The Syndrome

by John Case

  “They say who they’re with?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact—it came up. They said they were with the Pentagon,” Dorgan replied, “only I notice their business cards have a 301 area code.”

  “Which means… ?”

  Dorgan shrugged. “NSA?”

  Shaw frowned. “So what was the point of the visit?”

  “They wanted to know how I’d ‘come into possession of the device.’”

  “And you told them?” Shaw asked, his face a mask of disappointment.

  “Of course I told them! What was I supposed to do, Ray? They scared the shit out of me.”

  “So…”

  Dorgan hesitated. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe you should expect a visit.”

  Chapter 32

  She had been sitting in the reception area for nearly twenty minutes when the door to Shaw’s office swung wide, and two men in black trench coats emerged, looking grim. Crossing the room to the hallway, they let themselves out without a word, while Shaw himself lingered in the doorway with a worried look on his face.

  Tossing the New Yorker onto the table beside the couch, Adrienne got to her feet, and cleared her throat.

  The psychiatrist turned to her with a distracted air. For a moment, it seemed as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he did, and, waking suddenly, exclaimed, “Adrienne! Migod, come in.”

  She followed him into his office, and took a seat in front of his desk. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  The psychiatrist looked worried and confused at the same time. “I’m not supposed to mention their visit,” he told her.

  “Whose visit?”

  “The men who were just here.”

  “Oh,” she said, uncertain what he meant.

  Shaw frowned. Looked her in the eyes. “You haven’t told me everything, have you? About our friend.”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “No,” she admitted. “Not everything.”

  “Because, now… well, now there’s trouble.”

  She was stricken at the thought that she’d drawn this kind and generous man into the mixing bowl of her own problems. And Duran’s. McBride’s. Nikki’s. “I thought, the less you knew…”

  “They asked me for his medical file. I refused to give it to them.”

  “Who?”

  “The men who were here.”

  Adrienne thought about it. “And who are they?”

  The psychiatrist shook his head. “They said they’re with a government agency.”

  “What agency?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Adrienne made a face. “Well, if they want his medical file, they can get a subpoena—”

  Doctor Shaw shook his head, and smiled ruefully. “I don’t think that’s the way they work. They were very forceful.”

  “Oh.”

  The psychiatrist did his best to push the men out of his mind. “You were going to look into Mr. McBride’s story. Did you find anything?”

  Adrienne was relieved to change, if not the subject, the direction it was heading in. “Absolutely!” she exclaimed. “Beginning with the fact that he is who he says he is—except that he’s supposed to be dead.”

  “What?”

  “And he isn’t married. No wife, no child. No indictments for murder or anything else. None of that happened.” She removed a copy of the LOCAL MAN FEARED DEAD article from her purse, and pushed it across the desk. “He’s got longer hair in the picture, but… you can see it’s him.”

  Shaw put on his reading glasses, glanced at the photograph, nodded, and focused. After a while, the psychiatrist looked up. “How can you be sure—”

  “I went through every article on Nexis that mentioned anyone named McBride and San Francisco—‘95 through ‘97. There were hundreds of them, and there was nothing even remotely like the fairy tale he told you. And if I missed it, somehow—which I didn’t—it would certainly have been in the story about the plane crash—if it ever happened.”

  Shaw leaned back in his chair, contemplating the ceiling. “And if he had a common-law wife? And a baby with a different last name? And if he was never a suspect in the murders… ?”

  “Doc. Please. You’re reaching.”

  The psychiatrist thought about it. “I suppose I am.”

  They agreed to meet at the hospital the next morning. In the meantime, Shaw said that he’d instruct the nursing staff to keep McBride under restraints, but desist from any further sedation.

  Returning to the Mayflower, Adrienne changed into her running clothes, slipped a $10 bill into her right shoe, and took the elevator down to the lobby. Someone was taking down the Thanksgiving decorations. Rubbing his gloved hands together, the doorman shook his head in admiration as she stepped out into the freezing cold. “If I’m not back in an hour,” she told him, “send a St. Bernard for me.”

  Overhead, the bare branches of ancient oaks and sycamores framed the sky. Mounds of dung lay on the powder-soft, equestrian trails. And then, a long hill, leading to a dark pond on the southern-most edge of Harlem. Clusters of private-school kids stood together, tieless and smoking—laughing, conspiring. The slur of Rollerblades on the pavement. Thwockk of tennis balls in the distance. Then the Reservoir, ringed with Cyclone fencing, the sun behind it, setting. Light flickering through the fence as Adrienne ran beside it, thinking about McBride.

  How do you imagine a family, she asked herself, imagine it so perfectly that you become suicidal in the belief that you’ve killed them? And why now—why would McBride recall an imaginary and toxic past after the implant had been removed?

  It didn’t make sense. Unless, of course, that was the point: to make “Duran” commit suicide if and when the device should ever be removed, if and when he should ever recover his memory. His real memory.

  And now the men in trenchcoats…

  Adrienne arrived at the hospital the next morning, almost half an hour early, refreshed from a long and dreamless sleep. She was hoping to see McBride before Shaw arrived, but the nurse at the reception desk rebuffed her. “We don’t allow visitors on A-4. I’m sorry, but there are no exceptions.”

  To the nurse’s irritation, she insisted on waiting.

  It was ten A.M. when Doctor Shaw stepped off the elevator, looking gloomy and determined. He barked at the supervising floor nurse, who objected to Adrienne following him through the heavy doors that gave entry to Ward A. Nearby, a bank of television monitors flickered with the images of a dozen, small, white rooms, each of which held a single person, none of whom were moving much.

  “You know the regulations, Doctor—”

  “You’re right,” Shaw told the nurse. “I do. And if we weren’t in a hurry, I’d transfer the patient to another room—but we don’t have time for that.”

  We don’t? Adrienne thought.

  “Well, if you’re going to violate protocol,” the nurse began, “I should think—”

  “Why don’t you just make a report?” Shaw asked, striding away. “I’ll be releasing him in short order, anyway.”

  “Releasing him? Mr. McBride isn’t in any condition—”

  But Shaw wasn’t listening. He was walking so fast that Adrienne had to move at double-time, just to keep up with him.

  All the rooms on the ward had large windows facing out on the corridor. The windows were made of the kind of glass that was embedded with a kind of chicken wire.

  Shaw opened one of the doors, and stepped inside.

  The room contained a built-in console with drawers against one wall and a bed against the other. A television was mounted on the wall facing the bed, and there was a video camera affixed to the ceiling. A small toilet in the corner. And that was that.

  McBride lay in the bed, his head propped up on a pair of pillows, staring at a soap opera. He hadn’t moved when they entered the room, and now she saw that he couldn’t: his wrists were belted to the bed.

  Adrienne was shocked. “Take those off!” she demanded, moving quickly to McBride’s
side.

  “Soon enough,” Shaw promised, gently lifting her hand from one of the restraints. Stepping closer, he laid a hand on McBride’s shoulder. “Lewis,” he said, “I want you to pay close attention to what I’m about to say.”

  No reaction.

  “It’s important,” the psychiatrist insisted, “and I’m worried that we don’t have a lot of time.”

  Nothing from McBride—who looked as if he’d aged ten years since Adrienne had seen him, years in which he’d undergone some terrible ordeal. His face was drawn and his cheeks were covered with stubble. Hollow eyes that averted her own.

  Frustrated, Adrienne reached up and snapped off the TV.

  McBride turned his head toward her. “Thanks,” he said. “I hate that fucking show.”

  Adrienne giggled, delighted to get a reaction—any reaction—from him. “Listen to me, Lewis,” Shaw demanded.

  The patient shook his head, closed his eyes. “Let me alone, Doc.” His voice had all the resonance of a stone.

  “I’m going to release you,” the psychiatrist announced.

  It took a moment for the words to penetrate the insulation in which McBride had wrapped his understanding. Then his eyes blinked open, and he turned to Shaw with a sidelong glance.

  “But you have to pay attention,” Shaw told him.

  He was.

  The psychiatrist cleared his throat.

  “You didn’t do it!” Adrienne blurted. “You didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Let me handle this,” Shaw insisted.

  Adrienne put a hand on McBride’s cheek and, turning his head to her, looked him in the eyes. “No—I checked the papers. And it’s all a lie. There was nothing! No murder, no police—”

  McBride shook his head. “I know what happened, kiddo. I know what I did.”

  “But you’re wrong. You weren’t even married. There wasn’t any baby!” She paused. Should she tell him he was supposed to be dead? “It’s like Nikki,” she said. “They’ve given you one of these memories—”

  “Who has?”

  His question took her aback.

  “Who has?” he repeated.

  She didn’t know what to say. Looked to Shaw for help. Got none. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Someone.”

  McBride looked away. “I can feel it,” he told them. “I can feel the bat in my hands…”

  “Lew,” Shaw began—

  McBride turned back to Adrienne. “So, what you’re saying is: I’m just a screen for someone else’s projector.”

  Adrienne weighed the metaphor. Shrugged. “Right,” she said.

  McBride swung his eyes toward the psychiatrist. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. Then: what’s the point? Why would anyone want to make me think I killed my wife and child?” When Shaw frowned, McBride turned angrily to Adrienne. “What’s the point?” he repeated.

  The question hung in the air, floating through the weird silence of that empty and sterile room. It was a good question, a tough question and, for a moment, Adrienne despaired of an answer. Then it came to her, and it was so simple. She cleared her throat. “So you’d kill yourself,” she said. “Like Nikki.”

  Once the restraints had been removed, and McBride had seen the clipping from the Examiner, Shaw told him that “I want to put you in a trance.”

  “No, thanks, Doc. Been there—done that. If you don’t mind…”

  “There’s no way that I’m going to release you,” Shaw said, “until I’m certain you’re free of posthypnotic suggestions—whatever the source.”

  McBride chewed on that, a defiant look in his eye.

  “Let me be honest with you,” Shaw continued. “After what you’ve been through, it’s going to take a long time for you to get well. Under any other circumstances, I’d recommend counseling and therapy—and lots of it. He paused, and heaved a sigh. “But we don’t have that luxury. As Adrienne can tell you, I’ve been contacted by a government agency. They say they have ‘equities’ in the matter. That may be so. I don’t know. But what I do know is that they don’t have your best interests at heart. In fact, I got the distinct impression that they don’t care about you, at all.”

  McBride thought about it. Finally, he asked, “And you think I’ve been given posthypnotic suggestions—”

  “Absolutely! That’s why I was having such a helluva time getting through to you. Anytime you came close to your past—your real past—this brutal figment, this syndrome—would begin to surface. And when it did, you’d sense it and, psychologically, you’d start to panic. Fight or flight. It’s brilliant. They created a false memory so toxic that it gave you a built-in aversion to your real self.”

  Even with the restraints removed, McBride remained where he was, in a sink of depression. “Maybe you’re right,” he said in a skeptical voice. “Then again, isn’t it more likely that I just got away with it?”

  “No,” Adrienne exclaimed, her voice trembling with anger. “It isn’t more likely! You know somebody fucked with your head. Wake up! You didn’t kill Eddie, you didn’t blow up the house, you didn’t trash my apartment—”

  “Who’s Eddie? “ Shaw asked, his voice thick with alarm.

  Adrienne ignored him. “And you aren’t the one who’s trying to kill me.”

  “Oh, Jesus—” Shaw muttered.

  “So placing your bets on the ‘more likely’ explanation is kind of stupid, isn’t it?” she asked. Then she wrapped her arms around her body, turned away, and walked toward the opposite side of the room.

  “Who’s Eddie?” Shaw asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Adrienne told him, her back to the psychiatrist. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “Wait a second,” she said, turning toward him. “I thought hypnosis was benign. And it was impossible to make hypnotized people do something that would cause harm. I heard you couldn’t make a person hurt anyone—let alone kill himself.”

  “That’s a myth,” Shaw said, dismissing the idea. “PR from the hypnotism industry.” He gestured toward McBride. “Lewis can tell you all about it. He’s in the field.”

  “What do you mean, it’s a myth?” Adrienne asked.

  Shaw glanced at his watch, then ran his hand through his hair. “It’s all a question of context,” he explained.

  “What context?” Adrienne asked.

  “Well, for example: if the patient believes he’s in a war, and that the war is a just one, he could probably be made to kill someone that the hypnotist tells him is the enemy. Or if he’s persuaded that someone is intent on killing him, and that he’s acting in self-defense—”

  “I get the point,” Adrienne said, “but it’s all theoretical.”

  “Hardly,” Shaw replied. Turning to McBride, he asked: “What was that case? The one in Denmark?”

  “Palle Hardrup,” McBride answered. “Bank robbery—in the Fifties—a guard was killed.” Adrienne noticed that McBride was alert now, the discussion having overcome his indifference.

  “Right!” Shaw said, with a congratulatory smile. “You’ve got an excellent memory.”

  It took a second, but they all smiled. Then Adrienne looked from one man to the other. “His name was Hardup? And he robbed a bank? Is this some kind of shrink in-joke?”

  McBride smiled. “Haar-druup,” he corrected. “He was arrested after a bank robbery. Shot a guard, and killed him. Which puzzled the police because he didn’t really need the money, and he wasn’t a violent guy. He was pretty ordinary, in fact. A good citizen. So the question was, why did he do it?” McBride looked at Shaw, who nodded for him to continue. “It was totally out of character. But then they found out that he’d been hypnotized by his therapist—and that the therapist had ordered him to rob the bank and shoot the guard.”

  “And the judge bought this?” Adrienne asked, her voice larded with the skepticism of a good attorney.

  “Yes, he did. Because the therapist confessed. Said he’d engineered the crime as a test of his powers.”

  “Huh,” Adrienn
e remarked, uncertain if she believed the story.

  “It’s a famous case,” Shaw told her. “It came up in the Manson trial.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because the therapist wasn’t on the scene when the crime was committed—and yet, the gunman was obviously under his influence and control.”

  “So how did he do it?” Adrienne asked. “The therapist.”

  “Do you remember, Lew?” Shaw asked.

  McBride nodded. “He created a persona, a supernatural persona, that he called ‘X.’ ‘X’ was like God. And it was ‘X’ who told Hardrup what to do.”

  “And he did it?” Adrienne asked. “He shot the man?”

  “Of course,” Shaw replied. “He was a very religious man.”

  Adrienne thought about it. “And that’s what you mean by ‘context,’“ she said.

  “Right. As far as Hardrup was concerned, he was an instrument of divine will.”

  “And you think that would work for suicide?”

  “Why not?” Shaw answered. “People commit suicide all the time. Under the right circumstances—in the proper context—it can seem an honorable, and even reasonable, thing to do.” He glanced at his watch, and turned to McBride. “Are you up for it?”

  McBride looked uncertain.

  “We really don’t have a lot of time.”

  McBride looked at Adrienne, and sighed. “Yeah, why not?”

  Shaw smiled, and turned to Adrienne. “If you don’t mind waiting for us in the cafeteria… I have an exorcism to do.”

  She was sitting at a square table in the cafeteria, working her way through the Business section of the Times, when Shaw strode in past the steam table, almost an hour after she’d left him. A little ripple of attention followed his progress across the room, with several nurses and doctors greeting him. He stopped to speak to a short, red-haired man in scrubs but otherwise just waved, smiled, mimed looking at his watch, and continued moving in her direction. She could tell from the response that Shaw was well liked.

  “Where’s Lew?” she asked.

  He sat down across from her. “He’ll be squared away in a few minutes. I signed the release, but… there’s paperwork.” He paused, and then went on. “Speaking of which: this is for you.” He pushed a file across the table.