Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

Captain Hayward said nothing. Now was not the time to fight with the doctors. She would evaluate the situation and, if necessary, return under her own conditions.

“If you would care to have a seat?” Singh asked solicitously.

Hayward seated herself at the counter and the doctor settled into the seat beside her. He glanced at his watch.

“The patient will be out in five minutes.”

“What kind of preliminary results do you have?”

“As I say, it is a most puzzling case. Most puzzling indeed.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“The preliminary EEG showed significant focal temporal abnormalities, and an MRI revealed a series of small lesions to the frontal cortex. It is these lesions that seem to have triggered severe cognitive defects and psychopathology.”

“Can you translate that into English?”

“The patient seems to have suffered severe damage to the part of the brain that controls behavior, emotions, and planning. The damage is most pronounced in an area of the brain we psychiatrists sometimes call the Higginbottom region.”

“Higginbottom?”

Singh smiled at what was evidently an inside psychiatric joke. “Eugenie Higginbottom worked on an assembly line in a ball-bearing factory in Linden, New Jersey. One day in 1913, there was a boiler explosion in the factory. Blew apart the stamper. It was as if a huge shotgun shell had gone off: ball bearings flew everywhere. Six people were killed. Eugenie Higginbottom miraculously survived: but with some two dozen ball bearings embedded in the frontal cortex of her brain.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the poor woman suffered a complete personality change. She was instantly transformed from a kind, gentle person to a foulmouthed slattern, given to outbursts of profanity and violence, a drunkard, and, ah, sexually promiscuous. Her friends were astounded. It underscored the medical theory that personality is hardwired in the brain and that damage can literally transform one person into another. The ball bearings, you see, destroyed Higginbottom’s ventromedial frontal cortex-the same area that is affected in our patient.”

“But there are no ball bearings in this man’s brain,” Hayward said. “What could have caused it?”

“This is the crux of the matter. Initially, I hypothesized a drug overdose, but no drug residues were found in his system.”

“A blow to the head? A fall?”

“No. No evidence of coup/contrecoup, no edema or bruising. We’ve also ruled out a stroke: the damage was simultaneous in several widely separated areas. The only possible explanation I can come up with is an electrical shock administered directly to the brain. If only we had a dead body-an autopsy would show so much more.”

“Wouldn’t a shock leave burn marks?”

“Not a low-voltage, high-amperage shock-such as one generated by electronic or computer equipment. But there’s no damage anywhere but to the brain. It’s hard to see how such a shock might have occurred, unless our patient was performing some kind of bizarre experiment on himself.”

“The man was a computer technician installing an exhibit at the museum.”

“So I’ve heard.”

An intercom chimed, and a voice sounded softly. “Dr. Singh? The patient is arriving.”

Beyond the glass window, a door opened, and a moment later Jay Lipper was wheeled in. He sat in a wheelchair, restrained. He was making slow circles with his head, and his lips were moving, but no sound came out.

His face was shocking. It was as if it had caved in, the skin gray and slack and hanging in leathery folds, the eyes jittery and unfocused, the tongue hanging out, as long and pink and wet as that of an overheated retriever.

“Oh my God…” Hayward said involuntarily.

“He’s heavily sedated, for his own safety. We’re still trying to adjust the meds, find the right combination.”

“Right.” Hayward looked at her notes. Then she leaned forward, pressed the talk switch on the intercom. “Jay Lipper?”

The head continued its slow orbit.

“Jay? Can you hear me?”

Was there a hesitation there? Hayward leaned forward, speaking softly into the intercom.

“Jay? My name is Laura Hayward. I’m here to help you. I’m your friend.”

More slow rolling.

“Can you tell me what happened at the museum, Jay?”

The rolling continued. A long gobbet of saliva, which had gathered on the tip of his tongue, dripped to the floor in a foamy thread.

Hayward leaned back and looked toward the doctor. “Have his parents been in?”

Singh bowed. “Yes, they were here. And a very painful scene it was.”

“Did he respond?”

“That was the only time he’s responded, and then only briefly. He emerged from his inner world for less than two seconds.”

“What did he say?”

“‘This isn’t me.’”

“‘This isn’t me?’ Any idea what he meant by that?”

“Well… I imagine he retains some faint recollection of who he was, along with a vague realization of what he’s become.”

“And then?”

Singh seemed embarrassed. “He became suddenly violent. He said he was going to kill them both and… rip out their guts. He had to be further sedated.”

Hayward glanced at him a moment longer. Then, thoughtfully, she turned back toward Lipper, still rolling his head, his glassy eyes a million miles away.

He got into a fight with Carlos Lacarra,” Imhof told Special Agent Coffey as they strode down the long, echoing corridors of Herkmoor. “Lacarra’s friends weighed in, and by the time the guards broke it up, a certain amount of damage had been done.”

Coffey listened to the public recitation of events with Rabiner at his side. Two prison guards walking behind completed the entourage. They rounded a corner and continued down another long corridor.

“What kind of damage?”

“Lacarra’s dead,” said the warden. “Broken neck. Don’t know what happened, exactly-not yet. None of the prisoners are talking.”

Coffey nodded.

“Your prisoner got pretty banged up-mild concussion, contusions, bruised kidney, a couple of cracked ribs, and a shallow puncture wound.”

“Puncture wound?”

“Seems somebody shanked him. That was the only weapon recovered at the scene of the fight. All in all, he’s lucky to be alive.” Imhof coughed delicately and added, “He certainly didn’t look like a fighter.”

“And my man is back in his cell, as per my orders?”

“Yes. The doctor wasn’t happy.”

They cleared a security gate, and Imhof keyed an elevator for them. “At any rate,” he said, “I expect he’ll be a lot more amenable to questioning now.”

“You didn’t sedate him, did you?” Coffey asked as the elevator chimed open.

“We don’t habitually dispense sedatives here at Herkmoor-potential for abuse and all that.”

“Good. We don’t want to waste our time with a nodding vegetable.”

The elevator rose to the third floor, opening onto a pair of steel doors. Imhof swiped a card and punched in a code and they slid back, revealing a cinder-block corridor, painted stark white, with white doors on either side. Each door had a tiny square window and a foot slot.

“Herkmoor Solitary,” Imhof said. “He’s in cell 44. Normally, I’d escort him to a visiting room, but in this case he’s not exactly mobile.”

“I’d rather speak to him in his cell, anyway. With the guards on hand… in case he should become aggressive.”

“Not much chance of that.” Imhof leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, Agent Coffey, but I would imagine that any suggestion that he might be put back in yard 4 for exercise would get him talking a mile a minute.”