Mind's Eye

by Douglas E. Richards

  Altschuler raised his eyebrows. “The only way this makes sense is if Gray knew Cameron Fyfe was really John Delamater. Gray’s records make it clear that Delamater had access to his computer files, and wouldn’t tolerate any mention of him other than his involvement in the raid on the Explorer. The absence of any mention of you was striking.”

  Fyfe nodded. “Very impressive, Alex,” he said. “Well done again. Perhaps in the afterlife you can be a detective.”

  He slid off the steel workbench and onto his feet, and stared down at Hall from an even higher vantage point than before. “So tell me, Nick. How did you know I was aware of your ESP?”

  “If you really were Delamater, then you were the one trying to kill me initially. To clean up a mess. I could blow the lid off Gray’s illegal experimentation, and you couldn’t have that. I can read your mind now, so I know why you changed gears and stopped trying to kill me. But I’ll let you explain your reasoning to Alex and Heather later.”

  “And I will,” said Fyfe. “But it’s still your turn. How did you guess I knew?”

  “I was leading to that. As I was saying, you were the Delamater trying to kill me when I escaped Gray’s warehouse. So given you knew the precise details of all of my escapes, you also knew the parts I was leaving out of the story when I thought you were Cameron Fyfe. In the role of Fyfe, you were smart enough to act skeptical of my luck, to enhance your believability. And in the role of Delamater, you were smart enough to understand I must have had something else going for me to be able to escape your men. I guessed you might have come to suspect an ESP-like ability. But I became certain that you knew of my psi abilities when I was kidnapped by a colonel named Girdler. I told you I escaped before we interacted, but this wasn’t true. We talked at length. Girdler told me the paramedics who worked on Megan had been murdered. I knew you had to be responsible. And that they must have revealed that I could read minds before you killed them.”

  “Well reasoned,” said Fyfe. The hint of a cruel smile came over his face. “And I’m glad you mentioned Megan. Sorry to learn that she left you. That has to really hurt.”

  Hall glared at him, but remained silent.

  “But just so you don’t think this is a lucky break for her,” continued Fyfe, “it isn’t. She won’t be spared. When she checks in with the man you know as Cowan, as she plans to do in a few days, we’ll take care of her as well.” He shrugged. “But you really have been a worthy opponent in this game, so I promise to make her death quick and painless.”

  “If you as much as break one of her nails!” thundered Hall, his face a mask of pure hatred, “I’ll see to it that . . . that . . .”

  Fyfe shook his head. “That nothing, Nick,” he said, almost in bored tones. “Unless you can protect her from beyond the grave, there isn’t a single thing you can do about it.”

  Hall’s face reddened even further. “You present a very pleasant facade,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “I’m just glad for the sake of my friends here they aren’t able to see inside your diseased, psychopathic mind. It’s like swimming in a cesspool.”

  “As I warned you previously, this pleasant facade can disappear in an instant. This is your last warning. I’m trying to make your last minutes on earth civilized. But I can also make them so uncivilized that you’ll beg me for death,” he added casually, as if chatting about the weather. He hoisted himself back onto the steel workbench and added, “But please continue.”

  Hall had been clenching his fists behind his back, but he now took a long, cleansing breath. “The murdered paramedics tipped me off that you were on to my secret,” he said finally, and despite his level tone, his eyes continued to burn with hatred. “Which explained why you and Cowan were being so careful to stay well clear of me. But this was all supposition. Maybe an impressive string of reasoning, but Alex and I didn’t have a single shred of hard evidence. This was a big problem, because if you really were Delamater, I knew you would have to kill me very soon.”

  “But why?” said Heather in confusion. She had largely stayed silent during the conversation, a fascinated spectator, but in this case she hadn’t been able to help vocalizing what had come to her mind.

  “Heather, I know how bright you are,” said Fyfe. “So I’ll just assume the knock-out drug has addled your mind. Hard to believe you still haven’t put this together.”

  Altschuler opened his mouth to respond, wanting Heather to continue keeping as low a profile as possible, but Hall beat him to the punch. “He’d have to kill me because he couldn’t stay out of my range forever,” he explained. “And the second he was in range, the game was up.”

  Heather’s mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide. “Of course,” she said simply, nodding at Hall. “That’s why you had to convince him Alex had cured you of your ESP. So he wouldn’t have the need to kill you anymore. And so he’d feel comfortable coming within your range. So you could get hard evidence of his identity and plans directly from his mind.”

  “Exactly,” said Hall. “And we figured this house was bugged. They couldn’t get close enough to place bugs on anyone’s clothing without me reading this intent. But they could bug places ahead of my arrival. Like the suite at the Homestead Inn. And this safe house. If Alex and my conjectures were correct, this place is crawling with them.”

  “So you and Alex put on a show of curing your ESP,” said Heather. “For Fyfe’s benefit,” she added, no longer using his first name now that he had revealed himself to be a monster. “To draw him out.”

  Heather nodded to herself. “I thought it was too easy to be true. But I didn’t question it, only because Alex is the smartest man I’ve ever known. I figured if anyone could find a way to disable your ESP, he could.” Heather paused. “But how could you be sure Fyfe still wouldn’t want to kill you, even if you did lose your mind reading ability?”

  “I couldn’t be sure. But I figured if he did still have plans to kill me, I’d be able to detect it in his mind while he was still miles away from here.”

  “So how did you know Nick was faking?” Altschuler asked Fyfe. “And how did you knock us out?”

  “Is it my turn already?” said Fyfe mockingly.

  “You know we’ve told you every last mistake you made in great detail,” said Hall. “We’ve lived up to our part of the bargain.”

  “I thought I was a psychopath. What does a bargain mean to me?”

  “You are,” said Hall. “And if it suited you to ignore your word, this wouldn’t trouble you. But we both know you have nothing better to do anyway until your partner returns, and you bore easily.”

  “Very true,” said Fyfe. “So I guess I will take my turn in this inquisition, after all.”

  54

  “I’ll answer Alex’s second question first,” said Fyfe. “I had my men install a remote controlled system for gassing this house just before you arrived. When dealing with a mind reader, you need remote ways to incapacitate. Just in case.”

  Altschuler nodded. So Fyfe was careful and brilliant at planning ahead. Not surprising in someone so accomplished at chess. “And my first question?” prompted Altschuler. “How did you know we were faking? That Nick could still read minds?

  “I wasn’t sure. Your acting was good. But not great. And now that I think about it, not letting your girlfriend here in on it did add to the authenticity. But regardless, I did have some suspicions. The effortless way you did it just seemed too easy. And too convenient. But for you to be planning a ruse like this meant that you had figured out almost everything. And I’ll admit, I couldn’t see how this could be. Even so, I’m very cautious. Just because Nick’s loss of ESP was too good to be true didn’t meant that it wasn’t true. It just meant I needed to be sure.”

  Hall was shaking his head and wore an expression of utter disgust, and Altschuler guessed he had read how Fyfe had confirmed his suspicions, and that it had made him sick.

  Fyfe smiled and tapped the top of his head with an index finger. “This was a very challenging ch
ess problem. How could I learn if Nick’s ability was really gone or not, without giving away that he was being tested? And without getting within range of him if it was still intact? May not sound all that challenging, but trust me, it took me an hour to come up with a solution.”

  Altschuler was fascinated despite himself. And also stumped. Fyfe could see this in his face and it added to his already heightened sense of superiority.

  “In the end, it was simple. I called a ruthless killer that an associate of mine, a Russian named Vasily, had worked with in the past.”

  “The same Vasily you murdered recently?” whispered Hall.

  “Are you actually trying to make me feel guilty? Vasily was also a ruthless killer, so don’t pretend to be outraged. As you can see in my mind, I liked Vasily. It was just that I was about to be an international celebrity of sorts, under the name of Cameron Fyfe, and it would have been bad to have someone alive who knew this face belonged to John Delamater as well. But where was I?”

  “You contacted a killer,” said Altschuler.

  “Right. He was only an hour away from Sacramento. I checked records for homes within five miles of here, looking for any that were owned by a woman living alone. When I found one, by the name of April Underwood, I contacted this killer-for-hire using the name Bill Underwood. I told him Vasily had sent me, and offered to pay him a small fortune to slowly beat the woman to death. I told him she was my wife.” Fyfe raised his eyebrows. “But I’m sure you’re way ahead of me by now.”

  Altschuler and Heather now looked just as sick as Nick Hall had, as the horror of what Fyfe had done to a random, innocent woman, just to conduct a test, hit home. Fyfe seemed to revel in their revulsion.

  “The rest is history,” said Fyfe. “Our boy Nick here read their minds, despite this happening after his ESP was, supposedly, eliminated. I figured the thoughts of a woman getting slowly beaten to death would reach him if anything could. And being the good Samaritan he is, he sent an e-mail tip to the local police, specific enough to be believed. I was monitoring their computers to see if such a message came in. If his loss of ESP was a ruse, he must have been aware this house was bugged, so I knew he wouldn’t call the tip in, because his knowledge of this faraway beating was proof he could still read minds.”

  Fyfe turned toward Hall and gave him a condescending shake of the head. “I bet you had visions of becoming Batman, didn’t you, Nick? Fighting crime in a six-to-ten-mile radius with your bat senses.”

  Altschuler glanced at Heather and could tell she was about to explode and say something that would draw Fyfe’s ire. He had to find a way to change the subject quickly. “How do you know Nick’s range?” he blurted out.

  For the first time, Fyfe looked at Altschuler as if he were stupid. “He discussed it with you at the Homestead, remember? In the suite that was bugged. Remember?”

  “Right,” said Altschuler quickly. “Of course.”

  Heather had settled down to some degree, but she looked at Fyfe as though he were a particularly disgusting breed of cockroach. “And it didn’t bother you in the least,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt, “that if Nick really had lost his ESP, an innocent woman would have been beaten to death?”

  Fyfe shrugged. “Blame Nick. If he couldn’t read minds so perfectly, I wouldn’t have had to take my test to such an extreme. Besides, the police did catch the killer I hired, which will end up saving lives down the road. So I should probably get a medal for this.”

  Heather glared at Fyfe with absolute contempt, but wisely remained silent.

  “So was it worth it?” said Altschuler. “All the murders, all the schemes? You were already a rich man. How much more money did you need?”

  Fyfe laughed. Whether in the persona of John Delamater or Cameron Fyfe, the man rarely smiled, and almost never laughed. But he did now. And there was something very chilling about it. “Come on, Nick,” he said. “How much longer are you going to wait. Tell them already.”

  “Tell us what?” said Altschuler, and from Hall’s expression, he was suddenly unsure he really wanted to know.

  Hall locked his eyes on Altschuler’s and shook his head woodenly. “He didn’t do it for the money,” he said. “We thought it was about greed and power. That he was a brilliant, psychopathic businessman run amok. But I’m afraid the truth is even worse than we thought,” he added, his tone as grim as his face. “Far worse.”

  55

  Fyfe gazed down at his helpless, handcuffed prisoners and realized he was enjoying himself. He hadn’t faced off against anyone who was close to his equal, which included his recently deceased partner, Kelvin Gray, for a long, long time. These three had done well. Forced him to make better moves to win than were typically needed, including the move to verify Hall still had ESP, of which he was very proud.

  But they would never understand him. Could never understand him. Their brainwashed worldview wouldn’t allow it. They thought he was a psychopath, but he was more compassionate and more pious than any of them.

  His parents had arrived in the US in 1985. They were heroes. And ultimately martyrs. Leaving the land they loved, Saudi Arabia, to come to the Great Satan was a sacrifice no one should be asked to make. But they made it proudly.

  They were brilliant, and true believers in the Koran. And they took the long view. They would try to gather intelligence for others to use in the war against the West, a war the West was too arrogant to even know it was in until September 11 of 2001.

  And they taught their sons well. Taught them to love Allah and hate the decadent West. Taught them to be pious. And taught them to be patient, for the Koran said, “Be patient in adversity; for, verily, Allah will not let the reward of the righteous be wasted.”

  And their parents planned to be more patient than any other devout Muslims in history. They devoted their lives, not to their own glory, but to assuring the glory of their sons decades in the future. They devoted their lives to honing human weapons capable of striking at the heart of the West. Teaching their sons through love and patience the serenity that was the Koran, and the false deity of secularism that was the soulless American way of life.

  He was given the putrid American name of John Delamater, but his parents made sure he loved and respected his real name, Hassan Ahmed Abdullah, and that of his older brother, Rashid. And his parents had made every sacrifice for them. They had disappeared when he and his brother were in college. He had later learned through sources in Saudi Arabia that they had believed the US authorities were closing in on them, so rather than put him and Rashid at risk of discovery, they had martyred themselves in Jerusalem, strapping bombs to their chests and blowing up a school bus, ensuring the soulless children within would never grow up to become the enemies of Allah.

  His parents were without equal. No sons had ever had more devoted parents, and he knew that even now they were both in the special place in heaven reserved for martyrs.

  His father had always told Hassan and his brother that they would be the most potent weapons ever unleashed, because they were born in the US. In the belly of the beast. They could speak like a native. Pretend to believe in the decadence of the society, all the while using this to sharpen their hatred. They could blend in and bend the rules ruthlessly to get ahead, to gather resources around them until they could come up with a way to destroy the West.

  Their parents had taught them the concept of Taqiyya, or concealment, which, taken broadly, specified that until that great day that Islam was ascendant in the world, they had the right to proclaim one thing and do another. It was the ultimate ends-justify-the-means provision. If Hassan had to pretend to love America while secretly despising it, this was fully acceptable. Whatever he had to do to defeat the infidel was acceptable; adapt to Western styles, cheat and steal from infidels, ignore his obligation to prayer for long periods of time when he might be discovered. Allah was a forgiving God, and would understand transgressions that were in service to a greater cause.

  Hassan never doubted h
is destiny. He was a chess prodigy, and his brilliance in chess extended to every area of thought. So he bided his time. Became wealthy so he could pursue his goals, whenever he found the right project.

  He wasn’t interested in anything that had been tried before. Bombs—conventional, nuclear, or dirty—did not interest him. Destroying buildings did not. He was determined to deliver to the West nothing less than a Sampson-smash blow. To fundamentally shift the game in favor of Islam and sharia law forever. And he was just a handful of years from doing just that. Even his brother was now fully on board, having once thought his plans were far too ambitious.

  And Hall had been right. The man they knew as Fyfe had played a brilliant game, and he would enjoy sharing this with the three Westerners before he burned them alive.

  “What are you waiting for, Nick?” said Fyfe, finally breaking the extended silence that had fallen over the panic room. “Tell them.”

  A weary frown came over Hall’s face. “The short version,” he said, his voice lifeless, “is that Fyfe, or Delamater if you prefer, is really an American-born jihadist named Hassan Ahmed Abdullah. The ultimate sleeper agent. Along with his brother, Rashid. Who also goes by the very American name of Ed Cowan.”

  Altschuler blanched. “You have to be shitting me,” he said.

  “If only,” replied Hall miserably.

  “I don’t understand,” said Heather. “What does any of this have to do with jihad?”

  “Do you see, Nick,” said the man they had known as Cameron Fyfe. “Even now, it’s impossible for you Westerners to see it. Even when it is staring you in the face.”

  “See what?” said Altschuler in confusion.

  “Before I tell you,” replied Fyfe, “I will explain the superiority of my ideology. I know I’m wasting my breath on infidels with little time to live, and who are incapable of understanding. But I will do so anyway. As an exercise in patience. You Westerners automatically think the true believers of the word of Allah are barbaric. Luddites who want to turn the world back many hundreds of years. And this is anathema to you. But this is only because you worship the false god of technology. But what has technology led to? Weapons of mass destruction. Addiction. The loss of human connection. Man is moving too fast. He has no time to revel in the world Allah has created. To pray. To contemplate. Instead, he is moving ever-faster on an ever-shortening treadmill. Your attention span is gone. No matter how much technology you have, all you crave is the next advance. The next toy. Your lives have become hollow, superficial, meaningless, and unfulfilling.”