The faint spill of light from the corridor partially illuminated a high-ceilinged room approximately the size of a two-car garage. Lou could see the outlines of boxes, stacked in towers and arranged in neatly ordered rows. When Humphrey used his extender to flip on the lights, Lou saw two ten-foot-long Corion-topped tables with storage units built underneath. A side-wall table with a built-in sink occupied one corner of the room, and opposite that was an antivibration table—a workstation specifically designed for vibration-sensitive imaging applications. There were some other items not boxed, including a small refrigerator, a freezer, and even an ice machine, but most of the supplies were still sealed inside their cartons.
In addition, there was a pair of large incubators against the far wall. And from what Lou could tell, both of them were functioning, and contained labeled petri dishes of microorganisms.
Humphrey wheeled around to face Lou.
“You like?” he asked.
“Humphrey,” Lou said, struggling to find his voice. “What’s going on?”
“Less exhausting if I write this.”
Humphrey set his hand around his joystick. His screen featured an alphabet and a large number of word combinations. His text was produced slowly, but accurately, and faster than even his verbal shorthand would have produced. Lou read patiently.
I told you I had many interests besides chess—mathematics, the Japanese game of go, physics, anthropology, classical music. When a person of great intelligence is chained to a computer and the Internet, there is no limit to the world available to him. Chief among my areas of expertise, the one I am much more adept at than any of the others or any board game, is microbiology. That bacteria eating away at your friend’s leg is known by those working on it as the Doomsday Germ. With your help, we are going to cure it.
CHAPTER 26
The French revolution’s régime de la terreur was a means to establish order during a period of turmoil, and was embraced equally by the populace and political establishment. If these so-called terrorist acts can create order, it is logical to conclude they should be employed to prevent the turmoil in the first place.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, LECTURE AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, FEBRUARY 18, 1940
Lou was stunned—absolutely incredulous.
Even though Humphrey’s chess demonstration and subbasement secret lair made some sense, Lou could not put them into context. His efforts to understand the man’s speech and to learn more of his strength and how he managed to get it together to come to work each day, had all at once been dwarfed by these new revelations.
Humphrey glided over to him.
I know what’s infecting Cap. It’s a bacteria developed by some sort of terrorist organization. I don’t know the name of this organization, or what their goal is. They could be Al-Qaeda or an offshoot. They could be U.S. radicals. But what I do know is that the germ is real.
Lou could only stare at the screen.
“Please explain, Humphrey.”
“From beginning?”
“The temperature’s a little below my comfort zone, but I’ll tell you if I want you to cut corners.”
Two out of every one thousand births end up to a greater or lesser extent like me. The numbers haven’t changed in forty years or more, even with advances in obstetric care. It used to be that poor obstetric care was considered the leading cause of cerebral palsy, but epidemiological studies have largely refuted that assertion. Some studies have suggested maternal bacterial infection as a causal factor. This interested me. Was it bad luck, bad genetics, or some environmental factor? I wanted to know the history of me. How I’d come to inhabit this crippled body. As I explored this question I fell in love with microbiology as a scientific discipline.
“You’re doing great, Humphrey. Go on.”
My parents were embarrassed by me. They pretty much left me to my own devices so long as I stayed in my room with my computer, or went to special classes at special schools. Their expectations of me were zero or less than zero.
“They couldn’t have missed by much more,” Lou said, aching for the man’s early years.
It probably comes as no surprise that growing up I lacked confidence. I knew what my brain was capable of doing, but my body always held me back.
To maintain his composure, Lou looked away from the screen briefly and glanced around at the cartons. There were towers of boxes, some stacked like matryoshka dolls, the largest on the bottom perhaps containing pipettes and glassware, the next size labeled shakers, and at the top, a vacuum pump.
“The Internet rescued you,” Lou said finally.
It was wonderful. There were forums and blogs and bulletin boards where researchers exchanged all sorts of information. In that virtual world, without my body to hold me back, I could keep up with the most advanced minds out there. When I was sixteen, I was answering questions some top research scientists and mathematicians didn’t even know to ask. My reputation spread online and I became a bit of a celebrity within this very small cluster of intellects. That’s how I came to the attention of Dr. Nazar Farooq from Stanford. Very brilliant.
Lou checked the time. An hour and a half had passed.
“I’m going to nudge you ahead a little,” he said. “Connect the dots to Cap, and then we need to go back upstairs.”
Dr. Farooq and I became more or less colleagues. We spoke online as many as several times a week. Then one day, Farooq disappeared. Just like that. Gone. I couldn’t find a word about him except that he had vanished one night, and the police were involved. Several months passed before I heard from him again, but not as Dr. Farooq. He called himself Ahmed Kazimi. It took me months to figure out who he was, and he did his best to keep his identity from me.
“How did he say he learned about you?”
He said he got my name from notes found in Farooq’s files. He swore me to secrecy and claimed to be the head of a government project tasked with creating workable defenses for fictitious biological terrorist attacks. I didn’t say anything after I realized Kazimi and Farooq were one and the same. He never told me why he disappeared or needed an alias. For my part, I was happy to be a member of this cutting-edge virtual team.
Fascinated, Lou barely breathed during the account. The deep chill in the room stopped affecting him.
“And you never told him about yourself?” he asked.
I used my real name at the very beginning of our online connection, so I kept that. But then I changed all the other details of my life. There were times when I couldn’t remember the story I had told. I made myself a hermit, who had shunned academia after my Ph.D. thesis was rudely and crudely rejected.
“It’s incredible you were that ashamed when you were so accomplished. What about Stephen Hawking?”
Humphrey sneered as though he’d played that argument out countless times and always to the same conclusion.
“Hawking known at school as Einstein,” he said. “ALS not begin until twenty-one. Already premier intellect then.”
“Point taken,” Lou said, raising his hands to defuse what he perceived as escalating tension.
Humphrey required a moment to regain his composure.
“Kazimi not entirely honest with me, or rest of team.”
“In what way?”
He told us our work on an antibacterial treatment for a germ that fluctuates between a Gram positive and Gram negative state was a fictitious scenario. There was no way for him to know that I worked in a hospital that had actually encountered a real case.
“The older lady with the foot ulcer.”
“Exactly.”
Thoughts of the woman’s horrible demise segued to Cap’s situation. Lou had to look away.
I said nothing to Kazimi about this. I didn’t want to jeopardize my role on the project. But I knew we weren’t part of any theoretical think tank. We were under attack by a real terrorist organization that had developed this potent biological agent capable of resisting any antibacterial treatment we could throw at it.
&
nbsp; “So you and Puchalsky are both working on a treatment?” Lou asked.
Humphrey scoffed and visibly exhausted himself with the vehemence in his verbal response.
“Puchal arrogant joke. Kaz’s team already working on germ when he started research. Heard him talk once. Totally misdirected. Don’t think Kazimi ever made him part of think tank.”
“And your role in the project?” Lou asked.
“Removed,” Humphrey replied simply.
“By Kazimi?”
“Yes. My mentor … my friend. Just like that.”
“Why would he remove you from the project?”
“I suggested alternate approach—new theory I’d developed.”
“And the theory goes?”
Lou, completely transfixed by the man, crouched low to get at his level, and focused on every syllable. Was this Floyd Weems, stepping from the dense undergrowth of the Chattahoochee forest at the moment he was most sorely needed?
“My work uses bacteriophage,” Humphrey said. “Three strains, actually. You know about phage?”
“Some. I know they are viruses that infect a specific bacteria, and as often as not, kill it. There are many different kinds.”
“Not bad. Think we need get away from chemical antibiotics. Kill the Doomsday Germ with phage before it can adapt.”
“Your approach was rejected?”
Humphrey had to rest several minutes before he resumed typing.
Kazimi and I had a heated online exchange. As I said, I had always given him the utmost amount of respect, but on this point I firmly believed he was headed down the wrong road. He was like Puchalsky, locked into familiar notions and traveling well-worn paths, fixated on established approaches, blind to the fact that this germ plays by a different set of rules.
“So, why haven’t I heard much about this germ? It’s sensationalist stuff. You’d think it would be in all the papers.”
Humphrey’s expression darkened.
Do you think the government wants this sort of news widely known? Think of the panic it would cause. There are outbreaks of SARS or infections like SARS all the time, all over the world, but we rarely hear about them because of the damage it would do to tourism and consumer confidence.
We count on the vigilance of our scientific community to sound the warning bells, but in this case the most brilliant minds don’t even believe the germ is real, while the hospitals are under a gag order to keep it out of the public domain. I know this for a fact.
“How do you know?”
“Very good with computers,” Humphrey understated. “Have ways. Exchanges between our hospital and FBI following initial case.”
“You hacked the hospital.”
“Not so hard.”
Humphrey laughed merrily.
“What makes you think Kazimi won’t come around to seeing it your way?”
“He’s cut me off—gone silent. No word since argument.”
“Are you sure he’s all right? Could something have happened to him?”
Humphrey returned to his joystick.
He’s working for the government. I’m certain they are keeping him closely guarded. Unless I miss my guess, at the moment, Kazimi is hard at work in some secret lab. And he’s failing, just as our friend Puchalsky is failing. But you and I, Lou, we’re going to succeed. I can develop the treatment that will save Cap Duncan’s life and the lives of anybody infected with this Doomsday Germ. But I can’t do it without your help.
“My help?”
Humphrey gestured to himself.
“Look at me, Lou,” he said, eschewing his shorthand speech for emphasis. “I have aides to help me get dressed, eat my meals, and go to the bathroom. I can’t even unpack these boxes let alone set up a lab or get any significant work done in it.”
He sank back, gasping for breath, utterly spent.
“But you do your job here at Arbor General, and do it well from all I can tell.”
“Thank God for Bat-chair, and Americans with Disabilities Act, and all who load and unload my med cart.”
Lou was unable to get a total read on Humphrey’s emotions, but the bitterness was clear.
“Where did you get all this equipment, anyway?” he said, angling to lessen the tension.
“Stockpiling for a while. Inefficient purchase order system here.”
“Humphrey, that’s like grand theft.”
Again, a laugh.
It’s not theft when everything purchased is still here in the hospital. Besides, the end will justify the means. I’m sure of it. If you don’t help me, Lou, you’ll be leaving the fate of your friend to Puchalsky or Kazimi or maybe others. All will fail. I promise you that. I also promise you that there is a terrorist attack happening right now, right under our noses, and I am the only person who can stop it. Will you help me?
Lou was pacing now among the cartons. He wasn’t concerned about the criminality of what Humphrey had done—he had crossed that line in the past and if he had to, he would cross it again. No, his concern was more about Humphrey Miller, himself—whether, in fact, he was something of a misguided megalomaniac, driven by the anguish and frustration over his profound disability, layered on what was undeniable, but vastly underappreciated, genius.
“Why not do this aboveboard?” Lou asked. “Tell someone what you know.”
I tried telling Kazimi, and look what it got me. Lou, nobody will find out about this lab, if that’s what you’re worried about. Hardly anyone ever comes down to this floor, and when they do, they never have any reason to look in here. In fact, their keys won’t even work. My engineer friend and I have seen to that. Maintenance will give up long before they go running around looking for an explanation or a solution.
“I need some time,” Lou said, turning his back.
“You saw how quickly Cap’s deteriorating.”
The man was pushing—the surest way to get Lou, or most other docs for that matter, to dig in and resist. He gazed up at the drop ceiling and ran his hands through his hair. He had connections at the D.C. hospitals.
Becoming Humphrey’s arms and legs would be time-consuming and possibly counterproductive, to say nothing of what might happen should they get caught and arrested. Humphrey’s chess demonstration was certainly compelling. Now, Lou was wondering if it was possible to get any further information about the man and his offbeat theories on using various bacteriophage to destroy an indestructible germ. The ones who kept crossing his mind were Dr. Sam Scupman and his associate Vicki Banks.
“Tell me, Humphrey, what were you doing for this Kazimi if you couldn’t work any lab equipment?”
“Computer modeling. Heady stuff that you wouldn’t really understand.”
“Make me.”
“What?”
“I was near the top of my class in med school. If you want me to be your assistant, make me understand your work.”
Humphrey thought for a time, then wheeled to a far corner of the room where a small, built-in desk was set up. On it was a cup of pens, pencils, and markers, as well as a laptop. He used his extender to open the drawer.
“Take out the notebook,” he said.
Lou removed a thick, green three-ring binder, filled with what looked like articles and printouts. Humphrey took most of ten minutes to type out an explanation.
This notebook contains the basis of my theories and an instruction manual on the bacteriophage I believe will do the job. Read it over carefully. Take notes. Be ready to ask questions. I’ve used advanced computer models to predict the response to the phages, and bacterial growth based on various levels and combinations of treatment. The mathematics will not be easy for you despite your intelligence, but take it from me, it is irrefutable. I ask that you take care of this. It is the only hard copy in existence, although I can duplicate it from my computer.
Lou thumbed through the pages, impressed by the depth of the research.
“I want to look it over,” he said.
“Trust you be discreet and careful
who share this with. But I need you.”
“How much time do I have?”
“Have another look at your friend, Dr. Welcome. Then you tell me.”
CHAPTER 27
To extinguish the fires of American prosperity, we need only to suffocate them under a blanket of government programs.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, A Secret Worth Keeping, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1937, P. 1
Lou spent the night holed up in his hotel room, examining Humphrey’s research notebook a page at a time. The task would have been near impossible had Humphrey not included a five-page summary of the most significant papers and professional exchanges.
By 3:00 A.M., not even the discipline acquired through medical school and residency could keep him focused, or keep a deep melancholy from taking hold. Despite his commitment to Cap, he missed his life in D.C.—his place above Dimitri’s Pizza, the ER, and most of all, Emily. He also worried about his docs at the PWO. Walter Filstrup’s precipitous action was forcing him to acknowledge how much of his identity revolved around that now defunct job.
A man doesn’t know what he has until he loses it.…
The tune took up residence in his head and began a loop. Where did it come from? A musical, maybe. Whatever. If the identical situation had come up again, even knowing that his job at PWO was on the line, he would have done nothing any different.
This was where he was supposed to be, and helping Cap in any way he could was what he was supposed to be doing. Arbor General was a world-class institution, but it and other hospitals were being outwitted, outmatched, and outgunned by an organism just a couple of microns in diameter. And at the core of the struggle, almost six feet tall, and as powerful for his age as any man had the right to be, was Cap Duncan. Seeing his mentor so depleted continued to fuel Lou’s resolve to do everything in his power to save him, even if that everything included helping Humphrey Miller run an unsanctioned, illegal laboratory, dedicated to turning theory into reality—abstract beliefs into lives saved.
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