“Odd place for an anesthetic,” Suvorov remarked.
“For the actual penetration we’ll use a local,” Lugovoy replied while staring at an image-intensified X ray on a video display. “However, a tiny dose of Amytal into the carotid arteries puts the left and right hemispheres of the brain in a drowsy state. This procedure is to eliminate any conscious memory of the operation.”
“Shouldn’t you shave his head?” Suvorov asked, gesturing toward the President’s hair, which protruded through an opening of a metal helmet encasing his skull.
“We must ignore normal surgical procedures,” Lugovoy patiently answered. “For obvious reasons, we cannot alter his appearance in any form.”
“Who will direct the operation?”
“Who do you think?”
“I’m asking you, comrade.”
“I will.”
Suvorov looked puzzled. “I’ve studied your file and the file of every member of the staff. I can almost repeat their contents by heart. Your field is psychology, most of the others are electronic technicians and one is a biochemist. None of you has surgical qualifications.”
“Because we don’t require them.” He dismissed Suvorov and scrutinized the TV display again. Then he nodded. “We can begin now. Set the laser in place.”
A technician pressed his face against the rubber eyepiece of a microscope attached to an argon laser. The machine tied into a computer and displayed a set of coordinates in orange numbers across the bottom of the microscope’s position fixer. When the numbers read only zeros the placement was exact.
The man at the laser nodded. “Position set.”
“Commence,” Lugovoy directed.
A wisp of smoke, so faint that only the laser operator could see it in the microscope, signaled the contact of the imperceptibly thin blue-green beam with the President’s skull.
It was a strange scene. Everyone stood with his back to the patient, watching the monitors. The images were magnified until the beam could be seen as a weblike filament strand. With a precision far above human dexterity, the computer guided the laser in cutting a minute hole one thirtieth of a millimeter in the bone, penetrating only to the membrane covering the brain and its fluid. Suvorov moved closer in rapt fascination.
“What happens next?” he asked hoarsely.
Lugovoy motioned him over to an electron microscope. “See for yourself.”
Suvorov peered through the twin lenses. “All I make out is a dark speck.”
“Adjust the focus to your eyes.”
Suvorov did so and the speck became a chip — an integrated circuit.
“A microminiaturized implant that can transplant and receive brain signals. We’re going to place it in his cerebral cortex, where the brain’s thought processes originate.”
“What does the implant use for an energy source?”
“The brain itself produces ten watts of electricity,” Lugovoy explained. “The President’s brainwaves can be telemetered to a control unit thousands of miles away, translated and any required commands returned. You might say it’s like changing TV channels with a remote control box.”
Suvorov stepped back from the microscope and stared at Lugovoy. “The possibilities are even more overwhelming than I thought,” he murmured. “We’ll be able to learn every secret of the United States government.”
“We’ll also be able to manipulate his days and nights for as long as he lives,” Lugovoy continued. “And through the computer, direct his personality so that neither he nor anyone close to him will notice.”
A technician stepped behind him. “We’re ready to position the implant.”
He nodded. “Proceed.”
A robotlike machine was moved in place of the laser. The incredibly diminutive implant was taken from under the microscope and exactingly fitted into the end of a single slim wire protruding from a mechanical arm. It was then aligned with the opening in the President’s skull.
“Beginning penetration… now,” droned the voice of the man seated at a console.
As with the viewer on the laser, he studied a series of numbers on a display screen. The entire procedure was preprogrammed. No human hand was lifted. Led by the computer, the robot delicately eased the wire through the protective membrane into the soft folds of the brain. After six minutes the display screen flashed, “MARK.”
Lugovoy’s eyes never left the color X-ray monitor. “Release and withdraw the probe.”
“Released and withdrawing,” a voice echoed.
After the wire was removed it was replaced with a miniature tubelike instrument containing a small plug with three hairs and their roots, removed from one of the Russian staff whose head growth closely resembled the President’s. The plug was then inserted into the tiny hole neatly cut by the laser beam. When the robot unit was pulled back, Lugovoy approached and studied the results with a large magnifying glass.
“What little scabbing that transpires should flake away in a few days,” he remarked. Satisfied, he straightened and viewed the computer-directed screens.
“The implant is operational,” announced his female assistant.
Lugovoy massaged his hands in a pleased gesture. “Good, we can begin the second penetration.”
“You’re going to place another implant?” Suvorov asked.
“No, inject a small amount of RNA into the hippocampus.”
“Could you enlighten me in layman terms?”
Lugovoy reached over the shoulder of the man sitting at the computer console and twisted a knob. The image of the President’s brain enlarged until it covered the entire screen of the X-ray monitor.
“There,” he said, tapping the glass screen. “The sea-horse-shaped ridge running under the horns of the lateral ventricles, a vital section of the brain’s limbic system. It’s called the hippocampus. It’s here where new memories are received and dispersed. By injecting RNA — ribonucleic acid, which transmits genetic instructions — from one subject, one who’s been programmed with certain thoughts, we can accomplish what we term a ‘memory transfer.’ “
Suvorov had been furiously storing what he saw and heard in his mind, but he was falling behind. He could not absorb it all. Now he stared down at the President, eyes uncertain.
“You can actually inject the memory of one man into another’s brain?”
“Exactly,” Lugovoy said nonchalantly. “What do you think happens in the mental hospitals where the KGB sends enemies of the state. Not all are reeducated to become good party lovers. Many are used for important psychological experiments. For example, the RNA we are about to administer into the President’s hippocampus comes from an artist who insisted on creating illustrations depicting our leaders in awkward and uncomplimentary poses… I can’t recall his name.”
“Belkaya?”
“Yes, Oskar Belkaya. A sociological misfit. His paintings were either masterpieces of modern art or nightmarish abstractions, depending on your taste. After your fellow state security agents arrested him at his studio, he was secretly taken to a remote sanitarium outside of Kiev. There he was placed in a cocoon, like the ones we have here, for two years. With new memory storage techniques, discovered through biochemistry, his memory was erased and indoctrinated with political concepts we wish the President to implement within his government.”
“But can’t you accomplish the same thing with the control implant?”
“The implant, with its computerized network, is extremely complex and liable to breakdown. The memory transfer acts as a backup system. Also, our experiments have shown that the control process operates more efficiently when the subject creates the thought himself, and the implant then commands a positive or negative response.”
“Very impressive,” Suvorov said earnestly. “And that’s the end of it?”
“Not entirely. As an added safety margin, one of my staff, a highly skilled hypnotist, will put the President in a trance and wipe out any subconscious sensations he might have absorbed while under our care. He’l
l also be primed with a story of where he’s been for ten days in vivid detail.”
“As the Americans are fond of saying, you have all the bases covered.”
Lugovoy shook his head. “The human brain is a magical universe we will never fully understand. We may think we’ve finally harnessed its three and a half pounds of grayish-pink jelly, but its capricious nature is as unpredictable as the weather.”
“What you’re saying is that the President might not react the way you want him to.”
“It’s possible,” Lugovoy said seriously. “It’s also possible for his brain to break the bonds of reality, despite our control, and make him do something that will have terrible consequences for us all.”
28
Sandecker stopped his car in the parking lot of a small yacht marina forty miles below Washington. He climbed from under the wheel and stood looking out over the Potomac River. The sky sparkled in a clear blue as the dull green water rolled eastward toward Chesapeake Bay. He walked down a sagging stairway to a floating dock. Tied up at the end was a tired old clamming boat, its rusting tongs hanging from a deck boom like the claws of some freakish animal.
The hull was worn from years of hard use and most of the paint was gone. Her diesel engine chugged out little puffs of exhaust that leaped from the tip of the stack and dissolved into a soft breeze. Her name, barely discernible over the stern transom, read Hoki Jamoki.
Sandecker glanced at his watch. It showed twenty minutes to noon. He nodded in approval. Only three hours after he’d briefed Pitt, the search for the Eagle was on. He jumped on deck and greeted the two engineers connecting the sonar sensor to the recorder cable, then entered the wheelhouse. He found Pitt scrutinizing a large satellite photograph through a magnifying glass.
“Is this the best you can do?” Sandecker asked.
Pitt looked up and grinned humorously. “You mean the boat?”
“I do.”
“Not up to your spit and polish naval standards, but she’ll serve nicely.”
“None of our research vessels were available?”
“They were, but I chose this old tub for two reasons. One, she’s a damn good little workboat; and two, if somebody really snatched a government boat with a party of VIP’s on board and deep-sixed her, they’ll expect a major underwater search effort and will be watching for it. This way, we’ll be in and out before they’re wise.”
Sandecker had told him only that a boat belonging to the naval yard had been stolen from the pier at Mount Vernon and presumed sunk. Little else. “Who said anything about VIP’s being on board?”
“Army and Navy helicopters are as thick as locusts overhead, and you can walk across the river on the Coast Guard ships crowding the water. There’s more to this search project than you’ve let on, Admiral. A hell of a lot more.”
Sandecker didn’t reply. He could only admit to himself that Pitt was thinking four jumps ahead. His silence, he knew, only heightened Pitt’s suspicions. Sidestepping the issue, he asked, “You see something that caused you to begin looking this far below Mount Vernon?”
“Enough to save us four days and twenty-five miles,” Pitt answered. “I figured the boat would be spotted by one of our space cameras, but which one? Military spy satellites don’t orbit over Washington, and space weather pictures won’t enhance to pinpoint small detail.”
“Where did you get that one?” Sandecker asked, motioning toward the photograph.
“From a friend at the Department of Interior. One of their geological survey satellites flew 590 miles overhead and shot an infrared portrait of Chesapeake Bay and the adjoining rivers. Time: four-forty the morning of the boat’s disappearance. If you look through the glass at the blowup of this section of the Potomac, the only boat that can be seen downriver from Mount Vernon is cruising a mile below this dock.”
Sandecker peered at the tiny white dot on the photograph. The enhancement was incredibly sharp. He could detect every piece of gear on the decks and the figures of two people. He stared into Pitt’s eyes.
“No way of proving that’s the boat we’re after,” he said flatly.
“I didn’t fall off a pumpkin truck, Admiral. That’s the presidential yacht Eagle!”
“I won’t run you around the horn,” Sandecker spoke quietly, “but I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
Pitt gave a noncommittal shrug and said nothing.
“So where do you think it is?”
Pitt’s green eyes deepened. He gave Sandecker a sly stare and picked up a pair of dividers. “I looked up the Eagle’s specifications. Her top speed was fourteen knots. Now, the space photo was taken at four-forty. Daylight was an hour and a half away. The crew who pirated the yacht couldn’t risk being seen, so they put her on the bottom under cover of darkness. Taking all that into consideration, she could have traveled only twenty-one miles before sunup.”
“That still takes in a lot of water.”
“I think we can slice it some.”
“By staying in the channel?”
“Yes, sir, deep water. If I was running the show, I’d sink her deep to prevent accidental discovery.”
“What’s the average depth of your search grid?”
“Thirty to forty feet.”
“Not enough.”
“True, but according to the depth soundings on the navigation charts, there are several holes that drop over a hundred.”
Sandecker paused and gazed out the wheelhouse window as Al Giordino marched along the dock carrying a pair of air tanks on his beefy shoulders. He turned back to Pitt and observed him thoughtfully.
“If you dive on it,” Sandecker said coldly, “you’re not to enter. Our job is strictly to discover and identify, nothing else.”
“What’s down there that we can’t see?”
“Don’t ask.”
Pitt smiled wryly. “Humor me. I’m fickle.”
“The hell you are,” grunted Sandecker. “What do you think is in the yacht?”
“Make that who.”
“Does it matter?” Sandecker asked guardedly. “It’s probably empty.”
“You’re jerking me around, Admiral. I’m sure of it. After we find the yacht, what then?”
“The FBI takes over.”
“So we do our little act and step aside.”
“That’s what the orders say.”
“I say screw them.”
“Them?”
“The powers who play petty secret games.”
“Believe me, this project isn’t petty.”
A hard look crossed Pitt’s face. “We’ll make that judgment when we find the yacht, won’t we?”
“Take my word for it,” said Sandecker, “you don’t want to see what might be inside the wreck.”
Almost as the words came out, Sandecker knew he’d waved a flag in front of a bull elephant. Once Pitt dropped beneath the river’s surface, the thin leash of command was broken.
29
Six hours later and twelve miles downriver, target number seventeen crept across the recording screen of the Klein High Resolution Sonar. It lay in 109 feet of water between Persimmon and Mathias points directly opposite Popes Creek and two miles above the Potomac River Bridge.
“Dimensions?” Pitt asked the sonor operator.
“Approximately thirty-six meters long by seven meters wide.”
“What kind of size are we looking for?” asked Giordino.
“The Eagle has an overall length of a hundred and ten feet with a twenty-foot beam,” Pitt replied.
“That matches,” Giordino said, mentally juggling meters to feet.
“I think we’ve got her,” Pitt said as he examined the configurations revealed by the sidescan sonar. “Let’s make another pass — this time about twenty meters to starboard — and throw out a buoy.”
Sandecker, who was standing outside on the after deck keeping an eye on the sensor cable, leaned into the wheelhouse. “Got something?”
Pitt nodded. “A prime c
ontact.”
“Going to check it out?”
“After we drop a buoy, Al and I’ll go down for a look.”
Sandecker stared at the weathered deck and said nothing. Then he turned and walked back to the stern, where he helped Giordino hoist a fifty-pound lead weight attached to a bright orange buoy onto the Hoki Jamoki’s bulwark.
Pitt took the helm and brought the boat about. When the target began to raise on the depth sounder, he shouted, “Now!”
The buoy was thrown overboard as the boat slowed. One of the engineers moved to the bow and lowered the anchor. The Hoki Jamoki drifted to a stop with her stern pointed downstream.
“Too bad you didn’t include an underwater TV camera,” said Sandecker as he helped Pitt into his dive gear. “You could have saved yourself a trip.”
“A wasted effort,” Pitt said. “Visibility is measured in inches down there.”
“The current is running about two knots,” Sandecker judged.
“When we begin our ascent to the surface, it will carry us astern. Better throw out a hundred-yard lifeline on a floating buoy to pull us aboard.”
Giordino tightened his weight belt and flashed a jaunty grin. “Ready when you are.”
Sandecker gripped Pitt on the shoulder. “Mind what I said about entering the wreck.”
“I’ll try not to look too hard,” Pitt said flatly.
Before the admiral could reply, Pitt adjusted his face mask over his eyes and dropped backwards into the river.
The water closed over him and the sun diffused into a greenish orange blur. The current pulled at his body and he had to swim on a diagonal course against it until he found the buoy. He reached out and clutched the line and stared downward. Less than three feet away the white nylon braid faded into the opaque murk.
Using the line as a guide and a support, Pitt slipped into the depths of the Potomac. Tiny filaments of vegetation and fine particles of sediment swept past his face mask. He switched on his dive light, but the dim beam only added a few inches to his field of vision. He paused to work his jaws and equalize the growing pressure within his ear canals.
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