Miracle Drug

by Richard L. Mabry M. D.

  He looked at Rachel to see if she was following. When she nodded, he said, “Now, one coincidence is acceptable. Two? That raises suspicion, at least on my part. I’m wondering if someone who’s behind all this didn’t manipulate things so they came out this way.”

  “What are you saying?” Rachel asked.

  “I took a philosophy course in pre-med, and we learned a lot of Latin phrases. For instance, post hoc ergo propter hoc means ‘after this, therefore because of this.’ And it’s false logic. But there’s another phrase that seems to apply here. Cui bono? Who benefits?”

  “And what’s the answer here?”

  Josh took a deep breath. “I’ve done some investigating. Argosy Pharmaceuticals is on its last legs. Robinoxine, or RP-78, was its final hope. The FDA told them there was no need to continue studies on it because there was no way they’d approve it. The drug was no more effective than a couple of similar antibiotics . . . with one exception. There was a bacterium, Bacillus decimus, that didn’t respond to any antibiotic except RP-78. But since that infection was confined to small pockets in South and Central America, there was no need to have anything available to treat it. That is, until a former president needed the drug, right here, right now. When this is over, don’t you think Argosy is going to find that the FDA is now encouraging them to continue testing of the drug? And that may be the boost that company needs.”

  “I can see that,” Rachel said. “But do you think Argosy contributed to Mr. Madison’s being infected?”

  “That’s one scenario. I don’t know how they would have done it, but I suppose it’s possible.” He changed his position on the couch. “There’s another possibility, though. Derek’s wife died last year after quite a struggle with breast cancer. I checked the insurance coverage Argosy provides, and it’s poor. I imagine he was left with a lot of debt. Could he have received a bribe, the same as Lambert?”

  Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. “He did everything he could to help treat both Madison and me.”

  “Of course,” Josh said. “RP-78 had to work in order for him to profit.”

  “What about Chavez?” Rachel asked.

  “I think Chavez is crooked—I don’t know exactly how he fits into this, but I do recall one thing. He told me he did his residency in the U.S. . . . at Johns Hopkins. After Derek and I finished our training, I took this position with Preston Medical Clinic. Derek didn’t go directly to Argosy, though. He took a year’s fellowship in Infectious Disease in Baltimore . . . at Johns Hopkins.”

  23

  Karen Marks sat to David Madison’s right in his study. She crossed her legs and asked, “Are you ready for this?”

  “I’m probably not at my best, but I think I’m good for a while.” Madison wore a jogging suit. He was clean-shaven and his silver hair was neatly combed. Madison’s recent ordeal had resulted in a weight loss of almost ten pounds, and his usual tan was fading. A small scar, one that was pink and prominent now, but which would fade and become less noticeable in weeks to come, was all that remained of his previous tracheotomy.

  Karen opened a leather-bound folder embossed with the seal of the president of the United States. “I’ve managed to handle most of the phone calls from people who insisted they had to speak with you, as well as letters and e-mails with the same message.”

  “How . . . never mind. You’ve always done that well. Tell me the story you gave them, so it matches what I say when I get back with them.”

  “You came back from South America with a severe respiratory infection. Your doctor treated you, and you responded, although it was slow. He recommended you keep silent because your vocal cords were irritated.”

  “Sounds pretty close to the truth,” Madison said. “What about the big stuff? What else is waiting for me?”

  “You need to convene Dietz and the others who accompanied you on your trip to discuss their opinions on putting in a clinic there, and if so, where it should go.”

  “Contact them and see if we can all meet. . . . Hmm, this is Saturday. How about Monday or Tuesday?”

  Karen scribbled a note. “Next, the ranking senator from Texas needs to speak with you urgently. He wouldn’t tell me why, but it wasn’t a staff member who called. He phoned personally. I think he wants to run something by you.”

  Madison looked at his watch. “I’ll call him when we’ve finished. Next.”

  Karen went on with her list. Most of the things she’d handled . . . just as she’d done for years, from the time Madison was governor to his terms in Congress to his time in the Senate until she took her place at the head of his team in the White House. She looked at the seal on the folder she held and wondered how it would feel to stand behind a podium with that designation. Put that aside and get on with it, Karen. You’re in your place. Now do your job.

  ***

  Jerry Lang ended the call and stood for a moment with his cell phone in his hand, thinking and planning. It didn’t take long for him to spring into action.

  He punched a button on his cell phone, and the call was answered on the first ring. “Gilmore, this is Lang. I want all off-duty agents back here ASAP. As soon as you make those calls, I need you and Burkhardt to get Mrs. Madison and escort her to the safe room. I’m taking Mr. Madison there right now. When they’re all together, stay with them until I tell you differently.”

  He listened for a moment. “No time to explain. Just do it.”

  Lang strode to the closed oak door of Madison’s study. He could hear the murmur of voices inside. Normally, he’d wait for a break in the conversation, but this was different. He tapped sharply twice and immediately opened the door without waiting for a response. “Mr. Madison, I need your attention.”

  Karen Marks, who was in mid-sentence when Lang entered, frowned. She’d been through enough to know what this sudden entrance meant. The last time something like this took place was when the police received a credible threat that someone planned to detonate a bomb and destroy this house . . . with Madison and his wife in it.

  “We need to go immediately to the safe room. Mrs. Madison will join you there. Karen, please come with us as well. I’ve assigned a couple of agents to guard you, and I’ll be with you until they arrive.”

  Madison seemed calm enough. He rose from his chair but made no move toward the door. His usual smile had been replaced by a serious visage. “What’s going on, Jerry?”

  Lang shuffled his feet, anxious to leave, but he knew it would help if Madison knew what was happening. “I just got a call. Chavez managed to get out of his shackles while he was being transferred to the Sterrett Justice Center. He took a shotgun away from a guard, shot one of the prisoners traveling with him to the jail, and escaped in a hijacked car.”

  The ex-president nodded his understanding of the message, but his expression indicated he had a hard time believing it. “That’s a lot more violence than I thought the man was capable of. Not that I didn’t have my doubts about Chavez from the first time I met him in Colombia. He seemed a little too slick, a bit too . . . I don’t know. He didn’t ring true. And when I heard he’d been arrested for trying to sell back the RP-78 that disappeared from my hospital room, that wasn’t out of character for him. But I had no idea he’d do something like this.”

  “Sir, we can discuss this later. Right now, I want you, Mrs. Madison, and Karen in a safe place. We think Chavez may target you.”

  As she passed Lang, Karen Marks said, “Do you think Chavez might be behind the other attempts on Mr. Madison’s life? I mean, he flew here with the drug necessary to save the man’s life. Why would he try to kill him?”

  Lang shook his head. “We don’t have a clue about the man’s motivation. All I know right now is that my job is to protect Mr. Madison, and the best way to do it is to get him into the safe room.”

  ***

  At Josh’s suggestion, he and Rachel made a trip to a Dairy Queen for hamburgers and milkshakes. “You need to eat something. And I agree you should get out. You’ve been c
ooped up in that hospital room too long.”

  Rachel was unable to finish either her burger or shake, but Josh was sure her appetite would return, although it might be slow. This was a start. In the meantime, even the weight she’d lost and the residual pallor of her skin did nothing to dim his love for her.

  After they returned, the two spent a quiet afternoon together, talking and making plans for their future. The consensus seemed to be that their personal lives would have to be on hold until the present situation was brought to an end. Despite that, both of them had no doubts that this was, for each of them, true love.

  When Rachel’s doorbell rang, Josh motioned for her to stay seated on the couch. “That’ll probably be Allison. I’ll get it.” He looked through the frosted glass inset of Rachel’s front door, and although he couldn’t make out the exact features of the person standing on the other side, he was able to discern a woman with dark blonde hair. “Allison?” he called.

  “Sorry. If there’s a password, you forgot to give it to me.”

  He opened the door. “I guess I wanted to make certain this wasn’t someone waiting to douse me with a flask of culture medium swarming with dangerous bacteria.”

  Allison carried a small soft-sided suitcase into the living room and set it in the corner. “How’s my patient?”

  “I’m okay,” Rachel said. “Just weaker than I thought I’d be.”

  “It takes time,” Allison said. She turned to Josh. “I’m going to be here with Rachel through the weekend, so you can stop worrying about her. Besides, I know you’ll need to check on your number-one patient.”

  “He’ll be fine. A private duty nurse the Madisons have used before is coming by to give him his shot today and tomorrow. After that, it’s simply a matter of watching for recurrence of the infection or for late side effects from the drug.”

  Allison said, “I have Rachel’s vial of RP-78 in my bag, and I’ll give her today’s dose later on. What about Madison’s?”

  “Madison has the drug that Dr. Gaschen at Argosy sent. We still don’t know about the vials found in Chavez’s car trunk and Carper’s refrigerator.” He thought a moment. “I know it takes a while to do an analysis that involves stuff like gas chromatography, but I wonder if they have any preliminary ideas about whether either of those was the real thing or a vial of saline.”

  Josh pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number he was getting to know all too well. “Detective Warren? Josh Pearson. I know you’re busy, but do we know anything about the vials of RP-78 from Chavez and Carper?”

  He frowned as he listened. Then he said, “Say that again.” In another moment, he said, “Thanks,” and ended the call.

  “Dr. Chavez escaped as he was being transferred to the Sterrett Justice Center. He’s armed, and Warren thinks he’ll make a run at Madison,” Josh said.

  “Are we safe?” Rachel asked.

  “I think so long as we stay here with the doors locked, there’s probably no danger from Chavez.”

  “What about the vials?” Allison asked. “Does the lab have any preliminary information about them?”

  “They did the simplest test first. They checked the specific gravity of both samples. A serum or any kind of drug will have a higher specific gravity than plain water, which measures out at 1.0.”

  “And?” Rachel asked.

  “The sample from the trunk of Chavez’s car had a specific gravity of one. It was water, probably with a drop of food coloring in it.”

  “What about Carper’s?”

  “They’ll have to complete the analysis, probably on Monday, but so far it looks like the real stuff. Warren’s guess is that Barbara Carper stole the RP-78 from Madison’s room. Whether she was going to sell it to Chavez and changed her mind, or if she had another reason to take it, we don’t know.”

  ***

  Chavez parked the stolen car a block away from his motel. He needed to change out of the jail garments, grab some clothes and a few other things from his room, and put some distance between him and his pursuers.

  He regretted pulling the trigger on the shotgun. It was a stupid mistake, undoubtedly a result of the anger he’d been holding back since his arrest. Well, it couldn’t be helped now. Besides, if his knowledge of U.S. law was correct, and he was certain it was, his role in the attempted murder of Madison would make him as guilty as the person who threw the bacterial culture or pulled the trigger. Raising the charges from attempted murder to manslaughter or even murder, along with all the other counts he was certain they’d throw at him, made little difference. If he didn’t succeed, he was a dead man anyway.

  There appeared to be no police activity around his motel yet. He probably had a half hour before the news got to Warren and another fifteen minutes before the police could begin their manhunt. He slipped in a side door and took the elevator to the third floor. At his door, he started to reach for his key card, then realized that it, together with his wallet, watch, and keys, was still in the possession of the police.

  He stood in in the hall, wondering how to get past the locked door, when a middle-aged Hispanic woman pushing a cart rounded the corner. Chavez saw her eyes widen. He had to work fast. He pasted a smile on his face and told her in Spanish that some of his friends were playing a trick on him. They’d abandoned him near his hotel dressed like a convict. If he could get into his room and change, he’d win the game they were playing.

  She reached for her master key card and opened the door, all the while saying she didn’t understand. As soon as the door was open, Chavez put one hand over her mouth, pulled her inside, kicked the door shut, and moved his hands until they were around her neck. He kept up the pressure until she stopped struggling.

  Ten minutes later, Chavez hefted his suitcase, picked up his shotgun, and looked around the room. He wondered if he’d forgotten anything. If so, he’d have to get along without it. Now he needed to confuse the police a bit.

  Chavez grabbed covers off the bed and towels from the bathroom and piled them on top of the maid’s body in the middle of the floor, along with his jail jumpsuit and the leather belt with its chains and shackles. He automatically reached for his lighter before he recalled that the police had it. He looked around the room, then recalled seeing a suspicious bulge in the maid’s pocket.

  He rummaged past the pack of cigarettes he found there and pulled out a book of matches. You won’t need these any longer. Chavez struck one and used it to ignite the whole book before tossing the flaming mass onto the pile on the floor.

  As soon as he was certain the blaze was well underway, he put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, closed it, and hurried away.

  24

  Are you going to check on Mr. Madison sometime today?” Rachel asked.

  Josh leaned forward from his seat on Rachel’s living room couch. “I’ve been thinking about that. I may not even be able to get in to see him. If the Secret Service has the information Warren gave me, and I have no reason to doubt it, they already have the area locked down.”

  “But surely they’ll give you access. They know who you are. Agent Lang would recognize you, even if some of the others don’t.”

  Josh shrugged. “I guess I should at least try. Truth of the matter, I’m a little worried about leaving the two of you here alone.”

  Without a word, Allison rose from her chair and went to her suitcase, which still sat in the corner of the living room. She turned it on its side, unzipped the flap, and rummaged for a second. When her hand emerged, it was holding a small, nickel-finish revolver. “By the time I left for Dallas to go into practice, I was already divorced. When I told my parents where I was going, my mother was worried because a woman alone in the big city would be vulnerable. My daddy was more proactive. He gave me this. Insisted I learn how to use it, too.” She flipped open the cylinder to show cartridges in five of the six chambers, then flicked it closed again. “Empty chamber under the hammer, five shots I hope never to fire.” Allison hefted the little gun. “I generally keep thi
s in the glove compartment of my car, but I decided you and Rachel might feel better about my staying here if I showed you I’m capable of protecting myself and her.”

  Allison stowed the pistol back in her suitcase, but left the flap unzipped.

  Rachel’s feelings about Allison having a weapon were mixed, but in the end she decided it was a good thing. Be glad she has it, and pray it’s never needed. “Call me when you’re through at the Madison house,” she said. “But don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” Rachel just wished she were as confident as she sounded.

  After the door closed behind Josh, Allison looked at her watch. “Do you want something to eat?”

  “I really don’t have much appetite,” Rachel said. “Maybe later. Meanwhile, what would you like to do?”

  Allison eased into the overstuffed chair she’d left a moment ago. “I’m ready to relax. It’s so nice to be away from the hospital after all that’s happened this past two weeks.” She leaned back and looked toward the ceiling. “I guess I’ll be going back to my usual routine in a couple of days. When do you think Josh will resume his regular practice?”

  “He told me earlier today that he’ll only follow Madison for a few more days,” Rachel said. “I’m guessing that sometime tomorrow he’ll talk with whoever’s in charge at the clinic and arrange to get back to his practice early next week.”

  “So he’s not going to remain as Madison’s personal physician?”

  “As I understand it, Josh insisted that Madison choose someone else for that title. I’m sure Josh will work to make the transition smooth, but frankly. . . . Well, honestly, I think he’ll be glad to give up the position.”

  Allison rubbed her chin with her thumb and first finger. “You’d think being personal physician to an ex-president would be a good thing.”

  “He did, at first,” Rachel said. “Josh’s initial feeling was that he was named as sort of a backup to care for Madison if Lambert got sick or something. But after we found what Dr. Lambert had hidden away in his office, things changed. Lambert didn’t plan on dying. He planned on taking off with his little redhead, enjoying the money he earned from his part in the scheme. In that case, Josh would be left to care for Madison. If the scenario worked, Lambert didn’t want someone who’d see through the plot and expose it. He wanted someone who would probably miss the diagnosis, a doctor who would give the appearance of trying but whose best efforts wouldn’t be enough to save David Madison.”