In the morning, the act of going to the hospital produced within him a
sensation as of marching to the front line of battle.
Whitehead, the laboratory chief, was prowling about his office when he
arrived.
"Morning," Wolf greeted him. "Got something for me?"
"I have a strangeness," Whitehead said. "A very great strangeness."
"We all do," Wolf replied. "What's yours?"
"This Britten of yours. How old is he?"
"By appearance, and according to the records, about twenty-one."
"Uh-huh. And by cellular structure and metabolism he is at least forty!"
"So."
Wolf sank down in his chair and cocked an eye at Alma Heller, who came
into the room at that moment.
"Did you hear that, Alma? In more ways than one our boy isn't what he
seems to be. By last night I was certain that he is not a native of
Louisville, Kentucky. Now we are told that he is twice as old as we
thought he was."
Alma stared for a moment.
"We do seem to get in deeper and deeper. Have any ideas?"
Wolf ran his hand worriedly through his hair. "One. But I'm afraid of
it. At any rate, we're in too far to back out. This morning we're going
to dig for more information, and we're not going to stop until we have
Britten squeezed dry."
He reached onto his desk for his tobacco can and began filling a pipe,
meanwhile organizing his thoughts.
"Somehow or other," he resumed, "Britten has received conditioning to
resist giving information under deep therapy."
"And not only that," Alma interposed, "but he has the ability to retain
consciousness under deep therapy and fabricate a story to replace the
true facts."
"Correct. So, since the ordinary deep therapy method is useless, we
have to get tough. We have to eliminate his present set of conditioned
reactions and replace them by a new set. In other words, we must reset
the controls so that he responds to a new set of orders."
Alma pursed her lips for a soundless whistle. "Fisher's method! Do you
know how much of that a nervous system can take?"
Wolf shrugged. "Who knows? This is very new stuff. I've played around
with a little of it, but ... who knows? At any rate, we're going
to assume that Britten has a fairly tough mind in order to get as
far as he has. We'll assume this not only for his own sake, but for
ours, because we are going to shake him loose from his present set of
memories, and we want enough of his original memories left for us to
assemble. Now suppose we begin."
* * * * *
Whitehead excused himself. There was work waiting in his laboratory,
he said, and watched wistfully as the two disappeared into the therapy
room.
Alma began switching on the apparatus, while Wolf called for Jim
Britten to be brought in.
"Still going digging in my mind?" Britten wisecracked as he walked in,
flanked by the ubiquitous Grady and Jones.
"With a steam shovel," Wolf replied, and motioned that Britten be
strapped onto the table.
This time Wolf wasted no explanations. Without pausing he slipped
Britten a preliminary shot and began fitting electrodes onto his head
and arms.
"We're going back a long time, now," he said, quietly. "Remember back
to the days before you started college. How old are you?"
Britten began dreaming off. "Sixteen years old. It was a hot summer.
Kentucky in summer. Hot. Hot as a solar cycle ... hot as a bicycle down
the road ... a tricycle down the toad ... doctor you look like a big
pimply warty green-eyed toad...."
Morris Wolf waited until the drug-induced schizophrenic symptoms were
well under way, then motioned for Alma Heller to send a sequence of
high-frequency pulses through Britten's nervous system, breaking down
synapses and destroying memory patterns. This, in combination with the
drug, was intended to clear the mind of memories involving the period
of time to which Britten's attention had been directed. In this period,
Wolf guessed, the conditioning had taken place. If not, then he must
try another period.
Britten's body stiffened under the onslaught and perspiration rolled
out on his brow. His mouth twisted and his eyebrows writhed. Morris
Wolf himself felt perspiration starting out on his face, while in the
back of the room the two "attendants" stared in amazement.
After enough time of this, Wolf switched the controls so that a
rhythmic pattern of pulses went through Britten's system in such a
manner as to aid the triggering of synapses and the formation of memory
patterns. The slate having been wiped clean, new writing had to be
placed on it.
"Now," he said, tensely, leaning over the patient and speaking close to
his ears. "Cooperation means obey. Cooperation means obey. Cooperation
means you do what I say. Cooperation means you do what I tell you to
do, say what I tell you to say, remember what I tell you to remember.
Cooperation is the key word."
The words went from Wolf's mouth to Britten's ears in the form of
sound waves, were converted into neuro-electrical impulses, and under
the influence of the rhythmically repeating pulses, from the machine,
circulated around and around through Britten's system, tracing a deeply
etched path.
Finally Wolf ceased the talking, and Alma handed him the needle with
the antidote to the first drug.
"Now we see how successful we are," he said.
He gave the shot and several minutes went by while they waited for it
to take effect. They remained silent, as though to say a word would
break the spell.
Then: "Cooperation," Wolf said.
Britten lay still.
"Open your eyes."
Britten's eyelids struggled open, but the eyes stared blankly.
Wolf thought: what question is most basic?
Then he asked: "What is your name?"
The mouth writhed, and then whispered, "_Pyotr Fermineyev_."
* * * * *
There was a small roaring in Morris Wolf's ears, and beside him he
heard the intake of Alma Heller's breath. The FBI agents, Grady and
Jones, had moved up until they were leaning over Wolf's shoulder.
Then: "Where were you born?"
Again the whisper from the blank face: "In Leningrad."
Then: "Who sent you to America?"
"_The Society for the Restoration of the Revolution._"
"What is the nature of this organization?"
"It is an underground group pledged to return the Soviet Union to
its status as the leader of the world revolution and to overthrow the
present appeasers of the capitalist governments."
Wolf glowed with triumph. "Get that, Alma?" he gloated, and he turned
around half way and winked at the two men behind him.
Alma Heller shook a strand of hair back from her eyes. "The fanatical
revolutionaries--now they're trying to overthrow their own government
because the Soviet is too friendly to the Western governments!"
"This is no comic underground group," Wolf said. "There are some big
people in it who know how to do things that we're just barely starting
to learn about."
He paused, and considered his next questions. The time had come to dig
in.
He phrased his query: "What was your task on the satellite?"
Britten's face writhed. Perspiration rolled down his cheeks in a steady
stream. Obviously some of the original conditioning remained, causing
interference with Wolf's orders.
Alma Heller's knuckles showed white and her clenched hands trembled.
The FBI agents inched forward, their bodies stiff with impatience.
Between hard breaths the words came: "... was on the satellite
to watch ... new developments in nuclear power ... complete
conversion ... matter to energy...."
Understanding grew in Wolf's mind with a brilliant glare. Glover had
been on the verge of taming the ultimate source of energy--the total
and complete conversion of matter--a source of power over 130 times
more potent than the hydrogen-helium reaction. No wonder the project
had been put under wraps!
"So you killed Glover to prevent him from continuing his work. What did
you intend to gain by that? Somebody else will take it over. How are
you going to develop this power source yourself?"
Britten groaned audibly. His back arched and his arms strained against
the table straps.
Through clenched teeth: "Ruppert ... next man in line for Glover's
job ... one of us."
Wolf's eyes opened wide, and he whirled to the telephone.
"I'm calling Washington--" he began, then stopped in horror.
Behind him, Britten's voice said, in a strangely firm tone: "_Now is
the time._"
* * * * *
Wolf whirled again. He saw Britten, still strapped to the table, his
eyes unglazed, and his facial expression commanding.
The FBI men had stiffened, and were standing in place, motionless.
"Cover them, and untie me," Britten rapped out, in a voice that was
greatly different from the youthful, uncertain tone he had previously
used.
Grady pulled his gun, backed Wolf and Alma Heller against the wall,
while Jones loosened Britten's straps.
"So you're one of them, too, Grady," Wolf growled. "And you, Jones. May
you burn in hell."
"Don't malign them," said Britten, sitting up and rubbing his arms.
"They are good, loyal G-men. But they sat outside my door too long, and
now they do what I tell them to do."
Wolf narrowed his eyes and stared at Britten. "Just what are you?" he
demanded.
Britten met his gaze, bleakly, and ignored the question.
"We have a rendezvous to make. The two of you will escort me to a
helicopter that Grady will order. I need not repeat that we are
prepared to blast our way out of this place. You'll save lives all
around by being as inconspicuous as possible."
He indicated that Wolf and Alma Heller would go ahead, while the two
agents took up the rear. Out in the main corridor they merged into the
confused traffic of the busy hospital, two doctors and two attendants
conducting a patient out.
Grady took the controls of the helicopter that waited for them out on
the parking lot. As they climbed to a high traffic lane, Jones took
care of tying the hands of the two doctors behind their seats.
Britten sat beside the pilot, staring through the windshield. "Head
due west one hundred miles," he said. "Then I'll give you further
directions."
Wolf looked down through the port next to him and felt his heart
constrict as he saw the houses below grow smaller and smaller. One of
those houses was his; there was a small figure beside it that could
have been his little boy. That was the thought that set his heart
beating violently and the adrenalin pumping swiftly through his veins.
For himself he didn't care so much, but his son needed a father to come
home.
He looked at Alma sitting beside him, her face pale and frightened.
He wondered how much time there was before the rendezvous. For this
was all the time he had. Beyond that were too many unknown factors to
consider.
He leaned over sideways.
"Alma," he said, in a voice not loud enough to carry forward over the
roar of the motor. "Tell me exactly what happened when Britten said,
'Now is the time.' My back was turned then. Just what did he look
like?"
Alma swallowed. She composed her face and turned her thoughts inward,
remembering.
"There was a sudden change," she said. "One moment he was in the
trance state, the next moment he was fully aware of his surroundings
and in charge of the situation. As though he received a signal at that
instant."
A signal, Wolf thought. From where? The implication was shocking.
Look at what we have, he continued to himself. Britten comes to me,
under conditioning, ready to act out his part to the hilt. We question
him under deep hypnotherapy and he comes forth with a plausible story.
We might have stopped right there, but we got curious and began to
ask more questions. He brings out another story. Why? Obviously,
red herrings to confuse the issue. To stall for time. We apply more
pressure, blank out his original conditioning so that he gives us
straight answers to questions, and we are getting along fine. Then,
suddenly he snaps out of it and into his original, pre-Britten
character, all forty years of him. Therefore there must have been
another, deeper level to the control over his mind which we did not
even touch. A level activated by a new signal which we did not even
detect, a signal which came at a crucial time.
"_Now is the time_" meant that the stalling was over, that the
preparations for Britten's escape were completed.
There were still questions to be answered, many blank spaces to be
filled in, but at the present instant there was only one question that
mattered. The treatment which Wolf had given Britten--had it been at
all effective?
Was it still effective?
There was one way to find out.
* * * * *
Morris Wolf leaned forward and called in a loud voice: "_Pyotr
Fermineyev!_"
The man's head snapped around.
"_Cooperation is the key word!_" Wolf shouted.
Confusion passed over Britten's face as conflict once more knotted his
nervous system.
Wolf threw his second punch immediately. "Tell Jones to cut me loose,"
he demanded.
"Cut him loose," Britten echoed, in bewilderment.
After an interminable interval, Jones laid down his gun, found his
knife, opened it, and slashed the cords from Wolf's arms. Wolf's
muscles were already tensed. He snatched Jones' gun, lurched forward,
and even as Britten's mouth opened to countermand his order, he slugged
Britten with the butt of the pistol, hitting him viciously and hard
until he lay unconscious on the floor.
Then he said to Grady, "You'd better get us back to the hospital,"
keeping the gun in his hand.
But Grady and Jones made no trouble. With Britten out of the picture
they obeyed the one obviously in command. Poor boys, Wolf thought. Now
they were in need of therapy.
As the hospital hove into view, he said to Alma Heller, "We have just
seen the real beginning of psychological warfare. Where it took us
a whole roomful of equipment to condition Britten's responses to a
trigger word, he was able to do it to Jones and Brady single-handed.
His method is something we'd like to know. But more than that, Britten
himself was conditioned to respond to a signal unknown to us and
undetected by us. My God, it could only have been telepathic!"
Alma Heller's eyes closed for a moment.
"I think," she said, "that psychiatrists are going to reach the same
position that physicists did during World War II."
Morris Wolf looked dourly out of the window, watching the hospital
balloon up under the helicopter.
"That's the most unpleasant thing anybody has said all day," he replied.