Hunter's Moon - Randy Wayne White

by Randy Wayne White

"My God," he wailed when he told me, "I was a psychic spy. Like James Bond, man, only I never got to leave the damn room."

  "You have nothing to be ashamed of," I told him.

  I was referring not only to Stargate. Tomlinson had unwillingly participated in another CIA program, he discovered, that is not as well documented because files were ordered destroyed by Richard Helms, director of the CIA at the time.

  According to information provided by Wilson, The research project, code-named MKULTRA, was established to counter Soviet advances in brainwashing techniques. It was designed to study the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior, and also human memory.

  MKULTRA researchers demonstrated that human memory can be damaged or destroyed by electroshock treatments—Tomlinson was proof. But there was no way to selectively destroy memory, as Hollywood would have us believe.

  Far easier, they discovered, was introducing specific, detailed memories of events that, in fact, never occurred. Give a subject a combination of drugs and shock treatments, for instance, show them a film of a murder scene over and over, the subject would soon be convinced he was guilty.

  "You had nothing to do with sending a bomb, or killing Naval personnel," the former president told Tomlinson. "You already know that. The information was in the documents I provided. But I wanted you to hear it from my own lips. Feel better?"

  Tomlinson was looking at him affectionately. "You are a good one, Sam. I wish you would've run for a second term. We need you, man."

  According to polls taken after the stand he took in Panama, Kal Wilson could have won the presidency again—but the mention of a second term was still an unwelcome subject.

  He pointed abruptly to the door and said to Tomlinson, "Give me a few minutes alone with Ford."

  ***

  After Tomlinson exited, Wilson told me, " You never admitted that you are one of the thirteen plank members of the Negotiating and Systems Analysis Group. I want you to sit in on a little meeting I've arranged with three of those plank members. Right here. Are you willing?"

  It seemed absurd to lie but I had to. "I still don't know what group you're talking about, sir."

  He went on as if I hadn't spoken. "It's my understanding that members of your group trained and operated separately for security reasons. You've never met."

  That wasn't exactly true. I was aware of the names of two fellow members. Hal Harrington, the software millionaire, and another who was a journalist.

  I shrugged. "If you would like me to stay, I will."

  "It is also my understanding that one of your members was supposed to destroy all documents relating to your group's activities. But he didn't."

  That was my understanding, too, but I said nothing.

  "Members of your group had quite a scare a few years back when a New York Times reporter nearly came into possession of some of those documents. It was my last year in office."

  I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Even for a former president, Wilson knew way too much about the Negotiators.

  "I really have no knowledge, sir—"

  The door opened and I stopped in midsentence. It was Harrington, the intelligence guru Wilson said he no longer trusted. I no longer trusted him, either. Hal was the man who'd kept records that should have been destroyed.

  Surprised, I looked from the president to Harrington. Typically, Harrington was wearing a tailored suit and tie. Atypically, he looked distressed.

  Wilson took several breaths of oxygen, then said gruffly, "Tell him the truth."

  Harrington cleared his throat. "I was using the stuff we had on your pal Tomlinson to keep you working for us. I don't apologize for that, damn it. We need assets like you, Ford.

  "But now that you're both guaranteed a pardon"—Harrington grimaced at the former president—"I guess the only leverage I have is your sense of duty. I discussed it with President Wilson and we thought that if two plank members of the Negotiators asked you to keep working, you might reconsider."

  I turned from Harrington to Wilson, then looked at the door.

  "I'm confused. You said a meeting of three plank members. Who's the third?"

  President Kal Wilson was staring at me with his intense green farmer's eyes. He continued staring until a gradual and numbing awareness forced me to face him. He nodded. "That's why I couldn't risk running for a second term."

  I sat back in my chair digesting this, remembering Wilson in my lab exactly one month ago saying, "I ran across other globetrotting Ph.D.s with backgrounds as murky as yours. Scientists, journalists . . . even . . . politicians."

  Wilson said, "I'm right about this, Ford. Stay."

  ***

  I returned to Florida undecided.

  We all accumulate past regrets and I began to fear my indecision would become another. Shortly after I got home, I sent the president a telegram—an anachronistic touch I thought he would appreciate.

  right again stop as usual stop awaiting instructions stop ford

  Two days later, I was beneath my stilt house, patching a hole in the shark pen, when I got word Kal Wilson had died.

  I am still awaiting my instructions.