“Let me kill him, Ethan, here and now, a pillow over his face; it’ll be over in no time.” Ox sounded dead serious.

Ethan shook his head. “I wish we could, Ox, believe me. It’s a nice fantasy, but it’s no way for law officers to talk. The FBI people will be arriving soon, and they’re going to take him out of here, to Quantico.”

“He might be gone as soon as he’s out of pain,” Ox said. “Do you know Belle wouldn’t come near me when I got home from seeing Dr. Spitz on Saturday night after Blessed stymied me? She sniffed and growled, danced around me like she was afraid of me, but at the same time she wanted to attack me. Scared me to my boots. Took me a good hour to talk her down.”

“Now that’s interesting. I’ve got to remember to mention that to the FBI docs when they show up tomorrow.” Ethan paused, looked down at the thin, middle-aged man who didn’t look like he could even raise a single finger. “Keep your eyes on him, Ox.”

“You know I will, Ethan.” Ox settled himself into the easy chair, pressed the button to bring up the footrest, and grinned at his boss. “Now, I could get used to this. Why would the bigwig hospital guy go all the way to Croatia when he could stretch out in this Cadillac of a chair all day, drink a Bud?”

37

DR. HICKS, A TOP FBI forensic psychiatrist, was also an extremely competent hypnotist in his own right, and a huge Beatles fan. He didn’t wait for the rest of the FBI team, he arrived by himself that afternoon, his eyes bright with excitement, like a kid on Christmas morning, Ox thought. Dr. Hicks introduced himself and shook hands with Ox. Ox waved over at Blessed. “There he is, sir.”

Dr. Hicks turned immediately to look down at the motionless middle-aged man. He shook his head. “So this is Blessed Backman. An interesting name, don’t you think? He looks harmless enough. Talk to me,” he said, turning his formidable attention on Ox. “Tell me what this man did to you.”

Ox told him. “…I wasn’t there, you know, inside my own brain, at least not until the pain got me back into myself.” Ox jabbed his fingers through his flattop. “Sounds stupid and weird. You believe me?”

Dr. Hicks was frowning down at Blessed again. “Of course I believe you.”

He pinched the back of Blessed’s hand. Blessed didn’t react. Dr. Hicks lifted the blindfold, then his eyelids, stared at him a good minute, then said, “Hmmm. How long has he been like this?”

Savich said from the doorway, “I told Sherlock you’d be here, no way would you wait for the team. You didn’t even check in at the B-and-B or stop at the men’s room or eat a bagel, did you?”

Dr. Hicks gave Savich a really big smile. “I didn’t even eat an apple. I couldn’t wait to see this guy. Drs. Chambers and Bailey will be here tomorrow. I’ll tell you, the report you gave them had them flying at me with questions and speculation, not to mention a cargo bay full of disbelief. I left them with their heads together, plotting out what kinds of tests, what kind of restraints, to arrange for him at Quantico. We can get an MRI here to see if there’s a brain tumor. We can see if he can bend spoons, that sort of thing, later. I hope he comes out of it soon. I really want to talk to him.”

Savich nodded. “Come outside with me for a moment, Dr. Hicks.”

Once in the hallway, Savich looked at Sherlock, who nodded and said without preamble, “We appreciate your enthusiasm, Dr. Hicks; that’s one of the reasons we called you. But we’ve got a major security problem here until we get Blessed to Quantico. We need to keep him in this room while he’s here.”

Dr. Hicks said thoughtfully, “I can’t begin to imagine such power, to actually make someone willing to kill themselves. And you, Savich, you are immune to him. Life never ceases to amaze, does it?”

“You’re right about that,” Savich said. “I’m also going to set up a video camera in the room so we can monitor Blessed remotely. I sure hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s possible, given Dr. Truitt’s skeptical response to Blessed’s hypnotic ability, that we just might get a live demonstration if the hospital staff doesn’t believe us. If this does happen, I just hope no one gets hurt.”

“Let’s have Dr. Truitt attend him,” Ethan said. “See what he does.”

Savich said to Ethan, “That would be justice. Ethan, you okay with this? If Blessed does try anything, there’ll be living proof on film. A defense lawyer could claim it was all staged, but we’ll worry about that when we need to.”