Perfect killer

CHAPTER 12

When the General seated himself, Laura LaHaye and Greg McGovern took up positions by the overhead projector. LaHaye turned it on, filling the screen with a map showing the Central Russian steppes. McGovern then stepped into the projected light and held a small glass jar sloshing with yellow liquid.

"About two millennia before the rise of Rome, the Kayak and Wires tribes of the steppes found an extract of Amanita muscaria- mushroom very closely related to the socalled angel of death-produced a powerful combat-enhancing effect which almost totally eliminated pain, generated phenomenal stamina and bravery, and did it all without reducing mental alertness."

McGovern waved the liquid-filled jar over his head. "The shamans of the tribe fed the mushrooms to their reindeer to concentrate the important psychoactive ingredients in the animals' urine." He shook the jar again. "Warriors who drank reindeer urine were unstoppable in battle." McGovern smiled, sloshed the yellow liquid again, and looked at his small audience.

"This is one of the more effective chemical concoctions in the history of attempts to enhance the combat performance of troops," McGovern continued. "The Crusaders were terrified by the stealthy fearlessness of the Muslim hashshashin, who smoked hashish before killing. And let's not forget Pizarro, whose men were nearly overwhelmed by Inca warriors chewing on coca leaves. More recently, the British gave their soldiers rum and the Russians got vodka and the soldiers from our teetotaling nation, amphetamines."

He nodded toward LaHaye, who stepped up to the overhead projector, replaced the slide of the steppes with a clear sheet of acetate, and began to write on it.

"The psychochemical mood alterants Dr. McGovern mentioned have two functions: decrease anxiety and increase stamina. Our new, smaller, deadlier military must have these because frightened, tired soldiers don't kill well. Conversely, if we control anxiety in three-quarters of the troops on the battlefield, killing efficiency soars by at least four hundred percent!" She sketched a bar chart in red and colored it in.

"But controlling anxiety by itself can't do it all because the sustained use of today's drugs eventually impairs other functions like stamina or mental acuity," she explained. "Some cause psychotic or toxic side effects, and most produce a hangover once the dosage wears off. Harris Lieberman's team at the Army's Research Institute of Environmental Medicine studied Navy Seals and Army Rangers and found that combat stress and lack of sleep made them perform worse than if they had been drunk or blitzed on narcotics."

"Contrary to those effects, the ideal pharmaceutical, which we call the nondepleting neurotrop, produces a warfighter resistant to out-of-control emotions, who will kill on command, logically, methodically and without hesitation-perfect killers.

"We have seen this behavior in natural two-percenters and, on a rare basis, in people who have made dramatic personality shifts following specific and limited combat head wounds. The study of those personality-altering head wounds eventually grew into a pharmaceutical-based program as surgical intervention to produce better warfighters was abandoned as too imprecise and, of course, too permanent.

"Thus, as becomes clear, the search for a perfect, controllable, and totally reversible pharmaceutical enhancement to produce the perfect killer is the Holy Grail of combat psychiatry. My operations command and Dr. McGovern's laboratory in cooperation with Defense Therapeutics down in Los Angeles have achieved those goals with Xantaeus. We have succeeded where others failed because we have created a drug which functions more like a subtle hallucinogen, reshaping the patient's perception of reality rather than overloading them with crude compounds which eventually overwhelm the brain's natural chemical environment."

"And this doesn't produce flashbacks like LSD?" Gabriel asked.

LaHaye shook her head. "When administered correctly. Proper dosage control and time-based administration are vital, and that is where Mr. Baaker comes in."

Across the table, Wim Baaker unfolded his cranelike frame and approached the small podium.

"It's good to see you again, General Gabriel," Baaker began as the title slide featuring a massive laboratory building appeared on the screen. "I believe we met at the NATO subcommittee meeting on combat nutrition prior to Desert Storm."

Gabriel nodded.

"Well, to refresh your memory, the NATO Combat Pharmaceutical Lab is located in Rijswijk, near Den Haag, and employs more than five thousand people." Baaker's voice was dull, flat, and deep from the back of his throat. "We were founded in 1930 and charged with conducting applied research for the Dutch government, including her military forces, to whom we provide advice and consultation in areas such as protection against chemical weapons, munitions technology, and weapons system and platforms technology.

"One of our subsidiaries, which provides support services to my classified operations, is TNO Pharma, which has developed, among other things, highly effective, microprocessor-controlled, transdermal delivery systems for appropriate molecules. We have expanded upon the pioneering products such as nicotine patches and those containing nitroglycerin for angina patients and developed more precise delivery methods for a wide variety of pharmaceuticals such as Xantaeus, which must be applied precisely to avoid the unfortunate side effects of previous drugs."

Baaker paused and looked at each person in turn.

Gabriel felt the ghosts of My Lai, Thanh Thong, and a host of more successfully covered-up incidents. He could almost see the near disasters hovering in the projector's vague penumbra.

Baaker cleared his throat. "Indeed, the first of our new devices is currently undergoing testing by RDECOM under the guise of the Transdermal Nutrient Delivery System. We are exploiting advances in nutritional sciences, microminiaturized physiological sensors, and molecular delivery to make this possible. We hope to deploy this within the next year."

The slide changed.

"Here is how the system works: Biosensors currently in development monitor the warfighter's metabolism, then send information to a microchip processor. This processor might then activate a microelectrical mechanical system that transmits the appropriate chemicals either through skin pores or pumped directly into blood capillaries."

The slides changed to show, in succession, a diagram of the patchlike device, a close-up photo of it, and a shot of the device installed on a heavily muscled man stripped to the waist.

"For now we are developing and testing this system as a nutrient delivery system, which serves a real need while also serving as solid cover for the Xantaeus project." Baaker paused. "Please understand this is not a sham cover. The TDNDS will undoubtedly provide significant benefits delivering vitamins, micronutrients, and nutraceuticals to warfighters with limited access to normal meals either because of protective garments or sustained combat.

"However, the TDNDS's real beauty comes with an ability allowing us to administer-along with nutritional supplements-precisely controlled amounts of Xantaeus or other drugs.

"We've tested three generations of the TDNDS system, all controlled by a microprocessor and based on a number of inputs, including simple periodic timing, triggers transmitted by encrypted radio signals, and/or from real-time personal biosensors monitoring the individual warfighter's metabolism and blood chemistry. This latter control structure will develop as the technology advances to make sure we can wirelessly connect each individual warfighters biometry with field command by extending the same GPS, identification, and data-connection technology currently used on the battlefield. This highly secret research gives us the power to shape the most lethally effective military force the world has ever experienced."

The implications of Baaker's presentation and those of LaHaye, McGovern, and the General twisted like a knife slash in Dan Gabriel's gut. He had heard vague rumors of dissenters, including his distant cousin Rick Gabriel, who warned that unspeakable horrors lurked beneath the growing enthusiasm for drugs like Xantaeus. The Pentagon establishment had done an effective job at silencing those voices who accused the drug of issuing in the era of the "chemical soldier" and creating a farm of warfare that would turn every battle into its own holocaust and destroy the very essence of what it means to be human.

But like others in the military, Gabriel had paid scant attention and given no real thought to those critics, preferring to believe the day of the nondepleting neurotrop would never come and decisions would never need to be made. But the day had clearly come, and he would now have to decide what was right.