by Mark Alpert
He stopped in front of Grant and Keller, but his eyes were on Frazier. Because the lieutenant was six inches taller than everyone else on the rooftop, he was kind of hard to miss. The veep pointed at the center of Frazier’s enormous chest. “Who’s this? A bodyguard?”
Frazier had been ordered not to say a single goddamn word, so he just stood there, blank-faced. Grant stepped forward and smiled at the vice president. “That’s correct, sir. Lieutenant Frazier usually does security work for me, but tonight he’s going to help us with the inspection tour. He’s been with Palindrome since the early days of Phase One.”
The veep frowned. “Phase One? That’s when the treatment was tested on the Special Forces soldiers?”
The attorney general had clearly revealed everything he knew about Palindrome in his letter to the vice president, including some of the details of Phases One and Two. Luckily, though, the AG had known nothing about Phase Three, so neither did the veep. Grant kept smiling. “Yes, and Phase Two involves bringing the most successful test subjects to the Federal Service Unit, where we can closely evaluate their performance. Lieutenant Frazier is one of the stars of the experiment, and he can vividly demonstrate the project’s potential benefits.”
This information failed to set the veep’s mind at ease. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect on him and his Secret Service men. The agents tensed, and their hands moved a bit closer to the guns hidden in the holsters under their gray jackets. The vice president knew about the enhanced combat skills of the Palindrome subjects, and he’d obviously warned his bodyguards about it.
Grant stopped grinning. This wasn’t going well. He hated all this diplomatic bullshit.
The K-Man, though, was good at it. He caught the veep’s eye and gave him a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, the lieutenant is unarmed. If it’ll make you feel more comfortable, your men are free to pat him down.”
The vice president thought it over for a second, then nodded at his agents. Two of them stepped toward Frazier, who obligingly spread his arms wide. He remained silent and kept his face blank as the agents frisked him. It was an impressive show of restraint on his part, but Grant wasn’t surprised. The lieutenant was good at following orders.
When the agents were done, they nodded at the veep and returned to their positions beside him. The vice president turned back to Keller. “Thank you for your consideration, Vance. We’re ready to start now.”
“Then please come this way.” The K-Man strode ahead, leading the veep and his entourage toward the building’s rooftop entrance. At first, Grant and Frazier followed them at a distance, but this arrangement clearly upset the Secret Service—the agents kept looking over their shoulders—so Grant nudged Frazier forward until they marched right behind Keller.
The Research Center was just below the heliport. It occupied the whole building, providing enough space for all the researchers who’d been relocated from Rockefeller University, the Salk Institute, the Cold Spring Harbor Lab, and the Scripps Institute. In less than a minute Keller led the veep to the airlock, which isolated the laboratories and prevented any stray microbes from escaping. A technician in a white coat helped them open and close the airlock doors, and then the K-Man guided the vice president to the animal-testing lab on the ninth floor. Keller had given Grant a rough idea of how the inspection would go, but most of the details were unimportant. The only crucial part of the operation would come at the very end.
The animal lab was packed with cages and smelled like a menagerie. One room had dozens of rhesus monkeys; the next contained hundreds of rabbits; the next held thousands of mice. Keller pointed at the cages and began to describe the CRISPR method for making changes to DNA. Because the vice president had no scientific background, the K-Man kept his explanations simple and nontechnical and consistently upbeat, always emphasizing the positive. As a matter of fact, he was a terrific guide. If he hadn’t gone into politics, he could’ve led tours at the San Diego Zoo.
“What I want to emphasize is that we didn’t rush the scientific process. We did experiments on animals for three whole years. We developed a unique CRISPR treatment for each species, then injected the animals with viruses that triggered the genetic changes. We evaluated the safety of each change and carefully examined what happened when we altered several genes at the same time.” He pointed at an elaborate rat maze with dozens of twists and turns. “But animal testing couldn’t answer all of our questions. Although human DNA is very similar to monkey or chimp DNA, there are important differences, especially in the genes that govern brain development and intelligence. So to fully explore the effectiveness of the CRISPR treatment for humans, we had to begin human testing. It was the only way.”
The vice president stopped in front of a cage full of albino rats. He stared for a few seconds at the red-eyed, pink-eared creatures, which had huddled in the corner of the cage for warmth. Then he turned back to Keller. “Did you ever consider whether the experiments were immoral?”
The K-Man was unperturbed. “Yes, we did. If CRISPR can cure a genetic disease, it would be immoral not to investigate it, don’t you think?”
“Don’t play games with me, Vance.” The veep raised a finger and shook it at Keller, like an angry schoolteacher. “You don’t really care about diseases.”
“I assure you, the experiments we’ve done will help doctors develop treatments for cancer, heart disease, and dozens of other—”
“Sure, that’s a good cover story. But your main purpose here isn’t curing people. It’s upgrading them. It’s tinkering with their God-given bodies and turning them into something unnatural and unholy.”
The vice president raised his voice so loud that it agitated the rats in the cage behind him. They broke from their huddle and skittered across the cage bedding, running in frantic circles. The Secret Service agents seemed to get nervous too. They sidled across the lab and positioned themselves around the veep, each man ready to take a bullet for him. But the K-man stayed calm. He nodded respectfully, acting as if the vice president had just made a logical argument and not a lunatic rant.
“I understand your concerns. Believe me, under ordinary circumstances we wouldn’t have even considered taking these steps. But the CRISPR technology is like the proverbial ‘genie in a bottle.’ Now that scientists know how to easily manipulate DNA, it’s very hard to stop them from using the technique. Once the genie is out of the bottle, how can you stuff him back inside?”
The veep shook his head. “It’s not so hard to stop. You simply pass a law that makes it illegal to tamper with God’s design.”
“Yes, a well-enforced law might halt the research in this country. But what about the geneticists in China and Russia and Iran and North Korea? They’re all studying and developing CRISPR. The CIA has received reports of gene-editing tests recently performed on soldiers in the Russian army and intelligence officers in China. If we don’t do the same, their Special Forces will have a huge advantage over ours. They’ll be stronger, faster, and deadlier. We can’t allow that to happen.”
Grant had to bite his cheek to stop himself from chuckling. He had plenty of friends in the CIA, and he saw all their intelligence reports. There was no evidence whatsoever that Russia or China was using CRISPR to create super-soldiers. But the K-Man was a master of bullshit, and the vice president wasn’t clever enough to see through it.
The veep went silent, and some of the religious fervor drained from his face. After a few seconds, though, he scowled and shook his head again. “I still don’t like it. We shouldn’t stoop to their level. We shouldn’t have to resort to the same evil methods that our godless enemies are using.”
Keller stepped toward him. “Would it make a difference if I could show you how much good this technology is already doing? If I could give you strong, solid proof that CRISPR is saving American lives?”
The vice president folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know if it would make a difference. But I’m not closed-minded. I’m here to see eve
rything.”
The K-Man smiled. “Please follow me.”
He led the veep and his Secret Service men out of the animal labs. They marched down the hall, then took the elevator to the fourth floor. Then they entered the behavioral research lab, where the human subjects of the Palindrome tests were caged.
* * *
Colonel Grant was far from squeamish. He’d never felt any discomfort about performing medical experiments on prisoners. That was because the prisoners chosen for the CRISPR treatments were the worst of the worst, the foulest pieces of human garbage. They were terrorists captured in Syria and Yemen and Afghanistan, mass murderers who’d killed hundreds of American soldiers and civilians. If anything, the experiments were too gentle. Grant would’ve been happier if the treatments had required electric shocks and amputations.
But as he stepped into the behavioral research lab with the vice president’s entourage, Grant’s stomach tightened so violently that he almost doubled over. It felt like he’d just been kicked in the balls. He stopped in his tracks and clutched his midsection. He had to clench his teeth to stop himself from crying out.
Frazier stopped too and gave him a questioning look. Grant grimaced and muttered, “Must’ve been something I ate.” With a tremendous effort, he stepped forward and continued walking down the corridor.
The pain didn’t go away, though. It kept grinding inside him, tearing up his guts, intensifying with every step he took. Soon they reached the part of the floor where two corridors intersected, and Grant felt something even worse, a jolt of inexplicable fear that made him catch his breath. The veep and the Secret Service agents marched past him and turned right, following Keller toward the interrogation rooms, but Grant stopped again and turned his head to the left. His eyes were drawn to one of the doors on that side of the corridor, about ten feet away.
It didn’t look like much. It was just a plain white door with the number 17 written on it in black numerals. But in Grant’s mind, it was the entrance to hell. It was the source of all his fear and pain, which seemed to stream down the corridor like invisible radiation. The waves of agony passed right through the walls and converged on him, spearing his heart.
He knew what was behind that door. It led to one of the monitoring rooms for the test subjects who required constant observation and study. The prisoner inside the room was Raza Khan.
Frazier gave him another look of concern. “Uh, sir?” He bent over so he could whisper in Grant’s ear. “Don’t you think we should—”
The door suddenly opened. Grant’s panic was so fierce, he lost his balance. He thought he saw Raza burst out of the room, his paralyzed arms and legs now revived and powerful, his fingers transformed into razor-sharp claws.
Grant shut his eyes and started to fall. But Frazier caught him, gripping both his arms, and held him upright. “Sir?” His voice was still a whisper, but now very urgent. “What’s wrong?”
Then Grant heard another voice, louder and higher-pitched than Frazier’s and a hundred times more annoying. “Colonel, you have to see this! It’s astonishing!”
Grant opened his eyes. The person standing in the doorway of Room 17 wasn’t Raza Khan, thank God. It was David Weinberg, the lab director whom he’d yelled at a couple of hours ago. In his right hand he held a long sheet of graph paper with dozens of jagged lines scrawled across it.
“Look at this EEG!” Weinberg grinned like a maniac. “From the Khan boy!”
Grant’s first impulse was to tell Weinberg to get back to his fucking job, but the guy was practically dancing with excitement, and the sight was so disturbing that Grant couldn’t say a word. Weinberg rushed toward him, waving the sheet of graph paper.
“It started happening as soon as we attached the electrodes to him! I’ve never seen this kind of electrical activity in the brain, not even during the worst epileptic seizures!” He spread the paper with the EEG results right in front of Grant’s nose. “See how the neural oscillations are aligned? This is generalized activity involving the whole brain, and yet it’s all intricately coordinated!”
Grant stared for a moment at all the jagged lines spiking up and down. He didn’t see anything astonishing there. What he saw instead was a picture of his own anger, violently sharp and very fucking generalized. All his fear turned to fury. He wanted to rip Weinberg’s head off for interrupting the VIP inspection they’d planned so carefully.
But Grant was still too shaky from his panic attack, so he turned to Frazier instead. “Lieutenant, get this asshole out of my sight.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
Frazier grabbed the collar of Weinberg’s lab coat and dragged him back to Room 17. He shoved the bewildered scientist into the room and slammed the door shut. Then he returned to Grant and rested a hand on his shoulder. “We better catch up to the others,” he whispered. “Keller looks pissed.”
The K-Man glared at them from the far end of the corridor, where he stood in front of a heavy steel door. The vice president and his Secret Service agents had turned around too, their faces taut with suspicion and impatience.
Grant hurried toward them, tottering a bit but doing his best to hide his unsteadiness. He breathed a little easier as he put some distance between himself and Room 17. His anger ebbed and the pain in his stomach faded to a dull ache. By the time he reached the veep’s entourage, he was able to smile and flatter and lie again.
“My apologies, gentlemen. Our researchers are very enthusiastic about their work.” Grant stepped past Keller and the vice president and slid his security card through the card reader on the wall. The steel door opened, and Grant led the visitors inside. “Please move all the way to the back so everyone can fit. And watch your step, please, it’s dark.”
They filed into a room that was fifteen feet long but only five feet wide. The space was entirely bare, no furniture of any kind. Up ahead, at the far end of the narrow room, was another steel door; to their right was a blank wall, and to their left was a thick black curtain. Grant and Keller went to the far end, while Frazier came in last and closed the door behind him, plunging the room into total darkness. Then Grant flipped a switch on the wall, and an electric motor began to pull the black curtain to the side.
“As you may have guessed, we’re in an observation room. The interrogation room is on the other side of the one-way mirror.” Grant pointed at the big sheet of half-silvered glass that was exposed as the curtain retracted. In contrast to the observation room, the interrogation room was brightly lit, enabling them to see it clearly through the glass. “The prisoner is Ahmed Yasin, whose name you may recognize from several reports written by our colleagues at the CIA.”
Ahmed sat cross-legged on the floor of the interrogation room, ignoring the chairs and table that had been provided for him. He was a stick figure in an orange jumpsuit, skeletally thin because he’d refused to eat or drink for the past two months and had to be force-fed all his meals. The guards had shaved off his hair and beard, and his naked skull resembled a peach that had sat on the shelf for too long. His scalp and face were mottled with bruises, some fresh and purple, some older and yellowing. His hands were cuffed behind his back and his legs were shackled, and yet he looked like he was eager for another battle with the guards. He glowered at the one-way mirror, snarling at the glass, even though all he could see was his own reflection.
Grant pointed at him. “Until a year ago, Ahmed was a driver and courier working for Hassan Mohammed, the leader of Al-Qaeda’s operations in Yemen. The CIA had heard that Hassan was planning an attack against U.S. airliners, so when they captured Ahmed last year they tried like hell to get information out of him, in particular the exact whereabouts of his boss. They subjected him to six months of enhanced interrogation, but it was a waste of time. Ahmed didn’t tell them a thing. He’s a true believer.”
The vice president took a step backward and bit his lower lip. He seemed to be frightened and mesmerized by the sight of the terrorist. The Secret Service agents also seemed uneasy. They co
ughed and cleared their throats and shifted anxiously in the darkness. But Keller and Frazier just stood there, looking unfazed and slightly bored. They’d seen all this before.
Grant moved his hand to another switch on the wall, a dimmer switch. “Then the CIA sent Ahmed to Rikers and my interrogators had a go at him. But we didn’t have any luck either. In fact, Ahmed’s resistance only grew worse. Here, let me show you what this bastard is really like.” He turned the dimmer switch clockwise, slowly turning on the overhead lights in the observation room. “I’m equalizing the light levels in the two rooms. Now Ahmed will be able to see us.”
As the lights came on above them, the optics of the one-way mirror changed. Half of the light from the overheads reflected off the glass, and half passed through it, which meant that the mirror wasn’t one-way anymore. Grant could still see Ahmed, but he could also see the reflections of everyone in the observation room, their translucent figures superimposed over his view of the interrogation room. And Ahmed could see the same thing on the other side of the mirror, his own reflection sharing the glass with the American infidels he despised.
Ahmed’s reaction was instantaneous. He scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the mirror. Because of his restraints, he couldn’t punch or kick the glass, so instead he slammed his forehead against it. He swung his head forward and back, banging it against the hardened pane and moving his lips all the while. Grant flipped another switch that turned on the audio feed from the interrogation room, and then they could hear Ahmed’s voice coming from the overhead speakers. He was screaming curses in Arabic.
After a few seconds, Grant turned off the audio and stepped forward. He stopped right in front of the mirror, less than a yard from the raving prisoner, and gave him the finger. Then he turned around and looked at the vice president. “This, in a nutshell, is the threat we’re facing. Millions of people hate America with an undying passion. How do we fight this kind of enemy?”