‘But wouldn’t anybody controlled in such a way just shout out that they were being manipulated?’ Ethan asked. ‘A pigeon or shark can’t protest what’s being done to them, but General Thompson certainly would have done had he been able to do so.’
Hellerman gestured to an image pinned to the wall of his office that depicted a human brain via a CAT scan of some kind, the various regions of the brain highlighted.
‘According to the autopsy report, the artifact was removed from General Thompson’s brain and had originally penetrated the frontal lobes, one of four main lobes in human brains and those of all mammals. The precentral gyrus, which is located near the rearmost border of the frontal lobe, contains the primary motor cortex which controls the voluntary movements of our various body parts. However, it also contains the dopamine sensitive neurons of the cerebral cortex which are associated with reward, short term memory, planning, motivation and attention.’ Hellerman tapped the image of the frontal lobes with one finger. ‘If you can control this region of the brain sufficiently, stimulating the dopamine sensitive regions while at the same time controlling the victim’s motor cortex, then you won’t have to worry about them crying foul when they open fire on their own family because they’ll be smiling and dreaming while they’re doing it.’ Hellerman shrugged. ‘They may even be asleep.’
‘Asleep?’ Lopez asked.
‘It’s quite common for people to conduct quite complex tasks while effectively being alseep,’ Hellerman explained. ‘Have you ever driven along a stretch of road for a prolonged period of time and then suddenly wondered what happened over the last ten minutes?’
‘Occasionally,’ Ethan admitted.
‘Then you were in some respects asleep,’ Hellerman replied, ‘driving on autopilot. The processes involved were so natural and instinctive to you that your brain did not need to be fully involved and so it began to quieten down. I know that now and again I’ve been dreaming while behind the wheel and still watching the road in front of me at the same time. I’m not going to admit that to a police officer, but we all know that it’s happened once or twice. If the people that developed the device that was found in General Thompson’s brain had perfected a means of keeping their victims in a pliant state while controlling their actions, then they could have created the perfect assassin: an individual with access to anywhere, who could be controlled from afar and would raise no suspicions. Can you imagine what could be done with such individuals? Area 51 workers could be sent into Groom Lake to find the aliens, or Wall Street financiers used to get the lowdown on the latest stock market developments, or senior government figures used to get into the Pentagon to gather state secrets.’ Hellerman became somewhat sobered. ‘Or scientists to sabotage nuclear facilities and create Hell on earth.’
Ethan peered at the image of the human brain and then looked down at the bee on the desk, still sipping from the sugar water.
‘That’s our clue,’ he said finally.
Jarvis looked at Ethan. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They wouldn’t be able to infiltrate Area 51, or a nuclear facility,’ Ethan explained.
‘Why not?’ Lopez argued. ‘If they can control an individual long enough to get them into Fort Benning, they could do the same at the Pentagon or even the White House.’
‘It’s not about the control,’ Ethan said. ‘We need to look at all photo and video footage of the Fort Benning attack, because our real killers will be on it.’
‘General Thompson did the shooting,’ Jarvis pointed out. ‘His killers could be anywhere within signal range, many miles away.’
‘No,’ Ethan countered. ‘All of these mind control programs have one thing in common. They control the body, even the brain to a point, but they do not control the eyes.’
Lopez raised an eyebrow. ‘The hackers would need line of sight to control their victims.’
‘To see what they see,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘It’s possible they could attach micro — cameras to their victims.’ Ethan turned to Jarvis. ‘Have the lab people check out General Thompson’s uniform, see if there’s a concealed camera anywhere on it.’
Jarvis turned away as he reached for his cell phone and began dialing.
‘You think they’d have to be close to the victims to make this all work?’ Lopez asked.
‘Think about it,’ Ethan said. ‘You’ve got a senior official under your control and you walk them straight into the Pentagon. If you’re not inside the building with them then you’re effectively blind and cannot control your victim, you can’t see where they’re going.’
‘And they can’t be allowed any degree of autonomy,’ Hellerman agreed, ‘or they’d break free and cry for help.’
‘So they would need visual aids of some kind,’ Ethan went on, ‘either that, or they’d need further implants to see what the victim was seeing and further signals to relay that information to whoever was controlling the victim.’
Jarvis turned to Ethan.
‘They found nothing,’ he reported. ‘General Thompson was in the open when he killed the recruits at Fort Benning, but he killed his family as they slept in their beds.’
Ethan frowned. ‘Then how could his controllers see what he was doing?’
‘Whoever did this, they’re already in the country and they’ll have more victims lined up because the technology must already be in place,’ Jarvis said. ‘I don’t think that General Thompson’s rampage was the main act. I think it was a test run.’
‘Test run for what?’ Hellerman asked.
‘Something bigger,’ Lopez realized. ‘Much bigger.’
VI
No big deal.
That’s what FBI Special Agent Hannah Ford kept telling herself as she stepped into the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the brutalist architecture of the high rise building basking in the bright sunlight outside, just a few blocks down from the White House.
Despite her clearly displayed identity badge and having the appointment booked for her, Hannah was still subject to the routine scanners, bomb dog and pat down before her arrival was recorded in the daily log and she was allowed inside the building. All around, in almost every hallway, were displayed images of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted, permanent reminders of the Bureau’s endless mission to seek out those who had taken flight from US justice and bring them back to face the courts.
Hannah Ford felt the weight of that mission upon her shoulders in the presence of so many indicators of just how many enemies of the state were out there to make her task seem impossible. Since the events of September 2001, the FBI had tripled the number of intelligence analysts and altered its internal structure to streamline its intelligence gathering capabilities, all to counter the increasing threat from within America’s shores, where Islamic militants and their sympathizers plotted and conspired to bring mayhem and grief wherever they travelled.
But today her meeting was not about Islamic State, nor anarchist groups scratching a meagre existence in the Nevada badlands, or biker gangs or drug lords. Today her meeting was about a former United States Marine, an ex — DC cop and a shadowy covert agent who was apparently both dead and very much alive. Hannah had found herself embroiled in a case so labyrinthine that she barely knew where to begin.
Hannah walked past an indoor gun range, the bullet proof window of the viewing platform frosted over to conceal the testing session ongoing within. Hannah could just make out the muffled pop pop of small arms fire as she passed by and then caught an elevator up to the fourth floor.