Ghost Ship

“Any chance maybe the guy’s name really was Pinco Pallino?”

“It’s possible. But pretty unlikely.”

“But not impossible?” Sam asked, hopeful. “So, can’t you ask the authorizing doctor?”

“Ordinarily I could, but the doctor in charge of the procedure was from out of area.”

“Does that happen very often?”

“It’s not uncommon. Psychiatrists rotate in and out of the region. Sometimes, patients who have unusually complex histories, might be transferred here from out of area, for specific treatment. Psychiatrists get sick and sometimes we bring in locums from outside… so it’s not impossible.”

“Okay, so what did the doctor say?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t track her down.”

“Why not?”

“Because Tal dei Tali is the Italian equivalent of Jane Doe. But the most compelling evidence was the anesthesiologist records.”

“Why? What did they say?”

“They didn’t leave any more details about who you were or where you had come from, but they did identify you as six foot exactly and a hundred and seventy-five pounds.”

Sam glanced at himself in the reflection of the window. “How close am I to that?”

“We could weigh you if I had any scales — which I don’t — but I didn’t need to.”

Sam swallowed hard. “What are you saying?”

Catarina squeezed his hand sympathetically, and met his eye. “I’m saying… this didn’t happen to you by chance… someone intentionally did this to you.”

Chapter Twenty

Sam let that thought sink in.

Someone had intentionally erased his memory. That much was now a certainty. They had gone to the trouble of drugging and sedating him so that they could perform ECT on him for the sole purpose of taking away his memory.

The question was, why?

What did he know that was so valuable that someone would want to go to such extreme lengths to make him forget?

For that matter, why not kill him in the first place? None of it made any sense.

Catarina asked, “Are you okay?”

Sam grinned. “Sure. Why not? I’ve lost my memory as the direct result of someone taking it from me, but it turns out that I’ve got a great life, and I’ve managed to rekindle a relationship with a beautiful woman, what’s not to like?”

Her lips parted in a restrained smile. She’d been a doctor long enough to know when someone was protecting themselves under the mental armor of a happy disposition and a façade of positivity. “It’s going to be all right. Your memory, most of it, will come back.”

“I wonder if you will still be here when it does.”

She took his hand and kissed it. “I will be if you want me to.”

Sam looked at her. “Thank you.”

They waited in silence for another couple seconds. He tried to process the news as best he could. Failing to come up with any answer, he returned to the data he’d neglected that was still in front of him.

A slight grin creased his lips. “What about the suitcase?”

“You’re right. Open the suitcase… maybe it will clear you of all wrongdoing, and make sense of everything… or at least something.”

“Or maybe it will prove that I’m part of the Russian mafia?”

“I doubt it.”

Sam said, “I’m not sure I am yet…”

“I am,” she replied, a tease of laugher in her voice. “But I can’t rule out the Italian mafia…”

He laughed out loud, a sudden tension easing in the process.

For some reason he hadn’t even considered that as a possibility, but it certainly made more sense, after all, he was in Italy. If the Russian mafia had a problem with him, he would have been more likely to have woken up in Moscow.

“All right,” he said, “let’s open it.”

She put the suitcase on the coffee table.

Sam grabbed it and pulled it toward him. It was a metallic case that looked unnaturally military or clandestine — something one would expect to be seen carrying the nuclear codes for the president. The sight of it reassured him that he’d made the right decision by stashing it when he had, instead of trying to carry it with him. He would have stood out too much, and would almost definitely have been arrested by now otherwise.

He flipped the suitcase over.

It was made from some sort of metallic alloy, and designed so that each side slid in perfectly together, barely revealing any opening at all. There were no obvious locking mechanisms. Nothing external that could be broken off.

There was a piece of protective metal, a small sliver no longer than a person’s thumb, which covered something.

Unable to see anything else to work with, Sam slid it open.

Inside was a digital touch screen with eight numbers.

Sam frowned.

Catarina asked, “What have you got?”

“It needs me to enter an eight-digit numerical code.”

She made a pensive pause. “Eight digits… like a date of birth?”

“Sure. But whose?”

“I would try yours first.”

“That seems a little obvious. I mean, if I was, presumably, carrying something vitally important, don’t you think I would have used a better security code than my date of birth?”

“Sure. Unless, you specifically wanted to find it?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. What if you knew someone was trying to erase your memory? Maybe you left yourself some sort of clue to get it back again?”