She eased back in her chair and Gant closed the report.
“You’re not worried that they can trace your intrusion?” Emily asked.
He allowed a tepid smile, the images still fresh in his head.
“Do you think Jefferson would have come to me if that was a possibility?”
She had to allow that belief, even if it was not a fact. From digging into the Simon Lynch affair as documented in Jefferson’s file, she knew that Gant had been caught only after a pair of insiders turned him in. She’d actually read the note which first pointed a finger at him, and it had been addressed to none other than Bob Lomax himself.
The bottom line, though, was that, at the moment, it appeared to Emily that Gant had the ability to find certain information. And that was the reason she’d accepted Sander’s oblique suggestion to come to Pittsburgh—a search for information. The stranger’s motive’s for directing her to Gant were plain—he wanted their connection to lead to acquiescence on her part to his wishes. His wish, actually—to have her lead him to Simon Lynch.
‘I’m the only hope he has…’
Emily doubted that. But she was going to put her time with Kirby Gant to use. Part of her wanted to have him probe this Sanders person, but that would only dilute her attention, and that of the felon facing her. She needed him to be focused on a search. The search for a woman.
“Does the name Leah Poole mean anything to you?” Emily asked.
Gant shook his head.
“Jefferson never mentioned her?”
“No,” Gant answered, already knowing where this was heading. “You want Rothchild to go digging?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Let’s have him do just that.”
Nineteen
Emily LaGrange sat in the driver’s seat of her rental car at Albany International Airport and allowed herself a moment to breathe. And to think.
And to doubt.
“What are you doing, Em?”
That she’d set herself on this crusade in the first place was not inexplicable, even if it was illogical. But this? Flying from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh, and from there to the capital of New York—all in service of some nebulous goal of understanding, and protecting, a damaged man she’d met for ten minutes?
“You’re racking up the frequent flier miles,” she half joked with herself. “And draining your bank account.”
Draining wasn’t the most accurate word, she knew. There was plenty in both checking and savings, and more in a money market fund. All her wages from her time undercover had been deposited on time, every month, building a sizeable nest egg which she had only recently begun to draw on. She was fine financially, for now. In other respects…
In other respects, she was managing. The flashbacks to the end of her UC assignment came less frequently now. Especially since taking on this liaison duty. An occasional unwanted memory would rise without warning, but not as often while she was concentrating on the matter at hand. There were often days between the episodes now, not hours as had been the case not too long ago. The Bureau shrinks had told her she needed intensive counseling, but their opinion held no sway with her, despite the logic in it. Work was helping her. Keeping busy. Focusing on a task. Those were what she needed.
This was what she needed.
She started the car and left the airport rental lot, driving through soft flurries of snow. Just twenty minutes away she pulled to the curb in front of a delightful looking home built in the thirties and tended lovingly by its owner. That person answered the door within seconds after Emily rapped solidly on it.
“Hello,” Leah Poole said, eying the stranger huddled in the shelter of her porch. “Can I help you?”
Emily showed her credentials and nodded. “I wonder if we might talk about Simon Lynch.”
The physical reaction was impossible, but, to Leah, it felt exactly as if the blood had drained from her head right then. It would be proper, and required, for her to feign ignorance of what the FBI agent was asking, and to send her on her way. The restrictions which had bound her to confidentiality hadn’t ended with her departure from The Ranch. They lived on, as did the penalties for violating them.
Simon…
Why was this FBI agent here to talk about him? Was it a trap to bait her into a violation? Warren Michaels was fully capable of pulling such a stunt, she thought. But would he involve himself with such a thing now, when his project was coming to fruition?
“I’m the liaison,” Emily said when the woman’s hesitance lingered. “I replaced Agent Jefferson.”
Still, Leah didn’t say anything. Nor did she send the visitor away. She was on the precipice of deciding how to respond, Emily knew.
“I’m breaking as many laws talking to you as you would be talking to me,” Emily told the woman. “Simon’s the reason for that.”
Leah drew a breath and let it out, the icy air fogging it. She gave the FBI agent a quick nod and stepped aside.
“Come in,” Leah said.
* * *
A fire burned in the simple hearth, real logs crackling beyond a mesh spark screen. Leah Poole stood next to it, warming herself as Emily sat in a chair, waiting for the woman to take a seat on the couch.
“This isn’t an interrogation,” Emily said. “You can relax.”
Leah smiled and shook her head. “I feel better standing, if you don’t mind.”
Emily didn’t.
“How did you find me?” Leah asked.
It was Emily’s turn to be reticent. Revealing the wizardry Kirby Gant was capable of would only serve to ease the woman’s curiosity for a moment. It would also invite more questions, and she had no desire to let this visit drift off into peripheral queries. This was about Simon Lynch—and how this woman fit into his life in that place where he was being housed.
“I guess you can’t share everything,” Leah said, not slighted by the lack of an answer. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. You’re here.”
“He told me your name,” Emily said.
“Who?”
“Simon,” Emily told her.
A soft smile built on Leah’s face. It wasn’t a burst of joy as much as a slow revelation of relief.
“He whispered it in my ear,” Emily said. “I don’t think he wanted Dr. Michaels to hear.”
The smile drained fast from Leah’s face. “Warren was there?”
“Hovering,” Emily said.
“Controlling,” Leah corrected her.
Emily thought for a moment. She was in the same room with the woman who had meant enough to Simon that he had shared her name. But what was she supposed to do with Leah Poole? What was she supposed to ask?
The basics…
Just like an investigation, albeit an odd and illegal one. Handle it like that, Emily thought.
Start with the basics…
“You work for the NSA,” Emily said.
“I’m not some spy type,” Leah countered.
“You mean a spook.”
“You see? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be called in your eyes. I’m a neuroscientist. I worked at the lab that developed the NB protocol.” She sniffed a humorless laugh. “Work there, I mean. For now, at least.”
Despite Warren Michaels’ threat that she would have to settle for some position at a Veterans Administration hospital, Leah Poole had slid back into her old position researching the puzzle that was the human brain. But never again would she find herself delving into a mind that was the equivalent of the one she’d been forced to leave behind at The Ranch.
“NB? What’s NB?”
Leah hesitated, but only for an instant.
“I suppose I’ve already told you enough to land me in prison for the rest of my life.”
“No one knows I’m here,” Emily said. “And I’m not revealing anything you say. To anyone.”
The words were more than an assurance to Leah Poole. They were a comfort. It had been so long since anyone in a position of power, who had anything to do with Sim
on, had shown anything remotely related to compassion. This woman, this FBI Agent, she had no apparent authority, Leah knew. But still she exhibited the willingness to do what was right, despite possibly dire consequences.
“NB stands for Neuro Breach,” Leah said. “It was Warren’s baby. I worked with him perfecting it.”
“Where?”
“RG Neurogenics,” Leah said.
“A lot of acronyms,” Emily said. “Who is RG?”
Leah shook her head.
“It’s not a person. It’s a cryptic play on ‘regenerative’. Regenerative Neurogenics. The ability to repair cognitive structures.”
“Cognitive structures?”
“The brain,” Leah explained. “Fancy words abound in my field.”
“So, you’re talking about repairing Simon’s brain,” Emily said.
Leah nodded, smiling. The agent was not slow on the uptake.
“The basic need with the project was getting Simon to be able to communicate what he’s thinking,” Leah explained. “So that his…brilliance doesn’t just erupt sporadically.”
“It didn’t seem all that fixed when I saw him,” Emily told her.
“I’m sure Warren sedated him,” Leah said.
Emily thought that possible. What she’d imagined was just the ravages of autism impairing his interaction with her could easily have been drug induced. He could be medicated to his eyeballs and who would know? Or care?
“That’s one hell of a hole you have him buried in,” Emily said. “Anything could be done to him there.”
“Wherever there is,” Leah said, nodding. “We would joke that we worked at Area Fifty-Two.”
“It’s a long commute from here,” Emily said.
“We were transported in by helicopter,” Leah explained. “And out again at the end of our shifts. Then it was a quick flight home to water the plants before heading back again. To Boise or Salt Lake or Las Vegas. Wherever they’d tell us the pickup point was on that particular rotation. You’ve been through the routine.”
“With a black bag over my head,” Emily said.
“A necessary inconvenience,” Leah said, smiling lightly. “It was worth it to me to get back to Simon.”
“You basically lived there,” Emily said.
“Essentially, yes,” Leah confirmed. “Fourteen days at a time. Sometimes more if we were making progress. I don’t think I spent more than two days at a time away from Simon in the past ten years. Until now.”
“It sounds like you spent more time with him than just about anyone,” Emily commented.
Leah nodded, an expression that was both bitter and sweet rising. “I like to think that I was his friend. Even if he didn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t he consider you a friend?”
“It’s complicated,” Leah said. She walked away from the fireplace and stood next to the window and stared out to the whitening world, a skim of snow dusting everything now. “In Simon’s world, the world as it’s been for him, bonds only exist because they are sanctioned. It’s a very high-level function of the autism which afflicts him.”
“I’m not following,” Emily said.
“He has these cards,” Leah said, realizing she wasn’t being entirely accurate. “Had these cards. They were his rules for living. Everything from how to get off the school bus to what to do if the power goes out. His doctors and parents introduced the cards to him when he was nine years old. They were how he functioned in many respects. Including who he trusted. Who his friends were.”
“I’m still not—”
Leah looked to Emily and waved off the confusion. “His cards included a list of people who were his friends. One of the rules that he functioned under was that he would only add a new friend to his cards if an existing friend told him that was all right.”
“A vetting system,” Emily commented.
“In essence,” Leah said. “The issue with that, though, was that the only existing friend we had access to was Agent Jefferson.”
Now the difficulty made sense to Emily. “And he wasn’t vouching for any of you.”
“Hence the complicated nature of my relationship with Simon,” Leah said. “Whatever trust, whatever closeness he would feel for me, it had to be…”
“Real?”
“Honest,” Leah corrected mildly.
He’d shared her name because he trusted her, Emily realized. Just as he’d trusted another.
“Tell me about Jefferson,” Emily said.
Leah shrugged. “I wasn’t always around when he visited. When I did see him, he’d be sitting with Simon in the gallery and—”
“The gallery? What’s the gallery?”
“An observation room,” Leah explained. “Where we could watch Simon interact, perform tasks.”
Like watching a lab rat navigate a maze…
The space she’d been in with Simon had been as bare bones as a closet, nothing like what Leah described. Maybe it had actually been that, Emily thought. Cleared out just to service her time with Simon Lynch. A change from what had been afforded to Art Jefferson.
“That’s where they started having the liaison sit with Simon,” Leah said.
“Started? How was it done before?”
“Dr. Michaels, from what I heard, wasn’t entirely happy with the visits,” Leah said. “He felt that they were becoming too intrusive.”
“Intrusive? Did Jefferson have some problem with how Simon was being treated?”
“Jefferson would push to see Simon in his room,” Leah said. “Warren thought that was interrupting the flow of the project.”
“Dr. Michaels didn’t care for Agent Jefferson, it seems,” Emily suggested.
“Warren almost always made sure he wasn’t around when the visits occurred.”
Emily thought for a moment, letting the information she’d just been told settle.
“He mostly stayed away when Jefferson came?” Emily asked, seeking confirmation.
“Mostly, yes,” Leah answered.
Yet the good doctor had given Emily the soft sell as he narrated the grand tour. He was trying to avoid whatever problems he’d had with Jefferson by attempting some rapport with her. He might even have thought it had worked—until nearly having her forcibly removed.
“Can I ask you something, Agent LaGrange?”
“Yes.”
“I get why Jefferson was so invested in Simon Lynch,” Leah said. “They had a history, from the bits and pieces I’ve heard. Art was listed on his friend cards. But you…”
“But me what?”
“You saw him once,” Leah said. “And you’re risking literally everything to be here talking about him.”
“You’d be surprised how little I’m risking,” Emily said, the response too glib by a long shot. The Los Angeles SAC’s admonishment when they’d met in cemetery hadn’t fully cured her of that tendency. Yet.
“What is Simon Lynch to you?” Leah pressed. “Why do this?”
The simple question triggered a flashback right then, but not one Emily had come to expect. It was born of a more recent event. Much more recent.
‘Could not some people in positions of power or influence conspire for the greater good?’
Or one person, Emily qualified the words Sanders had spoken. One lone person.
Her.
“He’s someone who needs help,” Emily said.
“Your help?”
“Maybe,” Emily answered.
Leah seemed to weigh her visitor’s statement for a moment, then finally left the window and returned to the fireplace, standing close to the popping flames.
“You obviously cared about him,” Emily said.
“I did,” Leah confirmed. “I do.”
“So why did you leave?”
“Do you mean why was I fired?” Leah stood mute. The fire behind her burned hot, but she felt a chill spill upward through her body, toe to head. She shivered and hugged herself against the sensation, the mirror opposite of what she’d felt whe
n the agent first arrived.
“Leah…”
She looked toward Emily and smiled, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. When I think of what we’ve done, and what we could have done…”
“What could you have done?”
Leah left the fireplace and sat on the couch facing Emily. “The NB protocol called for fifty-one injections. That number would achieve precisely what actually happened—Simon was freed from his mind’s prison. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“The precise administration of the drug, over a specific time frame, was designed to bring him right to the edge. To a place where he could have one foot in each world, so to speak. One where he could articulate to our world what he could process in the other.”
“A window into his mind,” Emily said.
“It was thought of as that,” Leah agreed. “But not a door he could walk through to be fully part of the world he’d never truly known. I wanted to take him to that place. To finish the protocol. I pushed for it.”
“What do you mean ‘finish’?”
Leah leaned forward, elbows on her knees, some wondrous emotion building in her eyes. “When we had that first breakthrough, and I was alone with him, what I saw, what I felt, it was…overwhelming. I thought it must be like what a butterfly experiences when emerging from its cocoon. And I was witness to it. Except…except the butterfly hasn’t spread its wings yet. It can’t. He can’t.”
“Why?”
“The very first proposal our lab developed called for fifty-three injections of NB to completely free Simon from his autistic fugue.”
“You’re talking about a cure for autism,” Emily said.
Leah shook her head. “No. This was built entirely for Simon. Based upon his genetic makeup, his neurological structures. It’s unique to him.”
Emily thought she understood. More than Leah had even explained as yet.
“With fifty-three injections, he might not have that foot in the other world anymore,” Emily said, and Leah nodded.
“The fear was he wouldn’t be able to tap into the thing that made him beyond brilliant,” Leah explained. “He is a singular being, Agent LaGrange. The fifty-one injection protocol was chosen to maintain that part of him which is irreplaceable.”
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