“Do I have the go-ahead for the experiments?”
“Carte blanche. Just don’t harm any innocent bystanders. A little collateral damage is okay, as long as it stays inside the building.”
Briggs twisted one corner of his mouth in a smirk. “Selective ethics, Mr. Morgan. Maybe there’s a career for you in politics after all this is over.”
“I work for CRO,” Mark said. “If there are fringe benefits like helping the human race, then fine. But don’t forget who’s boss.”
“A lesson we should all keep in mind.” Briggs merged off a ramp onto I-40, headed for Chapel Hill. “How’s your wife?”
Mark froze. “She’s out of this. That was the deal.”
“Relax. Just inquiring about a colleague, that’s all.”
“She told me about the original trials. What little she remembers. She thinks you’re a charlatan, or worse.”
Briggs cackled. “Alexis believed in the goal. You can’t treat people’s trauma until you know where the border lies. We all have different breaking points.”
“But you enjoyed breaking people, not putting them back together. That’s the difference. And that’s where Halcyon comes in.”
“What’s that saying? ‘You have to crack a few eggs to make a good omelet.’”
“Alexis said the trials were a failure.”
“The real failure was that she didn’t get any credit. She always wanted a breakthrough, and that could have been hers. Don’t you find she’s just a little bit bitter?”
Mark was annoyed, because he sensed some truth in the words. “She came out of it just fine. She’s resilient. But she thinks the other subjects might have suffered permanent damage.”
Briggs took his eyes from the teeming traffic to study Mark. “Anita Molkesky, David Underwood, Roland Doyle, and-”
“Wendy Leng?” Mark clutched the briefcase. “Handy that three of them are still in the Research Triangle.”
“We have to finish those trials.”
“They’re off the books. You know we can’t present any of those old results to the FDA. Stick with the new group, the aboveboard project.”
“But at least we know Halcyon works. All the subjects dealt with their fear and trauma and have gone on to productive lives.”
“‘Subjects’? They’re people, Doctor. Alexis had years of therapy to deal with those issues. They nearly ruined our marriage.”
“Halcyon would have eased those problems.”
“By erasing whatever happened in those trials. You seem to be the only one that remembers everything.”
“You make it sound so wrong.”
“We learn from our mistakes. Flight or fight. If you snip those wires, all you have is a puppet.”
Briggs turned up one corner of his mouth in what might have been a grin. “Ah, the military application. One of them, anyway.”
“Above my pay grade,” Mark said. “But this is the kind of stuff I don’t want to monkey around with.”
“Good choice of metaphor. The amygdala is the foundation of our evolutionary brain, the mysterious center over which all that complex gray matter blossoms. But give it the slightest bit of stimulation and you might as well be a caveman, whimpering in the dark as the beasties roar.”
Briggs veered off the interstate onto NC 15-501 and began winding along the wooded, gently bending road toward the university. “You know, Mark,” Briggs continued, “there’s a chance for Alexis to make her name in this after all. There’s enough credit to go around for everyone, and it could really advance her career. Grants, peer reviews, all those honorary degrees.”
“Forget it,” Mark said.
“Ah, the protective male. Why don’t you let her decide for herself?”
“I told you the deal,” Mark said. “We’ve already given you the others. That should be plenty.”
“I’m a mad scientist, remember? I won’t be happy until I accidentally destroy the world.”
“I’m not so sure it would be an accident. But there’s bigger stuff at stake than just the future of the world.”
“CRO’s stock value, I know. I hear shares are slipping while all this is cooking, but they’re poised to make a miraculous run after Halcyon is announced and the government invests. And I’m sure they give stock options in your pay grade, right?”
“I have my own motives. Just like everyone.”
They had passed the golf course and the turnoff to the Dean Dome, the cavernous gymnasium named for the venerable basketball coach Dean Smith. More university structures began appearing on the wooded lots, identifiable by their brick facades and large windows. They would reach the main campus within minutes.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask the next question, but he needed to know. It would reassure him that he still had some vestiges of a conscience and hadn’t become a complete sociopath. “How many more will you need for trials?”
“I’ve administered mild doses to half a dozen subjects,” Briggs said. “They think they’re in clinicals for a new anxiety treatment. That’s not on CRO’s dime, it’s through a CDC grant with a real professor heading it up. But that’s a cover. We need the original subjects because they’ve already been exposed to Halcyon. The pump is primed, so to speak.”
Mark didn’t want to think about the neurochemical time bomb ticking in his wife’s brain. Maybe sociopaths couldn’t truly love, but he was deeply passionate about her. He was slightly comforted by the notion that sociopaths wouldn’t have such a thought.
“So we stop at four? Leng, Underwood, Doyle, and Molkesky.”
“I love the old part of campus and all those brick sidewalks,” Briggs said. “Too bad they kicked me out. Once I restore my good name, maybe I’ll see about an adjunct position.”
“Four.”
Briggs pulled to the side of the narrow road, near an old stone amphitheater girded by oaks and maples. “Is four your limit, or is that a direct order from the senator?”
Mark slammed his fist against the dashboard hard enough to hurt. “That name stays out of this.”
“Ah, so you’re the satchel man, or whatever they call it in the movies.”
Mark opened the door. His wife’s office was half a mile away, and he would be a little late. But he had another stop to make first, one that was long overdue, and one he didn’t want Briggs to know about. “You’ll get your satchel soon enough.”
Mark collected his suitcase and hurried away without looking back. Briggs called from the open window. “Tell your wife I said hello.”
Mark turned, his fist unconsciously clenched again. If you weren’t so critical to CRO’s future, I’d give you a dose of medicine you wouldn’t forget for a long, long time.
“Just kidding,” Briggs said, then rolled up the window and eased away from the curb.
Traffic was picking up, and the wind sent leaves scuttling over the sidewalk. Mark crunched them underfoot as he jogged up a short rise of stairs. The brittle noise was like the breaking of many tiny bones.
If Burchfield had ordered Alexis into the Monkey House trials as well, he wondered if he would have nodded in acquiescence.
He wasn’t sure which master he served anymore. It seemed there were far too many.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“That was a little risky, don’t you think?” Briggs asked, glancing around his office as if expecting to see cops
