While they waited for Oona and her attorney, as well as word on Merriwhether, Carly sat sipping coffee as he brought Diane up to date on his talk with Dave and Damien's confession. Slowly the conversation ebbed to silence and they sat quietly, the occasional touching of hands the only communication. The highs of the day’s events, coupled with the most hectic week of Carly's life, and the sweet peace of being with Diane allowed the professor the luxury of falling asleep. Diane sat vigilantly while he slept, awaiting a call from Sully.
Confused as he awoke in the cold drab interrogation room, Carly tried to clear his head and remember where he was. So many naps in so many venues in the last few days made it nearly impossible for him to get his bearings.
“It's me Carly,” Diane said softly, smiling down at the groggy figure. “You dozed off. It's been nearly two hours.”
Trying not to mumble, as he cleared his dry throat,
“Is she here yet?”
“Yes, we've got Oona. As far as we can tell Merriwhether is gone and she doesn't know where he is. Sully believes her too. We've got units out looking for him, but we haven't done an all-points bulletin. Like I said before an ABP would surely spook the Chief, and I'm not ready to do that, at least not yet.”
“Have you talked with her?”
“No, only Sully has. She told him Merriwhether got a phone call late last night. He told her it was an emergency at the lab and left. She hasn't seen him since and I think she’s scared. I've got a feeling she not going to be seeing him in the near future. Who knows though? Maybe we'll get lucky.”
“Let's go talk to the good doctor. I'd like to fill her in on what I know, maybe show her the file.”
“She's going to be surprised seeing you. Sully said she seems remarkably okay, sitting pretty quietly. I don't know if she's arrogant or just stoic. I might have been wrong, maybe she won't talk. She's got her lawyer with her. We insisted she bring him in, as this one will be a textbook interrogation.”
She looked grim as she pressed the point, “It has to be, we cannot afford to screw this up. Plus, we are going to want to make a deal, we'll want her to have counsel on it, just to be safe. Maybe she'll tell us all about Merriwhether.”
A worried look passed over his face, as he asked,
“What if she won’t talk?”
“The District Attorney’s office has a deal for her: immunity from prosecution and witness protection. I think she will go for it, after all you can link her to Dombrowski and that should scare her enough to cooperate.”
It was just what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to hang Oona anyway, forcing her out of her witchcraft science was good enough for Carly. “Well let's find out,” he said almost merrily, the sleep completely gone from his mind.
Carly sat outside another interrogation room watching Oona through the one-way mirror. With perfect posture and hair so black it caught the light but reflected none of it back, she sat nearly motionless. Like a figure in a strobe light, a flash of movement came and went. The wisp of smoke from the cigarette, a quick exhale, and the figure froze in motion once again. Carly watched her for a few minutes. Had it not been for Merriwhether, Carly might have liked to have known her better, as she had a darkly alluring nature. Her lawyer sat to one side, almost as motionless in an expensive suit of exquisite cut. The two did not interact.
Diane interrupted his fascination, before it developed into something lewd and lascivious. “Let's do it, we've got the agreement from the D.A.'s office in hand. If she talks, we'll give her what she wants.”
A raised eyebrow was the only hint of surprise registered by Oona as Carly came into the room. Her voice conveyed more suspicion though as she spoke to her former colleague, “I'm surprised to see you here, Professor. Is there something relevant to your presence? Or were you just interested in talking old times?” The tone in her voice was edgy and icy. She had never liked Carly and the present circumstances did not cause her to waiver in her emotions.
“Yes I'm interested in old times, but not ours.”
“Whose then?” the words spat from the pursed lips.
“Yours, Merriwhether's, Dr. Hasan's, Brother Damien's and maybe Petr Dombrowski's.
Another raised eyebrow, a slight twitch of the lip, and a hurried drag on the cigarette told Carly he had at least touched some of the right buttons. “Perhaps we should talk about the times you've had with Brother Damien and Dr. Hasan first.” More facial movement, a quick adjustment in the chair and the professor knew she would talk. The iron lady front was a façade…a crumbling façade.
Purposely omitting any reference to Merriwhether, Carly began his well-rehearsed litany in a staccato fashion, “Brother Damien said you have been paying him to watch Dr. Hasan. Brother Damien said you paid him to kill Dr. Hasan if he talked. Brother Damien said you ordered him to kidnap me and try to a little high tech voodoo on my memory. Dr. Hasan said you paid him and a now dead executioner, to fake Dombrowski's execution. Dr. Hasan said you took the very much alive Petr Dombrowski from the death chamber eight years ago for experimental purposes. Dr. Hasan said you stole a body and used it to fake Dombrowski's burial. Dr. Hasan said you paid him...”
Her lawyer began to protest the apparent badgering, but before he could utter a syllable her hand snapped the air halting his motion, “Stop it!” she hissed, putting an end to the lawyer's interference and Carly's recital. “It wasn't me, it was Merriwhether.”
Diane and Carly looked at each other, a wisp of a smile decorated both of their mouths. She had rolled over pretty easily.
“How do we know it wasn't you?”
She stared at him intensely, the dark eyes grew wide as her nerves stretched beyond what she could control. “It was Merriwhether, I didn't want to go that route, but he was in such a big hurry and he felt Dombrowski would make such a big splash.” Stubbing out the cigarette, she reached for another with a shaking hand. “You know him Carly. He more circus and hype than science. Big things in big ways, that's the way he does things. He's a creature of extremes, it's all or nothing.”
“Then tell us about it.”
“What will you do for me? He'll kill me, can you top that?”
“Yeah, we'll let you live.”
Not resisting a sudden streak of sarcasm and sadism, he added, “Who knows maybe we can pull some of the stuff you used on Dombrowski to get you a new life? Inspector Edwards has a deal already from the District Attorney if you turn state's evidence. You are looking at accessory for murder in California. The way the D.A. sees it, you would be a candidate for a lobotomy given the circumstances. You ready for that?”
Oona looked at her attorney, a look of resignation her only expression. For effect, Diane added, “Maybe if you cooperate in California then we can get you a little sympathy in Colorado. All we need to do is get a signature on the deal and you talk. When we find Merriwhether we'll hang the entire affair on him. Besides why shouldn't you talk, he bailed out on you.”
Her head snapped to look at the strong woman who spoke to her, with voice quivering Oona asked in reply, “How do you know that?”
Like a left right combination, Carly took his turn to respond, “He took a call last night, right? It was probably one of the monks, or maybe he had another watchdog on Hasan, who knows. Someone called him. Your loving husband never told you who it was, did he? He just left. Left you holding the bag. So you see, if you don't testify against him, we still got you on everything.”
Giving her no time, Diane barked tersely belying the fact her patience had ended, “Make a choice!”
Without even addressing her lawyer and ignoring his repeated objections, she picked up the agreement, scanned it in a cursory fashion and signed it. Diane took the prize in hand and nodded to the Assistant D.A. on the other side of the mirror. A hint of a smile creased the edges of her mouth.
As Oona's story unfolded, Carly was amazed and impressed by the diligent, if not driven attitude in which Merriwhether had pursued his grand experiment. Carly had always thou
ght of the pompous little man as nothing more than a snake-oil salesman, but as Oona talked in her nervous staccato speech, it was evident Merriwhether had been serious. Perhaps if he had stayed within the realm of normal ethics and the law, he might have actually done what he had set out to do. Most assuredly the work completed up to this point might have been useful in the right hands, but Merriwhether was never one to share. He was always racing to stay atop the headlines and involving others would have been excess baggage, slowing down his continued assent to whatever peak he aspired.
Merriwhether and Oona had pursued Virtual Reality Therapy earlier than Carly had suspected. Even in the arcade game stage, VR was a play tool for their work in role playing and stress management. Their crusade with Carly to end the abuses of VR, was a very focused and successful attempt at cornering the VR market. It was also a means for recognizing VR as a therapeutic apparatus. An apparatus that would vault them to fame and fortune.
Just after Dombrowski had been captured, the two of them managed to adapt compressed video technology with virtual reality programming so as to present long-term reality construction over short-term time frames. Essentially, by using the combined techniques, an individual could be programmed to develop the kinds of long-terms memories necessary to construct a different reality. Routine memories, like childhood vacations or commuting to work on a daily basis are the product of a great amount of time invested. Using VR and compressed video, the couple was able to provide two or three years of these types of memories in a few hours. The patient could easily have full memory of several years of driving to work, the memory of familiar scenery and a general sense of everyday life within a few hours. The logical progression for the research was to develop a pseudo-life that could be programmed into the patient over the course of a few months. A full year's memories could be built in a week, a decade's worth in a month, a lifetime in less than a year.
By the time Dombrowski was scheduled to die, Merriwhether was convinced that his VR programming could overshadow original memories if the program was introduced repeatedly using conscious and unconscious application. The subliminal or subconscious programming effort coupled with programming during actual alertness would reinforce the memories the brain wouldn't ordinarily believe. Success came on a limited basis in an incremental fashion. On a small scale, experiments were successful. People were given college educations in a matter of weeks; victims of child abuse were able to develop memories of better childhood environments; the chronically unemployed could be given suitable trade development. Continued therapeutic interventions on an on-going basis, allowed the patient a successful adaptation in everyday life. While reality was contrived, it was the very thing many of their patients needed.
For Merriwhether the key to a more grandiose success was to introduce to the world his new therapy in a big way. Everything he had done up to that point, while usual and responsible was insignificant in his eyes. As in all things, Merriwhether wanted the world to know where he had been. The ultimate success meant the ultimate test, and what could have been more stunning that to rehabilitate the country's most notorious serial killer.
Using Langella, the two scientists had arranged the kidnapping of Petr Dombrowski just as Hasan had described. Oona said she knew nothing about the four deaths that followed later. When she heard Langella was dead, she equated it to the life he led and the business he conducted. The other three she never ever heard about.
Carly believed her, but doubted if he would have believed her husband had he said the same thing. She did know about Hasan's shadow in Needlepoint, Brother Damien, as he had worked for them for a number of years. Both she and her husband knew that Hasan dare not talk and while she said she knew nothing about Damien's orders to kill Hasan, she admitted that he was to stop Hasan from talking. He was also to keep Hasan alive, at least on their terms, after all he would be the confirming proof of what they done. He could confirm that Dombrowski didn’t die and that would be enough to prove the success of the transformation they had wrought on him. Her naiveté in everything shady was a bit hard to swallow, but Carly knew her passion was her science and she could have been blind to the vulgar realities swirling about her.
After snatching Dombrowski, the two of them placed him in a secret laboratory that was affiliated with a small college in northern California. For twenty-four hours a day, every day for four years Dombrowski was programmed with another life. In sharp contrast to his own reality, Dombrowski was now raised by kind and loving parents, who died when he was in his mid-thirties. He had been given a sister who lived in Ohio. The sister he called and visited was actually another guinea pig, living a life of suburban bliss after years of real alcoholism and prostitution. A few boyhood friends he kept in contact with were petty thieves re-programmed to honest labor and the memories of growing up with Dombrowski. The entire schema was elaborate and massive in scale. Merriwhether and Oona left no stone unturned in giving Dombrowski an alternative world.
While the efforts of the programming were the most diligent they had ever applied to anyone, the therapy never really took hold. Every six months, Dombrowski was taken out of the programming shroud. Interviews and observation for his reaction to his new memories were conducted. The assessments always indicated that while the new memories had made solid imprints on his psyche, they were not replacing the old. Each time, Dombrowski was resurrected he remained the same, a brutal disturbed man confused by his original and newly created memories. He would remember the new life given to him by the laboratory, but he lived and relished his old life. The work was pushing him to new levels of insanity.
Even for the most ardent researcher the results were disturbing. Oona wanted to scrap the project, eliminate Dombrowski and release the data on their more successful albeit smaller scale experiments. In time Merriwhether was beginning to think that she was right and he came within days of pulling the plug on Dombrowski when he found the final piece to the puzzle.
Proma.
Merriwhether as always, had heard about researchers at a minor drug company out of New Jersey who were isolating the chemical reaction to memory suppression in trauma victims. As editor-in-chief of one of the many trade journals, Merriwhether had received a research article from the scientist doing the work at the drug company.
Under the guise of wanting more information for the journal, Merriwhether and Oona visited the company and examined their research in detail. Or as Oona said, “I did the examination, while Merriwhether smoozed the owner.” Satisfied this research was legitimate and a breakthrough was imminent. Merriwhether made his move.
Merriwhether knew a drug could be produced which would indeed support memory suppression on a grand scale. Children molested at an early age, teenage witnesses to brutal acts of violence, adults subjected to the horrors of war and pestilence were all capable of having memories blocked. Naturally occurring in some people, these memories which their minds determined so ghastly they had to suppress them or cease to function in a normal capacity. For those people who did this, a chemical reaction occurred within the brain that while not erasing the memory blocked it from normal recall. Eventually, for some people the chemical process weakened over time and memories would suddenly spring forth after years of being hidden. For others, new trauma might release the memory of the old trauma. Yet for a few the suppression might work perfectly over the period of a lifetime, allowing those people complete amnesty from a horrible past. The company had actually isolated the chemical reaction causing the memory blockage. In time they were able to replicate the process outside the body via a synthetic chemical compound.
Merriwhether, seeing the light at the end of his technological tunnel convinced the owner he alone had the resources and connections to bring the discovery to market. Using his usual manipulative prowess, he managed to buy into the drug company. Shortly thereafter he led a board coup using new board members he had handpicked and ousted the former owner and became CEO and president. With the new position he took control of the c
ompany and ownership to the rights for Proma.
Merriwhether recognized Proma as the final link in the Virtual Reality-Video Compression-Memory Suppression therapy triad. The drug would lock out the past, while the technology would create a new one. On the surface, drones of standard researchers conducted routine experiments, so as to allow for eventual governmental approval and general scientific acceptance of this new memory suppression drug. Once it received FDA approval, Merriwhether would unveil his new combination of programming and chemical therapy and be hailed as a therapeutic genius, as he described the event to Oona. He had regaled Oona and the others who worked for him of stories of how his recognition in the field of psychology and psychiatry would rival that of Freud, Jung, and Skinner. Such elite company justified an experiment so bold, so remarkable that no one would care if he had bent a few minor rules along the way.
Dombrowski would become the flagship of his new behavioral science.
While the mandatory testing on lab animals was conducted, with eventual minor controlled testing on humans on the horizon, Merriwhether began massive experiments with Proma on Dombrowski. Nearly lethal dosages of the powerful drug were given to the murderer in conjunction with the new compressed VR programming. For Dombrowski, they didn’t pursue pinpoint memory isolation, they used Proma in a general capacity to wipe the whole of his memory. The essence of Petr Dombrowski was shrunken to less than a minor memory as his memories were coated with layers and layers of Proma induced suppression. Each assault on Dombrowski's memories was much like locking a box in a locked box that was locked in a locked box and so on. The experiment had been systematic and relentless for nearly two years.
At the end of the two years, Dombrowski the beast and Petr the tormented little boy were laid to rest. From the mental ashes of those tormented souls, like a Phoenix, Jonathan Carter emerged. Jonathan Carter, the product of a good wholesome Methodist family, was a peace-loving artist, a throwback to the '60's…a flower child.
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