Extraordinary Powers (18 page)

She hesitated. “Can’t this wait, Ben?” “It’s urgent,” I said.

“What about his secretary? Is it something she can handle for you?”

“I need to talk to Alex,” I said. “At once.”

“Ben, you know he’s in Maryland, at Camp David,” she said delicately. “I don’t know how to reach him, and I have a feeling this isn’t a good time to disturb him.”

“There has to be a way to reach him,” I insisted. “And I think he’ll want to be disturbed. If he’s with the President or something, fine.

But if he’s not … “

Sounding somewhat annoyed, she agreed to call the person at the White House who had first contacted Alex, to see if her husband could be reached. She also agreed that she’d relay my request that when and if Truslow called me, he do so only over a portable scrambler.

Partners’ meetings at Putnam & Steams are as dull as partners’ meetings anywhere, except perhaps on television, on L.A. Law. We meet once a week, on Friday mornings at ten, to discuss whatever Bill Steams wants us to discuss, decide whatever must be decided.

In the course of this particular meeting, over coffee and very good sweet rolls from the firm’s caterer, we went over a number of matters ranging from the dull (how many new associates should we hire for the upcoming year?) to the mildly sensational (should the firm agree to take on the representation of a well-known Boston underworld crime lord no, make that alleged crime lord who happened to be the brother of one of the state’s most powerful politicians, and who was being charged with fraud by the state Lottery Commission?).

The answers: No on the crime lord and six on the associates. If it weren’t for the sole item of business that involved me could I make a good case to a giant food conglomerate that would impress them into hiring me in their suit against another food conglomerate over who stole whose formula for a fake fat I would have been unable to keep my attention on the business at hand at all.

I was feeling unsettled and decidedly un lawyerly as if I could burst out of my skin at a moment’s notice. Bill Steams, at the head of the coffin-shaped conference table, seemed to be giving me too many glances.

Was I being paranoid? Did he know!

No, the real question was: How much did he know?

I was tempted to try to tune in on the thoughts of my fellow partners as they doodled or spoke up, but, truth to tell, it was difficult. So many of the partners were on edge, nervous, irritated, angry, that the din, the hubbub, arose as one great wall of sound, or one wall-to-wall pile rug of chatter, out of which I could barely sort one person’s thoughts out from another’s spoken words. Yes, I’ve described the qualitative difference the difference in timbre in the thoughts I was able to receive as compared with the normal spoken voice. But the difference is a subtle one, and when too much was going on, I simply got confused and frustrated.

Yet I couldn’t stop receiving the random thought. So one moment I would hear Todd Richlin, the firm’s financial whiz, discussing billables and receivables and deliverables and at the same time I could hear, overlaid, his frenetic, edgy thoughts Steams just raised his eyebrows, what does that mean? and Kinney’s trying to jump in and embarrass me, that asshole. And over that would come interjections by Thorne or Quigley, something about hiring an outside consultant to train our basically illiterate associates in writing and speaking, and then their thoughts over that. So what I ended up with was a nightmarish babble of voices, which gradually drove me to distraction.

And all the while, whenever I looked toward the head of the conference table, Bill Steams seemed to be looking at me.

Soon the meeting began to take on that accelerated rhythm that always indicates we’ve got less than a half hour left. Richlin and Kinney were locked in some sort of gladiatorial struggle over the course of Kinney’s corporate litigation involving Viacorp, a huge entertainment concern in Boston, and I was still trying to clear my head of all the babble, when I heard Steams adjourn the meeting, rise quickly from his seat, and stride out of the room.

I ran to catch him, but he continued a brisk pace down the hallway.

“Bill,” I called out.

He turned around to look at me, his eyes steely, and did not break his stride. He deliberately, it seemed, was keeping a good physical distance between us. The jovial Bill Steams was gone, replaced by a man of severe, frighteningly intent demeanor. Did he, too, know? “I can’t talk to you now, Ben,” he said in a strange, peremptory voice I’d never heard him use before.

A few minutes after I returned to my office, a call was put through from Alexander Truslow.

“Jesus Christ, Ben, is this something important?” His voice had that odd, flat tone that a scrambler imparts.

“Yes, Alex, it is,” I said. “Is this a sterile line?” “It is. Glad I thought to bring the device with me.”

“I hope I didn’t call you out of a meeting with the President or something.”

“Actually no. He’s meeting with a couple of his Cabinet members on something to do with the German crisis, so I’m cooling my heels. What’s up?”

I gave him an abbreviated account of what had happened in “Development Research Laboratories,” and, as sparely as I could, I told him about what I was now able to do.

A long, long pause ensued. The silence felt infinite. Would he think I’d lost my mind? Would he hang up?

When he finally spoke, it was almost in a whisper. “The Oracle Project,” he breathed.

“What?”

“My God. I’ve heard tales—but to think—”

“You know about this?”

“God in heaven, Ben. I knew this fellow Rossi was once involved in such an undertaking. I thought … Jesus, I’d heard they’d had some success, that it worked on one person, but the last I heard, Stan Turner had shot the whole project down, quite some time ago. So that’s what he was really up to. I should have known there was something fishy about Rossi’s story.”

“You weren’t informed?” “Informed? They told me this was a regulation flutter. You see what I meant when I told you that something’s afoot. The Company’s out of control. Dammit all, I don’t know who the hell I can trust anymore ” “Alex,” I said. “I’m going to have to sever my links with your firm entirely.”

“Are you sure, Ben?” Truslow protested.

“I’m sorry. For my safety, and Molly’s and yours I’m going to have to lay low for a while. Stay out of sight. Cut off all contacts with you or anyone else associated with CIA.”

“Ben, listen to me. I feel responsible I’m the one who got you involved in all this in the first place. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll respect your decision. Part of me wants you to press on, to see what these Agency cowboys want from you. Part of me wants to tell you to just head up to our weekend place and hide out for a while. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I don’t know what the hell has happened to me. I still haven’t fathomed it. I don’t know if I ever will. But “

“I have no right to tell you what to do. It’s up to you. You may want to talk to Rossi, suss out what he wants from us. Perhaps he’s dangerous.

Perhaps he’s merely overzealous. Use your judgment, Ben.

That’s all I can tell you.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll think it over.”

“In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do “

“No, Alex. Nothing. Right now there’s nothing anyone can do.”

As I hung up, another call came in.

“A man named Charles Rossi,” Darlene announced over the intercom.

I picked it up. “Rossi,” I said.

“Mr. Ellison, I’m going to need you to come in as soon as possible and “

“No,” I said. “I have no arrangement with CIA. My arrangement was with Alexander Truslow. And as of this minute, the arrangement is over.”

“Now, hold on a second—” But I had hung up.

NINETEEN.

John Matera, my Shearson broker, was so excited he could barely get his words out

“Jesus,” he said. “Did you hear?” We were speaking on Shearson’s recorded line, so I said innocently, “Hear what?”

“Beacon—what happened to Beacon—they’re being bought out by Saxon—” “That’s terrific,” I said, feigning excitement. “What does that mean for the stock?”

“Mean? Mean? It’s already up thirty fucking points, Ben.

You’ve—you’ve like tripled your money, and the day’s not even over yet.

You’ve already raked in over sixty thousand dollars, which ain’t half bad for a couple hours’ work. Christ, if you could’ve bought call options—”

“Sell it, John.”

“What the fuck—!

“Just sell, John. Now.”

For some reason I didn’t feel elated. Instead, I felt a dull, acid wave of fear wash over my insides. Everything else I’d been through in the last few hours I could on some level dismiss as my imagination, as some sort of terrible delusion. But I had read a human being’s mind, had thereby learned inside information, and here was the concrete evidence of it.

Not just for me, but for anyone else who might be watching me. I knew there was a serious risk that the SEC would be suspicious of such a quick turnover; but I needed the cash, and I let it get the better of my good sense.

I gave him quick instructions on what to do with the proceeds which account to place it in, and then I hung up. And called Edmund Moore in Washington.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang—there was no answering machine; Ed Moore had always considered such contraptions gauche—and when I was about to hang up, it was answered by a male voice.

“Yes?”

The voice of a young man, not Ed’s. The voice of someone in a position of authority.

“Ed Moore, please,” I said.

A pause. “Who’s calling?”

“A friend.”

“Name, please.”

“None of your business. Let me speak to Elena.”

In the background I could hear a woman’s voice, high and keening, her cries rising and falling rhythmically. “Who is it?” the woman’s voice called out.

“She’s unable to come to the phone, sir. I’m sorry.”

In the background the cries became louder, then became words: “Oh, my Lord!” and

“My baby. My baby” and a loud, anguished gasping.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

The man covered the phone, consulted with someone, and then came back on the line. “Mr. Moore has passed away. His wife discovered him just a few minutes ago. It was a suicide. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

I was stunned, almost speechless.

Ed Moore … a suicide? My dear friend and mentor, that diminutive, feisty, and, above all, enormous-hearted old man. I was too dazed, too shocked, even to shed the tears for him I knew I would.

It couldn’t be.

A suicide? He had talked about vague threats against him; he had feared for his life. Surely it was no suicide. Yet he had seemed so disoriented, even unbalanced, when we spoke.

Edmund Moore was dead.

It was no suicide.

I called Mass. General and had Molly paged. I trusted her good sense, her sound advice, and I needed it now more than ever.

*

I was deeply scared. There’s a macho tendency among new clandestine-officer recruits to belittle and mock fear, as if it somehow demeans your competence, your virility. But the experienced field men know that fear can be your greatest ally. You must always listen to, and trust, your instincts.

And my instincts now told me that this sudden talent had put both Molly and me in great danger.

After a long wait the page operator got on and said, in a cigarette-husky voice, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no answer. Would you like me to connect you to the neonatal intensive-care unit?”

“Yes, please.”

The woman who answered at the NICU had a slight Hispanic accent. “No, Mr. Ellison, I’m sorry, she’s already left.”

“Left?”

“Gone home. About ten minutes ago.”

“What?”

“She had to leave suddenly. She said it was an emergency, something about you. I assumed you knew.”

I hung up and hurried toward the elevator, my heart racing.

Rain was coming down in sheets, gusted by winds of almost gale force.

The sky was gunmetal gray, streaked with yellow. People walked by in yellow slickers and khaki raincoats, their black umbrellas turned inside out by the howling wind By the time I mounted the steps to my town house, drenched during the short walk from the taxi to the front door, it was twilight, and all of the lights in the house seemed to be off.

Strange.

I hurried into the outside foyer. Why would she have gone home? She was scheduled to spend the night in the hospital.

The first peculiar thing I noticed was that the alarm was off. Did that mean she was in the house? Molly had left after I did that morning, and she was always scrupulous—even a little obsessive—about turning the alarm on, though there was little if anything for anyone to steal.

When I unlocked the front door, I noticed the second peculiar thing: Molly’s briefcase was there, in the foyer, the briefcase she took with her wherever she went.

She must be home.

I switched on a few lights and quietly climbed the stairs to our bedroom. It was dark, and there was no Molly. I climbed another flight of stairs to the room she uses as her study, though at that point it was in a dismaying state of renovation.

Nothing.

I called out: “Mol?”

No reply.

The adrenaline began to course through my bloodstream, and I made a series of mental calculations.

If she wasn’t here, could she be on the way? And if so, who or what had caused her to come home? And why hadn’t she tried to call me?

“Molly?” I called out a little louder.

Silence.

I descended the staircase rapidly, my heart thudding, switching on lights as I moved.

No. Not in the sitting room. Not in the kitchen.

“Molly?” I said loudly.

Complete, utter silence in the house.

And then I jumped as the telephone rang.

I leapt to pick it up, and said, “Molly.”

It wasn’t Molly. The voice was male, unfamiliar.

“Mr., Ellison?” An accent, but from where?

“Yes?”

“We must talk. It is urgent.”

“What the fuck have you done with her?” I exploded “What the “