Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

Lugovoy's eyes never left the color X-ray monitor. "Release and withdraw the probe."

"Released and withdrawing," a voice echoed.

After the wire was removed it was replaced with a miniature tubelike instrument containing a small plug with three hairs and their roo

ts, removed from one of the Russian staff whose head growth closely resembled the President. The plug was then inserted into the tiny hole neatly cut by the laser beam. When the robot unit was pulled back, Lugovoy approached and studied the results with a large magnifying glass.

"What little scabbing that transpires should flake away in a few days," he remarked. Satisfied, he straightened and viewed the computer-directed screens.

"The implant is operational," announced his female assistant.

Lugovoy massaged his hands in a pleased gesture. "Good, we can begin the second penetration."

"You're going to place another implant?" Suvorov asked.

"No, inject a small amount of RNA into the hippocampus."

"Could you enlighten me in layman terms?"

Lugovoy reached over the shoulder of the man sitting at the computer console and twisted a knob. The image of the President's brain enlarged until it covered the entire screen of the X-ray monitor.

"There," he said, tapping the glass screen. "The sea-horse-shaped bridge running under the horns of the lateral ventricles, a vital section of the brain's limbic system. It's called the hippocampus.

It's here where new memories are received and dispersed. By injecting RNA-ribonucleic acin, which transmits genetic instructions-from one subject, one who's been programmed with certain thoughts, we can accomplish what we term a 'memory transfer."' Suvorov had been furiously storing what he saw and heard in his mind, but he was falling behind. He could not absorb it all. Now he stared down at the President's, eyes uncertain.

"You can actually inject the memory of one man into another's brain?"

"Exactly," Lugovoy said nonchalantly. "What do you think happens in the mental hospitals where the KGB sends enemies of the state. Not all are re-educated to become good party lovers. Many are used for important psychological experiments. For example, the RNA we are about to administer into the President's hippocampus comes from an artist who insisted on creating illustrations depicting our leaders in awkward and uncomplimentary poses.

I can't recall his name."

"Belkaya?"

"Yes, Oskar Belkaya. A sociological misfit. His paintings were either masterpieces of modern art or nightmarish abstractions, depending on your taste. After your fellow state security agents arrested him at his studio, he was secretly taken to a remote sanitarium outside of Kiev. There he was placed in a cocoon, like the ones we have here, for two years. With new memory storage techniques, discovered through biochemistry, his memory was erased and indoctrinated with political concepts we wish the President to implement within his government."

"But can't you accomplish the same thing with the control implant?"

"The implant, with its computerized network, is extremely complex and liable to breakdown. The memory transfer acts as a backup system.

Also, our experiments have shown that the control process operates more efficiently when the subject creates the thought himself, and the implant then commands a positive or negative response."

"Very impressive," Suvorov said earnestly. "And that's the end of it?"

"Not entirely. As an anded safety margin, one of my staff, a highly skilled hypnotist, will put the President in a trance and wipe out any subconscious sensations he might have absorbed while under our care. He'll also be primed with a story of where he's been for ten days in vivin detail."

"As the Americans are fond of saying, you have all the bases covered."

Lugovoy shook his head. "The human brain is a magical universe we will never fully understand. We may think we've finally harnessed its three and a half pounds of grayish-pink jelly, but its capricious nature is as unpredictable as the weather."

"What you're saying is that the President might Dot react the way you want him to."

"It's possible," Lugovoy said seriously. "It's also possible for his brain to break the bonds of reality, despite our control, and make him do something that will have terrible consequences for us all."

SANDECKER STOPPED HIS CAR in the parking lot of a small yacht marina forty miles below Washington. He climbed from under the wheel and stood looking out over the Potomac River. The sky sparkled in a clear blue as the dull green water rolled eastward toward Chesapeake Bay. He walked down a sagging stairway to a floating dock. Tied up at the end was a tired old clamming boat, its rusting tongs hanging from a deck boom like the claws of some freakish animal.

The hull was worn from years of hard use and most of the paint was gone. Her diesel engine chugged out little puffs of exhaust that leaped from the tip of the stack and dissolved into a soft breeze. Her name, barely discernible over the stern transom, read Hoki Jamoki.

Sandecker glanced at his watch. It showed twenty minutes to noon.