Mirrors (3 page)

On a trip home to visit her during my first year of medical school in Las Vegas, I found her breathing from an oxygen tank with a plastic tube around her head that looked like a drooping halo. She had little hope of getting a heart transplant because of her age and her failing bone marrow. Six months later, she died. I thought about dropping out of school to tend the farm but I knew she would have disapproved of the plan, particularly since my brother stepped in to run the land. Instead, I pledged to honor her by becoming a hematologist,
my
way of challenging the anemia that took her life.

The pledge couldn’t ward off depression, particularly during the third year of medical school as classmates dispersed to different hospitals to complete clinical rotations with seemingly endless hours. The diaspora curtailed the gathering I coveted most, Friday night poker games. I returned to an empty apartment at the start of each weekend, turning to the city’s gambling sites for solace. I played baccarat, keno, and slots, and while lady luck accompanied me for a while, mid-way through my first year of residency, a losing streak set in. During my residency and fellowship years, my entire salary went to pay off debts. I opened a line of credit but soon exhausted it, turning next to revolving credit card accounts. By the start of my hematology fellowship, I was a quarter million in the hole. I began trading options, futures, and commodities. Between seeing patients, I tracked the price of pork bellies, coffee beans, and sugar. For a while, luck returned, but then I got cocky and traded without doing the required research. The debt deepened. Collection agencies began calling. The Repo man took my car, but then XK59 bailed me out.

Or so I thought. Standing on the walkway over the Amygdala, I realized that instead of being my salvation, the protein had turned me into a suspect for a mass poisoning event.

Glenn Bird waved
a hand before me to get my attention. “We need to talk about the firm you sold XK59 to. It was called
Natow Pharmaceuticals
, right?”

“Yes
…
in New Orleans.”

“And you consulted for them?”

“Yes, to help them try to turn XK59 into a clot-dissolving drug.”

“Didn’t the medical center in Las Vegas hold a patent on the protein?”

“Initially, but they allowed me to acquire it because they concluded the protein was too hazardous.”

“Did you work on-site at
Natow
?”

“No, electronically only.”

“So you never visited their office?”

“Didn’t need to; a computer and a phone did the job.”

Every week for several months, I conversed with the CEO, a hematologist who led the company. I met him initially when he approached me after I presented a paper on XK59 at a conference in Singapore shortly before my paper was published. Over coffee, he convinced me that
Natow
had a future in producing drugs to treat blood disorders. After learning I owned the patent for XK59, he offered me a consulting position and, later, paid me a quarter million for a gram of XK59. I was surprised two months later to receive a call from him saying the firm had gone bankrupt. I had hoped to delve into the matter further but was in the midst of getting married, completing my fellowship, and moving to Maryland. When I finally called him, I got a recording stating
Natow
had shuttered.

Bird turned to Flagstaff. “Alright, let’s do it.”

Flagstaff placed a palm on my head and pressed on it.

“What are you doing?” I protested.

“On your knees,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Do it.”

I buckled onto the walkway above the Amygdala.

“Repeat after me,” Flagstaff commanded. “
Distamus ab aliis
.”

“What the hell’s that?”

He pressed harder.

“
Distamus ab aliis
,” I cried.

“It’s Latin for,
We stand apart
. Repeat it.”

I did.

“Now:
Proprius orbis
.”

I obeyed.

“
A world unto our own
,” he translated. “Repeat both.”

I did my best, accent flawed.

“Again,” Bird insisted.

Slow improvement.

“Good enough,” Flagstaff said, helping me up. “Welcome to the UNIT.”

“I didn’t ask to join.”

“Too bad,” Bird said. “You’re here until we solve the XK59 affair.”

“And if I refuse?”

His face hardened. “Wanna end up in a dumpster like the CEO of
Natow
? Someone lodged a bullet in his head.”

I froze. Two days earlier, my wife informed me that a car had followed her while she strolled through our neighborhood, departing only after she glared at its tinted windshield. I assured her it had been innocent.

Flagstaff swished his pony tail. “You’re safer with us than at your job until we figure out what’s going on. We’ll assign a security detail to your house.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Tell us who killed the CEO of
Natow
,” Bird said.

“I don’t know! This is the first I’ve heard of his death.”

“The place was torched, so we know little more,” Bird added.

“What about bank statements, tax returns, employee records?” I asked.

“What remains is unrevealing,” Bird replied, his eyes narrowed. “But we think we know who’s behind the XK59 poisonings—white-supremacists. Spell
Natow
backwards.”

I did.

“That’s right:
Wotan
. Heard of it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Acronym for
W
ill
o
f
t
he
A
ryan
N
ation—a group that espouses white nationalism and white separatism. We’ve been hearing more from them as WAFTA heats up.”

“WAFTA,” I repeated. “The trade bill.” For the past year, it had commanded headlines and triggered protests across the nation.

“Yes, the World-Around Free Trade Agreement,” Bird acknowledged. “It’s been debated heatedly in Congress and globally for over a year now. It calls for a total elimination of tariffs on imported goods around the world, no nation excluded. It’s due for a vote on Capitol Hill any day now.”

“Right,” Flagstaff continued, “and it has splintered both business and labor into multiple shards. Supporters of WAFTA tout eighteenth century Scottish economist, Adam Smith, who famously argued that
the invisible hand of the market
will fuel economic resurgence. On the other hand, opponents decry the bill as a devious strategy to lower wages in order to produce less expensive goods that will compete more effectively in international trade.”

“What’s this got to do with
Natow Pharmaceuticals
?” I asked.

“Your CEO friend had ties to white supremacist groups,” Bird said. “But one thing set him apart from his brethren: he supported the elimination of tariffs on pharmaceutical products so that the medicines he planned to manufacture could gain easy access to other nations. He paid for that view with his life. We think
Wotan
supremacists killed him for straying from their tenets.”

“Why would white supremacists object to the elimination of tariffs?” I asked.

“Because they’re convinced once tariffs are eliminated, the next step will be to open borders to unfettered immigration. They’re convinced the ultimate goal is to make borders more porous to stimulate economic growth.”

“Don’t forget,” Flagstaff interjected, “we’ve got home-grown terrorists in the U.S. The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 proved that. So did the shootings by an avowed white supremacist in 2015 of nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. While we focus on extremists linked to the Middle East, with the ascent of WAFTA, splinter groups with strictly domestic agendas have become more belligerent here. You’ve heard their threats: commandeer national parks; eschew taxes; conduct commerce by barter. These folks are armed, too, and prepared to defend the lands they usurp. They’ve threatened to unleash attacks on the homeland should WAFTA pass.”

“So,” Bird added, “the XK59 poisonings may be the beginning of a frontal assault. All hell could break loose if WAFTA prevails.”

Glenn Bird glanced
at his watch. “Time to go,” he said. As he led the way to Amygdala floor, he cautioned me: “Your work here is to remain strictly confidential. You’ll say nothing about it to your colleagues at PAHO.”

“But they’ll ask about my absence.”

“Tell them you’re on temporary duty with CDC.”

“Doing what?”

“Working on policy issues pertaining to anemia from lead poisoning. Embellish it if you wish; you’re a hematologist.” At the bottom of the stairs, he handed me an ID. “Welcome to the CDC.”

I examined it. “Does CDC know they’re being used as a front?”

“The key folks, yes.”

“Am I in their directory?”

“Yes.”

“As what?”

“A temporary employee based in the Washington office.”

“And if someone calls me?”

“A recording will instruct them to leave a message.”

We entered an office along the circumference of the Amygdala where Bird introduced me to a man with café au lait skin named Ricardo Muñoz.

“Dr. Krees-peeks, nice to meet you,” Muñoz said.

“Muñoz is an infectious disease physician who truly works for CDC,” Flagstaff explained. “We recruited him a week ago to assist with XK59.”

I frowned. “Infectious diseases?”

“You’ll see why shortly,” Bird said. Another glance at his watch. “On to Capitol Hill.”

We departed the Amygdala for an underground garage where Bird took the wheel of an official vehicle. A guard waved us through the gate.

In front, Muñoz pivoted. “From your article in the
Journal of Pharmaceutical Metabolism
, remind me what the minimum dose of XK59 was that killed your mice.”

“Five one-hundredths of a microgram,” I replied. “If you divide a small grain of sand into a hundred sections and weigh a single section, that’s about how much five one-hundredths of a microgram is.”

Muñoz extracted a notepad. “And what was the average weight of the mice?”

“About 25 grams.”

He scribbled something before fingering a calculator. “Which means a 155-pound human weighs roughly 2,800-times more than a mouse. If humans and mice react similarly to XK59, it would take about 140 micrograms of the protein to kill a person.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I was familiar with the calculations for I’d done them repeatedly. “One hundred forty micrograms is about how much three eye lashes weigh. That ranks XK59 in the number two spot behind botulinum toxin as the most lethal protein known.”

Beside me in the back seat, Flagstaff said, “Dr. Muñoz reviewed the victims’ medical records.”

“What about autopsy results for the Seattle victim?” I asked. “Did you review them?”

“Yes, the findings were consistent with what you reported for mice: bleeding all the way from the pharynx to the anus and in internal organs as well. At the microscopic level, they found ruptured cell-to-cell junctions, especially those lining blood vessels.”

“
Pac-Man
effect,” I muttered, alluding to the V-shaped jaws each XK59 molecule possessed. As it moved, the jaws opened and closed to splice its preferred targets, the fibrous bands, or “tight junctions,” that connect cells. In its aftermath, tissues turned into bloody bogs.

“What
stops
the bleeding?” Flagstaff asked.

“Antibodies,” I replied. “In my studies of mice, rodents given sub-lethal doses of XK59 produced antibodies that neutralized XK59, but it took several days for the antibody response to occur.”

In the mirror, I saw Bird’s eyes round into angry balls. “You sold the extremists quite a weapon, Krispix! Good luck explaining that to the Task Force.”

“Task Force?” I repeated.

“Yes, a secret forum of Congressmen from the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. We report to them.”

“
Congress
is your boss?”

“Yup.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it, having Congress direct an intelligence unit?”

“It was designed that way to keep Washington’s Kudzu bureaucracy from consuming us.”