The weeks he worked became almost therapeutic. When they were on the rigs, it was almost non-stop action, some of it dangerous. It was hard work, the kind that kept you from thinking too much. When he was working, he didn’t think about his family, or Charlotte, or Agnes, or anything else. When he was off work, the whiskey and beer made the thoughts go away. It was the only thing that worked—except for books. That became his life: the rigs, drinking, and reading.

His graduation in the spring of 1995 was a non-event for him. His life changed very little—except now he no longer had to take the tests. Other kids were going off to college or to Oklahoma City to get a job, or they started working full-time with their family. Desmond wanted desperately to escape, to start fresh somewhere. But he needed money to do that, so he began saving every penny he could. By January of 1996, the dented coffee can he kept in his mattress held $2,685. It was the sum total of every dollar to his name, and he was about to spend it on a device he hoped would change his life—and allow him to leave Oklahoma and the rigs behind for good.

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

There were always two people outside Desmond’s cell: one working the laptop with the slide show, asking questions, another typing and filming him.

He had concluded that enlisting the help of one of the interrogators was his only chance of escape. The cell was well designed and constructed; brute force wouldn’t free him. His first step was developing a profile of the captor he would turn. He had set about searching for any weaknesses or strongly held beliefs he could exploit, but thus far, his attempts to extract such information had fallen on deaf ears. He sensed Conner’s hand in prohibiting the interrogators from speaking with him. None of them ever answered his personal questions. In fact, they became nervous when he addressed them personally—more nervous than they already were. And with each failed attempt, he felt his chances of escape slipping away.

He had taken note of several terms that had struck him as vaguely familiar:

“Do you remember the Zeno Society?” they had asked.

“No.”

“The Order of Citium?”

He lied again. He did know the term, but he didn’t know how or what it meant.

Meals were delivered periodically, and Desmond ate them with little concern. If his captors wanted to drug him, they could use the gas and then administer anything they wanted. And he needed to eat. He fell into a pattern: exercise, eat, answer questions, sleep, repeat. He lost all concept of time.