“Yes.”
“Good. This might prove interesting. You have academic knowledge of the subject. And my associate and I here have what you might call, empirical knowledge. In fact, we’re imparting that on you now, giving you firsthand experience. But no need to thank us.”
Alyssa took a deep breath and forced herself not to respond.
“I wonder how many academics have actually been tortured,” continued GQ. “Wouldn’t that be a fascinating experiment? Torture an academic who writes poetically about torture not being effective—and see if you can make him reveal information he wouldn’t have otherwise revealed. I guess that would be one way to win a debate on the subject.”
The man smirked at the thought. “So what is the verdict?” he said to Alyssa. “I’d hate to think we’re going about this interrogation incorrectly. Or that it won’t be effective.”
Alyssa noted that Tree Trunk looked annoyed at this digression, since he would have little likelihood of slicing her again soon.
“Torture can be effective,” responded Alyssa. “But it depends on the circumstances. If one knew something specific—”
“Let’s not use the generic word, one,” interrupted GQ. “Why don’t you use first person. Let’s make this more real. And let me confess. While my associate really will work his way down your arm with his makeshift scalpel, he won’t cut your wrist. Dead people don’t answer questions. But he will do something horrible that you can survive. Like taking out an eye. Bursting an eardrum. Slicing off a thumb or two. So base your answers on this specific torture scenario.”
Alyssa swallowed hard and nodded. These men were animals, and she had no doubt they would do everything they promised, and more. Tree Trunk’s work with the exacto knife, and his ecstatic look when he got the chance to use it, was more than enough of a demonstration.
“Okay,” she began, taking a deep breath. “First, let’s take the example of something that really isn’t a secret. My answer to the question you’re posing now, about the effectiveness of torture. You can look it up yourself. So if this were a friendly interrogation, I might lie, just to make you research it yourself. Or I might tell you the truth.”
“But since I’m after innocent, non-secret information, you’re damn sure going to tell the truth to avoid losing an eye? Is this where you’re heading?”
“Yes. Which is why I’m happy to tell you my true opinion on torture.”
“I really am enjoying this,” said GQ. “Two torturers and a torture victim—who has studied torture—having an intellectual discussion on the topic. What could be more fun?” He paused. “So that makes sense. If the information being requested isn’t even secret, torture definitely works. What about information that actually is secret?”
“In this case, if I knew you could easily check the veracity of what I told you, torture, or the threat of torture, would likely get me to divulge it. Where other techniques would not.” She tilted her head and studied his face. “But I’d have to believe you’d keep your word,” she added pointedly, trying to read his body language as she did. “And not torture me anyway. Or kill me.”
“A good point,” said GQ. “I have to be honest with you. I can’t guarantee we won’t kill you after this interrogation. Much will depend on what we learn. My boss will make the final call. But I do think the chances are about ninety percent that if you cooperate, you’ll get out of this alive.” He raised his eyebrows. “And with all of your digits and . . . organs, intact.”
Alyssa continued studying the man she thought of as GQ for several long seconds. Would he really let her go? Was he telling the truth? For some reason her instincts told her he was.
“To continue,” said GQ, breaking the silence. “You said torture would likely get you to divulge information under the last scenario. Why just likely? Why not for sure?”
“If the information would lead to the deaths of people I loved, I still would not tell you. If I knew the location of a nuke, and you tortured me to tell you, so you could use it to destroy a major city, I wouldn’t tell you. No matter what.”
“I see. So some information is worth dying for. While other information . . . not so much.”
Alyssa nodded. “Which brings me to why many say torture is not effective. If I didn’t know where the nuke was, or if I knew but thought this information was worth dying to protect, I would still tell you a location. I would tell you anything to get the torture to stop. Even if the information was false. That’s why torture is mostly ineffective. You get information, but it’s unreliable. You can’t be sure how much of it is garbage.”
“Right,” said GQ thoughtfully. “You never know when you have a Marcus McDilda on your hands.”
Alyssa’s eyes widened, and she was impressed despite herself. This QG seemed suave, smart, and dangerous, but there was more to him even than this. He had just demonstrated that he did his research, and that she needed to be very careful making assumptions as to what he did or did not know. This man would not be easy to fool.
Marcus McDilda was a fighter pilot in World War II. After the US dropped its only two atomic bombs, Japan was still determined not to surrender. But McDilda was a recent prisoner of the Japanese and he was tortured to find out how many more atomic bombs the Allies possessed, and where they might be deployed.
Only a few people in the world had any knowledge of the atomic bomb program, and McDilda was not one of them. He had absolutely no idea the US had used up its entire current supply. Under torture, however, he confessed that the Allies had a hundred bombs, and that Tokyo was to be bombed next, in the next few days. False information that led to Japan’s final capitulation.
“Thank you for giving me straight answers to this pressing academic question,” said GQ. “It was a fascinating digression. But I fear it is time to return to the business at hand.”
He sighed. “You were saying that everything you study is proudly described on your website. But this can’t be true. Innocent university researchers doing harmless work don’t tend to have two military bodyguards and travel around in sedans enhanced with hidden armor. But I’m trying very hard not to take it as a personal insult that you thought there was a chance I might have believed you. So why don’t you tell me who you really are. And what you really do.”
GQ smiled pleasantly. “And then we can see if you get to live another day.”
16
The air in the back of the commercial van had turned stale, and Alyssa swore there was a nasty stench present she couldn’t quite place. Perhaps it was just the stench of malevolence, and it was only in her imagination.
The smile vanished from GQ’s angular face. “Consider your answers very carefully,” he said. “I already know much of what you might tell me. So if you tell me something I know to be a lie, or that is misleading . . .” He trailed off and nodded pointedly at his silent companion, still holding a bloodied exacto knife with ill-disguised impatience. “It would be a mistake. And please note that I’m not going to be asking you the location of a nuclear bomb. So there is no reason for you to be noble and foolish.”
The man may have been pure evil, but he was very, very good, and off-the-charts smart. He was as articulate as anyone she had ever met, and she was almost certain English was a second language. And he had managed the interrogation brilliantly. He had gotten her to intellectualize her situation, and he had demonstrated his cunning. By her own arguments, she should tell him whatever he wanted to know.
GQ waved a hand at her. “So, Alyssa. Let’s try this again. What are you not telling me about your occupation?”
Alyssa sighed in resignation. “I don’t really work for the university,” she said woodenly. “I run a Black Ops science lab under the direction of PsyOps.”
GQ beamed. “Much better,” he said happily. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She glared at him. “Yeah, well don’t get too excited. Be sure your boss knows that the US Black Ops has capabilities he can only begin to imagine. And we get very upset
when one of our own is tortured or killed. It’s like killing a cop. You don’t want to do that because other cops take it very personally. So, if you let me go now, no harm, no foul. Yeah, we’ll be curious about you, but you’ll live a long, healthy life.”
Alyssa shook her head. “But torture me or kill me, and the government will never rest until they find you.” Her lip curled up into a snarl. “And it won’t be pretty when they do.”
GQ simply smiled serenely at her threat. “Thanks for the warning,” he said in his elegant, soft-spoken voice. “But, please, do go on. What do you study in this Black Ops lab of yours?”
Alyssa glared at him again but knew better than to try to withhold this information. “Narco-hypnosis. I have chemists modify known drugs that have psychoactive effects, trying to improve them. Trying to understand how someone can be controlled against their will. So I can prevent this from happening. We know that other countries are working on this, so we need to understand it.”
“But never with the goal of using these techniques yourself, right?”
“Right,” said Alyssa.
For the first time, GQ laughed out loud. “By god, I think you really believe that. You’re demonstrating a facet of human behavior I’m sure you’ve studied. Our capacity for self-delusion.”
Alyssa bristled, but she also knew he could be right. She believed that most in the US government abided by international laws when it came to biological and chemical warfare, interrogation, and narco-hypnosis, but she wasn’t so naive as to refuse to acknowledge that the potential for bastardization did exist.
“So how far have you come?” said GQ, and Alyssa found herself wondering if Tree Trunk could speak. He was clearly little more than a trained Doberman.
“I assume you mean ‘we’ collectively. Mine isn’t the only lab working in this area. There are eight different scientific teams across the country. We study the problem from various angles and pool results.”
“Okay, so how far have you and the other seven labs come?” he amended.
“We’ve made great strides, but not in controlling people. I’ve been thrilled to learn that this doesn’t look possible. Ever. By anyone. Regardless of the drugs used.”
“So even with designer variations of known drugs, you still can’t control others?”
“Right.”
GQ nodded at his silent companion once again.
“No!” screamed Alyssa, but the burly sadist was so quick that another incision was forming a bright red, gushing line on her arm, a short distance from where her blouse had finally stemmed the flow of blood from his earlier handiwork.
“God damnit!” screamed Alyssa through the fresh burst of pain that assaulted her. “I’m telling you the truth! You’ve convinced me. I’d be stupid to lie in this situation. So hook me up to a fucking lie detector. If you won’t believe the truth, you’ll force me to invent lies you will believe.”
GQ thought about this for a moment. He shrugged. “You’ll need to convince me further, but I’m willing to accept that you’re cooperating for now. But if this last was a mistake on my part, it’s a minor one. Little more than exaggerated paper cut really. Just to get your attention.”
GQ’s face hardened. “When I’m really convinced you’re lying to me, you’ll know it. When you no longer have opposable thumbs. But rest assured, if that were to occur, we’d make sure to cauterize the wound so you’d stay alive for further questioning.” He waved a hand toward her, palm up, as though giving her the stage. “But please. Continue. Convince me.”
Alyssa described the many exaggerations associated with hypnosis, and that a human mind was extremely resistant to being controlled in this way. She explained that ninety to ninety-five percent of the population was susceptible to being hypnotized, and that within this group, a wide range of susceptibility existed. And that the susceptibility of the person being hypnotized was the key factor in the success of the procedure, not the expertise of the hypnotist.
Hypnosis was in some ways a dream state, in the sense that logic was no longer paramount. In a dream, she explained, a person’s mind was creating the dream, but at the same time that person was not consciously aware of what would come next. As though two different people were involved, one creating the dream, and one watching it.
The same applied to those who had been hypnotized. When a hypnotist told a subject to hold out her arm, and that it was getting heavier and heavier, her arm would fall. Of course the subject was controlling her own arm. But even so, she really did believe her arm was being forced down, outside of her control. Just like in a dream, she was controlling it, but also observing it as a spectator. As was the case during the dream state, hypnosis placed a wall between the conscious and subconscious.
GQ was brilliant, and asked probing questions, but Alyssa told him nothing but the truth. She made sure to cite research that she knew was too detailed for her to have made up on the spot. She believed that she was finally able to convince him that she was playing it straight. The fact that she hadn’t been backhanded or cut by Tree Trunk was a good indication of this.
“So you’re saying that hypnotic trances are real,” said GQ. “That even without your drugs to induce a trance, subjects aren’t just faking it, correct?”
Alyssa nodded. “Willing, susceptible subjects really do fall into a genuine trance. You can prove it experimentally.”
“How?”
“Send subjects to a hypnotist one at a time. Tell some in private not to let themselves be hypnotized—but to fake it. After a trance is initiated in each case, have the hypnotist indicate he needs to leave the room for ten minutes. Then use a hidden camera to observe what happens to each subject when they think they’re alone.
“Those told beforehand to fake a hypnotic trance will immediately drop the pretense the moment the hypnotist leaves. They’ll fidget. Sit down. Check their cell phones. And so on. The ones in an actual trance will remain in a trance, coming out of it gradually.” She paused to let him draw the proper conclusions. “If they were faking also, they would have reacted the same way the known fakers did.”
GQ nodded thoughtfully. “An ingenious experiment,” he said. He rubbed his chin. “What about trigger words? Are they real? Can you trigger someone to start singing when they hear a certain word, for example?”
“Post hypnotic suggestions can work, yes. But you can’t hypnotize people to do something against their will, or even embarrass themselves. They have to be absolutely willing. Hypnosis can’t transcend volitional capacity.”
“And you’re telling me hypnosis is just as useless with the host of drugs you use as it was before?”
“First of all, it isn’t useless. Even without our advanced drugs and techniques. It can benefit those who are hypnotizable and willing. Those who want to quit smoking, for instance. It would be used in this way more often, but there is a powerful negative stigma associated with it. It isn’t taken seriously by many in the medical community, who believe it’s a sham.” Alyssa paused. “And we have improved upon it. Greatly. With drugs, we can make a hundred percent of the population hypnotizable. And all of them very strongly so, instead of demonstrating a wide range of susceptibility.”
Alyssa went on to explain that most of her progress was in using narco-hypnosis to enhance the placebo effect. If the mind believed a pill would work to alleviate pain or reduce inflammation, even if the pill were a sham—a sugar pill—these outcomes would still occur.
The power of the placebo effect was shocking, still not completely understood, and demonstrated the mind had capabilities that were not readily apparent. And the effect wasn’t limited to pills. Osteoarthritis patients who received arthroscopic surgery, during which their joints were flushed out and cartilage removed, showed marked improvement. But patients for whom the surgery was faked showed the same degree of improvement.
In a study of patients after oral surgery, half received ultrasound—known to reduce pain and inflammation—and half only thought they had. Both t
he real and phony procedures reduced pain, and even swelling.
The power of the subconscious mind was immense. And inexplicable.
And the placebo effect was growing stronger. The pharmaceutical industry was a victim of its own successes. The more magic-seeming pills the industry developed, the more faith people had in the power of the pill. So when drug trials were conducted for new therapies, and the actual medicine was tested against a placebo—a sugar pill—the placebo effect was off the charts. The more faith people had that the fake pill would actually cure them, the more it did.
In drug trials, the rates of improvement for patients given a sugar pill was often many times the historical rate of improvement in the general patient population. Drugs were failing to get approval, not because they didn’t show a powerful healing effect, but because the subconscious minds of those given fake pills were able to suddenly heal the condition just as powerfully.
And the evidence had become overwhelming. The placebo response had been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as settled fact for some time. The more the mind believed something was true, the more likely it was able to make it come true.
“Our greatest triumph,” explained Alyssa, “is that we’ve been able to greatly enhance and strengthen the placebo effect—which was already powerful. We’re able to really nail it down. Really imprint in the subconscious mind that a treatment will be effective.”
“So that’s it? That’s everything?” said GQ.
“If you were able to gain access to my computer and all my notes, this is basically what you’d find. In far greater detail, of course.”
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