scarlet lips. It was wearing a doctor’s white coat with a stethoscope draped around its neck. Its mouth hung open, revealing a dark hole. Its glassy blue eyes underneath arched eyebrowsstared directly at him, unblinking. It sat up very straight, its legs sticking straight out, its polished brown shoes decorated with painted orange laces.
At that moment, the door opened and a man strode in, a big, cheerful fellow with a fringe of hair around a bald pate. He was dressed in a blue serge suit with a red bow tie, a red carnation in his boutonniere. He carried a clipboard.
Diogenes rose and extended his hand. “Hello, Doctor. We’re so glad you’re here. He’s awake and, I daresay, a lot more lucid than before.”
“Excellent!” said the doctor, turning to Pendergast. “I think we’ve achieved a real breakthrough here.”
“Breakthrough? Not at all. This is some sort of induced hallucination, some scheme to affect my sanity.”
“That,” said the doctor, “is the last gasp of your delusion talking. But that’s quite all right. May I?” He indicated a seat next to the ventriloquist’s dummy.
“I am perfectly indifferent to your comfort,” said Pendergast. “Do as you wish.”
The doctor sat down, unperturbed. “I’m so glad to see you able to recognize Helen and Diogenes. That in itself is a huge step. Before, you couldn’t even see them, so powerful were your fantasies of their being dead. Now, if I may, I’d like to explain all this to you while you’re lucid.”
Pendergast waved a hand.
“Yours is a deep and complex case—perhaps the most complex in my experience. What I am now summarizing is the result of months of painstaking reconstruction. During your time in the Special Forces, twenty years ago, you suffered an unbearably traumatic experience. We’ve covered that thoroughly and don’t need to touch on it again. Suffice it to say, the experience was so dreadfulit presented a threat to your sanity, indeed to your very existence. You left the Special Forces. But the trauma produced in you an extreme form of PTSD, which lay deeply buried and untreated. Like a cancer, it worked away on you over the years. Being a man of means, you could afford not to work—and enforced idleness may have been the worst thing for you. You became delusional. Your primary way of dealing with this untreated PTSD was to become, in your own mind, an all-powerful FBI agent, who rights wrongs, kills without mercy, and rids the world of evil. This fantasy took over your very existence.”
Pendergast stared at the doctor. As much as he wanted to disbelieve, there was a disturbing logic to it. As proof, here were Diogenes and Helen, two people he’d believed dead, in the room, living, breathing, and to all his senses absolutely real. He couldn’t deny the reality of his own eyes. And yet . . . his memories of his FBI days, which the earlier litany of Diogenes had opened to him as if by a floodgate, were just as strong.
“You’ve been in a dark place,” the doctor said, tapping his pen on the clipboard. “But you’re making real progress at last, thanks to my course of treatment. In fact, things
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