Fredric Stern - The Endorphin Conspiracy

“Find a public phone and call this number, 703-235-0339. It’s a secure line. Tell him you have urgent information for him about the Sigma Project.”

There was silence on the recording, followed by a knocking sound. “Gotta go now. Remember, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Good luck, Geoff.”

Geoff sat in stunned silence. Suzanne was Proteus, the agent from the Inspector General’s office slated to be neutralized. Geoff had known Suzanne for over a year and had never observed even the slightest inconsistency in her behavior. They had even spent the night together. She was a doctor, a pathologist, not a spy. Or so he had thought.

Leave the Medical Center immediately. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.

Geoff felt angry, manipulated, used. She knew exactly what she was doing, lured him with clues dropped like crumbs along the path, allowed him to feel as though she was helping him, cared about him. O’Malley had been right.

Geoff thought of the articles, the man who was obviously her father committing suicide, the experimentation. He thought of his own patient, Smithers, suddenly psychotic, jumping out a window, the endorphins. There were no synthetic endorphins in 1962, but there were other drugs. Geoff remembered the army MK Ultra LSD experiment scandal. Could this be related? The connection was there. Now forty years later, another generation. Suzanne’s motivation was clear: avenge her father’s death. Geoff thought of Stefan and understood perfectly. If something had happened to his brother, he’d probably react the same way.

You have stumbled into something that is way over your head.

No shit. Whoever was behind this, and it did indeed have to go far deeper than Balassi, was willing to kill anyone who stood in the way.

Who else was involved? Pederson. He and Balassi had known each other in their early days at the NIH. Geoff couldn’t pinpoint anyone else at the Trauma Center. PETronics Corporation? Suzanne had mentioned it on her recording. Someone else on the neurosurgery service had to be involved besides Pederson. Someone with day-to-day patient contact, someone who could identify the patients and administer the endorphins.

Someone like Kapinsky.

It had to be Kapinsky. Kapinsky was always the first one there, long before rounds in the morning, the last one to leave at night. He had been there at Jessica’s bedside the night before she coded, had examined Smithers before he was discharged to the seventh floor. Kapinsky was the resident on the service when Jesus Romero was admitted with his head injury; Kapinsky had had contact with the rabbi when he was a patient at the Trauma Center as well. Kapinsky, the fucking fly in the ointment, whose fumbling hands were a hazard in the operating room, who should have been bounced by Pederson from the program, but never was .

If Kapinsky had been part of this thing, why was he murdered? Had he had second thoughts, threatened to expose the conspiracy, or did he just screw up somehow? Who else was in on the project?

His mind racing, he got up, walked to the kitchen without turning on any lights. Geoff was ravenously hungry, so he made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale white bread and popped the tab on a Budweiser. The head from the beer foamed out of the can and spilled down the sides, forming a large puddle on the countertop. Geoff looked around for a sponge or a paper towel, using the refrigerator light for illumination, but could not find one. “Didn’t Kapinsky ever clean this dump?”

He opened a few drawers and came upon a pile of neatly folded dishtowels. That was more like it. It seemed like Kapinsky to have folded them so neatly. Geoff’s thoughts returned to Kapinsky’s role in all this, his murder, the suicide note. He still couldn’t believe Kapinsky had written the note, nor that he was gay, as asexual as he had known him to be. If Geoff was wrong, if that was all true, there had to be some kind of evidence here of a relationship, something indicating his despair, his depression. Letters, notes, something .

Geoff walked back to Kapinsky’s desk, searched the drawers with a penlight. He came across three by five cards on neuroanatomy, class notes, research papers, nothing personal.

Geoff got up, moved to the dresser, examined the photos resting on top. Kapinsky with his sister and mother at med school graduation. His hair was not as thin, no mustache. Geoff smiled. Without the mustache, Kapinsky looked a lot like his mother.

He searched the drawers, top down. Nothing in the top two but a silver dollar collection hidden in a sock, a small switchblade pocket knife. Geoff placed the knife in his sweat pants pocket. It might come in handy. Geoff tried to open the bottom drawer. It was stuck at first, but he managed to jiggle it open. Running shorts, a jock strap, a box of condoms. Not so asexual, after all. Nothing else of note. No hidden envelopes, photos, notes. Nothing. Geoff was disappointed.

He tried to close the drawer, but it jammed on the track. He jiggled it again. Geoff heard something drop to the floor behind the drawer. He pulled the drawer off its track and out, got down on the floor, searched with the penlight.

Geoff was startled when he saw a small, bound, composition notebook. Geoff held up the book so he could see the writing on the cover in the penlight’s dim light. In Kapinsky’s hand was scrawled the simple word, “Journal.”

Geoff stood up, walked over to Kapinsky’s desk and sat down. He was hesitant to turn on the lamp and instead continued using the penlight, though it was beginning to flicker.

The first entry was dated July 1, 2003. Geoff tried to think back to that period of time and reconstruct his own life. He had been working like a dog as a second-year resident and had been happily married to Sarah for two years. Happy times.

The penlight flickered and went out, the room now illuminated only by the dim rays of slivered moonlight streaming between the slats of the window blind. Geoff played with the penlight until he got it to work again and returned to the first entry.

For Kapinsky, the rookie, it was the first day of his internship.

“Started my internship in Neurosurgery at the New York Trauma Center today. I can’t believe I’m here! Spent last night wandering the halls of the Center. Came back to my apartment so charged up I finished reviewing my neuroanatomy book again. Everyone else was out partying. I’m sure I got a good head start on them all! Hundreds of young doctors from around the country would die to be here, and here I am. Howard Kapinsky from Queens at the fucking New York Trauma Center. It’s going to be great. I’ll show them all!”

Kapinsky’s boyish excitement brought a smile to Geoff’s face. He scanned down the page. “I’ve been assigned to a team lead by Dr.Geoffrey Davis. He’s a tall, good-looking gentile—G-d, even the name is blue-blooded—athletic, smart, charismatic. Probably a great surgeon. A real lady-killer, at least that’s the scoop here among the staff in the hospital. He’s everything I wish I were. Maybe if I stick with him throughout this residency some of it will rub off.”

The reflection of Kapinsky’s deep-seated insecurity and envy was unsettling. Geoff weeded through the pages one at a time, looking for the slightest inkling of anything to do with endorphins, the project, spies, anything relevant.

Geoff found it strange Kapinsky never wrote about relationships with any women in his life, except his mother of course. There was a detailed cataloging of interesting cases, almost verbatim transcripts of his ongoing verbal battles with Geoff at rounds, further signs of Kapinsky’s deep insecurity. It was all very personal, and ultimately it felt to Geoff like a violation to be sorting through another person’s innermost thoughts and feelings, especially when Geoff himself was so much an issue.