In Dark Places

Chapter Eight

She watched Brand's eyes tick nervously as his gaze shifted around the office. Possibly he'd been expecting a mad scientist's laboratory or a chamber of horrors, but all he saw was a large room furnished with the plush sofa he was sitting on, and an assortment of thickly cushioned chairs. A desk and a file cabinet occupied one corner of the room. Framed diplomas and other credentials hung on the walls. Sunlight trickled through curtains rustling in the breeze of the central air-conditioning. The floor was carpeted. A potted fern stood near the doorway to the kitchenette.

All very normal. She hoped Brand took some reassurance from that fact.

He didn't seem tomaybe because of one other chair in the room. It had metal arms and a straight back. Wires ran from it to a bank of computer consoles and heart and brain monitors. Nestled among this gear was the MBI appliance, a metallic cap sprouting wires.

Brand's gaze kept coming back to the appliance. His hands twitched in his lap.

She had produced waivers for him to sign. So far he had merely stared at them, his face grim.

"Before we get started," Robin said, "I want to explain a little about the theory behind my work." She tapped an illustration on the wall. "As they say in those public service spots, this is your brain."

Sometimes she got a smile out of a patient with that line, but not this time.

"See this almond-shaped structure just above the brain stem? It's called the amygdala. A primitive part of the brain, responsible for tying together the data that come in from your sense organs. Sight, sound, smellthey all meet here. The amygdala not only puts all this incoming information together, it also instantly applies a kind of nonverbal value judgment. Dangerous or safethose are the two main judgments it hands down. And it does all this before your conscious mind, operating in the neocortex, has even received the data. Do you see the implications?"

"The only implication I see is that I'm stuck in this office when I've got a hundred better things to do."

"The implication," she persevered, "is that you can perceive something as dangerous or upsetting before your conscious mind has analyzed it. Phobias work this way. A person who's phobic about dogs may react in terror to a little Pekingese. Rationally he knows a lapdog isn't dangerous, but the amygdala has already registered a threat. The same is true of any persistent, irrational fear. Telling yourself to be logical or trying to exercise willpower doesn't work. The fear exists on a lower level than logic or will."

Brand showed a glimmer of interest. "So how do you fight it?"

"You have to reprogram the brain so it stops responding in a counterproductive manner. Basically, the core experience that frightened you is frozen, incompletely processed, so it keeps coming back. Any stimulus that reminds you of the core event will trigger the same automatic fear response. But suppose you could reexperience the event, this time without amygdaloid arousalrelive the trauma, but process it correctly so the memory is properly evaluated and stored. Then you would stop overreacting to subsequent stimuli. You could view your earlier trauma with objectivity and perspective. And you wouldn't be a prisoner of your memories anymore."

"And you can do this?"

"I've been successful in other cases."

"How? By strapping that thing"he pointed to the appliance"on my head so my brain gets zapped with electricity?"

"There's no zapping involved."

"That's not what I heard."

"Heard from whom?"

"Well amp; there are, you know, rumors around the department about what you do."

"Rumors aren't always your best source of information. Still, you're partly right." She walked over to the appliance and picked it up. "I will be asking you to wear this."

"The helmet?"

"I call it the appliance. But it doesn't send out an electric charge. It uses magnets." She turned the device over. "As you can see, the inside of the appliance is lined with about fifty figure-eight electromagnetic coils. Each coil produces a fluctuating magnetic field that can pulse at speeds ranging from one cycle per second to sixty cycles per second. Low frequencies work best, so in our session the fields will be running at one hertz, one cycle per second. These magnetic fields produce local electrical currents in the brain tissue. PTSD is characterized by increased blood flow in the right frontal and paralimbic structures, so that's where the fields will be activated. With me so far?"

"I guess so. Not all of the coils will be on?"

"Only the ones targeting the relevant brain structures. There will be about fifteen superposed fields generated by the coil array."

"Sounds like a lot of juice. I'm not too keen on getting brain cancer."

"The overall field strength will be lower than that of an MRI scanner. There's no danger. You may feel a slight contraction of your facial muscles, sort of like your forehead is being pulled taut. While the procedure is going on, you may experience blind spots in your vision, owing to inhibition of the occipital area."

"Great. You're making me blind."

"Afterward, you may experience a mild headache. And that's it."

"Come on, Doctor. Nothing's that safe. Even aspirin bottles have all kinds of warnings on them."

"The process is safe, Alan. The only possible complication is the risk of seizure."

"Seizure?"

She held up her hand. "A risk that will be minimized by maintaining a maximum field intensity of only eighty percent motor threshold."

"Say again?"

"If the magnetic field were at one hundred percent of motor threshold, there's a chance that your motor cortex would induce involuntary muscle movements. As long as the field is below that threshold, you'll be fine. I've used this therapeutic technique repeatedly over the past year without any complications."

She didn't add that she kept anticonvulsants on hand for emergencies. Some patients took comfort in that thought. She was sure Brand wouldn't be one of them.

"This technique of yours," Brand said. "Has it got a name?"

"I call it MBI, short for Magnetic Bilateral Inhibition. The magnetic part you already understand. Bilateral means that the fields will fluctuate from one side of the brain to the other. This enhances communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It gets the two sides in sync. So that's what bilateral means. Which leaves inhibition."

"I thought inhibitions were supposed to be bad."

"It's a technical term. The magnetic fields are of such low frequency that, instead of stimulating neural activity, they'll selectively block it by disrupting neuronal firing."

"You're shutting off my brain?"

"The MBI appliance will temporarily inhibit some of your higher brain activities."

"Jesus amp;"

"It's no different from undergoing hypnosis. The higher brain structures responsible for critical thinking and self-censorship will be sidelined for the time being."

He seemed considerably more uneasy. "I don't think I want to be hypnotized."

"That's only an analogy." Men like Brand were always leery of any loss of control.

"Gotta be honest with you, Doctor. This isn't sounding like something I'm gonna do."

"You think heading back to the dogfights is the answer?"

"It's better than having some kind of magnetic lobotomy. Save that for the cons. Use them as lab rats, not me."

"You're here because the results I've obtained with convicts are good enough to offer hope for other people suffering the aftereffects of trauma."

"I'm not suffering any goddamned aftereffects."

"That's not what Dr. Alvin says. He tells me you've been experiencing chronic stress, nightmares, irritability, hyper-vigilance, and flashbacks."

"Look, I'm a cop. Every cop has nightmares. Irritable? Shit, you try working these streets, dealing with the hookers and the homeboys, and see if you don't get irritable."

"And the flashbacks?"

"They're getting better."

"The chronic stress? The back pain, neck pain?"

"Gives me an excuse for a massage. Believe me, Doctor, everybody should have my problems. I can show myself out."

He made a move to stand up. Her voice stopped him.

"Alan, I don't want to be confrontational. But the fact is, you have been directed by your superiors to come here because they are concerned about your psychological welfare. And so am I. You're clearly in denial about your problems. You skipped our appointment, and you've been skipping work. Your career is in jeopardy. You need help, whether or not you want it. And you're going to get my helpwhether or not you want it."

Brand stared at her for the space of several heartbeats, and she stared back, refusing to turn away from his gaze. Then with a resigned wave of his hand, he settled back on the couch.

"So you use magnets to bilaterally, uh, inhibit my brain. That about the size of it?"

"Close enough. Once you're in a relaxed state, you'll be asked to process the target incident."

"You talk like a goddamned bureaucrat, you know that?"

"Sorry. You're right; it's jargon. I just mean you'll relive the experience."

"The shooting?"

She nodded. "You'll go through it step by step and narrate it to me."

"Under hypnosis amp;"

"In a related state. I know it can be difficult reexperiencing the trauma. But by doing it, you'll gain a new perspective on the event. Its emotional colorations will be minimized. You'll be able to reevaluate what happened from a noncritical standpoint. And I believe the flashbacks, the stress, and the other problems will be dramatically reduced."

He was silent, fidgeting.

"Alan?"

"You're not giving me any choice, are you? I mean, you want me to be informed so I can sign these papers, but I have to sign. If I don't, I'm going against the department."

"I'm sorry if you feel pressured"

"Cornered is more like it. And you don't give a shit, as long as you can do your precious research."

Even the prisoners she'd worked witheven Justin Grayhad not been so openly hostile. "I honestly do want to help you, Alan."

"Great. Let's get started then." He scrawled his signature on the waiver documents. "Come on, rewire my brain and make me healthy."

Normally she would use the initial session to take a detailed history, run some baseline medical and psychological tests, and determine if there were any physical problems that might complicate the procedure. But Dr. Alvin had already acquired that information, which she had reviewed, and she didn't want to postpone the use of MBI until the second session. She was well aware that if Brand remained uncooperative, there might not be a second session. Her best chance of winning him over was to show him how painless the technique really was.

At her request, he moved to the straight-back chairthe MBI chair, as she called it. Two plastic straps with metal buckles dangled from the armrests. "You going to strap me in?" he asked warily.

"Those are for some of my patients from County. Since I don't like having the deputies in the room when I work, the patient has to be restrained."

She began attaching small adhesive electrodes to his exposed skin. The electrodes would allow her to monitor his brain function, heart rate, and muscular tension on parallel readouts on the computer screen.

"You work with some badass characters, I hear."

She smiled. "They're not as badass as they used to be."

"Yeah? Even Justin Gray?"

"I didn't think his participation in the program was public knowledge."

"Publicmaybe not. But word gets out in the department. If you can turn that crazy son of a bitch around, you're a miracle worker."

"I do what I can," she said. She began taking the EEG, ECG, and EMG readings, then lowered the MBI appliance onto Brand's head while he sat stiffly, his shoulders hunched, fists gripping the armrests, like a prisoner in an electric chair.

She spent a moment reprogramming the appliance. Before each session she liked to make subtle adjustments in the hope of optimizing the field exposure protocol. When she was ready, she pulled down a window shade, shut the door to the waiting room, and turned off the overhead light.

"What's with the darkness?" Brand asked. "You planning to run a seance while I'm under?"

"The treatment is directed primarily at the back of the brain, where the occipital region is located. That's the part of your brain that processes visual information. Bright light can interfere with the neuronal inhibition."

"Interfere how?"

"You'll be entering a relaxed state characterized by an alpha brain-wave rhythm. Perception of light could trigger a startle response that would shift your rhythm to beta."

"In other words, I'd wake up."

"You won't be asleep. You'll just be relaxed."

"Hypnotized," he said uneasily.

"Relaxed. The way you'd feel if you were meditating."

"Yeah, that's something I do a lot." He punctuated the comment with a snort. "How much will I remember once I come to?"

"That varies. There's nothing in the MBI procedure per se that would induce amnesia. However, because we're dealing with painful memories, you may find yourself reluctant to bring them to conscious awareness. The mind has many strategies of dissociationof suppressing material it finds disturbing or threatening. I've had patients who recall all the details of a session the very first time, and others who didn't remember much until we had worked together for weeks."

"So I could tell you stuff and not even remember that I said it?"

"Initially, that's possible. Our goal is for you to come to grips with the memories consciously, but that may take time."

He pushed down on the armrests, as if about to rise from the chair. "Look, I've already come to grips with the damn memories, okay?"

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "If that were true, you wouldn't be skipping work to watch two animals tear each other apart."

He sank back down. "Okay, okay."

"Now there's one more piece of equipment you need to wear. The coils," Robin said, "produce a loud clicking noise, loud enough to cause hearing damage. As a precaution, both of us will use noise-canceling headphones and we'll speak into these headset microphones, which broadcast on a walkie-talkie frequency. The equipment is shielded to prevent any magnetic interference. I'll hear you on my headphones; you'll hear me on yours."

"This goddamn high-tech stuff," Brand grumbled.

"It's for our own safety. The coils can be as loud as one hundred twenty decibels."

She attached his transceiver headset and her own, then pulled the swivel chair away from the desk and parked it alongside Brand, within reach of the MBI gear. She sat down.

"All right, Alan," she said softly into her stalk microphone, using the calming voice that came naturally to her at the start of a procedure. "I'm turning on the appliance. You'll feel a slight tingle in your scalp."

"Fire away," Brand said, trying for bravado. His voice came through her headset clearly.

She flicked a switch, and the fifteen preselected coils started ticking.

"Everything okay?" she asked over the muffled background noise.

"I guess."

"Just relax now. You'll be entering a quiet, peaceful state of mind. Imagine yourself in the woods, resting on the grass with your back against a tree. It's shady and cool. Birds are singing. You feel peaceful and utterly at ease. Sleepy amp; Are you sleepy, Alan?"

"Sleepy." His voice was a monotone, hollow and distant.

Both the EEG and the rhythm of his breathing confirmed that he had entered the alpha state, the twilight realm between sleep and waking. The MBI's suppression of his higher cortical functions had acted like a powerful hypnotic suggestion, dissipating his nervous tension. His eyes were closing. The muscles of the eyelids were unaffected by the appliance's motor inhibition.

"All right now, Alan. I'm going to guide you out of the woods and into a memory from your past. We're going back to the night when Eddie Valdez was shot."

Brand shook his head slowly. "No."

"It'll be okay, Alan."

"No." Stronger.

She hesitated. Such resistance even in the trance state was unusual. She tried a different approach.

"Here's what we'll do. We'll go back to that night, the night Eddie Valdez died, but you won't have to go through it the way you did before. Instead, you can stand outside the scene and watch as it happens. Just stand and watch from a distance, like watching a movie. Is that okay?"

Brand was silent.

"Alan. Is it okay if you just watch?"

"I can watch amp;"

"Then that's what we'll do. Remember, it's only a memory, and you're just watching it. You can get away from it at any time just by asking me to make it go away. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Nothing can hurt you. You're perfectly safe. AH right?"

"Yes."

"I want you to go to the memory of that night. I want you to remember the parking garage. Can you see it?"

"I see it."

"Tell me what you see."

"It's dark. Cars everywhere. Parked cars."

"Is anyone there?"

"There's two. Two in the shadows."

"One of them is Eddie Valdez?"

"It's Eddie, yeah."

"And the other is"you, she almost said"the police officer. Right?"

Brand made a soft noise like a groan.

"Alan, it's not you. It's someone you're watching. A police officer. That's all."

"Cop," he murmured.

"Do you see him with Valdez?"

"I see him."

She released a breath of relief. They were past that hurdle. "Tell me what's happening."

"They're talking."

Talking? She hadn't expected that. "Tell me what they say."

"The cop amp; okay, the cop, he's saying Eddie seems nervous. Says Eddie wouldn't be planning to fuck with him, would he?"

"And what does Eddie say?"

"He says no way. He says, 'You and me, we're tight, bro.'" Brand had slipped into an approximation of the dead man's voice.

"And the policeman?"

"He says that's good. Because if Eddie ever does get a hard-on to try fucking with him, it won't end well. And Eddie, he's scared, he says he knows that. He's not fuckin' with nobody. He's playing it straight. He's got amp; he's got amp;"

"Yes?" Robin prompted. "What has Eddie got?"

"He's got the moneythis month's cash."

A chill rode Robin's shoulders, and suddenly Brand's reluctance to participate in the procedure took on a new coloration. "The money?" she said.

"What he owes. He pays on the first Saturday of every month. Right here in the parking garage."

"Pays for what?"

"It's a patch."

She didn't understand, but she preferred not to interrupt the narrative flow. "Go on. What happens next?"

"Eddie brings out the money. Thick wad, wrapped in wax paper, all taped up. Looks like a fat deli sandwich. Makes me hungry when I see it. I didn't have lunch that day"

"Not you. You're the observer, Alan. You're only watching. Tell me about the two men, Eddie and the cop."

"The cop takes the money, puts it in his coat. It doesn't print too bad against the material. Nobody will notice it there."

Robin let a moment pass. Suddenly she wished she had tape-recorded this session. What Brand was confessingif it was a confession amp;

"And then?" she prompted.

"The cop starts to walk away. But he stops, turns back, still wants to know why Eddie's nervous. Something's not right. He thinks Eddie's playing him."

"Yes?"

"So he takes out the package, opens it. There's not enough. There's fifty-dollar bills on the outside of the wad, but inside it's all singles. And Eddie, he's shitting his pants now, and he says he can explain. He's just a little short, he says. But that's gotta be bullshit. The Gs have been banging and dealing all over the hood. Their fucking revenues are going up every month. No way the Gs are short on cash."

She wasn't clear if he was recounting his thoughts or his conversation. "Is that what the cop says?" she asked, but Brand, caught up in the narrative, no longer heard.

"Eddie says it's not the Gs who are short. It's him. Him personally. He fucked up, he says. They gave him the full payment, like always. He lost it." Brand slipped into Eddie's voice again. " 'Motherfucking dogfights, man.'"

Then Brand's own voice, hard and clipped. " 'You gambled the money on some fucking dog?'

" 'It was stupid, okay? They told me I couldn't lose.'

" 'They were wrong, paquito. You lost big-time.'"

He fell silent.

"What happens, Alan?" she asked. "Alan?"

"Bang."

Brand spoke the word with sudden vehemence, loud in Robin's headset. She jumped a little.

"One round in the face. Asshole crumbles. He's twitching, jittering.

"You backed the wrong dog, Eddie," Brand said.

Robin wasn't sure if he was repeating what he'd said then or commenting on what he saw now. She licked her lips, fighting the dryness in her mouth.

"What are youI mean, what's the cop going to do now?" she asked. "How can he get away with it?"

A cynical smile formed on Brand's lips. "Oh, he'll get away with it. All he's gotta do is plant a throwdown on Eddie, an old three-eighty wheel gun he's got. Then call in an officer-involved shooting, finesse the shooting review. No sweat."

He was wrong about that part, at least. His face was bathed in a sheen of perspiration.

Robin got up from her chair and expelled a shaky breath. "All right, Alan. I want you to leave that memory now, leave it and rest. Don't think about it. Don't think about anything. Just rest."