The engine idled softly, sending white plumes of exhaust floating into the frigid morning air. Tracie opened the driver’s door and the chill struck her like a baseball bat to the side of the head. The SUV’s interior had already warmed enough that the difference in temperature between inside and outside was jarring.
She shivered reflexively and stepped into the snow, sinking almost up to her knees, suddenly grateful for the bitterly cold temperatures. The average for the Urals in early February was minus-four degrees Fahrenheit, and of course temps plunged much lower than that at night and during cold snaps.
But what made for a danger to the human body was a benefit for travel, because even though the snow was relatively deep, it was also light and fluffy. The Lada was able to brush it aside as it moved forward, like a boat cresting the waves while moving through water.
Tracie slogged to the rear of the vehicle. The metal was creased and damaged, but it appeared as though there was still sufficient clearance for the tire to rotate unimpeded. As long as she avoided hitting a second tree she thought she should be fine.
She sighed and scolded herself for allowing her concentration to slip. All it had taken was a half-second’s inattention to put herself in a potentially lethal bind.
She retraced her steps to the driver’s seat and climbed back behind the wheel. Here goes nothing, she thought, slipping the transmission into first gear and easing down on the gas. The truck bucked and slipped and began to slide sideways, exactly as had happened when it struck the tree. This time, Tracie eased off the gas until the tires caught.
She swung the steering wheel right and added power and the truck straightened out on the rough track, then the vehicle again began fighting its way forward. Several hundred feet later the murkiness began to lighten and Tracie’s initial thought was that the sun had finally risen high enough in the sky to begin penetrating the thick forest canopy.
But then she realized there was an even better explanation for the sudden increase in visibility: the road was dead ahead. She pumped her fist and pressed a little harder on the accelerator and fought her way through the remaining stretch of forest. She would never know who had cleared the trail from the roadway to the isolated lake, or why they had done so, but she thanked the anonymous Bashkirans all the same.
Seconds later she burst from the trail onto the road and cut the wheel hard to the right. Then she eased to a stop. The road was deserted and barely wider than the cow path she’d just left, but it was paved and relatively clear of snow, and Tracie felt sure it was the one that would lead to Mezhgorye.
She breathed a sigh of relief and continued on.
10
January 31, 1988
9:15 a.m.
Ipatiev Military Research Facility
Mezhgorye, Bashkir
Vladimir Protasov rapped on the closed door with his knuckles and then entered January 3’s room without waiting for a response. None was necessary, as the knock was strictly a courtesy.
Vladimir was a civilized person, and as such would conduct himself in a civilized manner. But at this point there was no question—if there ever had been a question—about the balance of power between a man shackled to a hospital bed with electrical wires poking out of his head, and another man who was free to come and go as he wished, particularly when the second man was performing experiments on the first.
It was not the test subject’s place to prevent Vlad’s entrance.
It was not the test subject’s place to determine his fate.
It was the test subject’s place only to participate in the experimentation process as required.
Vlad stepped into the room and smiled at January 3. “How are we feeling today?”
He expected no answer and received none. The subject gazed up at him in the strange manner Vlad had now come to expect: eyes tracking Vlad’s progress around the room while his head remained virtually motionless on his pillow.
Vlad had initially assumed the man’s cranial stillness was to minimize pain from the brain surgery, but he had begun to suspect that was not the case. The subject had given up. He knew he would never leave this facility alive, and his depression was so complete he could not be bothered to expend even the minimal energy required to lift his head from his pillow.
No matter. Thus far he had participated fully—if begrudgingly—in the testing protocol, and Vlad was beginning to see signs of light at the end of a very long tunnel. These signs led him to believe he was on the right path, that he could eventually present positive findings to his masters at Lubyanka and be telling the truth, rather than participating in a sham.
This success would take place only after what he knew would be extensive further testing, Vlad refused to kid himself about that. He would still be stuck in this drab concrete Soviet military base for a very long time, no matter the results of today’s experimentation, or tomorrow’s, or next week’s or next month’s. But he would not deny himself the luxury of optimism; he could not deny himself that luxury.
Because the plain fact of the matter was that Vladimir Protosov was every bit as much a prisoner as was January 3. His accommodations were better, there was no question about that. His apartment in Mezhgorye was quite comfortable, and anything he requested—within reason—would be supplied in less than two weeks by the KGB, no small accomplishment given Ipatiev’s extreme isolation.
But it was all for show.
Vlad was not stupid; on the contrary, he was highly educated, extremely intelligent, and perceptive to the point of cunning. And the situation was so simple that even the clearly mentally challenged January 3 would have no problem recognizing it: should Vlad decide to leave he would be prevented from doing so.
Therefore he was a prisoner. His cell contained no bars other than the well-stocked, handcrafted oak one in his living room, where he drank every night after work and listened to his beloved Russian opera singers on the stereo: Feodor Chaliapin, and Lev Sibiriakov, and Vladimir Kastorsky.
And as far as prison bars were concerned, what would be the point of installing any? The Ipatiev Research Facility was located hundreds of kilometers from anywhere, thousands maybe, constructed in an isolated corner of the Ural Mountains, cold and forbidding and inhospitable. Confining Vladimir to a jail cell would be utterly unnecessary when, should he attempt to leave Mezhgorye by automobile, he would run out of fuel long before ever making it to the next town. He would then freeze to death, and he knew it.
And the KGB knew he knew it.
So he soldiered on. At least the work that had drawn him here was fascinating.
***
Vlad busied himself preparing the testing equipment, doing his best to ignore the unsettled feeling he was getting from January 3’s complete silence and total lack of movement. It was that damned stillness that bothered him the most. January 3 had barely moved a muscle since Vlad’s entry into the room.
He rolled the wheeled cart to its familiar spot at the end of the subject’s bed as he’d done so many times before. He lowered the video screen and turned on the projector. He connected the cables to the electrical wires protruding out of the small burr hole in January 3’s skull.
Then he handed the plastic remote to the subject and reminded the man of his obligation in this experiment.
“As I’m sure you recall from yesterday,” he said—although he was not at all sure the man remembered, given the extent of his mental deterioration—“images of animals and other familiar objects will be flashed onto the screen in front of you. As each photograph appears, I will announce the name by which the animal or object is commonly known. You will then press either the “I Agree” or the “I Disagree” button on your remote control device. Sometimes the name I announce will be correct, and sometimes it will not. Your only requirement is to differentiate between the two.”
Vlad held the subject’s gaze and gave him the opportunity to respond, despite feeling certain he would not.
He did not.
Vlad cleared his throat.
“Very well,” he said, ignoring the awkwardness. “Let us proceed.”
***
The roots of Russian interest in mind control predated the existence of the Soviet Union, extending all the way back to the 1870s. Almost immediately after the 1917 revolution that deposed the Tsarist autocracy and installed the rule of the proletariat, the government that would eventually grow into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics expanded such research, funding secret projects designed to utilize mind control methods to expand the influence of the Soviet state.
Modern Soviet research into the subject was known as “Psychotronics,” and among other things focused on utilizing covert means to manipulate the thoughts, desires and actions of human beings, either against their will or without their knowledge. Some methods of manipulation were simple, such as shaping subjects’ mental state through involuntary ingestion of drugs and/or alcohol, or through the use of torture or physical force and intimidation.
To Vladimir Protasov, methods such as these were simplistic. Barbaric, even, suited more to sixteenth century castle dungeons than to modern scientific endeavor. Vladimir, and others like him, believed the future of psychotronic research lay in the realm of electrical stimulation of the brain.
Extensive research had demonstrated conclusively that human brain function was accomplished through electrical impulses passed between receptors located in the brain tissue. By introducing low-frequency radio waves or electrical currents into certain sections of the brain, Vlad—among others—believed it would be possible to influence human behavior by manipulating the portions of the brain that controlled such behavior.
The difficulty lay in isolating the proper regions of the brain in which to apply electrical stimulation, and then in determining the intensity of the stimulation required to achieve the desired results.
It was a challenging and fascinating subject, and one to which Vlad had devoted his entire adult life. Until being recruited by the KGB last year, his research had been largely theoretical, but his visibility within the Russian scientific community had risen over the decades until it eventually brought him to the attention of Lubyanka.
He’d been unable to decline the offer when approached by KGB representatives, not that it would have mattered if he had. They wanted him to run the project, so he would run the project, period. His enthusiasm for the research had made threats against him or his family unnecessary, but he had known all along the illusion of choice was exactly that—an illusion.
But aside from missing his family, and the knowledge that he was stuck in the Urals for as long as it took to complete his project—minus the two weeks a year he was permitted to return home for vacation—Vladimir figured he had little reason to complain. He was performing critical research in the area of his passion, and would be world-renowned upon the successful completion of his project.
And it would be successful.
***
Vlad realized he’d been daydreaming and he straightened his shoulders, annoyed he’d allowed his attention to wander in front of a test subject. He offered another insincere clinical smile and repeated, “Let us proceed, shall we?”
He thumbed the button on his remote control to display the first slide, watching January 3 carefully to ensure the man focused his attention on the rat filling the screen. Then he adjusted the knob controlling the intensity of the electrical charge being delivered to the subject’s brain and pressed a button while announcing, “This is an eagle.”
After a moment’s hesitation, January 3 thumbed the “I Disagree” button.
Vlad pursed his lips and nodded and made a notation on his pad regarding the intensity of the charge and the subject’s response.
Then he adjusted the intensity further and changed the picture on the screen. A snake was now displayed. “This is a snake,” Vlad said, and waited for the subject to respond.
11
January 31, 1988
9:55 a.m.
Ipatiev Military Research Facility
Mezhgorye, Bashkir
Typically, the sessions lasted no longer than thirty minutes. Vlad had discovered early on in his research that longer-term stimulation of the brain tissue resulted in extreme exhaustion for the subjects, which in turn led to wildly fluctuating results.
Today, however, he had decided to lengthen the testing period a bit. Progress required sacrifice, and if the price of that progress was a longer nap for January 3 upon completion of the session, well, so be it. The man’s entire existence inside this facility was spent on his back, anyway. It wasn’t like he would be expected to leap out of bed and perform tiring manual labor, either before or after testing.
Vlad punched his controller and a horse flashed up on the screen at the foot of January 3’s bed. “This is a cow,” he said.
The subject hesitated. He seemed confused, agitated. He dropped the remote control into his lap and raised his hand to his head as if to brush his hair out of his eyes before apparently remembering his skull had been shaved. He clasped his hands together and squeezed them tightly. He separated them and ran them along his blanket-covered thighs.
Then he picked up his remote and very slowly pressed the “I Disagree” button.
A flash of impatience and frustration exploded through Vlad like a lightning bolt. This was not the result he wanted to see. He’d been gradually increasing the level of electrical stimulation to the subject’s brain while repeating the obviously false assertion that the animal standing in the middle of a sun-splashed field in the photograph was a cow and not a horse.
The electrical stimulation was not painful to January 3, Vlad was certain of it. The point of feeding the current to this particular portion of the brain was to increase the subject’s suggestibility, and to a certain degree, January 3’s hesitation was an indication it was working.
But why would the damned subject not respond fully to the treatment? Why could Vlad not find the sweet spot, the perfect level of electrical brain stimulation that would result in total suggestibility? He was close to doing so, he could feel it, and yet he could not quite get over some invisible final hurdle.
And the level of electricity coursing through January 3’s brain was becoming dangerously high. Vlad knew there was a finite limit to the brain’s ability to tolerate such stimulation, and he knew also that he was approaching that limit.
Quickly.
He eased the dial on the box that resembled an electrical transformer to the right ever so slightly and repeated his statement, forcing a calmness into his voice he most certainly did not feel.
“This is a cow.”
Again January 3 fidgeted. Again he dropped the remote into his lap in order to free his hands to make nervous, fluttery gestures. Vlad got the distinct, unsettling impression the subject was unaware he was doing so.
Finally the man picked up his remote and again, moving ever so slowly, either out of confusion or reluctance, pressed, “I Disagree.”
Vlad pursed his lips and huffed.
Reached down to the electrical box and cranked the dial further to the right.
Said, “This is a cow,” his voice firm and tight and filled with conviction.
January 3 dropped his remote for a third time. He looked from the movie screen to Vlad and back to the screen where the horse continued to stand proudly against a backdrop of rolling hills and blue skies, a few puffy white clouds punctuating the beauty of the scene.
“This is a cow,” Vlad repeated, willing January 3 to give him the result he craved. Vlad’s fingers twitched impatiently, and then he reached down to the box one last time and increased the level of electrical stimulation again.
The subject’s eyes widened. His hands clamped into fists and pounded the bed next to his legs as his mouth snapped closed with an audible clack. His head began to shake violently, and then the shaking rolled through his body like a storm cresting the peaks of the Urals. In seconds he was convulsing helplessly. His eyes rolled back in his head, displaying only the whites.
Vlad cursed and slapped his hands together angrily. He flipped the power switch, instantly cutting the flow of electricity to January 3’s brain as the subject continued his violent thrashing, muscles contracting and straining against the leather straps securing his arms and legs.
January 3’s hands flailed. They could move just inches but the backs of them smashed over and over into the stainless steel bars on either side of the hospital bed, bruising and perhaps even breaking some of the small bones inside.
Cutting the electrical current to the subject’s brain seemed to have done nothing to slow the convulsions, and Vlad sighed. He’d seen this result before. January 3 would survive—probably—but his usefulness as a test subject was finished. His brain had been fried, quite literally, and whatever progress Vlad had made would be lost forever.
Vlad would now be forced to start over. Brain surgery to implant the electrodes, then a brief recovery period for the subject followed by the early stages of testing.
Again.
This was the scientific method, the incremental nature of progress. Trial and error was the cornerstone of advancement, the building block for which there was no substitute, and Vlad understood that no matter how discouraging this moment was—and it was discouraging, extremely so—progress had been made.
Progress would continue to be made.
He turned toward the door, doing his best to ignore the snapping of the leather straps, and the clanking of the bars as January 3’s hands smashed into them, and the animal gasping and grunting of the subject as his body continued to convulse.
Vlad stalked out of the room, pulling the door firmly closed behind him and hurrying toward his office, making haste as much to escape the infernal noise coming from January 3’s room as to settle in at his desk to transcribe session notes. But the notes must be transcribed, and the sooner the better, while everything was fresh in his mind.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 128