Mortal Fear

by Robin Cook

  When he got to his building, he drove around the block a couple of times to make sure no one was watching it. Finally, convincing himself that the guard at the school had not looked at his ID, and hence had no idea who he was, Jason parked his car, carried his luggage up to his apartment, and turned on the lights. To his relief, the place was exactly as he’d left it. When he glanced out at the square, it seemed as peaceful as ever.

  Jason was about to get into the shower when he remembered the one other person he should speak to besides the detective. He dialed Shirley. She finally answered on the eighth ring. Jason could hear animated voices in the background.

  “Jason!” she exclaimed. “When did you get back from vacation?”

  “I got in tonight.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, picking up on the exhaustion and worry in his voice.

  “Big trouble. I think I’ve figured out not only Hayes’s discovery, but how it was being misused. It involves the GHP in a far worse way than you could ever imagine.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not over the phone.”

  “Then come right over. I have guests here, but I’ll get rid of them.”

  “I’m waiting to speak to Curran in Homicide.” “I see… you’ve already contacted him?”

  “He’s out on a case, but he should be calling shortly.”

  “Then why don’t I come to your apartment? You’ve got me really terrified now.”

  “Welcome to the club,” Jason said with a short, bitter laugh. “You might as well come over. You probably should be present when I talk to Curran.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Oh, one other thing. Do you remember who’s currently medical director at the Hartford School?”

  “Dr. Peterson, I believe,” Shirley said. “I can find out for certain tomorrow.”

  “Wasn’t Peterson closely involved in Hayes’s clinical studies?” Jason asked, suddenly remembering that Peterson was the. doctor who had done the physical on Hayes.

  “I think so. Is it important?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jason said. “But if you’re coming, hurry. Curran should be calling any minute.”

  Jason hung up and was again about to take his shower when he realized Carol too might be in danger. Picking up the phone again, he dialed her number.

  “I want you to be sure to stay at home,” he said the moment she answered. “I’m not fooling. Don’t answer your door — don’t go out.”

  “Now what is it?”

  “The Hayes conspiracy is worse than anything I could imagine.”

  “You sound anxious, Jason.”

  In spite of himself, Jason smiled. Sometimes Carol could sound like a psychiatrist.

  “I’m not anxious, I’m scared to death. But I’ll be talking with the police shortly.”

  “Will you let me know what’s going on?” Carol demanded.

  “I promise.” Jason hung up and finally went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

  CHAPTER 16

  The buzzer sounded and Jason ran downstairs to see Shirley smiling at him through the glass side panel of his front door. He stepped back to let her in, admiring her usual impeccable dress. Tonight she was wearing a black leather miniskirt and a long, red suede jacket.

  “Has Curran called?” she asked as they walked upstairs.

  “Not yet,” Jason said, carefully double-locking his apartment door.

  “Now fill me in,” Shirley said, slipping out of her jacket. Underneath she was wearing a soft cashmere sweater. She sat on the edge of Jason’s sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, and waited.

  “You’re not going to like this,” Jason said, sitting next to her.

  “I’ve tried to prepare myself. Shoot.”

  “First let me give you a little background. If you don’t understand the current research on aging, what I’m about to say may not make much sense.

  “In the last few years, scientists like Hayes have spent a lot of time trying to slow the aging process. Most of their work has focused on cells in cell cultures, although some work has been done with rats and mice. Most of the researchers have concluded that aging is a natural process with a genetic basis regulated by neuroendocrine, immune, and humoral factors.”

  “You’ve lost me already,” Shirley admitted, lifting her hands in mock surrender.

  “How about a drink, then?” Jason suggested, getting to his feet.

  “What are you having?”

  “A beer. But I have wine, hard stuff, you name it.”

  “A beer might be nice.”

  Jason went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out two cold Coors.

  “You doctors are all the same,” Shirley complained, taking a sip. “You make everything sound complicated.”

  “It is complicated,” Jason said, sitting back down. “Molecular genetics concerns the fundamental basis of life. Research in this area is scary, not just because scientists might accidentally create a new and deadly bacterium or virus. It is just as scary if it goes right, because we are playing with life itself. Hayes’s tragedy was not that he failed; the problem was that he succeeded.”

  “What did he discover?”

  “In a moment,” Jason said, taking a long drink of beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let me put the story another way. We all reach puberty at about the same time, and if disease or accident doesn’t intervene, we all age and die in about the same life-span.”

  Shirley nodded.

  “Okay,” Jason said, leaning toward her. “This happens because our bodies are genetically programmed to follow an internal timetable. As we develop, different genes are turned on while others are turned off. This is what fascinated Hayes. He had been studying the ways humoral signals from the brain control growth and sexual maturation. By isolating one after another of these humoral proteins, he discovered what they did to peripheral tissues. He was hoping to find out what caused cells to either start dividing or stop dividing.”

  “That much I do understand,” Shirley said. “It’s one of the reasons we hired him. We hoped he’d make a breakthrough in cancer treatment.”

  “Now let me digress a moment,” Jason said. “There was another researcher by the name of Denckla, who was experimenting on ways to retard the aging process. He took out the pituitary glands of rats, and after replacing the necessary hormones, found that the rats had an increased life-span.”

  Jason stopped and looked expectantly at Shirley.

  “Am I supposed to say something?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t Denckla’s experiment suggest something to you?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me.”

  “Denckla deduced that not only does the pituitary secrete the hormones for growth and puberty, but it also secretes the hormone for aging. Denckla called it the death hormone.”

  Shirley laughed nervously. “That sounds cheerful.”

  “Well, I believe that while Hayes was researching growth factors, he stumbled onto Denckla’s postulated death hormone,” Jason said. “That was what he meant by an ironic discovery. While looking for growth stimulators, he finds a hormone that causes rapid aging and death.”

  “What would happen if this hormone were given to someone?” Shirley asked.

  “If it were given in isolation, probably not much. The subject might experience some symptoms of aging, but the hormone would probably be metabolized and its effect limited. But Hayes wasn’t studying the hormone in isolation. He realized that in the same way the secretion of the sex and growth hormone is triggered, there had to be a releasing factor for the death hormone. He was immediately drawn to the life cycle of salmon, which die within hours of spawning. I believe he collected salmon heads and isolated the death hormone’s releasing factor from the brains. This was the free-lance work I think he did at Gene, Inc. Once he had isolated the releasing factor, he had Helene reproduce it in quantity by recombinant DNA techniques at his GHP lab.”

  “Why would H
ayes want to produce it?”

  “I believe he hoped to develop a monoclonal antibody that would prevent the secretion of the death hormone and halt the aging process.” All at once Jason realized what Hayes meant about his discovery becoming a beauty aid. It would preserve youthful good looks, like Carol’s.

  “What would happen if the releasing factor were given to someone?”

  “It would turn on the death gene, releasing the aging hormone just the way it is in salmon — with pretty much the same results. The subject would age and die in three or four weeks. And nobody would know why. And this brings me to the worst thing of all. I believe someone obtained the artificially created hormone Helene was producing at our lab and started giving it to our patients. Whoever it is must be insane — but that’s what I think has been happening. Hayes caught on — probably when he visited his son — and was given the aging factor himself. If he hadn’t died that night, I think he’d have been killed some other way.” Jason shuddered.

  “How did you find out?” Shirley whispered.

  “I followed Hayes’s experimental trail. When Helene was murdered I guessed that Hayes had been telling the truth both about his discovery and the fact that someone wanted him dead.”

  “But Helene was raped by an unknown intruder.”

  “Sure. But only to mislead the police as to the motive for her murder. I always felt she knew more than she was telling about Hayes’s work. When I learned that she’d been having an affair with him, I was sure.”

  “But who would want to kill our patients?” Shirley asked desperately.

  “A sociopath. The same kind of nut who puts cyanide in Tylenol. Tonight at the clinic I had the computer print out survival curves and death curves. The results were incredible. There’s been a significant increase in the death rate at GHP for patients over fifty who are chronically ill or who have high-risk lifestyles.” Suddenly Jason stopped. “Damn!”

  “What’s the matter?” Shirley asked, looking about nervously, as if the danger were just around the corner.

  “I forgot something. I printed the curves month by month — I didn’t look at them doctor by doctor.”

  “You think a physician’s behind this?” Shirley asked incredulously.

  “Must be. A doctor-or maybe a nurse. The releasing factor would be a polypeptide protein. It would have to be injected. If it was administered orally, the gastric juices would degrade it.”

  “Oh, my God.” Shirley dropped her head into her hands. “And I thought we had troubles before.” She took a breath and looked up. “Isn’t there a chance you could be wrong, Jason? Maybe the computer made a mistake. God knows, data processing breaks down often enough….”

  Jason put his hand on her shoulder. He knew that her hard-won empire was about to come crashing down. “I’m not wrong,” he said gently. “I also did something else tonight. I saw Hayes’s son at Hartford.”

  “And…?”

  “It’s a horror. All the kids on his ward must have been given the releasing factor. Apparently it acts more slowly on prepubescent subjects, so the boys are still alive. There must be some kind of hormonal competition with growth hormone. But they all look one hundred years old.”

  Shirley shuddered.

  “That’s why I wanted to know the name of the current medical director.”

  “You think Peterson’s responsible?”

  “He’d have to be a prime suspect.”

  “Maybe we should go to the clinic and double-check the computer. We could even rerun your survival curves by doctor.”

  Before Jason could answer, the door buzzer shattered the silence and made them both jump. Jason got to his feet, his heart pounding.

  Shirley dropped her drink on the table. “Who could that be?”

  “I don’t know.” Jason had told Carol not to leave her apartment, and Curran would have called before coming over.

  “What should we do?” Shirley asked urgently.

  “I’m going downstairs and have a look.”

  “Is that such a good idea?”

  “Got a better one?”

  Shirley shook her head. “Just don’t open the door.”

  “What do you think I am — crazy? Oh — and one thing I didn’t tell you. Someone tried to kill me.”

  “No! Where?”

  “In a remote country inn east of Seattle.”

  He unlocked his apartment door. “Maybe you’d better not go down,” Shirley said hurriedly.

  “I’ve got to find out who it is.” Jason went out to the railed landing and looked down at the front door. He could see a figure through one of the glass panels.

  “Be careful,” Shirley said.

  Jason silently started down the stairs. The closer he got, the bigger the shadow of the individual in the foyer became. He was facing the nameplates and angrily hitting the buzzer. Suddenly he whirled around and pressed his face to the glass. For a moment, Jason’s and the stranger’s faces were only inches apart. There was no mistaking the massive face and tiny, closely set eyes. Their visitor was Bruno, the body-builder. Jason turned and fled back upstairs as the door rattled furiously behind him.

  “Who is it?”

  “A muscle-bound thug I know,” Jason told her, double-locking his door, “and the only person who knew I went to Seattle.” That point had just occurred to him with terrifying force. He ran into the den and snatched up the phone. “Damn!” he said after a minute. He dropped the receiver and tried the one in the bedroom. Again, there was no dial tone. “The phones are dead,” he said with disbelief to Shirley, who had followed him, sensing his panic.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re leaving. I’m not getting trapped here.” Rummaging in the hall closet, he found the key to the gate separating his building from the narrow alley that ran out to West Cedar Street. He opened the bedroom window, climbed onto the fire escape, and helped Shirley out after him. Single file, they descended to the small garden where the leafless white birches stood out like ghosts in the dark. Once in the alley, they ran to the gate, where Jason frantically fumbled to insert the key. When they emerged onto the narrow street, it was quiet and empty, the gloom pierced at intervals by the soft Beacon Hill gas lamps. Not a soul was stirring.

  “Let’s go!” Jason said, and started down West Cedar to Charles.

  “My car is back on Louisburg Square,” Shirley panted, struggling to match Jason’s pace.

  “So is mine. But obviously we can’t go back. I have a friend whose car I can take.”

  On Charles Street there were a few pedestrians outside the 7-Eleven. Jason thought about calling the police from the store, but now that he was out of his apartment he felt less trapped. Besides, he wanted to check the GHP computer again before he spoke with Curran.

  They walked down Chestnut Street, lined with its old Federal buildings. There were several people walking dogs, which made Jason feel safer. Just before Brimmer Street, Jason turned into a parking garage where he gave the attendant ten dollars and asked for the car that belonged to a friend. Luckily, the man recognized Jason and brought out a blue BMW.

  “I think it would be a good idea to go to my place,” Shirley said, sliding into the front seat. “We can call Curran from there and let him know where you are.”

  “First I want to go back to the clinic.”

  With almost no traffic, they reached the hospital in less than ten minutes. “I’ll only be a minute,” Jason said, pulling up to the entrance. “Do you want to come in or wait here?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Shirley said, opening her side of the car. “I want to see these graphs myself.”

  They waved ID cards at the security guard and took the elevator, even though they were going up only one floor.

  The cleaning service had left the clinic in pristine condition — magazines in racks, wastepaper baskets empty, and the floor glistening with fresh wax. Jason went directly into his office, sat down at his desk, and booted up his computer terminal.

 
“I’ll call Curran,” Shirley said, going out to the secretaries’ station.

  Jason gave a wave to indicate he’d heard her. He was already engrossed in data on the computer. First he called up the various clinic physicians’ identification numbers. He was particularly interested in Peterson’s. When he had all the numbers, he instructed the computer to separate the GHP patient population by doctor and then start drawing death curves on each group for the past two months, months that had shown the greatest changes when all the patients had been listed. He expected Peterson’s patients to show either a higher or lower death rate, believing that a psychopath would experiment either significantly more or less with his own patients.

  Shirley came back into the office and stood watching him enter the data.

  “Your friend Curran’s not back yet,” she said. “He called in to the station and said he might be tied up a couple more hours.”

  Jason nodded. He was more interested in the emerging curves. It took about fifteen minutes to produce all the graphs. Jason separated the continuous sheets and lined them up.

  “They all look the same,” Shirley said, leaning on his shoulder.

  “Just about,” Jason admitted. “Even Peterson’s. It doesn’t rule out his involvement, but it doesn’t help us either.” Jason eyed the computer, trying to think of any other data that might be useful. He drew a blank.

  “Well, that’s all the bright ideas for the moment. The police will have to take over from here.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Shirley said. “You look exhausted.”

  “I am,” Jason admitted. Pushing himself out of the chair was an effort.

  “Are these the graphs you produced earlier?” Shirley asked, pointing to the stack of printouts by the terminal.

  Jason nodded.

  “How about bringing them along? I’d like you to explain them to me.”

  Jason stuffed the papers into a large manila envelope.

  “I gave Curran’s office my phone number,” Shirley said. “I think that’s the best place to wait. Have you had a chance to eat anything?”