The Last Exit

by Michael Kaufman

  “I could. But I’m not. Here’s another thing that could land me in jail. Before my suspension, when I was interviewed about the Eden investigation, I did not mention your co-op. I did not mention I had spoken to any of you.”

  Ximena said, “Sorry, Jen, but still the same problem.”

  Jen sighed. “I don’t know what I can say.”

  Mary Sue said, “Tell us what you came here for.”

  Jen fought to control her annoyance. “I think I know who’s making the fake treatment that is killing people,” she said.

  Mary Sue said, “God! Then go to the police! You may be suspended, but surely—”

  “That’s why I was suspended. I think the people making it suspect I’m on their trail.”

  Ximena laughed. “You’re saying the DC police are pushing the counterfeit treatment? Even I think that’s crazy.”

  “No, not directly. But people with a lot of power are pulling strings to get some of us out of the way. My captain was arrested yesterday under the Prevention of Biological Terrorism Law. He’s, well, I think he may be someone you know.”

  They waited.

  “His name is Kyrie Brooks.”

  Ximena said, “Why would we know him?” She seemed genuine in her question.

  “He was a supporter of the DC18.”

  “Many people were.”

  “I think he was involved in your … whatever you call yourselves.”

  “We don’t call ourselves anything. We’re an open and legal network of co-ops and NGOs.”

  “Anyway, was he?”

  Ximena said, “I’ve never heard of him. Mary Sue?” Mary Sue said no. The man shook his head no.

  There didn’t seem to be any doubt in their denials. No tension, no furtive glances, no hesitation. Jen had been so certain, but she now felt herself faltering, afraid that she’d been on the wrong track. But then she realized if it was such a big and loose network, people couldn’t possibly know everyone.

  She found her footing again. “I think he was arrested because he was trying to keep people from figuring out whether Eden was linked to you,” Jen said.

  “What the fuck are you saying?” Ximena grabbed Jen’s arm. “That we’re distributing this abomination that’s killing people?”

  Jen twisted her arm away. “Will you listen? There are two different drugs. The one that’s killing people, I think it’s being produced by the pharma consortium—”

  “Jesus,” Mary Sue said.

  “—or some of the companies in the consortium, or maybe just some people in them, I don’t know.”

  Ximena said, “Which ones?”

  “There are two individuals working in DC right now. Senior people with two of the companies.”

  “Which companies? What people?”

  “I’ll tell you, but in good time.” Meaning, she hoped they realized, once she got some cooperation from them.

  Mary Sue said, “Create a bastard version of their own drug to kill people? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if someone else has already figured out how to make the limited version of the treatment, the one you get if your parents exit,” Jen said. “Those other people”—Jen paused for the briefest of seconds and looked at Ximena—“maybe they called their version of the treatment Eden. Let’s say it’s safe. Let’s say it works. As soon as word spread, people would be clamoring for it everywhere. The consortium would lose billions. If I’m right, I figure the best way for the consortium to stop demand for this—for the real Eden—is to make their own. But their counterfeit version would cause a swift and nasty death. You see, don’t you? It would scare the shit out of people for years to come.”

  Ximena said, “Why are you telling us this?”

  “Because I need your help.”

  “Shh!” Zach hissed.

  Lights from a car slowly swept through the trees. They heard the soft sound of tires snapping twigs and crunching over stones on the roadway. They huddled down until the car passed. Even after it was long gone, Jen put a finger to her lips to signal they should stay silent.

  She was the first to speak again. “There are two things I need to prove this. I need to show there’s a safe version. You know, to prove that a real and effective version of Eden exists. And I need to figure out how to prove these companies are behind the fake version that kills people.”

  Ximena tone was blistering. “Oh, that’ll be easy.”

  “I don’t have a clue how to link the companies to it. But the first one, that one is easy.”

  They waited.

  “I’m going to find someone to treat me.”

  Zach exploded. “You can’t do that, Jen. It’ll kill you.”

  “Zach, I’m betting it won’t. I’m betting Eden is real. I’m betting that’s what my captain was trying to tell me. That someone has produced a version that’s safe.” She turned to the women. “And I’m betting you know how I can arrange that.”

  Mary Sue laughed, but it wasn’t completely convincing. “We’re a computer company.”

  “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure you guys know about this. I think that the numbers on the receipt in Odette Johnson’s Bible were dates to help administer a trial of Eden. Perhaps one set was for when she was going to get it herself. And I’m guessing that’s why Devin broke into her place and stole the Bible.”

  No one answered. The tension emanating from the three co-op members was like the buzz coming off a high-voltage power line. Jen had no proof of what she had just said, but on the day she’d visited Mary Sue’s home and mentioned the theft of the Bible, Devin had turned rigid as a board. Once she and Zach realized that the Bible verses might be Odette’s code for administering Eden, Jen figured the co-op members had seen Odette write her coded dates on a receipt and slip it into her Bible. Jen figured they had wanted to get the receipt back and did so by grabbing the Bible itself.

  Ximena’s voice was calm when she spoke, as if she’d heard none of this. “Then we’re back to the first question,” she said. “Even if we did have a lead, why should we trust you?”

  “After all I’ve said?”

  “Especially after all you’ve said.”

  Jen switched on her phone light.

  Zach said, “Jen!”

  She ignored him. She said, “Would the three of you just look at me. I’m telling you, I’m here to help. I want to stop these fuckers who are murdering people. I’m certain I know who’s doing it, but I have zero proof. I think my captain had a pretty good idea and that got him arrested. I need your help.” She paused. “I need you to help me shut them down.”

  She looked at each of them one by one and then flicked off the light.

  For a minute, it was much darker than before, but Jen could make out Ximena leaning over and whispering to Mary Sue. Mary Sue whispered back and then said to Jen, “It’s possible we could help you. To get Eden. The authentic Eden.”

  “Jen,” Zach said. “You—”

  She placed her hand on his. “I’m convinced it’s safe.”

  Mary Sue said, “Jen, it really isn’t. None of us in our co-op has gotten it. Yes, two of us were scheduled to, but now …”

  “July ninth and sixteenth, August twelfth and nineteenth, and September fourth and eleventh, by any chance?”

  Mary Sue started to speak. Ximena held up her hand like a stop sign and said, “Mary Sue.”

  But Mary Sue said, “Ximena, she knows.” She turned to Jen. “But how?”

  Jen resisted glancing at Zach. She said, “Like I said, it was a simple code. That’s what Odette had written on the receipt.”

  Mary Sue said, “Yes, we knew. And she had volunteered to go first. In July. I volunteered for August. A member from another co-op was down for September.”

  Zach said, “But then you realized it wasn’t safe.”

  Jen said, “The stuff that’s killing people is different.”

  “Well, even if it’s safe,” Zach said, “you still would have no proof those companies are involved in the
bad version. You said so yourself. You don’t have a clue how to get that.”

  For the first time the other man spoke. His voice was deep and calm, his cadence measured.

  “I may be able to help you out.”

  39

  Her eyes were shut, but lightly. She was doing exactly what she’d been doing for the past hour and forty-five minutes: working to control her nerves as she lay flat on her back on a padded examination table in an apartment somewhere in DC, being intravenously fed chemicals that might kill her. It was August 22, eight days after her suspension, three days after the Rock Creek Park meeting.

  When the car picked her up in a mall parking garage, Zach and Gabe Cohen were already inside, the windows blacked out. The man in the front seat made sure no one had a phone. Then, in a South Boston accent, he said, “I feel silly asking, but would you all mind shutting your eyes during the trip? We figure it’s one less thing for you to know.”

  Jen had half-expected a blindfold. The driver was on manual override, and they stopped and started and took so many turns that for all she knew they ended up back where they started. They dipped down a ramp. When they were told to open their eyes, she saw they were in the underground parking lot of an apartment or condominium.

  And now she lay with her eyes shut again. Her eyelids fluttered. She didn’t want to talk to Zach or Gabe, who were sitting in chairs at her side, speaking in whispers; she didn’t want to talk to the woman who said she was a doctor. She didn’t want to find out if her eyes still burned when the light fell on them. All she wanted was to tell herself that her eyelids were as light as butterflies, and round one of the treatment would be finished in an hour and everything was going to be okay.

  Two days after the Rock Creek Park meeting, she had received a call from Zach, asking if she could help him dig up a garden. It felt great to put her muscles back to work, but they’d only been at it for a few minutes when he said, “I’m supposed to tell you your first appointment is tomorrow. For the treatment. But you can’t do it, Jen. Even they don’t think you should.”

  She had insisted it would be fine. And, one agonizing sentence at a time, she pulled the instructions out of him. No food or drink after an early dinner. Details on the pickup time and place. “You sure that’s all I need to know?” she had asked. All her preparation for the thing that would either kill her or change her life. And perhaps help bring down an empire.

  Following an hour of digging in the garden, she had biked to the seniors’ home. She found Gabe Cohen in his small apartment on one of the retirement floors.

  “Sorry to invade like this.”

  “Are you kidding? This makes my day.”

  He invited her in. Pulled a pitcher of iced tea from his small refrigerator. Poured tea into old-fashioned aluminum drinking cups, hers colored silvery blue, his frosty burgundy. Ice cubes made a pleasantly deep sound as they clunked against the sides.

  His voice was teasing when he said, “I expect you’re here on a mission.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, you might say that. Can I speak to you? Confidentially?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean, speak to you as a journalist?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, now this sounds—”

  “You can’t tell anyone. Not yet anyway.”

  “My bridge partners are going to be disappointed, but …” The gravity of her tone must have sunk in, because his smile faded and his words stopped. “Sorry. I’m listening and, yes, you are speaking in confidence to me as a journalist.”

  “If I have a big story for you, would you write it?”

  “Are you kidding? In a flash.”

  “You could get it published?”

  “If it really is big—”

  “Bigger.”

  “Then definitely.”

  “And you wouldn’t divulge your source?”

  “Jen, I’ve gone to jail protecting my sources. Twice.”

  An hour and a half and many questions later, Jen had told him everything she knew except for the names of the co-op people, which she said she didn’t have permission to disclose. She said, though, they had agreed to bring him into the story. She told him she was going to receive the first course of Eden the next day. He said he thought that was a very bad idea. She asked if he would be there as a witness and to interview the doctor if he or she was willing. She had said he must wait to publish anything until after she had the answer to the big question: whether the consortium and their cronies in the upper reaches of government were involved in producing the lethal version of Eden. And to a second question: whether she’d still be alive in a few weeks to find out.

  Her mouth was now desert dry. She opened her eyes. At least they weren’t burning anymore. The room was dimly lit—to make her comfortable, the woman, the doctor, had said. Jen twisted her head sideways and looked around. The doctor was reading, a gooseneck lamp pointing at her book. Zach and Gabe were huddled together. Zach noticed her looking at him. Smiled. Came and rested a hand on her leg. “You doing okay?”

  “I’m so thirsty.”

  The doctor came over, her movements as controlled as a dancer’s. “I’ll just be a sec.” She glided from the room.

  Jen studied the IV drip. It had been more than two hours. She had lost track of how many different compounds had been introduced into the line. Some, the doctor had explained, could be introduced together or one immediately after another, but for others, they had waited twenty or thirty minutes to monitor for adverse reactions.

  The woman returned with a glass of water. Jen propped herself up. Took a sip. Nodded. Did her best to smile.

  When they had arrived, a man had welcomed her, but his face had been grave, and when he handed her a gown, it had felt like a shroud in her hands. He had said she could keep on her underpants and socks, but they preferred if she put on the gown. “Just in case.”

  Just in case, what?

  She drifted off to sleep.

  Woke shivering.

  “I’m freezing,” she said.

  Zach looked at the doctor, worry contorting his face.

  “That’s normal.” She spread two blankets over Jen. One was electric and warmed quickly. Zach held Jen’s hand; she closed her eyes.

  Gabe asked the doctor, “You said ‘normal.’ How many times have you done this?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Perhaps she was counting, or perhaps she was deciding whether to answer.

  “Three times.”

  Gabe looked startled.

  So few, Jen thought.

  The doctor continued. “For safety’s sake, we were spacing things out. Four weeks between volunteers—you know, to better monitor them.”

  Those words animated Zach. “Four weeks between volunteers?”

  When the doctor nodded, he said, “The Bible chapters. Her code for months.”

  Jen whispered, her eyes still shut, her voice croaking, “Odette Johnson.”

  “Odette Johnson,” Zach said to the doctor. “She was assisting you, wasn’t she?”

  The doctor looked unsure whether to answer, but finally said, “Yes. She was a wonderful woman.”

  As the doctor continued talking about their tests, Gabe scribbled on his paper pad. He wrote all his notes by hand, he said, so he couldn’t get hacked. Zach asked why he didn’t simply use a computer not linked to the internet. “I write the stories on one of those,” Gabe replied, “but as for notes, I’m old school.”

  The doctor had already explained that she and others had stopped their trials the second they received the first reports of the deaths. “None of ours,” she had said. “But until we know what caused those deaths, we’re holding off on any more.”

  Jen had said, “Then why are you doing this?”

  “Your friends approached me with your story. I told them no. They said this could change everything. I told them absolutely not. They told me what you discovered. And so”—the doctor shrugged—“here we are.” She had paused then, as if she still might chang
e her mind. Then, as if each word was taking a toll, she had said, “I will do this. But you have to know the extreme risk you are taking. Likely not with this first treatment, but the second …” The second, she had explained, involved gene therapy, and this was where most of the cost, and danger, occurred. The doctor had already taken tubes of blood from Jen’s arm. That would go to a lab to extract stem cells, then splice, grow, and one week from now be reintroduced. That was where things could go wrong.

  The electric blanket warmed Jen. Her eyes closed. She drifted off to sleep.

  After speaking to Gabe the day before, Jen had gone upstairs to the nursing floor. She had stood at the locked door, once again watching her mother through the glass window. Her mother was knitting and speaking to another woman, also knitting.

  Jen wondered if this would be the last time she saw her. Perhaps because the treatment would kill her. Or perhaps because she would choose to never see her mother again.

  Either way, she knew she had made the right choice, not to sign the exit papers. She was glad she had made the decision before she thought of trying Eden. At some point, she reckoned, people needed to stop inflicting their pain and anger on others more vulnerable than they were. This woman, her mother, had failed to be compassionate. Jen had decided that she would not.

  A hand shook Jen. “You can wake up. We’re done.”

  Zach and the doctor helped her sit up.

  “Take it easy. Moderate exercise, if you’re feeling up for it. You’ll probably feel very tired at times.” The doctor smiled. “There’s a lot starting to go on in your body. If you have any problems, go straight to Emergency.”

  “And not call you?”

  “If you have an emergency, I’m afraid I won’t be any help.” The doctor didn’t bother saying, And they won’t be either.

  The doctor left. The young man came in and told the three of them where a car would pick them up in one week.

  “If I’m still alive,” Jen said with a smile.

  The young man said, “That’s a joke we don’t do around here.”

  * * *

  She spent half of the next day throwing up or on the toilet. On day two, she was on fire and obsessively checked her face for wrinkles and sagging skin. The third day was fine. On the fourth, she felt achy, like a flu had pounced on her. Or she had suddenly become very old. On the fifth, she was tired and worried. On the sixth, fine again.