Free Talons of the Falcon by REBECCA YORK Page B

brown hair blond, he would have. He seemed to be into physical fitness, Eden noted. Despite the muggy Georgia heat, she’d often seen him doggedly jogging along the beach, or completing lap after lap in the once-elegant swimming pool.
    Yolanski was decidedly less athletic. Eden had become accustomed to seeing him relaxing during off-duty hours in the garden with a book from the library in the main house. His reading interests seemed to range from detective fiction and computer manuals to chess puzzles.
    Walker, the lone black man at the facility, seemed to fit in least well. She’d sensed his discomfort in the hair dryer inquisition with Downing. The impression had only grown stronger as she’d gotten to know him better. Next to the chief of station, he was probably the most intelligent of the security staff. But Eden noted that he was always quick to defer to the others when a point of discussion came up, even though he didn’t seem to approve of this particular assignment.
    Eden had learned that he came from a Georgia sharecropper family. Apparently the air force had been a way to escape the poverty of his background. And he wasn’t going to take any chances by incurring any demerits on this billet.
    Her thoughts were interrupted as Major Downing opened the door and took his seat at the head of the table.
    “So what is your psychological evaluation of Colonel Bradley?” he asked, getting right down to business.
    Eden had carefully rehearsed her answer to the question. There was no way she was going to discuss the afternoon when she had, for a few minutes, forged a very meaningful bond with Mark. And for that matter, she wasn’t going to mention what had happened after that, about the way he had shut her off again. If anything, after that brief but intense encounter, her patient had become even more resistant to her efforts to get through to him. But she had learned to look for subtle clues to his inner feelings in the way he sat, the way he held his hands, the way he handled eye contact. And she could tell that his control was being stretched to the limit. It seemed to take more and more effort for him to remain indifferent.
    Opening her notebook, Eden glanced down at the detailed evaluation she’d prepared over the past few days. It sounded plausible, but in actuality it was made up of half-truths, evasions and more than a few prevarications.
    In the first place, what Eden thought she’d learned about Mark wasn’t verifiable in any measurable sense. She simply had a set of feelings and impressions that wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. And more important, she didn’t want to share with Downing what she had learned about Mark’s iron control.
    Yet she knew she was walking a tightrope. She had to hold out hope that she could help the security team get what they needed.
    “Well, I’ve identified a number of Colonel Bradley’s problems,” she began. “He’s definitely paranoid, but not entirely without justification. And he’s suffering from the severe depression one would expect after an experience like this.”
    She saw Downing lean imperceptibly forward. Though his face was neutral, a muscle in his face was jumping.
    “At first,” she went on, tapping the eraser of her pencil against the notepaper, “I was afraid his withdrawal was the result of a severe personality breakdown—actually a catatonic reaction. But after additional observation, I’m convinced it’s more treatable.” She paused for effect, and watched as three sets of eyes drilled into her. “He seems to be suffering from what used to be called a hysterical reaction—like blindness or paralysis. In other words it’s a conversion reaction in which symptoms of some physical malfunction or loss of control appear without any underlying organic pathology. In the colonel’s case it’s a sort of self-punishment in response to what he sees as a failure on his part.”
    “Do you mean like what happens to soldiers sometimes when