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        Copyright 1987 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
April 26, 1987, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: BOOK WORLD; PAGE Xll
LENGTH: 814 words
HEADLINE: Spying in the Twilight Zone
BYLINE: Rory Quirk
BODY:
THE SAMARKAND DIMENSION By David Wise Doubleday. 303 pp. $ 16.95
YOU'VE GOT TO hand it to anyone who can create a readable novel out of
U.S.-Soviet research into the paranormal, which is what David Wise has done in
The Samarkand Dimension, an arresting and engaging spy thriller in which blind
trust is no match for steely-eyed betrayal, and unquestioning loyalty is
sacrificed on the altar of Cold War expediency.
When the United States' most advanced ICBM test rocket inexplicably does a
180 shortly after launch and makes a beeline for the launch site at Vandenberg
Air Force Base, the CIA literally gets some very bad vibes, namely that the
Soviets have sabotaged the project through telekinesis -- the ability to move
objects through mental concentration. The agency taps one of its most tried and
trusted agents, Markham, to penetrate the Soviet parapsychology facility at
Samarkand, deep in Soviet Central Asia. His orders are simple: Report back on
the state of Soviet research into the paranormal. And, in the event that his
cover is blown and he elects not to kill himself, he has the agency's blessing
to cooperate with his captors rather than face torture.
Markham's preparation for this dicey operation consists of a crash course on
the state of U.S. research into psychokinetic experimentation at a CIA-funded
foundation in New Orleans, an experience which sounds like something out of The
Twilight Zone. It's a surreal journey into a world of experiments where
documents in remote locations are accessed by psychics through "remote viewing,
thoughts are "implanted" in unrealizing humans, and laboratory animals are
zombieized with doses of "psychic energy." "You've turned a rabbit into a
goddamn vegetable," notes an incredulous Markham. "True," sniffs a research
honcho, "but it's a far cry from being able to zap a Soviet leader in the
Kremlin from a distance of 4,800 miles. In terms of practical application, we
have a long way to go." Markham's time in New Orleans makes for fascinating
reading.
Less fascinating by a long shot is Markham's arduous acquisition of a new
"past" borrowed from a long-dead Kansas toddler named Sam Weaver. "I don't think
I've ever been to Kansas," Markham cautions. Soothes the CIA identity
specialist: "Before you're done, you'll think you were born there." The reader,
too. Markham's immersion into the boyhood community of the not-so-late,
unlamented Sammy is a dreary primer on winter wheat, "Bleeding Kansas" and the
number of nanoseconds during which the Rock Island Rocket stopped in good old
Mankato, Kansas, on the Denver-Chicago run.
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AFTER this lengthy lull, wise gets things rolling as Markham/Weaver is
"dangled to the Soviets as a vulnerable, alcoholic, in-debt American scientist
with access to secret research into the military and intelligence applications
of parapsychology." The KGB bites, and Markham is whisked off to Samarkand to
try to finesse his double agent high wire act for some very skeptical Soviet
interrogators. When his seemingly airtight cover is unexpectedly shredded, the
Soviets start demanding hard answers, and the whole operation unravels with
riveting grimness.
Markham's interrogation and torture are convincingly nightmarish -- "Ludmilla
. . . grasped his forearm in both of her hands. She twisted it up toward his
neck until he screamed, and then, quite professionally, she broke his arm. He
heard the bone snap . . . 11 -- so much so that when a totally wasted Markham
finally spills his guts about the New Orleans experiments ("It ran counter to
everything he had believed in. But he wasn't sure he cared anymore."), it's a
relief. Until he gets dumped on the CIA's doorstep -- damaged Cold War goods --
and the agency spits him out too for failing to swallow the ostensibly optional,
secret poison pill with which he had been provided. (" 'In point of fact,,
Dickie said, 'it might have been preferable, from an operational standpoint, you
understand, if you had availed yourself of the other option., 11)
At this point, with Markham a now thoroughly disillusioned and discredited
spy out in the cold, Wise is riding a winner, but he stumbles a bit in the home
stretch. It is clear that Markham's gotten the double cross. The only questions
are by whom and why. His quest for the increasingly obvious answer to the first
question involves an interminable search at the Library of Congress. In
answering the "why," Wise overreaches: Not enough that the Samarkand operation
is a big gainer for one side in the Cold War (a thoroughly plausible result);
the other Side also has to begin to totter.
Fortunately, Wise regains stride and hits the wire with an ending which
consigns Markham to a fate where he might well wish that while Ludmilla was
breaking his arm at Samarkand, she had kept going.
Rory Quirk, a Washington attorney, is a frequent contributor to Book World.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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