by David Zeman
Unlike the others, she was beautiful. Clear eyes under fresh dark hair, shapely lips, a milky complexion. Something about her reminded him of his youth. There was a time in his life when he idolized girls, put them on a sort of sexual pedestal, as though they were princesses rather than mere human beings.
He used to watch them walk through the hallways of his high school back in New Jersey. The purses they carried, the book satchels, the sweaters or blouses they wore—all their accessories were like sacraments. Coveting them sexually was like worshiping them. If they were princesses, then he was the frog who did not deserve to touch the hem of their garments.
Though he was a football player and had lots of popular friends, he was too shy to be promiscuous. He did not even lose his virginity until he got to college. When he met Pam, an overweight but charming sorority girl, he was all thumbs. He had to call her half a dozen times to make lame small talk before he finally asked her out.
He never entirely lost his adolescent attitude toward women. As a politician he had had many opportunities to be unfaithful to Pam, but he never was. He respected women too much to take their favors lightly.
This girl, the one tonight, looked like an angel. The angel of death? Why not? There was no reason to suppose that death could not take the form of a beautiful young woman. The sight of her had filled him with an almost prayerful yearning.
A religious man, Dan Everhardt now wondered whether God was, in His vast and inscrutable way, similar to her. Perhaps God was bent over mankind, tender and inquiring, waiting for a prayer He could understand and would surely grant. But the human creature was a prisoner inside his own spirit, and could not frame his pleas for help in a language God could comprehend. So God could only look down, eager to redeem and to save, and watch in sad perplexity as man destroyed himself.
The girl had asked, “Mr. Vice President, who did this to you?” Dan Everhardt, a simple man, pondered this question with his dying mind as his eyes closed. Who had done it?
Certainly not God. Not a being who cared about man’s redemption and wanted to purify him.
The devil, perhaps? Dan did not know. But if it was true, then the devil was an angel of silence. The death that came closer with each uncertain breath was like a final silence, coming to take him away from Pam forever, and from his children, and from himself.
30
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Atlanta
January 19
“We have sad and troubling news from Washington. Vice President Dan Everhardt died early this morning at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The vice president had been ill for two months. The White House had denied that his condition was serious, but anxious rumors about his health had spread through the nation’s capital and beyond.”
The doctor sat at his computer screen watching a succession of graphs and tables that displayed the latest quantifications of chemical analyses being updated each day.
At the top of the screen was the title, NUCLEOTIDE FIELD 3AB Δ QPC. The extra heading in the top left corner read: Project 4.2 System 6 CLASSIFIED EYES ONLY.
The doctor’s hand shook as he moved the mouse. The movement was rather like that of an eraser being wiped along a blackboard. He missed the line he wanted, tried again, missed again, and finally had to use two hands to steady the mouse.
“Damn,” he muttered.
He was wearing cordless headphones on which today’s news was playing. The images on the screen were so familiar to him that he did not need to concentrate on them to the exclusion of everything else. He was, after all, the designer of the system on which the displays were based.
His white lab coat bore the same identity card as his civilian jacket. A photograph of his face was outlined by a thick red bar indicating Level Four security clearance. His name, Dr. Easter, was printed in large letters. His first name was Richard. People called him Dick. In high school his friends had made fun of his name, calling him Dick Keester.
The tremor in his hand was not a new problem. However, it was probably exacerbated by what he was hearing.
“Vice President Everhardt would have been fifty-four years old this October,” said the cable anchorwoman. “His wife, Pam, was at his side when he died, as were his children and his brother and sister. The president himself made the announcement to White House reporters at eleven o’clock.”
The doctor adjusted the volume on the headphones and closed his eyes.
“Dan Everhardt was one of the finest, most dedicated public servants I’ve had the privilege of knowing,” the president said. “But more than that, Danny, as we all called him, was a human being. A warm, lovable, imperfect human being whose devotion to his family far exceeded his political ambition. He will be sorely missed by his many friends and his constituents. I feel this loss personally, because Danny was more than a colleague and support to me. He and I were close friends.”
The doctor opened his eyes and turned his swivel chair around so he could look at the TV screen on the other side of the room. A family picture of Everhardt with his wife and children had appeared. The doctor let his eyes linger on it for a moment, then looked away.
“The funeral will be at St. Luke’s Church in New Brunswick, the town where the vice president was born. He will be buried with full military honors, since he was a decorated veteran with a distinguished record. The president himself will be one of the speakers.”
Confused shouting was heard—the questions of reporters, called out on the White House lawn after the president’s address.
“I can’t answer that,” he said. “You’ll have to ask the public health authorities.”
The doctor paused. They must be pressing for confirmation that Everhardt died of the Syndrome. He listened more closely.
“I’ve been assured that the situation is well in hand,” the president said evasively. “I really can’t tell you any more. This is a day for mourning, not for discussions of epidemiology.”
No, the doctor thought. They still wouldn’t admit it. They would never admit it. Like Kennedy . . . They would hold out until the public stopped waiting for an answer.
He picked up the mouse again. The tremor in his hand was worse. Cursing his own frailty, he got up from the computer and moved to the closet where he kept his civilian clothes. He fished in the pocket of his jacket for the small bottle of pills. The bottle was opaque, like a film can, with no prescription label or other marking. He took out a pill, popped it in his mouth, and swallowed it dry.
The drug was an antidepressant with powerful antianxiety features, thoroughly tested though not yet available to the public because of the bureaucratic vagaries of the FDA. In clinical trials it outperformed every other medication in its category. Side effects, such as the tremor in his hands, came only with overdose.
The drug’s key disadvantage was that it was supremely habit forming. Worse than heroin or morphine. That was why the FDA people were dragging their feet. Too many pharmaceuticals had followed in the footsteps of Quaalude, pentobarbital, PCP, and others, becoming drugs of choice for addicts here and abroad. Drug abuse in the new century was turning out to be even worse than it had been at the end of the twentieth. The pace of life, the frightening changes, were too much for people. Emotional disorders were cropping up everywhere in new variations, quicker than the psychiatrists could learn how to name them for classification in the DSM.
This drug was still known only by its development designation, 246FT. The marketing department was playing with names.
Gritting his teeth, he moved back to the computer. He clicked on the world map screen. There they were, the locations on all the continents with estimates of the number affected. Death tolls were shown in brackets. He clicked on “Zoom” and navigated to the Washington area. Two cases were shown by little animated stickpins. One of them was red already. So they had punched in Everhardt’s death, he thought.
He closed his eyes and listened to the hum of the PC. It had a peculiar throbbing quality, like a bell tolling one long
, incessant gong of destruction. How had he ever come to this point? A life like anyone else’s—plans, ambitions, hard work, marriage, and children—how had it all turned into this horror?
Well, the facts were clear enough. The insanity of malpractice insurance, the thankless job of being a doctor in the age of HMOs. Divorce. Then a period of drifting, a couple of unsuccessful relationships, the struggle with chemicals. Then the unexpected offer of this job. Amazingly lucrative, totally secure. Challenging.
It made sense, the progression. But it was a peculiar kind of sense, leading from the sane to the insane across an invisible boundary. He was a doctor, and now a murderer.
As a child he had been taught that the Nazis used doctors to perform their hideous experiments on Jews and others, immersing them in freezing water, starving them, even carrying out experimental surgery. Where did they find doctors to do such things? A doctor’s vocation was to save lives, to comfort the sick. Hippocrates left no doubt:First do no harm .
How did such things come about? Now he knew the answer.
He began to feel a faint chill in his stomach. That was the first sign of the drug’s action. In a couple of minutes the chill would spread to his chest, and the edge would be taken off his anxiety. Late tonight he might need another dose for sleep. Habit forming, indeed: he needed three pills to get through a day now. Two months ago a single pill would last a day and a night.
When he left work tonight the world would look subaqueous and peculiarly gastronomic, like a sea of honey through which he navigated uncertainly toward his car. The steering wheel would feel like moist clay in his hands. Driving the expressway would be like plunging through layers of jello. The world was an oozing plate of food presented to an invisible giant who would soon spoon it all into his wet, waiting mouth. But the food was not fresh. It spoiled before the eye, sending macabre vapors into the air. And the invisible giant liked it that way. He fed on the sweetness of putrefaction.
“Vice President Dan Everhardt,” concluded the reporter. “A well-liked public servant and a man who might well have become president of the United States one day, had his future not been cut off by an illness that remains a mystery.”
A knock at the door made the doctor jump. He turned to see Colin Goss smiling at him.
“Ready, Dick?”
The doctor tore the earphones off and stood up. “Ready, sir.”
31
—————
THEY WALKED down the silent hall side by side. Goss seemed excited, full of energy. They paused at the viewing room, where another experimental subject, a woman, was being monitored. Goss listened to her heart and lungs before leading the way to the conference room where the overhead displays were kept.
Goss sat down at the long table and motioned the doctor to a chair.
“How are things going?” he asked.
“Very well, sir. Everything is on schedule.”
“No more security problems?” Goss asked.
“None at all. I made the changes you suggested. The network has been entirely rebuilt. It is now impossible for a leak to occur such as the one we saw.”
“Good work. Let’s review the overall,” Goss said. “Start with Everhardt.”
“Decease from cardiac failure,” the doctor said, looking at his notes. “Right on schedule, nine weeks and two days after intake.”
“How about Palleschi?”
“A textbook case, from what I’ve seen. Vital signs still strong after three and a half weeks, but EEG and other tests show incipient coma.”
“What is the thinking at Walter Reed?” Goss asked. “Are they connecting this with Everhardt?”
“They can’t help but do that,” the doctor said. “The symptoms are unique in medicine, and Palleschi presents the same initial picture as Everhardt.”
“What about the other victims, here and abroad?”
“They’re thinking epidemic, external pathogen,” the younger man said. “They’re putting pressure on the CDC to find an organism. But our CDC source tells me they’ve made no progress.”
“What about the health people overseas?”
“Same thing. They’re thinking in terms of an unknown pathogen that spreads in a way we don’t understand. Quarantine is their main concern.”
“And the geneticists?” Goss asked.
“There is a body of opinion to the effect that the disorder is a mutation—because of the bizarre aspect of the changes and the irregularity of the spread. Especially in England and in Australia. But they’re not getting support from the public health authorities because the concept is too negative. The governments want to hear pathogen and quarantine.”
“Good. That’s the way we want it.” Goss looked thoughtful. “A quasi-epidemic that has broken out in disparate localities. Cause and cure unknown. Vector unknown. Two important men affected, along with a lot of ordinary citizens.”
He looked at the doctor. “How are we on the antidote?”
The doctor shook his head. “The work is slow going. It may be months. I can’t predict.”
Goss frowned. “What’s taking so long? You understand the mechanism, don’t you?”
“We do, yes,” the doctor said. “But with this kind of intervention, the change is too massive to simply be reversed. A microorganism leaves the cell structure intact. So does an ordinary toxin. This is different. After exposure the basic structure is radically metamorphosed. The body is following a new set of instructions. That’s a hard thing to correct.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Goss said. “If we’re careful, it shouldn’t come into play in any case.”
The doctor nodded in silence.
“All right,” Goss said. “It’s time for the next phase.”
For the first time the doctor dared to object.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Can’t we go with what we already have?”
Goss shook his head. “No. It won’t work. Without more coverage, we’re going to have scientists sniffing our trail. They’re thinking epidemic, and that’s what we want them to think. We have to give them data to support that.”
The doctor sighed. “Are you sure, sir? We’re talking about an awful lot of people. Human beings.”
Goss’s eyes narrowed.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“I just meant . . .” The doctor’s assurance had collapsed at the sight of Goss’s eyes. “It’s a great deal of destruction.”
Goss shook his head. “That’s not your concern.”
“I’m a physician,” the doctor said.
Goss gave him a dark look.
“The purpose here is higher,” he said. “I was given to understand that you knew what you were getting into. I can get another man if you’re not comfortable.”
The look in the younger man’s eyes made clear he knew what Goss’s words really meant.
“I’m sorry, sir. I have no problem. I can continue.”
Goss gave him a long assessing look.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll start at the agreed time. Keep me informed.”
He stood up and moved to the door. With his hand on the knob he looked back at the doctor, who seemed wilted and depressed.
“Cheer up, Dick,” Goss smiled. “You’re saving the world.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Without another word Goss left the room.
The doctor stood looking at the world map as Goss’s steps echoed in the corridor. He waited until he heard the elevator door open. Then he took another pill from his pocket and brought it to his lips.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. It was a curse, but also a prayer. He had been brought up Catholic. He knew about hellfire.
Hell was in the distant hum of the elevator that bore Colin Goss upstairs to his penthouse office. Hell was on the map in front of him, filled with numbers being constantly revised to quantify mass murder. Hell was in the shaking of this hand, which was making it difficult for him to place the pill on his tongue.
Two doses in a half hour, he thought. This is the end.
He tasted the acid chemical. It was strong. More than strong enough to kill, in sufficient quantities.
The last shall be the first,he mused, watching the numbers dance before his eyes.
32
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The White House
January 22
IN 1968, three months before his decision not to run for a second term, Lyndon Johnson flew into a rage at the sight of a thousand antiwar demonstrators outside the White House and threw his orthopedic desk chair through the south-facing window of the Oval Office.
The Secret Service suffered considerable embarrassment at the chief executive’s ability to shatter a window that had been considered bulletproof. New panes were installed in all the White House windows, made of state-of-the-art shatterproof, bulletproof glass. Two of the sills were damaged during the work, and were replaced with walnut from Maryland forests.
It was on one of those sills that the president now leaned, his eyes closed, as his chief of staff and the party chairman waited behind him in respectful silence. The majority leader was standing across the room, his back turned.
“Poor Danny,” the president said.
The others echoed his words with a sigh.
“How is Pam?” the president asked.
“Pretty much destroyed,” Dick Livermore said. “She knew he was critical, but I don’t think she ever really thought it would end so soon, just like that. Dan was such a strong guy.”
“How about Tom? Are they sure it’s the same disease?” the president asked.
“The symptoms are identical,” Dick said. “They won’t confirm anything—I suppose that’s natural enough.”
“And they still don’t know how to treat it?”
“Not at all. They’re monitoring all his vital signs. They’re normal—for the moment.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“Have you talked to Theresa?”
“Nearly every day.”