Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

Partners’ meetings at Putnam & Stearns are as dull as partners’ meetings anywhere, except perhaps on television, on L.A. Law. We meet once a week, on Friday mornings at ten, to discuss whatever Bill Stearns wants us to discuss, decide whatever must be decided.

In the course of this particular meeting, over coffee and very good sweet rolls from the firm’s caterer, we went over a number of matters ranging from the dull (how many new associates should we hire for the upcoming year?) to the mildly sensational (should the firm agree to take on the representation of a well-known Boston underworld crime lord — no, make that alleged crime lord — who happened to be the brother of one of the state’s most powerful politicians, and who was being charged with fraud by the state Lottery Commission?).

The answers: No on the crime lord and six on the associates. If it weren’t for the sole item of business that involved me — could I make a good case to a giant food conglomerate that would impress them into hiring me in their suit against another food conglomerate over who stole whose formula for a fake fat — I would have been unable to keep my attention on the business at hand at all.

I was feeling unsettled and decidedly unlawyerly, as if I could burst out of my skin at a moment’s notice. Bill Stearns, at the head of the coffin-shaped conference table, seemed to be giving me too many glances. Was I being paranoid? Did he know ?

No, the real question was: How much did he know?

I was tempted to try to tune in on the thoughts of my fellow partners as they doodled or spoke up, but, truth to tell, it was difficult. So many of the partners were on edge, nervous, irritated, angry, that the din, the hubbub, arose as one great wall of sound, or one wall-to-wall pile rug of chatter, out of which I could barely sort one person’s thoughts out from another’s spoken words. Yes, I’ve described the qualitative difference — the difference in timbre — in the thoughts I was able to receive as compared with the normal spoken voice. But the difference is a subtle one, and when too much was going on, I simply got confused and frustrated.

Yet I couldn’t stop receiving the random thought. So one moment I would hear Todd Richlin, the firm’s financial whiz, discussing billables and receivables and deliverables and at the same time I could hear, overlaid, his frenetic, edgy thoughts — Stearns just raised his eyebrows, what does that mean? and Kinney’s trying to jump in and embarrass me, that asshole. And over that would come interjections by Thorne or Quigley, something about hiring an outside consultant to train our basically illiterate associates in writing and speaking, and then their thoughts over that. So what I ended up with was a nightmarish babble of voices, which gradually drove me to distraction.

And all the while, whenever I looked toward the head of the conference table, Bill Stearns seemed to be looking at me.

Soon the meeting began to take on that accelerated rhythm that always indicates we’ve got less than a half hour left. Richlin and Kinney were locked in some sort of gladiatorial struggle over the course of Kinney’s corporate litigation involving Viacorp, a huge entertainment concern in Boston, and I was still trying to clear my head of all the babble, when I heard Stearns adjourn the meeting, rise quickly from his seat, and stride out of the room.

I ran to catch him, but he continued a brisk pace down the hallway.

“Bill,” I called out.

He turned around to look at me, his eyes steely, and did not break his stride. He deliberately, it seemed, was keeping a good physical distance between us. The jovial Bill Stearns was gone, replaced by a man of severe, frighteningly intent demeanor. Did he, too, know? “I can’t talk to you now, Ben,” he said in a strange, peremptory voice I’d never heard him use before.

A few minutes after I returned to my office, a call was put through from Alexander Truslow.

“Jesus Christ, Ben, is this something important?” His voice had that odd, flat tone that a scrambler imparts.

“Yes, Alex, it is,” I said. “Is this a sterile line?”

“It is. Glad I thought to bring the device with me.”

“I hope I didn’t call you out of a meeting with the President or something.”

“Actually no. He’s meeting with a couple of his Cabinet members on something to do with the German crisis, so I’m cooling my heels. What’s up?”

I gave him an abbreviated account of what had happened in “Development Research Laboratories,” and, as sparely as I could, I told him about what I was now able to do.

A long, long pause ensued. The silence felt infinite. Would he think I’d lost my mind? Would he hang up?

When he finally spoke, it was almost in a whisper. “The Oracle Project,” he breathed.

“What?”

“My God. I’ve heard tales — but to think—”

“You know about this?”

“God in heaven, Ben. I knew this fellow Rossi was once involved in such an undertaking. I thought... Jesus, I’d heard they’d had some success, that it worked on one person, but the last I heard, Stan Turner had shot the whole project down, quite some time ago. So that’s what he was really up to. I should have known there was something fishy about Rossi’s story.”

“You weren’t informed?”

“Informed? They told me this was a regulation flutter. You see what I meant when I told you that something’s afoot. The Company’s out of control. Dammit all, I don’t know who the hell I can trust anymore—”

“Alex,” I said. “I’m going to have to sever my links with your firm entirely.”

“Are you sure, Ben?” Truslow protested.

“I’m sorry. For my safety, and Molly’s — and yours — I’m going to have to lay low for a while. Stay out of sight. Cut off all contacts with you or anyone else associated with CIA.”

“Ben, listen to me. I feel responsible — I’m the one who got you involved in all this in the first place. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll respect your decision. Part of me wants you to press on, to see what these Agency cowboys want from you. Part of me wants to tell you to just head up to our weekend place and hide out for a while. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I don’t know what the hell has happened to me. I still haven’t fathomed it. I don’t know if I ever will. But—”

“I have no right to tell you what to do. It’s up to you. You may want to talk to Rossi, suss out what he wants from us. Perhaps he’s dangerous. Perhaps he’s merely overzealous. Use your judgment, Ben. That’s all I can tell you.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll think it over.”

“In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do—”

“No, Alex. Nothing. Right now there’s nothing anyone can do.”

As I hung up, another call came in.

“A man named Charles Rossi,” Darlene announced over the intercom.

I picked it up. “Rossi,” I said.

“Mr. Ellison, I’m going to need you to come in as soon as possible and—”

“No,” I said. “I have no arrangement with CIA. My arrangement was with Alexander Truslow. And as of this minute, the arrangement is over.”

“Now, hold on a second—”

But I had hung up.

John Matera, my Shearson broker, was so excited he could barely get his words out. “Jesus,” he said. “Did you hear?” We were speaking on Shearson’s recorded line, so I said innocently, “Hear what?”

“Beacon — what happened to Beacon — they’re being bought out by Saxon—”

“That’s terrific,” I said, feigning excitement. “What does that mean for the stock?”