by John Altman
A staircase led down. Noble took it carefully, leaving the hidden door ajar—Finney noted a formidable-looking dead bolt on the inside of that door—and holding tightly onto a banister.
“Zattout’s been here for twelve days,” Noble said over his shoulder. “All of them in his little basement cell. As far as he knows, there isn’t any house at all. All he sees is his cell. Four times a day he’s interrogated, for two hours at a stretch. We’ve been treating him well. No drugs, three square meals. As the interrogation goes on, he may find his comfort level diminishing; but for now, he’s got nothing to complain about.”
The space into which they descended was lit by a wire-caged bulb in the ceiling, furnished with one table—a tape recorder sat on it, spools unrolling—three empty chairs, and a one-way mirror. Through the mirror was Zattout’s cell.
The man was sitting on a cot: tall and gaunt, with a full black beard and long, attenuated fingers that moved deftly to describe his words. Another man sat facing him on a bare-backed wooden chair. Except for the cot, the chair, a bare bulb, and a toilet and a sink, the cell was empty.
The words themselves were inaudible. Noble moved to the table and flicked a red switch on a small box. A speaker mounted in one ceiling corner came to life:
“—no more than one at any given time. The brother has been instructed to memorize all information that may possibly be pertinent—”
“Pertinent?” the interrogator interrupted.
“Name, profession, place of residence … place and date of birth, local dialects, local sights …”
“I see.”
“As I said—to be entrusted with this responsibility, the brother must be fifteen years old. But often the younger ones are overly eager. They elaborate too much—”
Noble flicked the switch again; the voice cut off. “First impressions?”
Finney moved closer to the one-way mirror and watched for a few moments as the man gestured.
“He certainly talks with his hands,” he said then.
“Mm.”
“He’s an externalizer. He needs attention. That doesn’t necessarily reflect, of course, on whether or not he lies to get the attention.”
“Mm.”
Finney kept watching. His hand moved to his pocket and began to toy with the doubloon.
“A role adaptive individual. A flexible personality, and a charismatic one.”
“I’d agree.”
“Have you given him the Wechsler?”
“Yes. But I haven’t yet found a chance—”
The words were lost in a sudden coughing fit. Finney looked over. Noble was pressing one hand over his mouth, trying to stifle himself. The pose made Finney think of Susan Franklin. Suddenly he felt very weary.
Noble held his hand over his mouth for several seconds, removed it, and found Finney’s eyes.
Finney said nothing.
Noble straightened. “Let’s have some lunch,” he said formally. “Then we can introduce you to Tom Warren, the case officer in charge. He must be around here somewhere.”
He turned to move back up the staircase, shuffling slower than ever. For a moment, Finney thought the man would be unable to climb the stairs without help. He held a hand ready. But Noble found it within himself to make the ascent, moving painstakingly but doggedly. Finney gave him time to gain some distance, then slowly followed.
They found Thomas Warren II in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cell phone to his ear. He was an agency man of the type Finney remembered from the old days: Ivy League, Waspish, with a square-jawed face, bright blue eyes, and carefully groomed blond hair. When Noble and Finney emerged from the pantry, he looked up. “Good,” he said into the phone. “Let me get back to you.”
He stood, then gave Finney’s hand two energetic pumps. “Doctor. Your reputation precedes you. I’m very much looking forward to working together.”
Finney bowed his head.
“If there’s anything you need,” Warren said with a plastic smile, “I’m the man to see. You’ll never mistake this place for a four-star hotel—but there’s no reason to be more uncomfortable than necessary. And don’t believe a thing Dr. Noble might have said about me. Lies, all lies.”
A secret joke passed right before Finney’s face. Noble smirked narrowly. “I’m afraid I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“So I’ve got a clean slate?” Warren turned his smile up a notch, then abruptly let it fall away. “Well,” he said, checking his watch. “Have you gentlemen had lunch?”
The school bus pulled away with a hydraulic hiss.
The stranger’s car, Sonya Jacobs noticed, was gone. Had he checked out already?
She frowned. After a moment she shouldered her backpack and moved toward the front office.
Her mother was behind the desk. “Maria called in sick,” she said without looking up. “You’ll need to take care of housekeeping today.”
Sonya pulled a face.
“And get that look off your face,” her mother said.
Sonya stuck out her tongue, then moved through the office, into the apartment she shared with her family. She set down the backpack on her lower bunk, went into the bathroom, and washed. She considered her reflection in the mirror, fingering her latest earring—the fourth in her right ear. The earring couldn’t seem to decide whether or not to become infected. After a moment, she decided it was okay for now. She left the apartment and went to find the linen cart.
The low hills surrounding Sleepy Hollow were rustling with spring: insects and squirrels and chirruping birds, leaves flicking in a slow wind. If she could get the housekeeping done quickly enough, perhaps she could manage to get into the hills for a few minutes before the sun went down. Her favorite secret spot, by a creek that cascaded down from Devil’s Peak, would be in full bloom on a day like today. And she had more than half a pack of cigarettes, hidden between her mattress and box spring, just waiting for her to get to them.
Only three rooms on the first floor were occupied. She handled them quickly, changing the sheets and towels, restocking the miniature shampoos and soaps in the bathrooms. Then she wheeled the cart to the elevator and rode it up to the second floor. Here were only two more rooms that required attention. Then she would be done, and out into the hills.
Room twenty-two belonged to the man who had arrived the day before. She rapped twice on the door. “Housekeeping,” she called.
But his car was gone, of course. Checked out or not, the man wasn’t here. She let herself in with the passkey.
The bed hardly seemed to have been used. When Sonya woke up, each morning, she found her blanket kicked into a tangle on the floor. Her sister, who slept in the top bunk, often complained about the tossing and turning. But this man seemed to sleep soundly, or not to have used the bed at all.
She changed the sheets and moved into the bathroom. He had limited himself to a single towel, which hung neatly folded from the rack. She replaced it, then made a quick circuit of the main room with a feather duster.
A bag was tucked into a corner near the desk: small, made of black leather. So he had decided to stay for another day, at least. She looked at the bag, then looked away. She went on with her dusting.
Just as she was preparing to leave, she looked at the bag again.
A poet? Or a terrorist?
Her mouth quirked.
She looked around as if someone might be watching. Then she moved, quickly and stealthily, to the bag. She knelt beside it and reached for the zipper.
You shouldn’t do this, she thought.
It was what she always thought when going through a guest’s luggage. Not that she did it that often. But she had done it before, and she had done it with guests about whom she was far less curious.
Before reaching into the bag she took careful note of how the items were arranged, so she would be able to hide the evidence of her snooping. On top was a folder and a passport. Below them were clothes: a few items, mostly black. A pair of corduroys, a T-sh
irt, and a curious dark tunic. As her hands touched the tunic, she felt something unexpected—a strange hardness, as if something had been sewn into the material.
She lifted it out. In one sleeve of the loose garment was a handful of small metal bars. Yet they were not decorative, for they were on the inside. She frowned. What was the point of sewing something into the sleeve of the tunic?
Below the tunic was something else. She saw a glint of metal. She reached into the bag again—
—and then she realized that someone was standing behind her.
The man had come into the room without making a sound. He was looking at her with cold black eyes.
Sonya stood. Suddenly her knees felt weak; but when she spoke, her voice was steady.
“There you are,” she said. “We’ve got a little bit of a mouse problem. I wanted to make sure your bag, um …”
He kept looking at her.
“Everything looks okay,” she finished lamely. “Well. I’ll just get out of your way.”
She moved forward, toward the door.
As she drew closer, she found her arms coming up to hug her torso. She had the feeling this man might hurt her, as she stepped past him. Then she was slipping out, buttonhooking hastily to the right before she remembered the cart.
She stopped and turned. The cart was parked outside the room. The man was still there, still looking at her.
She moved back, smiling sheepishly. “Forgot my cart,” she said.
He said nothing.
Sonya put her hands on the cart, turned again, and began to wheel it away. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. There was no need. She could feel the eyes burning into her back.
When she reached the elevator, she pushed the button. The doors seemed to take forever to open.
He watched the girl move into the elevator, and watched the doors close. Then he stepped into his room, pulling the door shut behind him.
It was nothing. Just a teenaged girl, no doubt bored out of her skull, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. She snooped around as a matter of course, no doubt, thanks to her boredom.
She suspected nothing.
Calm.
He twisted the lock, took a moment, and then sat on the floor. He relaxed his shoulders, straightening his back. Closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind. Meditation would calm him.
He clicked his teeth together gently, thirty-six times, feeling the tension drain away. No cause for alarm, he thought.
He knew his target’s whereabouts. Thanks to a mole in the enemy’s own ranks, he knew the design of the safe house, the security measures, the lay of the surrounding land. Soon enough, it would be finished.
Soon.
Calm.
3
“Last night,” Thomas Warren said soberly.
He hesitated, letting the news sink in. “Pneumonia,” he said, and then let that sink in as well.
Finney propped himself up on one elbow. It was a hell of a way to wake up, he thought—somewhat ungraciously, he realized in the next moment.
“The hospital’s about twenty miles away,” Warren continued after a suitable pause. “We should find time to pay a visit tonight, I think. If not tonight, tomorrow. He’ll be there for several days, at least.”
Finney nodded remotely.
“In the meantime, there’s work to be done here. I’ll give you a few minutes to wake up. When you feel ready, please join me downstairs.” He paused again. “I feel certain Dr. Noble would want us to press ahead,” he added.
For another moment he sat, feigning deep thoughts. Then he brightened, clapped a hand onto Finney’s leg, and left the room.
Finney remained in bed, looking out the window. He wanted to lie back down, pull the covers above his head, and stay in bed for a day—a week—until the end of time.
Instead, he took five minutes. The day seemed determined to move ahead, with or without Arthur Noble here to see it. A bird chattered outside the window—a piping plover, calling peep-lo, peep-lo.
At last, Finney put his legs over the side of the bed.
Before answering the question, Zattout considered. The long attenuated fingers of his right hand slid around the rim of a drinking glass, thoughtfully.
When he began to speak, Finney had trouble focusing. He was thinking of Noble, of the brief telephone conversation they’d had following breakfast. Noble had sounded disoriented, perhaps drugged, his voice a deep and rumbling bass. When Finney had promised an imminent visit, he hadn’t seemed to understand the offer, let alone provide encouragement.
Finney’s hand moved for the doubloon in his pocket. But there was little solace to be taken there.
“… you and Dr. Noble worked in the field of disassociative disorders,” Warren was saying. “Is that correct?”
Finney blinked. He nodded.
“A separate personality may be created,” Warren continued, “and then submerged, to be activated later by post-hypnotic suggestion. Is that the idea?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“And the primary personality would have no knowledge of the secondary one. A devoted patriot might suddenly be turned off, like a light switch being hit; and the secondary personality who emerged might be a saboteur, or an assassin.”
“That’s correct. In theory.”
“So perhaps Zattout doesn’t even know that he’s lying. That’s why he passed the polygraph.”
Finney didn’t answer. He turned back to the window.
Breakfast was sitting in his stomach like a rock. At first, he hadn’t thought he’d be able to eat at all. How could one consume breakfast with one’s mentor in the hospital, with time to offer forgiveness quickly running out? The answer had turned out to be simple. One put food in one’s mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
One could do a great many things, he had discovered, when put to the test. As his presence here, now, confirmed.…
He thought of Lila. We’re at war, Louis.
And they had been at war during the Susan Franklin experiments, he supposed. It had been a cold war, but a war nevertheless. At the time, the specter of mind control had seemed not only real but terrifying.
The fears had started in the early 1950s—more precisely, in 1949. That was the year that the Hungarian government had publicly tried a man named Josef Mindszenty for treason. As Mindszenty (Finney had taken some ironic pleasure from the name) had confessed, he had exhibited peculiar, disassociated traits. The lack of intonation in his voice and the glassy look in his eyes had brought to mind the comportment of other “criminals” who had given similarly unconvincing confessions, during postwar trials across Eastern Europe.
Then there were the U.S. prisoners of war who had escaped from North Korea and passed through the Soviet Union, on their way home, who had exhibited amnesia about a certain portion of their journey—in Manchuria. This had led to speculation that the men may have been conditioned, during that mysterious blank period, by the communists. And if the communists had mastered mind control, then Americans needed to do the same.
The initial project had been code-named BLUEBIRD. As the years wore on, BLUEBIRD had become ARTICHOKE. By the time Finney and Noble had come aboard, in the 1960s, ARTICHOKE had been absorbed into MKULTRA. Tests had been conducted on prisoners, soldiers, and mental patients around the world. The Hippocratic Oath had been thrown cheerfully over the side by the doctors who had participated, yes; but they had done what they thought was best, for the sake of their country and the world.
Yet even at the time, Finney had known they were doing wrong. Susan Franklin had not been an enemy.
Warren was making a note on a pad. Finney brought himself back to the present, making himself concentrate.
For now, he was only observing. That he could live with. If it went further …
… but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
He returned his attention to the man on the other side of the glass.
The world sleeps most deeply between three and
five A.M.
At twenty minutes past two, the assassin let himself out of his motel room. The night was drizzly, moonless—perfect for his needs.
He wore a black tunic, but left the small black bag behind, along with his identification. If he were caught driving without a license, it might present a problem. Yet he would rather risk that than risk having his cover identity compromised.
Simon Christopher was as good a name as any. At the temple, his name had been little mouse—a title he always had resented. In a way, he already had begun to think of himself as Simon Christopher. It was a solid name, a man’s name, with no implication of little.
He moved silently down the concrete walkway outside his room; the motel slumbered around him. He took the stairwell lightly, a shadow among shadows.
In the parking lot, he approached the coupe. He slipped behind the wheel and then waited for the rain to pick up, covering sound. When it did, he keyed the ignition. He waited until he was on the road to switch on the headlights.
He drove.
Sonya Jacobs crept into the drizzle, shivering.
She pulled the sweater more tightly around her body, pressing herself into the recessed doorway by the front office. Then she took out her pack of cigarettes and put one into her mouth. She had needed the cigarette—her body had woken her up with the need.
Being addicted to nicotine made Sonya feel very grown-up. Of course, she was not yet doing it exactly right. She smoked only three or four cigarettes a day, whenever she could find the time and the privacy. But she was working on it. Soon she would be smoking half a pack a day, even a pack. She could imagine the look on her mother’s face when she realized that her daughter had become a smoker.
If her mother caught her smoking now, however, there would be hell to pay. So she ducked farther back into the shadows as she struck a match, and tried to be as quiet as possible.
In a few months she would graduate. A few months after that, she would be at college. Then she would be able to give her burgeoning habit the attention it deserved. When her parents came to visit her, at college, they would find a sophisticated young woman who smoked long, elegant cigarettes—not Marlboros, the brand she had now, which she had stolen from Jimmy Batterberry at a party the weekend before. Virginia Slims, she thought. That was what she would smoke. Did Virginia Slims come in menthol? It would be something so grown-up she couldn’t even picture it now.