More Deaths Than One (22 page)

He gestured toward the stacks of paper on the
corner table. “As I pieced together what little my patients knew, a
story gradually emerged about a hospital in the Philippines where
many had been subjects of mind control experiments.”

Bob stiffened, remembering that Harrison had
told him the same thing. So the conspiracy had been real after all
and not a fabrication of the journalist’s diseased mind. A
frightening notion popped into his head.

“Is it possible to give someone cancer?” he
asked.

With a visible effort, the doctor pulled his
attention back to Bob. “Lab rats are given cancer all the
time.”

“But people?”

“Yes.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “A
colleague discovered a cluster of cancer victims at Leavenworth
several years ago and is convinced they had been purposely
infected. The cancer took hold and spread so rapidly, they were
dead within a month. From the extensive growth of the tumors, the
prison doctor assumed they’d been sick for months, perhaps years,
without anyone knowing, but my colleague doesn’t agree.”

Dr. Willet rolled his chair over to the
table, shuffled through a stack of papers, pulled one out, then
rolled back to his desk.

He handed the paper to Bob. It was a
photocopy of an interview published in a journal called Scientific
Revolutions.

“It won’t be long before we can completely
cure cancer,” bragged Dr. Martin Reed of the Rosewood Research
Institute. “We’re making tremendous progress due to a new,
super-fast-acting cancer I have developed.”

“How does a new cancer help cure the old
ones?” the interviewer asked.

“It doesn’t,” Dr. Reed responded. “What it
does is allow us to speed up the whole process. Protocols that used
to take months can now be completed in a matter of days.”

Bob stared at the picture accompanying the
article. Did this man create the cancer that killed Harrison? With
his thin, pale face, aquiline features, and mop of unruly brown
hair, he looked like a scientist, not a murderer. But looks don’t
tell the truth.

After Bob seared the man’s face in his
memory, he returned the paper to Dr. Willet.

“What do you know about the Rosewood Research
Institute?”

“Not as much as I’d like to,” Dr. Willet
responded. “I do know they’re endowed by ISI and are involved in
all sorts of innovative and highly successful treatments of
behavior disorders, but there’s something not quite right about the
procedures. I’ve tried to use the techniques they describe in the
journals, but I’ve never been able to achieve their spectacular
results. I have yet to find a therapist who has.”

“What do you think they’re doing?”

Dr. Willet looked Bob straight in the eyes as
if he wanted to catch even the smallest reaction. “I think they’re
using laser surgery.”

Bob didn’t blink. “According to my source,
ISI has developed a laser so fine it can zap a single
molecule.”

Dr Willet nodded. “And I’ve heard of a
scientist who created a remote-controlled radioactive isotope that
can find the location of any memory in the brain. To be precise, it
is not the memory itself the isotope locates. A single memory is
not stored whole in a specific location but is diffused throughout
the brain. What the isotope actually finds is the spot on the brain
responsible for the retrieval of a particular memory. Her research
was funded by ISI.”

He lifted his chin. “I think someone has been
using the isotope and the laser to remove memories and undesirable
character traits.”

“Who?” Bob asked.

“A psychiatrist named Jeremy Rutledge, for
one. He now runs the Rosewood Research Institute. In the sixties,
he had a patient, a little girl who suffered such severe abuse she
became catatonic. He theorized if he could physically prevent her
brain from being able to retrieve those memories, to erase them, in
effect, she could grow up to have a normal life.

“It sounds farfetched, but the same thing
occurs all by itself every day. If you forget something, the memory
is still there, but the retrieval breaks down.

“They never planned to keep the procedure
secret, but were going to submit a paper to the journals as soon as
the girl had been restored to mental health. Before they could
proceed, a lab technician leaked the information to the newspapers.
The press called it ‘The New Lobotomy,’ and Rutledge was hauled
into court.

“Rutledge, backed by ISI’s money and a whole
battery of attorneys, argued that the operation was not a lobotomy,
not even open surgery, but a simple, humane procedure done with a
laser. The time consuming part was finding the precise spot to
hit.

“He testified that this procedure would
greatly benefit mankind, but the courts didn’t agree and enjoined
him from ever performing the operation.

“The psychiatrist lost, but so did the little
girl. She’s grown now, but that poor woman is still imprisoned in
her private hell.”

Dr. Willet rummaged through his papers once
more and pulled out copies of the newspaper articles detailing the
story.

Glancing through them, Bob noticed a picture
of Dr. Rutledge. He seemed vaguely familiar with his round face and
expression of cheery innocence, but Bob knew he’d never heard the
name before.

“I have a theory,” Dr. Willet said, “that
even before Rutledge tried to cure the little girl, similar
procedures had been tested on amputees during the Korean War. I
believe they used my brother for one of their guinea pigs, and they
destroyed more than the memory of his limb. I believe they
continued with their research during Vietnam. I run a therapy group
for Vietnam veterans with missing limbs, and some of them have
never felt a single twinge of a phantom limb. Many of those men
remember being sent to a hospital in the Philippines during the
course of their treatment.”

“But it’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Bob asked.
“I mean, the doctors saved them a lot of agony.”

Dr. Willet’s mouth thinned. “It does sound
nice and humanitarian, doesn’t it? But not one of the amputees gave
their consent. Also, I think somewhere along the line the doctors
got giddy with power and started doing all sorts of experiments,
venturing into eradication of anti-social behavior. I may never be
able to prove it, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life
trying. I owe it to my brother.”

Chapter19

Kerry's roommate left town for a few days,
and once again Bob stayed at her house. Though he and Kerry had
returned from Omaha late last night, he still rose early for a
run.

Later, after a leisurely breakfast, Kerry
went to the restaurant to pick up her final paycheck, and Bob went
to the Denver Public Library on Broadway and Fourteenth—the only
quiet and private place with a payphone that he knew about.

He roamed the library, familiarizing himself
with the layout of the first floor. The library had two main
entrances, but since they faced each other, giving someone entering
one door a clear view of anyone leaving by the other, they would
not serve as an escape route.

Toward the back of the library, beyond the
history and biography departments, he found a more secluded
exit.

He returned to the front of the library,
walked down the stairs to the basement, and made his way along a
darkened hallway to the telephones.

A child answered his call.

”May I speak to your father?” Bob asked.

“Da-a-addy,” the child screeched. “It’s for
you.”

A minute later a man with a pleasant but
tired-sounding voice said, “Yes?”

“Robert Stark? I’m from the American
Association of Prosthesis Manufacturers. We’re trying to update our
files.”

“How did you get my name?” Robert asked.
“I’ve never sent you people any information. I don’t even know who
you are.”

“Maybe your doctor filled out the
questionnaire. Yes. It’s signed by a Dr.—sorry, but I can’t make
out the name.”

“She does have terrible writing, doesn’t
she?”

Remembering Dr. Albion and his question as to
whether Bob’s left foot had been blown off, Bob said, “Hmm. Let’s
see. It says here you’re missing your left foot.”

“Yes.”

“Any problems with your prosthesis?”

“No. It’s comfortable enough.”

“What about phantom pain? Are you still
experiencing any itching, twitching, anything like that?”

“No. To be honest, I never did have any
phantom pains. I used to belong to a support group for amputees,
but I quit. A lot of them had problems with those pains, some on
and off for years, and they resented the fact that I didn’t.”

“You’re lucky,” Bob said.

Robert laughed humorlessly. “If I were lucky,
I’d still have two feet.”

“How did you lose your foot?”

“Vietnam.”

“A mine?”

“Yes.”

“On Highway One? Near Qui Nhon?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s right here on the questionnaire.”

“It was one of those things,” Robert said. “I
was a supply clerk, but one day I got orders to ride along on one
of the supply trucks. It was the first time I had been outside of
Saigon, and I was enjoying the trip, then all of a sudden we ran
over that mine. It shouldn’t have been there—the minesweepers
supposedly had cleared the road. Heck, I shouldn’t have been there,
but that’s life, I guess.”

“Did you sustain any other injuries?”

“Just minor ones.”

“Any scars?”

“Other than around my stump? No.”

“What about old scars? Maybe scars on your
chest?”

“What does that have to do with my
pros-thesis?”

“Nothing, as far as I know, but it’s on the
questionnaire, so I have to ask.”

Robert sighed. “I have a tiny scar on my
chest where my brother shot me when we were kids. I was standing a
long way off, so only one shotgun pellet hit me, but it still left
a mark. Do you have any more questions? I have to get ready for
work.”

“One more. What hospital did you go to after
your injury in Vietnam?”

“The one at Qui Nhon at first, then they
transferred me to a hospital in the Philippines.”

“Thank you for your help,” Bob said. He would
have liked to talk to his other self longer, maybe find out how
else their early experiences varied, maybe find out why Robert had
married Lorena despite that cold letter, but he knew his time was
running out.

He hung up the receiver and strode back to
the stairs, took them two at a time until he neared the top, then
slowed to a more casual pace. He turned to the left and made his
way to the tall shelves of fiction where he felt secure enough to
glance behind him.

It was as he expected. Sam and Ted were
crashing through the front door, suit coats unbuttoned for easy
access to their guns. They shoved their badges in the face of the
old man standing at the door making sure everyone had checked out
their books.

“Where are the phones?” Ted demanded.

The old man pointed a trembling finger to the
steps leading downward.

Sam and Ted pushed past him, almost knocking
him over in their haste, and hurried to the staircase.

As soon as they sprinted down the stairs, Bob
moved away from the protection of the shelves and headed for his
emergency exit.

Once outside, he crossed Fourteenth Avenue,
seeking the relative safety of the Greek amphitheater in Civic
Center Park. Standing as still and as silent and as cold as one of
the statues adorning the amphitheater, he watched the action
unfolding across the street.

A half dozen cars came screeching to a halt
outside the library and double-parked. Ignoring the honking horns
and the obscenities from irate drivers, the teams of ISI operatives
jumped out of their vehicles and ran into the building.

More cars arrived, further snarling traffic.
Within minutes, stern-faced, self-important men and women
surrounded the library.

Some of the operatives guarded the entrance,
refusing to let anyone go in or come out of the library. They
demanded to see identification from all who approached and studied
the faces of those who held back.

Others searched the grounds, the parked cars,
and everywhere else a man might have hidden. They interrogated
everyone in the vicinity.

Not a single city cop arrived at the
scene.

Bob saw Ted come out of the library.

“I can’t believe you fuckers let him get away
again,” Ted yelled at the milling agents. “We had him. He was right
here.”

One of the agents responded, speaking too
quietly for Bob to hear.

“He is not a phantom,” Ted bellowed. “He is
not a shape shifter. He is not a shadow. Anyone, and I mean anyone,
who ever mentions any of that supernatural shit again will be fired
on the spot. Got it?”

Bob heard no more of Ted’s harangue. The
crowds that had gathered to watch the spectacle began to disperse.
He slipped among them and made his way to Colfax where he caught a
bus.

As the bus lumbered up Capitol Hill, Bob saw
Herbert Townsend trudging along the opposite side of the
street.

Townsend seemed sad and listless, as if his
inner fires had burned low. Even his aluminum foil headgear seemed
lusterless. Occasionally Townsend would turn to accost someone, but
when they ma-neuvered out of his way, he made no attempt to detain
them. Mostly he plodded along, head bowed.

Will I end up like him, endlessly roaming the
streets with a message no one wants to hear? Bob flexed his fingers
and found his answer: no.

Townsend seemed a frail creature without
inner reserves of strength to sustain him. Bob, on the other hand,
was a finely turned instrument at the height of his mental and
physical powers.

More importantly, he had Kerry on his
side.

***

Bob was sitting on the porch swing when Kerry
came home, a troubled expression on her face.