Expectation (Ghost Targets, #2)

by Pogue, Aaron

  She held up a hand to stop Katie interrupting, and said, "I told you, he had an experiment in mind. He brought in a huge test batch and had Eric administer the cancer vaccine to them. Most of them were told what they were getting, but a handful were told it was an anti-aging drug in the earliest experimental stages. Gevia was born in that experiment. I think Eric came up with the name, but it might have been the other one. It doesn't matter. Some of them from each group got the vaccine, and some from each group got a placebo. And you know what happened?"

  "It worked?"

  Theresa smiled. "That's a vague answer, but yes. To put it more specifically, the philosopher's theory was proven correct. It took three years before even Hippocrates could demonstrate it reliably enough to convince Eric, but the signs were there much sooner." She shook her head. "Those people who received the vaccine were not aging. The test proved it. At least, not seriously. But only the ones who were lied to enjoyed the benefits of it. Those who thought they'd received the regular vaccine—which they had—continued to develop symptoms of age at approximately the expected rate."

  "How?" Katie asked, unable to restrain herself.

  "Expectation," Theresa said. "'Psychosomatic,' was one of his favorite words. He'd say, 'The mind makes it real,' like he was quoting something." She shook her head. "No one really believed aging was curable. It was the stuff of science fiction back then. And religion, I guess. So people would take the cancer vaccine, and all those other drugs, and then there would be no need for them to go dimwitted as time went by, but they knew that was what people did. They'd watched their parents and grandparents go through it."

  "So they just let themselves go," Katie said.

  "Exactly." Theresa nodded. "Same thing physically. But it was not just laziness. It was real, clinical. These people's own belief in aging caused them to become frail." She sighed. "It's strange, the way our minds can work against us. We're trapped, helpless, beneath the weight of our own expectations."

  "So, what?"

  "So, Gevia," Theresa said. "These experiments I told you about were never published. They were run through Hippocrates with some sort of special clearance, some administrator thing, and Eric and this philosopher were the only ones who ever knew about the results." She looked down at the table. "And me," she said. "That's...honestly, that's the only reason I know any of this. Because Eric didn't believe the old man. He never thought it would turn out, so he told me everything."

  "How did the army feel about it?" Katie asked, trying to guess how she might use this information. "They'd hired him to work on cancer—"

  "The philosopher took care of all that," she said. "Eric thought all along he was being recruited to go work somewhere else, but when he agreed to pursue the project, this guy insisted Eric stay put. He said that the easiest way to get access to people's beliefs was to start with people who were already brainwashed to accept what they were told. And the clinic here, of course, was perfect. So he put together a grant proposal, arranged the name change and financed the construction of Eric's research lab, and then he disappeared."

  "Do you...any chance you remember his name?" Katie already knew. In her gut, there wasn't any doubt. She wasn't even sure it was worth asking, but she had to.

  "Martin," Theresa said. "I never even met him, and he was only in Eric's life for a few months, but I'll never forget that man. Martin Door." She seemed confused when Katie nodded. "Do you know him?"

  "I know him," Katie said. "Oh, I know him."

  "Well, he said he had expected exactly what Hippocrates showed him, and he had a plan for fixing that. He said we needed a full-scale roll out of Gevia. Everyone in the world needed to be given the placebo, the whole clinical treatment you got, as a follow-up to the cancer vaccine. Between the two—the medical cure in the vaccine and the psychological cure in the big con—we could cure aging completely."

  Katie nodded. "I can see him dreaming up something like that."

  "Eric couldn't even fathom it. Especially with Hathor really coming onto the scene right then. There would be no way to keep a secret on that scale, but the philosopher told him about the army's restricted access sites, and he even had something similar for himself, so that Hathor—"

  "I know all about that," Katie said.

  Theresa shook her head. "It was just unimaginable to us. But the philosopher said it had to be Eric. It had to be him because of his unique celebrity. If he would follow through with Martin's lie, he could prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths. Hundreds of thousands. The scale of it all was just huge."

  "But how could they keep it hidden? I'm on Gevia, and you'd better believe I did my research before I reported to the clinic. There's not a whisper of this, and if the whole army knows—"

  "Hah!" Theresa barked a laugh. "They don't. Three...four people were in on it. Eric and the philosopher, and the base commander at the time, and the president."

  Katie's eyes widened. "Really?"

  She nodded. "The philosopher arranged it somehow. Closed-door session, off the record, and that was a big deal at the time, because Stewart was a huge believer in Hathor monitoring."

  "I recall," Katie said. "It got him elected."

  "Well, he knows. He authorized the military trials and he signed the State Secrets letters that have allowed the development to continue entirely without review or oversight." She trailed off. "A few months later, that base commander died. That left three men who knew the secret and me. Well, and Ellie, probably. She worked so closely with Eric, she did the actual coverup, so she must have known."

  "What about the research assistant?"

  "Meg? No. Well...no, I don't think she knows. She believes in what he does completely. It's her passion, as much as he pretended it was his."

  Katie looked down. "So Eric didn't really believe in it?"

  "Oh, he did," Theresa said, nodding furiously. "I mean, the numbers were there. The military trials were a huge success, and at this point we've got nearly a decade of data on millions of subjects, and it's there. Gevia saves lives. Combined with the cancer vaccine, of course, but that was always the plan. There's nothing else Eric could have done, in all his life, to affect humanity on the same scale as Gevia."

  Katie understood. "But it's just a con," she said. "That bothered him."

  Theresa nodded. "I don't think the deception bothered him too much, but he wanted to do more. He wanted to actually do his work, release research, instead of just pretending."

  "Surely he had time—"

  "Oh, he did," Theresa said. "But it was all about the appearance. People were paying attention to him. Oh, when word of Gevia got out, you can bet people were paying close attention to him. Everything he did made the news, and Hippocrates could tell us, minute by minute, how those news reports affected the success of Gevia. When he published a paper about Parkinson's detection, this story went out that the boy genius was turning his attention to other areas of study, and Hippocrates showed a one percent drop in the effectiveness of Gevia. Then Eric got involved in the debate that his new paper prompted, and I guess that confirmed people's suspicions that his focus was elsewhere, because within a week that drop went from one percent to twelve."

  "That's nuts!" Katie said.

  "And it was always like that. It...do you remember that guy in the Bible who had to keep his staff raised over his head in order for his side to win the war? It was like that. The reward was worth it, but the process was so silly. No...ritualistic. That's the thing. Eric was a scientist, and it bothered him that his greatest contribution to the world was going to be through this farce."

  "Well, through the vaccine—"

  "But that's just the thing. He arranged his own tests. He devoted some of that free time in the clinic to studying the psychology behind the placebo effect, and he spent years working on a curriculum to try to circumvent the need for Gevia. It was complicated, because the secret was so important, but at the same time it looked like he was working on a major improvement to the Gevia formula, so
confidence soared again." She shook her head. "Nothing he tried worked, though. No amount of education or even psychotherapy could match the success of the philosopher's outrageous lie. He said maybe in a decade or two people would be so used to the idea of agelessness that it wouldn't be necessary, but we're not there yet."

  "So what did he do?"

  "Whatever he wanted," Theresa said. "Like I said, everyone involved in the program, in the army, thought it was real. So when he showed clinical results that proved he'd cured aging in their soldiers...oh, he became a hero. Then they started shopping the civilian deployment to pharmaceutical companies, offering exclusivity to anyone willing to honor the States Secrets letters associated with the research."

  Katie whistled softly. "They thought it was real."

  "Everyone thought it was real," Theresa said. "Everyone still does. They are making billions, Katie, off Eric's acting ability. And they have no idea." She waved toward the living room. "We certainly got our share of the revenue. They set Eric up really well, but it was all on his shoulders. He would watch the Gevia numbers daily, often hourly, and whenever he saw them start to slip, he had to come out with some breaking news, something to remind the world that it was working. He released a redesigned formula based on an imaginary harmful reaction to certain genetic abnormalities. He fabricated the side effect, but when he announced that the new formula for Gevia was devoid of that flaw, he saw a corresponding increase in patients' vitality."

  Katie shook her head. "No wonder he started writing stories."

  Theresa smiled. "That became his job, in the end. Instead of studying medicine, he was making up novel ideas that would stick in peoples' heads. That was the real cure." She sighed. "It was all this huge balancing act. He was able to chart out a direct relationship between the amount of time he spent at the office and the physical health of the national population. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the pressure of knowing another hour spent at the office—even if you're doing nothing—would add years to the lives of ten thousand people?" She shook her head. "It was there, though. He had hard numbers to back it up. He brought in a research assistant and got a nineteen-percent boost. Just for having someone else to share his cage."

  "What does Meg actually do?" Katie said. "You said she doesn't know...."

  "She does exactly what she claims to do. She processes his experimental results, double-checks his numbers on the simulators, which are all designed by Eric, and show whatever results he wants them to show. And a lot of the time he is doing medical research still. He has made several breakthroughs in protein-coding and gene therapy work over the years. As long as it looks like something that could be related to the Gevia mechanic, he can pass it off as a product of his primary research." She shrugged. "It's limiting, and it's not worth the sheer amount of time he spends at the clinic, but it's still real science. And for all of that, Meg is there to do the grunt work and shepherd his papers through publication."

  Katie sank back in her chair. "How did he manage? How could he keep that up for so long?"

  "Because he had the numbers. They were his blessing and his curse, all rolled into one. The same hourly reports that condemned him to fifteen-hour days at the clinic also told him, every single day, about the number of broken bones and hemotomas he had prevented. He knew he could personally take credit for every case of dementia averted by Gevia, every life saved. Everyone who didn't end their days languishing in a pointless, miserable coma." She clenched her fists, and for a moment a fire burned in her eyes, but it faded. She looked up again. "He did good work, Agent Pratt. Gevia was a lie, but his efforts changed the world."

  "I believe you," Katie said, and those words seemed to be enough.

  Theresa relaxed, then sagged backward into her chair. She wiped her brow with a delicate hand. "So what do we do now?"

  "Actually," Katie said, "I've been wondering exactly the same thing." She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Because if all of this is true, I have no business breaking the illusion. Honestly, it would have been better for me to go ahead with the investigation not knowing."

  Theresa nodded. "I know," she said. "But I had to tell someone."

  "I can understand that," Katie said. "And I can understand the rest of it, too. Because you couldn't give Dora Hart access to Eric's facility when the health of so many people depends on the secrecy of his research."

  "Not just that," Theresa said. "It's the image of him. Martin Door explained that on the very first day. Eric became a symbol, an actual hero, one man carrying the hopes of a nation full of desperate people. I can guarantee you a fifty-percent drop in the efficacy of Gevia by the time the world knows about this. No question. The army has been keeping a tight lid on the situation, but there has been a half-point to one-point decay every day since his attack, just because of speculation."

  "I have enough," Katie said, then trailed off, thinking. She shook her head. "I'm going to have to be careful what I say, what I do. But I think I can find a way to make the army work with us. I'll need that recording." Theresa nodded. "And I'll need your cooperation. Not...you don't have to talk about this anymore. In fact, I'd advise you to keep it quiet still."

  "Of course."

  "And I know you are not anxious to cooperate with Dora Hart, but she's a tenacious one, and we're better off with her working for us than against us." She nodded. "Yeah." She pulled out her handheld and checked the time, then drew up Reed's schedule. "I think we can track this down, Mrs. Barnes. I'm going to go have lunch with my boss and let him know about Ellie. We'll...between the two of us, we'll figure out what to do next."

  Theresa smiled across the table at Katie, and Katie put a comforting hand on top of the other woman's. "We'll find the truth in this mess, Mrs. Barnes."

  Theresa didn't answer right away, and Katie remembered what she'd had to say about the truth earlier that morning. After the life she'd lived, truth didn't mean much to her. Still, she nodded toward Katie and said, "Thank you, Agent Pratt, for your concern." She sat there a moment longer, then jumped to her feet. "I'll just go grab my handheld. You should have access to the Snoopy report within a few minutes."

  Katie followed her to the living room, and once she had confirmation on the access rights, she headed to the door. She stopped, just before she left. "Thank you, Mrs. Barnes, for trusting me."

  "You're a good woman," Theresa said. "I can see that much. And you mean well." She sighed. "Goodbye, Agent Pratt."

  "I'll be in touch."

  8. Talking to Martin

  Katie headed down the garden path. When she reached the curb, a car was already waiting. She climbed in and ordered the driver, "Take me to the De Grey clinic." Her next thought was to contact Reed, but she hesitated just short of making the connection. Theresa's information cleared her—Katie was sure of it—but Katie also knew she could trust a little too easily. She had good instincts, and that usually made up for her easy sympathy, but it was always better safe than sorry, especially with the chief so determined to pin this all on the wife.

  So she pulled out her handheld and asked Hathor to play back the recording Theresa had given her. She expected HaRRE footage, but it was audio only. She heard the sound of a door opening, and a moment later Ellie purred happily, "You're here. I was starting to worry you wouldn't come." Eric mumbled something indistinct in response, but it did nothing to dim the woman's excitement.

  "I've put myself to good use," she said, a suggestive huskiness in her voice. "While you kept me waiting. I've been busy, dreaming up grand plans."

  "What sort of plans?" He sounded suspicious.

  "Venezuela, Portugal," she said offhand. "We could even go to Singapore." She finally sensed his reluctance and took a reassuring tone. Katie could imagine the woman's fingertips tracing a delicate line down Eric's chest as she said, "I know people, Eric. I can keep it quiet. No one will ever know—"

  "No," he said, but his voice lacked resolve.

  "It's okay," Ellie said, with just a hint of a disappointe
d pout. "We can find somewhere a little closer to home."

  "It's not that," Eric said, and his voice faltered. "It's not..." He trailed off with a sigh. Katie could only imagine what the other woman was doing to distract him. She knew Theresa had imagined it, too. How many times had she listened to this recording?

  "It's not that," Eric started again, and something about his voice gave Katie an image of him pushing the woman away. "It's wrong, Ellie."

  "It's not wrong," she said gently, and then more fiercely, "What we're doing isn't wrong, Eric! You know what's wrong? What's really wrong? Locking you up in a cage. Wasting all your...amazing potential...." Her voice smoldered like a hot coal on that last, and for a moment Katie believed the sentiment was genuine.

  "No," he said. "No, I'm sorry, Ellie—"

  "You don't just get out of it like that," she said, and all her warmth was instantly a feline rage. "You don't get to walk away from this."

  "I am, Ellie. I am. It's over."

  "It's not over!" she screamed, and that was the outburst Katie had been waiting for—violent rage, and it didn't lessen as she went on. "This is real, Eric. This is happening. You made a commitment—"

  "I didn't," he said, trying to calm her. "I was always clear that this...it was just a fantasy, Ellie." She gasped, and he tempered his tone with kindness. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say it like that, but I could never really—"

  Her voice fell to a heavy whisper. "Don't do this, Eric."

  "I'm not...I'm not going to do anything stupid, okay? No one needs to know what we—"

  "No one is going to know!"

  "Right," he said, and he sounded nervous. "I just...I can't do it, Ellie. I can't." When she wasn't convinced he turned pleading. "Stop and think. Really think of all the lives that would be ruined—"

  "I don't care about them," Ellie said, miserable. "I care about us—you and me—and how fabulous our lives could be."

  "Well, let it go," Eric said, finally with real confidence. "I'm sorry to say it, but you're going to have to let that dream go. It's over."