Strangers
Falkirk suddenly wondered if he had crossed the line that separated the constructive use of pain from the enjoyment of it. Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer: Yes, to some degree, he had become a masochist. Years ago. He was a very well-disciplined masochist, one who benefited from the pain he inflicted on himself, one who controlled the pain instead of letting it control him, but a masochist nonetheless. At first he subjected himself to pain strictly to make himself tough. But along the way, he began to enjoy it, too. That insight left him blinking in surprise at the empty water-glass.
An outrageous image formed in his mind: himself more than a decade from now, a sixty-,year-old pervert sticking bamboo shoots under his fingernails every morning for the thrill and to get his heart running. That grotesque picture was grim. It was also funny, and he laughed.
As recently as a year ago, Leland would not have been capable of self-critical insights of this nature. He had never been much of a laugher, either. Until recently. Lately, he was not merely noticing - and being amused by - traits in himself that he had never noticed before, but he was also becoming aware that he could and should change some of his attitudes and habits. He saw that he could become a better and more satisfied person, without losing the toughness he prized. This was a strange state of mind for him, but he knew the cause of it. After what had happened to him two summers ago, after all the things that he had seen, and considering what was happening right now up at Thunder Hill, he could not possibly go on with his life exactly as before.
The telephone rang. He grabbed it, hoping it was news about the situation in Chicago. But it was Henderson from Monterey, California, reporting that the operation at the Salcoe house was going smoothly.
The summer before last, Gerald Salcoe, with his wife and two daughters, rented a pair of rooms at the Tranquility Motel. On the wrong night. Recently, all of the Salcoes had experienced marked deterioration of their memory blocks.
The CIA's experts in brainwashing, who were usually used only in covert foreign operations, had been borrowed for the Tranquility job that July and had promised to repress witnesses' memories without fail; now they were embarrassed by the number of subjects whose conditioning was breaking down. The experience these people had undergone was too profound and shattering to be easily repressed; the forbidden memories possessed mythopoeic power and exerted relentless pressure on the memory blocks. The mind-control experts now claimed that another three-day session with the subjects would guarantee their eternal silence.
In fact, the FBI and CIA, working in conjunction, were illegally holding the Salcoe family incommunicado in Monterey at this very moment, putting them through another intricate program of memory repression and alteration. Although Cory Henderson, the FBI agent on the phone, claimed it was going well, Leland decided it was a lost cause. This was one secret that could not be kept.
Besides, too many agencies were involved: FBI, CIA, one entire DERO company, others. Which made too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
But Leland was a good soldier. In charge of the military side of the operation, he'd carry out his assignment even if it was hopeless.
In Monterey, Henderson said, "When are you moving in on the other witnesses at the motel?"
That was the word they used for everyone who had been brainwashed that July - witnesses. Leland thought it was apt, for in addition to its obvious meaning, it also embodied mystical and religious overtones. He remembered, as a child, being taken to tent revivals at which scores of Holy Rollers writhed upon the floor while the raving minister screamed at them to "be a witness to the miraculous, be a heartfelt witness for the Lord!" Well, what the witnesses at the Tranquility Motel had seen was every bit as paralyzing, amazing, humbling, and terrifying as the face of God that those spasming Pentecostals had longed to see.
To Henderson, Leland said, "We're standing by, ready to seal off the motel with half an hour's notice. But I'm not giving the go-ahead until someone straightens out the mess in Chicago with Calvin Sharkle. Not until I know for sure what's going on out in Illinois."
"What a screwup! Why was the situation with Sharkle
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