Mind Invaders

When Leighton returned to his office, he found Del Sasso in a relaxed and affable mood, sitting in an easy chair deep in conversation with Carla and Viktor. They had been probing him with pointed questions about the dangers of the incredible psychic power they had just seen him display. What if it got into the wrong hands? And how could that possibility, after all, be prevented if psychic power was simply a normal human potential and thus available equally to everyone? What a frightful world it would be if every person had such dangerous capabilities—a world of sorcerers zapping one another with unlimited powers of the mind!

The thick fog that had drifted over the hills from the coast during the night was vanishing under the warming rays of the morning sun. The few lingering wisps of vapor lent a momentary translucence to the air, giving the leaves and blossoms on trees and shrubs a delicate, glistening sheen. It was a morning of rare beauty—which only seemed to accentuate the bittersweet mood that gripped Ken.

“I can’t say that I’m exactly shattered. I’m too cynical for that. But it’s still disillusioning when your own government—or at least those who represent it —lie to you! That’s the sort of thing we expect from the Russians, but not from our own people!”

Angry and frustrated, Carla was speaking by phone to a close friend in New York, one of the senior editors of Time magazine.

Yelling a command in Russian , Chernov raced into the street. Because of the now-stalled traffic he was able to make much faster time than Viktor and had gained considerable ground on his quarry by the time he entered Rue Debarcadere. The two FSB officers jumped into the limousine and took off with tires screaming, but had to apply the brakes almost immediately. As they turned left into Port de Maillot to make their way around the traffic circle, their progress was impeded by the mass of autos and trucks backed up behind the five-car collision.

As one of the top parapsychology journalists in the field, Carla Bertelli had, of course, been looking forward to the Congress for months. She had planned to arrive early to relax for a few days in Paris, but a last-minute development had forced a change in itinerary that brought her into Paris the very morning the Congress opened. Eager to catch at least the closing minutes of the first day’s opening session, Carla had driven desperately from Orly Airport to the Palais des Congres in a driving rain.

During the hour-long early morning ride to Sheremetyevoz International Airport just north of Moscow on the Leningradsky highway, Colonel Chernov had a great deal to say to everyone else in the small bus, but he didn’t address one word to Viktor. It made him feel uncomfortably like an outsider—which indeed he was. They were supposed to be a delegation of top Russian parapsychologists led by internationally known Dr. Viktor Khorev. In fact, Chernov was in command, and out of the six “delegates” from the secret base, only Viktor and Pyotr were psychic researchers. The others were either military or Federal Security Service (FSB) officers. And Viktor had his suspicions about Pyotr.

Everything else was mere formality after Viktor’s acquiescence to the “correction” in the medical report. The Committee spent little time questioning Dr. Chevchenko, Dmitri, and the others, whose testimony added nothing to what was already known. When Colonel Chernov returned to be apprised of the Committee’s official findings, he strongly expressed once again the same suspicions that he had consistently presented in the past.

The committee overseeing Psychic Warfare Research had already been scheduled to meet for a full hearing to inquire into the cause of the previous deaths of two psychics. Now they had a third death on their hands. Understandably, the atmosphere was extremely tense. Viktor did his best to appear in command of himself (although a certain amount of nervousness was expected as a matter of respect) when he was called at last into the small conference room down the hall from the laboratory. It was a closed hearing, with only the four Russian Army officers present—two generals and two colonels— as judge and jury. So secret was the subject matter that not even a stenographer was included. The officers made their own notes as the hearing progressed, and, of course, it was all recorded on audiocassettes.

For some time, hope for genuine cooperation between the West and Russia had pervaded the climate of international politics. That all the former communist nations in Eastern Europe had been accepted into NATO, made this hope seem reasonable. In the meantime, however, a covert and desperate rivalry between the CIA and FSB (successor to the KGB) that was never reported in the press had reached new intensity. If an outside observer had been able to look in on a certain clandestine psychic commando base secluded in the deep woods an hour north of Moscow, he would have found its activities and goals to be in complete contradiction to the peace initiatives being outwardly promoted by Russia ‘s new “democratic” leaders.

When Dr. Elliott stopped in alone on his late-evening rounds, he found Ken cheerful in spite of the new concerns that were weighing heavily upon him. Leighton had come by earlier with his lawyer and a notary public as witnesses to certify Ken’s shaky signature on the two copies of the contract. Ken was surprised that he now felt a great sense of relief. For Leighton, however, he felt an oppressive heaviness and concern. As for Carla, he knew her well enough to realize that there was little hope to salvage their relationship unless he renounced his newfound faith in Christ. That realization was almost more than Ken could bear. At the same time, however, he had a new joy that seemed to be independent of circumstances.