Jean Basso noticed his disturbance and smiled.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? And yet it was fifty years ago. Today, DBS has become a relatively common and widespread technique. And the equipment is much more compact. These days, the electrical stimulator is implanted beneath the skin, attached to electrodes embedded in the skull. The patient himself has a remote control that lets him start or stop the stimulation at will. With it, we’re able to help treat certain illnesses, such as Parkinson’s or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and soon maybe even depression or chronic insomnia. Its uses are still being developed.”
Sharko tried to repress the monstrous idea that had gradually been taking shape in his head. It was beyond comprehension. He nonetheless ventured the question:
“Do you think someone could do the same thing with violent behavior? Trigger or inhibit it at will, with a simple remote control?”
He was clearly thinking of Patient Zero—of the catalyzing element in a massacre, whom one could control scientifically, rather than waiting for it to occur randomly.
“Anything’s possible. It’s an awful thing to say, but electricity always trumps will or mind. With deep brain stimulation, you can stop someone’s heart, put him to sleep, keep him awake, or erase his memory. The possibilities are endless. The difficulty lies in reaching the right area with the electrodes, and sending the impulse to exactly the right place. Long electrodes have to pass physically through the brain, and therefore cross through the areas governing motor function, language, and memory. It’s no simple task and it creates problems we haven’t yet figured out how to solve. But the biggest problem is the area itself. When it comes to violence, the amygdala is very small, it controls multiple functions, and it’s in contact with some very sensitive parts of the brain. Being off by even a fraction of a millimeter can make the patient lose his memory, start raving uncontrollably, or become paralyzed for life. That’s why we need time and money to establish sufficient guidelines to justify the use of implants. There’s no room for error in neurosurgery. The technique is very promising, but once you delve into the reaches of the brain it can be either heaven or hell…”
Sharko shut the book and set it on the table. Having no more questions, the two cops said good-bye and went out, feeling as if their own brains were close to giving out.
59
The two French cops were sitting on a bench in the middle of the deserted campus. Calm reigned over the ghostly space. Sharko had taken out his list of 217 persons and was running his pencil down every name that hadn’t been crossed out.
“Did you get what I got out of that, Lucie?”
“We’re not just looking for someone with medical training, but someone capable of performing an operation as delicate as deep brain stimulation, a scientist interested in the structure of the brain… I imagine James Peterson isn’t on the list. How old would he be today?”
“Too old. Even if he’d used another identity, there’s only one person on this list born in 1923, the same year as Peterson, and she’s a woman.”
“Don’t forget, the list is only of the French.”
Sharko crossed out more names.
“I know… but the legionnaire Manoeuvre was French. It’s unfortunately very likely our brain thief is too.”
“Could Peterson have had children? Maybe a son who took up his work?”
“Monette should be calling at any moment. We’ll know soon enough.”
Lucie had leaned forward, her hands squeezed together between her thighs.
“We’re almost there.” She sighed. “The killer has to be hiding there, right before our eyes, and I think that— I think we’re coming to the end of what we came to find here. Do you realize how far this stretches? If Syndrome E really exists, it calls so many things into question. Individual freedom, our ability to choose, responsibility for our actions. I can’t believe everything that governs what we do is merely chemical or electrical. Where is God in all this? Feelings, the soul—these aren’t just artificial constructs.”
The number of suspects on the list was shrinking but still remained significant—about forty names.
“And yet… well, take a schizophrenic, for instance. He might see an imaginary person as clearly as you see that lab tech in his white coat over there. All because a few millimeters of his brain are on the fritz. It has nothing to do with God or witchcraft. It’s chemistry. Just some shitty chemistry.”
His phone rang. He looked at the caller ID.
“It’s Monette.”
He answered and put the phone on speaker.
“I have some info about your Peter Jameson,” said the policeman.
Peter Jameson… So James Peterson had indeed come to Canada under an assumed name—though he hadn’t exactly strained his brain to find one.
“He moved to Montreal in 1953 and worked at Mont Providence as a medical researcher in the ward for acute mental retardation. In 1955, he married a woman named Hélène Riffaux, a math teacher and Canadian national. Together they adopted a little girl, and Jameson dropped out of sight a few weeks later, taking his daughter and abandoning his wife. As far as we can tell, he left no traces or forwarding address. No one ever saw him again. The marriage was just a pretext for the adoption, which he couldn’t have done otherwise. It’s a bit short, but that’s roughly all there is to know. Oh, one last thing, which might be important. The little girl was one of the orphans from Mont Providence.”
Those words set off an earthquake inside Lucie and Sharko. They stared at each other, flabbergasted, and seemed to come to the same realization simultaneously.
“The girl! Tell us her name!”
“Coline Quinat.”
Sharko’s finger ran down the Cairo list. He had seen a Coline in there. Letter Q. Quinat. There she was. Sharko thanked him in a blank voice and hung up. Lucie had pressed against him, her eyes fixed on the printed line.
“Coline Quinat, born October 15,1948, researcher in neurobiology at the research center of the Army Health Services, Grenoble.”
“The Army Health Services,” murmured Sharko.
“Good God… Born in 1948, like Alice. It’s her! Coline Quinat, Alice Tonquin. It’s a perfect anagram. It was right there all along!”
Lucie covered her face in her hands.
“Not her… not Alice.”
Sharko sighed, shaken by these revelations.
“Researcher in neurobiology… no doubt a bogus position to cover her real work for the army. It all fits together so well now. The tortured little girl herself becomes a torturer. The brain thief—she’s the one. She’s the one behind all these horrors. She’s the one who killed and mutilated the young Egyptians. And she’s the one who went to Rwanda, and wherever there had been massacres…”
Silence weighed on them for a few moments. Lucie was in shock. The person she’d wanted to avenge since the beginning was the very person she was hunting: the murderer, the one who removed the victims’ eyes and brains. The architect. The mastermind. The sickest of the killers.
Sharko couldn’t sit still; he was like a lion in a cage.
“Imagine this: after lots of trial and error, research, relentless pursuit, Peterson and Lacombe manage to film a major breakthrough—proof of the existence of mental contamination, which Peterson had always believed possible, and for which he’d managed to obtain CIA funding. But after their phenomenal results with the rabbits, the scientist convinces Lacombe not to tell the CIA about it. He knows how momentous this discovery is. Maybe he’s thinking of selling his findings to some other country, which is ready to pay a fortune for the knowledge. Especially France, the country of his birth.”