“Then let’s call it a good run.” Christine folded the print-out and set it on the console. “What’s the current status on both subjects?”
“When you gave us the prompt word for the first subject, we edged him back down
into true sleep,” the female specialist replied. “Subject two is holding in the sleep state and we can surface him whenever you’d like.”
Christine glanced at the military clock on the bulkhead. “Okay, we’re still good on time. Hit number one with the ’scop, take him deep and package him for transport. Then bring the second subject
up to interrogation level. I want to try for some cross references.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, Commander.” Keeping her eye on the EKG and heart monitors of the subjects, the female tech typed a series of commands into her control display, making minute alterations in the complex drug cocktail feeding in through the intravenous needles.
At the rear of the workspace, Amanda Garrett, an unspeaking and somewhat bewildered observer until now, got out of a metal-frame folding chair. “What have you got?” she demanded.
“We have indeed been graced by the personal emissaries of the Raja Samudra,” the Intel replied, parking a lightly clad hip against the edge of the console. “The name of our friend in there is Malang Sengosari – or Sengosara – and his sidekick is Mahmud, no last name. They’re Bugi pirates from the same village on Mataram.
“Their raider was diverted to Pulau Sebus within twenty-four hours of our
anchoring here. They were ordered to keep the Shenandoah under observation and specifically ‘to watch for a European woman with red hair’. They were to get photographs of her. They even received special instruction on
how to operate a telephoto camera.”
Amanda nodded. “We found the camera, along with a couple of pairs of high-powered binoculars, in
their boat. What we didn’t find was any kind of radio or communications equipment.”
“That makes total sense. Harconan is clearly interested, but he’s also suspicious. He’s figuring that any radio transmissions in the vicinity of the Shenandoah might be monitored. According to Malang, their mothership circles back every two
or three days to collect their Intelligence and issue new orders. They’re due through tomorrow.”
“We can designate the ship and establish RPV surveillance when they do,” Amanda replied, crossing her arms. “So far so good, but how much closer will this get us to Harconan?”
Christine shrugged. “It’ll be a start. We’ve pierced the first cell of Harconan’s network and we’ve found the second. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”
“We have a time factor, Chris!”
“I know we do,” the Intel replied calmly. “But, as you have often said, Boss Ma’am, ‘Softly softly, catchee monkee.’ Working up the chain of a tight cell-type security system can only be done one
step at a time. There aren’t any short cuts.”
Amanda caught her breath. “I understand that, Chris, but damn it, we still don’t have anything!”
“Sure we do. We know that Harconan is interested and that he’s sniffing the bait. We’re also inside his network and, with a little luck, he won’t know about it.”
“I’m still not sure just how that’s supposed to come about. Just as I’m still not sure about what you think you’re doing.” Amanda gestured at the Intel’s decidedly distinctive appearance.
“Oh, this,” Christine, glanced down of herself. “It’s a little exercise in reality disassociation.”
“Reality disassociation?”
“Well, say you’re walking down the street one day and suddenly you’re grabbed by a number of large, decidedly unsympathetic men who drag you off to
a grimy back room somewhere and ask you a bunch of very pointed questions. You
would assume you were being interrogated, correct?”
“Correct,” Amanda nodded.
“But what if you’re walking down that street and you suddenly just sort of drift off to sleep.
When you wake up again, you find yourself in bed with … oh, say, Errol Flynn, Johnny Depp and Sean Connery, who entertain you with
casual conversation between bouts of passionate dalliance.”
“I’d say that I was either drunk, stoned or had totally lost my marbles,” Amanda replied flatly.
“Quite so, Grasshopper. You would have undergone a surrealistic experience that
could not be coordinated with conventional reality. These dudes are currently
undergoing the same kind of dis-coordinated experience. We grabbed them off
their boat this evening. Tomorrow morning, they’re going to wake up back aboard that boat with no solid, overt indication that
anything has gone on. They’ll only have some hazy, disjointed memory that, in the interim, something very
strange happened.”
Amanda cocked an eyebrow. “Like receiving a deep body massage from an azure masseuse.”
“You’ve got it. Here’s how the package works. At the moment, our subjects are being fed a continuous
stream of short-term tranquilizers and hypnotics that suppress the will and
rational thought. They’re also floating on a couple of blood temperature waterbeds in a darkened,
soundproofed space.”
“Sensory depravation?” Amanda asked with some concern.
Christine shook her head. “Oh no, just sensory control. We’re being careful to feed them a scootch of local, easy-listening music to keep them from slipping into depravation shock. We’re also being careful to hold them in a pleasure state that doesn’t trigger any of the animalistic, instinctive fear-flight reflexes. Trust me on this, Boss Ma’am, these guys are enjoying themselves.
“This environment we’ve established is also irrational. It doesn’t connect or relate to any kind of normal, rational experience, so it doesn’t invite normal, rational reactions like a resistance to questioning.”
Amanda decided she’d pretend to understand. “I thought you always said that interrogations under truth serum couldn’t be trusted.”
“We’re dealing in generalities here, not rocket fuel formulas,” Christine replied. “The advantage to this interrogation technique is that we don’t have to disappear these guys. We can reinsert them back into their environment
without their being able to recognize what’s happened to them.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty sure.” Christine gestured toward the biocontrol console and the interrogation team working it. “Right now, we’re hitting the first subject with a massive dose of scopolamine, the same stuff they sometimes give to women during childbirth so they can’t clearly remember the pain of the experience. It can’t erase the memory totally but it will further blur an already blurry event to the point they shouldn’t have any kind of coherent recall.
“Most Indonesians – be they Muslim, Hindu or whatever – still have a very strong connection to a native mythology that’s just crawling with gods and spirits and demons and all sorts of other
unearthly entities. If they don’t consider this just one exceptionally wild dream, they may very well pass it
off as some kind of supernatural event or visitation. With a little luck, the
last thing they’ll think of is that they were guests of the bad guys.”
Long ago, Amanda had learned the wisdom of leaving esoteric specialties to the
specialists. “I’ll take your word for it, Chris. Stand on.”
Amanda started for the passageway door, then paused and looked back. “What you’ve been doing here, this whole procedure, sounds a great deal like some of those
alien abduction stories I’ve read about. You know, the ones involving the little gray space men from the
flying saucers. I don’t suppose …”
Christine Rendino looked acutely uncomfortable.
Amanda held up her hands. “I know, I know. You could tell me but then you’d have to kill me.”
“Uh, not exactly, Boss Ma’am.” She indicated the CIA team. “I could tell you but then they’d have to kill us both.”
The insurance salesman and the motherly RN looked up and smiled pleasantly.
*
