The Endorphin Conspiracy

by Fredric Stern

  The prestigious position in Balassi’s lab, the chief residency on a silver platter, all for someone who forged a drug log. It never felt right, never made sense. Until now. He had been set up. A goddamn, brilliant scheme. He was to be the fall guy. Geoff was, as O’Malley had put it, at the center of it all.

  Geoff was devastated by Suzanne’s assault. He felt totally responsible, having drawn her into a danger zone to solve his own problem. Suzanne had trusted Geoff completely, and Geoff had betrayed her trust, however unintentionally. He didn’t want to make the same mistake with Stefan and endanger his life any more than he already had, but he was the only one Geoff could completely trust. After staying up most of the night talking and recounting the night’s awful events, Geoff felt he had no choice but to send Stefan far away from the city to the family compound in Connecticut where he’d be safe. A kind and gentle soul, he had never been in combat like Geoff, never even been involved in a fist fight, even as a kid. Geoff had always bailed him out of trouble, protected him. And he would protect him again at all costs.

  Geoff collapsed on the bed, sat head in his hands. He thought of Suzanne lying in a dark lake of her own blood on the floor of the autopsy room.

  Those assholes would pay for what they had done and pay dearly. He didn’t care if it was the CIA or even the goddamned President of the United States. He’d see to it. Nothing mattered greatly to him at this point except that he stay alive long enough to bring a certain end to the Sigma Project. It seemed unlikely he would survive his own accomplishment.

  Right now though, he knew he needed to sleep to keep functioning. Geoff was physically exhausted and emotionally drained from the encounter in the autopsy lab. Sleep. The great escape, if only for a little while.

  Geoff awoke abruptly at four a.m., body drenched with sweat, his heart racing as he tried to shut out the nightmarish images of grotesque corpses bursting with dancing snakes that slithered out of orifices and bloody wounds. He wiped his forehead with his hand, calmed himself. He needed a plan, and he had to be quick about it. He couldn’t afford to make an error in judgment now. He shut out horrible images of the autopsy room, of Suzanne, chalky white and near death in the emergency room.

  Geoff sat up in bed, turned on a small night light. He glanced at the envelope from Suzanne resting on the coffee table. He threw off the bedcovers, walked to the table, grabbed the envelope, sat down at Kapinsky’s desk and emptied the envelope’s contents. Recorder, flash drive, electrophoresis printouts, endorphin vials. Geoff flipped through the printouts, noted the sigma endorphin patterns, assumed they were from the vials he had given her earlier.

  At the bottom of the stack of printouts were two newspaper clippings, yellowed with age, edges frayed.

  The first one was from The Washington Post, September 13, 1962.

  “Professor Jumps to his Death. In an unfortunate incident today, Georgetown University political science professor Cameron Daniels died after jumping from the window of his seventh floor room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Daniels had been hospitalized for depression. He leaves behind a wife and an infant daughter...”

  At the bottom of the page was a picture, the professor’s family, a handsome man with streaks of grey in his hair, a starched white shirt with a perfectly knotted striped tie, his striking, young wife and infant daughter cradled between them. Geoff dropped his jaw in astonishment. He remembered seeing the same photo in an antique pewter frame resting on Suzanne’s bookshelf. Suzanne’s reaction was one of tension tinged with sadness. He was a political science professor, died not too long after that picture was taken….

  Geoff flipped to the next article, from the same newspaper, dated November 23, 1962. “Family Sues Intelligence Agency, Wins Settlement. In a landmark decision, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judgment against the Central Intelligence Agency in which the family of a professor with ties to the CIA had claimed his suicide was the result of CIA experimentation...”

  “Oh, my God,” Geoff whispered. Until now, he had not understood Suzanne’s involvement, his feeling of being prodded along, used by her. Now it all became clear. He set down the articles, turned on Suzanne’s recorder.

  “I assume you’re listening to this message in a private place and that you’re alone. If not, turn this off immediately until you can safely listen to what I have to say without being overheard.” Geoff switched off the recorder, scanned the room. Silly, almost. He turned the device back on, volume down, his ear close to the speaker.

  “You have stumbled into something that is way over your head, Geoff. Your life is in danger. I urge you to leave the medical center immediately and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Not anyone! Do not trust even those you think are closest to you.” There was a pause of several seconds followed by clicks as if recorder was being switched on and off.

  Geoff took a deep breath, looked around, listened. He flipped on the recorder again.

  “Now that you think I’m crazy, or simply trying to manipulate you, take a careful look at the papers in this envelope.”

  Geoff removed the papers one at a time as she described them.

  “The assay of the sigma endorphin you left me earlier today is an exact match with the one I isolated from Jessica’s brain tissue. It’s a synthetic sigma endorphin analog, one so potent it is capable of altering a person’s mental status and inducing a violent state of schizophrenia. Injected, it is like a ticking time bomb ready to go off. The other vial contains a beta endorphin analog, probably just an extremely powerful euphoria-inducing substance with some hallucinogenic properties, similar to, but much more potent than, morphine. I have placed both in this envelope. Keep them in a safe place as evidence.

  “I have enclosed digitalized copies of the girl’s and Smithers’ PET scans and those of the rabbi and Jesus Romero. I was able to obtain them from the computer’s data banks. They tried to lock the files, but I was able to break the code.

  “I know you are aware of Balassi’s involvement, but it goes much, much deeper than that. PETronics Corporation, the government. It’s all encrypted on the enclosed flash drive.

  “Listen, Geoff, I’m sorry to draw you into this, but it was the only way. We needed an outsider to break this thing, and you were identified as the one with the knowledge and skills to do the job. You must, I repeat must, get this information to Dick Bennington at the CIA, Langley, Virginia, soon as possible. He can help protect you and break the project before it gets further out of control.

  “Find a public phone and call this number, 703-235-0339. It’s a secure line. Tell him you have urgent information for him about the Sigma Project.”

  There was silence on the recording, followed by a knocking sound. “Gotta go now. Remember, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Good luck, Geoff.”

  Geoff sat in stunned silence. Suzanne was Proteus, the agent from the Inspector General’s office slated to be neutralized. Geoff had known Suzanne for over a year and had never observed even the slightest inconsistency in her behavior. They had even spent the night together. She was a doctor, a pathologist, not a spy. Or so he had thought.

  Leave the Medical Center immediately. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.

  Geoff felt angry, manipulated, used. She knew exactly what she was doing, lured him with clues dropped like crumbs along the path, allowed him to feel as though she was helping him, cared about him. O’Malley had been right.

  Geoff thought of the articles, the man who was obviously her father committing suicide, the experimentation. He thought of his own patient, Smithers, suddenly psychotic, jumping out a window, the endorphins. There were no synthetic endorphins in 1962, but there were other drugs. Geoff remembered the army MK Ultra LSD experiment scandal. Could this be related? The connection was there. Now forty years later, another generation. Suzanne’s mot
ivation was clear: avenge her father’s death. Geoff thought of Stefan and understood perfectly. If something had happened to his brother, he’d probably react the same way.

  You have stumbled into something that is way over your head.

  No shit. Whoever was behind this, and it did indeed have to go far deeper than Balassi, was willing to kill anyone who stood in the way.

  Who else was involved? Pederson. He and Balassi had known each other in their early days at the NIH. Geoff couldn’t pinpoint anyone else at the Trauma Center. PETronics Corporation? Suzanne had mentioned it on her recording. Someone else on the neurosurgery service had to be involved besides Pederson. Someone with day-to-day patient contact, someone who could identify the patients and administer the endorphins.

  Someone like Kapinsky.

  Chapter 35

  It had to be Kapinsky. Kapinsky was always the first one there, long before rounds in the morning, the last one to leave at night. He had been there at Jessica’s bedside the night before she coded, had examined Smithers before he was discharged to the seventh floor. Kapinsky was the resident on the service when Jesus Romero was admitted with his head injury; Kapinsky had had contact with the rabbi when he was a patient at the Trauma Center as well. Kapinsky, the fucking fly in the ointment, whose fumbling hands were a hazard in the operating room, who should have been bounced by Pederson from the program, but never was.

  If Kapinsky had been part of this thing, why was he murdered? Had he had second thoughts, threatened to expose the conspiracy, or did he just screw up somehow? Who else was in on the project?

  His mind racing, he got up, walked to the kitchen without turning on any lights. Geoff was ravenously hungry, so he made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale white bread and popped the tab on a Budweiser. The head from the beer foamed out of the can and spilled down the sides, forming a large puddle on the countertop. Geoff looked around for a sponge or a paper towel, using the refrigerator light for illumination, but could not find one. “Didn’t Kapinsky ever clean this dump?”

  He opened a few drawers and came upon a pile of neatly folded dishtowels. That was more like it. It seemed like Kapinsky to have folded them so neatly. Geoff’s thoughts returned to Kapinsky’s role in all this, his murder, the suicide note. He still couldn’t believe Kapinsky had written the note, nor that he was gay, as asexual as he had known him to be. If Geoff was wrong, if that was all true, there had to be some kind of evidence here of a relationship, something indicating his despair, his depression. Letters, notes, something.

  Geoff walked back to Kapinsky’s desk, searched the drawers with a penlight. He came across three by five cards on neuroanatomy, class notes, research papers, nothing personal.

  Geoff got up, moved to the dresser, examined the photos resting on top. Kapinsky with his sister and mother at med school graduation. His hair was not as thin, no mustache. Geoff smiled. Without the mustache, Kapinsky looked a lot like his mother.

  He searched the drawers, top down. Nothing in the top two but a silver dollar collection hidden in a sock, a small switchblade pocket knife. Geoff placed the knife in his sweat pants pocket. It might come in handy. Geoff tried to open the bottom drawer. It was stuck at first, but he managed to jiggle it open. Running shorts, a jock strap, a box of condoms. Not so asexual, after all. Nothing else of note. No hidden envelopes, photos, notes. Nothing. Geoff was disappointed.

  He tried to close the drawer, but it jammed on the track. He jiggled it again. Geoff heard something drop to the floor behind the drawer. He pulled the drawer off its track and out, got down on the floor, searched with the penlight.

  Geoff was startled when he saw a small, bound, composition notebook. Geoff held up the book so he could see the writing on the cover in the penlight’s dim light. In Kapinsky’s hand was scrawled the simple word, “Journal.”

  Geoff stood up, walked over to Kapinsky’s desk and sat down. He was hesitant to turn on the lamp and instead continued using the penlight, though it was beginning to flicker.

  The first entry was dated July 1, 2003. Geoff tried to think back to that period of time and reconstruct his own life. He had been working like a dog as a second-year resident and had been happily married to Sarah for two years. Happy times.

  The penlight flickered and went out, the room now illuminated only by the dim rays of slivered moonlight streaming between the slats of the window blind. Geoff played with the penlight until he got it to work again and returned to the first entry.

  For Kapinsky, the rookie, it was the first day of his internship.

  “Started my internship in Neurosurgery at the New York Trauma Center today. I can’t believe I’m here! Spent last night wandering the halls of the Center. Came back to my apartment so charged up I finished reviewing my neuroanatomy book again. Everyone else was out partying. I’m sure I got a good head start on them all! Hundreds of young doctors from around the country would die to be here, and here I am. Howard Kapinsky from Queens at the fucking New York Trauma Center. It’s going to be great. I’ll show them all!”

  Kapinsky’s boyish excitement brought a smile to Geoff’s face. He scanned down the page. “I’ve been assigned to a team lead by Dr.Geoffrey Davis. He’s a tall, good-looking gentile—G-d, even the name is blue-blooded—athletic, smart, charismatic. Probably a great surgeon. A real lady-killer, at least that’s the scoop here among the staff in the hospital. He’s everything I wish I were. Maybe if I stick with him throughout this residency some of it will rub off.”

  The reflection of Kapinsky’s deep-seated insecurity and envy was unsettling. Geoff weeded through the pages one at a time, looking for the slightest inkling of anything to do with endorphins, the project, spies, anything relevant.

  Geoff found it strange Kapinsky never wrote about relationships with any women in his life, except his mother of course. There was a detailed cataloging of interesting cases, almost verbatim transcripts of his ongoing verbal battles with Geoff at rounds, further signs of Kapinsky’s deep insecurity. It was all very personal, and ultimately it felt to Geoff like a violation to be sorting through another person’s innermost thoughts and feelings, especially when Geoff himself was so much an issue.

  Until Geoff came across the entry dated November 25, 2009. “Had another big problem in the O.R. today. It was finally my opportunity to do a case as the first surgeon, a simple burr hole in the skull to relieve a sub-dural hematoma, and I drilled right into the brain tissue. I felt awful, but Dr. Pederson, though he was angry at first, was very understanding. He took me to his office after the operation and let me know it was obvious I didn’t have the manual dexterity to be a surgeon. He said I had two choices: leave the program, something I could never do, or do medical neurosurgery (Is there such a thing?) and get involved part-time in an exciting research project he and Dr. Balassi had been working on jointly. Geoff worked with Balassi for a year, so I think I’ll take Pederson up on it.”

  Geoff read on. January 10, 2010. “The project is exciting. It has to do with new endorphin analogs to be used for pain control in head injury patients. It’s all pretty hush-hush, though, and I was warned by Balassi not to talk about it with anyone. His assistant, Walter, keeps an eye on things constantly, and I catch him checking on me now and then. That guy gives me the creeps! It seems there’s a lot of industrial espionage going on in the biotechnology industry, and PETronics Corporation wants to be the first to hit the market with the new drug before anyone is even aware of the possibility. It’s great to be involved with something like this.

  “January 19, 2010. Great news! We completed synthesis of an endorphin analog today, and according to Balassi, we were given the okay by the FDA for human trials. And guess what, little Howard Kapinsky from Queens is to be the one to administer this breakthrough drug!”

  Geoff nodded his head in dismay, then continued reading. “It has to be given in a special way,
since it would be broken down rapidly in the bloodstream, but I dare not mention it, even here. No one’s to know about any of this. PETronics Corporation is still paranoid about someone stealing their idea.”

  “How’d you inject it, Kapinsky? How’d you inject it?” Geoff whispered as he bit his bottom lip and flipped forward searching for the answer.

  “March 16, 2010. I’ve been very busy on the wards during the day and in the lab at night. Geoff and I have been at odds, and it’s very upsetting, more than he knows. I’ve come to a realization as to why there’s so much friction between us, but it’s difficult for me to write. I’ve told no one...” The entry trailed off at the bottom of the page.

  “Come on, Kapinsky, get it out!” Geoff muttered in frustration. He turned the page.

  “It’s, and this is difficult for me to admit even to myself in my own journal, that I’m attracted to him, that I’m... I’m...gay.”

  No shit! Just like O’Malley said. Geoff read on.

  “That’s right—gay. Besides my fantasies about Geoff, I had my first sexual relationship with another man last month. His name is Ricardo, a very hot Puerto Rican lab tech working with Balassi. It was very satisfying, much more so than it has ever been with a woman, though there haven’t been very many. No pressure, no expectations, nothing. It’s the best I’ve ever been treated, by man or woman. I’m worried, though, about people at work finding out. It probably wasn’t smart to get involved with someone at work. But it gave me pleasure. Something I haven’t had much of in my life.

  “April 3, 2010. It was one of the worst days of my life. Dr. Balassi called me into his office and showed me photographs of me and Ricardo last night. My G-d, does Pederson know, too? Balassi wants to meet with me tomorrow. I’m scared shitless. My life could be ruined.”