Chill Factor (42 page)

The file, which seemed to be notes from a research paper, went on for pages.
Electronic implants?
Sounded like a plot for
Alien Invasion.
Dixie clicked it closed and opened
FORMULAS.

What sort of formulas? The third column of progressive numbers ended in the letters EP.
Edna Pine?
The second column contained identical numbers ending in the letters LA—for Lucy Ames.
Damn your lies, Mike Tesche.

In the first row, the numbers were all larger and ended with AW, plus an extension, INJ. Dixie didn’t know Angela’s last name, or Alice’s—the other A at dinner—but she’d bet one of them began with W. Back at the menu, she clicked on
WALLACE.

Mike had password-protected his client files. Ames, Pine, and Wallace—all locked. Then who was RY? Scrolling down the menu to YENIK, Dixie realized she’d heard the name somewhere. She clicked on the file.

Mentally reviewing the names of the women she’d met at dinner—Laura, Charlotte, Dolores—Dixie remembered none beginning with R.

If the numbers were formulas, as the file name suggested, then formulas for what? The string 203050 added together equaled ten, or 20 + 30+50 equaled one hundred. The same was true of all the other numbers. Percentages? Twenty parts X, plus thirty parts Y, plus 50 parts Z equals the magic formula?

The formula for the drugged tea, possibly?

Dixie didn’t believe that tea would’ve made her rush out to rob a bank. But it had induced a sense of euphoria and a desire to be …
helpful
, was that the right word? She’d felt an
intense desire to see the Church of The Light completed.
Suggestible.
Mike had suggested she’d make a “valued partner.”

Why did the first row—Angela’s? Alice’s?—differ from the other three rows? Perhaps Mike changed his formula after the first trial. The INJ extension could mean …? Not many words began with INJ … injury … injustice … injunction … injection—

The hypodermic needles in Mike’s lockbox.
Most drugs were more powerful when injected. Too powerful? Enough to advocate decreasing the dosage for LA, EP, and RY?

Speculation, Flannigan.
Mind-control drugs had proved ineffective, hadn’t they? Even sodium pentothal, the so-called truth serum, was unreliable.

Scanning the remainder of the menu, Dixie recalled reading of a mind-control project conducted by the CIA in the 1950s—
MK-ULTRA
. Supposedly abandoned after a public outrage, the project had spawned a slew of espionage and sci-fi films. She opened the file.

The following text described interrogation techniques using all manner of narcotics, from marijuana to LSD, heroin, and sodium pentothal, to ensure that subjects would not remember being interrogated and programmed. The document described
MK-ULTRA
as an “umbrella project” with 149 “sub-projects,” and ended with a disturbing passage.

In the
MARCHETT
file, Victor Marchetti, CIA, 1977, revealed that mind-manipulation programs had not ceased as claimed.

The
FREY
file reported that Allen Frey, scientist, remotely induced sleep with electromagnetic waves and transmitted acoustic noises—booming, buzzing, hissing—directly inside a subject’s head. A major breakthrough for the deaf.

Mike Tesche wasn’t old enough to have participated in any of these projects but had likely studied the notes for his own experiments. Dixie refused to believe he had succeeded in finding a mind-control drug that escaped discovery by the U.S. government.

Then she read the
EDWARDS
file.

The text explained Pavlov’s progressive states of transmarginal inhibition, through which conditioned responses and behavior patterns turn from positive to negative or negative to positive.

Dixie had never prosecuted a cult member, but she’d studied occurrences in Texas during her term on the DA’s staff. In one case, tried in both Texas and Florida, a self-proclaimed minister, Ron Larrinaga, had insinuated himself into a family, winning over first the woman, then her husband, and keeping them psychological prisoners for two decades. Despite association with the outside world, despite periods of separation, Larrinaga retained a powerful hold over the parents and their children, who spurned their extended family and friends, submitted to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and devoted every moment to fulfilling the vision of a clever, charismatic leader.

Described by the adult children who had grown up under Larrinaga’s influence, his techniques sounded exactly like Jonathon Edwards’. This was the sort of “mind control” Dixie
knew
existed—though it seemed impossible until you encountered it. With growing concern, she clicked on the last menu item,
TECHNIC
.

Dixie knew lawyers who used the voice-roll technique to entrench a point firmly in the minds of jurors. The lawyers practiced talking to the beat of a metronome, emphasizing every word in a monotonous, patterned style. She’d also seen it work in church, the pastor generating excitement and expectation through repetition of key phrases.

Drugged tea. Hypnotic relaxation music.
If she’d correctly interpreted Mike’s notes, he began indoctrinating his subjects during aerobics classes—repetitive music, motion that induced relaxation. Then he tested them with a simple command.
Your given name, the name on your birth certificate. Tell me. You won’t forget the Sundown Ceremony this weekend.
Taken in context, such statements seemed entirely harmless. But the response enabled him to select promising subjects.

In the Sundown Ceremony, they’d used the repetitive phrase, “I commit to …” And in Mike’s private quarters, encouraged by compliments and personal attention—along with the drugged tea and whatever-the-hell incense he used—Dixie had totally lost her intention to leave. Why entice her to stay the night, if not to be subjected to the music for a longer period?
Leave now, woman!

The computer’s digital clock read four forty-six
A
.
M
. She could return to her room, pretend sleep, and depart when the other women awakened. No reason to believe she’d be restrained from leaving after sunrise. Mike’s “programming” apparently worked in stages, the first stage enticing you to return for more. Yet she was already dressed, and while she truly didn’t expect to be susceptible now that she’d analyzed the techniques, why risk it?

Out in the hall, she released the latch gently against the striker. Mike could be anywhere in the building, and if he caught her sneaking away from his private wing, he’d realize she was onto him. She hurried to the first turn, slowed to get her bearings, then continued through the maze of hallways. Turning away from the dorm, she found herself in another
long hall and remembered being there with Mike. One of the doors ahead led to the spacious lounge area off the atrium, and then outdoors. But which? She’d have to try them all.

The first door opened into an unfinished area, with bare rafters. Soon to be “long-term living quarters,” Mike had said. Another unfinished area lay behind the next, with additional doors leading in two directions. A ribbon of light seeped beneath one of them. Could that be where Mike had gone?

To do what at this hour?

Dixie itched to know what was in that room. Despite what she’d learned from his computer files, she had no proof that he’d instigated the robberies. Entering the unfinished area, she moved toward the lighted strip …
Hey, Mike, I’m lost… where do you find an early cup of coffee in this place?
While he’s talking, steal a glance in the room, see what he’s working on at this hour.

What if he was with Angela, engaged in nothing more clandestine than a tumble in the sheets? Dixie listened at the door. Were those voices? She tapped lightly.

“Yes?” A woman. Almost a whisper.

“Ummm, hi. Guess I’m sort of lost here. Could you help me out?”

“Go away.” Not Angela.

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. I can’t seem to find my way, all these halls doubling back and forth. Could you maybe give me some direction?”

“Go away. You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Oh, that part’s okay, I was invited. Didn’t we meet last evening, at the ceremony? I’m Dixie … you know, ‘I commit to Togetherness’? Are you Laura? Or Dolores?”
What were the other names?

“Go away! We’ll be punished.”

Punishment, the last entry under “useful tools” in Mike’s notes.
Larrinaga’s flock had been beaten, ridiculed, forced to stand for hours in dark closets. Dixie didn’t want to get anybody punished. She could no longer hear other voices in the room. Had they come from a television or radio? Or was Mike in there?

Dixie was certain all eleven women had retired to the
dorm. Had this woman been summoned here for some sort of training? Or
discipline
, another item in Mike’s list? Was she the client Mike was “counseling”?

“You don’t have to stay here and be punished,” Dixie said softly. “Come with me.”

“No, no! Go away. The Shepherd will hear.”

The Shepherd? Was that Mike?
“Are you locked in? Can you open the door?”

“I won’t open the door. Go away.”

“Okay, I’m going.” Dixie hesitated. She didn’t want to cause any more problems for this woman than she already had. She couldn’t force her to leave; cult members—and what else could you call these people?—were notoriously loyal to their beliefs and to their leader, even in abusive situations. If she burst into the room and Mike was in there, she’d have both of them against her—along with the entire household, once they heard the commotion.

But Dixie had a hunch, and she
had
to ask.

“I’m going right now, but could you just please tell me your name?”

After a moment’s silence, the woman replied, “Rose.”

Bingo!
R for Rose, Y for Yenik. The letters in the fourth column of Mike’s
FORMULAS
files.

Rose Yenik was also one of Vernice Urich’s clients who continued to pay long after the counseling stopped. Coincidence? Possibly. But maybe not.