Now I was all caught up. If these weren't their exact words, they had to be d.a.m.n close. Help us find the kid before he brings us all down, Dr. Wittmer ... including you.

"I don't care that I'm in the recordings," said Wittmer. "It was a mistake, and I can live with the consequences."

"Actually, I don't care that you're in the recordings, either," said Owen. "All I care about is who put you there. That's what we need to know."

Wittmer's eyes shifted between Owen and me for a few moments, the latest issue of Car and Driver and the rest of his mail pressed hard against his chest.

It was one thing for him not to rat us out. It was another for him to rat out whomever he was working for. There would need to be a reason. A d.a.m.n good one.

Wittmer looked up at the sky. We all did. The sun was beginning to set behind a ma.s.s of charcoal-colored clouds that seemed to have arrived out of nowhere. Much like Owen and me.

"I think we should go inside," said the doctor. "It looks like rain."

CHAPTER 64.

IT WAS a home for a guy who basically wasn't home all that much. That, or he just didn't care.

Not to say it was messy. Rather, it was spa.r.s.e. In the few rooms we walked past before settling in the kitchen, the furnishings consisted of the bare minimum, or in the case of the empty dining room, even less.

I wasn't much for metaphors, but Claire always was. For her, this would've been a lay-up. Dr. Douglas Wittmer clearly had money, but to see where he lived-how he lived-was to see a man defined by what he didn't have. There were things missing in his life.

"You want coffee?" he asked, pointing to the Keurig machine on the counter near the stove.

Owen and I both declined. We were anxious enough as it was.

The three of us headed over to a small cherrywood table in the corner underneath a small clock, the kind you'd more likely see hanging in an office or waiting room. After we all sat down, Wittmer immediately stood up to remove his blue blazer, hanging it on the back of his chair. He wasn't stalling, but he wasn't exactly rushing, either.

Finally, after sitting down again, he took a deep breath and began.

"I was targeted," he said, his tone straight as a ruler. To his credit, there wasn't a hint of his trying to make an excuse for himself. He was stating the facts, or really just one fact. "They knew my wife was on Flight Ninety-Three."

Owen and I both dropped our heads a bit. It spoke volumes about the events of 9/11 that a particular flight number could be so ingrained in the collective memory of a nation.

"I'm sorry," said Owen.

"Yes," I said. "I'm sorry."

"The thing is," Wittmer continued, "grief and anger can help you rationalize almost any behavior in the name of revenge. I know that's what he was banking on with me."

It was so clear what we were witnessing. This was a man who needed to explain himself. Bare his soul a little, if not a lot. I was sure that Owen, even at his relatively young age, was thinking the same thing.

Perhaps it was that same youth, though, that had Owen wishing the doctor would explain things just a tad bit faster. Fittingly, the only sound in the kitchen other than us was the measured tick ... tick ... tick of the wall clock above us.

"He?" Owen asked impatiently. In other words, Please, for the love of Pete, start naming names. ...

"I don't know if he's the only ringmaster, but it's certainly his circus," said Wittmer. He drew another deep breath. "Frank Karcher is the one who first approached me."

I didn't recognize the name, nor, apparently, was I supposed to, given the way Wittmer was looking directly at Owen. And given the way Owen was nodding back at him, I guess it made sense. "The kid" absolutely recognized the name.

"Frank Karcher is the National Clandestine Service chief of the CIA," said Owen, turning to me. "Basically, we're talking the kind of guy who likes to kick puppies."

"So human torture wasn't much of a leap," I said.

It was a quip, completely off the cuff. Still, the second the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I didn't know Karcher, but I did know that Wittmer was sitting right in front of me. He was also on the recordings. At best, the doctor was an accomplice. At worst? That was between him and his G.o.d.

And that was the point. Owen and I were there in his kitchen to get information, not to pa.s.s judgment on him. And I just had. A bit unfairly, no less. I wasn't the one who'd lost his wife on 9/11.

"I apologize," I said to Wittmer. "I didn't mean to-"

"That's all right," he said. He drew another deep breath. "At the beginning, I knew exactly what I was doing and why. Those recordings you have? As bad as they may look to a whole lot of people, there are just as many people these days-the Machiavellians in our so-called war on terror-who would believe the end justifies the means."

"I'm confused, then," I said. "What changed? Why would you be talking to us?"

Wittmer leaned in, pressing his palms down on that cherrywood table with what might as well have been the weight of the world. "Because those recordings you have don't tell the whole story," he said. "But mine do."

CHAPTER 65.

WITTMER PUSHED back his chair and disappeared from the kitchen, returning about a half minute later with an old Dell laptop. While he was gone, Owen and I didn't utter a single word to each other. Really, what was there to say? The doctor had basically just promised to blow our minds. The only thing to do was shut up and wait for it.

Another half minute pa.s.sed while Wittmer's laptop booted up. Given the antic.i.p.ation, it felt like an eternity. Finally, he clicked on a file and pressed Play, angling the screen in front of us so we all had a good view. It was showtime.

"This is from the same black site outside of Warsaw during the same time period," he explained.

Indeed, from the get-go everything about the recording looked familiar. The windowless room shot in black-and-white. The lone metal chair with a Middle Eastern man shackled to it, followed by the two men in suits who restrained him while he received the shot to his carotid artery.

Of course, the doctor wielding the syringe looked familiar as well. We were in his kitchen.

"What is your name?" asked the voice off camera.

Immediately, a second voice translated the question into Arabic, and as with Owen's recordings, the Arabic was translated back into English via subt.i.tles. Everything was the same.

Except, in this case, the prisoner's response.

"I speak English," he said softly.

The two voices from behind the camera could be heard conversing, but even with the volume maxed out on Wittmer's laptop, we couldn't understand what they were saying. I a.s.sumed it was about the way they wanted to proceed, although you wouldn't know it given how the first voice repeated the question-"What is your name?"-as if he were some automated prompt.

"My name is Makin Pabalan," answered the prisoner.

Hearing him speak again, it was clear that he was fluent in English. His accent notwithstanding, there was no hitch from his having to translate in his head from Arabic. If I had to guess, I'd say he'd been educated at some point in the US.

Again, there was more talking behind the camera. We still couldn't make it out. Whatever was said, though, it resulted in a deviation from the script.

"We'll proceed in English only," came the voice. "Do you understand? The questions now will only be in English."

"Yes," said the prisoner. "I understand."

"And you will only answer in English. Is that understood as well?"

"Yes."

"Please state your name again."

"My name is Makin Pabalan."

"Are you a member of Al Qaeda?"

"No," said the prisoner.

"Are you aware of any plans by Al Qaeda to kill American citizens?"

"No."

"Are you a member of any organization that considers the United States of America an enemy?"

"No."

"Are you aware of any organization that is planning to bring harm to any American citizens anywhere in the world?"

"No."

There wasn't the slightest hesitation from the man in the chair as he answered each question. He looked nervous, but not to the point of fear. Nor was there any anger in his eyes. If I had been cross-examining him in a courtroom, he would've qualified as a cooperating witness.

More importantly, there wasn't the slightest physical change in him. His jaw didn't clench, the chair didn't begin to rattle. There was no downward spiral of pain followed by even more pain. No sign of lie and you die.

He was telling the truth.

Owen and I exchanged glances, the thought being that the doctor had it wrong. This wasn't the whole story, it was the same story.

In unison, we turned to Wittmer. What gives?

But he was still staring at the screen, a subtle but unmistakable cue that we should be doing the same.

The doctor knew exactly what he was talking about.

CHAPTER 66.

IT HAPPENED so d.a.m.n and scary fast.

One second, the prisoner was fine. The next, he wasn't. Only this was different from Owen's recordings. So very, very different. This began in an instant and barely lasted much longer. It was a flash. No, it was a detonation.

It was as if the man's brain had actually exploded inside his head.

I watched as his eyes rolled back, his face convulsing like it was lodged in a paint mixer at Home Depot. The force was so strong it literally lifted the man off the ground, chair included. By the time gravity fought back, he and the chair were tipped over on the floor, motionless.

"Christ ..." Owen muttered, his voice trailing off.

Wittmer reached out and hit the s.p.a.ce bar on the keyboard, pausing the recording. It was right then that the thought occurred to me. As quickly as all h.e.l.l broke loose in that interrogation room, it wasn't as if the doctor couldn't have tried to intervene.

But he was nowhere in the frame. Why not?

"That might have been the sickest part of all," Wittmer said as if reading my mind. "The second I tried to help, I was literally held back. They didn't want the guy saved. They wanted him doc.u.mented. Like a lab rat."

He hit the s.p.a.ce bar again to resume the recording. True to his word, Wittmer finally sprang into the frame as if he'd just broken free from the two other guys behind the camera. Within seconds of his kneeling down and placing two fingers on the prisoner's neck, he shook his head slowly. The man was dead.

"Was there an autopsy performed?" asked Owen.

"Yes. It was an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage," said Wittmer. "Each and every time."

Boom.

"Wait ... what?" I asked. But I'd heard him perfectly. So had Owen.

"It happened seven other times out of twenty trials," said Wittmer. "At least, the twenty trials I was overseeing."

Owen shook his head in disbelief. "A forty percent fail rate," he said. "Was the prisoner cooperating each time?"

The doctor nodded, his gaze retreating. It was as if he had nowhere to look. "Karcher just calls it collateral damage," he said, disgusted. "I call it murder."

There was no pushing that last line aside, no ignoring its implications. The words simply hung there at the table, filling the silence. If I hadn't known better, I would've sworn the clock above us had stopped as well. I couldn't hear it tick.

Eventually, Owen spoke up. "Does Karcher know you have this recording?" he asked.

"If he did, I'd probably be dead right now," said Wittmer.