Hazard (7 page)

“This'll do fine,” Richland said, helping himself.

Keven cringed as she watched the two men toss down the bourbon. Then, because she didn't particularly like them, she decided they deserved the toxic consequences.

“What are those supposed to be?” Richland asked, pointing at two photo enlargements that were scotchtaped to the edge of a shelf above Kersh's desk. They were contrasting prints, nearly all black, except for an uneven luminescent outline around an indistinguishable shape, like a negative reproduction of greatly magnified skin and hairs backlighted and slightly out of focus.

Keven told him, “The one on the left is my big toe. The other is the tip of my nose.” Then, working her eyelashes some, she added, “I think.”

A grunt from Whitley.

Kersh smiled. He decided not to explain that the two enlargements were high-frequency-field photographs and that the one on the right was not Keven's nose but rather the tip of one of her breasts. Instead, Kersh started explaining the exercise that was planned for that afternoon.

Richland got up to use the phone.

Whitley obviously wasn't listening. He took a yellow legal pad from his briefcase and used a ballpoint to make some notations. He interrupted Kersh. “How many have you got on staff?”

“Twelve.”

“Permanent?”

“Two part time.”

Whitley lifted the top sheet of the pad, evidently referring to something he'd written on the second sheet. “Going over your expenditures,” he said, sounding like a prosecutor, “I noticed a couple of items that seem out of line. One in particular is a trip to California last February. Somebody stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel for three days and really lived it up.”

“That was a long-distance exercise,” Kersh said.

“I'm expected to accept all this as a valid expense?”

“Yes.”

“Over a hundred fifty dollars for room service in one day?”

Keven condemned Hazard with a look. They were his expenses. At Kersh's request he'd made that trip alone, but evidently, thought Keven, he'd enjoyed some expensive company. “Seems rather extravagant to me,” she said.

Hazard knew what she was thinking. He was tempted to come right out with the truth, tell them he'd hosted a crap game in his hotel room that day. Considering the number of Polo Lounge types that had been in and out of the game all day long, that room-service tab was low. To hell with it. He turned to Richland, who was still on the phone and having some trouble with whomever was on the other end. Hazard could hear only bits of Richland's covered conversation, but he gathered he was talking to a woman, trying to arrange something for that night. “I realize your time is worth money,” was one bit Hazard overheard. With no sympathy, Hazard thought that would be the best Richland and Whitley could do—a couple of hurry-up hookers.

Meanwhile, Whitley was still proving he had a mean eye for unnecessary or excessive spending. Now he was suggesting that Kersh cut back some on all operations' costs. Kersh didn't give in on that, and Hazard noticed Whitley didn't press the point, just poured himself another double bourbon and folded.

As soon as Richland was off the phone, Hazard took it over. First he dialed Carl's number direct and got a busy signal. At least Carl was home. He dialed another number. After the third ring he heard it pick up. As usual the person on the other end said nothing. Hazard said his code letters.
T
–
R
–
A
–
K
, which alphabetically corresponded with the last four digits of his own New York number reversed. Deliberately loud enough to be heard by Richland and Whitley, he asked what the line was on the Mets that night at Shea. He listened and then said, “I'll take the Mets for a nickel.” Betting five hundred, despite his better judgment that Gibson of the Cardinals would have the underdog Met batters striking, grounding, and popping out all night.

After that he gave Carl's number another try. Still busy.

For the exercise it was decided that Richland would stay at the installation with Keven and Kersh. Whitley would go along with Hazard and Kersh's first assistant, a young Ph.D. named Lowery. Lowery's primary responsibility would be to see that certain controls were maintained. Also he would keep an exact chronological record of each image that was chosen. For this purpose he had an oversized clipboard holding a pad of special, printed forms. Attached to the upper part of the clipboard was a special, very accurate watch with a green signal light set in the center of its face. Lowery also would be in charge of the images, which were in a metal box. About a thousand of them.

Hazard, Whitley, and Lowery went out and down the slope to the private landing and a twenty-meter power ketch that Kersh had hired for the day. The owner and his son had sailed the boat over from Westport.

The three men went aboard, the mooring lines were unhitched, and immediately the idling gurgle of the ketch's engine changed to a louder boil, getting under way.

They headed straight out. It was a bright, nearly cloudless day. The wind was cool, but Hazard took off his sweater anyway to get the sun. For some protection he sat on the deck leeward of the rear cabin house.

Hazard looked forward and noticed how out of place Whitley seemed there in his suit and tie, having trouble keeping his balance against the ship's pitches and rolls. He watched Whitley take out a cigar and try to light it in the wind. Whitley didn't give up, used almost a whole book of matches, and must have inhaled plenty of sulphur before he finally got the cigar going. He puffed hard and some of the tobacco's aroma was carried backed to Hazard. Hazard wasn't a cigar smoker but he knew an authentic Havana when he smelled one. Probably gets them via Canada, Hazard thought, suspecting that Whitley's political hypocrisy wasn't limited to such minor transgressions.

At the installation, Keven was being made ready. She was seated in a contour chair in the center of a windowless room. The walls she faced, those on both sides and the ceiling, were blank and black, not painted but covered entirely with a felt fabric so that the black was softer and unmarred. Behind her was a partition of special, dark glass, something like a two-way mirror with reflection. It allowed unobtrusive observation from the adjoining laboratory area.

Keven knew what to expect, having been through these procedures numerous times before, but it usually took her a while to get used to the room. The feeling of being enclosed alone caused an uneasiness that she called “the clausties.” She usually got over that soon enough, but then there were all the wires and terminals. Kersh had explained the purpose of each and reassured her that there was no danger. Still, she couldn't help but feel edgy about them. Also, the possibility that she might not do well, might fail completely and disappoint Kersh and everyone was another source of her apprehension.

It was expected that everything would come to her and, through her, be fed into the computers just below. The computers would record, process, and relay immediately whatever came to the monitors in the laboratory.

In Keven's opinion it was awfully complicated. With the confidence she'd acquired over the past six months, she was sure she could do just as well without being all wired and connected up like some living instrument. She told Kersh that and he agreed with her. But, he explained, personal experience, no matter how valid it might be, was not scientifically acceptable. That was especially true, he said, in researching this subject, which was already handicapped by countless personal experiences over hundreds of years.

Thirty-six electrodes were attached to Keven's scalp.

Kersh placed them himself and was very exact about it.

In several ways the procedures differed from the usual electroencephalograph. Interpreting the results of a regular
EEG
always required guesswork because of the electrical activity between various areas of the brain. It was like trying to analyze the recording of a thousand-piece symphony orchestra, hoping to isolate a single instrument from the whole. For this very reason, neuroscientists had eagerly taken any opportunity to implant terminals deep within the brain itself.

However, the electrodes being used by Kersh overcame the old
EEG
problem without having to resort to delicate surgery. They probed the brain with the same precision as implanted terminals but did so electronically. Each electrode was preset to record at a certain fixed depth. Those voltages, for example, that originated in the occipital lobe would be recorded independently from those that came from the adjacent cerebellum. The electrodes were color-keyed and numbered according to where they would be positioned on the scalp. Also, the electrodes themselves were much more efficient than those usually used. They were made up of an alloy of platinum and element 44, ruthenium, a very scarce and extremely hard metal more sensitive to electricity than any other known substance. Capable of picking up charges well beyond fifty millionths of a volt, the average potential of the human brain, which is actually much less than the electrostatic charges that occur when a person combs his hair.

Methodically, precise to the centimeter, Kersh applied the tiny, silvery-white discs to Keven's head. The contact surface of each electrode held three points that penetrated the skin. However, they were so sharp and fine that Keven hardly felt them go in. Anyway, she was brave about it, said it didn't hurt nearly as much as the pain she inflicted on herself whenever she plucked her eyebrows.

When the depth electrodes were all securely in place, more electrodes of a different type were attached to various other parts of Keven's body, to measure her heart and metabolic rate, breathing, blood pressure, body temperature, and muscle reactions. Two final attachments were made to the outer corners of her eyelids.

She remained seated upright, eyes open, facing the soft blackness of the wall. Nothing else in sight, but her mind was racing, changing, presenting a hodgepodge of unrelated images. Nothing definite. She again was worried about failure.

A keyboard of numbers and letters was swung automatically into position, so that it was easily within her reach. Also an electronic apparatus that looked like a slanted easel.

In the adjacent laboratory one of Kersh's assistants determined that all systems were functioning properly.

Kersh was in the laboratory now. He quickly looked over the bank of monitors that were presenting a computerized translation of Keven's physical and mental processes at that moment. Kersh saw that everything was within normal range. There was the expected alternating between alpha and beta brain waves, with more betas coming through because Keven was acclimating herself to the surroundings and circumstances.

From where Richland was seated in the lab, he also had a good view of all the monitors. To emphasize his official presence, he asked about the brain waves, the alphas and betas he'd heard Kersh mention.

“Alphas are the primary waves that occur when the mind and body are at rest,” Kersh told him.

“Everyone has them?”

“The average brain transmits eight to thirteen alphas a second at a range of two to fifteen millionths of a volt. Each alpha pulsation lasts about ninety thousandths of a second.”

Richland nodded as though he understood. “So where do the betas come in?”

Kersh doubted that Richland was genuinely interested, but he also couldn't just ignore the man. Unfortunately. “An abrupt change in brain-wave pattern takes place each time a person experiences any sensory stimulus or is required to make a mental effort of any sort. What happens is the alphas cease entirely and the betas take over.”

“How do you know one from the other?”

“Betas are obviously different. They're lower in voltage, have longer duration, and come at a faster rate, normally from eighteen to thirty per second. As soon as the brain accepts the stimulus or becomes used to it, the betas disappear and the alpha pattern returns.”

“You mean we're always going back and forth like that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“No one knows for certain. There have been various theories but as yet no definite explanation.”

“Shows how little anybody knows.”

“About the brain, yes,” Kersh admitted.

That verified Richland's opinion. He wasn't the only one there who didn't know what was going on.

Kersh waited until he saw alphas now coming more consistently from Keven. Then, satisfied that she was settled enough, he spoke to her via the intercom. “Test the keyboard.”

Keven had learned the keyboard by touch. She hit three of the keys.

On a monitor screen in the lab appeared the letters
Y
–
O
–
U
. Also, predictably, the beta monitor showed temporary activity. Twenty-three cycles per second, normal voltage, average duration.

“Now try the graph.”

Keven's fingers found and took up a thin, metal stylus. It felt cold to her touch, and she realized that her hands were moist from tension. She used the stylus like a pencil on the slightly grainy surface of the easel, careful that only the very tip of the stylus made contact. She drew the shape of a heart. No image appeared on the easel but its pressure-sensitized surface electronically relayed a clear outline of the image to a corresponding monitor in the lab.

Richland saw the heart shape appear, scoffed to himself, and shifted impatiently.

“We're ready,” Kersh said. He pressed a square button on the console, which caused the remote signal on Lowery's clipboard to light green. By then the ketch was about four miles out on the sound. It came about sharply, reduced speed, and ran parallel with the Connecticut coast. The wind had picked up considerably and the tide was running strong. The ridges of the swells were white and spraying.

Lowery motioned for Hazard to join him at midship. Lowery also tried for Whitley's attention, but had to go forward to get him. Hazard noticed Whitley's face and even his neck had lost color. The man appeared cold, but there was perspiration on his forehead and above his lips.