Gabriel pulled out the red leather chair behind his wood desk. Then he paused, frowned, and looked around. It took a moment before I realized he was looking for a second chair.
"Lydia must have taken it out," I said.
He shook his head. "I don't see clients in here. I'll pull one in from the meeting room."
As he left, I looked around. He didn't meet clients here? It was certainly impressive enough, and I'd presumed that was the point.
When he rolled in a chair, I said, "You said we're researching Lydia's former employer. She worked for the CIA?"
"For twenty years. Secretary to the Chicago field office special agent in charge."
In thinking Gabriel would hire a pretty young thing, I'd committed an unacceptable misjudgment of character. Would he really waste a decent salary on eye candy? Not when he could hire someone with ten times the experience for the same rate.
"You sent her home," I said. "I'm guessing that means we're about to use access she's given you, and you don't want her to be culpable, should it ever be discovered."
He popped open his laptop. "Not quite. Lydia no longer has access, and even if she did, I doubt she'd betray her previous employer by providing it. She has, however, shown me a few alternate routes to obtain information."
"Back doors?"
He nodded. "Anything Evans did before Peter's death would be at least twenty-two years old. That means it's unlikely to be classified. However, given that my simple background checks did not reveal precisely what he'd worked on, I'm presuming it's something that the CIA would prefer not to post in easily accessible locations."
"Unclassified, but only if you know where to find it."
"Correct."
Gabriel typed and navigated too fast for me to ever replicate his path, but he let me sit there, watching, which surprised me. Hell, after our spat over Desiree, I was surprised he hadn't called it a day and done this on his own. Likewise, he could have insisted I take that lunch break while he visited the Saints' clubhouse.
I could take this as a sign that our partnership had progressed to the point of actual trust. What's that old joke? "A friend helps you move; a real friend helps you move a body." We weren't friends; I knew that. But helping someone hide a body does take a relationship to a whole new level. Maybe it was trust. Or as close as we could get.
Chapter Fifty-five
Dr. Will Evans had indeed worked for the CIA. It wasn't a secret. It wasn't on his resume, either. Gabriel said that wasn't unusual. While his position didn't seem to have been classified, the CIA didn't exactly publish its employee lists.
At first, Gabriel wasn't able to get much more than confirmation that his name appeared on old records. Evans had been young, just out of grad school, and he'd worked on various projects as a psychologist.
"What did the CIA use psychologists for in the sixties?" I asked. "Things like post-traumatic stress? Or was the party line still 'suck it up and deal'?"
Gabriel didn't answer, just typed in a few search terms. When the results came in, he frowned. He clicked on one. Skimmed it. Frowned deeper.
The angle of his laptop was off just enough that I could see the screen, but couldn't read much.
"Got something?" I said.
"Mind control."
"What?"
He turned the laptop my way. "They did use psychologists and psychiatrists for therapy, but during the Cold War, they employed more of them for experimentation. Drugs, behavior modification, and mind control."
I read the article. "The Manchurian Candidate? Seriously?"
His frown grew.
"Not a movie buff?" I typed search terms into another browser window. "Huh, it was a book, too. From the fifties. The movie and the book were about a Korean War vet who was brainwashed into becoming the perfect assassin. He'd be 'activated' by seeing the queen of diamonds card. He'd kill someone and forget all about it. Complete fiction. I mean, obviously, right? But not according to that."
I pointed at the other browser window, then scrolled through the Wikipedia entry for The Manchurian Candidate. At the bottom, I found a link for Project MKULTRA. I clicked it. I read it.
Another window. Another search, this time pulling up academic references and the proceedings of a joint Senate Select Intelligence and Human Resources committees hearing from the seventies, exposing and detailing MKULTRA.
"Holy shit," I muttered. "Could Evans have been involved...?"
Gabriel took the laptop back and typed. Typed some more. Read and frowned. Typed. Read. Turned the laptop toward me.
There is was, on one of the pages he'd accessed through his back door. Just one reference linking Evans and MKULTRA, but it was enough. We backed up from there and spent the next hour researching the project.
MKULTRA was a code name. It didn't mean anything--it was just an umbrella term for a wide array of CIA mind control projects starting in the fifties.
We got a few bonus history lessons from our research, the kind of thing they don't cover in class. When the U.S. stepped onto the world stage during WWII, the intelligence community realized its intelligence programs were pathetic compared to those of the British. They set about trying to rectify that.
Most of those early projects were more amusing than frightening. That changed after the war, when the CIA realized the potential of psychology to produce the ideal soldier and assassin, and to provide foolproof methods of extracting information from enemy spies. Thus began a decade of experimentation with drugs--particularly LSD--and extreme psychiatric measures like electroshock therapy, sleep therapy, and sensory deprivation.
We could complain about government interference today, but compared to what I read, we'd come a long way. Shrinks subjecting psych patients to treatments that erased their memories permanently. Agents slipping drugs into drinks at bars, inviting people back to parties and spraying LSD in the air. Nothing said it better than a quote I found from George White, an OSS officer heavily involved in the experiments: "I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?"
That was the crazy, fucked-up piece of American history that was MKULTRA. What did it have to do with William Evans? With the murder of his son? There were no obvious answers here. We had to go deeper.
The only lead we found was the name of Evans's supervisor, Edgar Chandler. He wasn't just Evans's boss at the CIA--he'd been his thesis adviser in school, too. So it seemed that Chandler had worked for the CIA then and brought his prize student along.
While Gabriel made coffee, I continued searching and learned that Evans had been in private practice since Peter was born. Did that mean he'd quit the CIA? Or only pretended to?
The deeper we went, the harder the slog. Finally, we hit a story that hammered home exactly how classified MKULTRA had been in its day.
In 1974, as word of MKULTRA was just beginning to leak, a hungry young Chicago journalist caught a whiff of it and saw a career-making break. As she researched the story, doors were slammed in her face. Colleagues advised her to drop it. CIA representatives strongly advised her to drop it. All this only seemed to strengthen her conviction that this story needed to be told. The government was trying to stop her. She would not be stopped.
Except she was. While walking to her car one night, a man approached her in the parking lot. He didn't say a word, but she later provided a perfect description of him to the police. Not surprising, given that his face was the last thing Anita Mosley ever saw.
Her attacker had thrown acid in her eyes, blinding and scarring her for life.
When speculation arose that the man was connected to the CIA, all the local news outlets received a letter from the attacker, claiming he was simply a patriotic American teaching a lesson to a Commie woman reporter. The police never found him to test that claim.
After that, Anita Mosley disappeared from reporting for a while. She might have b
een scared off, but from everything I read about her, I doubted that was the case. Maybe a significant other urged her to take some time off. Maybe her employer forced her onto disability leave. All I could tell was that she went quiet until the Senate hearing on MKULTRA, and then she reemerged as an authority. That's where I found the connection to Evans's boss, Chandler. She'd mentioned him in an article. Nothing damning, just one name on a list. But it was a start.
"She still lives in Chicago," I said. "Freelance these days, but there's nothing here to suggest she'd like to put MKULTRA behind her. She spoke about it last year at Northwestern."
"She's still angry," Gabriel said. "Certainly understandable, given the circumstances, though it does seem a little..."
"Pathetic?" I regretted the word as soon as I said it. Unfair to use against a woman who'd fought so hard and suffered so much. And yet I couldn't help seeing an element of pathos. She'd fought the CIA and lost. By the time she rebounded, the "secret" was common knowledge and she couldn't hurt those who'd wronged her. Yet she wouldn't drop the matter, either, doggedly struggling to keep alive a scandal no one seemed to care about.
Still, it didn't bother me enough to suggest we leave the poor woman alone. She'd chosen to make this her life's work. We'd be foolish not to take advantage.
"She'll see us," Gabriel said when he hung up.
"Really?"
"Are you surprised?" he said. "I doubt anyone other than academics has asked for her expertise in a very long time. She's quite eager to impart it. At a price, of course."
"How much?"
"Five hundred for an hour of her time now, plus an hour of follow-up, if required. Given the usual rate for an expert, it's a bargain."
"It'd be more of a bargain if it was free."
"True. But think of it as a charitable donation to the victim of a tragedy. That should make you feel better."
"Only if I can get a tax write-off."
He shook his head and we left.
Chapter Fifty-six
We met Anita Mosley at a coffee shop. It was a neighborhood of office buildings, meaning the shop was closed on a Saturday. She was at a stone table outside, sitting with military stiffness, hands folded on the table, staring straight ahead as cars zipped past. She was in her early sixties, a trim figure in a stylish pant-suit and perfectly coiffed brown hair, artfully streaked with gray.
"Ms. Mosley?" I asked as we approached.
The shades swung my way.
"Do you want to stay here?" I said. "Or find a shop that's open?"
"The fact that this one is closed is why I chose it. It is public yet not public." Her tone was crisp. "May I ask whom I'm speaking to?"
"Olivia Taylor-Jones."
"Ah. The girl." She turned to Gabriel, as if sensing him there. "And you would be the infamous Gabriel Walsh, I presume."
"I am," he said as we sat.
"Excellent. Now, I have received confirmation that the payment has been wired to my account. Thank you for that, Mr. Walsh. I know it is an inconvenient way to do business, but until the American government sees fit to print bills I can read, I'm stuck with that. Unless I emulate Ray Charles and ask to be paid in singles." A brief, humorless smile. "Which would hardly be more convenient for either of us. Now, I believe it is Ms. Taylor-Jones who wishes the information? You do still go by that name, I presume."
I tensed a little. A reaction I doubted even a sighted person would notice, but she seemed to pick it up.
"I know who you are," she said. "Let me assure you, serial killers hold no fascination for me, and their actions have no bearing on you. I have met monsters, and they all had quite normal parents. I will admit that I find it curious that your investigation would bring you to MKULTRA, but you are being thorough, and I cannot fault that. So Ms. Taylor-Jones, is it?"
"Olivia," I said.
"Thank you. Now let us begin. I can confirm that Dr. William Evans worked for the CIA from 1960 to 1969. He began as a PhD candidate under his adviser, Edgar Chandler, who was also employed by the CIA. Chandler was in charge of several MKULTRA subprojects. His name can be found in the documents turned over to the Senate subcommittee."
"So Dr. Evans was involved in the project?"
"MKULTRA as a whole was huge. Evans's role in it was relatively minor. He started as a graduate student and was still a junior man when he quit shortly before his son was born. Or that's the official line. The matter of secrecy surrounding Evans is twofold. Let's start with part one, the main experiment he was involved in. Have you heard of Operation Midnight Climax?"
"I saw it mentioned in one of the articles, but only in passing."
"The name is proof that the CIA can have a sense of humor. Operation Midnight Climax was a subproject of MKULTRA based in San Francisco, under the auspices of George White. They realized the best subjects are those unlikely to talk about their experience ... such as johns who get dosed at a whorehouse."
"Ah."
"At the time, the CIA knew little about the world of hookers. Or about kink. They quickly learned how to exploit human proclivities to their advantage. They eventually opened other whorehouses in Marin County and New York. Yet there's one that can't be found in any of the surrendered documents. Right here, in Chicago. That's where Evans worked. So why hide that one? Because it operated completely off the radar, even within the ranks. In the others, as bad as they were, limits were drawn."
"And the ethics were a little looser at the Chicago house."
"That's the rumor. I can't confirm it. Any evidence has long been shredded and anyone who worked there has kept his mouth shut. I tried to get Evans to talk once. It seemed as if he may have had moral qualms. He politely but firmly shut the door in my face. So my sources have been former subjects--the ones who don't fear for their lives because they're too crazy to know they should."
"Crazy as in reckless or as in...?"
"Certifiably insane. Presumably as a result of what happened in that Chicago whorehouse. That's the beauty of fucking with the human mind. If you break it, that's fine, because the damage covers your tracks. Who's going to believe the paranoid schizophrenic who claims the CIA made him crazy and now they're out to get him?"
"So that's what Evans was involved with before he left the agency."
"If he left. That would be the second part. While the record clearly shows that William Evans quit his job with the CIA in 1969, there are suggestions that he did not leave entirely. By the late sixties, most of the MKULTRA experiments had officially been abandoned. The civil rights era meant people were taking a closer look at government powers. Information about the experiments was leaking. It was still years before Gerald Ford appointed a commission to investigate, but things were already coming to an end. Or, as some believe, the CIA was simply pulling the curtain tighter."
"Ostensibly abandoning the projects, to continue them in secret with men like Evans who had apparently left the service."
She nodded. "But that's all speculation. I've pursued it to some degree but this"--she pointed at her glasses--"makes serious investigative journalism very difficult, as I'm sure my attacker knew. So while I can provide you with contacts, this marks the end of where I can take you."
Gabriel wanted to start by interviewing Evans's former boss. "A poor choice," Anita said. "Edgar Chandler will never speak to you." But Gabriel insisted and Anita gave him the information she had on Chandler.
As we were leaving, Anita called me back.
"You're doing this in hopes of proving your parents are innocent," she said. "They aren't. I had friends who covered the case. None of them doubted the Larsens' guilt."
"So you think it's a coincidence that Peter found out about his father shortly before his death."
"I didn't say that. But the likelihood of a connection between MKULTRA and all eight deaths is minimal to nonexistent. You seem like a bright girl. Don't spend your life chasing answers that aren't there."
One could say the same about her. When I looked at her face, lined w
ith bitterness, I realized she knew exactly what she was saying.
"I'll remember that."
"Do. And if you have questions about your parents later, you know where to find me. I may not be much of an investigative reporter these days, but my contact list is extensive."
"Thank you."
A Drop of Rain
Anita sat at the coffee shop table after the lawyer and the girl were gone. She didn't like to hurry off--that seemed as if she was nervous out here, alone. The poor old blind lady. She'd never been that before, and she sure as hell wasn't about to start now, no matter how hard her heart was pounding after that conversation.
They hadn't seemed to notice. That was a blessing. She was getting better at hiding it. Yet even after forty years, it took only the mention of MKULTRA to start her heart racing. Most times these days, though, she was the one mentioning it. Masochism, Blake used to say. Facing her demons, she'd say.
She wished she could tell Blake about the girl and the lawyer. He'd know Walsh. Probably wouldn't have had anything good to say about him, judging by the tidbits Anita picked up in a few quick calls made after Walsh contacted her. Blake had been a civil rights lawyer--he had little patience for young sharks like Walsh. But Blake was gone now, dead four years, and no one had replaced him. No one would.
A footstep crunched on broken concrete, so close that Anita's head shot up. She listened, but no other noises came. Then, when she strained hard enough, the faintest sound of breathing.
"Yes?" she said, snapping with as much impatience--and as little anxiety--as she could manage.
The breathing continued, so close her heart slammed against her chest.
"If someone is there, I fear you'll find this old lady a particularly poor target," she said briskly. "I carry twenty dollars in cash, no credit cards, and no jewelry worth the hassle of hocking it."
She didn't expect that to scare away a would-be mugger, but the street was not completely empty--she'd heard a few people pass since the lawyer and the girl had left. She'd spent enough years with Blake to develop at least a little faith in the human race. They might not be quick to intervene in all cases, but there were some advantages to being a blind old lady.