‘It’s a gift,’ he replied, embarrassed. ‘The point is that having a chunk of plastic powered by servos stuck to your shoulder wasn’t working for the recipients, and so research in brain function resulted in the creation of prosthetics that actually connect to the brain itself via existing muscles, tendons and by extension neural networks, allowing the brain to control the prosthetic limb directly. If I recall correctly, a man named Igor Spetic was the first recipient to receive one of these radical new prosthetic arms and the effects were spectacular. The phantom limb pain he had experienced for years from his missing arm vanished, and when a researcher brushed the back of his prosthetic arm with one hand, Spetic felt his arm hairs rising in response to the touch.’
‘How is that even possible?’ Ethan asked.
‘The doctors attached electrode cuffs to the arm and then attached those to the nerves that remained in the recipient’s upper arm. Not only could he feel the touch, he could tell what it was that was touching him. Having the prosthetic directly attached to the skeleton and neuromuscular system, by means of what has been termed osseointegration, completely alters the wearer’s perception of their prosthetic and in some cases they forget it’s a replacement limb at all.’
‘It’s amazing, sure, but what’s this got to do with General Thompson?’
Hellerman gestured to the screen and the image of the white van.
‘I’ve been thinking about what happened to the general and of how anybody could control a human being so precisely. I mean, they couldn’t just type in a command to a keyboard like: “kill yourself”, and expect the recipient of the command to then turn a pistol to their own head. It involves too many competing neural pathways, too much to get in the way, too many things that could go wrong.’
‘So, what then?’ Ethan asked. ‘You think that somebody in that van was sitting their talking Thompson through killing dozens of people?’
‘No,’ Hellerman said. ‘I think that they were using the power of their own mind to send signals to the implant in Thompson’s brain. I don’t think that they were directing him at all – I think that they’d taken over his thoughts, that they’d literally hacked his brain.’
A moment of silence enveloped the room in the wake of Hellerman’s statement.
‘Hacked his brain,’ Lopez echoed. ‘How could anybody make an otherwise sane person commit such awful acts without stopping themselves?’
Hellerman got up from his seat and hurried across to a pile of journals stacked in an unsteady pile in the corner of his office. He fumbled through them for a moment, muttering as he went.
‘There is a process known as transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS for short, that’s become something of a phenomenon in recent years. There are freely available plans on–line directing people how to build these things, which mimic actual medical equipment, and attach them to their heads.’
‘What the hell for?’ Ethan asked.
‘Ah, here we go,’ Hellerman announced triumphantly as he produced a journal and flicked it open to a relevant page. ‘TDCS is the direct application of electrical current to the brain in order to induce an altered state that enhances cognition, motor control and memory in order to manage chronic pain and motor, sensory and neurological disorders.’
Lopez frowned as she glanced at the page Hellerman was showing him. ‘People are zapping their own brains for fun these days?’
‘The currents are tiny compared to those used in electroconvulsive therapy,’ Hellerman explained. ‘The devices apply current for ten to twenty minutes and the results have been extremely encouraging. The theory behind it all is that a weak direct current alters the electric potential of nerve membranes within the brain, which is said to make it easier for neurons to fire. There have been reports that tDCS can reduce pain and depression, repair stroke damage and improve recovery rates from brain injuries, as well as improving memory, reasoning and fluency. And it’s not a temporary thing – those improvements persist for days and even months.’
‘And you think that this technology also applies to what happened to General Thompson?’ Ethan pressed.
‘Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina managed to link the brains of two rats together and showed that signals from one rat’s brain could help the second rat solve a problem it would otherwise have no clue how to solve. The rats were in different cages with no way to communicate other than through electrodes implanted in their brains. The transfer of information even worked when one rat was in a lab in North Carolina and another was in a lab in Brazil.’
‘So as long as a signal was available and able to get through,’ Jarvis said, ‘one person could technically control another person’s brain from afar with nothing more than the power of thought?’
‘Precisely,’ Hellerman agreed. ‘Brain hacking, or using electrical stimulation to control a person’s movements or medical conditions, has been used for a long time and so signal control is only a modern version of the same principal. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician who lived in the first century, prescribed the electric ray shock as a cure for headaches, and nineteenth century pioneers like Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani created bioelectric experiments with similar aims in mind. With today’s technology it’s potentially possible that a person could be completely remotely controlled from a distance, given the right conditions.’
Ethan leaned back against one wall of the office as he rolled what Hellerman had said through his mind. Thompson had committed a terrible atrocity, completely at odds with his character, before taking his own life. But Thompson had also been known as an extremely strong character, not somebody who would easily bend to wayward electrical impulses firing through his brain.
‘Could they really have controlled somebody like Thompson in such a way? Wouldn’t a four–star general have been able to mentally fight back?’
‘That depends on what his mental state was like at the time,’ Hellerman countered. ‘Remember, the implant we found could have been capable of altering his mental state too. If he felt as though he were in a dream of some kind, barely conscious, then he may not have had any awareness at all of his situation. That’s what this tDCS represents, the ability to directly affect not just mental state but actual cognition through electrical stimulation of certain brain regions. If this technology is good enough then one human being could come under the control of another human being and be completely powerless to oppose their commands not through a lack of will, but through a lack of awareness that they’ve been hacked at all. Like I said earlier, they may have felt as though they were asleep and may not have had any recollection of their actions at all.’
Ethan looked at the image on the screen for a moment longer and then at Jarvis, who was leaning against another wall and listening to the conversation.
‘We can’t track these people down,’ he said, somewhat alarmed. ‘We don’t have a damned thing to go on and they could be out of the country by now.’
‘We need more signals data,’ Jarvis agreed. ‘And for that, we’ll need…’
‘Another attack,’ Lopez finished the sentence. ‘Damn, we really don’t know who or where they’re going to strike next?’
‘We’re blind,’ Hellerman confirmed. ‘Just like their victims we don’t know anything about the next target. Our country is facing lone wolf terrorist attacks where even the wolves don’t know they’re the enemy.’
‘All we have is General Thompson’s medical history,’ Ethan said. ‘He was targeted somewhere by somebody. We need to know how that implant got into his head.’
***
VIII
USS Carl Vinson ( CVN–70 ),
Persian Gulf
‘Razor Flight, approach vector, ETA overhead sixty seconds.’
Commander Sandy Vieron kept his gaze fixed on the F–18C Hornet fighter upon which he was formating as the two aircraft descended through broken cumulus cloud that raced past them, the wingtip of his formation leader barely eight feet away. The surface
of the vivid blue ocean sparkled beneath them, cloud shadows drifting across it as Sandy changed hands on the control column and without looking pulled a lever that extended the arrestor hook from the stern of his fighter.
Beside him, he saw the lead F–18’s black and white striped hook lower at the same time, a visual signal to the Landing Signal Officer that both aircraft intended to land after their overhead pass.
Bright sunlight flared between the clouds as Sandy switched his hands back to the throttle and stick, shadows flickering across the cockpit in quick succession as Sandy input tiny variations on all of the controls to maintain position in close formation with his leader as they levelled out below the broken cloud base, descending to eight hundred feet above sea level at three hundred fifty knots.
The mission had been an uneventful Combat Air Patrol some two hundred fifty nautical miles to the west of the carrier’s position, close to the border of Iranian airspace. Now, close to bingo fuel status and tired after four hours in the saddle, Sandy was looking forward to some rest and a meal. The sunlight flickering through the canopy lulled his eyes and he felt the warmth from it, so hot and irritating up until now, suddenly cosset him in a blanket of warmth and safety. Sandy smiled beneath the plastic oxygen mask he wore as he held station alongside Razor One and saw their runway appear from the surface of the ocean before them.
The huge nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was a thin strip of dull metallic gray, her hundred thousand ton steel hull dwarfed by the vast and pristine ocean. The two Hornets were approaching the immense vessel from astern in close formation, and as they passed overhead Razor One called their position.
‘Razor flight overhead for recovery.’
As Sandy held position and the carrier rushed by eight hundred feet below the flight leader’s Hornet suddenly rolled onto its side, displaying to Sandy an oil–streaked belly and combat load of sleek air–to–air missiles and a pair of five hundred pound laser–guided bombs. The fighter pulled away hard, vapor trails spiraling off the wing tips as it broke into the pattern.
Sandy watched the Hornet pull away and then without thinking he rolled and pulled too, G–forces crushing him into his ejection seat as the fighter loaded up into the turn. Sandy blinked, coming awake as though from a dream as he pulled the fighter through the turn and heard his leader report his position, downwind to land.
‘Razor One you’re number one to land, report ball.’
Sandy levelled his Hornet out, now a nautical mile abeam the carrier as he rapidly selected his undercarriage, lowered the flaps and went through the pre–landing checks that he had carried out hundreds of times before, finishing with locking his ejector seat harness. As the G–forces eased he felt the warmth returning, began to smile to himself once more. He looked up through the Hornet’s Heads Up Display, and through the flight information displayed on the glass he saw his flight leader turning onto his final approach.
‘Razor one, you’re at three quarters of a mile, call the ball.’
‘Razor one, ball, clara one decimal eight.’
‘Roger, Razor.’
Sandy listened as he heard the Landing Signal Officer, himself a fighter pilot, take control of the landing phase from the carrier’s tower as the Hornet descended toward the rolling, pitching deck. He smiled as he watched his leader making a perfect approach, reveled in the warmth of his cockpit and fought the urge to sing a song as he flew by unthinking reflex toward the final turning point and eased his Hornet into the base–leg turn, the fighter’s wings rocking on the wind currents and the G–force increasing gently again as he turned.
Hypoxia.
The word leaped into Sandy’s mind and his brain sharpened once more as he glanced at his oxygen indicators. Hypoxia, the result of oxygen starvation to the brain, started with feelings of inexplicable comfort and then euphoria, swiftly followed by unconsciousness, coma and death. Sandy and all military pilots were trained to identify the onset of hypoxia before it became lethal but as he looked at his oxygen indicators he realized that both were in the green, normal flow, plenty of oxygen available. Sandy blinked, confused as he continued his turn and levelled out, his Hornet fighter now just four hundred feet above the ocean and a nautical mile astern the carrier.
‘Razor Two you’re at three quarters of a mile, call the ball.’
Sandy glanced at the ball, a series of lights on the port side of the massive carrier’s deck called a Fresnel lens that indicated how far, if at all, he was high, low or adrift of the optimum glideslope to bring the Hornet slamming down onto the crowded deck and decelerate from one hundred forty knots to a standstill in the space of a hundred feet.
‘Razor Two, roger ball, clara one decimal six.’
Sandy completed his final checks, the ocean sparkling before him and the sunlight flickering through the clouds drifting high above. Fuel checked, harness locked, weapons cold… Sandy’s eyelids drooped even as he heard the LSO’s gentle commands.
‘You’re looking good, a little high, ease off the power…’
Sandy’s head drifted up to look once again through the Heads Up Display, and then his arm moved of its own accord from the throttle to the armament switches on the control panel before him. Sandy flipped the switch’s security cover off and activated the Hornet’s ordnance array as with another switch atop his control column he switched the HUD from landing settings to ground–attack display.
‘Keep it comin’, you’re looking good.’
Sandy moved the control column and rocked the throttles without conscious thought, keeping the Hornet on a near–perfect glideslope designed to ensure that the fighter’s arrestor hook snared the number three wire. Too low, and the aircraft risked smashing into the “fan tail” at the ship’s stern. Too high, and it risked missing all the wires and shooting a “bolter” right off the deck and into the air again.
‘A little high,’ the LSO warned, ‘come off the power.’
Sandy could see his leader’s F–18C taxiing across the deck, its wings folded up to conserve space on a deck crowded with crew and parked aircraft and helicopters, the ship an immense floating city and airport all in one. The movement and the aircraft’s colorful tail markings, denoting the Commander of the Air Group’s personal jet, caught his eye and his gloved hands twitched on the controls.
‘You’re high and wide,’ the LSO called.
Sandy barely heard the LSO as he turned the F–18C Hornet and lined up the aiming reticule in his HUD onto the taxiing aircraft’s gray fuselage. The voice in his ears grew loud and panicked.
‘Razor Two, wave off, wave off, power!!’
Sandy smiled as he moved his thumb across the fire switch and slammed the Hornet’s engines into full afterburner. The fighter lurched forward as flames blazed from its twin exhausts and the aircraft roared overhead the deck, and Sandy chuckled to himself as he squeezed the launch button twice in quick succession.
The Hornet’s fuselage shuddered twice as powerful charges propelled the two five hundred pound incendiary bombs off the inner wing pylons. Sandy pulled back on his control column and reached out to retract the undercarriage and flaps as suddenly the Hornet rocked violently from side to side.
Sandy looked over his shoulder as he rolled to one side in a steep climbing turn and saw his bombs impact the carrier’s deck with twin blossoming fireballs that raked across the parked aircraft. Two parked Hornets, their wings laden with live ordnance, exploded amid the massive fireballs and Sandy saw bodies hurled off the deck to spiral into the ocean below as his earphones screeched with horrified commands.
‘Razor Two, desist immediately! Razor Two, do you copy?!!’
Sandy heard only a distant cacophony of cries as he held the throttles wide open in full afterburner despite his perilously low fuel supply. The Hornet climbed vertically away from the ugly clouds of black smoke billowing from flames sweeping across the carrier’s deck, fuel lines and bomb trolleys ablaze as Sandy watched through the top of the canopy as his Hornet came off
the top of a loop two thousand feet above the carnage.
Sandy kept pulling, kept the throttles wide open as he began to dive, keen to see the results of his efforts. The Hornet soared downward and accelerated wildly, and then suddenly the G–forces increased and slammed Sandy down into his seat, pulling the blood from his head and brain as his G–suit inflated to prevent his blood from pooling in his legs.
Sandy blinked as though coming awake from a dream, and before him a kaleidoscopic milieu of color sharpened into focus and he saw the deck rushing up at him and a scene of utter carnage, of running crewmen trailing flames, of bodies scattered in pieces across the scorched deck, of burning aircraft and helicopters and corpses.
Sandy’s scream joined the terrible cacophony even as his Hornet slammed vertically into the carrier’s bow with the force of a fallen angel at four hundred knots and vanished in a superheated fireball that spread across the deck.
***
IX
Zubayr, Iraq
‘Fire team, cover Echo point.’
Lieutenant Larry Bryant of the 48th Infantry Brigade’s Combat Team eased alongside the crumbling wall of an abandoned compound, the sun blazing off the baked walls and scorched earth, sweat beading on his forehead and itchy beneath his combat fatigues as he cradled his M–16 rifle and peered around a corner.
The desolate Iraqi desert stretched away to his right, while to his left meagre towns built it seemed from the very earth itself, the walls as crumbling and abandoned as the deserts, stood forlornly to reach up into the hard and unforgiving blue skies.
‘Bryant, Echo, standing by.’
Larry waited for the command to enter the compound, glimpsing through his sunglasses the shapes of his fellow troops forming up into covering positions, their weapons held at the ready. There was minimal chatter on the RT, and when any voice was heard it was clipped and short, tight with tension that made Larry’s jaw and temples ache.
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 5
