The Yale scientists took possession of 32 pig heads from the abattoir, four hours dead. They then infused the brains with chemicals and synthetic blood and - anaesthesia on hand - checked for brainwaves.
And found some!
Four hours?
What if they'd used heads decapitated only ten minutes ago? What if the brains had been chilled? They were so conservative.
Somewhere in here, Adam, I tell myself, there is a story...
Suppose you could restore substantial brain function. It seems likely that the higher cortical functions, those most complex and brittle, would be hardest. Your revitalised brain might have a functional subconscious but be functionally disinhibited.
It would make the ideal interrogation subject!
So here was the idea which slowly took shape in my mind...
A drone circles a Libyan beach. The jihadis drag out one of their own, a thirty-something middle-eastern guy. He kneels on the sand while the masked militants line up behind him. One has a machete at the ready, another is catching every moment with a phone camera.
The Langley computers are doing realtime facial ID on the drone feed: all the alarms go off! The victim is a high-value asset! A CIA deep-penetration agent close to the Al-Qaeda leadership.
It will become clear that this man is the personal protégé of the dynamic new CIA Middle-East Director, Khalil Madi, himself an Arab-American.
The Carrier Strike Group nearby in the Med gets the flash command. A jet screams off the flat-top, afterburners in full scramble-mode: mere minutes later it drops a cryogenic-retrieval drone a few miles off the coast.
The jihadis on the beach complete their grisly task and contemptuously kick the head into the long grass backing the beach.
From where it is covertly retrieved four minutes later by the drone, which inserts the decapitated head into its special skull-sized chill-chamber.
Eight hours later it's in the Langley secure neurolab, wired up to complex apparatuses. Questions can be asked and vocalised; answers retrieved.
Why has the CIA gone to all this trouble? He's a key agent. He may have critical information on an assassination attempt on the President!
The disembodied, barely-conscious brain is rambling, muttering in Arabic. The transcription - in Arabic of course, the system is smart - scrolls down a large wall-screen.
They are American neuroscientists. This means nothing to them.
Consternation!
They call out for a translator. One is eventually found. She starts at the top, working through the Arabic text, translating as she goes.
He thinks he's here in Langley, she says, surprised. Could he even think that?
They're not sure.
He thinks he's talking to the CIA Director, Khalil Madi. A personal and highly secure personal briefing.
She scrolls some more as the text keeps coming.
He's telling Madi that his rivals in the Al-Qaeda leadership have their suspicions about his CIA connections and have denounced him. He fears the worst.
And now the disembodied brain, in its phantom reality, is laughing, saying to himself in Arabic how amazingly ironic it is: If they only knew.
The translator turns around, puzzled at what she's reading.
And now he's asking the Director for the President's final itinerary. Says the brothers are prepared and in-country but just need details of places and times to finalise the operation.
She looks at the technicians.
I .. . I don't get this. He seems to be waiting for the Director to tell him.
It takes more than a few seconds for the group to process the implications.
Finally someone says it.
This can only mean .. that our asset here is a double agent!
And our Director, Khalil Madi, is actually working for ... !
So I thought that could really work as a tech thriller, for someone like David Ignatius. But suddenly my interest faded. Subconsciously I really didn't want to write this story at all.
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