Syndrome Page 28

  He walked into the kitchen alcove and gazed around, not entirely sure what he was looking for. The main thing would be some phone numbers and addresses.

  He opened the refrigerator and peered in. It was still running and contained two unopened jars of British marmalade and an empty quart jar with traces of orange juice bordered by mold. The freezer compartment was entirely bare.

  The two kitchen cabinets above the stove had been similarly emptied. He gave them a cursory look, then came back and followed a hallway to a bathroom in the back.

  When he opened the medicine chest above the sink and peered in, he initially thought it was empty, with a pile of wadded-up Kleenex on the bottom shelf. He was pulling that out when he realized that the tissue had been wadded around an empty prescription drug vial.

  Kristen Starr had prescription number 378030. It was for Libinol-whatever that was, probably some kind of screwed-up diet pill-and it had been filled five months ago. It had been delivered from Grove Pharmacy on Seventh Avenue to here, 217 West Eleventh Street. The address was pasted on a sticker on the back.

  Hmmm, he thought. After she left, rather than transferring the prescription, what if they just had subsequent refills delivered to some other address? There's a long shot that Grove Pharmacy might have a new address for the prescription number.Okay, it would be a very long shot, but still. .

  Unless, of course, her new address had been the Dorian Institute. In that case, the prescription would undoubtedly have been discontinued once she became a patient. He reached for his cell phone to call the drugstore.

  Shit, I forgot it! Damn hangover.

  He walked back into the living room and stared at Kristen's phone. If it was still working, he could call Grove Pharmacy and-

  No, idiot, that would wipe out any number stored in the redial function. Without a cell, the best thing to do is just go over there and check with the pharmacist in person.

  He settled yoga-style onto the hardwood floor next to the phone and stared at it. What if the line is already disconnected? Why did whoever cleaned this place out leave it here? The phone, of all things. It's-

  Itrang.

  He jumped a foot off the floor, and then stared at it.

  A series of reasons flashed through his mind:

  1) They know I'm here and they're going to warn me again to back off.

  2) They know I'm here and the last incoming call here was from a number they don't want me to know about. I pick this up and I wipe out any chance of ever finding out what it was.

  Don't answer it. This phone call is not intended to be helpful.

  Not picking up the phone was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he was determined to be disciplined.

  He counted eleven rings and then he couldn't take it anymore and reached for the receiver.

  It stopped.

  "Thank God." His hand froze in midair. The timing had been a split-second salvation.

  All right, he thought,time to find out if I just totally screwed up. Time to dial.

  He got his pen and notebook poised and then lifted the black receiver. He knew from the message on her machine yesterday that somebody had called her just before he got there. Or maybe whoever came and cleaned out her apartment had received a phone call while they were here. Possibly from whoever sent them. A checkup call.

  Who knew?But give it a shot. He hit the code.

  A mechanical voice came on immediately: "Your last call was from area code 212, number 555-3935. If you would like for me to connect you, please push-"

  "Go for it," he said aloud, scribbling down the number and then following the instruction.

  At that moment somebody's cell phone began to ring just outside the front door.

  "Oh shit." It was just too big a coincidence.

  After two rings it stopped and he heard the voice of Winston Bartlett, both outside the front door and in his ear.

  "Yes."

  He was too startled to respond, but he didn't need to, because an instant later he also heard the sound of a key and then the front door opened.

  A shaft of daylight shot across the room as Bartlett took one look and exploded.

  "Damn, so it's true. How thehelldid-"

  "Hey, come on in," Stone said, trying to recover some poise and take marginal control of the situation. "I'm here by permission. The downstairs tenant, who you just evicted, or kidnapped too, gave me her key."

  "You don't get it, do you? I told you to keep-"

  "But we have signs of progress. I know all about Kristen." Well, that was hardly the case, but it never hurt to start off with a bluff to see how far you could get. "That's why I'm here. The question is, when are we going to start talking to each other? Because I'm putting together a hell of a story."

  "I don't fucking believe this." Bartlett slammed the door.

  "By the way, a special thanks for getting me sacked at theSentinel. Now I'll have the leisure to concentrate full-time on the stem cell book. And Gerex."

  "I warned you, but you wouldn't fucking listen." He was peering around the living room as though searching for clues to explain why nothing was going right.

  "Like I said, I talked to Kristen yesterday." Stone stood his ground. "She's not a happy person."

  "If you bring her into this. ." Bartlett glared at him. "I can't imagine what makes you think you can just run roughshod through my business and my life."

  "Here's how it is. You can abuse me, or you can use me. Keep in mind I'm accustomed to working for people who buy ink by the barrel. As I tried to explain before, if you won't let me get at the whole truth, I may end up spreading half-truths."

  Bartlett walked across the room and ran his fingers along the marble mantelpiece above the fireplace. "You know," he said, turning back, "up until now you've never asked me for anything. I have to say I've always admired that, but I'm curious why."

  "Maybe I thought it was your place to come to me," Stone said, puzzled by the left turn the conversation had suddenly taken. "You know, I have a life of my own. I have an eleven-year-old daughter you've never seen or-apparently-care to see. I'm wondering what that says aboutyou. Your granddaughter's name, by the way, is-"

  "Iknowher name. I know quite a bit about our blood ties, or lack of."

  "Well, I'd bet she'd be just thrilled by that. Incidentally, she doesn't know a goddam thing about you and I'd just as soon keep it that way."

  "I knew having this conversation was a fucking mistake. This is why I never had it. Any real son of mine has got to have some of my character, my stature. You're a bean counter."

  "Ifyouhad any character, you wouldn't be hiding behind all this secrecy. I try to tell the truth, as much and as often as I can. That's my take on character."

  "What we're doing at Gerex is going to change the history of the world. We're at the brink of things mankind has only dreamed about. And I've taken all the risks. In fact, I took the biggest risk of all personally. There's a lot going on that you don't know a damned thing about. We're on the edge of-"

  "All the more reason you should want the whole story told," Stone interjected. "Yes, stem cell technology is going to change everything, but you can't just tell half the story. I want it to work, but I'm a truth seeker. I want to find out what, if anything, can go wrong too. You've been using people, first Kristen and now-I'm beginning to fear-Ally, to take your risksforyou. I mean, what's going on? Why did you send somebody down to obliterate all evidence of Kristen? And now Cindy, that girl downstairs? My God, she's somehow vanished too. Whatever happened to Kristen to make it come to this?"

  "What may or may not have gone wrong is nothing that can't be made right. No great medical advance ever succeeded in a direct line."

  "I don't need the sales pitch," Stone said. "I agree it's going to revolutionize medicine. But you can't-"

  "That's why you'll never be a son of mine. You always think small. This is about more than mere medicine. It's about doing the one thing mankind has never been able to do. I amthisclose. Nothing is
going to be allowed to destroy this chance. Not even you, my own flesh and blood."

  "Am I that?" Stone asked, feeling an unexpected satisfaction. "Your own 'flesh and blood'?"

  "Thatis something," Bartlett said, "we are about to discover. Whether we are made of the same thing. The best way for you to understand what's going on here is to do what I've done. Have the Beta procedure. Show me you've got the balls."

  "The 'Beta procedure'? It might help if I knew what it is."

  "Why don't I just show you," Bartlett said. "You want to be on the inside, see everything up close? Fine. I think the time has come. You seem determined to stick your nose into what I'm doing. You weaseled your way into the institute, and now you show up here. So I guess it's time you were an insider all the way."

  "Good, maybe then I can start getting some answers. For example, was changing Kristen's name part of the NIH study?" Stone turned to face him. "Or is it your way to hide one of your mistakes?"

  "Quite frankly, that's none of your goddam business."

  "Well, let me tell you what is my business. Ally Hampton is a particular friend of mine. I damned well want to know whether she's scheduled to undergo the same procedure as Kristen. I don't know what you and Van de Vliet did to Kristen, but if you turn Ally into a zombie too, I'll personally-"

  "I think we'll continue this discussion later." He pulled his cell phone out of a jacket pocket, flipped it open, and punched a memory number.

  "Ken, could you and Jake please come in. We have the problem I was afraid we had." He flipped the phone shut and turned back to Stone. "Karl entered Ms. Hampton and her mother into the clinical trials at the last minute, as a special favor. She's in no danger."

  Now Stone saw two men come through the front door. One was the tall Japanese man who had slugged him the day before.

  Shit. I needthis? Is he going to work me over again?

  The other guy was dressed in white, as though he were an orderly or nurse. Stone noticed he had a plastic syringe in his right hand.

  "Ken, could you and Jake please take care of this. He'll be going with us."

  Stone examined the three of them. Well, he thought, I guess I'm going to be back inside the Dorian Institute after all.

  "Look, there's no need for excessive violence here. We could just set some ground rules for this situation."

  The Japanese man named Ken walked over and seized him around the neck, while at the same time pulling his right arm around behind him, a decisive hammerlock.

  "You fucker," Stone choked out. "Let-" The man Bartlett had called Jake, the one in white, shoved a needle into his arm.

  "This could be the experience you've been looking for," Bartlett said. "You've been pursuing me like a dog chasing a car. Now we're about to see if you're man enough to handle the consequences when you've caught it."

  You're damned right I'll handle it, he tried to say. But he wasn't sure if he actually got it said, the void was closing in so fast.

  Chapter 29

  Thursday, April 9

  10:33p.m.

  "Grant, is that you?"

  Ally squinted in the semi-dark of the room, finally making out the silhouette. He was sitting in a chair beside her bed, and his face was troubled, reminding her of when he'd had a bad day in high school.

  Am I dreaming again?she puzzled. The clock on the wall told her that this was a late hour for whatever he was up to now.

  "It's me," he said, his voice low, just above a whisper. The door behind him, she noticed, was shut. "Welcome back to the world. They moved you upstairs just for tonight. This is the first chance I've had to get near you."

  She was still wondering where she was, what day it was. The walls were an icy blue, illuminated only by the silver-and-green glow of the bank of CRT screens that now monitored her heart and her respiration. She lifted her head off the pillow and for a moment, looked past Grant, examining the screen of the heart monitor. It was a phonocardiogram.

  She knew what to look for. Over the years she'd learned to interpret every irregular pulse, every errant amplitude, but now the sonic abnormalities that typically characterized her stenosis, the struggle of her heart's scarred valve to maintain adequate coronary output, were significantly damped.

  There'd always been murmurs, abnormal heart sounds, as long as she could remember, so what did this mean? Had the damaged valve already begun restoring and strengthening itself? While she slept?

  Or was this just more of some dream?

  Why was she in this hospital anyway, hooked up to monitors? She still couldn't remember exactly.

  "What. .?" She tried to rise up out of the bed. Again she wondered, was Grant real or some chimera?

  Then she realized she was strapped in, though the straps were held only with black Velcro.

  As she started to pull them open, she noticed she had an IV needle in her arm, with a plastic tube that led to a bag of liquid suspended from a hook above her head. More annoying, however, was the checkerboard of taped-on sensors on her upper body, for the ongoing phonocardiogram. She looked at all the tubes and connected wires and felt like a laboratory animal in the middle of an experiment.

  "Ally, you're at the Dorian Institute, remember? Dr. Van de Vliet's stem cell clinical trials. Nina's here too."

  "Oh." That rang a bell, sort of. "What. . what day is it?"

  He told her. "You've been under sedation since late yesterday, Ally. But Dr. Vee says your test data show you're responding-"

  "Mom's here, right?" Now things were starting to come back. "How's she doing? Is she-"

  "He's talking about discharging her by the end of next week, even before the NIH clinical trials are officially over." Grant tried a smile. "By then, he thinks the procedure will have replaced enough tissue in her brain that she might not even need a caregiver. She's doing crosswords again. Need I say more."

  "My God." Now she remembered how on-again, off-again Nina's mind had been when she brought her out to the institute. Had she really been given a second chance? And so quickly? If so, it was truly astonishing.

  But now she found herself staring at Grant, mesmerized. Something about him seemed oddly off.

  "Grant, what… what's going on with you?"

  "I've. ." He was hesitating. "I've been thinking about everything. Now I really wish I hadn't done what I did."

  "What are you talking about?" This kind of revisionist remorse didn't sound like the Grant she knew.

  "Have you seen Kristen? They said you know about her, were asking about her." Then he stepped back. "Do you know about her?"

  Kristen. She tried to remember.Is that the woman everybody. . Her mother had come to the institute with a pistol trying to find her? Then she was kidnapped. .

  "It's the Syndrome," Grant went on. "She wanted the Beta procedure, and Dr. Vee finally agreed. But nobody expected anything to happen like what eventually did. That's why W.B. went ahead and had it too."

  Beta. Now she remembered that Kristen had mumbled something about that word.

  "Ally, I got you into. . When I told W. B. that I thought you and he had the same rare blood type, AB, he wanted to bring you into the program."

  "You mean for my heart?"

  He looked away and his eyes grew pained. "Well, that's part of it. There's another part they haven't told you about."

  "What's that?"

  "Antibodies. They think there's a chance you could be made to develop them and then they could use them to help W.B. He doesn't have the Syndrome yet, but it's probably just a matter of time."

  What, she puzzled, is he talking about?What "antibodies"? What "syndrome"?She was weak and she wasn't sure her mind was fully functional. But after what appeared to be the miracle of her heart, she was willing to forsake a certain amount of momentary rationality.

  Then more memory started returning. "Kristen. Whatabouther? I saw-"

  "Ally, the Syndrome started with her over four months ago. At first they didn't fully realize how serious. . but now it's getting worse every
day." He paused and turned away. "Look, I've been thinking. I'm really sorry that I brought you into this. What if something goes wrong?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "If you could see Kristen now, you'd understand."

  "Where is she? Is she still wherever they're hiding her?"

  "No." He turned back. "Kristen. . After what happened yesterday, she had to be brought back out here. There's a ward downstairs, on the floor below the offices and lab, that's kind of like an intensive-care unit. That's where you were until tonight. But you can't go back down there on your own. Not even the nurses can go without a special authorization, which is never given."

  "But if Kristen is-"

  "Ally,you'rethe one I'm worried about. I thought what they were going to do to you was safe. But last night I. . I heard them all talking and I think you could be in serious danger. They don't actually know what the consequences of what they're doing will be. You need to get out of here and at least get the real story. I don't want this on my hands. Truthfully, there could be some deep legal shit coming out of all this. I can think of at least three felonies. I don't want any part of that liability, and I want you to testify that I got you out of here if it ever comes to that."

  Finallythe straight story, she thought.He's afraid he's about to be an accomplice in a criminal conspiracy. He's getting cold feet.

  "Grant, do something for me. Get me unplugged. All these sensors. I want to go see her for myself."

  "Ally, forget it. To begin with, I can't unplug you. Only a nurse can do that. And I don't want to. You've got catheters in places I-"

  "Then I'll get a nurse to come and do it. I'll say I need to go to the bathroom. That should get me unhooked."

  Annoyed she looked around. Where's the buzzer? There has to be one somewhere. Then she spotted a set of controls attached to the bed and sure enough, there was a red button. What else could it be?

  She pushed it and a light came on above her door. Moments later, a short blue-haired woman with the namemarionsewn into her white uniform opened the door and came striding in, flicking on the fluorescent overheads.