Until late in the evening we reviewed Harrison’s last four days of tape. After a few initial questions, Stellings withheld comment; then, around midnight, he asked that three particular segments be rerun. The first showed Harrison sitting at his desk; he leaned forward, resting his head in his left hand, propped his right elbow on the desktop and wiggled his fingers. He gave the impression of being deep in thought. Shortly thereafter the image broke up and the screen went blank. The second section was similar, except that Harrison was limping along the downstairs hall, and the third, recorded the night of the escape, was identical to the first.
‘Cameras are always screwing up,’ muttered someone.
Stellings ran the tape back to the beginning of the third segment, then ran it forward again. ‘He’s peeking at the camera,’ he said. ‘He’s looking up and sideways so you won’t notice, masking his eyes behind his fingers. And then he waggles his fingers, we count to ten’ - he counted - ‘and the camera malfunctions. Got it?’
‘Just like Magnusson,’ breathed Dr Leavitt in tones of awe, tones which sounded false to my ear.
‘What about Magnusson?’ snapped Stellings.
‘He exhibited similar finger-eye behavior prior to video malfunctions,’ said Leavitt - earnest, deeply respectful Leavitt. ‘I mentioned it to Dr Brauer, but he didn’t assign it much importance.’
‘You people ought to be in short pants,’ said Stellings with disgust.
‘Why wasn’t I appraised of this?’ I asked of Brauer. I was, I admit, delighted to see him squirm, though I realized that the downfall of a Brauer only permits the rise of a Leavitt; and Leavitt, our learning expert, whose primary contribution had thus far been a study of the patients’ acquisition of autobiographical detail from their exposure to television, was if anything more of an opportunist than Brauer.Of course I had not noticed Harrison’s behavior myself, but there sat Brauer, narrow-eyed, licking his lips, the image of a crook set up to take the rap.
Stellings dismissed everyone excepting myself and called his superiors. He recommended that all measures be taken to remove the FBI from the case, thus beginning the jurisdictional dispute which, in effect, allowed Harrison and Verret to find refuge at the home of Clarence Brisbeau. At the moment Harrison stood upon the stage of the revival in Salt Harvest, not one agent or officer was searching for him. All the hounds had been frozen at point, waiting until their masters could untangle their leashes, and by the time the CIA had won dominance and Harrison had been located, the decision had been made to permit his continued freedom. The idea was, as Stellings put it, to ‘let him roll and see if he comes up sevens.’ Harrison would certainly prove uncooperative if captured; therefore it would be more profitable to monitor him. Brisbeau’s cabin was not an optimal security situation, but its isolation was a positive factor, and neither Stellings nor his superiors expected Harrison to run. Besides, there would be other slow-burners; the more Harrison inadvertently revealed, the more effectively we would be able to control them. When it was learned that Harrison was practising a form of faith healing, the CIA, in a master stroke of bureaucratic efficiency, sent him patients from their hospital, all of whom experienced miracle cures; and it was then -awakened by this luridly mystical image of sick spies being made whole by the ministrations of a ‘zombie’ healer - that I came out of the fog which had lowered about me since the escape and began to be afraid.
The surveillance devices planted within Brisbeau’s cabin malfunctioned most of the time, but on days when no patients visited and Harrison’s electrical activity was at a minimum, we were sometimes able to pick up distorted transmissions; and from them, as well as from our extant knowledge and agents’ reports, we pieced together the science underlying Harrison’s abilities. Stellings evinced little surprise upon learning of the cures or any other of the marvels; his reactions consisted merely of further schemes and recommendations. Yet I was shaken. Harrison had been alive five months, and he was already capable of miracles. And listening to one particular exchange between him and Verret, we caught a hint of some new evolution of ability.
VERRET: What is it?
HARRISON: Nothing. Just the gros bon ange. I’m getting better at controlling it (laughter) or vice versa.
VERRET: What do I look like?
HARRISON: You’ve got a beautiful soul. (Verret laughs). What I was reacting to was that all the bits of fire were swarming about in the black, coalescing at random, and then, whoosh! they all converged to form into your mask. It wasn’t the same as usual, though the features were the same. Are the same. But the colors are different. Less blue, more gold and ruby.
VERRET: I wonder…
HARRISON: What?
VERRET: A second ago I was thinking about you… very romantically.
HARRISON: Yeah? (A rustling sound.)
VERRET: (laughing) Do I feel different? (A silence.) What’s wrong?
HARRISON: Just trying to shift back. It’s hard to do sometimes.
VERRET: Why don’t you not bother? I don’t mind.
HARRISON: (His voice becomes briefly very resonant, as if the transmission were stabilizing.) It’d be like two charred corpses making love. (A long silence.) There. Are you okay?
VERRET: (shakily) Yes.
HARRISON: Oh, Christ! I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry.
VERRET: You’ve no reason to be.
Thereafter Harrison’s electrical activity increased, and the transmission distorted into static.
The capacity to manipulate magnetic fields, to affect matter on the ionic level, and now this mysterious reference to the voodoo term for the soul. I realized we had no idea of this man’s potential. My imagination was fueled by the sinister materials of the project, and I was stricken by a vision of Harrison crumbling cities with a gesture and raising armies of the dead. I suggested to Stellings that we bring him in, but he told me the risks were ‘acceptable.’ He did not believe, as I was coming to, that Harrison might be one of the most dangerous individuals who had ever lived. Of course Stellings had no knowledge of Otille Rigaud… or did he? Perhaps there was no end to the convolution of this circumstance. It seemed to unravel by process of its own laws, otherworldly ones, like a curining tapestry of black lace worked with tiny figures, whose depicted actions foreshadowed our lives.
And then came the night of July 26, 1987, a night during which all my fears were brought home to me. I had been asleep for nearly an hour, not really asleep, drowsing, listening to the rain and the wind against the dormer window, when I thought I heard a footfall in the corridor. Though this was hardly likely - my security system being extensive - I sat up in bed, listening more closely. Nothing. The only movement was the rectangle of white streetlight cast on the far wall, marred by opaque splotches of rain and whirling leaf shadow. I settled back.
Once again I heard a sound, the glide of something along the hallway carpet. This time I switched on the bedside lamp, and there, framed in the door, was a preposterous old man with shoulder-length white hair and wearing a loose-fitting shirt decorated, it seemed to my bleary eyes, with the image of a blue serpent (I later saw this was actually the word Self-rising, the imprint of a flour company). ‘Goddamn, he’s a big one, him,’ said the old man to someone out of sight around the corner. A second figure appeared in the doorway, and a third, and I understood why my burglar alarms had failed. It was Verret, troubled-looking, and beside her, disguised by a pair of mirrored glasses, was Harrison. He had gained weight, especially in the shoulders, but he was still gaunt. His hair had grown long, framing his face, giving him a piratical air.