They had flown into Boston's Logan Airport from a string of campaign appearances in Arizona. Mary Catherine had insisted that since it was going to be a long flight, Dad should write her a letter, and he should do it with his left hand. He had grumbled at this suggestion and tried to find ways to avoid it, but she had insisted, and finally he had buckled down to the job, ejecting all journalists and aides from his private cabin and sitting down with the big fountain pen gripped securely in his left hand and a pad of lined paper on his lap, writing the letters carefully, in block capitals, one at a time like a schoolboy.
She had left him alone to the task. But when she came back an hour later, he was typing on a laptop computer.
"Dad!"
"Peanut," he said, "it was driving me crazy. I thought my head was going to split open."
"But you need to work on your right-hemisphere-"
"Spare me the neurobabble," he said. "Please observe that I am typing. I am typing a letter to you. And I am using both hands."
Now, alone in the hotel, she turned on Dad's laptop and opened up the file named "Letter to MC."
Ddeeaarrest 3Maarryee Ccaattheerine,
3As eyqowuals claentter sle3e my therapy is progressing well. I have you to thank
wfaovres rtahveage gdraedast sbterlifdreese I have made since you signed onto the
tcearmapfaeiegn. wlrtcs whealsl been a constant joy having you with me. As you
hdaavde pfreoabrasbly naovteirceeed Ibad carmew having some involuntary twitches in the
fdiandgers aodfres emwye left hand, but under your supervision I have no doubt
tgheatt stchriasbble small problem will clear up sooner or later and then I can
tgeoll b3aeclk to my old southpaw ways. I hope that this letter is long
eenroausgeh Ifeotrter me to receive at least a gentleman's C.
Yxoxuxrs affectionately,
ydoaudr Father
She spent a while looking it over. The letter consisted of eleven lines. The first few words of each line were garbled, but she could usually puzzle them out from the context. For example, the word campaign at the beginning of line 4 was spelled tcearmapfaeiegn. It had been contaminated by several extra letters. Mary Catherine opened up a new window on the computer's screen and teased out the extra letters: they spelled terafee.
Terafee didn't mean anything. If you said it fast, it almost sounded like therapy. While Mary Catherine was typing it into the new window, she noticed that all the letters were on the left hand side of the keyboard.
The letter complained of involuntary twitches in the fingers of the left hand. As he was typing, Dad much have noticed his left fingers pounding out a few unwanted letters and been unable to control it.
It was interesting that the twitches only occurred toward the beginning of each line. Mary Catherine went through the letter line by line, teasing out the left-hand letters and leaving behind only the ones that made sense. The letter her father had intended to write went like this:
Dear[est] Mary Catherine
As you can see my therapy is progressing well. I have you to thank for the great strides I have made since you signed on to the campaign. It has been a constant joy having you with me. As you have probably noticed I am having some involuntary twitches in the fingers of my left hand, but under your supervision I have no doubt that this small problem will clear up sooner or later and then I can go back to my old southpaw ways. I hope that this letter is long enough for me to receive at least a gentleman's C.
Yours affectionately,
your Father
The letters that had been typed by the "involuntary twitches" of William A. Cozzano's left hand read as follows:
DEAREST 3AREE CATE
3 EQWAlS 1ETTER 13
WAVES RAVAGE DADS BE1FREE
TERAFEE WRCS WEll
DAD FEARS A VEREE BAD CREW
DAD ADRES EWE
GET SCRABBlE
TEll 3El
ERASE 1ETTER
XXX
DAD
Someone knocked on the door of the suite. Mary Catherine jumped.
It had to be someone in the campaign, or else they would have been stopped by the Secret Service. Unless it was Floyd Wayne Vishniak, of course. But the famous spree killer of Pentagon Plaza would have made a lot more noise.
She went to the door and peered through the peephole. Then she opened it up.
"Hello, Zeldo," she said. "I thought you'd be with Dad."
He rolled his eyes. "Touring high-tech firms," he said, "is not my idea of an interesting time."
"Would you like to come in?"
He seemed uncertain. Maybe a little wistful. "I have to catch a plane," he said. He nodded toward the window of the suite. "Going to take the water taxi over to Logan and fly back to the Left Coast."
"You're done with the campaign, then?"
"For now," he said. "I've been called back. Your dad's been perfect for the last couple of weeks, there's no point in my tagging along anymore... we have other patients to work on in California." Zeldo reached into his satchel and pulled out an unmarked manila envelope, half an inch thick. "I've put together some data that is relevant to your efforts," he said, "and I thought you might like a hard copy."
"Thanks," she said, taking the envelope.
She sensed that something was going on. Something in Zeldo's tone of voice, his careful and vague phrasing, reminded her of the conversation in James's bedroom on the Fourth of July.
"Well, stay in touch," she said.
He seemed inordinately pleased by this offer. "Thank you," he said. "I will. I respect your activities very much and I respect you too. I can hardly say how much," he added, looking significantly over his shoulder. "Tell your dad I'm going to take a few liberal arts courses, as per his suggestion. Good-bye." Then he turned around, slowly and decisively, as if forcing himself to do it, and walked toward the elevators.
The envelope was full of laser printer output. Almost all of it was graphs and charts tracking various new developments in William A Cozzano's brain. There was a cover letter, as follows:
Dear Mary Catherine,
Burn this letter and stir up the ashes when you are finished with it. Your suite has a working fireplace that will be suitable. Let me make a few general statements first.
Politics is shit. Power is shit. Money is shit. I became a scientist because I wanted to study things that weren't shit. I got involved with the Radhakrishnan Institute because I was excited to take part in a project that was at the leading edge of everything, where neurology and electronics and information theory and philosophy all came together.
Then I learned that you can't escape politics and power and money even at the leading edge. I was about to resign when you came back to Tuscola and insisted on being made the campaign physician. This did not make Salvador happy but they had no choice but to let you in.
I knew what you were up to before you even started: you were putting your father through therapies designed to create new pathways in his brain that by-passed the biochips. I volunteered to stay on and follow you and your father on the campaign because I knew that otherwise Salvador would put someone else in my place, and he would eventually figure out your plan, and tip off the bad guys.
For the last three months I have been tracking your work, following developments in your father's brain through the biochip. I have not said anything because I didn't want to tip them off, so I will say it now: you are on the right track. Keep it up. In another four months (Inauguration Day) he should be able to function without the biochip, not perfectly, but good enough.