Panacea Read online

  How could I ever forget?

  Marissa’s tutor, Natasha, arrived then, sparing Laura further embarrassment.

  3

  “Damn!”

  Nelson had never been to the Walter Reed complex before and realized he’d just sailed past the front gate.

  He’d shuttled down from LaGuardia to Reagan, then driven a rental into the hills of Bethesda. He was far more familiar with northern Virginia—Langley was there, after all—than Maryland.

  He doubled back. No wonder he’d missed it. Hardly his idea of what a world-famous medical center should look like. Maybe because a portion of it was given over to apartments for the wounded warriors. He’d read that if a soldier lost a limb in the line of duty, this was where he was treated, fitted with a prosthetic arm or leg, and trained how to live with it. The apartments were used to help acclimate to the activities of daily life in the real world.

  The guard at the gate gave him a map to a parking area near his destination. Nelson found a spot near the rear of the lot. As he walked toward the front entrance of the red brick building, he began to pray.

  Forgive me, Lord, for what is about to transpire. I know the ends do not justify the means, but I am sworn to protect Your Plan, and this is the only way I know to keep my vow.

  An MP let him through the glass doors. He checked Nelson’s ID, then escorted him to the fifth floor where Pickens waited. Nelson had called him last night with the news that he had two doses of the panacea. Pickens had called back to say he’d set up a test in Ward 35 where the results of the trial could be observed and reported by a disinterested third party.

  The deputy director had shuttled down earlier and his expression now mixed anxiety and impatience.

  “I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” he said in a low voice. “The more I think about it, the more foolish I feel.”

  Already setting us up for failure, Nelson thought.

  But he’d been expecting that. By this time tomorrow, one of them would be eating crow for breakfast, and Nelson was planning on scrambled eggs.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, sir. But this is a means to settle our question once and for all, and perhaps do some good in the process.”

  Pickens gave a dubious grunt. “Ward Thirty-five should only be so lucky.”

  Ward 35 was reserved for CIA agents injured in the field. Their wounds weren’t always from blades or projectiles. Overt murders of agents too often provoked retaliation in kind, and streets littered with dead operatives were to no one’s advantage. So removal methods that looked like an illness or an unfortunate accident were devised. The nastiness of the method tended to rise in proportion to the enemy state’s rogue status.

  “Who did you choose?”

  “We had six volunteers,” Pickens said. “Doctor Forman helped pick the two sickest. One is Jason Kim. He was dealing with a North Korean group working out of Shanghai when he became infected with a strain of staph that’s resistant to every antibiotic they’ve thrown at it. It’s spreading and the docs don’t give him a week. The other is Leo Ashcroft: acute radiation poisoning.”

  “Russians?”

  Pickens nodded. “He’s tested positive for polonium two-ten. The Russians swear up and down they had nothing to do with it, but the FSB is partial to polonium.”

  Right. Nelson remembered how they’d used it to kill Alexander Litvinenko back in ’06.

  “Bastards.”

  “Ashcroft has less than a week as well.”

  Nelson knew neither man, but he felt for them.

  “Then we’ve no time to waste, sir. What did you tell them?”

  “An experimental treatment. They don’t care what it is, they’ll try anything. They’re desperate, even for something that even you don’t know will work.”

  “It will work.”

  “Goddamn it, Fife. If—oh, hell, here comes Doctor Forman.” He lowered his voice further as a balding, lab-coated man approached down the hall. “I told him the same: experimental and hush-hush. None of your panacea talk, Fife. If asked, just say that you’re not at liberty to discuss the treatment.”

  “Very well.”

  Nelson never had any intention of mentioning the panacea. The fewer who knew about it, the better. He even wished he could have avoided this little demonstration, but he knew of no other way to get Pickens on board than to rub his nose in the reality of it.

  After introductions, Dr. Forman gave Nelson a hard look. “I’m against this, you know.”

  “I understand,” Nelson said.

  And he did. Perfectly. If positions were reversed he’d feel the same.

  “Just let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” the doctor said. “You say you’ve got a single compound that’s going to treat two completely different conditions.”

  Nelson nodded. “That is correct.”

  “The whole idea is preposterous. One man is dying from cellular damage due to acute radiation exposure while the other is infected with a virulent strain of bacteria. So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, you have something that can repair genetic damage from alpha radiation. That same something is not going to act as an antibiotic as well. It’s crazy.”

  “If you have something better…” Nelson said.

  “You know damn well I don’t. That’s the only reason I’m allowing this trial. That and the fact that they’re volunteering. Where is this compound?”

  Nelson fished the two vials out of his pocket and held them out.

  “Please be careful with them. It’s all we’ve got.”

  Dr. Forman took the vials and held them up to the light. “This is it? Two doses?”

  “One each,” Nelson said.

  “Insane,” the doctor muttered. “Completely insane. What’s in it?”

  Nelson flicked a glance at Pickens. “I’m not at liberty to give specifics. I can tell you it’s herbal.”

  “Herbal, shmerbal.” Forman looked at Pickens. “I know you guys have got your own labs and such, but I expected something a little more scientific.”

  Pickens shrugged. “It is what it is.” He glanced at his watch. “Can we get on with it?”

  “I took an oath: ‘First, do no harm.’ I need to know this stuff is safe.”

  “Guaranteed,” Nelson said.

  Pickens added, “We have no wish to see further harm come to Ashcroft and Kim.”

  The doctor gave them a dubious look. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “They’re terminal, damn it,” Pickens said, flaring. “You said so yourself. We can’t do any worse than what has already been done.”

  Nelson said, “But I will need to witness the dosing.”

  Forman handed back one of the vials. “You can dose Ashcroft yourself, but Kim is in isolation. You can watch through the glass.”

  Forman led them along a labyrinthine path to a private room in the bowels of Ward 35. Pickens held back at the door.

  “Is he…?”

  “Radioactive?” Dr. Forman shook his head. “The polonium gives off alpha particles. Won’t even penetrate skin.”

  “Then how…?”

  “We’ve concluded that someone slipped ten micrograms into a beer he drank.”

  “Ten micrograms?” The amount startled Nelson. He knew people had been poisoned with polonium-210 before, but … “That’s next to nothing.”

  “It’s a couple of hundred times the lethal dose when it’s in your gut.”

  They entered and he introduced them to Leo Ashcroft, a pale sickly man propped up in bed with monitor wires running out of his hospital gown. He appeared completely hairless—even his eyebrows were gone.

  “You know why we’re here, Leo?” Pickens said.

  Ashcroft’s nod seemed to sap most of his energy.

  Nelson held up one of the vials. “You need to drink this. One dose, that is all.”

  “It’ll help?” His voice was a faint croak.

  Nelson and Pickens spoke simultaneously.

  Nelson: “Yes
.”

  Pickens: “We hope so.”

  Achcroft raised a shaky hand. “Give.”

  “Tell you what,” Nelson said, suddenly afraid the man might drop the vial. “Let me pour it into your mouth. We don’t have any backup doses.”

  Ashcroft opened his mouth as Nelson pulled the rubber stopper, then poured the fluid onto Ashcroft’s tongue and watched him swallow. His eyes bored into Nelson’s with a pleading look, then glanced away.

  Nelson felt a tug on his arm: Dr. Forman. He followed him into the hall.

  “Kim is next. Let’s get this charade over with.”

  He saw Pickens holding out his hand. “The tube. Give it.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Nelson had no choice but to comply.

  They then followed Forman on another twisty-turny path to an isolation area. Through the glass behind a nurses’ station, Nelson saw an Asian man lying on a hospital bed, a sheet drawn up to the bottom of his rib cage. His upper body lay bare except for patches of yellow-stained gauze adhering here and there to his arms and torso. The areas without gauze were marred by golf-ball-size swellings, angry red, occasionally oozing. A capped, gowned, masked, gloved nurse attended him. The hand-lettered card on the wall next to the door read J. Kim.

  Jason Kim and his super-resistant staph.

  Dr. Forman said something to the nurse at the desk. She handed him a small plastic medicine cup into which he emptied the second vial of panacea. The nurse took it, then placed it on a tray jutting from a slot in the wall. She pressed a button and the tray slid through the slot, carrying the cup with it.

  The nurse inside must have been expecting it. She took the cup and upended it between Kim’s lips. He swallowed, then closed his eyes. Tears slipped from beneath his lids as his chest heaved in a single sob.

  “Doctor Forman,” Pickens said. “The tube, please.”

  Forman handed it over and Nelson watched Pickens pocket it. Why was he collecting the tubes?

  “I’ll never forgive you for this,” Pickens said, leaning close and speaking through clenched teeth.

  Nelson was more concerned with a Higher forgiveness, but the vehemence in his superior’s tone startled him.

  “I don’t understand. I’m—”

  “You’re giving them hope where there is none.”

  He realized he’d lost all credibility with this man. Well, that would change.

  “Let’s wait until tomorrow, shall we?”

  Tomorrow, Lord willing, he would force a one-eighty spin on the deputy director’s attitude.

  4

  Mom had gone a little bit nuts. The first thing she did was call Dad. They’d split right after Christmas last year. Tommy guessed that Dad had stayed around till then so as not to ruin the holidays for him, but they fought so much over every little thing that Christmas was pretty much ruined anyway.

  Dad had said he was coming over on his lunch hour to see for himself. He didn’t visit very often, so that was kind of cool.

  But nothing was as cool as being able to walk all alone on his own two feet with no crutches or wheelchair. He wanted to go for a run but his legs were too weak. That was why he’d been going to physical therapy. Chet had told him it would keep his muscles from getting astrofeet … or something like that. It meant weak and wasted.

  Good old Chet. He’d been telling the truth about that magic potion. Tommy had been wrong to think it would work in a flash. It took a whole night, but it could have taken a week or two for all Tommy cared. What mattered was it got the job done.

  He owed Chet big-time. Which reminded him …

  “Hey, Mom,” he said, walking—walking!—into the kitchen. “Can we call Chet at—?”

  “I already did, honey.” She held the phone with her finger poised over the keypad. “I called his work and they said he didn’t show up today. They wouldn’t give me his home number.”

  Oh, no. “You didn’t tell them what happened, did you. Remember Chet said not to mention him if—”

  “I remember. I did tell them you wouldn’t be in today, though.”

  “Why not?” He wanted to see Chet. If he wasn’t in now, he’d come in later.

  “Because I want you to see Doctor Sklar.”

  “Awww. I wanna ride my bike.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not ready for that yet.”

  “Am too!”

  “Don’t talk back to me. We’ll let Doctor Sklar decide. I’m going to call him right now and have him see you. And I’m not going to be put off. He’s going to see you today.”

  As she started punching in Dr. Sklar’s number, Tommy sidled toward the laundry room. Not a room, really, just a short hall that led to the garage. He heard her start to argue with the receptionist about getting an appointment.

  Good. With all her attention fixed on the phone, she wasn’t watching him. He pulled his jacket off a hook and slipped into the garage. As he closed the door behind him he reached for the overhead door button—but stopped himself just in time. Mom would hear it and come running.

  He pulled on his jacket and wriggled his bike from behind the plastic garbage cans. His folks had wanted to give it to some charity but he’d cried so hard they backed off. He loved this bike, and giving it away … that was like giving up hope he’d ever ride it again.

  Tommy had never given up hope. And now look at him: back on his feet and ready to roll.

  He eased his bike out the rear door into the backyard. Staying close to the garage, he wheeled it around the side to the driveway. It took effort to swing his leg over the rear tire, and he almost fell. But he caught himself and got settled on the seat.

  He took it slow down the asphalt driveway and wobbled as he turned onto the sidewalk. His balance seemed a little off at first, but he soon got the hang of it. His legs were weak—astrofeet?—and he had to work extra hard on the pedals, but by the time he reached the end of the block he was flying like someone who’d never been off his bike—nothing like someone who’d been stuck in a wheelchair yesterday.

  He wished this was a Saturday instead of a school day. He’d zip over to Eddie Roe’s house and show him that the old Tommy was back and they could go biking together again. Maybe he’d head over there anyway. Leave him a note for when he got home from school. He imagined Eddie’s face when he read that Tommy Cochran had ridden by for a visit.

  He made a hard left off the curb and didn’t see the truck until its horn blasted in his ear.

  5

  Deputy Lawson, as was his wont lately, had shown up at the morgue looking for information on the second grower. Gowned and bootied, he’d arrived, manila folder in hand, just as Laura was finishing the postmortem.

  “Me again,” he said, adjusting his surgical cap around his ears. “I’m very interested in this guy.”

  Yes. Phil. Again. She hoped he wasn’t interested in her as well, because he was destined for disappointment.

  Not her type. Sooooo not her type. The neck popping only made it worse. The thought of spending the rest of her life hearing that dull pop! every few minutes …

  “Well, did you find a—?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Aw, no.”

  “Aw, yes. As healthy as can be.”

  She felt his frustration, because it mirrored her own. She’d just finished dictating her preliminary findings. The voice recognition software would have transcribed it into her computer by now. She’d edit it later.

  “But he was a pot grower, a druggie. He had to—”

  “Used to be a druggie,” Laura said. “And a big-time user at that.”

  “How big?”

  “Very big. A ton of old track marks, and look at this.”

  She took a probe and stuck it in the corpse’s left nostril. It came out the right.

  Phil gave an uneasy laugh. “I’ll be.” Then he popped his neck.

  “This was one hard-core user with emphasis on the past tense: was. All the scars are old. We tapped his bladder and ran a
quick seven-drug screen on his urine. Not a trace of anything. But that’s not the real problem. What’s got me stumped is that hard-core IV users ruin their veins, yet his show no sign of sclerosis. And they inevitably pick up a variety of infections along the way, like hep-B, hep-C, HIV that cause all sorts of organ damage, especially to the liver. This guy’s liver is like a baby’s. I haven’t seen the slides yet, but I bet they’ll be clean.”

  The deputy was looking a little seasick. “And the rest of him?”

  “Just like the previous. No apparent cause of death beyond cardiac arrest of unknown etiology.”

  “Don’t you find that just a little strange?”

  Laura had to laugh. “A little? I find it a lot strange. I’ve never seen an adult body with perfect internal organs. There’s always something wrong. But to find two adult males—drug growers to boot—back to back with pristine organs?” She shook her head. “Uh-uh. That’s … that’s almost science fiction. That’s getting into X-Files territory.”

  An exaggeration … she hoped.

  “And those tattoos…”

  “Right. I’ve got something on those.” She whipped the sheet back over the corpse. “My office.”

  After shedding their protective wear, she led him up to the top floor. A hand-lettered sign on the wall next to her office door read WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. An old joke, but she’d left it there because it was so apropos.

  “Wow,” Phil said, staring at her array of tropical plants as he entered. She’d never invited him up before. “That sign isn’t kidding.”

  Half a dozen lush ferns of varying sizes—Achrostichum, Dicksonia, and other species—rimmed her office. Her window faced east, allowing the plants to feast on the morning sun and bathe in filtered light the rest of the day. Dr. Henniger, the CME, liked the department on the warm side year-round, so all Laura had to do was keep the plants watered and they grew like crazy.

  “They’re all from Mesoamerica,” she said as she moved behind her desk and awaited the inevitable question.

  “Where’s that?”

  Right on cue.

  “Roughly central Mexico down to Costa Rica.”