The Pinocchio Syndrome

by David Zeman

  Understandably, there were tactful suggestions from the PR people about how to exploit the situation. Dick rejected these out of hand. He could not bear the thought of making political hay out of a tragic event.

  The president himself paid a visit to Michael at his Georgetown house. He talked with Judd and Ingrid like any concerned friend, asking them how Michael was bearing up, offering his prayers for Susan’s safe return.

  He spent a half hour alone with Michael. He was impressed by the depth of Michael’s despair. Michael looked like a man who is falling through thin ice and trying to seem casual about it. The president’s comforting words had little effect on him.

  Colin Goss, realizing that his public reaction to the crisis would be watched intently, made a dignified statement to the press.

  “Michael and Susan Campbell are valued friends to me and to this country,” he said. “If anything were to happen to Susan, I would be personally devastated. She is a beautiful person, and an important one. We need her.”

  Goss also cannily used his appeal as a platform to decry and deplore the violence going on in the world. “Once we get Susan back alive and safe,” he said, “we must, wemust take aggressive action to stop the kind of people who could commit an act as atrocious as this. We must, wemust restore sanity and order to this world of ours. I will do everything in my power to see that this happens, and that events like this one are never repeated in the future.”

  Privately Goss was deeply concerned. Not about the standing of Michael and the president in the polls—that was part of the plan, after all—but about the fact that Susan’s disappearance wasnot part of the plan, and had taken him and his people completely by surprise.

  He had called Michael at home Sunday night. He knew the phone would be tapped by agents waiting for a ransom call, so he had to keep the conversation formal. Michael’s replies to his questions left no doubt that Michael was as surprised by what had happened as Goss was. He had not seen it coming, and had no idea who might be behind it.

  Colin Goss had some influence inside the intelligence community, and used it. From now on he would be kept informed of all progress made by the major agencies in the search for Susan.

  However, like Judd Campbell, Goss did not trust the government agencies to do their job and preferred to use his own people—people whose expertise he himself could guarantee, and whose loyalty was beyond question—to get the job done. Among the many Goss subsidiaries was a private detective agency called the Beta Group. Goss ordered the agency to drop all nonessential work and concentrate on the Susan Campbell matter immediately.

  So the world waited while an army of investigators scoured the nation for the missing woman. All those who searched for her were experts at their jobs. They had done investigations like this before.

  They also had one other crucial thing in common. They had no clue as to what had happened to Susan Campbell. None at all.

  Where was Susan? No one knew the solution to the enigma. Thus, for the first time since Colin Goss began his campaign to oust the president, there was a new player in the game, a player whose face and whose plans remained utterly unknown to all the others.

  Nothing more could happen until this faceless player made his move.

  ————

  To Grimm: I believe in your crystal ball. Please tell me one more thing: Do you know what happened at Harvard?

  This message had appeared in the personals column of theWashington Post since the day after Karen Embry’s interview with Susan Campbell.

  The enigmatic source had not replied. Karen, suspecting that she was dealing with the same person who had telephoned Susan during the interview, hoped that her own mention of the Harvard connection would break the silence.

  Karen now realized that her wildest surmise about the Pinocchio Syndrome might be correct after all. The disease was perhaps being deliberately spread. The epidemic was an act of terrorism on a worldwide scale.

  But who was doing it? And why? And how?

  Karen had no answers to these questions.

  In the meantime she continued to ponder the things that had happened, and to use her deductive powers to try to understand it all.

  The Pinocchio Syndrome had removed Dan Everhardt from the White House, then prevented Tom Palleschi from taking his place. Then a very suspicious hit-and-run accident had killed Kirk Stillman. Then, when Michael Campbell was chosen to replace Everhardt, the epidemic retreated from America to increase its ravages around the world.

  If one posited that the spread of the disease was a deliberate act, it made sense to conclude that its cessation in America was intentional, and was a response to Michael Campbell’s selection.

  Karen knew she had no chance of convincing anyone in a position of authority of this. The events taking place were simply too perverse, too insane to be believed. And people in positions of authority were the last to believe that truly insane events sometimes actually came to pass in the world. Just ask those who tried to convince the American government in 1938 that one of the world’s oldest and most civilized countries was herding Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Marxists into gas ovens and killing them by the millions. Try telling the Warren Commission that the most beloved American president since FDR was killed by a bungled conspiracy among anti-Castro Cubans, the Mafia, and the CIA.

  People in positions of authority were in the business of dealing with the world as a sane place. More importantly, they were in the business ofselling the world to the public as a sane, ordered place. When truly insane things happened, such people were naturally resistant to hearing the awful truth, and even more resistant to revealing it. This was, at the best of times, a journalist’s cross to bear.

  On a cold night three days after Susan Campbell’s disappearance, Karen sat at her computer, staring at the screen saver, an M. C. Escher–style pattern that showed birds flying from right to left. When one looked at the pattern in a certain way the birds turned to fish swimming from left to right. It was a dizzying sight.

  Touching the mouse Karen created a new document and wrote a single sentence on the blank page.

  DISEASE CONNECTED TO VICE PRESIDENCY.

  This was the first theorem. Everything else flowed from it.

  INTERRUPTION OF EPIDEMIC HELPED PRESIDENT AT THE POLLS.

  THEREFORE INTERRUPTION INTENDED TO HELP PRESIDENT.

  Karen closed her eyes. She smelled the acrid smoke of her Newport and crushed out the cigarette.

  “Connect the dots,” she said aloud.

  SUSAN’S DISAPPEARANCE CONNECTED TO MICHAEL’S NOMINATION.

  VOICE ON PHONE SAID NOMINATION WAS CONNECTED TO DISEASE.

  THEREFORE SUSAN’S DISAPPEARANCE CONNECTED TO DISEASE.

  Karen shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of her latest hang-over.

  SUSAN’S DISAPPEARANCE CONNECTED TO WHAT HAPPENED AT HARVARD.

  This step was pure speculation. But it was a logical bridge between the other theorems, so it had to be postulated.

  She thought for another moment, then wrote:

  SUSAN’S DISAPPEARANCE CONNECTED TO DONKEY GAME.

  Karen did not know what the game was, or who was involved. But somehow it played a role.

  The circle was almost complete. All Karen had to do was to write down one more convergence.

  WHAT HAPPENED ATHARVARD—DONKEY GAME—CONNECTED TO MICHAEL’S SELECTION AS VP NOMINEE.

  THEREFORE CONNECTED TO PINOCCHIO SYNDROME.

  DONKEY GAME—PINOCCHIO SYNDROME.

  There it was—the final link, the craziest convergence of all. Pinocchio, the wooden doll who wanted to be a boy, and the donkey into which naughty boys were transformed in the Pinocchio story.

  Karen clicked “Save” and sat back with a sigh. She lit another cigarette. She poured bourbon into her glass from the bottle on the floor. She closed her eyes and sat smoking for a couple of minutes.

  Part of her thought her imagination was running away with her. Another part thought she had never
been so close to reality in her life.

  When she opened her eyes the birds were back on the screen, flying innocently, then turning into fish without her being able to see exactly when the change took place. Then birds again, then fish. The pattern seemed to symbolize the search for truth. Truth was in the eye of the beholder. But it depended on which way the beholder was looking at a given second. Looking for fish? Looking for birds? Maybe there was no such thing as simple truth.

  Sighing, Karen touched the mouse to make the pattern disappear. She saw her desktop and navigated to her online service. She got online, intending simply to check her e-mail. Almost immediately the bell rang to signal an instant message. The IM box appeared.

  I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU, read the message. GRIMM HERE.

  Karen sat up straight. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

  She typed, I’VE MISSED YOU. WHY HAVEN’T YOU ANSWERED MY ADS?

  There was no reply.

  Karen’s haze of semidrunkenness had vanished. She had to find a way to keep Grimm on the line.

  I BELIEVE WHAT YOU TOLD ME, she wrote. I’M TRYING TO CONNECT THE DOTS. I NEED YOUR HELP.

  There was no reply.

  Karen crushed the cigarette in the crowded ashtray.

  I BELIEVE DISEASE CONNECTED TO VICE PRESIDENCY, she wrote. DISEASE CONNECTED TO CAMPBELL. EVERHARDT ELIMINATED. PALLESCHI ELIMINATED. STILLMAN KILLED. EPIDEMIC STOPS IN USA WHEN CAMPBELL CHOSEN BY PRESIDENT. WHY?

  There was a pause.

  YOU’RE GETTING WARMER, came the reply.

  Karen gritted her teeth.

  NOW SUSAN CAMPBELL DISAPPEARS, she wrote. WHY?

  There was a silence. Karen looked at her glass of bourbon, but did not drink. She took another Newport from the pack and lit it.

  I DO NOT KNOW, came the reply.

  She was on the point of asking straight out whether Grimm was the voice on the phone at Susan Campbell’s house. But something told her not to crowd Grimm this way.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT HARVARD? she asked.

  I WASN’T THERE, Grimm answered. YOU’LL HAVE TO FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.

  Karen sighed. She was disappointed. She had slipped into the habit of attributing to Grimm an omniscience that could solve all her problems. Perhaps he knew less than she thought.

  And there was the possibility that he was not being completely truthful about what he did know.

  WHY SUSAN? she asked. WHY NOW?

  There was no answer.

  Karen tried to think of something to say that would keep Grimm on the line.

  IF I TRY TO WRITE THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS, she wrote, NO ONE WILL LISTEN.

  AGREED, came the answer.

  Karen chewed her lip, thinking furiously.

  HELP ME MAKE THEM LISTEN, she said. GIVE ME NIXON’S TAPES. GIVE ME LEWINSKY’S BLUE DRESS. SIMPSON’S KNIFE.

  For a long moment the screen was silent.

  YOU ASK TOO MUCH, came the answer. A SMOKING GUN IS THE EXCEPTION NOT THE RULE.

  Karen sighed. HELP ME, she wrote.

  The pause was long. When the answer came it took Karen by surprise.

  HE HAS MADE PEOPLE SICK BEFORE, came the reply.

  WHO? Karen wrote. WHO HAS MADE PEOPLE SICK?

  Another silence.

  Then: FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF THE SICK.

  Karen chewed her lip nervously as she stared at the screen.

  WHERE DO I START? she wrote.

  The IM signal disappeared. Her correspondent had signed off.

  “Shit,” she said aloud. “Shit!”

  She puffed at her cigarette, studying the words on the screen.

  HE HAS MADE PEOPLE SICK BEFORE.

  FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF THE SICK.

  She took a sip of the warm bourbon. She closed her eyes, then opened them.

  Then she navigated to the online reservation service and inquired about flights to Boston.

  46

  —————

  SUSAN WOKE up with a splitting headache.

  She was in a small bedroom whose windows seemed to have been blacked out with some sort of dark paper. There was a tiny outline of light around the windows, but the room itself was lit only by a small lamp on the dresser.

  She tried to remember what had happened. Nothing came back except the fact that she had been at the cabin. She saw herself lighting the fire, turning on the furnace, putting the water on to boil for tea. Then nothing. The headache throbbed cruelly behind her eyes, canceling memory.

  At length there was a soft knock at the door, and a woman entered, carrying a TV tray.

  “You have a bad headache, right?” The woman was smiling, but something about the look in her eyes was strange. She looked middle-aged, Susan thought. A young fifty or an old forty. She wore slacks and a sweater. Her brownish hair looked as though it had been cheaply dyed.

  Now Susan recognized her as the neighbor who had asked for propane at the cabin.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Here,” the woman said. “Take three ibuprofen, they’ll knock it out. I also brought you some coffee and some breakfast.”

  There was a little thermal pot of coffee on the tray, and a couple of muffins. “You do like bran muffins, don’t you?” the woman asked.

  Susan hurriedly swallowed the three pain pills. Noticing a little glass of orange juice on the tray, she drank greedily from it.

  Almost immediately she realized she needed to urinate.

  “I have to pee,” she said.

  “Use the bathroom.” The woman pointed to a door beside the bed. Susan got up, holding her throbbing head, and went through it into a tiny bathroom with a molded plastic shower enclosure, a sink, and a toilet. There was no window.

  Susan used the toilet, her head aching painfully. She heard or felt a droning somewhere behind the walls. Could this place be near an airport? The vibration made her head feel worse. She returned to the bedroom. The woman was still there.

  “Eat something,” she said. “You’ll feel better.”

  Susan poured coffee and forced herself to eat one of the muffins. Her mouth felt dry. Gratefully she noticed that the throbbing in her head seemed to be getting less intense. The woman, out of tact or indifference, stood silently, watching her eat.

  At length Susan stopped chewing. She looked at the woman.

  “You’re the lady from Green Lake,” she said.

  “Not really,” the woman replied with a faint smile.

  “Why am I here?” Susan asked.

  “You’ve been abducted,” the woman said. “The authorities are looking for you. They won’t find you.”

  Susan sighed. “Why me?”

  The woman looked at Susan intently, but said nothing.

  “Is it money you want?” Susan asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “Then what?”

  “A demand will be made,” the woman said. “A political demand. When your husband goes along, you’ll be released. You may be here a week. Maybe longer.”

  Susan placed her hands on her painful temples. Terrorism, she thought. A political hostage. Was that better or worse than being a ransom hostage? She didn’t know.

  “What demand?” she asked.

  “You’ll find that out in due course.” The woman was standing with her hands at her sides. Susan noticed there were cut marks on the woman’s wrists. Seeing Susan’s look, the woman turned her wrists inward.

  Susan looked more closely at the woman’s face. The expression was not hostile, but there was a sort of inward glare in the irises that frightened Susan. Perhaps, she thought, the woman was not as old as she had first thought. Something other than age had altered that face.

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “You won’t be harmed,” the woman said. “If anything happened to you, your husband would be a martyr. His political career would be assured. We can’t have that.”

  “Who iswe ?” Susan asked.

  The woman ignored the question. She gestured to the
small bookcase and the TV with its built-in VCR. “I’ve put some magazines here for you,” she said. “I know you likeVanity Fair . I also got theNew Yorker andPeople . I got you some books. I know you like Sue Miller. I got you her latest.”

  She gestured to a copy of theNew York Times on the table. “I didn’t know what paper you like,” she said. “I’ll bring tapes of your favorite shows. And I have movies for you. If there are others you want me to rent, I can do that.”

  Susan didn’t answer.

  “You’ll find your favorite shampoo and cosmetics,” the woman said. “I got some Sung perfume, I know you like that.”

  Susan noticed the woman’s shoes. They were sensible flats in brown leather that looked like they came from a department store. The woman’s appearance was an enigma. She looked quietly respectable, but not suburban. She was well groomed, but there was something strange about her skin and above all her eyes. Was it the look of insanity? Or of political fanaticism? Susan could not tell.

  “I’ll try to make you as comfortable as I can,” the woman said. “No one likes being abducted. If there had been any other way, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Susan was looking at her through narrowed eyes.

  “That was you on the phone, wasn’t it?” she asked. “You’re the one who called me those times.”

  The woman smiled. A sad smile.

  “Yes,” she said. “Do I sound different in person?”

  Susan recalled the strange intimacy of the voice on the phone, sinister and yet somehow caressing.

  “What is it you want?” she asked.