there.”
“Always.” Another heavy, crushing pause as she takes a slow drag. “Do you think we could swim in it?” she asks. Then, as if to clarify, “Time.”
Suddenly Cindy is there, peering over Marylou with a click of her tongue. “I didn’t realize you were scheduled for an INFRA session today.”
Marylou snorts with laughter again. “I’m looking in the Forbidden City—couldn’t get past their blockers without one. Following Mao around. I slide in on sunbeams and melt into his shadow, Miss Cindy. It’s poetry .”
“I’m sure you could do it without the ‘outside help’ if you tried.” Cindy turns away from Marylou and settles beside me again. “Project MK INFRA. Our research department had been trying to induce psychic abilities for years through the use of hallucinogens so we didn’t have to rely on psychic volunteers, but we had it all wrong—you have to have the genetic predisposition for psychic ability first. Now we’re running preliminary trials to see if it can enhance the abilities you all already possess.”
“Hallucinogens,” I repeat, still trying to process her words.
Cindy smirks. “Don’t worry, I’m not keen on letting them run trials on you anytime soon.” She opens another folder across our laps. “Senator Arliss Saxton, Congressional representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
I page through the file. Russian propaganda led me to expect a round, white-suited Southern old boy with sinister facial hair, not unlike the man on the bucket of chicken Papa sometimes brings home for dinner, but Senator Saxton just looks tired. His face is riveted into place with deep pockmarks, and his dark hair has been splashed with white. His stockiness looks like fortification against some unseen threat.
“Congressional representative,” I echo. “Is this … significant?”
“You have more experience with scrubbers than I do.” Cindy thumbs the corner of the file. “You tell me what one could accomplish if they had control of the man who can send every NATO country to war.”
CHAPTER 6
CINDY AND I SPEND AN HOUR mapping out everywhere they’d found the dead operatives—the possible scrubbers, with blood dribbling from their noses and ears. Sure enough, they show a steady westward progression through the NATO member states of Europe—from West Germany to France to Great Britain—and now to America leaving a trail of security incidents in their wake. An assault on the West German NATO general in the streets of West Berlin. A British aide walks onto the Tube one day and walks off with no knowledge of where or who she is. For almost every seemingly unrelated security incident to befall a government official, a dead scrubber turned up a few days later in the same city, matching the description of whoever had made the attack.
And then there’s Senator Saxton, whose dossier I muddle through. Turns out, Saxton had contacted the CIA recently with concerns that someone was leaking NATO documents—files misplaced, reports gone awry. Nothing classified, but he was concerned all the same. Then, last week, he reported an attempted break-in at his Georgetown home, and the Secret Service placed him under protective detail while the FBI and CIA jointly investigated. “Given his position and the other recent episodes,” Cindy says, “we can’t rule out the possibility that foreign agents are trying to harm him or intimidate him in some way. And if they have one of these powerful psychics on their side…”
I can fill in that blank perfectly fine. I’ve seen what a highly skilled scrubber can do. Force a man to turn a gun on himself. Drive a world leader to input the codes for a nuclear launch. I won’t let that happen again. I pore over her reports, letting myself forget, however briefly, that I might be capable of this kind of danger, too.
When we break for lunch my head is laden with so many strange words from the dossier, I can’t wait to ask Winnie for
“Always.” Another heavy, crushing pause as she takes a slow drag. “Do you think we could swim in it?” she asks. Then, as if to clarify, “Time.”
Suddenly Cindy is there, peering over Marylou with a click of her tongue. “I didn’t realize you were scheduled for an INFRA session today.”
Marylou snorts with laughter again. “I’m looking in the Forbidden City—couldn’t get past their blockers without one. Following Mao around. I slide in on sunbeams and melt into his shadow, Miss Cindy. It’s poetry .”
“I’m sure you could do it without the ‘outside help’ if you tried.” Cindy turns away from Marylou and settles beside me again. “Project MK INFRA. Our research department had been trying to induce psychic abilities for years through the use of hallucinogens so we didn’t have to rely on psychic volunteers, but we had it all wrong—you have to have the genetic predisposition for psychic ability first. Now we’re running preliminary trials to see if it can enhance the abilities you all already possess.”
“Hallucinogens,” I repeat, still trying to process her words.
Cindy smirks. “Don’t worry, I’m not keen on letting them run trials on you anytime soon.” She opens another folder across our laps. “Senator Arliss Saxton, Congressional representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
I page through the file. Russian propaganda led me to expect a round, white-suited Southern old boy with sinister facial hair, not unlike the man on the bucket of chicken Papa sometimes brings home for dinner, but Senator Saxton just looks tired. His face is riveted into place with deep pockmarks, and his dark hair has been splashed with white. His stockiness looks like fortification against some unseen threat.
“Congressional representative,” I echo. “Is this … significant?”
“You have more experience with scrubbers than I do.” Cindy thumbs the corner of the file. “You tell me what one could accomplish if they had control of the man who can send every NATO country to war.”
CHAPTER 6
CINDY AND I SPEND AN HOUR mapping out everywhere they’d found the dead operatives—the possible scrubbers, with blood dribbling from their noses and ears. Sure enough, they show a steady westward progression through the NATO member states of Europe—from West Germany to France to Great Britain—and now to America leaving a trail of security incidents in their wake. An assault on the West German NATO general in the streets of West Berlin. A British aide walks onto the Tube one day and walks off with no knowledge of where or who she is. For almost every seemingly unrelated security incident to befall a government official, a dead scrubber turned up a few days later in the same city, matching the description of whoever had made the attack.
And then there’s Senator Saxton, whose dossier I muddle through. Turns out, Saxton had contacted the CIA recently with concerns that someone was leaking NATO documents—files misplaced, reports gone awry. Nothing classified, but he was concerned all the same. Then, last week, he reported an attempted break-in at his Georgetown home, and the Secret Service placed him under protective detail while the FBI and CIA jointly investigated. “Given his position and the other recent episodes,” Cindy says, “we can’t rule out the possibility that foreign agents are trying to harm him or intimidate him in some way. And if they have one of these powerful psychics on their side…”
I can fill in that blank perfectly fine. I’ve seen what a highly skilled scrubber can do. Force a man to turn a gun on himself. Drive a world leader to input the codes for a nuclear launch. I won’t let that happen again. I pore over her reports, letting myself forget, however briefly, that I might be capable of this kind of danger, too.
When we break for lunch my head is laden with so many strange words from the dossier, I can’t wait to ask Winnie for
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