Taji's Syndrome (19 page)

“How long have the cases been showing up?” asked Amy Wilde, who specialized in agricultural chemicals and health hazards.

“Apparently since last November,” said Jeff. “If there were others, we can’t find anything specific about them. And so far as I know, there has been no victim under the age of fourteen nor over the age of sixty-eight, for whatever good that information may do us.” He looked around the room. “And it may indicate that we have a disease of long incubation, something that is cumulative and required prolonged exposure in order to become active. In which case, we could have a very serious problem on our hands.”

There were more nods now, and Robert diCerni pulled his calculator out of his breast pocket and set to work with it. “I don’t suppose we have any idea about the total number of cases that have occurred since November? No, I thought not. Still, assuming that we have a cumulative disease that requires prolonged exposure to become active, there could be several thousand people running around the West Coast who stand to develop the disease in the next year.” He punched a few more keys. “That’s a conservative estimate, and it assumes we have all the pertinent information about every case diagnosed so far. And that isn’t very likely, even if it is the result of toxic wastes.”

Drucker stared at the far wall, his eyes fixed on a spot about ten feet beyond it. “Do I gather that it is the consensus to mount an investigation on this condition?”

There was a show of hands in favor, and Jeff felt a surge of relief when he realized that his support was almost unanimous.

“We better get out to the West Coast and find out if the two diseases are the same thing,” Weyman said promptly. “First things first. And I hope it is the same thing—two brand-new toxic diseases is a little more than I want to handle.” He was one of three people who chuckled at his remark.

Drucker frowned and looked around the room with suspicion. “Is that really necessary? Wouldn’t it make more sense to send queries to other parts of the country, to find out if there are other reports of the disease, and then coordinate the search for the cause from here?” It was part of Drucker’s personality that he disliked having to leave Atlanta and his office, where he was secure in his power.

“I’ll go,” said Weyman. “Jeff and I will be on the next plane west. We can work as a team, or split up.” He smiled as he made the offer. “And we’ll report in, so that the rest of the group can add what we learn to what you find out from the other parts of the country.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Jeff at once. He held up the printouts. “Given the two geographical areas, we might as well decide now who goes where.”

“What about your family, Taji?” Drucker interrupted.

“My aunt has been running the household for years. The kids are old enough to take care of themselves.” He was determined not to let Drucker goad him. “If you’re really concerned, I can arrange for all of them to stay with my brother in Florida for the time I’m gone, but that seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”

“My neighbor will take care of my dogs and bring in the mail,” Weyman chimed in at his most laconic. “I’ll give them the milk in the fridge so that it won’t go bad while I’m gone.”

“That’s enough, Muggridge,” Drucker said, his chin coming up. “It’s not decided.”

DiCerni raised his hand. “I think we’d better act on this. If it turns out to be a general hazard, the sooner we get moving on it, the better. It’s a case of better safe than sorry.”

“I agree,” said Donna Howell, who spent her spare time working with the Committee for Public Utilities Responsibility. “There are more than enough victims in either location to justify our investigation; if we don’t act soon, we may have to justify our failure to do so later on.”

The tacit threat of governmental review was not lost on Drucker. He was silent; the others at the table remained still until he cleared his throat. “Perhaps I think it might be a good precaution. We will authorize one week’s travel pay. That will enable you to conduct a basic investigation. At the end of that time, we’ll have a review of your findings and relate them to anything that we discover in other parts of the country.” He patted the table with the flat of his hand, as if using a gavel to dismiss a session of court.

“When do we leave?” Weyman asked. “So I can arrange for the dogs?”

“Would tomorrow be all right?” Jeff asked. “I think that the sooner we act on this, the better.”

“You’re an alarmist, Taji. You don’t grasp the size and complexity of this country.” Drucker stood a little straighter, as if he were defending the United States from foreign corruption. “It’s not uncommon for physicians from smaller countries to see the U.S. on the same scale as what they’re used to.”

“Drucker,” said Jeff with as little irritation as he was able to achieve, “I’ve worked for the World Health Organization, as you are well aware. Are you telling me that your problems in the U.S.A. are more complex than those of the entire continent of Africa?” He did not wait for an answer. “I will agree that you have one complexity that is a particularly significant factor in a disease of this sort—mobility. Who knows how many persons have been exposed to the toxins and have traveled away from the area? If there is a long incubation period, while that cuts down the number of persons likely to have sufficient levels of toxicity to bring on the disease, it also complicates the search, in that those who could potentially become ill might have left the Pacific Northwest or Southern California two, three, four or even five years ago and gone—who knows where?”

“That’s rather an extreme view,” Drucker said stiffly.

“Do we dare risk having a less extreme one?” asked Jeff, taking in everyone in the room with his question. “I’m prepared to leave tomorrow. I think it’s necessary that we do something at once.”

“All right,” said Drucker, knowing that if he continued to refuse it would not look well on his record. “Tomorrow. I am sorry for this inconvenience, Muggridge.”

“Fine with me,” said Weyman blithely as he got to his feet. “Can we talk before we go home to pack?” he asked Jeff as the meeting began to break up.

“Sure,” said Jeff. “Do you know where you’d like to go?”

“Given a choice, San Diego. I’ve never been to Seattle when it hasn’t been raining, and the two times I’ve been in San Diego it was sunny and warm.” He smiled. “If I’ve got to go looking for a deadly substance that’s killing something, I don’t want to be depressed every time I look out the window.” His smile had become a grin.

“All right,” said Jeff, shrugging. “I’ll take the Northwest. But I think I’ll start in Portland and go to Seattle afterward. Damn,” he added as he considered it. “I wonder if there’s a direct flight or if I’ll have to change planes?”

“Probably in Denver, or Salt Lake,” said Donna, who had crossed the country nine times last year. “Take Denver, if there’s any choice.”

“Why?” Jeff asked, surprised to hear her express an opinion.

“Denver’s a little nicer if you get stranded there, and there are more ways to get out of it, if you have to make plans.” She had gathered up the copy of the printouts she had been given. “Do you really think this is going to be bad?”

“Yes. I think it is possible that there are five thousand people out there who have been sufficiently exposed to the toxin, whatever it is, to contract the disease.”

“That sounds pretty high,” she said. “If that’s the case, why are we starting to see it only now, and only in those places?”

“We don’t know it’s only those places,” said Jeff, holding up his hand and ticking his points off on his fingers. “We don’t know if there are milder versions of the disease than the one we’re seeing, we don’t know why it has cropped up so suddenly, but it may indicate that this is a two-stage toxicity, in which case, it could develop spontaneously wherever both toxins are present.”

“Okay; okay,” she said, holding up her hand. “I don’t dispute the possibilities.”

“I hope I’m wrong,” Jeff added.

Weyman tapped Jeff on the shoulder. “Come on; we got to get a few plans made.”

“Excuse me,” said Jeff to Donna as he picked up his printouts and his attaché case.

“I didn’t want to give Drucker a chance to buttonhole you,” said Weyman as he held the door open for Jeff. “He’s itching to pull some kind of stunt; he hates it when he’s put at a disadvantage. He wants everything this group does to be his idea or an idea he can take credit for.”

“If that means we can get the job done, it doesn’t matter,” said Jeff, almost meaning it.

“Stop being so altru-fucking-istic,” said Weyman as he yanked open the door to his office. “And for God’s sake, think up something I can tell Jennie when I break our date for tomorrow night.”

“Tell her the truth,” Jeff recommended.

“What good would that do?” Weyman asked in mock distress. “She thinks that all we bother about here is smog levels and the occasional PCP leak. You know what that means. Medical emergencies don’t happen to doctors like us, not according to Jennie.”

Jeff shrugged. “Is she so important to you that you are concerned with her good opinion? Really?” There was a humorous and ironic note to the question; he knew Weyman’s history with women and sensed that Jennie was not much different than the other very pretty, very venal women he attracted.

“Not the way you mean, no,” said Weyman. “I wish you didn’t see through me quite so easily. Probably just as well that we have a trip like this. If we didn’t, God alone knows how difficult things might get with Jennie.”

Jeff studied his colleague. “Are you seriously involved with her?”

“No,” he admitted bluntly. “But it’s getting to be a little bit boring, all this independence and no-strings fun.”

“It doesn’t hurt so much when you lose it,” Jeff pointed out as gently as he could; his wife had died along with sixty-five others in a train wreck caused by terrorists, and though it was more than four years since it happened, his grief was still strong in him. He had stopped blaming himself for not being with her, and had almost forgiven her for being in Greece on her way to Bulgaria, and therefore in danger. “I beg your pardon?” he said, realizing that Weyman had spoken to him.

“I said I’m calling upstairs to get plane reservations. How early is too early for you?” Weyman held his receiver tucked between his ear and shoulder while he reached for one of his memo sheets.

“I wouldn’t like to have to leave before six; anytime after that would be all right.” He wanted to get back to his office and telephone Doctor Maximillian Klausen in Portland, to inform him of his plans, and to find out what more he could about the disease in Klausen’s report.

“Okay.” Weyman spoke rapidly to the coordinator, and promised to hang on while arrangements were made. “That’s one to San Diego and one to Portland, Oregon, honey,” he said, speaking with great care. “San Diego’s in California.” Whatever the coordinator said in reply made him grin.

“I’ll be in my office,” said Jeff. “Let me know what the schedule is as soon as you know.” He rose and left the room, his things slung under his arm in a haphazard way.

It took three different tries, but Jeff finally reached Klausen at the pathology laboratory of the Portland Center for the Study of Environmental Medicine. “Doctor Klausen?” he began tentatively, “this is Doctor Taji with the Environmental Division of the National Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.”

“Oh: hello, Doctor . . .”

“Taji,” he repeated. “We have your reports and we’re very concerned. I was hoping you might be willing to tell me anything more you’ve learned since you filed your report. If your first indications are typical of the disease, there may be some very real trouble coming.”

“I can’t help agreeing with you,” said Klausen with an edge to his words. “I’m helping in an autopsy of the most recent victim—female, aged seventeen. And it appears that her cousin also has the disease.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Jeff, so quietly that Klausen held back any sharp rejoinder he might have offered if Jeff’s response had been glib.

“So am I,” said Klausen. “The prognosis is pretty grim.”

“I gathered that from your report,” said Jeff. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m going to be flying out to Portland tomorrow. I don’t know what time I’ll arrive, but I hope to be there before noon, since I will have the time advantage with me. Perhaps you’d be willing to spare me some of your time around one in the afternoon?” He did not want to push Klausen, for he sensed the strain the Oregon doctor was under, but at the same time he knew that if he did not press, more crucial time could be lost. “I want to spend time in Seattle as well, but since the reports originated with you, I’m hoping—”

“Fine; one o’clock will be fine. And I’ll be happy to make time to go with you to Seattle. I want to see what they’ve got firsthand.”

“Then we’re in accord, Doctor Klausen?” Jeff said, looking up as Weyman came in the door and handed him a memo. “Doctor Klausen? I’ll arrive tomorrow at eleven-seventeen on Western Canadian from Denver.”

“I’ll have someone meet you, Doctor Taji,” said Klausen at once. “Hell, I’ll come myself.”

“You needn’t, but I’d be most grateful if you would,” said Jeff, fighting the vertigo that threatened to overwhelm him; whatever was ahead, it terrified him already.

“I’ll be there,” said Klausen with more force. “We can talk on our way here.”

“Excellent,” said Jeff. “I’m looking forward to it.” That was just short of a lie, but he consoled himself with the reflection that it was not Dr. Maximillian Klausen that sent a grue slithering up his spine, but the thought of that new and malign disease.

“Thank you for calling, Doctor Taji. To be frank, I didn’t expect Atlanta to do much about this.”

Jeff closed his eyes and nodded. “Unfortunately there are times your doubt is justified. I hope that in this case I can vindicate the NCDC.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Western Canadian from Denver, eleven-seventeen,” said Klausen, not bothering to comment on what Jeff had said.

“Tomorrow,” Jeff agreed with the dead line.

—Jeff Taji, Sam Jarvis and Harper Ross—

FOR SEATTLE
it was warm; from their vantage point, they could watch the ferry pull away from Mercer Island, churning toward the pier at the foot of the hill.

“Why don’t they simply build a bridge?” Jeff asked. It
was a question that had puzzled him the day before, when he had arrived at SeaTac early enough to be caught in traffic.

“All kinds of reasons,” said Harper, “mainly that Seattle doesn’t want one.” He was holding the printouts Jeff had given him yesterday. “I went over these last night. They’re not very encouraging.”

“No, they’re not,” said Jeff. His first trip to the Pacific Northwest, only two weeks ago, had filled him with an abiding dread. “We’ve had confirmation on over a thousand cases now, and the number is climbing.”

“And the fatality rate is still as high as it was?” Harper asked, the image of his dead son still fresh in his mind.

“Yes. There may be those with resistance or immunity, but so far we haven’t been able to locate them.” He turned away from the window and went back to the head of the conference table. “How are your other children?” he asked, with the uncanny knack of reading Harper’s face.

“Grant’s still in the rehab program in California. Susan’s there with him.” This last statement did not come easily, and he shifted in his chair as he spoke, his hazel-green eyes moving away from Jeff’s face. “Other than the drug thing, he seems to be fine.”

“And your youngest?” Jeff did not want to prod, but he had a deep sense that he needed every bit of information he could gamer from this man. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. Sam checked him out last week, and there’s no sign of anything wrong with him.” He sighed, not quite in defeat but a long way from hope and acceptance. “It helps, you know.”

“But there are more cases of the disease in Seattle, aren’t there, most of them concentrated in the north, in your end of the city.”

“Strictly speaking, Bellevue is a separate city from Seattle proper,” said Harper.

“So I understand,” Jeff said. “But it’s a little like other large centers, isn’t it? everything gets lumped together.” He looked at his watch. “Jarvis isn’t due for another ten minutes.”

“I’m sorry he had to be late.” Harper fiddled with the edge of the printouts. “Barry McPhee is in the hospital with this shit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Jeff, automatically and sincerely. “Who is Barry McPhee?”

“Our next-door neighbor. He and his wife Caroline have been friends of ours ever since we moved here, before Mason was born.” He shook his head slowly. “I went to the hospital before I came here. He looks just like Kevin did —pale and listless and so enervated that anything can be too much to deal with. He’s in quarantine, of course.”

“Does that bother you?” Jeff hoped that Harper would talk about it, clearing out the complex emotions that were draining him of purpose.

“Of
course
it bothers me.” He shoved the printouts across the table, watching the paper slide out, wave-like, toward Jeff. “Everything about this disease bothers me, especially that we haven’t found out diddly about it, and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse.” He jammed his knuckles together and glared up at the clock. “This is supposed to be one of the four best medical facilities on the West Coast. It cost over a billion dollars to build and they aren’t finished yet. You’d think with everything top of the line and state of the art that there’d be
some
headway by now.”

“It would be wonderful,” said Jeff. “It would be better if it never happened, or if the agents that cause it—whatever they are—had never been created. But that is out of our hands now. We have to accept the fact that we’re caught up in a crisis that is very close to becoming an epidemic. There’ve been eight news items about it already, none of them featured stories as yet, but the day is coming.”

“Sam said that you’ve confirmed several centers of infection,” Harper said, making an obvious effort to put their conversation on a less personal footing.

“Yes: Southern California, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Texas, along with the Oregon sites you already know about.” He pulled out his old-fashioned agenda book. “I have colleagues in Southern California, in Montana, in Twin Falls, and in Dallas. We’re doing everything we can to speed this investigation.” No thanks to Drucker, he added mentally. “We have filed fourteen requests with the Pentagon for information on military toxic stockpiles—”

“They were supposed to have been destroyed,” Harper reminded him.

“Yes. That is what makes it difficult,” Jeff agreed. “No one wants to admit that the orders were not carried out, or were only partially carried out. We have to be diplomatic about our dealings, and that slows us down.” His voice dropped with the last and he made a gesture of frustration.

“Do you think it will do any good?”

“Well, the National Security Agency and the Executive Security Department are both breathing down the necks of the coordinator in Atlanta. She can handle them, but from what she tells me, the ESD is being very touchy. According to her, even the FBI has been more helpful.”

“That’s a strange state of affairs,” said Harper.

“Yes, it is,” said Jeff. “By the way, don’t be surprised if someone from the ESD shows up here and starts checking up on the patients you have here.” He put his agenda back in his pocket. “I know it isn’t easy, but if you can accommodate them, it might be best if you try. They can make things go smoothly or put all kinds of barriers in our way, and we’ve got enough to handle with the disease without—”

“Sorry,” said Sam Jarvis as he came through the door. “I got tied up with that new admit. She’s only fifteen and she’s going to die, that’s how she put it.” He was thinner than two weeks ago, and the lines of his face were more deeply scored than before. There was fatigue in every line of his body; when he sat down he slumped and it was a short while before he picked up his copy of the printout.

“When did you go home last night?” Harper asked with concern.

“I didn’t,” Sam confessed. “I ended up sleeping in the surgeon’s lounge. The two beds in there are filled with boulders.” He worked his shoulder, as if trying to relieve its stiffness. “And I’m not as young as I was once.”

“Who else is coming?” Jeff inquired while Sam went over the material in the printouts.

“This ACTH reading is what gets me. It doesn’t make any sense at all.” Sam stopped. “Most of the quarantine staff will be here in half an hour—that’s the time when the shifts change. We only keep them on for three hours, then they have two off and another three on. It’s awkward at times, but we’ve found that the concentration is better and in most cases there are fewer mistakes, and fewer of the staff become ill.” He watched Jeff as he said this, as if measuring his response for approval or disapproval.

“I wish more hospitals would be as careful,” Jeff told him, knowing that a response was required from him. “I think we lose more patients to carelessness than to infection.”

“You were saying something about the ESD when I came in,” Sam said, making another of his abrupt changes of subject. “What was that all about?”

“They’re checking out this investigation, because of the possible involvement of the government. We’ve requested all information on strategic substance storage areas, just in case.” Jeff regarded Sam through narrowed eyes. “We have to go along with them or we won’t get much help.”

“Great. Okay. I’ll brief everyone on the floor, I guess. You can tell the quarantine staff.” Sam stifled a yawn. “And I’d appreciate it if you talked with the administration.”

“Yes, if you like.” Jeff very nearly smiled. “Have they been giving you much trouble?”

“They have their procedures, but those procedures aren’t designed to handle something like this outbreak.” This time the yawn would not be stopped. “Sorry about that.”

“You need rest,” said Jeff.

Harper was openly curious. “What you said earlier, about the carelessness—do you mind if we talk about that some more, Doctor Taji?”

“Jeff; please, Jeff,” he said, wanting as few barriers between them as possible. “Yes, I’d be very happy to talk to you or anyone else working on this investigation about the issue of carelessness.” In his mind, he heard the groans of his colleagues back in Atlanta, who were heartily sick of his pet theories about carelessness.

“By the way, we have found one person on the staff who was exposed to the syndrome and has no sign of contracting it,” Sam went on, mastering his exhaustion for the moment. “It’s probably too early to tell, but . . .”

“Keep an eye on . . . him? her?”

“Her,” said Sam. “She’s already volunteered.” He looked over at Harper. “If it turns out that she doesn’t have the disease, then we’ll try a few tests on her. We’ve done a blood workup already, but I want a full series of scans.”

“How do you know she was exposed?”

“First, she lives in Medina and her roommate has come down with the disease. Second”—Sam had started to play with a pencil, turning it end to end with each number”—she works in the lab, and she accidentally got splashed with blood serum from one of the patients who has it.”

“It might not be transmitted that way. If it’s a case of environmental toxins, she can’t be considered exposed.” Jeff delivered his warning in as neutral a tone as he could achieve, for he knew how much this investigation meant to Sam and Harper. He shared their feelings, but not in the terribly personal way of someone who has lost family and friends to the disease.

“You can’t rule out secondary transmission, either,” said Sam.

“No; we can’t rule out anything,” Jeff concurred at once. “All right. She’s probably the best source of information we have at the moment. Go ahead and do as you think best where she’s concerned, but don’t expect too much, and, if you can, resist the urge to look in only this one place for the solution.”

“I’m not precisely an amateur,” Sam bristled.

“No. I don’t mean that.” He braced his arms on the table and leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Sam’s. “I know from experience how tempting it is to come up with the solution you want, and the explanation you want, and to start selecting your evidence to support that theory.”

Surprisingly, Harper seconded him. “That’s what we always warn the students about in criminology—the tendency to want the facts to fit the theory rather than the other way around. It’s easy to do.” His tone changed slightly, and he sounded more like a professor again. “You find a victim who has all the outward indications of strangulation and so you don’t look for poison, just in case. Or you find a crime scene where the evidence of a struggle suggests that the assailant came through the window, and so you aren’t as careful as you ought to be about how much broken glass has fallen on which side of the window.” He looked squarely at Jeff. “You think the families of all the victims are at risk, don’t you?”

“Yes; but I think everyone in the area is at risk, to a greater or lesser degree. For what little impact this might have, that’s the consensus of my colleagues.” He stopped, then went on, “We’re starting to issue warnings for all hospitals west of the Rockies and south of Denver. I think we ought to be sending warnings everywhere, but—”

“And then what?” Harper demanded.

“We have to pinpoint the cause of the syndrome, the key to the disease, and then, if it is at all possible, isolate it and get rid of it. Barring that, we have to find a treatment for the disease.” Jeff looked at Sam. “Have you had a chance to go over the material I left you before?”

“Not closely, no,” Sam admitted. “It’s been too hectic. But I think that I’m going to go over all of it this evening, and the hell with everything else.” He set his pencil aside. “Have you talked to Max Klausen yet?”

“No, not yet,” said Jeff, sensing tension in the question.

“He called last night. His wife, Cassie; she’s a remedial reading teacher. She’s come down with the symptoms.” Sam touched the tips of his fingers together. “They’re very close. It’s a good marriage.”

Harper looked shocked. “Poor bastard,” he said with intense sympathy. “God, after losing his friends, to have this happen.”

“And how is Max? How is he handling it?” Jeff wanted to know.

“He’s beside himself. He blames himself. He says that he must have carried something to her. I told him that doesn’t make any sense, but he’s . . . he’s taking it hard.” Sam changed the subject once more. “I’ve asked Hal Shevis to join us here, along with the quarantine staff. He’s—”

“I know Doctor Shevis,” Jeff interrupted. “We’ve dealt with him before, and he’s already supplied us with corroboration for the material sent by Klausen. I’m very glad you thought to include him. I ought to have done so myself.”

“His niece is in the hospital with the disease,” Sam warned. “It’s been very hard on the family. Her father’s a disabled vet, and he doesn’t have any other kids.”

Harper looked down at his hands, not trusting himself to speak; Jeff cleared his throat. “Do you know if he would rather not work with us? I could certainly understand if he decided to stay away from our work.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Sam said. “He needs something to do, and this is probably the best answer for him right now. Just like it is for Harper.” He did his best to sound optimistic, but could not sustain it.