CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The last twenty-four hours had been very productive for David.
He’d finally convinced Rogers and Hammerton that it wasn’t necessary for them to be in his waiting room when he was at work, since work was the literal headquarters of the FBI Academy.
No one was going to kill him here, not even the US Marine Corps.
After assuring him that they could and would track his cell phone, the two beefcakes had agreed to spend the day touring the academy and enjoying the gardens and food court while he cared for his patients.
And he did. He had a full slate of patients, and he tended to all of them thoroughly.
And quickly. Years of experience as an in-demand veterinarian and then as a subcontractor for the FBI had honed his ability to effectively but very quickly see patients.
Usually, he had only five to ten minutes between patients, but with a combination of efficient work and the assistance of the other staff veterinarians, he was getting closer to fifteen minutes between patients today.
And each gap, he would go to his office and continue researching the 93rd Testing Brigade. He was locked out of Marine Corps records, but he could still look for stories about missing working dogs and K9s and official records with confusing or missing parts.
His list had expanded so there were now over fifty dogs possibly involved in the program.
In six of those cases, there were records of owners claiming that the dogs were spirited away.
Either they were kidnapped with no sign of the kidnappers, transferred with no record of where or why, or they were “euthanized” but with no body left behind for the owners to pay final respects to.
What he still didn’t have was any idea what the 93rd did. Why did they want all these dogs? He couldn’t believe that this was really some kind of research into telepathy.
But…
He rubbed his chin, frowning at the stubble under his fingers. He needed to shave. He couldn’t let himself go. People would notice, and not just Faith. With all of these eyes on him, he needed to look like he wasn’t obsessed.
He reached reluctantly for the keyboard and searched for records of telepathic research into dogs. He wasn’t sure where the reluctance came from. Maybe the idea of mind-controlling dogs was just too horrible for him to imagine.
Most of the search results that popped up were clearly entertainment. Cartoon dogs with hats covered in lightbulbs or wearing robes and levitating, young adult novels featuring animal-human pairs, and spoof articles with headlines such as MY DOG CAN READ MY INTERNET HISTORY IN MY MIND!
But a few didn’t look like spoofs. It appeared that a few scientists had actually considered the possibility of a telepathic connection between dog and owner.
Notably, a Dr. Martin Ramsey, once a well-respected psychologist, had argued that dogs were telepathic and could be trained to share a mental link with their owners.
Dr. Ramsey had been found dead in his home next to a bottle of prescription pain pills, evidently a victim of suicide.
The time of death made David wonder, though. Dr. Ramsey had been killed shortly after David examined Sierra. They could be unconnected, and suicide was definitely a possibility since Dr. Ramsey had been excoriated by the medical community after doubling down on his claims.
But David had seen it. He had seen Sierra try to resist telepathic control and fail. It seemed impossible, and his mind screamed at him that it was, it had to be.
But…
He opened the article and began to read Dr. Ramsey’s research. Most of it was clearly crackpot stuff, attempts to interpret anecdotes of extraordinary dog behavior as “raw” telepathic potential.
As he got deeper into the research, though, David came across things that didn’t seem quite as outlandish.
Dr. Ramsey identified as-yet unnamed structures in dog brains responsible for a number of interactions between the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex that veterinary neuroscientists still didn’t understand.
His science actually seemed sound, at least from the medical side.
The existence of the structures he identified—which he called telepathic nodes—could explain those brainwave patterns and those patterns could explain behavior that could be interpreted as telepathic.
As David looked deeper into it, though, he learned there wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy a rigorous empirical examination.
The structures Ramsey identified did exist, but when others tried to replicate his research, they were unable to do so.
It appeared that the opinion of most of Ramsey’s contemporaries was that he was a brilliant man who had fallen down the rabbit holes in his own mind.
A regrettable but all-too-common fate of geniuses.
Still, it was intriguing. Perhaps to someone who thought it might be useful to weaponize telepathy, it would be more than intriguing.
The US government had a history of throwing money at pseudoscience with dubious actual science to back it up.
The most famous of those experiments, MKUltra, saw the CIA force feed a lot of people hallucinogenic drugs in an attempt to “unlock” clairvoyant abilities.
Needless to say, that had been a colossal failure and perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the CIA’s history.
But anecdotes existed that suggested it wasn’t a complete failure.
Conspiracy theorists the nation over insisted that MKUltra had succeeded, and the CIA simply allowed the general public to believe it had failed.
So, he began to look for anecdotes that suggested Martin Ramsey might have been onto something.
And that was when his day stopped being productive. There was nothing. Not a single record of a dog ever exhibiting telepathy or a human being ever successfully communicating a command to a dog telepathically. It seemed that Ramsey was exactly the crackpot he seemed to be.
But…
He had seen it. No matter how much he tried to explain it away, he knew what he had seen. Whitaker had stared at Sierra, and Sierra had looked away. Whitaker had made Sierra look at her, and as soon as their eyes made contact, Sierra flinched, then locked in robotically to Whitaker’s voice.
And she had remained robotic. Worse than robotic. Like an AI trying to act like a dog. To the untrained eye, Sierra might appear normal, but David had made a career out of working with dogs, and he knew that nothing he’d seen in either of his examinations of Sierra was normal.
The question was, what did he do about this?
His phone buzzed. Faith.
His heart leaped as it always did when he heard from Faith, but immediately on the heels of that excitement was wariness.
If she found out that he was still researching this, she would be livid.
He could try to lie, but it was clear now that he was terrible at that.
She’d hear in his tone that he was lying.
He could let the phone go to voicemail, but if he didn’t answer, what would she think? Would she grow worried enough to call Rogers and Hammerton? Would she go further than that?
Finally, he sighed and picked up the phone. He was trying to make too many things work out. He just had to do the best he could and accept whatever came with that.
“Hey, Faith.”
“Hey, baby,” she replied. “How are you?”
He frowned. He expected to be the one hiding something, but the brittleness of Faith’s fake cheer screamed, there’s something I’m not telling you. The fact that she couldn’t hide it was even more concerning.
“A little frustrated, to be honest,” he replied, which was, in fact, honest. “I get why you wanted Rogers and Hammerton to shadow me, but I feel a little bit like an unruly kid.”
“Well, you have been an unruly kid,” Faith reminded him.
“I suppose so,” he replied reluctantly. “But the authorities have the case now, and they’re actually going to do something about it. They are going to do something about it, right?”
“Yes,” Faith said firmly, and that sounded genuine. “Yes, they are definitely getting involved. The important thing is that you’re not getting involved. I love you, sweetie, but this is too big for you.”
David’s hands tightened around the phone. “So, I’ve heard. Many times.”
“Well, it’s the truth, and it’s important that you understand that, so you’re going to keep hearing it many times. But also, I love you, and I want to know how you’re doing.”
“A little frustrated,” he repeated. “I feel like you know more than you’re telling me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, I know I’m being hypocritical. I absolutely get that. But…” He sighed. “Is there any chance that maybe we can work together on this? I hate feeling like we’re dancing around each other unsure what to say.”
“You haven’t stopped looking into this, have you?”
He blinked. How had she made that leap? How had she figured that out?
“Why, um… I…”
She sighed. “Damn it, David.”
She didn’t sound angry, just tired and very worried.
David felt a stab of guilt and rubbed his temples.
“I can’t, okay? I tried. I really did, but I can’t.
I keep thinking what if it was Turk? You know, we’d both want someone to pursue this and not give up.
We’re it. We’re the ones who can pursue this.
You and me. I can’t walk away. It’s just not right. ”
“Okay,” Faith replied.
Once again, David blinked in surprise. “Okay? Really?”
“No. Let me rephrase. I acknowledge that you’re going to ignore my good advice despite the fact that doing so will probably endanger your life.
I will take steps to make sure that you’re incapable of endangering your life.
Some of those steps will make you feel more like an unruly kid being babysat, which you will deal with until I get home.
When I get home, we can talk about possibly working together and involving you in the investigation.
There will be ground rules that you will follow, or I will have you literally locked inside of an FBI safehouse in Nevada under heavy guard, but I know better than anyone what it’s like to fixate on something and be unable to stop even when the people I love the most ask me to.
So, I’m not happy about this, but I’m not going to fight with you about it. ”
David wasn’t sure how to respond. He tried, “Thank you.” Then his brain caught up to what she said. “Wait, you said steps to make me incapable of endangering my life?”
“Michael’s coming down to visit, and he’s agreed to be your best buddy for the time being.”
The corners of David’s mouth pulled down.
That’s why Faith sounded nervous. She had called a babysitter for David, one who was absolutely loyal to Faith and to whom all protests from David would fall on deaf ears.
She knew how he would feel about that, and she was bracing for the fight that they were now about to have.
“He’s going to what? Physically restrain me? ”
Faith sighed. “Does he have to?”
David rolled his eyes. “No, he doesn’t. Faith, I’m fine being patient as long as I know you’re not going to stop me. You don’t have to—”
“Stop there. I liked that sentence. Let’s leave it at that and not make it an argument.
Be patient. I won’t stop you. I’m just making you wait until I get back.
Then the people actually trained to investigate will take over, and you will help in the ways you can help without pulling our energy away from investigating and to making sure you’re not murdered by a sniper. Sound good?”
A throbbing began behind David’s left eye, but he was too flustered and frankly exhausted to fight back right now. Anyway, this could be a good thing. If Faith ended up helping him out, then maybe they actually stood a chance of exposing the 93rd. “All right.”
“Good. I love you very much. So does Turk. Please keep that in mind, and please know that while we appreciate your desire to help other pups, we would like you to be alive and well when we come home.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and David felt another wave of guilt. “All right.”
“All right. Michael should be there tonight. He’s going to drive down after he finishes work today. Be nice to him, okay? He’s doing me a favor, so don’t take your frustration out on him.”
“I’ll be nice. Besides, I’m pretty sure he can kick my ass.”
Faith sighed. “No one’s kicking anyone’s ass. God, David.”
“Okay, okay. It was just a joke. I’ll be good.”
“You better. Or I’ll kick your ass.” David heard a muffled voice behind Faith, and she said, “I have to go. Jessica might have a lead on the case. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She hung up, and David sighed. He checked the time. He was six minutes late to see his next patient. Mary had left him two voicemails and sent four texts that he hadn’t heard because he was on the phone with Faith. He texted her back, then closed his files and left the office.
He’d try to wait. That was the best he could promise.
But like Faith had said, he was obsessed now.
He might finally have found a lead, and while there was little evidence to indicate that Martin Ramsey was right about any of his research, it certainly seemed like the 93rd Testing Brigade thought so.
He was on the cusp of figuring this out. He was sure of it. He just had to dig a little deeper.