“Come here, let me see if you are lying,” Reid said in disbelief. He looked especially sharp in his navy suit against the white marble. I gladly walked over to him and gave him my hand but shook my head.
“Reid, I couldn’t even make this stuff up. It is too horrible. Vlad Dune looks different, but it is the hate he exudes that makes him revolting.” I continued to hold Reid’s hand. It made at least a small part of myself feel safe and warm.
“Your two-faced comment gave me an idea. Have you ever heard that rumor the sculptor of Lincoln put General Lee’s face behind Lincoln’s so he could face his old home, Arlington House?”
“Noooo. Can’t say that I have. And I have lived here my whole life!” I protested.
“Come on, let’s check. As you said, I can’t make this stuff up.” We walked to the enormous statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting on his massive marble throne. Sure enough, a profile that looked like a second face seemed to be emerging from the carving of the statue’s hair.
“Wow,” I uttered. “Good call.” At the base of Lincoln’s neck there was a small piece of paper. It was attached to an almost invisible line of string that dangled over our heads. There was a small black disk attached. “How are we going to get that? The guards would flip out if we tried to scale it. Plus, it is also broad daylight.”
“Don’t worry, I think I’ve got this.” Reid rubbed his hands together and held it near the small disk. It flew into his hand like magic. “It’s a magnet. That was one of my favorite party tricks when I was a kid. I didn’t know why I was magnetic until recently but it has come in very handy.” Reid gave me a sly grin and wrapped me in a bear hug. It felt good to be close to him again—too good.
“I’m not even going to try and guess what you are thinking about. I am too busy working here. Let’s see the next clue.” I kept walking to get a breath of fresh air. I couldn’t believe he could make me forget to breathe, even after all this time.
“OK, Taskmaster. Three young brothers show the face of loyalty as they gaze upon the reflective sea of names,” Reid read aloud. “Reflective sea of names. That sounds like the Vietnam Memorial. That would be in keeping with the war theme. We’ve done World War II, the Civil War, and so the Vietnam War also seems to fit. Each location seems to be in the shadow of war and death but representative of something that goes beyond it.”
When we got to the wall, Reid didn’t have to convince me we were in the right location. A short distance away from the Vietnam Memorial was a bronze statue named The Three Soldiers. The soldiers were European American, African American, and Hispanic American—they represented every American. Their unity was palpable. They were a team. The statue figures looked at the names on the wall with reverence but counted on each other not to be among them. They were the survivors who had to carry on.
Reid was right; Dr. West was highlighting the themes of war and what reached beyond the shadow of death. My instincts were right as well. We were nothing without humanity. The clue was by the Marine’s boot.
Reid climbed over the shrubs around the figures. The traffic on nearby Independence Avenue picked up as the light changed. I heard the diesel engine of a tour bus behind us.
Reid opened up the next clue. “Hungry for the rest of the answers? A saloon by the Smithsonian holds them and your lunch.”
Reid knew by the smile on my face I knew where we were going.
Chapter Nineteen: The Answers
“Old Ebbitt Grill was originally a saloon. It’s my favorite downtown restaurant and the best place to people watch,” I said to Reid as we walked back to the car under the gray sky. The sidewalks were crowded since it was nearing one o’clock in the afternoon and everyone working in the city was out for their lunch break.
“Old Ebbitt! I love that place. Tony, the maitre d’, has been there forever. It is only two blocks from my dad’s office. We used to walk by the White House on the way over there. Good thing we only need to get over to Fifteenth Street,” Reid said as he unlocked the car doors. I was looking forward to sitting down for a bit. My boots were starting to hurt my feet. They looked great, but high heels were a poor choice for a scavenger hunt.
In no time, we were pushing our way through the revolving door into the restaurant. Tony told us that our party was waiting for us under the White House painting.
“Be prepared to see a ghost,” I said to Reid under my breath. I was certain we would be seeing Dr. West in a moment. The long mahogany bar was packed for the lunch rush. It was too crowded to find anyone in here. Good thing we could look up at the mural on the wall as a guide. We headed to the left side of the restaurant and promptly found Dr. West and Dr. Cohen.
“It’s about time!” Dr. West joked. “We were starting to get worried about you, not to mention hungry!” Dr. West had shaved his beard. He was in a casual Polo shirt and khaki pants. I slid into the booth next to him. He put his arm around me and gave me a heartfelt hug.
“You feel too warm to be dead,” I said sarcastically. I suddenly felt slightly annoyed at the ruse. I wished he had trusted me. Why didn't he tell me his plan?
“You’re right. I’ve been reborn! It’s me, only better!” he teased. He pushed the breadbasket toward me. “OK, OK. I’ll stop. You’re probably hungry and cranky. Did you remember to eat breakfast? I know how you get, Whitney! This has been a busy couple of days.”
Dr. Cohen looked at me sympathetically. I couldn’t tell if his soft expression was because I was being bombarded with Dr. West’s good humor or if I just looked as tired as I felt. The waitress came over and asked if we would like to order or if we needed more time. Reid mentioned his peanut allergy and asked her if the entree he wanted was peanut free to be safe. Dr. West did the same.
“First, let me say, it was a very moving service today. You should use it again next time. The Washington Cathedral and Arlington were quite a double-whammy. Did you plan it all yourself?” Reid joked to lighten the mood. “Whitney didn’t believe it for a second, of course. I wasn’t so sure. Helga was pretty upset.” Reid was right. Helga was upset. I wondered if she didn’t know at the time it was not true. If that was the case, my feelings were a little less bruised. Dr. West had kept his scheme airtight. He must have been worried Helga could have been under surveillance.
“Yes, Reginald. Not a dry eye in the house. Except for Carson and Vlad, I think. But that’s to be expected,” Dr. Cohen added. He settled back against the green velvet seat, slightly uncomfortable in his suit jacket. His bushy gray hair stood out against the dark background. The silver frames of his glasses reflected the diffused light of the lamp on near the table.
“Oh yes, my two favorite diabolical masterminds and the necessary cause of this charade. Don’t worry, Whitney, I promised you answers in the last clue and you will get them. Stop sulking. I couldn’t tell you everything because too much depended on you already. I knew you would pull it off—it was not a matter of trust. It was a matter of focus. Also, I wanted to see if you and Reid could work well together as a team. Mainly, I needed to see if you would allow yourself to trust him,” Dr. West rambled. I now wished Dr. West would stop talking as my face turned red. I didn’t anticipate answers would involve me.
“But to answer your question, Reid. No, I did not plan it all myself. The cathedral’s reverend is an old friend of mine. He had some insight on what moved people. “The Prayer of Saint Francis” was my idea at the burial. I’ve always liked it and I thought it might be helpful with the birthday card clue,” Dr. West concluded. I took a breath of relief that I escaped further comment and scrutiny. I folded my arms and crossed my legs as I sat back into the booth. The restaurant was full of light khaki trench coats, dark suits, and uproarious conversation.
“Well, back to the land of the living. Whitney and Reid have made it safely here and obviously solved our little scavenger hunt. Was there anything particularly difficult about it? Any questions?” Dr. Cohen asked. He seemed to be slipping back into his M.I.T. physics professor mode. His face looked di
sappointed when we shook our heads no. It had been fairly easy and self-explanatory.
“What was the reasoning behind the scavenger hunt, exactly?” I asked. I didn’t like feeling like a guinea pig or that I needed to be tested. It seemed like there should have been an easier way to see if Reid and I could work together. “Wasn’t that a bit over the top?”
“We thought it would look like you were doing a school project. Reg, of course, had to make it a growth experience as well…” Dr. Cohen laughed at the psychology reference and I laughed with him.
“Go ahead. Laugh away. I’m sorry if it seemed extraneous but there were legitimate safety concerns. The truth is, we are on the cusp of no laughing matter. We did it to make sure no one was tailing you,” Dr. West said with seriousness. The tone of the conversation changed. I heard a noisy clattering of dishes from somewhere in the restaurant.
“Is that why you referenced the three wars? Are you saying we are really dangerously close to the brink of another?” Reid asked, leaning into the table over the white tablecloth.
There was only one kind of war we all feared and that was a nuclear one.
“That’s exactly what I am saying. Whitney, I assume Reid filled you in that Carson and I were once engaged?”
I nodded in answer to his question. I couldn’t help but wonder how Dr. West could not have known she was vile. She reeked of ambition, greed, and callousness. Besides, he was a psychologist with precognitive abilities. I knew better than anyone that precognitive aspect was not easy to control, but with his double degrees and common sense it seemed like a no brainer.
“Your furrowed brow says it all, Whitney. What can I say? She was not always as she seems now. Carson was bright, funny, and successful. We shared the same interests and hobbies: running, movies, and travel,” Dr. West answered my unspoken thoughts. “I didn’t realize until it was almost too late, her insatiable hunger for power and achievement would blind her to everything else in her life. Certainly, I knew she liked to be admired and to stand out. That did not make her very different than a lot of other bright people who were in our social circle. Eventually, I realized she was using me so she could access my research data. I destroyed the research and ended the relationship. Two mistakes I hope to never make again.”
I could hear the undercurrent of sadness in his voice. He had loved her. I nodded slowly as I understood why he did not see it.
“It was not your fault, Reg. As you said, she targeted you but she targeted you because she thought you were the best. She had enormous respect for you. If it was not you, it would have been someone else who would have given up a lot more information,” Dr. Cohen reasoned.
Dr. West shrugged. The validation was of little consequence to him. I knew he regretted not knowing sooner. It was one of the burdens of precognition—whenever you didn’t know something valuable ahead of time, you wondered how you missed it.
“What Whitney and Reid need to know about her is that she has set world domination in her sights. She thinks once she has the most powerful substance on the planet some of its worth will transfer to her and that she will finally feel fulfillment. Carson Noir needs a crowning achievement to feel alive. It is her reason for living and she will stop at nothing to get it,” Dr. West explained.
I thought about the look on Carson’s face when the chaplain gave me the flag from the coffin and the fact that she had attended the burial. She was there as a competitor for the flag. Carson knew whoever received it was the person Dr. West had considered his closest family member.
It seemed delusional to me that she thought there was a chance she would have gotten the flag after their broken engagement. Then I realized…she was competing for Dr. West’s affection with me and I had won. It was another insult. I wondered if Dr. West realized that perhaps Carson did love him—in her own way. That it was not as one-sided as he thought.
It became clearer to me why my lack of recognition of her in the receiving line was a weapon in itself. It was not Helga’s choice to do it. She was following Dr. West’s directive since he knew how to psychologically undermine her. It promoted her self-doubt by suggesting she was irrelevant. Mr. Parks said self-doubt could defeat you before any fight. It was the worst enemy of the mind.
“Is she narcissistic?” Reid asked from across the table. He was trying to get a handle on her psychological profile.
“Unfortunately, no. Carson is a megalomaniac. She wants to be powerful and feared more than charming and loved, just like the other lunatics in our history books. She has no fear of the grandiose—that is what she desires. Carson has her own sense of destiny and surrounds herself with the likes of Vlad Dune who flatter and feed it. Add in her extraordinary intelligence and we have quite a monster on our hands,” Dr. West coldly said as he gave his clinical diagnosis. His grave tone of voice conveyed that he thought she was a serious threat and had a reasonable chance of success.
“The reason there was no advanced notice of my untimely death was because Carson Noir’s promotion was a bit hasty last week. The previous CIA director, George Penshaw, had a massive heart attack and we at least expected an interim appointment. Carson’s actual promotion showed us how much she had politically in place inside the organization—my death was a necessary diversion to upset her transition. It allowed for some things to disappear,” Dr. West continued in a low voice. His deep voice managed to carry across the table but the din of the restaurant was still loud. At least there was no way anyone could overhear us. “Most importantly, the disappearance of a container of pure energy. A small vial of it has been contained in a nuclear reactor in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. It is now in the much safer custody of members of Sunrise.”
“What is pure energy? I only know it as part of the lyrics of an annoying pop song,” Reid scoffed. He sat back in the booth. I noticed he had loosened his tie. For the first time, I saw the tie’s small anchor pattern on the silk. Another discreet nod to the Poseidon Program. Helga had not missed a detail.
“Pure energy is a clean and constant energy. To be able to produce pure energy in a laboratory would represent one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world. It would be on par with the discovery of fire,” Dr. Cohen explained. “In Einstein’s E equals MC squared, he figured out that matter and energy are never lost because they cannot be destroyed. This is our building block that pure energy does exist—we just need to find it. It is the greatest scientific quest of all time.” Dr. Cohen became animated with excitement as he talked about his favorite subject. His hand looked like it longed for a chalkboard as he wrote Einstein’s equation in thin air.
I tried to figure out what exactly Dr. Cohen was talking about. I understood the value of finding a powerful, new energy system. I vaguely remembered the energy crisis of the 1970s. My dad railed that we were too dependent on oil to sustain ourselves and that it gave other countries too much power over us. He thought the gas crisis would make America rethink the way we used fuel but nothing happened.
“Basically, whatever country can extract pure energy will be the most powerful country in the world. The discovery of unlimited energy would almost instantly revolutionize society. Big oil would no longer exist and it would change the Middle East crisis forever. It would be the easiest way to dominate the rest of the world,” Dr. West said quietly. I could see he was nervous about something. He was lightly tapping his spoon on the table.
“I thought you said you have a vial of it. Doesn’t this mean it has been discovered?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer if it was making Dr. West anxious. He always seemed so calm. Was it making him nervous to be in possession of something that could vault the United States into the position of the indisputable superpower?
“Yes. We have it. The trouble is in how it was produced. That’s what is troubling me, Whitney. This tiny vial of pure energy came at great cost. It was the unfortunate result of an experiment gone terribly wrong.
“In 1979, Clarion was testing out a theory that Stephen and I h
ypothesized. We thought psychic information traveled on an invisible wavelength that tapped into pure energy. One of the ‘strings’ of Stephen’s string theory of physics, if you will.
“We thought if we could isolate the wavelength, we could isolate the pure energy. Instead of capturing the wavelength as we expected, it captured pure energy and killed the subject in the experiment. The subject was a friend and one of my patients. We would have never tried the experiment if we had any idea he was in any danger.”
“Then how did you end up with pure energy? If you didn’t get the wavelength?” Reid asked. He cocked his head to the side as if he was trying to adjust his hearing.
“The experiment did prove that energy could not be created or destroyed—only transferred. The psychic who was participating in the experiment died because the life force that sustained him was transferred from his body into the vial.”
“Are you talking about his soul? Doesn’t that mean anyone could be transferred into pure energy?” I interrupted. I was hoping that was the answer. I was starting to get alarmed this might be something unique to psychics. It felt like a tidal wave had appeared out of nowhere on the horizon.
“Unfortunately, no. It is not a soul or something present in the general population. The reason psychics have their ability is because they can access pure energy wavelengths. They have a different genetic makeup.”
“Wait a minute. Did you just say psychics have a different genetic makeup?” I asked, trying not to stammer.
“Yes. Some of them do. It makes them an extremely valuable commodity and one worth more dead than alive. It was an unexpected and devastating outcome. The experiment has set up an entire population for potential doom. One that Carson Noir will hunt down.” Dr. West slammed down the spoon he was tapping in frustration. “I will never forgive myself that I didn’t have any inkling of this. I know what you are going to say, Whitney, but that is also why you will understand.”
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