“I hear you’re going to Vegas from here? Is that work or play?”

“Uh, work mostly.”

“What do you do?”

“Computer software. I’m designing a new accounting and security system for the El Rio. Still working out the bugs. We’ll be running tests for the next week or so.”

“A week in Las Vegas? Boy, I could lose a lot of money there in a week.”

“I don’t gamble.”

“That’s a good thing.”

He had taken out three of the four bulbs, dropping the room into a dim ambiance. He hoped that left enough light for the video. As he got off the table, Winston returned with a chair that actually looked like the one Hitchens had been sitting in.

“You took that from the captain?”

“Best chair in the place.”

“Good.”

He looked at the mirror and winked at the camera behind it. As he did this, he noticed the dark circles beginning to form under his eyes and quickly looked away.

Winston reached into the pocket of the blazer she wore and carefully eased out a pair of scissors. McCaleb took them and put them on the table and then pushed it against the wall below the mirror. He then took the captain’s chair and positioned it against the opposite wall. He put two chairs from the table facing the captain’s chair but split them apart far enough so as not to block the camera’s view of Noone. He directed Noone to the captain’s chair and then Winston and he took the remaining seats. McCaleb looked at his watch and noted that it was ten minutes before six.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll try to do this quick and have you on your way, James. First off, any questions you have for us about what we’re trying to do here?”

Noone thought a moment before speaking.

“Well, I guess I don’t know much about it. What will happen to me?”

“Nothing will happen to you. All hypnosis really is is an altered state of consciousness. What we want you to do is go through some progressive stages of relaxation until you reach a point where you can easily move through the recesses of your mind to pull out some of the stored information. Kind of like turning through a Rolodex and pulling out the card you need.”

McCaleb waited but Noone asked nothing else.

“Why don’t we start with an exercise. I want you to tilt your head back slightly and look up. Try to roll your eyes upward as far as they can go. Maybe you should take off your glasses.”

Noone took off the glasses, folded them and put them in his pocket. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes up. McCaleb studied him. He was able to roll them upward enough so that a quarter inch of white cornea was visible below each iris. This was a good indicator of receptivity to hypnosis.

“Okay, that’s good. Now, I want you to just relax if you can, take long, deep breaths and tell us what you can recall about the incident on the night of January twenty-second. Just recount what you now remember about what you saw.”

For the next ten minutes Noone told the story about coming upon the tail end of the shooting and robbery at the ATM in Lancaster. His story was no different than the versions he had recounted during various interviews since the night it had all happened. He added no new details that McCaleb picked up on and seemed to leave nothing out from his prior tellings. This was unusual and encouraging to McCaleb. The memories of most witnesses begin fading after two months. They forgot details. The fact that Noone seemed to remember every detail led McCaleb to hope the computer programmer’s recessed memory might be just as sharp. When Noone had finished recounting the event, McCaleb nodded to Winston, who then leaned toward Noone and handed him the six-pack file.

“James, I want you to open the file and look at the photos. Tell us if any of the men were the man you saw in the speeding car.”

Noone put his glasses back on and took the file but said, “I don’t know. I really didn’t get a-”

“I know,” Winston said. “But take a look.”

Noone opened the file. There was a piece of cardboard inside with squares cut out in two rows of three. In the squares were photos of men. Bolotov’s photo was the third on the top row. Noone stared at the six-pack, his eyes moving from photo to photo, and then shook his head.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t see him.”

“That’s fine,” McCaleb said quickly before Winston could say something that Noone might interpret as a negative. “I think we’re ready to go on, then.”

He took the file from Noone and tossed it onto the table.

“So why don’t you start by just telling us what you do to relax, James?” McCaleb asked.

Noone looked back at him blankly.

“You know, when are you happiest? When are you the most relaxed and at peace? Me, I like to work on my boat and go fishing. I don’t even care if I catch anything. I just like having a line in the water. How about you, James? You like shooting baskets, hitting golf balls? What?”

“Um, I don’t know. I guess I like being on the computer.”

“But that’s not relaxing mentally, James, is it? I’m not talking about something where you have to do a lot of thinking. I mean, what do you do when you want to let it all go. When you’re tired of thinking and you just want to go blank for a while.”

“Well… I don’t know. I like to go to the beach. There’s a place I know. I go there.”

“What’s it look like?”

“The sand down there is so white and it’s wide. You can rent horses and ride along the edge of the water below the cliffs. The water cuts under the cliffs and it’s like a hanging edge. People sit under there in the shade.”

“Okay, that’s good. That’s real good, James. Now, I want you to close your eyes, rest your arms in your lap and in your mind I want you to think about that spot. Picture in your mind that you are walking on that beach. Just relax and walk along the beach.”

McCaleb was silent for a half minute and simply watched Noone’s face. The skin around the corners of his closed eyes began to relax and McCaleb then led him through a set of sensory exercises in which he told him to concentrate on the feel of his socks on his feet, his hands on the fabric of his pants, the glasses on the bridge of his nose, even the hair-what was left of it-on his head.

After five minutes of this, McCaleb went on to muscle exercises, telling Noone to crunch his toes together as hard as possible, hold them that way and then release.

Slowly the focus of the exercises was moved up his body, eventually going to every muscle group. McCaleb then started again at the toes and moved back up. It was a method of exhausting the muscles and making the mind more susceptible to the suggestion of relaxation and rest. McCaleb noticed Noone’s breathing going deep and long. Things were going well. He looked at his watch and saw it was now six-thirty.

“Okay, James, now without opening your eyes, I want you to hold your left hand out and up in front of your face. Hold it about a foot from your face.”

Noone responded and McCaleb let him hold his arm up for a good minute, all the while counseling him to relax and keep his thoughts on the beach he was walking on.

“Okay, I now want you to very slowly bring your hand toward your face. Very slowly.”

Noone’s hand started to move toward his nose.

“Okay, slower now,” McCaleb said, his words slower and softer than before. “That’s it, James. Slowly. And when your hand touches your face you will be totally relaxed and at that point you will drop into a deep hypnotic state.”

He was silent then as he watched Noone’s hand move slowly forward until his palm stopped at his nose. At the moment of contact, his head dipped forward and his shoulders slumped. His hand dropped into his lap. McCaleb looked over at Winston. She raised her eyebrows and nodded at him. McCaleb knew they were only halfway there but things were looking good. He decided to run a little test.

“James, you are totally relaxed now, totally at rest. You are so relaxed that your arms are as light as feathers. They weigh nothing at all.”