Panacea Page 8
“About time you got here,” Pickens said.
Nelson checked his watch: 8:52. Friday morning traffic from Reagan had been hell, but he’d still made it with time to spare.
“I thought we agreed on nine o’clock.”
“We did but Forman’s been on the phone with me all morning—three calls already. Wants to talk to you.”
“About what? What did he say?”
“We’ll just have to find out, won’t we.”
He had a feeling Pickens already knew. Why wasn’t he saying anything?
To torture me?
Dr. Forman was waiting in the lobby. He bounded from a chair as they entered, grabbing Nelson’s arm and practically dragging him to the elevator.
“What was in that solution?” Forman said as soon as the doors pincered closed.
Nelson glanced at Pickens. “I told you, I’m not at liberty to say.”
Forman’s face reddened. “Damn it, don’t feed me that bullshit! This could be the most important medical find in history. I’m not going to stand by and let—”
“You will do as you are told,” Pickens said in a stern headmaster’s tone. “You are not in private practice. You are employed by the United States government and when you went to work on Ward Thirty-five you signed an airtight NDA with harsh penalties for breaking confidence. Penalties that will be pursued to the limit should word of what has transpired here slip out.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Doctor. This is a matter of national security…”
As Pickens droned on, Nelson leaned back against the wall of the car and braced himself on the handrail. A surge of relief left him feeling a little weak. The temperature in the car seemed to jump twenty degrees. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar.
“Are you all right?” Forman said, staring at him with a concerned look.
“Just a migraine.”
Not a complete lie. The headache still throbbed, but he couldn’t very well say he’d been agonizing all night over whether or not the solution would work.
And it had worked. Dr. Forman hadn’t said it in so many words, but the message was clear: The two agents were better. Just how much better, Nelson could only guess, but right now it was enough to know the solution had worked. He hadn’t been duped with a dummy concoction. Those two vials had contained the real thing … the real deal.
When the doors opened on the fifth floor, Dr. Forman led them through the halls at near race-walk speed. He first took them to the nurses’ desk in the isolation area. The blinds were open and through the glass Nelson saw Jason Kim sitting up in bed, eating from a breakfast tray. He’d been bare-chested yesterday, but now wore a hospital gown. He smiled and waved when he saw Dr. Forman.
“That’s Agent Kim?” Pickens said in a hushed tone. “He looks so…”
Forman was motioning to Kim to pull his gown down. The agent nodded and complied.
Nelson repressed a gasp. The crimson abscesses and oozing sores of yesterday were gone. All that remained were slightly reddened areas.
“What you’re seeing is impossible, gentlemen,” Forman said.
Nelson could only stare. His uncle Jim had drilled the existence of the panacea into him since he was a child. But Jim had never been able to secure a sample. He’d seen the results of the panacea post-facto but had never witnessed a cure firsthand. Nelson wished he were here now to bask in this.
“Not impossible if we’re witnessing it,” Nelson said.
Forman shook his head. “I won’t argue that. Seeing isn’t always believing, but I’m seeing and I’m believing. The infection is gone. A super staph that thumbed its nose at every antibiotic we threw at it just … just upped and cleared overnight.”
“I don’t see why that is impossible,” Nelson said.
Forman turned on him. “Because even if we’d administered a totally new class of antibiotic to which the staph was exquisitely sensitive, it would take time, even after all the bacteria were dead, for the skin inflammation to go down, for the purulence to be reabsorbed. Even if the antibiotic worked instantly, Kim’s skin would not—could not look like it does this morning.”
“But it does,” Nelson said.
He glanced at Pickens’s stiff, expressionless face. If his superior was feeling anything, he hid it well.
“It’s a fucking miracle,” Forman said. “But not the only one. Let’s go see Ashcroft.”
A slower, shorter walk this time. They entered the room of the agent who had been poisoned with polonium-210. Instead of a pale, drawn figure, fading into his sheets, barely able to lift a hand, they found a bright-eyed man sitting on the edge of his bed and shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth.
Agent Leo Ashcroft dropped his fork when he saw them. “My God, what did you do?”
Not God’s doing, I’m afraid, Nelson thought. But instead of answering, he said, “How do you feel?”
“Wonderful! Weak, sure. I mean, my muscles are deconditioned from all the time in bed, but on the whole, it’s like I was never sick. And look.” He ran a hand over his scalp. “My hair’s growing back.”
Nelson leaned in and thought he could make out a faint fuzz in the morning light pouring through the window. He didn’t touch it, though.
“What did you give me?” Ashcroft asked.
Pickens jumped in. “A new experimental anti-radiation treatment. All very hush-hush. You’re not to mention it to anyone, not even family.”
“Anything you say. I…” His lips trembled and tears rimmed his eyes. “I thought I was going to be leaving here in a box but Doc Forman said the scan this morning showed no sign of radiation anywhere in my body.” He quickly dabbed his eyes with his napkin. “It’s a miracle.”
“No,” Pickens said. “Just science—hard work and good research.”
They left him to finish his breakfast and let Forman lead them to the empty doctors’ lounge.
“Two miracles,” Forman said. “Two overnight miracles.” He jabbed a finger at Pickens. “And don’t sling that ‘science’ bullshit at me. That will work on Ashcroft and Kim because they don’t know they were treated with the same compound. They each think they received something specially tailored to their condition. But we three know different. It’s not science—it’s anti-science, because the same compound cannot possibly treat staph and acute radiation poisoning. And no placebo effect in the universe could reverse their conditions overnight. So we’ve left science and entered the realm of the supernatural now.”
Pickens snorted. “Really, Doctor—”
“Really nothing. I’m a devout agnostic but I’m pretty damn sure I’ve just witnessed a miracle. Two of them.”
A miracle … two of them …
Nelson’s first instinct was to call his uncle, the abbot of their order, and tell him of the morning’s events. But he could almost hear his reply: You expected something less?
With a stab of guilt he realized now that somewhere deep in his unworthy heart he had harbored doubts about his uncle’s tales of the panacea. He’d thought he believed, and he’d pursued the panacea with unquestioning zeal. But if he’d truly believed all along, why this profound sense of shock at seeing objective proof?
Clearly he had failed a test of faith. He could not go back, for faith was no longer required in the face of such incontrovertible evidence. He could only go forward. And he would, with greater fervor and resolution than ever.
“Have you got any more of that stuff?” Forman said. “Because I’ve got patients who need it.”
Nelson shook his head. “Sorry. That was it.”
“Well, you can make more, can’t you?”
Nelson looked away. “It’s complicated.”
“‘Complicated,’ my ass! Either you can or you can’t!”
“We are tracking the source. We hope to be able to secure more in the near future.”
“Hope? Hope? How can—?”
“You’ll just have to trust us,” Pickens said.
F
orman laughed. “That’s a good one!” He pointed to Pickens again, then Nelson. “You’ve found something that defies logic as well as analysis.”
“Analysis?” Nelson said. “What do you mean?”
“I took a droplet left in Kim’s dosing cup and put it through the center’s spectrograph.”
Nelson wanted to shout NO! No one must know the components.
“You had no right!” Pickens said, reddening. “I’m going to have to impound—”
“Relax,” Forman said. “There’s nothing to impound.”
Pickens said, “I’ll decide what—”
“We found nothing.” He began pacing the lounge, flapping his arms like a chicken. “The analysis was a complete bust. Oh, we got water, of course, and believe it or not, we found clay, sand, and humus—in other words: dirt. Really, gentlemen … dirt? Under what conditions did you mix that stuff? But the machine kept crashing. I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve got a compound that we can’t break down into its components—at least not with the equipment available.”
Nelson dropped into a chair to hide his relief. Maybe he would never learn the mystery ingredient, but at least Forman didn’t know.
“You’ll be under review,” Pickens told the doctor. “Count on that. In the meantime, remember the consequences for letting any of this out.”
Dr. Forman had wandered behind Nelson.
“First off, I’m loyal to my word. Second, I would only be jeopardizing my reputation as a rational human being by repeating this madness. I—”
He stopped and Nelson realized he was bending closer, staring at the back of his neck.
“What?”
“Have you had that looked at?”
“Had what looked at?”
“That mole on the back of your neck. Looks a bit sketchy to me.”
On its own accord, Nelson’s hand darted to his nape. “Sketchy? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s on the big side with an irregular border, and it’s got three shades of dark brown, one almost black. Have it looked at.”
“Never mind that,” Pickens said. “Remember what I said.” He turned to Nelson. “My car. Now.”
They made the trip to the parking lot in silence. Nelson hadn’t been able to read Pickens through all this. After what the deputy director had just seen, he couldn’t go on denying the existence of the panacea. Or could he?
As they walked he found his hand drifting to his nape. A “sketchy” mole back there? He’d had no idea.
Pickens broke the silence as soon as they’d slammed the doors of his Navigator.
“I suppose you feel you’re owed an apology.”
Damn right, he was, but this was hardly the time for I told you so.
“Not at all, sir. I’d have been deeply dubious myself were positions reversed.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to admit I did think you were a few fries short of a Happy Meal.” A quick, mechanical grin. Was Nelson supposed to laugh at that? “But after what I saw today, I’m a believer.”
“It’s incredible, isn’t it.”
He shook his head. “No argument there, Fife. Whatever it is, we have to control it. But what is that stuff?”
“That’s what I’m working to find out.”
“Yesterday I had our own lab run an analysis on the residue in the tubes. I’d like to think we have better equipment than Walter Reed—in fact, I like to think our equipment is second to none. But whatever that stuff is, it crashed our system as well.”
“How is that possible?”
“The lab boys say its molecular structure does not compute. It’s totally different from anything they’ve ever seen. Like it’s from outer space.”
If you only knew, Nelson thought.
Pickens shook his head. “We’ve run into a wall on that approach, and that’s a goddamn shame. Because if we can’t nail down its molecular structure, we can’t synthesize it.”
Nelson balled his fists. Excellent. How could he wipe it out if the Company could synthesize it?
“That leaves going to the source and bringing in one of these … these…”
“Panaceans.”
“Right. We need one of these guys alive to find out how they make it.”
“We know the process up to a point, sir.”
Pickens looked at him. “‘We’? What ‘we’ are we talking about here? The only ‘we’ is you and me and the Company.”
Had to tread carefully here.
“Sorry. I was referring to my uncle Jim and me. He—”
“Jim Fife again. We keep coming back to him.”
“Well, he was the one who identified the panaceans. He managed to grow some of their plants in his backyard and he would cook them up just like they did, but the results were worthless. They must add something, but they’ve all denied it. Even under … duress.”
“Interrogation methods have improved quite a bit from your uncle’s time—as you well know.”
Nelson nodded. The Company had a new infusion that could make the most reluctant interrogatee positively loquacious.
“Not much use when they drop dead rather than talk.”
“You need to Taser one as soon as you find him—knock him out before he can stop his heart or whatever they do.”
“I’ll need manpower and resources, sir.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve got them. I’m stopping at Langley. As soon as I get there I’ll clear you for a black account.”
After all these years—a green light and a black fund. That was something he could report to his abbot. But instead of giving a mental cheer, he was thinking about the back of his neck.
A “sketchy” mole? Really?
2
“There’s a Helen Cochran on line three-two,” said the front desk receptionist. “Says she must speak to you. Very insistent.”
Laura frowned. Helen Cochran? Who—oh, God. She jabbed the 32 button.
“Hello, Mrs. Cochran. I’m so sorry about Tommy.”
“Oh … yes.” A muffled sob. “Thank you. It’s been … hard.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“And your daughter. Is she … okay?”
“As good as can be expected, thanks. She had a stem-cell transplant and so far so good. She’s still got a ways to go.”
“Why does God try parents like He does?”
Parents? Laura thought. It’s not exactly a picnic for the kids.
Mrs. Cochran heaved a sigh. “I won’t keep you. I—”
“No-no. I was going to call you.”
“You were?”
“Yes. I…” This was so hard to say to someone she knew. “I did the autopsy on Tommy.”
“Oh, I was hoping you would. I asked for you because you’d met Tommy a few times. You knew of his condition. Is that why you were going to call me? What did you find?”
“Only injuries from the accident. It was what I didn’t find…”
“You didn’t find any arthritis, did you.” A statement, not a question.
“No. Not a trace.”
“That’s why I’m calling you. I saw the article in the paper this morning with the picture of the unidentified dead man. I recognized him.”
They’d published the photo? She must have missed it. Laura grabbed a pen, wondering how this middle-class woman from Mastic would know a member of a pot-growing gang. But this job had long since got her used to the weird connections between the most disparate individuals.
“You know his name?”
“I do. He’s Chet Brody. He was helping with Tommy’s physical therapy.”
A name … she finally had a name.
But wait. A guy with a respectable day job didn’t jibe with Lawson’s drug gang theory.
“He’s a physical therapist?”
“Just an assistant. And maybe more. He’s the one who cured Tommy’s arthritis.”
What?
“How-how-how did he do that?” Listen to me—stuttering like Porky Pig.
“It was a miracle,” she said. “That’s the only way I can explain it.”
Dr. Sklar had called it impossible. But “miracle” and “impossible” were codependent, weren’t they. Couldn’t have one without the other.
As Mrs. Cochran had been telling her story it slowly began to dawn on Laura that here was her fantasized connection between the arthritic child with perfect joints and the world’s healthiest ex–drug addict.
“What did Chet say was in the vial?”
“All he said was that it was herbal.”
Herbal … maybe he hadn’t been growing Cannabis. But if something else … what? What on Earth?
“You wouldn’t happen to have the vial it came in, would you?”
“It’s in the county dump, I’m afraid. I put the garbage out that night. After seeing Tommy the next morning I went to look for it but the truck had already come by.”
Laura gave her desktop a quick double pound. Damn. She would love to know the chemical composition of that “miracle” potion.
Laura extended her condolences again and thanked the woman for taking the time to call despite the tragedy of her son.
“How could I not call? Chet allowed Tommy a few pain-free hours of happiness before he died. I couldn’t let him go to an unmarked grave.”
Some people … Laura thought as she hung up … some people are too good for this world.
She’d decided not to ask her in to identify Brody’s body. Better to track down some family member or a coworker for that.
As for the name, she went straight to Dr. Henniger with the news.
“We’ve had a hit on that photo in the paper,” she said as she entered the CME’s office.
Henniger gave her a sour look. “Well, at least we’re getting a hit on something. No cause of death yet?”
She knew damn well there wasn’t. “Not yet.”
Henniger slapped her desktop. “We look like amateurs here, Laura.” She drummed her fingers, then, “All right, what about the photo?”
“A caller said his name is Chet Brody and he works for a Moriches physical therapy place.”