And then Molly was awake. Had she felt my breath on her face? Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on me. She jolted upright. “What is it, Ben?” she asked urgently.
“Nothing,” I said.
“What time is it? Is it seven?”
“It’s six.” I hesitated, then said: “I want to talk.”
“I want to sleep,” she grumbled, and closed her eyes. “Talk later.” She rolled over on her side and clutched the pillow.
I touched her shoulder. “Mol, honey. We have to talk now.”
Eyes closed, she mumbled, “Okay.”
I touched her shoulder again, and her eyes opened again. “What?” She sat up slowly.
I moved over on the bed, and she made room for me.
“Molly,” I began, and then paused.
How do you say this? How do you explain something that doesn’t even make sense to oneself?
“Hmm?”
“Mol, this is going to be really hard to explain. I think you’re just going to have to listen. You’re not going to believe me, I expect-certainly I wouldn’t believe it-but for now, just listen. Okay?”
She regarded me suspiciously a moment. “This has something to do with the guy at the hospital, doesn’t it?”
“Please, just listen. You know this CIA man came over and asked me to submit to an MRI polygraph exam.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I think the MRI did something to me-to my brain.”
Her eyes widened, then her eyebrows went up, worried. “What happened, Ben?”
“No, listen. This is tough. Do you believe in at least the possibility that some human beings possess extrasensory perception?”
“This client you talked about last night,” she said. “There isn’t any client, is there?” She groaned. “Oh, Ben.”
“Listen, Molly-”
“Ben, I’ve got some friends you can consult with. At the hospital-”
“Molly-”
“Very good, very smart people. The chief of the adult psychiatric division is an especially-”
“For Christ’s sake, I haven’t flipped out.”
“Then-”
“Look, you know there have been a number of studies in the last few decades that demonstrate-not conclusively, but at least persuasively if you’re of an open mind-the possibility that some of us are able to perceive the thoughts of others.
“Look,” I went on. “In February of 1993, a psychologist from Cornell gave a paper at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is a matter of public record. He presented hard statistical evidence that ESP exists-that human beings actually can read the thoughts of others. His paper was accepted for publication by the most prestigious journal in psychology. And the chairman of Harvard’s psychology department said he was ‘quite persuaded.’”
She seemed to be pouting, not even looking at me any longer, but I continued, undeterred. “Until recently I never paid any attention to that kind of stuff. The world is full of hucksters and charlatans, and I’d always dismissed those kind of people as naive, if not worse.”
I was rambling now, desperately trying to sound as rational and grounded and lawyerly as possible. “Let me get to the point. The CIA, the old KGB, and a number of other intelligence agencies around the world-I think Israel’s Mossad, too-have historically been interested in the espionage possibilities of people who possess even a modicum of-for want of a better word-‘psychic’ abilities. There are well-funded programs to search out such people-this is a fact-and try to employ them for intelligence purposes. When I was with the Agency, I remember hearing rumors about a special program. And I’ve done a fair bit of reading about it by now.”
Molly was shaking her head slowly, though I couldn’t tell whether this was in disbelief or sorrow. She touched my knee with her hand and said, “Ben, do you think Alex Truslow is involved in this?”
“Hear me out,” I said. “When I…” My voice trailed off as I thought of something.
“Hmm?”
I held a hand up to silence her. I tried to make my mind a blank, then concentrated. Surely, if she was as upset as she seemed-
Rosenberg, I heard as clearly as anything. I bit my lower lip and continued to concentrate.
have let him do this fucking Truslow work. It’s got to be so hard on him to come back into contact with these spook types after giving all that up, after what happened to him, it’s got to take a toll. Stan Rosenberg will make time for him today if I ask him to as a special favor…
I said: “Molly, you’re going to call Stan Rosenberg, right? That’s the name, isn’t it?”
She looked at me sadly. “He’s the new chief of psychiatry. I’ve mentioned him to you before, haven’t I?”
“No, Molly. Never. You were thinking it.”
She nodded, and looked away.
“Molly. Humor me for a second. I want you to think of something. Think of something I can’t possibly know.”
“Ben,” she said, a wan smile on her face.
“Think of-think of the name of your first-grade teacher. Do it, Molly.”
“Okay,” she said patiently. She closed her eyes, as if thinking very hard, and I cleared my mind and heard it-
Mrs. Nocito.
“It’s Mrs. Nocito, isn’t it?”
She nodded. Then she looked up at me, exasperated, and said, “What’s the point of all this, Ben? Are you having fun?”
“Listen to me, dammit. Something happened to me in Rossi’s MRI lab. It altered my brain in some way, did something. I came out of it with an ability to-how can I explain this?-to hear, or read, or something-listen in on the thoughts of others. Not all the time, and not all thoughts. Only things that others think in anger or fear or arousal-but I can do it. Obviously someone discovered that a very powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine can alter the brain, or at least some brains-”
Five five five oh seven two oh. When he goes in the bathroom, or when he goes downstairs, I’ll call Maureen. She’ll know what to do-
“Molly. Listen to me. You’re going to call someone named Maureen. The phone number is 555-0720.”
She looked at me dully.
“There’s no way I could know that, Molly. No way. Believe me.”
She continued looking at me, her eyes shining with tears, her mouth slightly agape. “How did you do that?” she whispered.
Oh, thank God. Thank God. “Molly, I want you to think of something-something I couldn’t possibly know you’re thinking. Please.”
She brought her knees up to her chest, hugged them against her, and compressed her mouth.
Trollope. I’ve never read Barchester Towers. I want to read that next. Next vacation…
“You’re thinking you’ve never read Trollope’s Barchester Towers,” I said very deliberately.
Molly breathed in slowly, audibly. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
I nodded.
“Oh, no,” she said, and I was taken aback to see her face overtaken with an expression, not of excitement, but of enormous fear. “Oh, Ben,” she said. “Please. No.”
She pulled at her chin in an unconscious gesture of deep reflection. She got out of bed and began pacing. “Would you agree to see someone at the hospital?” she asked. “Like a neurologist, someone whom we can talk this over with?”
I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Who’s going to believe me?”
“If you do to them what you did to me-if you just demonstrate it-how could they not believe you?”
“True. But what’s the point? What would we learn?”
She flailed her hands about, then brought them down to her sides. “How this happened,” she said, her voice taking on that shrill edge of tension. “How it could possibly have happened.”