Mind Games
Chapter 29
See Chapter 1 for disclaimer
A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, all. Patty – a special thanks, since I never get the opportunity to reply to you personally.
…………………………………………………………
Rogan and Masters squinted at the pictures, frowning, taking in the thin lines, and something that looked like an irregular object on the left side of Don Eppes' skull, near his ear. "So what is all that?" asked Rogan.
"I'm not sure," admitted Ballister. "I've called our head of neurosurgery down as a consult. It could be a type of hearing aid called a cochlear implant, and the wiring is consistent with what is used to control Parkinson's tremors, but he's awfully young to need either of those. Plus, that surgery is usually reserved for advanced cases; I can't imagine he'd have been allowed to remain active as an FBI agent if he had advanced Parkinson's – or even significant hearing loss." He snorted softly and shook his head. "It's a damn good thing we didn't do an MRI."
There was a soft knock on the door, and man in a white coat entered and extended his hand. He was trim, clean cut, and appeared to be in his late forties, with sharp grey eyes. "Dr. Janovic, from Neurosurgery," he said. He looked at the ER doctor. "Dr. Ballister. How can I help you?"
Ballister stepped back and indicated the X-rays. "Take a look. What do you make of that?"
Janovic's eyes narrowed as he swiftly scanned the images, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face. Rogan was watching him. "What?"
"I honestly can't say I've ever seen this," he said. "It looks similar to wiring traces that I've put in for Parkinson's patients, but if you look at this -," he pointed to the leads, tracing them with a forefinger, "the leads aren't in the proper positions to control motor response. They're primarily in the prefrontal cortex, the decision-making portion of the brain, and areas that control emotional response, such as near the hypothalamus. This wasn't put in for Parkinson's, I can tell you that."
Rogan and Masters shot a glance at each other, and then Rogan said, "This man is an experienced FBI agent, who went on a rampage this evening and tried-,' he broke off and amended his statement, almost imperceptibly – "and killed his brother. Both of them recently returned from an undercover operation that has implications for national security – his brother was a key witness. I need you to tell me – is what we see here something that could have caused that behavior?"
Janovic looked at the scans. "I'm not aware of this technology, but from the placement in the brain, yes – it looks like it could have been put there to impact his emotional responses and thought processes." He peered closely at the image of the device near Don's ear. "And that is not your ordinary cochlear implant. In fact, it looks like it's something tied to the auditory nerve – it could possibly be used transmit information. Again, though, I haven't heard that technology of that type exists."
"Shit," breathed Masters. He looked at the two men. "I need to have your assurances that you will not reveal any of this to anyone, except to me and my counterpart here." He looked at Janovic. "We need to discuss this with our director in Washington. Can you sit in on the call?"
Janovic nodded, his normally confident manner subdued. "Certainly."
Rogan asked. "Could this have been the reason he passed out? Or is there something else here – an injury?"
Janovic surveyed the films again. "No – I don't see anything that indicates injury, or that he even needs treatment, at least from a neurological perspective. If, as you say, he killed his brother, possibly against his will from the looks of this, he may simply have been suffering from shock."
Masters looked at Ballister. "I need you to go back to the patient, and you will act and proceed as if his X-rays were normal. We don't want to let on that we've found this, do you understand?"
Ballister nodded. His eyes were still huge with disbelief, but he had a stubborn set to his jaw. "I can do that, but I'm not necessarily going to release him. He's still suffering from shock, at the very least."
"That's okay," said Masters. "In fact, that can be your official diagnosis – you found nothing wrong with him other than shock. Don't even put into his file that X-rays were done. Your staff and the LAPD officers in the room know that the X-rays were taken; you can simply tell them verbally that they were normal. As far as anyone else goes, this never happened, do you understand?"
Ballister shifted uncomfortably, and looked at Janovic. "We really should let our admin know about this."
"I'll take care of that," said Janovic. "You do your part, get him admitted, and you'll be done with this. I'll take it from here."
Ballister nodded, and took a deep breath. "Okay." He grinned, shakily. "This is some crazy stuff." As he met Masters' grim stare his smile faltered, and he cleared his throat. "Okay. I'm going now," he said, unnecessarily, and slipped out of the room.
Janovic looked at Masters, who was pulling out his cell phone. "You may have a hard time getting a consistent signal in this area of the hospital. Why don't we go to my office? By the way, with whom are we going to be speaking?"
"James Conaghan."
Janovic's eyes widened. "CIA Director Conaghan?"
Master's grinned, but the smile was more disturbing than reassuring. "None other."
Janovic stared at him; then managed to compose himself. "All right, gentlemen, follow me."
………………………………………………………
'This is surreal,' Janovic thought to himself, as they gathered around Master's cell phone in a small office on the second floor. There was another phone there, but Masters insisted on using his – its transmissions were scrambled, he said; they couldn't be picked up by surveillance devices. If Janovic hadn't seen the X-rays, he'd have thought that the agent had been driven to paranoia by one too many missions – was taking his job a little too seriously. Now, though, Janovic had to admit he was a just a bit freaked out himself, and he was wondering how to convince the agents to let his hospital administrator in on the events.
"Conaghan here. What is it?"
Rogan spoke toward the phone, which had been set on speaker. "Sir, we have a situation. The doctor treating Don Eppes did some X-rays, and found wiring and what appears to be some kind of transmitter in his brain. We have the head of neurosurgery at the hospital, Dr. Janovic, with us, to explain what they found."
"Frankly, I can't say what it is, exactly," said Janovic. "It appears to be a set of leads, or tiny probes that have been placed to provide electrical stimulus to the emotional and decision centers of the brain, along with some kind of transmitter. It looks as though it is intended to influence his emotional responses, even his thoughts, but I'm reluctant to say that's what it's for, because to my knowledge, that technology doesn't exist."
He paused, waiting for a response, and silence stretched out so long that Masters said, "Sir, are you still with us?"
Conaghan's voice came over the line, sounding heavy. "Yes, the technology exists, although very few people know about it. It's available one place in the world – at Cypress Institute, where Don Eppes was taken for treatment after a car accident."
"Cypress Institute," repeated Masters slowly, his brow knitting. "Don't they do work for us?"
"They're a medical research facility and think tank. They do projects for a number of organizations, including the CIA," responded Conaghan. "Something like this, however – they wouldn't have taken this on without someone with high enough credentials to sanction it."
"Wait a minute," said Janovic, looking from Masters to Rogan. "Do you mean to tell me that someone actually programmed this guy to kill his brother?"
"That's exactly what I suspect," came Conaghan's voice. "Dr. Janovic, I'm afraid you are in the unenviable position of knowing something you would probably rather not. We need to have your assurances that you speak of this to no one. Since you are already involved, we may also call upon you at some point to remove the devices you found from Don Eppes' head."
Janovic looked incredulous. "At some point? I would think you want that out immediately."
"Is it hurting him to leave it there?"
Janovic shook his head, with a puzzled look on his face. "No, but -,"
Conaghan interjected. "Go ahead and schedule him for surgery, but give us a few days. I need to do some digging. Plus, there's a chance that whoever programmed Eppes will try to contact him again. We'll put him under surveillance – maybe we can find out something that way. Doctor, if I can, I would like to speak to my agents privately."
"Yes, sir," said Janovic, "no problem. I'll just step out."
Masters waited until he was out of the room. "It's just us, sir."
"This changes things significantly," said Conaghan, and Masters could hear the deeply disturbed tone of his voice, even over the cell phone speaker. "I'm familiar with the work that Cypress had done for us in the past, although I was unaware of their involvement in this case. Someone high up, either in the CIA or in your organization, Masters – Covert Ops – had to sanction this – I'm sure Dr. Allman, the director of this type of mission, wouldn't have taken this on without a command from someone with the proper clearance.
"Maybe Allman was in on the scheme – maybe someone bought him out," suggested Rogan.
"Possibly," admitted Conaghan. "Or someone bought out the agent who gave him the command. This clears Don Eppes, although I don't want to let him in on this just yet. Part of the conditioning regimen he would have gone through would have included brainwashing. The wiring exists to enhance that. Even when the wiring is removed, there may be some reconditioning needed before we can trust him again. Until that is done, it's not safe to tell him anything – he may try to communicate back to the person who orchestrated this. It won't hurt anything to pretend we haven't found this, and put him in a holding cell for a few days while we try to find out who is behind it."
"Where does this put Maxwell's organization – the FBI? I am assuming this means that A.D. Wright and his agents can be considered cleared also," said Masters. "The reason I'm asking is, we could use some help trying to keep a lid on this. Wright mentioned to Rogan the names of some close acquaintances of Dr. Eppes' – namely his girlfriend, who is in Europe. We only have to keep that charade up for a couple of weeks, and it would be easier on her – and would create fewer questions for us – if she didn't know that any of this happened. There is also the doctor's father, and there may be more people who would expect to be notified of his death. Even though we asked the agents to allow us to manage the contacts, if they don't know what's going on, they may not realize the importance of not letting information slip if someone calls them. If you now think that they're clear on this, we may want to clue them in, and have them help us out."
"I can see your point," replied Conaghan. "All right – I'll talk to Dave Maxwell about who he thinks should be given clearance. We also need to track down who was in New Orleans at the time of the attempted hit on the Eppes brothers. Joe Bishop was their handler – he and Agent Edgerton were at Cypress the entire time Don Eppes was there. If I remember correctly, it was Joe Bishop who made the request to move Eppes to Cypress to be treated."
Rogan looked at Masters, doubtfully. "I'd find it hard to believe that Joe was involved."
"Me, too," admitted Conaghan. "That's why I'd like to talk to him personally. How are you planning to handle Doctor Eppes' father? Unfortunately, to perpetrate the myth of Dr. Eppes' death, we'll need to get hold of him and inform him of his son's death. If we didn't make an attempt, it would be very suspicious, but it creates an issue - he'll want to view and take custody of the body."
"I've been thinking about that. He's in Alaska right now," replied Masters. "The hospital has a policy that bodies must be claimed from the morgue within three days – or at least they must have notification that someone is coming to claim the body. If they receive no word, they make arrangements to process the body per the deceased's last wishes, if known, or if not, they arrange through the city for cremation. We're going to claim that we couldn't manage to reach Mr. Eppes before the three days was up. When he gets back, we'll present him with an urn of ashes – there will be no opportunity for him to claim a body."
There was silence for a moment; then Conaghan said, "It's a good plan. It's unfortunate that we have to put him through that, but for Doctor Eppes' safety, I don't see another way. It will only be for two or three weeks. When the doctor has recovered enough for home health care, I want you to put him at a new safe house location. It will be easier to keep him out of sight than stashing him at a hospital. I'll get you the particulars for the transfer."
"Yes, sir," replied Masters. "We should probably get back to Don Eppes now – if he wakes up and starts talking, we need to be there to control it."
"All right," said Conaghan. "I'm going to make some phone calls, starting with Dr. Allman."
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
An hour later, Don Eppes lay in the hospital bed, eyes deadened by despair, trained blankly on the ceiling. He'd regained consciousness there – apparently he had come through the ER and been admitted, and when he woke, Rogan and Masters were there, with questions. Brian Rogan was still in the room with him, although Don didn't acknowledge him any more than he'd acknowledged Bill Masters and his questions about Don's recovery after the accident in New Orleans. He couldn't understand why they were so interested in that – couldn't understand why they'd be interested in anything other than the horrible deed he'd just committed. He'd flipped out, gone nuts. That thought – the voices in his head - the idea that he was obviously going insane, would have been terrifying, except he had no room for any emotion other than overwhelming grief. He kept picturing Charlie, his bleeding arms raised to defend himself, his eyes first filled with terror, then with a deep anguish as he finally dropped his hands – as if it didn't matter any more, as if he'd decided that life was no longer worth living.
The memory was crystal-clear, and was only broken by the occasional images - of Charlie when he was alive – as a young boy, with an impish grin and dancing dark curls. Or another - Charlie as his partner on a recent case, with the same engaging smile, as they caught each other's eye, seeing an identical flash of triumph as they realized they'd just solved a puzzle that put another perp off the streets. They'd been a good team, the best.
Charlie had always looked up to him, had wanted nothing other than to work by his side – and this was how Don had repaid him – by screaming obscenities, telling him he hated him, as he ended his life – not with a quick bullet, but with one agonizing cut after another. He could understand why Charlie had given up, there at the end.
It was exactly what he wanted to do, now.
99999999999999999999999999999999
End Chapter 29
