Where They Wait

by Scott Carson

The next time she appeared as an expert, it was in an academic paper about the story of an American embassy in Brazil where dozens had reported suffering from dizziness, insomnia, and difficulty concentrating after sustaining inner ear damage that they attributed to a high-pitched noise within the building. The affected included diplomats and CIA officers, some of whom later demonstrated the symptoms of traumatic brain injury. The story itself seemed to have died quietly. If anyone was ever officially blamed for the sickening of more than two dozen Americans at an international embassy, it remained classified. Marilyn Lermond’s take on the idea of sonic weapons in that case was concise and chilling. “Beyond plausible. It’s already in existence. The question is the mechanism of delivery, the frequency of the tones, and whether their goals were achieved or missed. All of the reported symptoms are in keeping with the technology we already understand, but there’s also the chance that those symptoms fell short of a more dangerous goal.”