Second Sight

by George D. Shuman

  “She didn’t even know what was in it.” Sherry shook her head. “She had it sealed away ever since her husband died.”

  Troy let out a breath of pure relief.

  “You said it was about a soldier, I remember. I’m a little fuzzy about the night you told me.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Sherry said, feeling her face getting warm. “I don’t usually get that ‘fuzzy’ myself, but yes, it was about the army back then. Strange times, that’s all. I think they were probably doing some things at the army base that weren’t all that proper.”

  “Like what?” Troy looked interested.

  “Oh, I don’t know, just stuff. Like maybe they were doing tests on them.”

  Sherry had no interest in having this conversation now. Not with a stranger. Not until she talked to Brigham. Not until she had a clue as to whether or not some general’s or psychologist’s name was going to pop up in his investigation and if so, how detrimental the news was going to be to the administration that was still in the White House.

  The tavern parking lot was filled. Sleet covered the blacktop. A news van was sitting in the public parking lot across the street; a reporter was probably still interviewing neighbors. How much news could there be around a town like Stockton, or at least news that didn’t involve the state’s psychiatric institute?

  “My friend Betsy will meet us in the tavern.” She pointed to Grant’s, where a man was sprinkling salt across the steps and sidewalk. “She said they took Mrs. Corcoran to the state hospital up the road. They have a trauma unit there.”

  “I’ll wait right here in the car for you. Have a drink with your friend. She probably needs you right now. Take as long as you like. Really.”

  “You don’t want to come in?” Sherry asked, surprised.

  “No, no, I’ve got some calls to make and I’ll be fine right here.” There was no way Troy was going to chance that the bartender might recognize him.

  The bar was packed. Betsy was against the wall talking to a trio of people. She waved and Sherry made her way through the crowd to join her.

  Betsy put her arm around her and began to introduce everyone. “Everyone’s out tonight,” Betsy whispered, pointing around. “No one can get over what happened to Carla. Her son is on the way from Tallahassee. He’s supposed to be in tonight.”

  “Her husband?”

  “Up at the hospital.”

  “She’s still…”

  “Alive.” Betsy nodded. “And they’ve upgraded her to stable,” she added enthusiastically.

  “What happened?”

  “All we know is that her husband stayed in Ashokan last night—he keeps a room at the golf course—and when he came home this morning he found her lying on the floor. She’d shot herself at her desk, the bullet entered her head behind the ear, and there was supposed to have been a note.”

  “How in the world did she survive?”

  “One of the doctors from the asylum just called his wife, Lynn, that’s her over there in the black turtleneck. She said the ammo Carla used was pre-World War Two. It must have been corroded. She said the shell barely struck her hard enough to fracture her skull. Caused internal bleeding and swelling. That’s what they’re doing now. Trying to get the swelling to go down.”

  “But it will.”

  “He told Lynn she was going to make it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sherry said. “You know that.”

  “I know and so am I, but we’ve all known Carla Corcoran a long time before you got here, young lady. There was nothing anyone could have said to that woman to unhinge her like that. Whatever happened to her over at that house had nothing at all to do with you or me.”

  Sherry took a deep breath and exhaled. She wanted to cling to that idea as long as she could.

  “It’s Sherry, right?” Mike the bartender called out, recognizing her. “You need a drink?”

  Sherry shook her head. “No, but thanks anyhow, Mike.”

  “Here if you need me,” he said cheerfully.

  “I’m so glad you came up, but they won’t let anyone see her. Not yet,” Betsy said.

  “You know, I’m just happy I’m not going to a funeral home. When you said she was shot in the head, I thought I was coming to pay my respects to her husband.”

  “Well, the weather is perfectly awful. You can stay at my place, if you like.”

  Sherry shook her head. “I wouldn’t even have come if it weren’t for a friend. We’ll be driving back tonight.”

  Betsy looked at Sherry. “You sure?”

  “Sure,” Sherry said. “What can I do for you right now? Anything?”

  “Well, I feel a hell of a lot better after talking to the doctor’s wife, but if you talk to Garland before I do, please tell him to call me. I think I’ll delay my trip to Philadelphia until Carla’s home and her husband can take care of her again.”

  “Brigham,” Sherry said. “I forgot all about him. You’ve been calling?”

  “Right up until twenty minutes ago. He’s still not picking up.” Betsy shrugged.

  “Betsy?” someone called from across the room.

  Betsy put her arms around Sherry. “Okay. I’m sorry, but I guess I let you come a long way for nothing. If you’re going to go back, get on the road before it’s too dark. I’ll tell Carla you were here, and don’t you fret over her. I’m sure there’s an explanation and whatever it is, we all have a chance to help her get through it this time. Thank you so much for coming.” She hugged her. “But get out of here and I’ll fill Garland in on the phone when I reach him.”

  Sherry turned to leave as Betsy started for her friend who was calling.

  “Betsy?”

  Betsy turned. Sherry had stopped and was coming back toward her.

  “Yes, Sherry, what is it?”

  “Can I ask you a quick question?”

  “Of course, dear.” The older woman smiled.

  “How do you get to that old army base?”

  32

  Brigham laid the copies from his folio on the table beyond his coffee and pushed them forward. “I’m sorry this turned into a whole day for everyone, but you know our esteemed colleagues back in Washington would not wish to be blindsided if any of this were true. That is of course the last thing we wish to do.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. Clinks of spoons in coffee cups, ice cubes in one man’s scotch whiskey, one woman’s Bloody Mary being stirred.

  “What we talked about at breakfast this morning,” the woman said. “I don’t think these things have been repeated outside of Washington and I mean not ever. It all feels a little dicey to me. This isn’t exactly the CIA.”

  “I’ll vouch for the security of this room,” a former president said. “Tell me what they’ve got over there, Addie.”

  The woman nodded in surrender. “Its code name is MIRA,” she said. “More synthetic telepathy, you’ve all heard it before, but this is exponentially sophisticated. Like nothing we’ve had in seventy years of research.”

  She stirred the olives in her Bloody Mary without taking her eyes from the men around the table. “The technology is the same, extremely low-frequency radio waves, electrical impulses—”

  “I’m sorry.” A very old man sitting next to her interrupted. “Can you just tell us what agency we’re talking about?”

  She nodded at him, lips tight. “DARPA,” she said. “Defense Advanced Research Projects.”

  “Sorry, but thank you.” The old man smiled.

  She laid her stirrer aside. “So I’m talking about subconscious, microwave telepathy. We’ve known the effects of radiobiology since the early 1980s. We knew since long before that, that certain extremely low frequencies of radio waves could disrupt organisms and raise body temperatures. But neurological variations, the effects of radio waves on the central nervous system and particularly cells of the brain, remained a mystery until we decoded biorhythms and assimilated hertz and frequency to the human organism.”

  “Madam.” The man with the
scotch sighed.

  She nodded. “I know, Jim,” she said, “it’s like this. The inventors of MIRA are following a course of known electroencephalograph patterns catalogued by computers, subtle characteristics of EEGs that occur when a person experiences particular emotions. We can now identify the concomitant brain waves that correspond to the act or emotion and duplicate it through microwave technology. We can introduce it into another human target. In other words, MIRA can put thoughts and words into your head that are indecipherable from your own. The target cannot possibly comprehend that the thoughts are synthetic and manufactured.”

  “The ultimate purpose being?” The old man raised his eyebrows.

  “That would depend on the agency. I won’t even say the first word that comes to mind, but I will stress the defense advantages of neutralizing an aggressive world leader in the interest of peace.”

  A distinguished-looking man across the room leaned forward. “There have been rumors of errors. Deaths in trials?”

  The woman nodded. “Twenty-five GEC-Marconi scientists died in eight years working with ELF transmissions on the Star Wars project in the U.K. They were mostly suicides, auto accidents, nothing traceable. We were learning a great deal more about ELF at the time, the relationship between low-frequency fields and its recorded effect on the brain.” She waved a hand and looked at her notes. “Humans couldn’t perceive it, but in trials we learned that animals would intentionally try to leave an area that was being bombarded. We now know that the biobehavioral effects of ELF vary from human to human.”

  “Before MIRA came along.”

  “Precisely,” she said. “MIRA compensates by using brain-based rather than computer-based models.”

  “And the accidents. I meant here. In the United States.”

  “None since this administration took office.”

  “Really,” one of the men said.

  “Really.” She nodded.

  “And before that?”

  “Well, I believe that is exactly the Pandora’s box that Admiral Brigham has just opened.”

  “Do you know who was there? In charge of Area 17?” the former president asked.

  She nodded.

  So did a former director of the CIA.

  “What happens when we go public?” The former president tapped the table.

  “Well, we certainly didn’t know he was killing our boys up there. I mean, General Keith worked for Secretary Marshall. He must have known there were fatalities, Keith and both of his colonels from DOD. But killing soldiers and disposing of them on base to hide the fact, it’s unbelievable! If this story were true, it runs darker than anything I’ve heard in fifty years of service.” The former joint chief of staff folded his arms across his chest. “And there are no records anywhere in Washington to support what you describe, I’ve seen them all, I can assure you.”

  “Well, the diary certainly exists. We have the names. We heard from the general just fifteen minutes ago that these boys named in Admiral Brigham’s diary were not supposed to be in New York in 1950 and are still considered missing in Korea.”

  “And we’ve got this man Monahan’s body under the knife in Walter Reed as we speak. If his brain suffered what our experts tell us to expect and his blood matches the DNA from that diary, then there is little else to conclude.”

  “Who was he?” the former president asked. “Who led the research team in the Catskills?”

  “Edward Case,” the woman said. “Case and Kimble Pharmaceuticals.”

  The former president nodded regretfully. “Yes, I’ve met the man, photograph’s in the Oval Office.” He squinted. “He’s a goddamned Nobel Prize winner.” He rubbed hard at his forehead. “How about military personnel? How many highly decorated war veterans are we going to smear that worked in Area 17?”

  “All dead. Our people checked this morning. There isn’t an officer over the rank of lieutenant still alive, maybe six or seven noncommissioned sergeants and corporals that took orders, but they can’t be held to blame.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Madam.” The former president nodded. “Gentlemen, what do you propose?”

  “We can’t expose MIRA,” the ex-CIA director said quickly.

  “No,” the former president agreed. “We can’t do that.”

  “Neither can Case or his people. He’s bound by the Official Secrets Act,” the former defense secretary said. “If he threatens to talk he goes into isolation for the rest of his life.”

  The former president nodded. “So we can give these boys the honor and dignity they deserve?”

  Brigham was looking down at the table, his hands out flat in front of him. He looked disoriented.

  The woman next to him leaned toward him. “Are you okay, Garland?”

  “Garland,” the former president interrupted, taking notice of the pallor of Brigham’s face. He reached for Brigham’s arm. “Garland, is there something else we need to know?”

  “I’m sorry.” The retired admiral looked up. “Um, you just threw me a curve, is all.” He began to rise from the table. “I’m afraid I have to make a very important call. Please continue. I’ll join you momentarily.”

  Brigham ran to the door and down the hall to the exit to the driveway to get beyond the building’s electronic audio scrambling systems so he could receive cell phone service again. He dialed Sherry’s number again and again, to no avail.

  Case and Kimble?

  Troy Weir.

  They had been onto her from the beginning.

  33

  “You really don’t mind stopping there briefly?”

  “Our last adventure.” He smiled. “Why not? Your friend who gave you directions was who?”

  “Betsy,” Sherry said. “Same woman who introduced me to Carla Corcoran.”

  He nodded, satisfied.

  “If it looks like any trouble getting into this place, we’re turning right around,” Sherry said.

  “You said it’s abandoned.”

  “Yeah, but the government still posts it and I have no intention of getting you or anyone else into trouble.”

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of a little trouble now and then.” He smiled and elbowed her.

  They followed the road they had taken to the asylum, but forked off on gravel before they reached the entrance.

  “Betsy says this is a state road now. It ends at an outdoor range maintained by the game commission, about a hundred yards from the old base. She says we follow the path into the woods to the gate, turn right, and a hundred yards or so there’s an opening in the fence.”

  The range was empty. It wasn’t very sophisticated, a six-foot mound of bulldozed earth at one end of a small clearing. A steel drum brimming over with old beer cartons and perforated paper targets, one wooden picnic table at the open end where you could lean a rifle to sight in a scope before deer season. It was a place to take your son or daughter and plink at tin cans the rest of the year.

  Troy reached across Sherry and took a small revolver from the glove box. “Just in case,” he said. “Snakes and critters scare me. There’s a flashlight in the emergency kit in the trunk.”

  Sherry wondered when genetic biologists began carrying handguns in their Porsches as Troy tucked the gun in his waistband and removed a flashlight from the trunk of his car.

  “The path leads to the southern fence around the base,” she said. “See the top of it over there?”

  Sherry followed a path to the old steel mesh fence, twelve feet high and topped with rusting barbed wire. They left tracks across the ice-covered ground, their jackets and hair gathering tiny white beads of sleet.

  “We’ll just walk along the perimeter now until we find a place to get in.”

  It took less than ten minutes. The wire had been cut and pulled back several feet so that you could walk in without turning sideways. There was a well-beaten footpath inside the fence that eventually joined a dirt road and the scaffolding of an old radio tower.

  The closer
you got to the base, the more you could see of the buildings. Rooftops sticking up between the overgrowth of saplings and tall grass, a few metal chimneys from woodstoves, it looked more like some third-world country than a mountain in upstate New York. There was a cluster of rust-colored steel huts that must have collapsed under a half century of snow. A fallen tree had cracked a cement block building with part of a radar dish. A clearing the size of a football field was spotted with black chunks of asphalt that rose up out of the ground. It wasn’t exactly a landing strip, but big enough to accommodate the immense tandem rotor helicopters the army would have used as equipment transports in the 1950s.

  There were rotted wooden buildings on the far side of the landing pad, single-story barracks and some ground-level roofing with a variety of ventilation pipes over a large section of ground. Possibly a foundation of something meant to be underground.

  Sherry pointed toward the hull of an old gasoline tanker truck on its axles in the trees. Two deer were standing in front of it, watching to see what they’d do.

  There were beer cans in the tall grasses and hundreds of broken bottles. The barracks had not a windowpane remaining and the scarred gray walls were covered with profane graffiti. Appliances were strewn across the grounds, old refrigerators and stoves, marketable antiques if they hadn’t been shot full of holes or beaten so badly with boards and old piping.

  The grass grew tall and careless around the buildings. Roots from the forest had invaded open spaces. There were long shaggy vines of poison ivy, greasy leaves as big as fists. There was bracken fern and poison sumac and thickets of sleet-covered sedges.

  Troy stepped ahead onto the long flat ground-level roof. It appeared to be an underground bunker, and it was easily fifty feet in length and twenty-five feet in width. The roof, once tarred, was either bare or peeling away.

  Sherry made her way into one of the barracks. There was no door, just rubble from the crumbling plaster on the floor. There was a broken table, the barely discernible remains of a sofa, and a large fabric chair full of straw where mice once nested. She took out her penlight and checked each room.