Second Sight (15 page)

“The tests were using extremely low frequency ranges. ELF waves, they call them. They can be felt but not heard.”

“Felt. You mean physically felt?”

“Physically and emotionally. First there’s a marked rise in body temperature, then nausea, nosebleeds, maybe disorientation, and consciousness of a presence before the voices begin. Sound familiar?”

Brigham leaned back in his chair and threw a leg over the end of the table. “The Soviets were putting political and war prisoners on television to confess to crimes against the state. They looked for all the world like zombies to us. Their speech was mechanical, their enunciation emotionless, reflexive. The conclusion was that the Russian scientists had perfected psychoacoustic technology to beam messages directly to the brain.”

“Is that a possibility? I mean even today?”

“Are you asking me as your friend or as a former admiral of the navy?”

“Jesus,” Sherry said.

“Sherry, you can’t imagine what technology is out there today.”

Brigham shifted in his chair and held up his hand, ending the line of inquiry.

But Sherry wasn’t listening anymore. She pushed her chair from the table and walked to the window.

“If Monahan was subjected to radio waves that altered his neurological system, isn’t it possible that when I tapped into his mind I altered my own? Maybe the contact between us changed the cerebral partitioning of my optical nerves?” Sherry looked at Brigham.

Brigham shrugged. “I’m actually beginning to believe it myself.”

“Did you find his parents?”

“Both dead. I asked a friend with contacts in the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to locate the family. There are none. No siblings, no aunts, no uncles.”

“So that’s it. End of story.”

“What Alpha Company did in the Catskills during the Cold War will long be protected by the National Security Act. This I can assure you.”

“After all this time?” Sherry looked skeptical.

Brigham laughed. “The CIA is still protecting invisible ink formulas from 1917.” He picked up his coffee. “Look it up.”

“Okay, so what isn’t classified?”

“All the conjecture.”

“Great.”

“No, wait, it’s better than you think. There are dozens of tell-all books about the Cold War. Someone is always willing to talk.”

“Summary?”

“Area Seventeen was rumored to be a secret weapons lab. Their proximity to the asylum would have made it one of the bet
ter locations to test radiation, and radiation testing in other places in the country has been well documented during the period Monahan would have been there.”

“The radiation testing itself? The government admitted to doing it?”

“Absolutely. The government’s settled out of court on a number of cases already, but it was hardly more than a token. The thing to remember is that, in spite of what we admitted to in the past, many of the projects that they were working on then continue even today. That’s the reason the records remain sensitive and secret.”

“God…. What else?” Sherry wanted to know more.

“There are always civilians involved. Scientists, doctors, people who if still living would not want the world to associate them with what they had done in Area 17.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, if you start making noises about any of the people still alive, you’re liable to ruffle some feathers. There are still secrets to protect.”

“So you’re saying leave it alone. That there’s no one left or willing to tell us anything about this man.”

“I’m saying that the more you know before you go around asking questions in public, the better chance you won’t be stopped by some spook in a trench coat. The better chance that more records won’t disappear. You know there’s always that security chief that found Monahan’s body at the bottom of the rocks. Betsy said she could introduce us to his widow—maybe there’s something there to learn. She said the lady would talk to you.”

Sherry’s eyes dropped to the table, roaming across the papers that Brigham had laid in front of her. She let out a deep sigh, met eyes with him, and rubbed her knees with the palms of her hands.

She nodded. “We have to go back there.”

“Well, I’m in for now, but just for a while,” Brigham said. “Don’t go nuts on me, like you’re prone to do.”

“Nuts!”

“Remember your solemn promise of atonement in the hospital? For all the worry you’ve put me through?”

“All right, you’re right, I promise I won’t go crazy.” She put up both hands as if to surrender. “If there’s nothing to learn from the widow, it’s over.”

“That’s very reasonable, Sherry,” Brigham said admiringly.

“I have a surprise,” Sherry said out of context.

Brigham cringed. “Oh, Lord.”

“Oh, don’t get all excited. I’m taking a literacy course. That’s all.”

Brigham looked at her, surprised. “So soon?”

“Why wait? If my sight stays, it stays, and I’ll be ahead of the game. If it goes away again I’ll have lost nothing but a little time. Right?”

He nodded.

“My first class is on Tuesday at three, in the city. Could we go to Stockton on Wednesday?”

He nodded. “I’ll call Betsy and find out if McCullough’s widow will be there and talk to us.”

Sherry smiled.

“Stop smiling like that,” Brigham said.

Weir could have appealed to the Department of Defense for a more sophisticated means of tracking Sherry Moore. The government shared its technology liberally when it came to protecting MIRA. But Weir didn’t want DOD to know about Sherry Moore. Not if there was a chance she would have to go missing. And they had already seen each other in the hospital waiting room. He only needed one opportunity to introduce himself into her life.

Weir parked his car on the busy side street that paralleled Sherry’s riverfront home. It didn’t take long. On Tuesday just before 2 p.m. a city cab pulled into the half-circle portico and Sherry left the house alone. Forty-five minutes later, Troy and his quarry were in the city, on Walnut and approaching South Sixth Street, when the cab put on its turn signal, bent the corner, and pulled to the curb. Troy passed hurriedly, parking in a handicapped zone for the American Philosophical Society, where he left a government ID on the dash. Then he grabbed two books from the trunk and ran down South Sixth to where he’d last seen the cab. Sherry was on foot and just turning the corner at St.
James. At a quarter to three he caught up to her. She was climbing the steps of the Athenaeum.

Troy passed the security guard and walked down the dimly lit hall. Sherry was in a room to his right, talking to the receptionist, a pretty black woman. He pretended to be interested in exhibits in the hall and repositioned himself when she left the desk, seeing her take a seat at a table in the corner of the room. Five minutes later a man with thick gray hair approached the door and walked to the information desk. The receptionist pointed toward Sherry, who stood, waiting to shake his hand. A moment later they sat and began to talk.

At five minutes after four, Sherry exited the Athenaeum and was walking down the steps when she heard someone yell, “Excuse me,” and she turned to see a handsome young gentleman getting to his feet. He had been sitting on the steps with books in his hand.

“I know you.” He grinned with a look of boyish enthusiasm.

“The hospital,” Sherry said. “You were in the neurology department last week. Right?”

He nodded and rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I just couldn’t let you get by”—he pointed toward the sidewalk—“the city is so big it keeps reminding me I’m so small. I’m quite new to Philadelphia.” He waved a hand and shook his head. “It just struck me that I actually recognized one face in all of the masses.” He put out a hand, palm facing Sherry. “I’m sorry; you must think I’m very silly.”

“Don’t count on it,” Sherry said, sizing him up. “Odd place to meet someone who doesn’t know the city well. The neurology department of a city hospital.”

“Yeah, well, then there’s that,” he said, scratching an ear with the cuff of his sleeve. “Can’t go anywhere without checking in with those buggers.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Fibromyalgia. I need therapy for pain. It messes with my sleep big-time. Bad genes, I guess, what can I say.”

“Old head injury.” Sherry touched her scalp to explain her own visit to the unit. “They like to get their money’s worth out of you.”

He laughed. “I’m Troy—” He tried to shift the books to his left hand to shake her hand, but he lost his grip and they fell clattering to the concrete. They stooped together to retrieve them and Sherry saw the open covers. One appeared to be a history book. There were men in powdered wigs in front of a flag-draped cannon. The other had only a black-and-white photograph of an old dilapidated building.

“Sherry,” she said, taking his hand, but her mind was fully on the building. Sherry had never seen it before, but she was certain she knew what it was.

“That book?” she said, pointing.

“Halley House Orphanage.” He shrugged, tucking the books back under his arm. “I’m not really into ghost stories, but I was picking up stuff on Philadelphia’s history and there it was.”

“I didn’t know there was a book,” Sherry said softly, trying to keep her composure.

“You know the place, then. Yeah, they closed it in 1994. Supposed to be one of the oldest surviving orphanages from the 1800s.”

“They started sending the residents to foster homes in the 1980s,” Sherry said absently. “Subsidized apartments. The projects,” she added more distastefully.

“So you’re a historian?” The young man smiled.

“No, I knew someone who grew up in there.” She had to force her eyes away from the picture. “And now they say it’s haunted.” She laughed nervously, wondering if she looked as stunned as she felt.

“Everything’s haunted these days,” he said. “Helps the economy, I guess. More bad TV and ghost tours.”

“Where do you live?” they both asked at the same time, and laughed.

“South, near the river,” she said ambiguously.

“Price Towers,” he said. “One bedroom takes three weeks’ salary every month. Could I buy you a coffee or a beer or something?”

Sherry laughed again. “I like beer,” she said, thinking it so strange that he was carrying a book about her childhood.

He looked around and shrugged. “Where’s a good place around here?” He looked lost.

“Come on,” she said. “Follow me, and don’t drop your books.”

Jamborees was getting the first few arrivals for happy hour. They took one of the high-back wooden booths opposite a brass and marble bar, ordered Guinness, and cracked open peanuts from galvanized buckets that advertised Corona.

“You’re studying?” He looked at the books she had laid on her seat.

“A secret,” she said mysteriously, pushing the cloth bag with
Visual Dictionary and Phonemics Awareness
behind her back.

“Really?” He pretended to look concerned.

“Really,” she said. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. What about you?”

“History,” he said, “but only for my fun reading, and Philadelphia history in particular because I’ve recently taken up residence here. Never hurts to know something about where you live. I like history. It’s so much better when I already know the outcome of a story.”

“I’d be better off that way with relationships too,” she joked, and could not afterward fathom why.

He nodded. “I sense we have some common ground there.” He was pretending to be gravely serious, except that nothing was serious about him. He was fun. He was just fun, she thought.
And if he got up this moment and walked away it wouldn’t matter in the least to her, except that she could say she had had a good time.

“You’re an academic?”

“God no.” She laughed. Then she thought about the books by her side and really started to laugh, having to cover her face with a napkin.

“Me neither.” He smiled, getting caught up in her mirth. “I am the last person you might find in a classroom.”

“But you like history.”

“I like sticking my feet in the mud too. Frankly, I’m terrified of classrooms. I can’t deal with the sight of a lectern or podium.”

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a biologist. Molecular.”

“Get out.”

“No, seriously. Trait genetics is my specialty. Do you want to know where that nose of yours came from?”

“Actually I would, but another time.” Sherry studied his face for a clue that he was joking. There was none.

“And you?”

“I do private readings.”

“Stop it,” he said, mocking, raising his beer and leaving his lip covered in foam.

A waiter came by offering menus. They ordered appetizers and another round of beer.

“It’s complicated,” she said. “But let’s leave that for another time, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll just keep it light, then.”

He stuck out his hand and she took it and shook. They had made a pact and she thought that his hand felt good. A good, strong hand.

“May I look through your book, the orphanage book?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, pushing it toward her.

“You said you’re from a small town. Where?” she asked, opening the cover.

“Tall Timbers, Maryland.”

She shook her head. “Never heard of it,” she said, flipping through the pages and looking for pictures.

“Tip of southern Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay.”

“You grew up on the water.” She turned a page and the black-and-white photo showed a ward of white metal beds pushed up, one against another. There were shoes at the ends and white night dresses folded and stacked on the pillows. Two ancient crones in black aprons and wearing black pinafores and tented hats stood rigidly in the background. Sherry knew the room, though she’d never seen it with her own two eyes, the arched ceiling with small dirty panes of barred glass, the cracked columns down the center. Her childhood flooded back to her, drowning her in waves of profound melancholy.

“I grew up in a dump, but with plenty of water around it,” Troy said. “And lots of little critters swimming around in it.”

“Hence your major,” Sherry managed to say. She closed the book and pushed it back across the table. This wasn’t the time to relive Halley House. This wasn’t the place.

“Hence my major,” he repeated, raising his mug to toast, and they touched glass as new beers arrived.

“Are you divorced or is that too personal?” Troy asked.

“Never married,” Sherry said, wondering what she would make of this conversation, this man, if she didn’t have eyes to see with. Did the eyes take the edge off other senses? Well, of course, she knew that to be true in a dozen different ways, but the question was more about making judgments. Did the eyes favor beauty over insight? Did they automatically adjust or compensate for traits you could not see?

He was interesting, to say the least. How many people did you bump into in the middle of a city carrying a book about your childhood origin?

“I can’t even respond to that,” he said. His face registered surprise.

“That I wasn’t married?”

He nodded. “You’re not…?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think I’m whatever it is you’re asking. If that’s what you’re asking.”

He leaned forward with a most serious look on his face. “You realize you’re gorgeous, right? I mean, not pretty, but downright gorgeous.”

Sherry looked down at the table.

“No, you must know that.” He looked around the room. “Every guy in this place envies me. Every guy that passed us on the street envies me.”

“That’s a little dramatic, wouldn’t you say?” Sherry put her mug to her lips, thankful that the booths were high-backed and very few people could get a look at her. She wasn’t recognized often out in public, but then she hadn’t spent a lot of time in public. When she did, she did her best to downplay her distinctive hair and the fact that she was blind. But who knew how many people had pointed at her over the years and hadn’t had the nerve to approach?

Troy shook his head in wonder. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Where do you study genetic traits?” she asked, changing the subject.

Troy laughed. “I’m sorry, really I am. Um, have you heard of the Case-Kimble Foundation, Fairmount Park, near Roxborough Hospital?”

“The pharmaceutical labs,” Sherry said. “I’ve never seen the buildings, but I know the park.”

He nodded. “I have an office there. A lab.”

“Nice place to work?” she asked, impressed.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “They really treat us well. It’s like a city inside a city. Barber shop, spa, convenience store, there’s
even a museum. Company history, of course. Stuffy things.”

“And a four-story black marble mortar and pestle surrounded by fountains. The artist was Janssen from Estonia.”

“They can afford to be extravagant.”

“I’m sure they can,” Sherry said.

“So you know Fairmount Park.”

“The stables. I’ve been out to ride once or twice.”

“Horses. That fits you,” he said. “One day you will have to see the foundation with me. I’ll give you the insider’s tour. If you wish, of course.”

Sherry turned the glass in her fingers. “Sure,” she said. “Someday.”

Two beers turned into three and then four, and at seven thirty they’d run out of things to say, but by then they’d begun to brush against each other’s shoes and fingers across the table. Now there was an unspoken bond and it was at times awkward and at others tantalizing. The night would end with a comma, not a period, she thought.

She knew it was wrong. That she was disrespecting Brian Metcalf. But, unlike Brian, this man held no power over her. He was handsome and charming and, above all, disposable. If she went blind and never saw him again it would hurt neither one of them. If she died of cancer in five years, he wouldn’t even know it. He was safe. And she knew she would give him her phone number.