“Don’t have my wallet with me,” the man mumbled in reply.
Right. Something else. “You have really nice ears. Can I see ’em?” she asked.
The man’s eyebrows twitched slightly, prompting Maggie to caress his emotions once more. “Sure, I guess,” he mumbled.
Maggie stood and walked toward the other end of the table. She took one of the man’s ears — admittedly, they were kind of large — and tugged slightly. Under her emotional guidance, he had no reaction. She gave it a harder tug, prompting his neck to bend a bit, but the scientist was still too mellow to react with anything other than a very slight wince.
A few moments later, Maggie was actively flicking the man’s ears, pinching his nose, and mussing his hair. She reached inside his jacket pocket and produced his wallet, removing the ten dollars inside and placing it back in his coat. All the while, the man was still in his half-lidded, daydream state.
“Why didn’t he give you the five bucks?” the two-star asked.
Maggie shrugged. “It’s emotional control, not hypnosis. If he doesn’t want to give me the money, I can’t actively make him do it when all I’m projecting is calm. Heck, he even lied about having his wallet. If I wanted him to love me, or fear me, then he’d be more inclined to give me the money. But I can’t make him do anything except feel.”
Danny waved a hand in front of the scientist’s face and watched as the test subject’s eyes idly tracked the movement. “He’s still awake, but this is pretty good. How much effort is this for you?”
“It varies,” she replied. “Peaked a bit when I took his wallet, because that’s going against his self-interest. Remember, he didn’t want to give me money, but I can tamp down the desire to get it back, to the point where he doesn’t care.”
Danny looked over to the two-star, who nodded and asked, “What would happen if I punched him?”
“I’m not sure,” Maggie replied. “Let’s find out.”
And with that, she reached out and slapped the scientist hard across the face.
His eyes widened a moment, but Maggie stared down at him intently, and all he did was shift slightly in his chair before settling back down. There were red finger marks on his cheek — she hadn’t held back.
“Christ, Maggie,” Danny breathed. “We talked about this.”
“That sounded like a direct order to me, Dann — I mean, Commander,” she replied quietly.
“Airman, I think we’re finished here. Can you please escort our friend here back to where he belongs?” Danny ordered. The guard gently brought the man to his feet, and Maggie began to let his emotions slide back to him. A few moments later, by the time the man got to the door, he turned around and fixed Maggie with a stare that was half anger, half bewilderment.
“Where’s my ten dollars?” he demanded.
Maggie smiled and handed him the folded bill. “No hard feelings,” she said, fixing him with her best embarrassed smile.
The scientist snatched it from her fingers and rubbed his face as he was led out.
“Miss Dubinsky,” the two-star asked, “when you’re affecting someone’s emotions, how do you feel?”
Her brow furrowed at this. “I’m not sure I understand the question, Admiral,” she replied. He was Navy and had stars, so admiral seemed appropriate.
“Well, you’re manipulating the emotions of another person — and doing a bang-up job of it, I’d say. But how do you feel when you do that? You’re playing with someone’s feelings. Like clay.”
Maggie thought a moment, then shrugged. She didn’t think the admiral really wanted an honest answer, and couldn’t think of a good reason to give him one. “I don’t know, sir. I’m not sure I feel anything.”
Roscoe Hillenkoetter didn’t exactly blend in with the rest of the desert — not with Navy whites and a pair of gleaming stars on his shoulder boards. Had the admiral given advance warning of his visit, Danny Wallace might’ve advised some shipboard khakis, at the very least. The director of the new Central Intelligence Agency had been technically placed on reserve/detached duty with the Navy to wrangle Washington’s intelligence community into something approaching cohesion. But apparently habits die hard.
Like Hillenkoetter, Danny was on detached duty with the CIA — though Secretary Forrestal still seemed to think Danny was under his command. And Danny hadn’t been in the Navy long enough to care about wearing an uncomfortable officer’s uniform out in the full-blown Nevada sun.
“I want to have a chat with your PAPERCLIP man,” Hillenkoetter said as they rode in the jeep that would take them from the “asset containment area” to the main base at Area 51.
“Yes, sir,” Danny replied, “though there hasn’t been a lot of progress yet. He’s got some ideas, though.”
“That’s fine,” the director said. After a moment, he asked, “How often does Jim Forrestal call you here?”
“Call? He doesn’t call, sir,” Danny said, shouting slightly over the wind as they rode. “He sends a cable every few days, asking about something or another.”
Hillenkoetter shook his head with a rueful grin. “Fucking son of a bitch, that man. The whole idea of a Central Intelligence Agency is that information is centralized. What the hell’s his bugaboo?”
They pulled up outside the base office building and parked the jeep.
“Mostly ‘Asset Development,’ sir,” Danny replied as they walked toward the entrance. “Spends a lot of time going over the profiles, speculating over which asset might do what. But it’s too early to determine if any of them will be effective in the field. That’s my assessment, anyways, sir.”
Danny opened the door for the admiral and ushered him in. A couple of Air Force clerks scrambled to their feet to salute; Hillenkoetter’s return was barely a wave as Danny led them to his cramped office, ordering one of them to track down the PAPERCLIP man. The admiral replied only when the door was firmly closed.
“Anyone in particular he’s on about?”
“Forrestal?” Danny nodded. “Subject-1, as always.”
Hillenkoetter frowned deeply. “Of course he is. Gotta find more Variants, right? He’s really bent on this covert ops idea. But what we need is intel. Any of your assets showing signs of help there? That woman sure seems like she could get some secrets out of people.”
Danny ushered his boss to his marginally more comfortable office chair behind the desk, while Danny himself took one of the folding camp chairs across. “They’re all potentially useful, sir, whether it’s ops or intel. Some may be more inclined toward one or the other, but it’s all in how you use them. And right now, there’s a lot of preparation left to do.”
“Right. Marine Corps training regimen, OSS training. We really need to come up with our own curriculum for the CIA. Maybe what you and Anderson got here is a good start, based off that Camp X material. Write that up for me when you have a moment,” the admiral said.
“Aye, sir,” Danny replied, wondering exactly when he might get that moment. “We’re also looking at bringing in a specialist to assist with some tradecraft training. Can we clear John Mulholland to give us a hand?”
Hillenkoetter smiled at that. Danny had done his research, and Mulholland was one of the finest stage magicians in the country. He’d given the OSS tips on sleight of hand and misdirection. “Absolutely. Consider it done. Just be sure he doesn’t get anywhere near the labs. Anything else I need to know?”