Megan's Cure (23 page)

Chapter 44

WHEN MEGAN KIM woke up she felt like someone big and strong had punched her hard, first in the middle of her chest and then in her right hip.
 
She walked gingerly when she got up to use the bathroom because her hip was so stiff.
 
She was glad they had put her to sleep when they took samples of her bone marrow.
 
What had they done to leave her feeling like this?

Before she returned to her bed, she stood in front of the mirror and lifted her gown.
 
She saw six small band aids – a pair under her arms, two more on her stomach and the last two near her ribcage.
 
Lymph nodes, they said.
 
She wondered what they were and whether she had any left.

It was the end of her second day at the hospital and Megan had stopped counting the vials of her blood that had been taken.
 
She wondered at what point she would feel the effects.
 
What would happen then?
 
Would she faint?
 
She had been introduced to the gigantic machine with the circular tunnel that made such a huge racket all around her while she lay there, trying not to move and listening to the technician ask her every few minutes, “How are you?”

“Okay,” she always replied.
 
But, she wasn’t.

She heard the sound of someone walking briskly and looked up as Dr. Choy entered her room.
 

“
Jóusàhn. Megan.
Hello, Megan.
Néih hóu ma?
 
How are you?”
said Choy.

“
Hóu
 
Fine,” said Megan.
“
Hóu
.”

Choy sat down on the bed next to the girl.

“No you’re not,” she said.
 
“What’s wrong?”

Megan began crying.
 
It surprised her as much as Choy.
 
The doctor moved closer and hugged the girl until Megan rested her head on Choy’s shoulder.
 
She was sobbing and Choy rubbed her back.
 
She could feel the muscles in Megan’s small back tightening and then releasing as the sobs continued.

“It’s pretty horrible, isn’t it?” said Choy.
 
“All the tests.
 
Are you sore from the bone marrow biopsies?”

Megan nodded into her shoulder.

“And does this place…the hospital…bring back a lot of memories?” said Choy.
 
“Maybe some bad ones, huh?”
 
Megan nodded into her shoulder again – harder this time.

Megan wanted to add that she knew her fear was crazy.
 
But she kept thinking about how hospitals were full of germs.
 
It was true that everyone around her was sick.
 
But she knew cancer wasn’t like, say, the measles or the flu.
 
Still, she couldn’t escape the scary thought that the cancer might come back.
 
There were reminders everywhere.
 
And not having her mother here made it that much worse.

Choy had visited Megan for the first time the previous day.
 
She was immediately charmed by the poised and capable 10-year-old.
 
And Megan’s humble background reminded Choy a lot of her own.

She remembered when she was a school girl roaming the busy streets of Hong Kong filled with the kinds of shops like the ones Choy’s father had owned.
 
He had started at the lowest rung of the tourist trade, selling fans, key chains, post cards and porcelain cats.
 
From there, he moved up the product chain to leather luggage knockoffs and, finally…electronics.
 
Along the way, Choy’s father had scraped and saved to finance his brilliant daughter’s education.

Had she met Megan when she was 10, thought Choy, they probably would have been great friends.
 

“Megan,” said Choy.
 
“My niece is a little older than you.
 
She’s 12.
 
And she lives just a few miles from here.
 
I bet she has time this afternoon to come and visit.
 
She has a lot of magazines.
 
And I’ll tell her to bring her iPod.
 
She’s a bit crazy about music.
 
Does that sound good?”

Megan pushed herself back, wiped away the worst of her tears with the palm of her hand.
 
She nodded excitedly.

“Does she like to play cards?” she asked.

* * *

Wrinkles.
 
That was why the tiny vial of clear fluid that he held in his hand had come into being.

It had arrived at John Average’s home in an overnight FedEx package.
 
The vial had no label.
 
Its inspiration was curare, the South American poison that had been used for centuries by indigenous tribesmen who coated the tips of their arrows and blow darts with it.

Scientists had created this synthetic cousin of the paralyzing agent.
 
Like curare, it worked by paralyzing the voluntary muscles.
 
In animals – and people – a sufficient dosage of curare was lethal because it immobilized the muscles used for breathing.
 
Victims simply suffocated although they could remain otherwise alert and conscious, their hearts never missing a beat until asphyxiation stilled them forever.
 

This highly concentrated derivative was 50 times more powerful.
 
It had been developed by scientists searching for alternatives to botox, the cosmetic toxin which temporarily reduces wrinkles by paralyzing facial muscles with injections.

The amount he held in his hand – less than a teaspoon – could kill upward of a dozen people, he had been told.
 
Also in the overnight package was an ingenuous delivery system based on a design conceived three decades earlier by a spy agency in the former Eastern Bloc.
 
It looked like a nice piece of jewelry – a man’s ring with small silver nuggets embedded in the setting.
 
But a sharp, almost invisible point protruded less than a quarter inch from the middle of the ring setting.
 
Pressed into someone’s skin, it felt like the sting of a small ant – and would inject a lethal dose of the drug.
 
A tiny bladder inside the ring held sufficient fluid for five mini-injections.

Within four seconds of receiving the tiny injection, Average had been told, a victim would be unable to speak, stand…or press a hospital call button to ask for help.

Average added the FedEx package to his overnight bag.
 
Already in the bag were four sets of hospital scrubs in shades of blue and green and a white plastic clipboard.
 
He zipped it up.
 
Then he picked up the telephone and called the taxi service that would take him to the airport.

Chapter 45

SHERIFF JULES DUPONT from Orleans Parish in Louisiana was as big a horse trader as Edwin Merrick.
 
As soon as he picked up Henry Roth’s phone call, he knew he had something that the quick-talking San Francisco lawyer was desperate to get.
 
He knew within two minutes exactly what it was.
 
He also understood that Roth was just an intermediary.
 
The key to any negotiation was getting the decision maker in the room – or at least on the phone.

“So,” said the sheriff on the private phone call with the drug company CEO.
 
“Ya’ll want my help on something, huh?”

“I assume Mr. Roth has explained the situation,” said Merrick.
 
“This man – Walter Novak – has presumably practiced medicine without a license in your fair state.
 
He also gave an experimental drug to a child while it still was waiting to be approved for human trials.
 
Mr. Roth tells me that amounts to battery, potentially a criminal felony.”

“I see,” said Dupont.
 
“So tell me.
 
Exactly how is that little girl doin’ today? She still sufferin’ from what that man did to her.
 
What’s his name?”

“Novak,” said Merrick.

“Right…Novak,” said Dupont.
 
“Got a history of messin’ with children, does he?”

“Well…uh, no,” said Merrick.
 
“Look.
 
The point is that technically he committed these…uh…crimes.
 
And we’d like you to…”

“I see,” interrupted the sheriff.
 
“‘
Technically
’ he committed these crimes.
 
And you jus’ hopin’ I see that justice is done in this case, huh?
 
Doesn’t matter that he maybe cured this girl and is causin’ trouble for y’all?”
 

Merrick was silent for a moment.

“Sheriff,” he finally said.
 
“Changing the subject for a minute, what’s going on with you down there?
 
What matters are occupying your interest these days?”

“Funny you should ask,” said Dupont.
 
“Y’all know, of course, that sheriffs are elected here in Louisiana.
 
Got a tough one comin’ up.
 
These liberal soft-on-crime types, you know.
 
Hate ‘em.
 
Just as intolerant as the KKK in they own ways.”

“I would hazard a guess that it is expensive running such a campaign there, as it is everywhere,” said Merrick.

“You have no idea,” said the sheriff.

“Well,” said Merrick.
 
“I’ve got some experience helping people run for office – all the way from national to the very local.
 
I’m sure I’ve got some ideas that could help you with your election.”

“How many?” said Dupont.

“What?”

“How many ideas exactly would you say you got?” said the sheriff.

“Ah…well…I’d say…um…25,” said Merrick.
 
“About 25 excellent ideas.”

“Hmmm.
 
Okay. That’s good,” said Dupont.
 
“But could always use more.
 
‘Bout 50 real good ideas would help us out a lot.
 
Go a long way down here.”
 

“I see,” said Merrick.
 
“Well, sheriff, let me get working on those right away.
 
And, shall we continue our conversation afterward?”

“No need for you to be on the call,” said Dupont.
 
“I know you’re busy.
 
I can work with your lawyer.
 
What’s his name?
 
Roth?
 
I’m sure we can make some...ah…progress on the...um…charges and that extradition request.
 
I mean if that’s okay for y’all.”

“Works for me, sheriff,” said Merrick.
 
“Works fine for me.

After he hung up, Merrick placed an internal call to Troy Axmann.

“Listen,” he told Axmann.
 
“Look up the campaign for this sheriff – Dupont – in New Orleans.
 
Get the information for contributions.
 
Account numbers.
 
Give them to my secretary.
 
She’ll wire the funds.
 
Get the transaction number from her.

“Then, compile a list of 50 people – members of the management team down to the director level,” continued Merrick.
 
“Include our subsidiaries and international offices if you need to.
 
Draft a letter to Dupont’s campaign that says the payment – it will be $50,000 – represents contributions of $1,000 each from those on the list.

“Right after those go out to Dupont’s campaign, call Henry Roth.
 
Tell him to call Sheriff
 
Dupont again.
 
And that if he isn’t completely cooperative, let me know…immediately.”

Three hours later, the Orleans Sheriff’s Office issued a press release announcing that criminal charges had been filed against Walter Novak for practicing medicine without a license and committing battery against a child.
 
The office was commencing extradition proceedings to have Novak arrested in California and transported to Louisiana.

The news came out just in time to be carried on the 5 o’clock news by every television station in Northern California.

* * *

The panic attacks were coming back.
 
As Walter Novak lay in the second bedroom in Lee’s flat long after midnight, he could scarcely breathe.
 
His chest hurt and his skin tingled.
 
His body was rigid under the sheet.
 
He couldn’t move.
 
He imagined people staring at him.
 
Just outside the building.
 
Maybe outside of the room, on the other side of the door.
 
He thought he could
hear
them. The whole world looking at him…watching…waiting to destroy him.

He thought back to the relaxation techniques he had been taught to use at the clinic in Arizona.
 

Start with the fingers.
 
Move them up and down.
 
Let them drum the mattress.
 
Bury the wrists in the softness.
 
Let the hands lay there sinking down.
 
Then forearms, elbows, shoulders.
 
Let them sink down as if weights were sitting on them to hold them deep in the bed.

Then he moved to his toes.
 
Felt them flex, point toward the bottom of the bed.
 
He pressed his heels down.
 
Then he moved up his legs.
 
He felt the weights on his legs pressing him down.
 
Holding him in place.

On to the head – eyelids, nose, lips, cheeks, forehead.
 
Everything relaxed, held down by gravity.
 
He felt the back of his head…his back.
 
Everything sinking deeper into the bed…every muscle.
 
Relaxing.
 
So relaxed.
 
And so heavy.

It was working.
 
His breathing slowed.
 
He was pulling inside of himself and not thinking about the dangers and pressures outside of him.
 
He felt heavy.
 
Like a body on Jupiter with the extra gravity making him unable to do anything but lie immobile.

It was when he was in this state – deep, meditative and far within himself – she sometimes came to him.
 
Twelve-years-old and, strangely, with blonde pigtails.
 
It was as if she waited in that deep place until he came.
 

She lay in his arms quietly.
 
He watched her while he rocked slowly.
 
It was very peaceful.
 
It was just as it had happened.

Finally, she opened her eyes.
 
She looked deep into his.
 
She was perfectly lucid.

“Don’t worry,” she said.
 
“Don’t worry.”

And then she closed her eyes, turned her face against his chest and struggled through three or four breaths until, finally, she wasn’t breathing anymore.