Death's Wisher by Jim Wannamaker (uplifting book club books .TXT) 📗

the same. Think of it as a special circuit in his mind. Destroy Dobbs, the circuit shorts, and this preset signal to the oxygen atoms is sent, their nuclei fuse, and that's the end of everything."

He scanned the faces of the men around the conference table. "Or think of it as a hypnotic suggestion. Under hypnosis, an individual is given a certain order that he is to carry out whenever a certain set of circumstances or stimuli occurs. No matter when this happens, no matter what he is doing or thinking when the moment arrives, the subject reacts according to the order buried in his subconscious."

"But for every move there is a countermove," the admiral argued. "This is a situation. A fantastic one, but a situation. There has to be an answer."

"I think there is," Flinn said carefully, "but it could be very risky."

It was up to the committee now. The decision rested squarely in the lap of the United States Government. Flinn had stated his ideas, presented his plan, and tried to give the odds—although in his heart he knew that was impossible—so it was now out of his hands.

Or was it?

The parapsychologist lay on the bed in his hotel room, trying to relax, trying to store up energy for the ordeal that might be imminent. Hayes and Wilmer were in the room, too, awaiting word from the heavily guarded conference chamber in the Pentagon.

The thin physicist paced up and down, his tanned face a study in strain. Wilmer had been with this as long as anyone, except Dobbs, and Flinn found himself wondering what deep inner resources the man had tapped to retain his sanity.

The big federal agent slouched in a chair, looking at nothing. He had lapsed again into the welcome protection of training and discipline.

Several times during the past thirty hours, since presenting his plan, Flinn had had to restrain himself from probing the minds of his two associates. At a time like this, no one had the right to invade another's privacy. And curiosity had to give way for another reason—just one look into either of their minds might be enough to weaken or shatter his own resolve.

The classic dilemma. Do nothing and face a living hell. Act and court destruction. The very simplicity of the alternatives made the problem intolerable.

Telehypnosis—the untried hypothesis.

Good Lord! Flinn told himself. I'm not even proficient as a telepath yet!

Outside, he could hear the murmur of the city—the traffic, the people, moving along their separate paths to their own destinations in the humid afternoon heat.

Well, anyway, once the complete curtain of security had fallen, there had been no more leaks. Proving that if a secret was big enough, it could be kept.

Another classic problem. Do the people have the right to be informed? Does forewarned really mean forearmed? And how about the other nations of the world?

An hour after the dinner dishes had been cleared away by the government agent dubbing as a room-service waiter, the telephone rang with an awful insistency.

Wilmer was the closest, but Hayes beat him to it by a full stride.

After identifying himself, Hayes listened in silence. Then he said, "All right," and replaced the receiver.

He nodded at Wilmer and Flinn.

"It's go ahead." He paused and his face seemed to change—to relent somehow. "And they wanted me to relay this message: The President says, 'May God be with you.'"

Flinn felt very alone and very close to something terrible.

In the gloom of the darkened bedroom that adjoined Dobbs', he could see Wilmer silhouetted against the meager light that came through the curtained window from the street lamp outside and Hayes was out in the hall. But the knowledge of the proximity of the two men did nothing to lessen Flinn's loneliness. The committee had even couched it as an order, trying to relieve him of that small burden, but if he failed, who would remain to accept the blame?

A few times in his forty-two years had Flinn wondered how it would feel to have the fate of the world riding upon his shoulders. Now he knew and wished he didn't.

The door opened silently and Hayes eased in.

"He's asleep," the agent breathed in a barely audible voice. "You can start anytime now."

The plan was simple, deceptively so.

Since Dobbs' block was a kind of self-hypnotic thing, why not countermand it with a deeper hypnotic suggestion introduced by telepathy? If it could be done and was strong enough, the second would counteract the first. At least for a short time.

There were terrifying flaws—the first one obvious, the second not so easily seen.

Suppose Dobbs' block had inherent within it an anti-disturbance feature that might react to any interference, including hypnotism in any form? Then the result would be an immediate "short-circuit" and—disaster.

Trembling with the responsibility that was upon him, Flinn forced himself into a deep concentration, an almost cataleptic trance. All details of the room faded from his consciousness. There was the familiar gray, swirling mist, and, for what seemed an intolerably long time, he fought to make contact with the sleeping man's mind. He almost sobbed aloud from the effort.

Then at last he found it, entered, and gradually pushed down through the subconscious.

He was seeking now, probing for the deep-seated level of the block that he had discovered the second time he had investigated Dobbs' mind.

It was very difficult with the sleeping man and, before he found it, more than once he felt himself standing on the precipice of the unknown, close to slipping away into a fright-filled nothingness.