David Walton - The Genius Plague

As darkness fell, he became combative again, jerking at his straps and shouting at us. It was typical for Alzheimer’s patients to get worse when it grew dark outside. They called it sundowning, but no one really knew why it happened. At the end of visiting hours, the nurse told us that one of us could stay the night, if we wanted, to help keep him calm, but the others would have to return in the morning. Both Paul and I wanted to do it, but Mom insisted that she wouldn’t leave him.

I drove back to my parents’ empty house. Paul, despite the late hour, decided to drive home to his College Park apartment. I didn’t try to change his mind. When I got home, I realized I still had to pack for Brazil. I hadn’t even told Mom or Paul that I was going.

I put some clothes in a suitcase, wondering what I would need. If I was just meant to hang out with Celso, then casual clothes would be sufficient. If I was going to be invited to meetings with foreign diplomats or intelligence officers, then I would need something more formal. I packed some of everything.

I slept fitfully and woke early, wanting to check in on Dad before my flight. I hauled my suitcase out to the car and made it to the hospital by seven o’clock.

“I’m here to see Charles Johns,” I said at the front desk.

The receptionist looked back at me like I was a bug. “Visiting hours start at eight.”

“I have to be at the airport at eight,” I said. “I just want to see my father, make sure he’s all right before I go.”

Her lips thinned, and her eyes said she’d heard it all before. “Visiting hours start at eight.”

“Look, I know you don’t make the rules,” I said. I gave her my best smile. “But my flight leaves for Brazil in a little more than two hours. I don’t know when I’ll be back. All I want to do is see him before I go.”

Her facial expression didn’t change. “Visiting hours start at eight.”

I eyed the entrance, wondering if I could just make a break for it. A metal detector stood between me and the hallway beyond, but I didn’t think I was wearing any metal that would set it off. I remembered the way to my father’s room. I could just run through the door and be there before anyone could stop me.

The receptionist would call security, though, and I’d already given my father’s name, so they would know exactly where I was going. If they called the police, I’d have a hard time getting out of there to the airport on time. I needed a better way.

Back outside, I started to circle the building, which was enormous, with so many new wings tacked on over the years that no sense of the original shape remained. There were many smaller entrances, which I assumed required a card for access, as well as loading bays and garages, all of which were shut.

Finally, I saw a truck backed up to an open bay, with three men walking back and forth, unloading boxes. The truck was white and read Gulph Medical Supply on the side. A security guard stood at the gate, watching them. I put my NSA badge around my neck on its lanyard—I had brought it in case I needed ID in Brazil—and kept the badge in my hand where it couldn’t be seen easily.

I walked up to the truck. “Finally,” I said loudly. “We’re running so low on specimen containers I was going to have to have my patients pee in my coffee mug.”

I rolled my eyes at the security guard and waved my badge at the guard, fast enough that he couldn’t read it. Then I rounded on one of the workers. “Make sure a box of those gets up to the third floor, will you?”

“We only drop them off here,” the man said. His accent was Australian. “And I’m pretty sure this lot is all sterile gloves and pads.”

I made a sound of frustration. “I’m surrounded by incompetents,” I said, and started to walk through the loading bay doors.

“Where are you going?” the security guard asked.

“I’m going to my office,” I said, “and if there’s not a pot of coffee ready when I get there, and I mean a full one, then I assure you, my staff is going to be looking for new employment.”

I marched past him, holding my breath, waiting for him to call after me. Nothing happened. I walked through the far door, and I was in.

Not that I was out of the woods yet. From there, I had to actually find the room. The hospital was a maze. I couldn’t ask for directions, or even appear to be lost, so I strode confidently from hallway to hallway, trying to study the signs when no one else was looking. Once I barreled into what might have been a surgery prep room, causing five men and women in surgery gowns and gloves to look up at me in surprise. “Has anybody seen Harry?” I asked.

One woman shook her head. I stalked away, muttering imprecations against Harry under my breath.

Finally, I found a recognizable sign and a familiar-looking hallway. I walked by the nurses’ station with the same air of confidence and marched into my father’s room.

The bed was empty. The sheet was neatly pulled up under the pillow. The restraining vest was neatly folded and the Velcro strap removed from the side rails. I gaped at the bed, a rush of adrenaline setting my heart racing. He was dead. He had died during the night. But if that had happened, wouldn’t Mom have called? Finally, I noticed the figure sitting in a guest chair in the corner.

“Dad?” I said. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

He didn’t stir, and I realized he was asleep. I crossed over and stood next to him, watching his chest rise and fall with his gentle breathing. On the table next to him was a newspaper section folded to the crossword puzzle, which was completed. My father held a pen in one hand and a piece of hospital note paper in the other. The paper had the Brazilian Portuguese alphabet written on it—the older alphabet, before they had officially changed it for orthographic consistency with Portugal—with each letter crossed out. Under the alphabet was a sentence in Portuguese: “ Um pequeno jabuti xereta viu dez cegonhas felizes ,” meaning “A nosy little tortoise saw ten happy storks.” It wasn’t the meaning of the sentence that caught my attention, however. It was the fact that it contained every letter of the alphabet at least once. It was a pangram, the sort of wordplay that my father used to love to do in both English and Portuguese when I was young.

I realized someone was standing behind me. I turned to see Mom, a brilliant smile lighting her face.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“Okay? Neil, he’s more than okay. It’s unbelievable.”

I turned back to Dad and found that his eyes were open. He met my gaze, clear intelligence evident in his look.

“Hello, Neil,” he said.

I nearly missed my flight. My father was back. He was awake and alert and knew who I was and remembered everything he was supposed to know. He charmed the nurses with jokes and good humor and smiled at my mom so much I thought they would both burst from pleasure. It was as if the Alzheimer’s had never happened.

“So you’re working for the agency?” he said.

My chest felt warm with pride. “I’m cracking indecipherables,” I said.

“Any good at it?”

“I’m doing okay so far. I wish I could tell you about the one code I solved…”

“What department are you with?”

“It’s kind of a side group, out of the main organizational structure. I don’t know where Melody gets the funding, but—”

“Melody? Don’t tell me you’re working with Melody Muniz.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You remember her? She said she only knew you by reputation. As a talented colleague.”