Susan looked up at him—and hated that she had to do that. But she supposed one didn’t get to be the head of a major hospital without learning a few power-game tricks. “Until we’ve actually identified who is reading President Jerrison’s memories, I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Agent Dawson,” said Griffin, “the record will show that Luther Terry Memorial Hospital immediately complied with your lockdown request. Our staff have been fully cooperative. However, this cannot go on indefinitely; if necessary I’ll call your superior. I believe that would be Director Hexley, no?” Susan had to give him his due: he was good at this; he’d prepared for the confrontation. “This is a hospital. We provide emergency services to a wide area, as well as extensive outpatient care. We can’t remain closed. And, my God, after what’s happened today, people here have a right to go to their homes, be with their loved ones, and try to find some way to get on with their lives.”
“They also have a right to have their national-security interests protected,” Susan said.
“Perhaps so. But you can’t keep everyone locked up, and we have to start letting new patients in. We’ve already had one near tragedy, Agent Dawson: a patient who would have been easily saved here was almost lost en route to Bethesda, when her ambulance was diverted there. And we’re extraordinarily lucky that no one was hurt in the explosion at the White House, but we have to be prepared to treat casualties if another bomb goes off here in DC.”
“I hear you, Dr. Griffin. Now, you hear me: we’ll try to get this done quickly; we’ll interview everyone on the list until we find out who is linked to the president. But I’m not letting you unlock the doors until we do, understand?”
Before Griffin could answer, Susan’s BlackBerry rang; her ringtone was the theme music from Inside the Beltway. “Dawson, go!”
“Hello,” said a male voice. “My name is Dario Sosso. I’m an FBI agent and I’m out at Reagan.”
“Yes?” said Susan eagerly.
“We got him.”
She blew out air. As Secret Service agent-in-charge of the presidential detail, she’d been getting continual updates about the situation at the Lincoln Memorial. Dirk Jenks’s absence had been noted, and she’d ordered him found and detained. Jenks, after all, was supposed to have checked the elevator at the Lincoln Memorial before Jerrison arrived; he might well have been an accomplice of Danbury. And it had been Jenks who had started the elevator when Danbury had gone off-script and tried to escape—apparently getting just the result he’d hoped for, bringing Danbury plummeting to his death.
“Thanks,” Susan said. “That he ran is proof enough that he was involved, but let me know if he reveals anything under interrogation, please.”
“Will do,” said the FBI agent. Susan terminated the call, looked at the people in the president’s hospital room, and suddenly found she couldn’t meet Darryl Hudkins’s gaze. One rogue Secret Service agent was bad enough. But two constituted a conspiracy. And it was anyone’s guess how big the conspiracy was.
Chapter 15
Susan enlisted Professor Singh to help her interview the other potentially linked people: he’d speak individually to half of the remaining group, and she’d take the other half. They could have gotten through everyone even more quickly if she had the other Secret Service agents do interviews, too, but she didn’t know who among them she could trust. But Singh, who she recalled had enough psychology courses under his belt to know how to effectively question people, had no secrets from her, and she could access his memories of each interview once it was done; it was almost as good as being in two places at one time.
Susan’s next interviewee was a young woman named Rachel Cohen, who worked in accounts receivable here at Luther Terry Memorial Hospital; she’d happened to be on the fourth floor, passing directly above Singh’s lab, when the memory-linking effect occurred.
“I don’t understand,” Rachel said, sounding quite distraught. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“We’re all still trying to get a handle on it,” Susan said. “It was an accident.”
“But it’s…God, it’s freaky. I mean, I wasn’t aware that anything was wrong until just now.”
“It seems the foreign memories don’t come to mind unless something triggers them, or unless you actually think about them. Some people knew at once that they’d been affected; others, like you, didn’t know until they were asked about it.”
Rachel shook her head in dismay. “But now that you have asked me about it, I can’t stop recalling things he knows.”
“He?” said Susan, leaning forward. “Do you know his name?”
“Sure. It’s Orrin.”
The chances of there being two Orrins around struck Susan as pretty slim, but: “Orrin what?”
“Gillett.”
Susan hoped she was keeping her face from showing distaste; Orrin Gillett was the lawyer who’d tried to run at the beginning of the lockdown. She asked Rachel a few questions about Gillett, just to be sure: the names of his law partners, which law school he’d gone to, and so on, and then she verified the answers on the law firm’s website.
“How—how long is this…this pairing…going to last?” Rachel asked, when Susan was done.
“I honestly have no idea.”
Rachel shook her head again. “This is so strange. God, it feels weird. I mean, he’s a man, you know? I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be a man instead of a woman.”
“Maybe when this is all over, you’ll write a book about it,” Susan offered.
Rachel seemed to consider this. “Maybe I will, at that. It’s…it’s fascinating.” And then, after a moment, almost to herself, it seemed, she added, “He’s fascinating.”
“Okay,” said Susan. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Cohen. We’re still keeping people here at the hospital for a while, but please give me your cell number, so I can find you easily again if I need you.”
Rachel dictated it, then left Singh’s office. Just as she did so, Susan’s earpiece buzzed. “Hudkins to Dawson.”
“Go ahead, Darryl,” Susan said.
“We’ve located nineteen of the twenty people,” said the voice in her ear. “But one seems to have gotten out of the building before you initiated the lockdown.”
“Shit,” said Susan. “Who?”
“Bessie Stilwell, a woman who was visiting her son. And I’m the one reading her—which is strange, I gotta say. She’s visiting from Pascagoula, Mississippi—at least, that’s what I recall.”
“Do you know who she’s linked to?”
“No. And I’m not sure where she’s gone; I’m trying to recall it, but it hasn’t come to me yet. I just went to see her son, Michael Stilwell, but he’s pretty much out of it; he had a major heart attack. He’s got no idea where she might have gone today.”
“If you’re linked to her, why can’t you just recall it?”
“I asked Singh about that. His guess is that it’s because she’s elderly—she’s eighty-seven, her son said. Bessie has trouble recalling things herself; she’s not senile, or anything, just old. Singh thinks it may clear up for me; he suspects I might re-index her memories as time goes on, using my younger brain. But at the moment, well, let’s say I now know how my grandma feels when she’s struggling to recall something. It’s frustrating.”
“What hotel is she staying at?”
“She isn’t. She’s staying at her son’s place. I’ve got the address, and will get the DC police to stake it out.”