Read Online Saint by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online Page A

his wake could not be counted, Agotha had said. Somewhere along the line he’d become convinced that the mind was man’s most powerful weapon, not a gun. His interest in manipulating the mind had started when he met Agotha at the University of Newcastle in the UK.
    â€œWhat is this?”
    Kelly looked at Agotha, who was staring at the monitor. She glanced back at Carl’s vitals.
    â€œWhat’s what?”
    â€œHis heart rate,” Agotha said.
    Kelly saw the numbers blinking on the screen. Saint’s heart rate had risen from roughly fifty beats per minute to ninety. They stared, caught off guard by the sudden change.
    â€œHow long?” Agotha asked. “Were you watching?”
    â€œIt was fifty less than five minutes ago. It’s been fifty since I came in half an hour ago. Did you check the logs from the last twenty-four hours?”
    â€œYes. He’s been static for more than forty-eight hours. Something’s happened.” Agotha hurried over to the computer and punched up his record. “Less than a minute ago. The rest of the indicators are steady.”
    Carl’s pulse steadied at ninety-one beats per minute. Kelly watched for thirty seconds. The rate changed again.
    â€œIt’s dropping.”
    â€œSo it is.”
    â€œWhat do you think caused that?” Kelly asked.
    Agotha watched as Carl’s heart rate fell to sixty, then held steady.
    â€œWe’re not dealing with the known here,” Agotha said. “It’s amazing enough that Carl can alter his vitals as easily as he does.”
    â€œA simple break in concentration could be enough to cause this.”
    â€œTrue, but he’s not given to simple breaks. I would guess that it was emotionally induced. Controlling the receptor cells’ ability to receive peptides in response to various stimuli is practically unheard of. Carl is the first candidate we’ve had who’s demonstrated a capability to do this.”
    The chemical reactions of emotions were one of Agotha’s primary areas of research. Because emotions were in essence chemical reactions in the brain, science had long accepted the fact that it was possible to manipulate the chemicals and therefore the emotions. A number of drugs on the market did this. But for a person to exercise control over his brain’s chemicals was a different matter.
    â€œYou know that he’s progressed in other areas,” Agotha said.
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œHis marksmanship. You know that he’s matched the limits of ballistics accuracy out to two thousand yards. He placed ten consecutive rounds within a twelve-inch grouping at one and a half miles. According to all conventional knowledge, Saint can’t possibly improve. The bullet would require its own guidance system to do any better.”
    Kelly knew of his latest scores—she’d overseen the testing herself. Her involvement with him was primarily to manipulate, and she was playing her role well, building his trust, earning his love so that her power over him would be unchallenged. His only weakness was her, and it was a weakness by design.
    But lying awake late at night, she wasn’t sure that all of her emotions were as calculated as they had once been. She couldn’t tell Agotha, of course, but what if Carl was now becoming her greatest weakness?
    Impossible. But if it became true, Kalman would eliminate her.
    â€œWhy doesn’t Kalman trust Saint?” Kelly asked.
    â€œWho said any such thing?”
    â€œNo one. I see it in his eyes. And he’s called up another ten recruits.”
    At present, Carl was the only recruit. They had been confident enough in him to stall the solicitation of more, but Kalman had put out an order for ten new candidates to be filled within sixty days. Only one in ten would survive the first three months of training. The rest were killed and their bodies incinerated. Clearly, Kalman was thinking that either Carl, Dale,