The Prophet Motive (26 page)

“The receivers today are very small then?” she said.

“Yes. For example, there is now a surgical procedure for advanced Parkinson’s disease in which electrodes are implanted in the brain to allow the patient to self-control symptoms with a hand-held neurostimulator. That receiver, which is placed below the scalp, is about the size and thickness of a postage stamp.”

“What about the neurostimulator? What size is it?”

“Fits in the palm of your hand. Looks like a cell phone.”

“Here’s an odd question, but bear with me, Sanford. Given the advanced state of neuroscience and electronics today, what do you think the range would be of a hand-held neurostimulator if you wanted to maximize it? In other words, how far away from the subject could you stand and fire an electrode in the brain?”

“I really don’t know. But I do know that the power and precision of electromagnetic pulses will decline rapidly with distance. My TV remote control has a range of about thirty feet. Seems like that would be a good ballpark estimate. But tell me: Under what possible circumstances would you ever need long-range control of a brain?”

“When you want to play God,” she said. “Only when you want to play God.”

“Who’s playing God?” he asked. “Marilyn, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“Just a few more questions, please.”

He sighed. “I have an eight AM class to teach.”

“Two more, then. First, how invasive would it be inserting electrodes into the brain of a human being?”

“When the electrodes are placed in roughly the same area, it’s minimally invasive. The Parkinson’s procedure is practically out-patient surgery. Today’s computer-assisted technology usually allows the brain surgeon to work with a burr hole the diameter of a dull pencil point.”

“I see,” she said. “Finally, I’d like to know something about individual differences in response to electrical brain stimulation. I gather it would be possible, for example, to induce rage in a human being, that is, in any human being.”

“That’s right, you’d stimulate the amygdala, maybe the thalamus too, for good measure.”

“Could someone fight it? Could some individuals prevent themselves from becoming enraged and lashing out?”

“Individual differences exist up to a point,” he said. “But when the electrical stimulation is sufficiently intense, it’ll prevail over anyone’s will power. No exceptions.”

Marilyn sighed with relief. “That’s wonderful, Sanford, absolutely wonderful.”

“Huh?”

“Thank you, Sanford! Thank you!”

She hung up and stood, crying for joy, then skipped around the bed, and jumped into Fry’s arms, locking her legs around his trunk. He whirled her around in circles in front of the TV.

“I heard most of it,” he said. “Brilliant piece of deduction, Doc.”

“This is incredible!” she said, breathlessly. “Just incredible! Now we know how The Wizard makes people cry, and raging bulls stop dead in their tracks, and we know how he makes sheep sing, and women jump off the roofs of buildings, and how it was that he forced John to kill a man. We’ve got him! We’ve got The Wizard’s head on a platter!”

“Not quite,” Fry said as he brought their whirling to an end and put her down. “We still need proof.”

L. Rob Piper’s home sat high atop the blonde, sandstone bluffs of La Jolla, California. Where he stood, leaning against the rear balcony’s black iron railing, he felt as if he were hovering above the Pacific Ocean. He’d bought the two million dollar property, modest by local standards, primarily for the view. The vast canvas of blue sky and water reminded him of his own powers and potential. Limitless.

The setting sun bathed him in gold, and a gentle breeze tousled his hair. It was a dry, balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit, as it so often happened to be in America’s southwest corner.

The front door chimed. Right on time. Tom Mahorn was here to deliver Dr. Martin Lipset. Piper bounded inside through the sliding glass door to claim his latest prize.

“Doctor Lipset,” Piper said in the front hall, offering a smile and a handshake. “Welcome to my home.”

“Thanks,” Lipset muttered, weary from the long flight, it seemed. A moment later, however, the fugitive doctor’s eyelids rolled back, and he gaped at his host. Lipset was startled, no doubt, from the discovery that the plastic surgeon who had reconstructed his face in Rio de Janeiro had been working from a photograph of the man standing before him.

“Jesus Christ, we’re twins!” Lipset said. “What is this?”

“Not twins,” Piper said. “More like brothers.”

Lipset, using a small mirror on the wall, shifted his gaze back and forth between his own reflection and Piper’s face. Piper turned to Tom.

“What do you make of the resemblance?”

“Remarkable.”

“I agree,” he said. “Especially considering that the only physical traits we shared in common prior to surgery had been similar skin tone and a long, angular face, and perhaps the same ears. Let’s send that doctor in Rio a little bonus.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Piper turned back to Lipset, who wore a blue, LA Dodgers baseball cap to protect the new hair transplant that would soon restore to him a full head of hair, as Piper himself possessed. Lipset didn’t know it yet, but he’d be growing his hair long, to match Piper’s length, and dyeing it gray, to match Piper’s color.

“I don’t like this,” Lipset said. “What’s the purpose?”

“All in due time, Doctor.” With a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder, Piper guided Lipset into the living room. “Please have a seat, while I show Tom out.”

In the U-shaped driveway, Piper said, “What about John?”

“In the nuthouse,” Tom said, “for psychiatric evaluation.”

“Then everything’s going as planned.”

“Yeah, but this plan makes me nervous. Sure, the cops won’t dare send anyone else inside Earthbound undercover, but they’ll come after us somehow. They’re bound to. They must be furious.”

“Don’t worry, I keep telling you. They’re clueless about everything. We know that from John.”

“What about Marilyn?”

“Why should she know anymore? Besides, we’ll both be in Mexico in a matter of days, where we can lay low.”

“Good. I’ll feel loads better under a sombrero.” Mahorn dropped behind the wheel of Piper’s Lexus convertible, cranked the engine, and drove off.

Piper returned to his prize in the living room. Lipset sat on one end of the black leather sofa, sipping brandy he’d poured himself from the bar without being invited to do so. Piper took down another snifter and poured his own brandy.

“I’m sure you have many questions, Doctor. The first one you may be asking yourself is: How did he know? How did he know I’d take the bait? How did he know that, for a mere half million dollars a year, I’d leave behind my wife and two children, my aging mother, my home—indeed my entire world—to become a fugitive from justice for the rest of my life?”

“I’ll admit, such thoughts have crossed my mind.”

“The short answer is: It takes one to know one. For you see, you and I, Martin, we’re a lot alike. To be specific, we’re both anti-social personalities. Psychopaths.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We’re not run-of-the-mill psychopaths, mind you, but rather what many psychiatrists call ‘adaptive psychopaths.’ Others simply refer to us as ‘genius-criminals.’ ”

“If you insist. In which case, I prefer the latter term.”

Piper crossed over to his black baby grand piano, placing his snifter on its surface, and faced Lipset, who remained ensconced on the sofa. Piper himself was too excited to sit.

“Like all psychopaths, we’re moral imbeciles, to be sure. We fail to grasp the concept of morality almost entirely. We can’t help but view the self-constraints that normal people place upon themselves as utterly purposeless, but by dint of our superior intellects, you and I are most often able to disguise that fact, to fit in, indeed to flourish in this . . . this strange society. For long stretches at a time, anyway.”

“I’ve always felt different. A cut above, really.”

“I discovered my own identity, as it were, quite by accident, when I was an undergraduate at Stanford, a junior, majoring in Psychology.”

“I majored in Biology,” Lipset said. “Duke University.”

“I know,” Piper said, smiling. “I know all about you, Martin. For example, I know about the neighbor’s house you set on fire in Fairfax, Virginia, when you were twelve years old.”

Lipset’s eyes widened, pupils and irises afloat in white seas of astonishment. “But . . . but my juvenile records were destroyed by law. Decades ago. How did you—”

“Now where was I?” Piper asked himself, gleefully pacing in front of his baby grand. “Oh, yes, I was taking a class in Abnormal Psychology at Stanford, reading an assignment. That’s when I first came across a description of the psychopath. It was almost as if I were reading my own autobiography. It went something like this:

“ ‘The anti-social behavior begins in late childhood or early adolescence. There is a noticeable failure to form human bonds, except at the most superficial or exploitative level. There is a pronounced pattern of disregard for the rights of others. The budding psychopath repeatedly performs acts that are grounds for arrest. Repeatedly lies. Cons others for personal profit or pleasure. Demeanor is characterized by impulsivity, irritability, and aggressiveness. Consistently irresponsible. Shows an utter lack of remorse.’ ”

“Sounds familiar,” Lipset said, standing. He poured himself more brandy at the bar. “Now let me guess how you learned about the house fire. Shortly before, or during, my latest trial, you sent some associate to my boyhood home in Virginia, posing as an investigator from the Miami DA’s office. You had the long-term residents interviewed, mostly senior citizens, I would imagine, people who might still remember bad little Marty Lipset.”

“Very good. You’re just as quick on the uptake as I’d hoped. Now let’s move to the present. I first suspected you of being an adaptive psychopath—or genius-criminal, if you’d prefer—while watching your initial trial on truTV. Really, Martin, your crime was so outlandish! Telling all those rich women they were pregnant when, in fact, they were infertile!”

Lipset waved a hand in front of his face as if shooing away a bad smell. “Oh, what I did wasn’t so awful. Not if you consider the women’s perspective. ‘Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,’ right?” He sat down.

“One of the three major characteristics of the psychopath is thrill-seeking behavior, and your crime certainly fit the bill. Subsequent discovery of your secretive, after-hours forays into Miami’s seedy, sado-masochism sex culture only confirmed this.”

“I’m hoping you have photographs on you.” Lipset smiled.

Piper returned it. “A few.”

He sat down on his piano stool and noodled on the keys with one hand, playing a string of soft notes from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. “It’s inescapable for you and me, this thrill-seeking behavior. Isn’t it, Martin? The more dangerous, the better. Isn’t that right?”

Lipset smiled and tipped his brandy snifter toward him in a kind of salute. Piper continued.

“Take me, for example. Bringing someone like you into my operation. I’m fully aware that I can’t trust you, and that I can’t control you, except through fear, or by appealing to your self-interest. I know, in fact, that I’ve invited a viper into my own den.”

“Why do it?” Lipset said, leaning forward with interest. “Because you can’t help yourself?”

“Partly. There’s also a trade-off. You see, Martin, the second major characteristic of the psychopath is an anti-social pursuit of power. Like you, I have an insatiable lust to exercise power over others, to dominate, to control, manipulate, exploit, abuse. I simply must have greater power, not to mention, greater wealth. Much greater wealth. And you, above and beyond all others, can help me to achieve my goals.”

“Is that so?”

Piper stopped playing and swiveled on his stool to face Lipset head-on. “Meanwhile, I’ll take great pleasure in wielding power over someone like you. It’ll give me deep satisfaction to know that every time you look in the mirror, you’ll be reminded of just who
is
top dog around here.”

Lipset frowned. “Is that the only reason why I’ve been made to resemble you?”

“Certainly not. Which brings us to the third major characteristic of the psychopath. Pathological glibness. For reasons that are not yet entirely understood, we psychopaths invariably possess the gift of gab. We speak well, colorfully, persuasively. It was your persuasiveness on the witness stand that led to the mistrial, and then nearly got you off the hook in the second trial, despite your obvious guilt. And it’s your persuasiveness that I wish to exploit now.”

“How?”

“I’m going to turn you into a cult leader.”

Lipset laid his snifter down on the coffee table. “There’s real money in that?”

John Richetti, wearing blue institutional pajamas, lay atop the covers of a twin-size bed. The private room he’d been assigned was small, clean and cozy. It had flowery wallpaper, stained wood furniture, and two dark, rough-hewn beams in a slanted ceiling. Afternoon sunlight streamed across the parquet floor through the window’s iron bars. Outside, birds chirped in a courtyard with a bubbling water fountain and riotous garden.