* * *
Bertram Culpepper wandered into Houghton's office after the meeting. The two of them got along surprisingly well, considering that they ran competing branches of the Company. "How do you think it went?" he asked.
"I thought Williams laid it on a bit thick," Houghton replied. "But it worked, so obviously he knows what he's doing."
"He's desperate for a success to make up for the Coyne fiasco," Culpepper said. "He's afraid Loud's going to put him out to pasture."
"Maybe Loud should put him out to pasture."
Culpepper shrugged. He looked down at his hands. He had no urge to smoke in private, or with friends. Strange what your body can do to you. "Do you think this pianist can pull it off?" he asked finally.
Houghton pressed his hands together in front of his face. "Who cares?" he answered finally.
Chapter 7
So many meetings. Theodore Winn wished he could hold them all outdoors. He did his best thinking while stomping through the woods. Unfortunately, few of his advisers could keep up with him when he started stomping, so he had to spend long days like this one sitting in the Oval Office and catering to their weakness. It was one of the sacrifices you made to be president.
He stared at his CIA director, George Loud. The little fellow would probably faint after half a mile of stomping. Still, he was loyal, and he had a good head on his shoulders. The same could be said of the other people at the meeting;—Benjamin Follett, the national security adviser, and Follett's assistant, Colonel Thomas Poole. Follett was a gray, thin, scholarly type who had probably never gone for a walk in the woods in his life. Poole, on the other hand, looked like he could do ten miles double time carrying a forty-pound pack. He had the tanned, rugged appearance of a career soldier, even while wearing a pinstripe suit and sitting in an armchair. Winn liked men who were in shape.
"Okay, George, what's the problem?" Winn asked.
Loud folded his hands as he prepared to state why he had asked for the meeting. "Some background, if I may, Mr. President," he began. Winn had to strain to hear him. Loud's voice sounded as out of shape as his body. "Some of you may be familiar with Rod Williams, my deputy director. Rod is interested in some of the more, er, esoteric areas of intelligence. In particular, he has a theory that armies and weapons are becoming passé, and that the next great battlefield will be the human mind."
"You mean propaganda, disinformation, that sort of thing?" Follett asked. He did not sound impressed.
Loud shook his head. "Esoteric," he repeated. "More along the lines of drugs, ESP, psychic weapons."
"Oh Lord," Follett said. "like putting LSD in the Moscow water supply?"
Loud sighed. "Something like that, Ben, although I don't know all the schemes he's cooked up. I just know that he believes the Soviets are spending massive sums of money in this area, and if we don't keep up, the results will be catastrophic for America."
"Is he right about the Soviets?" Winn asked. This was all news to him, and he didn't like being surprised.
"Probably not," Loud replied. "The Soviets certainly dabble in this sort of thing, but the general feeling is that they put no more effort into it than we do. Like us, they probably have some people like Rod who think it's important, and others who just want to do it because they think the other side is doing it."
"All right. What's the problem, then?"
Loud looked around. "Have any of you heard of endorphins?" he whispered.
Winn certainly hadn't; they sounded like some kind of fish to him. Follett looked blank. "Chemicals in the brain," Poole said, as if responding to an order. "Natural opiates."
Loud nodded. "Very good, Tom. In general, they're the brain's own version of morphine, although the scientists tell me there are different endorphins with different effects. Rod Williams thought it would be interesting to play with endorphins and see if they had some value in this mind race of his. He got a modest research effort funded in the Science and Technology Directorate to study these chemicals and their effect on behavior. And, as you might expect, things finally went haywire."
"The CIA hasn't been experimenting on people without their consent, has it?" Winn demanded.
"No, thank God. Something happened to one of the researchers, a neurochemist named Coyne. They're still trying to figure it out, but apparently the drug he was working on affected the way a specific endorphin is produced and then binds to, um, receptor sites on the neurons in the brain. The effect—at least in Coyne's case—is to induce a state of overwhelming tranquility, optimism, and suggestibility. Everything is fine in Doctor Coyne's world, everything is working out for the best. If you stick him in a dungeon, he'll think it's the most wonderful dungeon he has ever seen, and he'll thank you for giving him the opportunity to rot there. Talking to the man is like eating cotton candy."
"Sort of like a short-term lobotomy?" Follett asked.
"Perhaps. Except that Coyne's higher mental faculties don't appear to be affected. He can still function almost normally. Also, the effect doesn't appear to be temporary—at least, they haven't found a way of reversing it yet. And that's our problem. We've got one angry wife on our hands. We've had to keep Coyne in-house while we study him and try to fix him, and she's demanding to know what we've done with her husband. She's threatening to hold a press conference and expose us as a bunch of criminals. We can't just make her disappear—this isn't Russia, after all. If we explain to her what we've been up to, she'll probably tell the media. We'll look bad for doing this sort of thing, and we also give the Soviets some valuable information about our research."
"But this drug sounds like it could be very useful," Winn said. "Maybe this guy Coyne has found a cure for depression or schizophrenia. Why not just let the world know about it?"
"Because it could also be very dangerous," Loud noted. "We have no idea what the side effects are. Do we want unhappy teenagers getting black-market versions of the drug and possibly ruining their whole lives?"
"Also, do we want Moscow to develop it and use it against us?" Colonel Poole asked. "That's just what the communists dream of—a nation of smiling, obedient automatons."
"Well, Tom," Benjamin Follett said, "I think you might be exagger—"
"No," Winn interrupted, "I think he's got a good point. Just how potent is this stuff, George?"
Loud shook his head. "Once again, Mr. President, the scientists are still studying it. But indications are that it's extremely potent indeed. Coyne evidently didn't ingest the drug—he merely inhaled its fumes. So this could be a little different from the LSD scenario, where the commies poison the reservoirs and give everyone a bad trip and that's that. It could get released into the air and we might not even know what's happening to us."
"That seems a little farfetched," Winn observed.
"Perhaps," Colonel Poole said, "but this drug scares me nevertheless. Under the kind of comprehensive arms reduction treaty the Soviets are proposing, new types of weapons become increasingly important—they're the only way either side can gain an edge. Imagine the battlefield uses of something like this. You spray it on the enemy, and they no longer care about fighting. And do you think the Soviets would hesitate to use this drug on dissidents?"
The man was making some good points. "What about an antidote?" Winn asked Loud.
"We can't come up with an antidote until we understand what the drug is doing," Loud explained. "And the person who knows the most about it is Coyne, and he doesn't want to help. He thinks the drug is a gift from God. Trying to find an antidote would be sacrilege."
Winn sighed. This was messy. "Maybe if we just put out the information in vague terms," he wondered.
"Mr. President," Poole said, leaning forward in his chair, "I know your natural inclination is to be completely honest with the American public, but I think in this case it's imperative that we keep this matter classified until we've had a chance to study it further. The possible repercussions are simply too great."
Yes, well, Poole was right. Winn nodded
. "Can the wife be kept quiet, George? Talk to her yourself, explain the national security implications without being too precise, make sure she understands that we're doing all we can."
"I'll do my best," Loud replied.
"I'll talk to her too, if necessary. And put all your resources into trying to find an antidote for this thing."
"Of course."
"May I suggest," Benjamin Follett said, "that you might want to receive reports about all aspects of this matter?"
"Absolutely." Winn didn't like being kept in the dark about anything. There were going to be no unpleasant surprises in his administration; that was one reason he had put Loud in charge of the CIA. "And what about this guy Williams? Is he a loose cannon, George?"
"Well, he obviously has a great deal of autonomy. And he's made a lot of influential friends over the years. I could fire him, but what if he has stumbled onto the next superweapon—or the next wonder drug?"
"You're right. But this is all news to me, and I want to get a better handle on it. I'd like to monitor his operations over there."
"All right. I'll have reports prepared about everything he's up to."
Winn considered for a moment. "No, George, I'd like this done personally. No offense, but you're too busy to ensure that people aren't covering something up." He turned to Follett. "Ben, could you spare some of Colonel Poole's time so he can sit in on a few meetings and talk to people over at Langley? He certainly knows more about endorphins than we do."
"Of course, Mr. President."
"Tom, is that okay with you?"
Poole nodded. "I'm honored that you place such trust in me, sir."
"Good. It's settled, then." Winn stood up. That was about as long a meeting as he cared to have. "Thank you, gentlemen."
They murmured their thanks in return and left the Oval Office. Winn looked out into the Rose Garden and sighed as his chief of staff hurried in to brief him on the next meeting.
Chapter 8
The man was wearing a Yankees cap, a University of Guelph sweatshirt, one gold earring, and wraparound sunglasses. Long blond hair spilled out from beneath the cap; a fuzzy blond mustache perched on his upper lip. He was carrying a Bloomingdale's shopping bag; he was chewing bubble gum.
He blew an enormous bubble before saying anything. It just missed his mustache when it burst. He grinned. "I'm a poet," he said in a raspy voice to the woman, "and I got copies of all the poems I ever wrote right here in this bag. This looks like a classy place, so I figured you might be interested in buying some direct from the author. Eliminate the bourgeois capitalist middleman who sucks the blood out of us sensitive artists, know what I mean? So what do you say? A lyric ode, maybe? Or a sonnet sequence—you look like the romantic type, am I right? How about a sestina? Very tricky to write, sestinas. They're on special this week, actually. Two for a dollar ninety-nine, and that's my final offer."
Marcia picked up the phone. "I'll tell Mr. Hershohn you're here, Mr. Fulton."
"Shit," Fulton said.
* * *
Charles Hershohn was a bloodsucking bourgeois capitalist middleman. It was not an easy job. The man sitting across the desk from him wearing the University of Guelph sweatshirt was the main reason. "How nice to see you, Daniel," Hershohn said. "You're looking well."
Fulton blew a bubble.
"Marcia informed me there was some sort of, uh, problem with the, uh, CIA while I was out of town."
Fulton took off his sunglasses. "Have you received an offer from Goskoncert for me to play in Moscow this fall?"
Hershohn nodded. "It would have been forwarded to you in due course with all the other offers, to save you the trouble of rejecting each of them separately."
"Very kind of you. This one I want to accept."
Hershohn felt a sudden need for a drink. He was not a drinking man. "Daniel," he said as gently as he could, "how do I know that this will be different from the other offers that you have, on occasion, accepted in the past three years? I only end up apologizing to everyone when you change your mind."
"I know. I've been a bad boy," Fulton said. "But this is different. You can trust me on this one."
He sounded sincere. He often sounded sincere. "Daniel, give me a reason why I can trust you on this one. I don't mind kissing off the communists if you change your mind , but if you are going to do this, I want a record contract, I want a video, I want you to make some real money—and that starts to complicate things."
"I don't care about that stuff. Let's just do the recital."
Hershohn made a connection. It seemed crazy, but... "Does this have anything to do with the CIA business you were talking to Marcia about, Daniel?"
Fulton stared at him, stared at the ceiling. "Are you going to bother me until I give you a reason?" he asked finally.
"Daniel, your career is on the line," Hershohn said. "You might not care about it, but I do. No matter how talented you are, you can't keep acting irresponsibly and not have some fallout."
Fulton shrugged. "Okay. There is a psychic in Moscow. The CIA wants me to go there, using the recital as an excuse, meet her, and convince her to defect. You cannot tell that to a living soul. Now will you make the arrangements?"
"I thought the CIA, uh, kidnapped you."
"For God's sake, Charles, Marcia has always thought I was loony. She just got the message wrong."
"I'm trying to understand, Daniel. The CIA? Arranging a defection? Do you really want to return to public performance with—with that sort of thing on your mind?"
"Yes, I do. I'm not loony, and I know what I'm doing. I want it the way it was the other time I played in Moscow, all right? I stay in the National Hotel. And I play in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. They'll want me in the Tchaikovsky Hall, but turn them down. Clear?"
Hershohn sighed. "Clear."
Fulton smiled and stood up. "Great. Thanks, Charles. By the way, can I sell you a sonnet sequence?"
Hershohn closed his eyes. "Oh, Daniel. Please go away."
He heard the door shut, then waited for about a minute, forcing himself to keep his eyes closed and to refrain from thinking. Then he called his secretary. "Marcia, would you please bring me the pending offers for Fulton?" he asked, in what he hoped was a calm, professional manner.
"Coming right up."
Marcia brought in the folder a few moments later. She was a stout young woman with dyed red hair. She wore dresses that were too tight for her, her perfume was overpowering, and she knew everything. "I suppose it's none of my business," she said, setting the folder down on his desk.
"Um," Hershohn replied. Many of his conversations with Marcia started this way.
"...but has our friend finally gone completely around the bend?"
He shrugged. "It is entirely reasonable for Mr. Fulton to wear a disguise in public," he said. "He's trying to cope with problems that you and I can't even dream of."
"He's bonkers."
"He's a genius."
"He's a humbug." Marcia was tone-deaf, and immune to Fulton's charms. "You should drop him before he comes here with an ax in his Bloomingdale's bag and murders us all."
"Um, well." He reached for the folder. Marcia glared at him for a moment, then stomped out. If they were all murdered one of these days, he knew who would be to blame.
He stared at the offer to play at the Moscow Peace Festival. It wouldn't do much for Fulton's reputation in certain political circles, but if it got Fulton playing in public again, Hershohn didn't care who was offended. On the other hand, if it turned out to be a bad experience, Fulton might just give up concertizing for life, like Glenn Gould. And that wouldn't do at all.
Daniel Fulton was born to play the piano in public. There was some chemistry with the audience, some intensity that possessed him when he went onstage—something that made his recitals unlike anything Hershohn had ever experienced.
He had become Fulton's manager at a time when no one else sensed the chemistry. Fulton had been at that awkward postprodigy age
when the public loses interest in you—you're too old to be a freak, too young to be a mature artist. He had shepherded Fulton through those few dark years, keeping him away from the grinding competitions, trying his best to prepare him for life among the elite of concert pianists. They had both succeeded—at least for a while. Fulton's debut was spectacular, and the career that followed was more spectacular still. Hershohn had tried never to miss one of his performances. Watching Fulton onstage, Hershohn sometimes felt as if Liszt had been born again, with women swooning and men cheering and everyone trying to touch him, to share his magic. It was a manager's dream come true.
And then Fulton stopped—walked away from the adulation at the summit of his career. It wasn't totally unexpected; pianists, after all, are hardly the most stable of God's creatures. And Fulton, offstage, had the grownup prodigy's share of problems. He often seemed perplexed, wary of his power, uncertain about what to do with his life. Hershohn had tried countless times to get behind the façade, to see if he could help, but had never succeeded. And so Fulton had retreated to his little house on Long Island to puzzle things out for himself. His retirement was big news for a while, and then the world put him in the back of its mind and went about its business.
But Daniel Fulton was Charles Hershohn's business. And it was difficult to stand by and watch Fulton toss away his career. Oh, Fulton had tried a couple of studio recordings, but they were outside his standard repertoire, and without the stimulus of an audience he turned into just another superb technician, a dime-a-dozen Juilliard grad; the records had bombed. He had agreed halfheartedly to a couple of new commitments, only to back out after a few days of contemplating his navel, or whatever he did to pass the time.
It wasn't just the loss of revenue that bothered Hershohn. He genuinely cared about Fulton. The man could be infuriating, but he could also be funny and accommodating and generous and an all-around nice fellow, no matter what Marcia thought. And so Hershohn was sitting at his desk pondering whether this Moscow recital was a good idea for Fulton, instead of jumping for joy at the man's decision to start earning some money once again.
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