But it was boring. At least figuring out how the brain worked was cool. It wasn’t just ordinary software, he was actually writing code for the brain. And the implant was an awesome tool. How many scientists were working on the brain? 50,000? Chang had no idea what they were doing, but was sure the government was wasting craploads of money. He could figure it all out himself, and that was just for curiosity’s sake.
The monkeys were helpful, but not enough. Once he’d sort of taken to doing his own experiments on controlling the monkeys—Markov wasn’t need to know on that—he’d made some pretty quick progress in being able to manipulate some basic brain states. Fear, pain, orgasm. But humans were more complex. And more interesting.
He wasn’t doing anything unethical. If somebody with a nanogram of intelligence were in charge, it would have been the first assignment Chang received. You can’t have these incredibly valuable resources running around with no ability to control them if they go AWOL. And what about safety? How can you feed them commands if you don’t know how to stimulate the brain in the right pattern rather than just record?
Besides, Ian Westhelle was basically a vegetable. Like those old people in hospitals that drool with their mouths open and waste the country’s resources on feeding tubes and laxatives and heart surgeries. The only ethical thing to do was to use Ian as a model to figure out how to overclock the implant.
He’d finally convinced Markov to set up a remote terminal at the psych ward so they could record brain waves from the implant. Probably a good idea to at least be able to see if it were functioning. It’s only for recording, Chang had told him. A dummy terminal with a wireless receiver didn’t actually have the power to send signals.
Well that part wasn’t actually true. But it’s not like Markov would have been able to understand wireless technology even if Chang had a year to explain it to him. And Sarah and some of the operations guys understood. Sarah had asked him in Windhoek after Julia left just what the implant could and couldn’t do and Chang had explained about how he’d figured out how to send auditory commands. She’d been very interested in that part. She didn’t need to tell him what to do. He could take a hint about what was useful and what wasn’t. And she was at least four levels higher in authority than Markov.
There it is. Chang had the connection, and began uploading an upgrade to the software on the remote terminal. Shouldn’t be long now.
________
There were two times to attempt an escape from an enemy camp, Ian knew. The first was right away, before they had you behind bars, razor wire, and machine guns. Second was later, when the enemy had you secured, after the guards fell into a routine, convinced you posed no threat.
They came in twice a day to drug him. The evening shift was two large men with stun batons and a male nurse to force the liquid down his throat. Two more guards stood outside the door and as he lolled his head back in feigned stupor, he could see through the corner of one eye that they were armed with Benelli M4 Super 90 shotguns.
The morning shift was much the same, but one of the two men with stun batons was both bigger and less dangerous. He carried himself in a lazy, inattentive way. What’s more, the two armed men at the door seemed to be good friends, and chatted while the nurse drugged Ian.
Morning and night, Ian swallowed the psychoactive drugs, then gagged himself over the sewage pit as soon as they locked up behind him. And he planned. He could overwhelm the morning shift. Take out the big, slow guy, get his stun gun, then finish the other man. Using the nurse as a shield, he’d be on those two chatty guys at the door before they knew it, and then he’d be armed.
The shotgun was both good and bad. The good was that it would make him instantly lethal. The bad was that any guards would possess equally lethal firepower. He’d rather face a half dozen men with handguns and automatic rifles than a single military shotgun. The shotgun needed less aiming, less skill, and even in the hands of undertrained, unprepared guards, Ian didn’t want to face them in what he assumed would be narrow hallways.
But ultimately, in spite of the initial advantages, there was a critical flaw with a morning escape. Let’s say he broke from his cell and disabled or eliminated any guards, made it outside. He still had to cross the sagebrush and reach that mountain. How could he do that in broad daylight, with snipers to gun him down before he could make it a hundred yards? Of course, he could only see through one narrow slit of a window, so maybe there was some completely different terrain on the other side.
But what if he freed his fellow prisoners? Joe Kilroy, Gandhi, and the Almighty—assuming these last two existed—could be useful allies, or at least enormously disruptive.
He couldn’t involve them in his planning, because he had only talked to Kilroy for one day and an evening before the workers returned. They banged around all day behind the wall, chatting, cursing, hammering, and then they’d closed up the new system and the weird acoustics that had transmitted sound from one cell to the next were gone. He was alone again.
________
When Ian’s chance came, it wasn’t morning or evening, but about noon, judging from the light that trickled through the window. The door was so heavily insulated that he didn’t hear anyone in the hallway, or have any warning until it started to swing open.
Luckily, he was lying on his bed with his face to the wall, half-asleep, half planning his escape, when he heard people behind him. And voices, a man and a woman.
“I should get more help,” the man said.
“Thought you said he was no danger.”
“He’s not.”
“But he’s not drugged, either?” she asked.
“No, he’s been in a catatonic state for days now. He’ll get up occasionally and eat or drink something, defecate on the floor, or whatever, but that’s about it. Still, you’ll need a couple of guys to carry him.”
“Hold on, let me check him out first.”
Ian could feel her approach and his muscles tightened. One woman, a man at the door and perhaps they were alone. If there had been a third rule of escape attempts it would have been to be prepared for unexpected opportunities. There would be no better time. The woman was leaning very close now.
She touched his head. “Ian?”
He turned and slammed his forehead into her face. She flinched backwards, so she didn’t take the full blow, but it was enough to send her to the floor with a cry. The man she’d been talking to was just behind her, now scrambling backward with his hands fumbling for something at his belt.
Ian thrust out his foot and connected his bare heel with the man’s jaw. He fell to the ground with a cry. The woman was reaching for something and Ian threw his arm around her neck. His other hand grabbed her hair to twist her head and snap her neck.
“It’s me, Ian,” the woman cried. “Julia! Please!”
Ian hesitated just long enough to see that she didn’t have a gun in her hand, just a syringe. He grabbed her wrist, but she let it fall without struggle. He lurched over until she was on her back with Ian poised on top of her, securing her wrists. Her face was centimeters away. He lost his breath as the shock of recognition registered in his head. Julia looked terrified, breathing rapidly, her eyes wide open. Ian held the position without moving.
“Julia? You’re in on this? I can’t believe it.”
“No, I swear. No, I want to help.”
Ian loosened his grip slightly, but made no move to get up. “You set me up.”
“No, I didn’t. You’ve got to trust me.”
Two men were at the doorway now. They held their shotguns at the ready, but lowered them when they saw that Ian had his arm around Julia’s neck.
The male nurse who’d come in with Julia rose to his hands and knees. His face was pale. “Take him down.”
Ian dragged Julia to her feet and held her to shield himself from the men with shotguns. They hesitated. The nurse scrambled from the room and shouted down the hall.
Within moments, half a dozen guards streamed into
the room, one after another. They held clubs and wore thick padding. Ian pushed Julia out of the way. He ducked the first blow, leaned his shoulder down, and slammed into the man. He fell to the ground. A blow fell across Ian’s shoulder. He turned, swinging.
He wrenched one of the clubs from a man’s hand, knocked another man from his feet, kicked another in the solar plexus. One man jumped on his back. Another hit him across the face.
“Leave him alone!” Julia cried. “Ian, for God’s sake, stop fighting.” She struggled with one of the men. “Get off him, you prick! Put that gun away!”
A sharp pain stung Ian’s arm. Someone held a tranquilizer gun against his arm. He thrust back with his elbow, but almost at once the room started to swim. Blows rained on his head and back. He went down.
He heard Julia’s voice, increasingly distant. “Get off him! Leave him alone!”
________
Julia was relieved when Ian woke, strapped to the table. He groaned, squinted his eyes shut, then glanced down to his restraints before he fixed her with a hostile expression. His entire chin was covered with stubble.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Julia said. Ian’s violent reaction and the brutal take-down by the guards had left her shaken. “It’s probably my fault. They said you were catatonic and I believed them.”
It was a small exam room, tiled white with the smell of lemon antiseptic in the air. An exam table with padded top and white paper covering was anchored into one wall. There were no windows; a floor lamp cast shadows over Julia and the small round stool she sat on. From the wall hung an otoscope and ophthalmoscope. A small table with a sink was along the front wall by the door. Julia couldn’t see any cameras.
Two guards with shotguns stood at the door. One of them had delivered a particularly vicious blow to Ian’s head after he’d already sunk to his knees, sedated and no longer struggling. It made her angry to think about it.
“If I was catatonic, it’s only because the bastards had me drugged.”
“But I saw you in Namibia and you were psychotic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In Windhoek,” she pressed. “Don’t you remember the jail cell? You told me you had to finish what you started. Remember?”
“What are you talking about?” He turned his head away.
“Do you remember anything that happened?”
Ian stared at the wall.
“Come on, I’m trying to help, don’t you believe me?” She turned to the guards at the door. “Can you go out, please. You’re not helping.”
“Listen, lady,” the man said. “This isn’t scout camp. If this guy is here it means he’s a killer, and totally out of his mind. We leave you alone, we’re likely to come back to find your intestines strung from the lights like streamers.”
Julia eyed Ian’s restraints. No way he could get out of those, and she wouldn’t be dumb enough to unfasten them, even if her gut told her that Ian wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, he’d had his chance to kill her and had pulled back.
“I know what I’m doing. Both of you, go out.”
“Can’t do that, we have orders.”
“And I’m giving you an order to get out of here, now.” She tried to sound more confident, but ordering around soldiers was different than ordering nurses and medical students. “Do you know who sent me? What’s he going to do when he hears that you didn’t give me your full cooperation?”
The two men looked at each other, before the first man shrugged. “It’s your life, lady.” They shut the door behind them on the way out.
Julia took a deep breath as she turned back to Ian, who still stared at the wall. “Can you try to trust me, just until we’ve had a chance to talk?”
“I trusted you already. Where did that get me?”
“I don’t know what happened in Africa, but it had nothing to do with me.”
“What do you mean it had nothing to do with you? You put that damn thing in my head, and you already admitted you were in Namibia, that I was psychotic, remember?” He looked back to the wall.
“But I was only there for medical reasons. You were my patient, I was trying to help you as much as I could. And nobody was telling me what was wrong. Really, I have no idea what happened.”
“You don’t know anything?” Ian asked. A quick glance in her direction, then back to the wall. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Okay, so I know a few things. I know the mission failed. A bunch of people died. Kendall died. They said you killed him,” Julia added.
He turned, slowly, and fixed her with a hard glare that made her shrink back. Thank goodness they’d strapped him down.
She wanted his cooperation, but he was only growing angrier. If she couldn’t get him to cooperate, she’d have to sedate him and extract the data without his consent and she didn’t want to do that. He’d gone through enough already, no matter what he may have done in Africa.
Julia found her courage a moment later. “What would it take to make you trust me? Is there anything I can say or do?”
“Of course. Release me in the nearest town with a passport, ten thousand dollars in cash, clothing, and an untraceable cell phone. If, in three weeks, I have been able to travel unmolested, if none of my friends and family have a trace on their phones, then I’ll contact you, and we can negotiate.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Julia said. “I don’t have that sort of responsibility or capability.”
“You could if you tried.”
“No, I couldn’t,” she said, more firmly. “But you mentioned friends and family. Is there anyone you want me to contact?”
He looked at her and she thought the hardness around his eyes faded a bit. “You could tell my sister where I am, and my uncle and aunt in Fresno. If they know what happened, maybe they can raise a stink and get me out of here.”
“I don’t think I can do that, either,” she said with some reluctance. “All that is classified information.”
“What about Kendall’s parents? They deserve to know that their son died in the field.”
“The CIA will have its own protocols for notifying next of kin,” she said.
“Then you’re useless.”
“I could at least tell your family that you’re okay. They might be worried since they haven’t heard from you for awhile.”
“No, they won’t get worried for about six more months. They don’t know exactly what I do, but they know that I drop off the face of the earth from time to time. Unless you can tell them that I’m in trouble and how to help me, there’s no point.”
They went back and forth like this for about ten more minutes before Ian refused to cooperate any further. At last she gave up, left Ian in his restraints and sent the guards back in, with strict instructions not to touch him. Sadly, it looked as though she’d have to sedate him again. She called the guards back into the room and stepped out, frustrated.
Her cell phone buzzed with a text message as soon as she got to the hall.
To: Julia Nolan
Priority: Urgent
Sub: Halt all communication with Ian Westhelle. Call Sarah Redd immediately.
Secure Line.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“What did the patient tell you?” Sarah Redd asked.
There was an edge to her voice that Julia hadn’t heard before. Julia had called the Director of National Intelligence on the number given and been surprised when Sarah herself picked up, and on the first ring.
“Nothing, or at least he hasn’t yet,” Julia said. She stood in the hallway outside the examination room. “I just got here. The patient was hostile. I plan to have him sedated and work directly with the implant itself.”
“Tell me, who advised this course of action?”
“It was my own idea,” Julia said. “I need to find out what failed with the implant, how—”
Sarah cut her off. “But nobody put you up to this? Nobody gave you instructions and told you to badger Markov until he
relented?”
“No, I told you, it was my own idea. If you’ll let me explain…”
“Not today. I’m very busy. I want you to leave Utah at once. Do you understand?”
A week ago Julia would have cowered before the edge in the other woman’s voice. “But I can’t do that. Not until I have a chance to figure out what went wrong.”
“Let me make this clear. You can either leave, now, or you will be terminated. You will never work in the medical field again. Your husband’s career will be black-marked. No doubt this will mean the end of your marriage. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Julia’s face burned. It was all she could do to keep her mouth shut. A nurse and two guards walked past on their way to the patient cells and they watched her.
“Do not see the patient again, do not talk to anybody about his care. Collect your instruments, walk out of the facility right now and never think of it again. You are to return to Langley and continue your preparations for the next implant. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good, thank you for your cooperation. You’re a hell of a scientist and we’re lucky to have you on the team.” Gone was the ugly tone, replaced by Sarah’s breezy conversational style. “Now I’m very busy, so I’ve got to run, but why don’t I send a company jet to Provo, save you the drive to Salt Lake, let you travel with some style. Give me a call when you get back, we’ll do lunch.”
________
Julia had one more thing to do before she left and her job be damned. She found the medical director and wrote out a script on a blank sheet of paper she pulled off his desk, while he watched with a frown.
The man’s name was Dr. Eric Jonas, and he wore green scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. What a joke. He’s a psychiatrist. Julia doubted if he even knew which end to listen from. Maybe it was his oily smile, or the way he pursed his lips every time she spoke, but she instinctively didn’t like him.
“Return the patient to his room. I want his medication changed to this. D/C all other meds.” She handed over the script.
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