Robin Cook - Seizure

“I was worried my lack of familiarity with the Shroud of Turin was somehow unique. It’s reassuring to know it’s not.” Stephanie pulled on her coat and headed for the door.

“How come the sudden interest in the Shroud of Turin?” Peter called after her.

“You’ll know soon enough,” Stephanie yelled over her shoulder. She crossed the reception area diagonally and poked her head into Daniel’s office. She was surprised to see him slouched over his desk with his head in his hands.

“Hey,” Stephanie called. “Are you okay?”

Daniel looked up and blinked. His eyes were red, as if he’d been rubbing them, and his face was paler than usual. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, as if exhausted. His earlier ebullience had fled.

“What’s going on?”

Daniel shook his head as his eyes wandered around his littered desk. He sighed. “Running this organization is like keeping a leaky boat afloat with a thimble for bailing. The venture capital people are refusing to release the second round financing until I tell them why I’m so sure Butler’s bill won’t come out of the subcommittee. But I can’t tell them, because if I do, it will invariably be leaked, and Butler would most likely renege about keeping his bill under wraps. Then all bets are off.”

“What kind of money do we have left?”

“Almost nothing,” Daniel moaned. “This time next month, we’ll be dipping into our line of credit just to meet payroll.”

“That gives us the month we need to treat Butler,” Stephanie said.

“What a lucky break that is,” Daniel snapped sarcastically. “It irritates me to death that we have to stop our research and deal with the likes of Butler and possibly those infertility clowns down in Nassau. It’s a goddamn crime that medical research has become politicized in this country. Our founding fathers who insisted on separation of church and state are probably turning over in their graves with these relatively few politicians using their supposed religious beliefs to hold up what will undoubtedly be the biggest advance in medical treatment.”

“Well, we all know what’s really behind this current Luddite bioscience movement,” Stephanie said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s really abortion politics in disguise,” Stephanie said. “The real issue is that these demagogues want a zygote to be declared a human being with full constitutional rights no matter how the zygote was formed and no matter what the zygote’s future holds. It’s a ridiculous stance, but nonetheless if it happened, Roe versus Wade would have to be thrown out.”

“You’re probably right,” Daniel admitted. He exhaled like the sound of air coming out of a tire. “What an absurd situation. History is going to wonder what kind of people we were that allowed a personal issue like abortion to handicap a society for years on end. We took a lot of our ideas about individual rights, government, and certainly our common law from England. Why couldn’t we have followed England’s lead in how best to deal with the ethics of reproductive bioscience?”

“That’s a good question, but it’s not going to do us any good to worry over the answer at the moment. What happened to your enthusiasm about treating Butler? Let’s get it done! Once he’s treated, he’s not going to renege on our deal even if there is a leak to the media, because we’ll have his release. I mean, once he’s been cured he can deal with the media by just denying any accusations as being politically motivated. What he wouldn’t be able to deny is a signed release.”

“You have a point,” Daniel admitted.

“What about Butler’s money?” Stephanie asked. “It seems to me that’s the key question at the moment. Has there been any communication about that?”

“I haven’t even thought to check.” Daniel turned to his computer and, after a few strokes, looked at his special email inbox. “Here’s a message that must be from Butler. It has an encrypted attachment, which is encouraging.”

Daniel opened the attachment. Stephanie stepped around the desk to look over his shoulder.

“I’d say it looks very encouraging,” Stephanie said. “He’s given us an account number for a Bahamian bank, and it appears as if we both can draw from it.”

“It’s got a link to the bank’s website,” Daniel said. “Let’s see if we can find out the balance in the account. That will tell us how serious Butler is about all this.”

A few clicks later, Daniel tilted back in his chair. He looked up at Stephanie, and she returned his stare. Both were taken aback.

“I’d say he’s very serious!” Stephanie remarked. “And eager!”

“I’m flabbergasted!” Daniel said. “I expected ten or twenty thousand, tops. I never expected a hundred. Where could he have gotten that kind of money so quickly?”

“I told you, he has a string of political action committees that are fund-raising workhorses. What I wonder is if any of the people who contributed this money could have ever imagined how the money was going to be spent. There’s a hell of a lot of irony here if they are as conservative as I imagine they are.”

“That’s not our concern,” Daniel said. “Besides, we’ll never spend a hundred thousand dollars. At the same time, it’s good to know it’s there just in case. Let’s get busy!”

“I already started the fibroblast culture with the skin biopsy.”

“Excellent,” Daniel said, as his exuberance of that morning began to return. Even his skin color improved. “I’ll get cracking and find out what I can about the Wingate Clinic.”

“Sounds good!” Stephanie said. She started for the door. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“The bookstore downtown,” Stephanie called over her shoulder. She hesitated at the threshold. “They are holding a book for me. After I got the tissue culture started, I began looking into the Shroud of Turin issue. I have to say, I lucked out in our division of labor. The shroud is turning out to be much more interesting than I imagined.”

“What did you find out?”

“Just enough to hook me, but I’ll give you a full report in about twenty-four hours.”

Daniel smiled, flashed Stephanie a thumbs-up, and turned back to his computer screen. He used a search engine to bring up a list of infertility clinics and found the Wingate Clinic’s website. A few clicks later, he was connected.

He scrolled through the first few pages. As expected, it was composed of laudatory material to entice would-be clients. Under a section labeled MEET OUR STAFF, he made a brief side trip to read the professional resumes of the principals, which included the founder and CEO, Dr. Spencer Wingate; the head of Research and Laboratory Services, Dr. Paul Saunders; and the head of Clinical Services, Dr. Sheila Donaldson. The resumes were as glowing as the descriptions of the clinic itself, although in Daniel’s opinion, all three individuals had attended second-tier or even third-tier schools and training programs.

At the bottom of the page, he found what he wanted: a phone number. There was also an email address, but Daniel wanted to talk directly with one of the principals, either Wingate or Saunders. Picking up the phone, Daniel dialed the number. The call was answered quickly by a pleasant-sounding operator who launched into a short, rote eulogy of the clinic before asking with whom Daniel wished to be connected.

“Dr. Wingate,” Daniel said. He decided he might as well start at the top.

There was another short pause before Daniel was connected to an equally pleasant-sounding woman. She politely asked for Daniel’s name before committing whether Dr. Wingate was available. When Daniel mentioned his name, the response was immediate.