Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (29 page)

The door opened, and
Petak frowned when he saw who it was. The man pushed past him into the waiting room, and Petak closed the door.

“What did you tell him?” the man with the chiseled face demanded.

You People Are Like Bugs

“I told him what he needed to hear,” Petak said coldly.

“Congratulations,” the other man said, and he took a step toward Petak. They were less than a foot apart now. “
But what did you tell him?
”

Petak held his ground. “Craig, do you know – ” He stopped. Suddenly he seemed pensive. “By the way, is Craig your first name or your last?”

Craig narrowed his eyes.
Irrelevant question. Stop stalling.

The doctor shrugged. He started again, his voice as cold as before. “Craig, do you know the optimal state of mind for learning? For aptitude, recall, and assimilation?”

“I asked you to tell me what – ”

“I’m
telling
you what I told him, Craig. I’m
explaining
it, because you people are like
bugs
. You can see approximately five inches in any direction, and you’re fairly certain that the world outside that radius is populated entirely by food, predators, and prey. With nothing else in between. But that’s not actually the case, so just try to be quiet and listen for
one goddamned minute
. Can you do that, Craig Craigerson?”

Craig glared at the doctor, but he did not respond.

“Thank you. The answer, of course, is a
calm
state of mind. To learn effectively, you need to be at peace. Agitation is terrible for your brain, whether induced pharmacologically, physically, or psychologically. Both time and resources are wasted while the body is busy handling a cascade of physiological and chemical responses. Blood vessels constrict. The adrenal glands kick into gear. The heart and lungs go into overdrive. It’s a mess.”

“Get to the point.”

Petak smiled sourly. “The point, Craiginator, is you don’t want him stressed. You want him cool.
Calm
.”

“Uh-huh,” said Craig, who was now scanning the waiting room as though looking for something to hit Petak over the head with. “That’s terrific.” He walked over to a picture hanging on the wall, a pastel of a giant sailboat on the ocean, and he tilted his head at it like a collector. “So now, for the last time, what did you tell him?”

Dr. Petak sat down in one of the little easy chairs at the side of the room. He put one leg over the other. “To relax, of course. I told him he’s not your guy, that one of the other applicants got picked. I told him he should go home and chill the hell out.”

“
What?
” Craig spun around to face the doctor, his expression twisted by anger and surprise. “But he
is
our guy. He's
your
guy, and there
are
no other applicants. The scrubbing procedure specifically included elements to remind him, on a subconscious level, that he needs to – ”

“Yes, wonderful,” Petak cut in dismissively. “I know all about those ridiculous voices your people implanted, and they’re about as subconscious as a slap in the face. You’re driving the man absolutely bat-shit. Why didn’t you just hire a drill instructor to follow him around shouting marching orders?”

Craig was still livid. “We’re not fucking around here,” he hissed. “We need him
ready
, do you get that?”

“Of course, but – ”

“No,
you
shut up now. Your turn to listen. Counter-terrorism at this level has very tight timing parameters, and Brooks’ window is as tight as they come. He needs to be operational next Friday. On the button. Not Thursday, not Saturday. And we don’t give a shit if he loses some sleep along the way. This is bigger than me and you, and it’s bigger than him. Do we
hope
he won’t be necessary? Of course. Same as with any operation. Everything’s contingency planning, and this contingency is no different. He’s an experiment. He’s a backup on a backup, and there’s a 95% chance that nothing’s going to happen anyway. Which is how it usually goes, and it’s how we want it. So then everybody can take a little breath, and we start getting ready for the next time a level-seven asset has to go out in the open. Could be in a week, could be in a month. But we have to be ready every single time, and everything’s got to line up just right.”

Petak stayed quiet for an extra moment after Craig was done speaking. To let the air clear, and to let the other man breathe. “I understand,” he said slowly.

“I’m not sure you do.”

“For him to be useful, first he’s got to
survive
long enough to make his window.”

“Don’t exaggerate. He’s fine.”

“He was
not
fine. He would have been dead by tomorrow.”

“
Would
have?” Suddenly Craig was suspicious again. “What else did you tell him?”

Petak threw up his hands. “Nothing, you idiot! I advised him on how to get through the day. I want him to live, don’t you see? I’m not going to tell him what’s actually going on – he’ll blow his own cover, and they’ll pick him off just for sport. Besides which, he’s not ready for the information. The scrubbing procedure calls for a very specific waiting period before lifting the veil. It’s like waking a sleepwalker; you don’t do it if you can possibly help it.”

“Good,” Craig said, visibly relieved. “It’s good you understand that.”

“I
designed
the procedure,” Petak said, with a look of disgust. “It was an elegant piece of work before your people started inserting auditory hallucinations and paranoia. My protocol already made him
want
to read. It made him
want
to eat right and go jogging all the time. But no, you’ve got to shove it down his throat every thirty seconds. You’re like a bunch of kids who don’t want to read the instruction manual on a new toy.”

Craig shrugged. He liked the procedure as it currently stood. A little reminder now and then seemed like a good idea. “Whatever,” he said at last. “Will he be ready?”

“You are, without question, the stupidest man I have ever met,” Petak said. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s not going to just sit around. Induced amnesia of this kind makes you frantic enough by itself, and he’s got the mental capacity to suck up everything he reads – or does – between now and next Friday. His bookshelf is stacked, and he’s in perfect physical condition. Or at least he will be, once he gets some rest.”

“Was that a yes?”

“If you leave him alone,” Petak said. “Yes, he’ll be fine.”

“
Ready
?”

“Ready, yes. Christ almighty.”

“All I needed to hear,” Craig said. And with that he turned and left the office.

“Go shoot yourself in the foot,” Petak said when he was gone.

Tough Elias

It was nice to be able to walk again. To be able to dart across the street against the light if he chose, or to weave around a baby carriage or a couple holding hands. Kevin knew he had only an hour or so left on Petak’s special energy cocktail, but for the moment he was enjoying himself. And with his strength back, getting back to school took less than ten minutes.

The academic day was over – the boys had already been packed up in buses to go play soccer on the fields at Randal’s Island – so the building was quiet. Kevin went straight to the principal’s office. The door was open, and he knocked on the wall to get her attention.

Ms. Stewart looked up from her desk. Her expression turned cautious. And concerned.

“I wanted to apologize,” Kevin said.

Ms. Stewart shook her head.

“No, I
do
have to. But I also wanted to thank you for getting me out of here. I saw a doctor. I’ll be all right tomorrow. I’d come in, but I think I still don’t smell quite right. Apologies again.”

The principal smiled. “Glad to hear you’re okay. See you tomorrow.”

Kevin nodded and went on his way.

One down, one to go
.

He headed for the library. If he remembered correctly, this was the time when an extra tutorial session would be going on. A special session for Elias Worth and a few other lucky students. Surely no one would mind if he stepped in for one second to offer an apology for today at lunch.

But when he arrived he realized he should not go in. She was there, of course, because she had said she would be. Emily Beck was a dream teacher not only in that she was kind and smart and sympathetic and attractive – and she was certainly all these things – but also in that she was sincere. Consistent. She had promised Elias an extra help session, and a gaping head wound changed nothing. Kevin could see the Worth boy through the little window of the library door, and Elias’ head was so heavily bandaged, so layered and wrapped with gauze and cotton and tape, that it seemed incredible that he was at school at all. Kevin pictured the negotiations that must have occurred at the Worth household that morning, the incredulous look on the face of Mrs. Worth as she struggled,
struggled
to understand her young son’s eagerness to return to school that day. He had been bullied. The principal had told her so. And she had let Elias know that he could stay home for a day. For a week if necessary. Two weeks. When Mrs. Worth had come to get him in the hospital, the size of the bandages on his head made her cry out in startled grief and fear. She wept and shook while the doctor told her, assured her that Elias would be fine, that everything looked far worse than it was, that her son was very brave, and that he would be as good as new in no time.

“I got staples in my head,” Elias announced to her proudly from the E.R. bed. “Like staples, like
real staples
that go in paper, but even
bigger
. In my
head
.
”
He beamed at her, one eye obscured by the thick overhang of gauze and tape.

Mrs. Worth burst into a fresh bout of tears.

And now here was little Elias the next morning, having dressed himself in his khakis and his shirt and tie and blazer before his mother had even stirred from her bed, and he was demanding breakfast (politely, of course) and insisting that he should go to school.

Mrs. Worth could not convince him to explain why. Though she tried and tried. All she wanted was for him to be happy, and yet the idea of staying home seemed to make him miserable. So in the end she let him go. She called the school repeatedly to check on him, to the point that the secretary in the main office simply kept the Worth boy’s class schedule tacked up on the board so that he could be located more quickly. Elias, meanwhile, barely noticed the bandages on his head that day, any more than he noticed the steady throbbing coming from his skull. And he was only vaguely aware of the respect his appearance was gaining him throughout the school.