Triggers (17 page)

“Don’t gloss over that so quickly, Mr. Gillett. The Secret Service does indeed deal with cases of identity theft.”

He slipped his phone into his breast pocket. “But no one here has committed any such crime, have they?”

“Not yet, but they’re all surely capable of it now. They know every personal detail, every possible answer to any security question—mother’s maiden name, first-grade teacher, what have you.”

“This is the United States of America, Agent Dawson, not some third-world police state. You can’t imprison people because you think they might someday commit a crime; indeed, you slander them by suggesting they might do so.”

“I’m not talking about imprisoning,” Susan said, folding her arms in front of her chest. “I’m talking about, well, protective custody.”

“What for?” demanded Gillett.

“We simply don’t know what’s going to happen to you, to me, or to anyone else who has been affected. Our brains have been messed up; we might have seizures—anything could happen.”

“For your own part, you may take whatever personal precautions you see fit,” Gillett said. “And you may certainly advise all affected parties
of the potential dangers. Indeed, I urge you to do so. But you also have to be honest with them: you have to say you have no reason whatsoever to think people will undergo seizures, lose touch with reality, or otherwise have any difficulties beyond the ones they’ve already experienced.”

“This is a medical matter,” Susan said.

“Indeed it is,” replied Gillett, “and Luther Terry’s lawyers will certainly advise people to stay under medical supervision and get them to sign waivers should they decide to leave, but there’s no infection here. They can’t compel people to stay; there’s nothing that justifies an involuntary quarantine. And, besides, given that the linkages may be permanent, you’re talking about what amounts to life sentences without due process. No court will stand for that.”

Susan knew she was fighting with Gillett for the sake of fighting; he was probably right legally—and he might well be right morally, too. She exhaled and tried to calm down.

Professor Singh spoke up. “Mr. Gillett, since you’re a lawyer, may I ask you a question?”

Gillett had been glaring at Susan, but as he turned to look at the Sikh’s kindly face, his features softened. “Who are you?”

Singh stood up. “I’m Ranjip Singh, a memory researcher.” He paused, then: “You see that?” He pointed to the padded chair and the stand with the geodesic sphere on a multi-jointed arm. “That’s my equipment; it was involved in the linking of memories.”

Susan noted that Gillett was as quick on the draw as she herself was: he had his business card out in the blink of an eye. “Have you retained counsel?” he asked.

Singh’s eyebrows shot up. “What for?”

“As it happens, Mr. Singh, I’m not at all upset about what has occurred, but others doubtless are. You can count on lawsuits.”

Singh looked aghast, Susan thought, but he took the card and slipped it into the pocket of his lab coat.

“You had a question?” Gillett prodded.

“Um, yes,” said Singh, still flustered. “It’s this: do we let people know who they are being read by?”

“In many cases, those of us who have been affected already know,” replied Gillett. “For instance, I’m being read by Rachel Cohen.”

“How do you know that?” Singh asked.

“Besides looking at that whiteboard, there, you mean?” Gillett replied with a wry smile. “She told me.”

“Oh,” said the professor. “But what about those who don’t already know? Do they have the legal right to know who is reading them? After all, it’s an invasion of privacy of rare proportions.”

Gillett spread his arms. “It’s not just those who are being read who have rights, Mr. Singh. Those who are doing the reading have rights, too.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, suppose someone decides he can’t abide the notion of somebody else knowing his innermost secrets, and so he tracks down the person who is reading him and kills that person. If you reveal who is reading whom, you might be putting the person doing the reading at risk. Are you prepared to take responsibility for that?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Singh.

“What about you, Agent Dawson?” asked Gillett, swiveling his chair a bit to face her.

“I don’t know.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll need a legal opinion from the Secret Service’s counsel, and that will take days to research and render. There are no exact parallels, of course, but I suspect your attorneys will advise against revealing what you’ve uncovered, just as they’d advise against revealing anything the government discovers in its normal operations; there’s an implied covenant of confidentiality when speaking to a government employee, and without signed waivers from those you’ve interviewed, you’d be on very thin ice legally if you divulged anything you learned.”

“But what about the threat Agent Dawson mentioned of identity theft?” asked Singh.

“Advise people to take suitable precautions without revealing who they are being read by.”

“And then just let them go?” asked Susan, resting her bottom now against the edge of a desk.

“It’s a free country, Agent Dawson. The affected individuals are entitled to make their own decisions about what they want to do. You cost one of my clients enormously when you detained me earlier today, preventing me from getting to a crucial meeting. He may well direct me to file suit over that. Are you prepared for other lawsuits for wrongful imprisonment? Are you going to pay the people who have jobs if you don’t let them go perform them, or compensate them for missed vacations? I want to leave, Miss Cohen wants to leave, and I’m sure many of the others want to leave, especially given today’s horrific events. They want to get back to their families, their children, their careers, their lives. And you have no legal option except to let them do that.”

DAVID
January was pleased that the bitch from the Secret Service had let him go. He was even more pleased that she’d believed him when he’d said he’d hidden being linked to Mark Griffin because accessing Griffin’s memories would give him an advantage in negotiating the new collective agreement.

But that wasn’t the real reason; not at all.

No, what had come to David, just after the operation on the president, was something far more interesting.

He’d been cleaning up, throwing his bloodied gloves and gown into the disposal unit. Other members of the surgical team had been there, too, including his wife Annie. And Annie had made a joke, saying she wondered who was going to pay President Jerrison’s hospital bill.

Christine Lee, the anesthesiologist, had quipped, “I don’t think he’s quite old enough for Medicare.”

And—
bam!
—it had come to him, the first foreign memory he’d accessed. It was crazy, bizarre—but the memory was vivid, and he knew in his bones that it was
true.

Ten years ago, long before he’d joined LT, Dr. Mark Griffin had worked for a health-insurance company. And that company had bilked Medicare out of close to a hundred million dollars, with claims related to a worthless pharmaceutical that supposedly treated Alzheimer’s. Griffin, who had been in charge of government billing for the company, masterminded the whole thing.

David January hated health-insurance companies. His father had had no health insurance, because no one would insure him. And Griffin had taken many millions out of the system that was supposed to provide care for those over sixty-five who didn’t have coverage—people like David’s dad.

Who knew how long these linkages would last? Who knew how long he’d have these memories? After that Secret Service woman finished grilling him—how dare she suggest that Annie had cheated on him!—he headed to Griffin’s office. Griffin’s secretary, Miss Peters, looked up as he entered. “Is he in?” David asked.

“He’s got an appointment in just a couple of minutes, Dr. January. Can I schedule you for later?”

Which meant he
was
in. David marched past her.

“Excuse me!” Miss Peters said, standing up. “You can’t go in there!”

David opened the inner door.

“Dr. January!” Miss Peters said, exasperated.

Inside, Griffin was seated behind a wide wooden desk polished so brightly it gleamed. He looked up, startled.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Griffin,” Miss Peters said.

Griffin nodded. “It’s okay, Sherry,” he said. “What is it, Dave?”

David turned and glared at the secretary. She retreated, closing the heavy door behind her.

“I know what you did,” David said.

“What?” replied Griffin.

“Ten years ago. At the insurance company. The Medicare fraud.”

Griffin seemed to consider this. His natural impulse might have been to say something like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but his face conveyed that he knew the rules had changed. And so he tried a
different tack. “You think that because you’ve got a memory that you don’t recognize, it must be mine? And, even if it is, that it’s not just a fantasy I had or the plot of a movie I saw or a book I read?”

“It’s real,” David said. “You did it, and you know it. And, more importantly,
I
know it.”

“You’ve got no proof I did anything—none. And for all I know, you’ve got an iPhone or a BlackBerry in your pocket, recording every word I say. So, for the record, I assert my innocence.”

“I know what happened,” David said. “I even know where the records are stored.”

Griffin was wearing a red necktie. It was already loosened, and he pulled it out of his blue shirt collar and held it in front of him. “A nice tie,” he said. “Silk. Since you can read my memories, I’m sure you know my wife gave it to me.” He then moved over to a counter at the side of his large office, where a Mr. Coffee was set up next to a tree of coffee mugs. He picked up one of the mugs and turned it so that David could see the writing on it. “‘World’s Greatest Dad,’” he said. “My son assures me it’s the only one in existence.” And then he did something bizarre: he looped the red tie through the handle of the mug and tied it in a bow. He held it up, as if pleased with his handiwork, and said, “What do you want?”

“You took a hundred million or so out of Medicare. I figured it’s worth a lot to keep me silent.”

“Not one penny ever went into my pocket for anything unethical,” Griffin said.

“Not directly. But you had stock options, and you got a huge bonus that year.”

Griffin spread his arms. “Dave…”

“As soon as this stupid lockdown is over, you’re going to start paying me to keep quiet.”

“So that’s it? Blackmail?”

David smiled mirthlessly. “Think of the payments as insurance premiums.”

Griffin’s tone was perfectly even. “You’ve just made the worst mistake of your life, Dave.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re right, you can read my memories. But someone else is reading
yours.
And—well, let’s see who it is?” Griffin moved back to his desk and without sitting down, he made a call. “Ranjip?” he said, after a moment. “Mark Griffin. Can you have a look at that chart of yours for me? Tell me who is reading the memories of David January, the cardiologist?” A pause. “Really? Yeah, I know her. Okay, thanks. No, no, we’re still on; I’m almost finished here. Come on up when you’re ready. Bye.”

Griffin put down the handset and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Professor Singh has just informed me that Dr. Christine Lee, an anesthesiologist, can read your memories. And all I’ll have to do is say to Christine, hey, remember that time I tied my red silk tie into a bow through the handle of my ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ mug? What did David January say just after that?” He paused. “You see, David? There’s a witness—she’s somewhere else in the hospital right now, but she’s a witness all the same. And the linkages are only first-order, did you know that? That means she’ll remember you trying to blackmail me, but she won’t remember what you claim to remember of my past; she has access only to your memories, not to mine.”

David felt his blood boiling. First, that Secret Service woman had manipulated him—that bullshit about Annie! And now Griffin was fucking with him, too. Well, if he was going to go down for this, he’d at least give Griffin something he’d remember, something all of them would remember. He lunged forward, startling Griffin, and punched the tall man in the stomach. Griffin doubled over, and David got him in a headlock.

“You’ll keep your mouth shut,” David said. “You won’t speak to Christine.”

Griffin was struggling, and David found them moving sideways across the room, toward the same counter that held the coffee service. Griffin broke out of the headlock, but David managed to get a choke hold on him. Griffin flailed his free arm, and he knocked the coffeemaker to the floor, the glass parts shattering.

They continued to struggle, but Miss Peters must have heard the sound of the breaking glass because she opened the office door and stood there, mouth agape—and behind her, just entering the outer office, was Professor Singh.

Singh surged forward. “Let him go.”

“He attacked me,” David said. “Went nuts. Tried to kill me.”

The syllable “no”—mostly just raw breath rather than a word—came from Griffin.

“I said, let him go!” Singh demanded.

David looked at the guy: he was fifty if he was a day and slight of build; David was sure he could take him, too, if he had to. “Back off,” he said.

Singh exploded into movement, rushing forward then pivoting on his left foot while he brought his right foot up into a powerful karate kick, catching David in the side. Griffin seized the chance and managed to twist himself free from David’s grip. Singh pivoted again and kicked with his other leg, catching David in the solar plexus, and as David doubled over, Singh delivered a sharp karate punch to the back of David’s neck. David slumped face-first to the floor. He was still conscious, but, try as he might, he couldn’t get back up. He lolled his head to the side to watch.

Griffin was struggling to get his breath and was still doubled over. He held on to the edge of the counter for support.

“Do you need a doctor?” Singh asked.

Griffin huffed and puffed a few more times, then shook his head. “No. I’ll be okay.” He straightened up partway, and nodded again. “Good thing you know karate, Professor Singh.”