Fixing Truth
�Washington Post. How may I direct your call?�
�It�s Graham Foster, Gene. I need you to put me through to Roth right now.� He was fighting to unzip the bag, navigate the huge chuck holes in McGregor�s mile-long driveway, digest the pieces of what he had just heard, and engineer some kind of plan all at the same time.
�I�m checking the schedule.�
�Gene. Please. Whatever he�s doing, this is more important. �
�I think he�s in a meeting, Graham��
�He�s expecting this, I promise.� Filling the nylon case was a tape recorder. It would have been his back up if McGregor had wanted to talk anymore than three hours. Without taking his eyes off the road he reached into the back seat for his briefcase.
�Roth here.�
His Grand Am hit the county road and he turned back the way he had come in, west toward the airport. No cops around so he floored it. �Roth, I think you may want to clear the room for this.� He was breathing deep, forcing himself to calm down now, in through the nose and out through the mouth�halfway succeeding. By degrees he returned to his own actions. Having to navigate the narrow road to McGregor�s house and not drive himself up a tree in the process had helped immensely. With a clear head now, he was telling the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post to throw out whoever he was having a meeting with and listen exclusively to him�a reporter so low on the totem pole he was still taking the bus to work. McGregor had asked for him personally, and so Roth had been left with little choice but to okay the flight to Long Island. That meant Roth must have been champing at the bit to hear what had come out of it. Roth, he believed, was probably expecting the nature of this story to demand such an action.
Right?
He concentrated on opening the briefcase while he waited for the silence to end, balancing it on the tape recorder, which took up most of the seat. Just as he managed to open both clasps Roth abruptly snapped up the line and his voice, in the confines of the front seat, was deafening.
�You got the floor, Graham. What�s up with McGregor?�
With a quick smile Foster took a very deep breath, then dove in headfirst. �As we speak, he�s preparing to leave the country. In fact, he should be officially on the lam by the time I make it back to Washington. Apparently he was working on some kind of research for the government and it�s just blown up in his face somehow � he didn�t go into it, I have no idea why. Anyway, whatever it was, he�s set to duck out before the bullets fly. Now�I do know that the project had to do with some kind of experimental drug that opens the memory to scrutiny. I know that�s vague but he went off on a million jargon-filled tangents, so I�m going to play some of the tapes for you and see if you can follow it.�
Approaching seventy-five now he had to pass a red Toyota doing the posted forty-five. Out of the briefcase he fished all three of the tapes without slowing, then swept the case onto the floor. At random he chose one of these and slipped it into the tape recorder, pushed �play� and turned up the volume.
��Evidence currently in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and that you anticipate a formal accusation�made officially by the Attorney General�pertaining to the utilization of an untested drug on unsuspecting recipients. Is that correct?�
�Yes.�
�And what, shall I say, is your formal response?�
Brief pause. �Just as every lie, their accusation will be true in context, Mister Foster. First they will say that the drug is solely my own creation. That is true. However, what they may or may not mention is that the recipients were supplied to me directly by the Federal Bureau of Prisons�probably, if not definitely�with the previous knowledge of the FBI. They will say I was working under my own cognizance, yet not one experiment was undertaken by me, or any one of my staff, without the previous knowledge and approval of the appropriate persons in full � at least, I was lead to believe the appropriate persons were being made aware.�
�And who were these people, Doctor?�
Brief pause. �Well, the only contact that I was allowed access to was Senator Ribaldi, of Virginia. If any major problems did arise it was he who found out second. I would say he visited our Capricorn facilities in Colorado, oh � I�d say at least fifteen times. (pause) That�s fifteen times in the course of five years. Obviously there were others involved�but I assure you my staff and I were confined strictly to a position affording nothing more than the necessary information absolutely needed to operate. This was an operation of considerably high secrecy. Matters of clearance were always handled with the utmost delicacy and I can appreciate that. Which is why you must stress that it is not my intention to directly implicate any single participant in this experiment even now. Including myself.�
�Blah Blah Blah.� He jabbed the fast-forward button. Two seconds later, Play. ��Here to discuss the drug itself�its relevance, its intended purpose. As of this moment those in control still have a chance to avoid a mistake similar to the ones they always make. What I am doing is forcing them to confront the facts of what has taken place, to act in a truthful manner and henceforth avoid any deception of the American public.�
�By implicating me as the lone gunman.�
Foster stopped the tape. He was really nowhere near the story.
�What does this drug that�s solely his own creation do?� Roth wanted to know.
Play:
�Consider any work of fiction you�ve ever read as a metaphorical comparison, Mister Foster. At the center of the conflict there are one or two characters driving the plot, representing the significance of the story to us. Surrounding them will be others who operate in a supportive capacity�necessary, though never as pronounced as the one or two in the center. From there flows a ripple effect concerning any number of bit players�extras, they�re called in American plays. These are usually common, unchanging properties. Static characters or stereotypes.
In this case, Mister Foster, the Theater is the human psyche. The Stage on which everything takes place is the Subconscious. But the Truth,� he continued, �is the spotlight. At certain moments during the process it has the power and ability to cut through, to find access to the subject�s hopes, his desires, his fears, his childhood traumas and his dreams. The drug�s properties were designed to pass over the common similarities in the human condition, to illuminate only the most crucial player or players. Those facets of the human character that make it individual�it is these who are solidified in the forefront for us to examine. They are the items of the self that are wholly individual, Mister Foster.�
�Consider fully before you bring this to the rest of the country the potential of this experiment, and where it might have taken us; at the very least, you must say, a better understanding. The Truth was the possible means to a journey that would have given us our first visual examination of the human soul��
Cut. �I see,� said Roth, �Still crazy after all these years.�
Just before he hit play again Foster said, �I think he might have actually pulled it off this time.�