Mind's Eye (28 page)

Girdler paused. “So that’s basically all we have right now, General,” he finished.

Sobol nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “So what are your thoughts on this, Colonel? And your recommendations going forward?”

Girdler took a deep breath. He glanced at Campbell, who shot him a look of encouragement. “I believe Hall’s e-mail message is accurate,” he said. “I believe some private citizen or company kidnapped those aboard the
Explorer
and brought them to a warehouse just outside of Fresno. I believe the kidnapper experimented on them all, resulting in the deaths of everyone but Hall. I believe whoever was behind this perfected what they were after, that somehow Hall developed ESP, and that he escaped. That’s what I think happened.”

The colonel paused and stared at Sobol for his reaction.

“I tend to agree,” said the general. “It looks like Hall’s message so far is checking out to be absolutely credible.”

“On the assumption this is the case,” continued Girdler, “my first and highest priority recommendation, therefore, is that we locate Nick Hall as soon as we can.” A pained look came over the colonel’s face. “And terminate him with extreme prejudice.”

31

Several seconds of total silence settled over the proceedings.

“Let me understand,” said Sobol dryly. “A team kidnaps the entire crew of an oceangoing vessel. Imprisons them for many months. Conducts illegal experiments on them. Then kills all but one of them. And your highest priority recommendation is to terminate the one surviving
victim
of all of this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Major Campbell, do you agree with this recommendation?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” replied the major.

“Okay, now you have my attention. I’m sure you recognize that while Black Ops powers are broad, they aren’t unlimited. Killing an innocent civilian isn’t exactly in the charter—even if you stretch it far enough to cover the Pacific ocean. So on what grounds do you make this recommendation?”

“We’ve given this a lot of thought, as you might imagine,” replied Girdler. “These implants have led to mind reading. And not just surface thoughts. Hall could apparently dig out of Peterson’s mind anything Peterson knew. The same with Hector Garcia. Do you have any idea of the implications of this?”

“I’ve been busy, Colonel, but I did manage to prepare for this call. So, yes, I have thought about what this would mean.”

“Then you must see that this guy is far too dangerous to let live. ESP—true, potent, absolutely perfect ESP—is a power that can never see the light of day. We’ll be the instruments of his death, but whoever did this to him put this death sentence on his head. We’re just the executioners, doing what needs to be done. I’m sick about it. But if we allow ourselves to be compassionate, we stand to lose everything.”

“Surely you’re overstating the case, Colonel? He’s one man.”

“Would you want to be in the same room with him?”

A slight smile came over Sobol’s face. “I can’t say that I would. I may have committed an . . . indiscretion . . . or two,” he said wryly, “that I wouldn’t want him to read. But so what? I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with a trained attack dog, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. I say we capture and study this guy. Can you imagine someone with these abilities working for
our
side? And what if we can use him to figure out how to give others this ability?”

“That’s exactly what we’re afraid of,” said Mike Campbell. “It’s too much power for any man. Even a man who is a perfect angel, with a perfect moral compass. It’s absolute power and it’s corrupting. Remember your Sunday school, General? Satan, himself, began his career as an angel. If
he
could be corrupted, even while an angel in heaven, what hope does a mere man have?”

“But it’s far worse than just what Hall could do if he turned,” added Girdler. “If we let him live, we open Pandora’s box. We all but ensure the start of an international ESP arms race.”

Sobol stared at him as though he hadn’t heard correctly.

“Every country will search for the key to unlock ESP,” clarified Girdler. “Both to use as a weapon and to achieve parity if some other country gets there first. With disastrous results no matter how you slice it. ESP arms race.”

“Has Hall’s condition become international news in the past five minutes?” said Sobol sarcastically. “Because the last I heard, the only people who have any suspicion of it are the three of us, and the girlfriend of a fallen paramedic.”

“You don’t think other countries would get wind of this?” said Girdler, refusing to back down. “With all due respect, General, you know they would. One way or another. And if Hall is left at large, very quickly. He’s apparently not shy about showing off his ability. If we try to harness him for our own ends, this will eventually leak out as well.
If
we can even contain him, which I suspect we can’t. How bad would we panic if we thought Iran or Russia or China had a program that was yielding perfect psi ability? Would we pull out all the stops to start a crash program, General?”

“Of course. We’d have no other choice.”

“And neither will they when they learn about our program. Anyone who can’t harness this ability, in a world with those who
can
, would be at a devastating disadvantage. And suppose a straightforward way to confer this ability could be found? And don’t underestimate the ingenuity of humanity. We put bloodhounds to shame once we’re following the scent of a breakthrough. If this were to occur, and ESP became widespread, it’s game over. An extinction level event. If you think this through, we’re not a species who can read each other’s inner thoughts without self-destructing. We’re teetering on the brink right now, even without this destabilizing influence.”

Sobol now looked more thoughtful. “Even if we eliminate Hall, isn’t there a chance this has already leaked more broadly?” he asked. “Unlikely, but not impossible. If an arms race is about to begin, can we afford to throw away a winning hand?”

“There is no arms race without Hall,” replied Girdler. “Think about it. If we kill him and bury this story, everyone thinks he went down with the Scripps
Explorer
. Any rumors that he was ever even alive after this tragedy will be seen as crackpot conspiracy theories.”

He paused. “This isn’t to say that we let those responsible for this atrocity escape justice. We can wait and see who comes out with breakthrough advances and then quietly investigate, taking care of them before anything is public. Before they go public, the first thing they’ll do—they’ll
have
to do—is file patents. They’ll delay doing this until the last second, but we can have Nessie tie into the patent computers and sound the alert the moment something is filed.

“The people behind this
will
be brought to justice,” insisted the colonel. “And we can consider making use of what they learned. Although there are plenty of issues with this as well. But keeping Hall alive is a recipe for disaster. The existence of his abilities
will
get out, even if we can contain him. Which is a huge
if.
And it
will
boomerang on us—and the world.”

“I’m not as certain about that as you are, Colonel. If I had ESP right now, what would I read in your mind? That your superior officer is a lobotomized jackass for not immediately agreeing with you on this?”

Girdler smiled. Perhaps Sobol
could
read minds. “Not at all, General. I’d be thinking that I appreciate your insight, and the fact you’re open-minded enough to listen to me and consider the merits of my argument.”

“Uh-huh,” said Sobol skeptically. “While I don’t share your views entirely, Colonel, you do make some compelling points. I need some time to think this through. I’ll call you back in forty-five minutes.”

With that, the screen went dark.

Forty-five minutes later they were staring at Sobol’s dark visage once again. “I’ve looked at this from several angles,” he began. “I think you made some excellent points, gentlemen. But I’m afraid I can’t support your recommendation. First, we don’t have the power to kill an innocent American citizen who has displayed no intent to endanger this country. Second, now that you’ve made me painfully aware of the unstable nitroglycerin we’re holding, I’m counting on you to take the proper precautions to make sure your doomsday scenario doesn’t come to pass. The three of us are the only people authorized to know about this. Period. And I want a list of recommendations for how to contain this secret. And how to contain someone with these abilities.”

“I urge you to reconsider, General,” said Girdler. “Trying to harness Hall and ESP is more likely to boomerang and bite us all in the ass than playing around with
germ warfare
, for Christ’s sake.”

“You have your orders, gentlemen,” said Sobol firmly.

Both men nodded. “Roger that,” said Girdler. And while he managed to say this in a neutral tone, his eyes blazed with a steady defiance.

32

Girdler and Campbell sat in silence for several minutes after Sobol’s virtual presence no longer inhabited the small conference room. The major finally broke the silence. “How surprised are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I thought the arguments were convincing. I know you well enough, Mike, to know that you’re not just humoring me, and you thought so too. Not that you’d ever just humor me on something this important.”

Girdler shrugged. “But I suppose this threat is too insidious for the general. If Hall had his finger on a button that could detonate a hundred nukes around the world, this would get Sobol’s attention. But he can’t really see the potential for disaster as easily with just one poor son of a bitch who can read minds.”

“At least
we’ll
be in charge of containment. The people most aware of the danger. At least that’s
something
.”

“It’s not good enough, Mike,” said the colonel, shaking his head. “I don’t care what our orders are. When the world is in flames, I won’t feel better about myself because I was only following orders. That’s what the Nazis said at Nuremberg.”

Campbell frowned. “Look, Justin, you know I’m on your side on this one. But some could argue
we’re
the Nazis here. We’re the ones recommending the assassination of an innocent man. It’s not comforting to know that our goal is now the same as those who committed mass murder on Hall’s colleagues.”

Girdler’s eyes fell. “No, it’s gut-wrenching to have to advocate for this.” He returned his gaze to Campbell and shook his head morosely. “But we have no other option. Hall has to die. It isn’t his fault. If they had given him a drug that turned him into a crazed killer, it wouldn’t be his fault either. But that wouldn’t change the cold equations.”

The colonel paused. “Hall may be a great guy. He probably is. And he may mean very well. Right now. But what if this changes? What if he becomes unstable? He’s the sword of Damocles and Pandora’s box rolled up into one.”

Campbell sighed heavily. “You’re right. We have no other choice. It would have been hard enough to do this if Sobol were on board. Now it’s even worse. We do something that goes against everything we believe in on one level, and our reward is a court martial—with no possible defense.”

“Not necessarily. It depends on how it goes down. If we kill him cleanly, we can pretend we were never able to find him. Or if not, we can claim it was an accident. He forced our hand.”

Campbell considered. “Okay, but even if we can do this and still save our own necks, Sobol is now a believer in ESP. So won’t he insist on us starting a program to look into this—Hall or no Hall?”

“It’s a good point. But I’ll be the one running any program he wants initiated. I’ll just make sure we never get anywhere.”

“But can we count on Sobol not mentioning this program to anyone? Isn’t there a danger in having a program running, even one we sabotage? What if what we’re doing becomes known? Won’t this start an arms race anyway?”

“No. Sobol wouldn’t breathe of word of it to anyone. He couldn’t. Without being able to produce Hall to demonstrate ESP, people would think he was out of his mind. They’d think he was back to having us try to stare goats to death. He wouldn’t say word one until we produced some unambiguous evidence. And even if I’m wrong about that—which I’m not—a living Hall is still the key. Without him, whatever gets out will be seen as a load of conspiracy theory crap that no one will take seriously. We can even leak that rumors about Hall were part of a PsyOps mission to get other countries to waste resources on ridiculous ESP projects, and to sow panic that the US has cracked mind reading.”

The major stared at Girdler for several seconds, weighing his points. “Okay,” he conceded finally. “That makes sense.” He paused. “But we do have one more problem.”

“Finding Hall in the first place?”