“And you mentioned that the duration of exposure is an important factor. For example, an individual exposed to low concentrations of a hazardous substance on a daily basis for many years would face an elevated risk of adverse health effects, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And the duration of potential exposure of Seattle residents to PCE-contaminated drinking water, because of Dr. MacDougall’s direct notification of the water management authorities, was how long?”
“Less than forty-eight hours.”
“And in toxicological parlance, does forty-eight hours constitute long-term or short-term exposure to a toxic substance?
“Short-term.”
“Your testimony has been very illuminating, Dr. Wright, thank you. Given its complexity I would like to ask a few more questions before you leave to ensure that we fully understand what you’ve told us. Seattle residents were exposed to very low levels of perc for a very brief period of time, correct?”
“Yes.”
“From a toxicological perspective, making conclusions about adverse human health effects based on extrapolations from animal and occupational studies involving far higher exposure levels is inadvisable, is it not?”
“Well—”
“Is it not mere guesswork?” Quarrington, feisty now, glowered at Wright.
“Objection! Counsel is badgering the witness.” Marconi was in damage control mode, seeking to shift the jury’s attention from Wright’s botched testimony.
“Withdrawn. No further questions for this witness, your honor.”
“Ms. Marconi? Any redirect examination?”
Marconi took a deep breath. She needed to salvage something from the wreckage of Dr. Wright’s testimony, do it quickly, and move on. “Dr. Wright, could you review the adverse health effects associated with exposure to PCE for us?”
Wright’s shoulders, which had ratcheted up close to his ears during Quarrington’s cross-examination, relaxed at Marconi’s return. He repeated his earlier evidence about health problems ranging from dizziness to death.
“Now, without going into great detail,” said Marconi, “I would like to know one thing. Could those adverse effects potentially arise from short-term exposure to low levels of PCE?”
“Potentially? Yes. An important consideration for chemicals like PCE is that for some health outcomes there is no known threshold below which there are no observable adverse effects.”
“Can you give us an example in layman’s terms?”
“Of course. With many carcinogens, exposure to even a small dose increases the risk that an individual will eventually develop cancer.”
“Even brief exposure to low concentrations of substances like PCE can increase the risk of cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. That’s all, your honor.”
“All right. We’ll take the lunch break now.” Klinsmann glowered at Marconi, not impressed with Dr. Wright, and laying the blame squarely at her feet.
With his back to the judge and jury, Quarrington winked subtly at his client. Michael felt an unfamiliar frisson of hope flutter in his chest.
Chapter 42
Cassie was on the verge of going outside the playbook. If things went south, it could end her career and possibly land her in prison, but she couldn’t bear the thought of being complicit in government actions that included torture and the attempted murder of an American citizen. She believed what Dr. Michael MacDougall had told her, and she had to move fast in case there was another attempt on his life. The doctor wasn’t innocent, but he was no terrorist. Cassie would call him a naive and misguided idealist. Badly misguided, likely due to his traumatic experiences, but well intentioned. She, in contrast, understood the system, the rules, the games, and the players. She called Abby into her borrowed office in Seattle.
“Hey boss, what’s up?”
“I need to reach our best undercover agent. They have to be a wizard at electronic surveillance. And they have to be one hundred percent trustworthy, but ideally with a maverick streak.”
“There are almost two hundred agents in our Criminal Enforcement Program, but only one fellow I know of who matches that description. Alan Jones.”
“Thanks. Can you pull him off whatever he’s working on and get him to Seattle by tomorrow?”
“Will do.”
* * *
Less than twenty-four hours later Cassie met with Alan Jones in person. He was average height, medium build, brown-haired, nondescript in every way.
“Congratulations for nailing the guy who poisoned Seattle’s water supply,” Jones said.
“Thanks, Alan. I appreciate your coming here on short notice. You’re the best we’ve got, and I need you to plant some bugs. On phones.”
“Okay. Where?”
“Two in DC, two in Virginia.”
“Can you be a little bit more specific?”
“I can, but you need to swear that this will remain buried forever.”
“Done.” Jones leaned toward Cassie.
“Randall Tierney and Billy Joe Stryder.”
Jones smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope, I’m dead serious. Tierney and Stryder are the targets, but security at the J. Edgar Hoover Building and CIA headquarters is more or less impenetrable. So we’ll settle for tapping their phones.”
“Why?”
“That’s classified. You’ll have to trust me when I say it’s a matter of national importance.”
“If I get busted—”
“Don’t. I’ll personally help put together your cover—plumber, electrician, cable guy, whatever. I’ll pull strings if you need the latest whiz-bang electronic gizmos from our National Computer Forensics Laboratory in Jacksonville.”
“An undercover surveillance op on our own guys?”
“Happens all the time. You’d be surprised.”
“Yeah, right. You know that text messages and emails will be encrypted.”
“Can you break the codes?”
“Yup,” Jones answered confidently.
Cassie smiled. “Are you in?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Excellent. We’ll get started now.”
Cassie laid out additional details about the operation, emphasizing that she was the only person with clearance to listen to the recordings gleaned from the four phones, and that they wanted to avoid creating a paper trail. Jones listened closely, nodding, smiling, and asking intelligent questions.
Wiretaps on Tierney and Stryder were the only way Cassie could think of to find out if there was a plan B in the suspected plot to assassinate Dr. Michael MacDougall. Now she had to hurry over to the federal courthouse to testify against the man whose life she was trying to save.
Chapter 43
Marconi had refueled during a working lunch. “The prosecution calls Dr. Carole Hailes, an epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health.” Dr. Hailes was a petite redhead with pale skin and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Quarrington again waived the lengthy process of qualifying the witness as an expert.
“Can you tell us a bit about your job with the Department of Health?” Marconi began.
“I’m part of the state’s disease surveillance team, meaning that I review statistics on physician visits, emergency room admissions, hospitalizations, the incidence and prevalence of disease, and mortality. Our team’s goal is to identify trends and anomalies in health statistics to enable the state to take more effective preventive and remedial actions. Ideally, we can catch potential problems, such as epidemics, early on in ways that individual doctors or hospitals can’t because they lack access to broader data sets.”
“Could you give us an example?”
“Of course. Last September, we noticed a spike in reported cases of E. coli poisoning from various locations ar
ound the state. We interviewed some of the affected individuals and determined that the common link was consumption of ground beef. Our research resulted in a nationwide health alert and the removal of several brands of ground beef from the food supply chain after the problem was traced to a specific slaughterhouse in Texas.”
“Thank you. Now, turning to the events at issue in this trial. We’re interested in learning about the adverse health outcomes associated with the poisoning of Seattle’s water supply by the toxic chemical perchloroethylene earlier this year. Did your team collect and study data on adverse health effects in the days immediately following the poisoning?”
“Yes, we did.”
“And what did you find?”
“Our statistical analysis showed increases in a variety of adverse health outcomes that might be expected to occur when a community’s water supply is contaminated. We found spikes in reported cases of gastrointestinal illness, emergency room visits, hospital admissions, physician visits, calls to poison control centers, and deaths in the three days immediately following the contamination event. Could I show you a series of graphs?”
“Of course.”
There were several large screens positioned in the courtroom so that judge, jury, attorneys, and spectators all had a clear view. The first image showed a graph with a horizontal red line above a horizontal blue line. “The vertical axis shows the number of reported cases of gastrointestinal illness in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, and the horizontal axis covers the week of April 1 through April 7 for the ten most recent years. The lower line, in blue, shows the average number of cases of gastrointestinal illness in Seattle during that same week over the past ten years.”
“And the red line?”
“The red line indicates the number of gastrointestinal illnesses reported from April 1st through April 7 of this year, following the contamination of the reservoir. As you can see, the number of cases is approximately fifteen percent higher. The second slide is basically the same but it shows telephone calls to local poison control centers. There’s a seventy-six-percent rise in the number of calls in the week following the contamination event compared to the ten-year average.”
“And the third slide?”
“The third slide represents the number of mortalities occurring in the Seattle Metropolitan Area for that same week this year, compared with the ten-year average. Here we see a six-percent jump in deaths occurring in that specific time period.”
“What are your overall conclusions?”
“We searched for explanations that were consistent with the data, such as an influenza outbreak, a food contamination event, or a period of prolonged poor air quality. We found only one external factor that was positively correlated with the significant rise in adverse health outcomes—the contamination of Seattle’s drinking water with perchloroethylene.”
“So, in your expert opinion, the poisoning of Seattle’s water supply led to extensive illness and even death?”
“Well, epidemiologists have to be cautious in drawing conclusions about cause and effect. There are so many confounding variables at play in any given case that we can rarely come out and say a specific factor caused a specific outcome. However, we can say with confidence that there is a positive correlation between the contamination of Seattle’s drinking water and a rise in gastrointestinal illnesses, poisonings, and mortalities.”
“Thank you, Dr. Hailes. No further questions, your honor.” Marconi returned to her seat.
Quarrington straightened his tie and wheeled forward, smiling as though greeting a long-lost friend. “Did the Department of Health test individuals in Seattle to determine their level of exposure to PCE, if indeed they were exposed to it at all?”
“No.”
“Yet the tests are very simple, are they not? PCE exposure can be measured by taking a sample of a person’s breath, in the same way that police use breathalyzer tests to measure the level of alcohol in the blood of individuals suspected of drunk driving. PCE can also be measured by taking a blood sample, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And yet none of the individuals whose illness you are attempting to attribute to PCE exposure were actually tested for PCE?”
“No.”
“PCE is also commonly used in the dry-cleaning industry, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And when an individual brings their dry-cleaning home, that is a source of exposure to PCE through the air, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what concentration that exposure might be?”
“Not offhand, no. It would depend on the quantity of dry-cleaning, the size of the home, the layout, the ventilation system, and a host of other factors.”
“Could it be in the neighborhood of eleven parts per billion?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose it’s possible. But as I said, it would depend on the circumstances. We didn’t test anyone in Seattle to determine their exposure to perchloroethylene.”
“Thank you for clarifying those matters. Now I would like to turn your attention back to the graphs that you used to describe what you referred to as spikes in levels of gastrointestinal illness, calls to poison control centers, and deaths. You left us with the distinct impression that these spikes were anomalous, that they struck you as sufficiently distinctive as to merit investigation. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now do you have a similar graph showing the incidence of gastrointestinal illness in Seattle over the course of the past year?”
“Yes, I should be able to dig up that data. One minute please.”
Marconi used the interruption to rise. “Your honor, is this a fishing expedition? My friend could have requested this information in advance if he thought it was relevant.”
“I’m going to give Mr. Quarrington the benefit of the doubt for a minute.” As if surprised by his own ruling, Klinsmann grimaced and added, “Just for a minute. If it isn’t clear where he’s going, then I’ll shut down this line of questioning.”
“Ah here we are.” Dr. Hailes was immersed in searching her laptop and oblivious to the discussion swirling around her. She flashed a new graph up on the screen. It showed a jagged horizontal blue line like the profile of a mountain range.
“And this is?” Quarrington plowed ahead.
“This is the incidence of gastrointestinal illness in Seattle for the past eighteen months. The vertical axis shows the number of cases and the horizontal axis is broken down week by week.”
“There is a high degree of variability, isn’t there?” Quarrington asked.
“Yes.” The penny dropped. “Oh.” A pink blush appeared on her neck.
“Beginning from the left-hand side, let’s discuss the first spike in cases of illness. What was the explanation for that jump?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the reservoir contaminated at that time?”
“No.”
“And yet there was a jump in gastrointestinal illness.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s move on to the second spike on the graph. What was the explanation for that surge in illness?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was the reservoir contaminated at that time?”
“No.” Now Hailes was blushing furiously.
“And yet there was a jump in gastrointestinal illness.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Now let’s move on to the third spike.”
“Objection!” cried Marconi. “Mr. Quarrington has made his point, your honor. At this point he’s just harassing the witness.”
“Sustained. Please move along.”
“Allow me to summarize your testimony, Dr. Hailes. Surges in gastrointestinal illness occur frequently over the course of a given year and are difficult to attribute to a particular cause, is that
correct?”
“Yes.”
“And the same analysis would apply to calls to poison control centers, that is to say, there are significant fluctuations in the number of calls over the course of a year that cannot be attributed to identifiable external factors, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And again, the same logic applies to deaths, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Could we have this graph identified as an official trial exhibit, please?”
The clerk nodded.
“While we are on the admittedly distasteful subject of death, can you tell me how many of the coroner’s certificates from the week following the contamination of Seattle’s water supply identified exposure to perchloroethylene as the cause of death?”
“None.”
“None? Not a single one?”
“No.”
“What were the leading causes of death for that particular week?”
“Again, I would have to consult my records.”
“Please do so.”
With impressive speed, Dr. Hailes produced a summary table of deaths in the Seattle Metropolitan Area for the preceding year.
“For the record, Dr. Hailes, what were the ten leading causes of death for that week?”
“According to my records, the leading causes of death were cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes, stroke, nervous system diseases, motor vehicle accidents, pneumonia, infectious diseases, and suicides.”
“No mention of poisoning due to perchloroethylene?”
“No.”
“In fact, there is not a single death in the Seattle Metropolitan Area that you can say definitely was caused by exposure to perchloroethylene, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Dr. Hailes, you’ve been very helpful. No further questions.” There was an eerie silence in the courtroom as people digested Quarrington’s second master class in cross-examination.
“Ms. Marconi, any redirect?” asked the judge.
Again, the U.S. attorney was faced with a key witness whose testimony seemed more helpful to the defense than the prosecution. Marconi had no choice but to give it her best shot. “Dr. Hailes, let’s return to the question of death certificates for a minute, because I think Mr. Quarrington’s line of questioning may have created a false impression. I’d like you to imagine a lifetime smoker with a two-pack-a-day habit who dies from lung cancer at age sixty.”
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