Robert Sawyer - Triggers

“No, I mean about him personally.”

“What everyone knows, I suppose. Came out of nowhere to win the Republican nomination. Likes sports fishing. And so on.”

“Nothing more intimate?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Do you know, for instance, his wife’s birthday?”

“The First Lady’s? Haven’t a clue.”

“Or maybe the name of his high school?”

“No.”

Susan nodded. “Okay. Tell me: how do you think you came by all this information about real estate?”

“I haven’t stopped to think about it. I really haven’t had many quiet moments since the surgery on Jerrison. But…”

“But?”

“Well, there’s this woman I know…”

“Yes?”

“I know her. I know all about her, but I don’t know her.” Jono’s freckled face conveyed that he was aware he wasn’t making sense. “I mean, I seem to know her, but I’m sure I’ve never met her. A real-estate agent.”

“Her name?”

“Nikki Van Hausen,” said Jono. “Well, Nicola, but she goes by Nikki. N-I-double-K-I.”

“And she’s here at the hospital? A patient?”

“Not a patient. Oh! Well, not originally, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was here to visit her brother, but they’ve locked her up.”

“Where?”

“The psychiatric ward.”

“Where’s that?”

He told her, and she headed toward it. As she approached the main door to it from one direction, a thin, bald man wearing a doctor’s smock arrived there from another. Susan was always absorbing everything around her and habitually read name badges; this fellow’s said, “E. Redekop, M.D.” She hadn’t recognized his face—because, she suddenly realized, she hadn’t yet seen it, except for the eyes, and those only from a distance.

“You’re Eric Redekop.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Not again!”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry. It’s just that you’re the second person today to recognize me that I don’t know.”

“Actually,” said Susan, “I just read your badge—and Dr. Griffin had told me your first name. I’m Susan Dawson, the Secret Service agent-in-charge here. I watched you save the president today.” She paused, trying to think of what else to say, but couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” said Redekop, looking a bit relieved.

Susan’s job was all about noticing things that were out of place. “What’s a surgeon doing in the psychiatric ward?”

Redekop’s handsome face was still for a few moments, as if he was thinking about what—or how much—to say. Finally, he lifted his narrow shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s like I said. Someone recognized me earlier, but I didn’t know her. She seemed quite upset.”

“Let me guess,” said Susan. “Nikki Van Hausen, right?”

Redekop looked astonished. “I don’t know her last name, but, yes, her first name is Nikki.”

“Come with me.”

Secret Service agent Dirk Jenks slipped away from the crowd of fellow agents swarming the interior of the Lincoln Memorial. He headed down the wide marble stairs and then went around to the back. Only three thousand people had come out on this cold morning to hear Jerrison’s speech, but now that he’d been shot, many thousands more were swarming onto this part of the Mall, hoping to see the site of the assassination attempt—and an even greater number were scurrying to see the ruins of the White House: lemmings rushing headlong into dust and nothingness, into the end of history.

Jenks briskly walked the hundred-odd yards to the nearest road and caught a cab that had just disgorged two people. He told the driver to take him to Reagan National Airport, four miles away in Virginia.

“Hey,” said the driver, “were you here earlier? Did you see the guy take a shot at Jerrison?”

“No.”

“What about the White House? Did you see that go up? Jesus!”

Jenks shook his head, and, mercifully, the driver shut up. Traffic was almost at a standstill—the journey was going to take forever. Jenks glanced anxiously out the car’s right side and saw the Jefferson Memorial for what he imagined would be the last time.

Nikki Van Hausen was supposed to show two houses this afternoon, but that wasn’t going to happen. After her encounter in the hallway with Drs. Sturgess and Redekop, the security guard had taken her to a room that she only belatedly realized was in the psychiatric ward. A few other people seemed to have been here for a while, and two more were brought into the ward shortly after her—wailing and screaming over the terrorist attack.

Her room was cubic, with a high ceiling, and was empty except for a couch bolted to the wall. She wasn’t suicidal—but this was where they put people who were, so there was nothing that a makeshift noose could be hung from, no glass over pictures that might be smashed and used to slit wrists—and no way to open the door from the inside. There was also no bathroom. She was just about to press the buzzer that would summon a guard to let her out so she could use the one across the hall when the door opened and in came Eric Redekop accompanied by a pretty blue-eyed brunette with shoulder-length hair. She was wearing a black jacket, black pants, and black leather shoes with flat heels.

“Hello, Ms. Van Hausen,” Eric said.

She tried to match his formality—after all, she wanted out of here. “Dr. Redekop,” she replied, and nodded politely.

Eric indicated the woman. “This is Susan Dawson, a Secret Service agent.”

Nikki felt her heart beginning to pound. “Hello.”

“You seemed to know me out in the corridor earlier,” Eric said.

Nikki nodded. “I know we’ve never met, but…”

“But you knew things about me—or was it Dr. Sturgess?—that you wouldn’t normally know.”

She had a brief moment where she thought she should lie: letting them know that she sensed things had gotten her into this booby hatch in the first place. But, no, no, she had to tell them; she had to get this fixed.

“It’s you,” she said, looking at Eric. “I only know the things about Jurgen that you know.”

Susan Dawson spoke. “What has happened to you happened to several others. There’s been a linkage of minds. We’re going to try to find a way to break the links, but for now we must acknowledge that they exist.”

Eric nodded. “I’m affected, too, and so is Agent Dawson.”

Nikki felt a wave of relief—it wasn’t just her; as crazy as all this sounded, she wasn’t nuts. Suddenly, she was angry. “But if it was happening to you, too, why didn’t you speak up when you first saw me? Why’d you let them lock me up here?”

Eric spread his arms. “I’m so sorry, Nikki. I probably did become linked to the person I’m reading at the same moment you became linked to me. But nothing brought her memories to mind for me until I actually saw her, after I saw you—first, because I was exhausted and preoccupied with the president’s health, and, second, because we both work here, she and I; this building is mostly background noise for the two of us. But for you being in a hospital is unusual, and the sights and sounds of this place immediately brought my memories of it into your consciousness.”

“Oh,” said Nikki. “But—wait!—does that mean somebody can read my mind, too?”

“Your memories, yes,” said Agent Dawson.

“But my memories are private!” said Nikki.

“So are mine,” said Eric. “So, um, if you’d not share them with anyone else, please…”

“Of course,” said Nikki. “Of course. But how long is this going to last?”