Grant pointed to one of the techs. “Let’s see if our patient can hear us.”
The tech leaned to a stick microphone. It broadcast to a set of hollow ceramic headphones. They had been designed specifically so the neurologist could communicate with a minimally conscious patient, both muffling the racket of the MRI and amplifying any commands.
“Captain Bryant,” the tech said briskly but clearly, “we need you to imagine playing a fierce game of tennis. Visualize it as strongly as you can.”
The tech glanced to Dr. Grant, who leaned closer to his monitor as a new cross-section of Kat’s brain filled the screen. To Monk, it looked no different than before.
The neurologist frowned. “We’ll give her a minute and keep trying.” He reached and circled one section on the screen. “This is her premotor cortex, where a brain plans and programs voluntary motions. Before you raise an arm or take a step, your brain lights up this section of the frontal lobes. Even thinking about moving activates this region, flooding it with fresh blood.”
Lisa explained: “So if Kat can hear us and thinks about playing tennis, this section should light up.”
“But it’s not,” Monk said.
“Give her a little time.” Grant waved to the tech. “Let’s try again.”
The same trial was repeated—with no better outcome.
“Again,” the neurologist said.
Still, no response.
Grant’s frown deepened; Lisa matched his defeated expression.
The neurologist leaned back from the screen and rubbed his mouth. “Sorry. I don’t think—”
“Let me try.”
Monk shouldered the tech aside and took the man’s seat. He brought his lips to the microphone. He knew Kat had never played tennis in her life, so maybe something else would work better, something closer to her heart.
“Kat, if you can hear me—which you’d better, babe—then I want you to remember all the times you’ve had to chase Penelope after a bath. That screaming banshee of a child, running bare-assed through the house, while you’re trying to scoop her up with a towel.”
He kept talking, while the MRI’s thumping reverberated his rib cage.
C’mon, Kat, you can do this.
9:22 A.M.
Trapped in darkness, Kat both cried and laughed.
She had been lolling in a fog bank, slipping into and out of awareness, when crisp words sliced through her hazy perception. She had tried to follow the instructions of some bodiless voice, some stranger. She did her best to pretend to swing a tennis racket, to dive for an errant ball, but it felt fake even to her.
Then Monk’s voice filled her skull, booming, teasing, urgent, demanding, pained, but clearly full of his boundless love. He gave her the strength to do what he asked of her.
How could I not?
Bathing their two girls had become a nightly water-soaked ritual. Monk would stay by Harriet in the tub, leaving Kat to chase after Penelope. It was aggravating, but she could never scold that pure carefree laughter. She didn’t know how much longer Penny would stay that way, but Kat didn’t want it to ever end, for her girl to grow up, to lose that cheerful and blithe spirit.
So, she pictured that nightly race: damp footprints down the hall, Penny’s wet hair flying behind her, a trail of giggles. She would give chase—half-feigned, half in earnest—a skilled Sigma operative struggling to capture a soaked gazelle.
I remember . . . I’ll always remember.
9:23 A.M.
Monk looked up when the nurse rushed to a wall intercom inside the MRI chamber. His heart clenched, fearing the worst.
“Dr. Grant,” the nurse said. “I don’t know if this is significant, but the patient appears to be crying.”
Kat . . .
“It’s definitely significant,” the neurologist said and pointed to the display.
As the latest image filled the screen, a section of the gray-colored fron tal lobes now ran with a fiery tracery of crimson, a bright flower of promise and hope.
“She heard you.” Lisa clutched his arm. “She’s there.”
Monk had to take several sharp breaths, relieved beyond measure, trying not to lose it. “What now?”
Grant grinned. “We ask her questions. For yes, she thinks of your daughter’s bath. For no, she tries to think of nothing.”
“That last’ll be hard for her,” Monk warned.
When did Kat ever stop thinking, plotting, planning?
They set about this mission, urging Kat to settle her mind, clearing the slate for what was to come. Monk then asked questions, while Grant monitored her response.
Monk’s first query was something more important than anything. “Kat, I love you. You know that, right?”
After a pause, Grant reported, “Seems like she does.”
Not knowing how much time he had, Monk went directly to the heart of the matter. “Kat, the girls and Seichan are missing. Did you know that?”
Kat: Yes.
Monk stared into the next room, studying Kat’s body, her motionless form still draped in tubes and lines. He pictured her trapped inside there, imagined her staring back at him.
“Do you know anything that could be helpful in finding them?”
Monk held his breath. There was a longer lag than before.
Then Kat: Yes.
He sighed with relief, struggling to think what to ask next, sensing time was running out. “Do you know who raided the house? Who took them?”
The next scan was dark.
Meaning no.
He sagged, disappointed, but Grant lifted a finger, urging patience.
Then the image refreshed, showing a bright bloom on the screen.
Yes!
Monk leaned to the microphone. “You’re doing great, Kat. Keep it up. Is the culprit or group someone I would know?”
Again, there was a disturbingly long response time. He pictured Kat calling up from a well that was growing ever deeper.
Finally: Yes.
Monk wiped sweat from his brow, worried, growing frustrated by the slowness of this interrogation method. And he was right to be anxious.
One of the techs leaned over to Dr. Grant and had him examine a sagittal view on his monitor. The neurologist swore and stood up.
“What’s wrong?” Monk asked.
“The contusion on her brainstem has grown again.” He pointed to a dark shadow on the tech’s screen. “Significantly this time. We need to get her hemorrhaging under control.”
“What do we do?”
“Get her upstairs. Consult with a surgeon.”
Monk stared into the room. For any chance for the girls, they needed to know what Kat knew. “Can we do anything else? Some bandage to buy us more time.”
Grant looked into the next room, his face grim. “I suppose we can try nitroprusside, an antihypertensive, attempt to get her systolic pressure below 140. But we dare let it go no lower than that.” His frown deepened. “Still, that’ll only buy us minutes at best. If the bleeding continues, we risk a massive seizure or stroke.”
Monk studied Kat’s slack body. “She would want us to take that risk. I know she would.”
The neurologist stared hard at him. “Are you sure you want to take that risk?”
He wasn’t, but he nodded.
With the course settled, Grant passed on the order to the nurse.
As the stabilizing treatment was started, Lisa stepped over to the neurologist and took his arm. “Julian, I know you were reluctant before, but time here is pressed, and as you know, a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Grant looked over at Monk, then back to Lisa. He lowered his voice. “The DNN is still experimental. You know that. There are still lots of kinks to work out.”
“What are you talking about?” Monk asked.
Lisa turned to him. “It’s why I wanted Kat brought here to begin with. Julian has been testing a method for drawing images out of a patient’s brain.”
“What? Like mind reading?” Monk asked, incredulous.
“More like mind skimming,” the neurologist corrected. “And it was not my design, but a method developed by Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute.”
“I don’t care who takes credit. What are you talking about?”
“The Japanese team trained a deep neural net computer to analyze hundreds of thousands of MRI scans of test subjects, people who were intently studying photos. The DNN program noted which areas of their brains lit up, and over time and repetition, it mapped the visual processing centers, detecting common patterns. It was soon able to decode and make educated guesses as to what the subjects were looking at, producing accurate interpretations over eighty percent of the time.”
Lisa stepped over to a glowing bank of servers in the room’s corner and a dark monitor next to it. “Julian joined the research project, to clinically test it as a means to visualize what a comatose patient might be seeing.”
“Again, let me stress,” Dr. Grant added, “it’s far from foolproof.”
Monk glanced over to Kat, sensing what was locked in her skull. If there was any chance of freeing that knowledge before . . . before . . .
He turned and looked hard at the neurologist. “Do it.”
9:38 A.M.
Kat woke again into darkness, oblivious of how much time had passed. Her memory was full of holes, her awareness motheaten and frayed. A headache throbbed deep inside her skull, worse than any migraine.
She knew what this portended.