The Jericho Deception: A Novel (21 page)

“This way!” She pulled him toward a metal door to their left he hadn’t noticed—the fire exit.

They disappeared into the faded pea-green stairwell as the sound of the door to the stacks opening echoed down the brick-lined hall.

“W
e have a slight problem.”

“A problem?” Deputy Director Casey Richards massaged the top of his bald head as he paced around the oak desk in the center of his office. He took a sip of lukewarm coffee, black, and spoke into the headset. “But our last operation was a success, all because of this new technique of yours.”

He wasn’t sure whether the extended pause that came from the phone line was due to the signal traveling halfway across the globe or the doctor searching for the right words to say.

The cultured voice that came over the line displayed no uncertainty, however. “For most of the subjects, our new protocol has made life-altering changes, just as we demonstrated.” He cleared his throat. “But we’ve recently experienced some anomalies.”

“What kind of anomalies?”

“Psychotic breaks with reality.”

“You mean your subjects have gone crazy?”

“That’s a crude way of putting it.”

“How many?”

“Two out of eighteen.”

He threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of frustration. “Jericho has to graduate hundreds for it to work. We can’t have dozens of psycho cases running around!” He thought of all of the Islamic prisoners being held in secret prisons around the globe, most of them low-level suspected terrorists.

“We’re dealing with the problem.” The doctor’s voice remained confident. “The subjects who have not adapted to the protocol will be culled.”

Richards gulped from his mug, placed it on the leather coaster on his desk, and sat in his chair. This project had the potential to alter the dynamics of the Middle East, halting millennia of religious violence, eliminating terrorism, and bringing stability to the world’s largest source of oil. The first test on Youssef had proven that Jericho could be the mechanism that would allow them to infiltrate the terrorist cells they had never been able to penetrate before. They would finally be able to wipe out terrorism at the source, led there by double agents motivated by faith.

“I don’t care how you do it”—he leaned forward on his desk as if the doctor were sitting opposite him—“but fix it now, or I’m shutting down Jericho.” As important as the project was, every time he thought of the potential risks he questioned his decision to proceed.

“It won’t come to that.” The smooth voice cracked just a little. “We’ve already achieved what forty years ago was only a dream.”

“You haven’t achieved it yet. This program needs to be flawless.”

“Psychological work is never flawless.”

“You understand, Doctor, the dangers of exposure? Just one subject of yours not completely brainwashed could bring us down.”

“I only need a few days. Our protocol requires a small tweak. We’ll get to the bottom of this and be up and running with no problems by next week.”

He massaged his scalp again. “You have until next Thursday.”

He punched the button on his phone, disconnecting the line. Leaning to his right, he dialed a combination into the lock on the file cabinet under his desk. Thumbing through the green files, each marked “Eyes Only” with unique security code words assigned to them, he reached the J’s and removed the Jericho file. He flipped through the pages until he reached the memo he prayed he’d never have to use. The memo detailed how to shut Jericho down quickly, with no trace left behind.

The doctor had one week.

“I
just don’t see Elijah as the kind of man who would work for the CIA,” Rachel said.

Ethan gazed at her across the wrought iron table at Koffee as they analyzed the events from the library the previous evening. After they had run out of the doors, they’d stopped at the front gate of Berkeley College, one of Yale’s twelve residential colleges that housed its undergraduate students. Across an expansive lawn from the front entrance of the library, they’d debated whether or not to call the police. Once their heart rates settled, they realized that the police would never take them seriously: Ethan had merely seen a large man walking through the library stacks looking for something—a man who was dressed as a student athlete and who’d been in his lecture. Ethan was also sure that if he brought up his concerns of some kind of government covert operation involving his research and Elijah’s death, the police would lock him up instead. After watching the front of the library for half an hour with no sign of Muscleman, he walked Rachel home. He declined her invitation to come in for a drink to continue their conversation, instead suggesting that they meet the following morning.

“And the man following us,” she asked, “the bodybuilder dude you saw?”

“I know it sounds like some crazy plot from a thriller, but—”

She reached across the table and touched his arm. “Could you modify the Logos to read people’s minds or maybe implant certain thoughts?”

“That’s not the way it works; it’s about producing an experience of what one already considers to be the divine.”

“What does Chris think?”

“We haven’t even spoken since Elijah’s death.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “This isn’t something I can explain in a text message or leave on a voicemail.” He shifted his gaze from her face to the window—another gray morning. “I just don’t . . .” He took a deep breath. “Elijah was more than my partner; he was my friend, my confidant. But now that he’s gone, I wonder how well I really knew him.”

She placed her hand on top of his. Her touch was soft, smooth, and comforting. “Elijah cared deeply for you. I think he was trying to protect you from something, but he was killed before he could tell you what it was.”

He glanced at her narrow fingers, whose short, manicured nails were without polish. As usual, the only jewelry she wore was the spark of a diamond in her nose. He imagined that long, colorful nails, dangling earrings, and watches would be too much a temptation for the monkeys. He rotated his hand so that their palms lightly touched. The sensation sent a current of electricity up his arm and into his chest.

What am I doing?
he chastised himself. He quickly withdrew his hand and placed it in his lap. She smiled at him in the direct way she did that drew him in further. His phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

“Sorry,” he said, happy for the distraction. He answered, “Dr. Lightman.”

“Professor, how quickly can you get to my office?” Sam Houston’s voice sounded almost giddy with excitement, a tone he’d never heard from the administrator before.

“What’s going on?”

“I need you here now.”

“I’m just around the block, but can—”

“Be here in five minutes.” The line went dead.

He mirrored Rachel’s quizzical expression.

“The head of the HRPP wants to see me.”

“Houston?” Her expression morphed from questioning to concern.

“He sounded happy about something but was all business at the same time.”

“Maybe the police got a break in the murder?”

He shrugged and then stood from the round table. “He demanded my presence now.”

“That would be like him.” She followed him out the door into the crisp morning air. “Let me know what you learn?” She placed her hand on his arm. This time he didn’t move it.

“Want to grab a bite this evening?” He felt like he had to see her again soon, but then maybe he was just grasping at the company of the only person he could confide in.

“Got a birthday dinner for one of my roommates. Tomorrow?”

“Great. I’ll text you.”

He turned his body down the sidewalk, but his feet were rooted in place. He noticed that she didn’t move away either, and that her hand remained on his arm. Their good-bye had already happened, but he felt as if a magnetic force kept them from separating.

The memory of the awkward good-byes that ended the few dates he’d had in high school flashed through his mind. Should he kiss the girl or give her a hug? Either option risked rejection. They would stare at each other for a moment in silence. He knew that once he started debating in his mind whether or not he should kiss the girl, the battle was lost. The girls always sensed his hesitation, his insecurity. They inevitably said, “See ya later, then.” And then they closed the door as he continued to wait on the steps.

Standing outside the café’s doorway, he knew that giving Rachel a hug, much less kissing her, was the wrong thing to do for many reasons. He was a professor, she a graduate student; his life was in upheaval. He glanced down the empty sidewalk, as if to will his body to move in that direction, but the glance was short. His eyes were drawn back to her.

Her smile lit up her face; her eyes sparkled. The strands of blond highlights embedded in her chestnut hair seemed to radiate energy. She tilted her face upward to him. The magnetic force drawing him closer to her was almost overpowering. He longed to kiss her.

Then the voice in his head intruded.
I can’t do this
. He backed away.

“Um, I should go,” he stammered.

“Okay.” Her smile never dimmed. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Before he could say anything else, she turned and walked away with a bounce in her step.

E
than was a scientist. He operated in the world of hypothesis followed by experimentation, observation, and then conclusion. As a psychology professor and a doctor, he knew that romantic attraction was a primitive emotion that was important to the survival of the species. But as much as he understood its biochemical source, triggered by hormones such as oxytocin, he didn’t really know what to do about the emotion itself. A few minutes earlier, he’d almost kissed a student—out on the street and only a block away from his office, no less. He knew he had to stop his relationship with Rachel from heading down that path, but every cell in his body ached for just one kiss before he did so.

Approaching the door to Houston’s office on the first floor of the SSS building, he shifted his focus to wondering why the administrator needed to see him. His research, his life’s work, was at a standstill until Houston said otherwise. He hated not being in control of his own destiny. He wiped the sweat from his hands on his pants, hoping he didn’t appear as uncomfortable as he felt, and knocked.

“Enter.”

Houston’s stern expression when Ethan opened the door presented a whole new layer of emotional confusion for him.

“I got here as fast as I could,” Ethan said. “I was just around the corner having coffee with one of the CapLab techs.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to explain his whereabouts to Houston. His mouth seemed to be moving of its own accord.

“Yes, Rachel says that you two are spending quite a bit of time together.”

The administrator’s comment caused the hairs on his neck to prickle.
Rachel and Houston have been talking?
He was surprised that the elder professor even knew who the grad student was. Then a second thought occurred to him:
Why didn’t she mention anything about this to me?

Houston picked up a folder from a stack of similar folders off of his antique cherry desk. “Professor Lightman, describe for me the financial controls for the funding around the Logos Project.”

“Financial controls?” He took a minute to process the unexpected question. “Elijah handled the relations with the foundation and Chris Sligh, our graduate student, was responsible for the paperwork. Since Elijah’s death and your decision to suspend our experiments, we haven’t done anything.”

In fact, his repeated calls to the NAF had gone unanswered. He’d left numerous messages for Allen Wolfe, but each time he’d called the number on the business card the foundation president had given him, he’d received a message that Wolfe was traveling and would have limited phone access.

“The Neurological Advancement Foundation in Texas gave you a check”—Houston showed Ethan what appeared to be a copy of a bank statement—“for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he answered.

“Did you know that I receive monthly printouts of all of the university research accounts in our department?”

He’s checking up on us
, Ethan thought. He doubted whether the administrator was inspecting the activities of his colleagues with the same rigor. Then the previous night’s events in the library replayed in his head. Was his fear about the NAF correct? Did Houston suspect where the true source of their project’s funding came from? Did he know about Elijah’s history?

“Two days ago, after I’d already suspended your project, twenty thousand dollars was wired out of the Logos account.”

He felt his breath catch in his chest. He gripped his thighs so that his hands wouldn’t fidget as he remembered the error in his own account. He’d meant to call the bank to check on the mistake that morning, but then the discovery of Elijah’s note and the strange man in Sterling Library had caused him to
forget about the deposit. The extra money in his account had been twenty thousand dollars.

“Where did that money go?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Technically, his reply wasn’t a lie. He didn’t know how the extra money ended up in his account, and until that moment, he hadn’t known that the same amount was missing from the Logos account.

Houston eyed him over the top of the paper for a full minute of uncomfortable silence and then slapped the bank statement onto his desk.

“From the beginning of this project, I’ve been concerned about the corners you and Elijah have cut. Rest assured, I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“I’m not sure that there’s anything to get to the bottom of. The bank probably made a mistake.”

And how did that mistake result in the money ending up in my account?
He tried to control his breathing so as not to betray his racing pulse. If the university discovered that some of the project’s money had ended up in his personal account, he would be through for good. Not only would he lose his job, the case would also be turned over to the police on charges of embezzlement.