Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [108]
“He could not have expressed it more felicitously. When we see a twinkling in the night sky, Captain, what are we seeing?”
“Um—I’m going to say a star.”
“We’re seeing the past. The universe as it existed centuries ago. The past surrounds us at every moment, although we can rarely see it. So too with the future. It’s all around us, in the form of waves or perturbations quite invisible to the naked eye—like radio waves, actually. Many of us fleetingly detect these currents, for example in the hair on the back of our necks. In time, science will discover their molecular structure. But there can be little doubt about their source.”
“Their source?”
“Death, Captain,” said Dr. Prince. “Death releases this energy into the air. If a true catastrophe is looming, the disturbance becomes such that a sensitive individual may become highly troubled by it. He may be aware of exactly when and where it will occur. He may see an aura around people who are soon to die. Or he may see images of the disaster beforehand, as I did, and as Mr. Middleton did. That is what happened to Edwin Fischer.”
Littlemore nodded. He didn’t accept, but he didn’t judge. “Can they ever know more?” he asked. “Like who’s behind it?”
“I’ve never heard of that. There is evidence that the souls of the murdered, reached in the spirit world, can tell you who killed them, but I know of no cases documenting such foreknowledge in the living. Are you interested in contacting a medium? I have a very gifted one.”
“I’ll take a rain check on that, Dr. Prince.”
“Would it be helpful to know when the attack was conceived?”
“Could be very helpful,” said Littlemore. “You think Fischer might know?”
“In cases of deliberate slaying, premonitions almost never come before the murderer has formed the intention to kill. Often the initial premonition will come at that very moment. Ask Mr. Fischer when he first had his precognition.”
“Thanks, Dr. Prince—I may do that.”
In the Astor Hotel, in mid-October 1920, an increasingly belligerent Director Flynn of the federal Bureau of Investigation held yet another press conference. Flynn’s repeated claims of imminent prosecution had not worked to his advantage. The case had not cracked. No one had been charged. An air of skepticism and defeated expectations had begun to infect several gentlemen of the press.
As Flynn saw it, the fault was not his. It lay rather with the newspapers, for reporting his setbacks. Every time one of his leads came to nothing, the newspapers made a story of it, which wasn’t the kind of behavior Flynn expected from loyal Americans. Embarrassing the federal government’s efforts to defeat its enemies was a criminal offense. That’s why Eugene Debs was in jail. Flynn could have hauled any one of these reporters into custody. He knew what they were saying to each other on the telephone—because his agents were listening in. He felt they owed their continuing and undeserved liberty entirely to his largesse.
“Each and every one of you boys,” said Flynn, “ought to be on your knees in thanks to me. But I ain’t going into that today. Instead I’m going to sell more newspapers for you. We got it all sewed up now. Here’s your story: yesterday afternoon, my office received information establishing the identity and whereabouts of the political prisoners, which you goons were too busy writing about mental cases to even realize you didn’t know who they were.”
Pencils hung frozen in midair as comprehension sought in vain to work its way through this declaration.
“Don’t you remember nothing, you saps?” asked Flynn helpfully. “‘Free the political prisoners’—that’s what the anarchist circulars said. Well now, just who exactly are these political prisoners? Figure that out, and you bust the whole case wide open.”
“But last time you said Tresca did it, Chief,” said a reporter. “Then Tresca gives a public speech in Brooklyn, and you don’t even bring him in. What gives?”
“Why, I ought to show you what gives,” rejoined Flynn, neck straining at the buttoned collar