they'll work diligently to unlock it, because they'll know that what
lies behind it is of enormous importance. So the barrier must be one
that cannot be tampered with. The Azrael Block is perfect. When the
subject is questioned about the forbidden topic, he's programmed to
retreat into a deep coma where he cannot hear the inquisitioner's
voice-and even into death. In fact, it should more accurately be called
the Azrael Trigger. because if the interrogator probes into the blocked
memories, he pulls that trigger, shooting Ivan into a coma, and if he
continues to pull the trigger he may eventually kill the subject."
Fascinated, Pablo said, "But isn't the survival instinct strong enough
to overcome the block? When it comes to the point that Ivan must either
remember and reveal what he has forgotten or die . . . well, surely
the repressed memory would surface."
"No." Even in the warm amber light of the floorlamp beside his chair,
Alex's face appeared to have gone gray. "Not with the drugs and
hypnotic techniques we have these days. Mind control is a frighteningly
advanced science. The survival instinct is the strongest we've got, but
even that can be overridden. Ivan can be programmed to self-destruct."
Pablo found his champagne glass empty. "My young ladyfriend seems to
have invented a sort of Azrael Block of her own to hide from herself
some extraordinarily distressing event
in her past."
"No," Alex said, "she didn't form the block herself."
"She must have. She's in a bad state, Alex. She just ... slips away
when I try to question her. So, as you know this field, I thought you
might have a few ideas about how I can deal with it."
"You still don't understand why I warned you to drop this whole thing,"
Alex said. He pushed up from his chair, moved to the nearby window,
shoved his trembling hands in his pockets, and stared out at the
snow-covered lawn. "A selfimposed, naturally generated Azrael Block?
Such a thing isn't possible. The human mind will not, of its own
volition, put itself at risk of death merely to conceal something from
itself. An Azrael Block is always an externally applied control. If
you've encountered such a barrier, then someone planted it in her mind."
"You're saying she's been brainwashed? Ridiculous. She's no spy."
"I'm sure she's not."
"She's no Russian. So why would she've been brainwashed? Ordinary
citizens don't become targets for that sort of thing."
Alex turned from the window and faced Pablo. "This is just an educated
guess . . . but perhaps she accidentally saw something she was not
supposed to see. Something extremely important, secret. Subsequently,
she was subjected to a sophisticated process of memory repression, to
make sure she never told anyone about it."
Pablo stared at him, astonished. "But what could she possibly have seen
to've made such extreme measures necessary?"
Alex shrugged.
"And who could've tampered with her mind?"
Alex said, "The Russians, the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, Britain's MI6-any
organization with the knowledge of how such things are done." ..
"I don't think she's traveled outside the U S., which leaves the CIA."
"Not necessarily. All the others operate in this country for their own
purposes. Besides, intelligence organizations are not the only groups
whore familiar with mind-control techniques. So are some crackpot
religious cults, fanatical political fringe groups . . . others.
Knowledge spreads fast, and evil knowledge spreads faster. If people
like that want her to forget something, you sure don't want to help her
remember. It wouldn't be healthy for either you or her, Pablo."
"I can't believe-"
"Believe," Alex said somberly.
"But these fugues, these sudden fears of black gloves and helmets . . .
these would seem to indicate that her memory block is cracking. Yet the
If they'd implanted a block, it would be perfect."
Alex returned to his chair, sat, leaned forward, fixing Pablo with an
intense gaze, obviously striving to impress him with the gravity of the
situation. "That's what worries me most, old friend. Ordinarily, such
a firmly implanted mental barrier would never weaken on its own. The
people capable of doing this to your lady-friend are absolutely expert
at it. They wouldn't screw up. So her recent problems, her
deteriorating psychological condition, can mean only one thing."
"Yes?"
"The forbidden memories, the secrets buried behind this Azrael Block,
are apparently so explosive, so frightening, so traumatic, that not even
an expertly engineered barrier can contain them. Buried in this woman
is a shocking memory of immense power, and it's straining to break out
of its prison in her subconscious, into her conscious mind. These
objects that trigger her blackouts-the gloves, the sink drain-are very
likely elements of those repressed memories. When she fixates on one of
these things, she's close to a breakthrough, trembling on the edge of
remembrance. Then her program kicks in, and she blacks out."
Pablo's heart quickened with excitement. "Then, after all, it might be
possible to use hypnotic regression to probe at this Azrael Block, widen
the cracks already in it, without driving her into a coma. One would
have to be extremely cautious, of course, but with-"
"You're not listening to me!" Alex said, bolting up again. He stood
between their chairs, looming over Pablo, pointing one trembling finger
at him. "This is incredibly dangerous. You've stumbled into something
much too big for you to handle. If you help her to remember, you're
going to make powerful enemies somewhere."
"She's a sweet girl, and her life is in ruins because of this."
"You can't help her. You're too old, and you're just one man."
"Listen, maybe you don't understand enough of the situation. I haven't
told you her name or profession, but I'll tell you now that-"
"I don't want to know who she is!" Alex said, his eyes widening.
"She's a physician," Pablo persisted. "Or almost. She's spent the past
fourteen years training herself for medical practice, and now she's
losing everything. It's tragic."
"Think about this, damn it: she's almost certain to discover that
knowing the truth is even worse than not knowing. If the repressed
memories are breaking through like this, then they must be so traumatic
that they could destroy her psychologically."
"Maybe," Pablo acknowledged. "But shouldn't she be the one to decide
whether or not to keep digging for the truth?"
Alex was adamant. "If the memory itself doesn't destroy her, then
she'll probably be killed by whoever implanted the block. I'm surprised
they didn't kill her straightaway. If it is an intelligence agency
behind this, ours or theirs, then you've got to remember that to them
civilians are entirely expendable. She got a rare and amazing reprieve
when they used brainwashing instead of a bullet. A bullet's quicker and
cheaper. They won't give her a second
reprieve. If they discover that
the Azrael Block has crumbled, if they learn that she's uncovered the
secret they've hidden from her, they'll blow her brains out."
"You can't be sure," Pablo said. "Besides, she's a real gogetter, Alex,
an achiever, a mover and shaker. So from her point of view, her current
situation is almost as bad as having her brains blown out."
Making no effort to conceal his frustration with the old magician, Alex
said, "You help her, and they'll blow your brains out as well. Doesn't
that give you pause?"
"At eighty-one," Pablo said, "not much of interest happens. You can't
afford to turn your back on that rare bit of excitement when it comes
along. Vogue la galsreel must chance it."
"Maybe I am, my friend. Maybe. But . . . then why do I feel so
good?"
Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Bennet Sonneford, who had operated on Winton Tolk yesterday
subsequent to the shooting at the sandwich shop, ushered Father Wycazik
into a spacious den, where the walls were covered with mounted fish:
marlin, an immense albacore, bass, trout. More than thirty glass eyes
stared sightlessly down upon the two men. A trophy case was filled with
silver and gold cups, bowls, medallions. The doctor sat at a pine desk
in the shadow of a forever-swimming, open-mouthed marlin of startling
proportions, and Stefan sat beside the desk in a comfortable chair.
Although the hospital had provided only Dr. Sonneford's office number,
Father Wycazik had been able to track down the surgeon's home address
with the aid of friends at the telephone company and police department.
He had arrived at Sonneford's doorstep at seven-thirty Christmas night,
effusively apologetic about interrupting holiday celebrations.
Now, Stefan said, "Brendan works with me at St. Bernadette's, and I
think very highly of him, so I don't want to see him in trouble."
Sonneford, who looked a bit like a fish-pale, slightly protuberant eyes,
a naturally puckered mouth-said, "Trouble?" He opened a kit of small
tools, choosing a miniature screwdriver, and turned his attention to a
fly-casting reel that lay on the blotter. "What trouble?"
"Interfering with officers in the performance of their duties."
"Ridiculous." Sonneford carefully removed tiny screws from the reel
housing. "If he hadn't tended to Tolk, the man would be dead now. We
gave him four and a half liters."
"Really? That isn't a mistake on the patient's chart."
"No mistake." Sonneford removed the metal case from the automatic reel,
peered intently into its mechanical guts. "An adult has seventy
milliliters of blood per kilogram of body weight. Tolk is a big man-one
hundred kilos. He'd normally contain seven liters. So when I first
ordered blood in the ER, he'd lost over sixty percent of his own." He
put down the screwdriver and picked up an equally small wrench. "And
they gave him another liter in the ambulance before I saw him."
"You mean he'd actually lost over seventy-five percent of his blood by
the time they got him out of that sandwich shop?
But . . . can a man lose so much blood and survive?"
"No," Sonneford said quietly.
A pleasant shiver passed through Stefan. "And both bullets lodged in
soft tissue but damaged no organs. Deflected by ribs, other bones?"
Sonneford was still squinting at the reel but had stopped tinkering with
it. "If those .38s had hit bone, the impact would've resulted in
chipping, splintering. I found nothing like that. On the other hand,
if they were not deflected by bone, they should've passed through him,
leaving massive exit wounds. But I found them lodged in muscle tissue."
Stefan stared at the surgeon's bent head. "Why do I have the feeling
there's something more you want to tell me, but that it's something
you're afraid to talk about?"
At last Sonneford glanced up. "And why do I get the feeling that you've
not told the truth about your reasons for coming here, Father?"
"Touchd," Stefan said.
Sonneford sighed and put the tools away in the kit. "All right. The
entry wounds make it clear that one bullet hit Tolk in the chest,
impacted with the lower portion of the sternum, which should've snapped
off or fractured; splinters like shrapnel should've pierced organs,
vital blood vessels. Apparently, none of that happened."
"Why do you say 'apparently'? Either it happened, or it didn't."
"From the entry wound in the flesh, I know that bullet hit the sternum,
Father, and I found it lodged harmlessly in tissue on the other side of
the sternum; therefore . . . somehow ... it passed through that bone
without damaging it. Impossible, of course. Yet I found just an entry
wound over the sternum, the undamaged bone directly under the woundand
then the bullet lodged inside behind the sternum, with no indication how
it had gotten from one place to the other. Furthermore, the entry wound
of the second slug was over the base of the fourth rib, right side, but
that rib was undamaged as well. The bullet should have shattered it. ,
"Maybe you're wrong," Stefan said, playing devil's advocate. "Maybe the
bullet entered just slightly off the rib, between ribs."
"No." Sonneford raised his head but did not look at Stefan. The
physician's uneasiness still seemed peculiar and was not explained by
what he had said thus far. "I don't make diagnostic errors. Besides,
inside the patient, those bullets were lodged where you'd expect them to
be if they had hit bone, had punched through, and had had the last of
their energy absorbed by the muscle. But there were no damaged tissues
between the point of entry and the expended slugs. Which is impossible.
Bullets can't pass through a man's chest and leave no trail at all!"
"Almost seems as if we have a minor miracle."
"More than minor. Seems like a pretty damn major miracle to me."
"If only one artery and vein were injured, and if both were only nicked,
how did Tolk lose so much blood? Were those nicks big enough to account
for it?"
"No. He couldn't have hemorrhaged so massively from those traumas."
The surgeon said nothing more. He seemed gripped in the talons of some
dark fear that Stefan could not understand. What had he to fear? If he
believed that he had witnessed a miracle, should he not be joyous?
"Doctor, I know it's difficult for a man of science and medicine to
admit he's seen something that his education can't explain, something
that in fact is in opposition to everything he had believed to be true.
But I beg you to tell me everything you saw. What are you holding back?
How did Winton Tolk lose so much blood if his injuries were so small?"
Sonneford slumped back in his chair. "In surgery, after beginning
transfusions, I located the bullets on the X rays and made the necessary
incisions to remove them. In the process, I found a tiny hole in the
superior mesenteric artery and another small tear in one of the superior
intercostal veins. I was certain there must be other severed vessels,
but I couldn't locate them immediately, so I clamped
off both the
superior mesenteric and the intercostal for repair, figuring to search
further when those were attended to. It only took ' a few minutes, an
easy task. I sewed the artery first, of course, because the bleeding
was in spurts and was more serious. Then . . ."
"Then?" Father Wycazik urged gently.
"Then, when I had quickly finished stitching the artery, I turned to the
torn intercostal vein ... and the tear was gone."
"Gone," Stefan said. A quiver of awe passed through him, for this was
the thing he had expected-yet it was also a revelation of such
astounding importance that it seemed too much to have hoped for.
"Gone," Sonneford repeated, and at last he met Stefan's gaze. In the
surgeon's watery gray eyes, a shadow moved like the half-perceived
passage of a leviathan through the depths of a murky sea, the shadow of
fear, and Stefan confirmed that for some inexplicable reason the miracle
occasioned dread in the doctor. "The torn vein healed itself, Father. I
know the tear had been there. Clamped it off myself. My technician saw
it. My nurse saw it. But when I was ready to sew it up, the rent was
gone. Healed. I removed the clamps, and the blood flowed again through
the vein, and there was no leakage. And later ... when I excised the
bullets, the muscle tissue appeared to . . . knit up before my eyes."
"Appeared to?"
"No, that's an evasion," Sonneford admitted. "It did knit before my