Placebo (6 page)

We find ourselves in a long, windowless hallway. Apart from the soft light emitted by the exit signs at each end, the only light comes from my flashlight.

In her research, Fionna had discovered that while some of the financial contributions to the LRC came from private donors, Dr. Tanbyrn's research had received a twenty-million-dollar grant from RixoTray Pharmaceuticals for a “cooperative research initiative.”

Which seemed like an awful lot of money to me for research that might end up being bogus.

When we were first exploring this project, to make her poking around legal, Fionna had managed to land a consulting job with RixoTray to test their cybersecurity.

While she was doing her research, she'd stumbled onto some connections to research into the DNA segments called telomeres (which shorten as cells split, causing aging), and the enzyme telomerase, which seems to stop that process. In fact, in one 2010 Harvard study that appeared in the scientific journal
Nature
, telomerase was shown to actually reverse the aging process in rats.

Imagine being the pharmaceutical firm that developed a drug that stopped—or even reversed—the effects of aging in humans.

The financial rewards would be astronomical.

Fionna is still working on getting through the firewalls without being detected, and that was about all she'd come up with so far—no clear connection between the telomeres research and the Lawson Center. Last I heard, she had her seventeen-year-old son, Lonnie, working on an algebraic equation to hack the IPSec VPNs (whatever those are) for an extra-credit assignment.

I sweep the beam of light ahead of us, targeting the end of the hall.

“So, the Faraday cage?” Charlene whispers.

“Yeah, let's see if it really does block out all electromagnetic signals.”

“You going to be okay with that?”

I'd made a decision earlier regarding the chamber. “I don't need to go inside. You can take care of that.”

“Of course.”

I see that she's eyeing the line of doors to our right. “So, do you know where it is?”

“Third floor. North wing, east side, end of the hall.”

She stares at me. “How do you know that?”

With my flashlight I motion for her to follow me, and we head toward the stairwell. “In the LRC brochure, there was a photo of a researcher monitoring someone who appears to be resting on a reclining chair. Right?”

“Sure. That was the sender.”

“Exactly. The person who's supposed to be transmitting loving thoughts—good energy, that sort of thing.”

“Be nice, dear. That's going to be your job tomorrow. I don't want any negative vibes coming from you.” She thinks for a moment. “But I don't understand the significance of that picture. The guy in the photo isn't in the chamber. So how can you tell where it is?”

We reach the stairs. Start to climb to the third floor. “Beyond him is a window. You can see trees outside the glass, but neither the tree trunks nor the canopy are visible. The forest is on this building's east
side. Also, based on the relatively uniform height of the forest canopy behind us, I'm guessing that the floor the chamber is on—”

“Ah, I get it. The third story.”

“Yes. And from the journal articles, we know that the distance between the sender and receiver is 120 feet. I'm anticipating that the easiest way to measure the distance would be if the chamber were on the same floor as the sender's room. Also, as we approached the building, I saw windows uniformly placed on the west side of the wing, but the room with the Faraday cage wouldn't have any. So, based on all those factors, including the length of the hall, the chamber will be located on the third floor, north wing, east side, at the far end of the hallway.”

At the top of the stairs Charlene pauses. “There were blueprints in the material Fionna sent you, weren't there, Sherlock?”

I clear my throat slightly. “Come on. It's down here to the left.”

Glenn arrived at the building, picked the lock of the first floor's exit door, and stepped inside.

Now to find the computer with the files.

Knife in one hand, flashlight in the other, he started down the hallway.

As Cyrus and Riah swung into a gas station on the way to Bridgeport, Riah couldn't help but wonder about this meeting with the twins. As the lead researcher on the team, she should have been notified that they were back in town.

After all, she was the one looking at ways of recording and electrically stimulating neural activity in the brain's language recognition center—in the Wernicke's area of the temporal lobe. Before a person speaks, neural signals command the body to produce those vocal sounds. She was the one searching for ways to decipher the signals and correlate them to specific linguistic patterns.

So. Questions.

Why hadn't she been told?

Why was Cyrus meeting with them after hours at the R&D complex?

And what was that phone conversation of his about: “We have a man in the area . . . He's good, he'll take care of everything . . . By tomorrow afternoon it won't be a problem”?

She had the sense that something dealing with the research had gone unexpectedly wrong.

Or maybe something has gone unexpectedly right.

Cyrus guided the Jag back onto the highway, and she took note of her boss's demeanor. Over the last four months she'd grown good at reading him, and though he always looked focused, intense, now she thought he looked a bit ill at ease. Nervous? Possibly. But something else too.

Afraid?

Hard to say.

She would watch him closely, note his reaction when they met up with the twins at the R&D facility, and see what that might tell her about what was going on.

The door to the room containing the Faraday cage, or anechoic chamber, is not locked, and the hinge gives a faint squeak as we enter.

The soundproof chamber sits in the middle of the room and looks like a giant walk-in freezer, but of course it wasn't designed to insulate food or regulate temperature. Rather, the metal walls were constructed to stop all electromagnetic signals from entering. There's no way of communicating with a person once he or she is sealed inside.

After all, if you were able to send radio signals into the chamber, faking a test like this would be easy. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book for televangelists or psychic healers who claimed to hear voices from “on high” or “the great beyond.”

Simply have the “evangelist” wear a tiny earpiece radio receiver. A cohort reviews people's application forms and transmits to the guy the names and ailments of people in the audience. Then he “miraculously” calls folks out by name and announces that God has told him their disease or disability, and while everyone in attendance is in awe of his abilities, he “heals” the person.

True, those with enough faith might actually be helped simply because of the placebo effect, but most people wouldn't be healed at all. And then of course, the blame gets shifted back onto them: “God
wanted to heal you, but you didn't have enough faith. I'm sorry. You just need to believe more.”

Then comes the offering time for “gifts to the ministry.”

A very slick racket.

Charlene opens the chamber door, and my thoughts cycle back to where I am now, here inside the research building.

I peer into the chamber. Someone has made an effort to try and make it look homey. Crammed inside are a reclining chair, a small end table with a stack of spirituality books, and a countertop with instruments to monitor the participant's heart rate, respiration, and galvanic skin response. A floor lamp sits nearby. But the feeble attempt at interior design doesn't do much to soften the impersonal atmosphere of the chamber's stark, copper interior.

During the test, only air will be fed into the chamber.

That's it.

A video camera hangs surreptitiously in the corner of the chamber.

Hmm . . .
That carries digital signals to the room with the sender. Is that how they do it? Somehow use the video cable?

I notice a release mechanism on the inside of the door and realize that even if the door were latched shut, even if I were trapped inside, I would easily be able to escape—even without having to get out of cuffs or a straitjacket first.

Still, the idea of being in a closed space like this brings to mind my wife and sons drowning in our minivan, and I immediately feel my breathing tighten, my heart tense. I turn from the chamber and set up the equipment Xavier gave me at the rest stop.

I don't let Charlene see me trying to calm my breathing.

She closes herself inside the chamber, and we test the RF jammer to make sure that if Dr. Tanbyrn's team does try to send any signal other than the video feed into or out of the chamber, it'll be blocked.

Nothing gets through.

I take some time to check different frequencies and settings to make sure that Charlene will truly be isolated from all means of
communication tomorrow during the test. There's no Wi-Fi in the building, perhaps for some sort of security reasons, and none of our mobile devices get through the walls of the chamber.

There are still lots of ways they might be faking the studies, but I feel confident that at least we won't be dealing with radio interference or frequency tampering.

In addition, the heart rate monitor Xavier gave us—the one Charlene will secretly wear to make sure that the center's findings actually match ours—is working and undetectable outside the chamber.

As we're finishing up the tests, she proposes that we place the RF jammer beneath the chair cushion so it'll be in place for tomorrow's test, but I don't want to take any chance it'll be discovered or removed before the test begins. “Palm it,” I tell her, “and then place it when the research assistant turns her back.” Over the years I've spent hundreds of hours rehearsing magic routines with Charlene, and although she isn't quite as good at sleight of hand as I am, she can certainly hold her own.

“Okay.”

Thinking about the chair, I look for any ways of running low-voltage current through metallic threads to trigger the test subject's physiological responses, but find nothing. Charlene agrees to check it tomorrow again before the test.

We're gathering our things when I hear footsteps in the hall.

Charlene and I freeze.

I click off my light.

A flashlight beam dances across the crack at the bottom of the doorway.

Okay, maybe they do have security guards here after all.

“Into the chamber,” Charlene whispers, but I shake my head.

The intensity of the light skimming beneath the door is getting stronger. The person is definitely coming our way.

“We have to.” Her voice is urgent. “Now.”

She's right and I know it. There's nowhere else to hide. I take a
deep breath and step into the Faraday cage with her. I try to tell myself that I'm really still simply in the room, not in an enclosed metal cube, but it doesn't work.

She swings the door nearly all the way closed so that no one would be able to see us—as long as they don't decide to open the door and have a peek inside.

Probably for my sake she leaves it open just a couple inches.

But already I can feel the walls pressing in on me. I shut my eyes and try to relax, yet immediately I feel like I'm no longer in the chamber but in the minivan with my family. It's filling with water and there's no way out. The doors won't open—I try them, the water is rising, the boys are begging me to—

The hallway door creaks open.

I open my eyes.

Through the crack in the chamber door, I see the flashlight beam cut through the thick blackness of the room. A person enters, and the abrupt heaviness of the footsteps leads me to think it's a man. Possibly quite large. He sweeps the beam through the room, and it slices momentarily into the crack of the chamber's slightly open door.

Charlene and I edge backward. Thankfully, the footsteps don't approach us but rather head toward the computer desk positioned against the south wall.

As the man passes by, it's hard to see what he's wearing, but it appears to be all black. No insignia, no uniform. So, not a security guard, not a custodian. I half-expect a ski mask, and though I catch only the briefest glimpse of his face, I can see that it's not covered. He's Caucasian. That's all I can tell.

My heart is racing; it feels like a meaty fist opening and closing inside my chest, but I realize that the nervousness is just as much from being in the chamber as it is from the presence of the intruder.

The office chair at the workstation by the wall turns, and a moment later the bluish light of the computer screen glows on, faintly illuminating the room.

Though I want to focus on this man and what he might be doing, my curiosity is overshadowed by my strangled breathing from being inside the chamber.

I lean closer, edge the door open slightly, then draw in a breath of air from the thin opening leading to the room. It seems to help.

From this angle I can't see what might be on the screen, but I do see that the man has placed a combat knife with a long, wicked blade beside the keyboard, and I find myself thinking of how I might defend Charlene if things turn ugly, if the man opens the chamber door. She's a tough and independent woman, in great shape from lap swimming and yoga, but she's slim and small-boned and she's not a fighter.

I've been taking TaeKwonDo for three years, but I'm only a brown belt. Besides, I'm weaponless; he has a knife and a big size advantage. Still, I've spent a lot of time sparring and I can take care of myself pretty well in a fight.

However, I've never fought an armed assailant.

And I've never sparred in a space this small.

Though mostly shadowed, the look on Charlene's face tells me that she has noticed the knife as well. She is fingering the cross she wears around her neck.

I rest my hand on her shoulder to try to reassure her, to tell her without words that things are going to be okay.

A tiny nod, then her hand goes on top of mine.

The intruder types for a few moments. The color of the monitor's glow changes, becomes brighter and white, and I guess that he has moved past the desktop to some specific program or file.

As the moments pass I'm caught up again thinking about the tight quarters, and I don't know how long I can stand being in here.

Based on what I've seen, people who've never experienced claustrophobia have no idea how desperate and frantic it makes you feel, when—

It's all about your breathing.

Calm. Stay calm.

I breathe, yes, I do, but it's not calm breathing at all.

Trying to distract myself, I think of the escapes I've done, all the closed-in spaces I've been in and how I've survived them—sealed tanks filled with icy water, the coffin I was buried alive in for two days, the controversial million-dollar bet I accepted from a TV psychic I'd debunked. He challenged me to an escape even I couldn't have come up with on my own: I was put in a straitjacket, locked in a trunk with a parachute beside me, then dropped from a plane at 22,000 feet.

To give the chute enough time to open, I only had ninety-one seconds to get out of the straitjacket, strapped into the chute, and out of the trunk. It hadn't seemed like such a bad idea at the time, but free-falling made it a lot harder to get out of the jacket than I expected, and then when I popped open the trunk, I didn't quite have the chute buckled and almost lost hold of it.

But I made it down safely and took home the million dollars.

And I had to admit that the adrenaline rush was something else.

You did that, you can at least stand being in here for a few more minutes.

But then the chair squeaks, alerting me again to where I am, and I see the saber of light from the flashlight swing around the room.

Toward the chamber.

The man's footsteps follow it.

My heart is beating.

Beating.

I grip my flashlight, which really is too small to serve as much of a weapon. “Get back,” I tell Charlene softly. She steps backward.

The man aims his light at the crack.

And then the door to the Faraday cage flies open.