Extreme Measures (1991)

by Michael Palmer

  "Fascinating," Darden said. He folded his notebook. "So, would you like to discuss this rogue mortician, or would you like to accompany me to my office for a crash course in voodoo?"

  "I'll take the lesson for now," Eric said, "but I hope I can discuss this other business with you soon."

  "Of course you may. I'm a bit cramped for time right now, so I shall have to give you a pared-down course."

  "That's fine."

  "But let me say in advance that what you shall learn is not what you want to hear."

  They walked down a row of slate benches covered with thousands of dollars' worth of idle equipment and incubators, and entered Darden's spacious office overlooking the Charles.

  "I prefer this space to my office in the department of medicine," he explained.

  "I can see why."

  "Looking down on the passing scene has such a calming effect, don't you think?" He gazed out at the river for a moment, then turned back to Eric. "So, now we must talk some voodoo."

  "Do you know it well?"

  Darden smiled enigmatically.

  "Does anybody? I suppose there are those who would consider me something of an expert. Although I left Haiti as a child, I have a small clinic in Port-au-Prince, and much family in the city of Cap-Haitien on the north coast. My wife and daughter and I return there frequently."

  "And do you believe there are zombies?"

  "In Haiti, I do. I have no doubt whatsoever. Certain people, usually those who have committed some sort of offense against their fellows, are found guilty by a people's court, usually presided over by a houngan--a priest. The offenders learn that they have been condemned to a living death. So strong are their beliefs in the Haitian way and in the powers of the houngan that they are quite literally powerless to stem their fate. They are caused, in some way, to come in contact with a coup poudre--a mystical powder. Soon after, they fall into a helpless trancelike state, are buried for a time, and then are brought back to this world, usually in a state of diminished mental and physical capacity."

  "And the zombi poison, this coup poudre?"

  Darden shook his head.

  "I believe in hypnosis and the power of the mind," he said. "I believe that those who believe, in the very fiber of their being, that they are cursed to die can make themselves do so; and those who believe they are to lie in the state of the undead can also do so. I have seen men told under hypnotic trance that they are to be touched with a hot poker, and then raise a blister at the site where they are grazed by a pencil eraser. I have seen yogis sealed in caskets for many hours without apparent adverse effects. But as for a poison that can accomplish the transformation from living being to zombi, I'm afraid not."

  "So you see all this as psychologically based--a cultural phenomenon, and not something biochemical?"

  "Tetrodotoxin is an awesomely toxic substance. Highly trained Japanese chefs can prepare fugu dishes with a far from lethal dose. But there is no way a houngan, grinding fish in an earthen bowl or tin can, then applying the substance to a victim's skin, can approach the line of death without consistently going over it. Perhaps he might augment the strength of his hypnotic suggestion with a bit of biochemical tingle, but not with anything like what you are suggesting. There is no controllable metabolic toxin, so there is no true zombi poison. It is as simple as that."

  "Are there any studies you know of reviewing the cardiovascular effects of tetrodotoxin poisoning?"

  "Ah, your EKGs. I would suggest that if you sit down with one of our cardiology friends, you will learn that this pattern is not at all uncommon in terminal hearts. We just don't bother to take the tracing all that often."

  "Perhaps," Eric said.

  "You don't sound convinced."

  "There's a lot at stake. Beginning with Reed Marshall's career."

  "Well, I can only tell you what I can tell you. A few years ago a Harvard ethnobotanist created a stir surrounding tetrodotoxin and zombies. Since then there has been a flood of letters and articles refuting his claims."

  "That's what Dr. Blunt said."

  "You spoke with him, then?"

  "Yes."

  "And he concurred with what I have told you?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "Then when will enough be enough for you?"

  Eric stood and gathered his notes.

  "Not just yet," he said.

  "I assure you, Eric, in this area there is a sharp drop-off around here after Dr. Blunt and myself."

  "Well, sir, I have a free evening and my Countway Library card. If nothing else, maybe I can close that drop-off a bit."

  "Maybe you can at that," Haven Darden said, looking at him thoughtfully. "Maybe you can."

  From the day Eric first set foot in the Countway Medical Library, the airy, regal structure with its wide circular stairways and glassed study carrels had been a special retreat for him. Whether he was working deep in the stacks, or in the silent coccoon of a carrel, hours often passed like minutes. At one stretch, while researching a particularly interesting case, he had been the last to leave the place so many nights that one librarian had called him an "academic barfly."

  It was early evening. Eric spread his notes on a reading table near the card catalogue and began to work his way through the file cards containing the extensive bibliography he had drawn up. The approach, which would save time and trips into the stacks, was one he had worked out over his years of study in the place. He noted down the library number and location of the volumes he would need, while organizing his cards by stack section.

  The Indian Journal of Medical Research ... Toxicon ... Caribbean Quarterly ... Many of the references were so obscure that only a facility like the Countway in a city the size of Boston could house or quickly borrow them. Eric started with aconite and then amanita. The filtered light of day yielded to the fluorescence of the library as he worked his way through various sections of the stacks, lugging armloads of musty volumes back to his worktable. Within two hours he had read enough to eliminate both toxins as likely possibilities. Only the reference cards pertaining to tetrodotoxin remained.

  Pharmacologic Reviews ... Kyusha University Medical News ... Ethnopharmacology ... Stretching the stiffness from his neck, Eric began the final phase of his search. Within half an hour he was sitting on the edge of his table, bewildered. Many of the volumes in his bibliography--far more than half--were missing from the stacks. With memories of the missing specimens of Loretta Leone still fresh in his mind, he checked with a librarian and assured himself that none of the volumes could be taken out of the library. They had either been stolen, misplaced in the stacks, or were in use somewhere in the library.

  Theft, Eric was told, while certainly a problem, was less of one in the Countway than at many other libraries. So together, he and the librarian rechecked the stacks and then began working their way toward each other from opposite sides of the building, checking each table and study carrel. In just a few minutes the young librarian, much relieved, hurried over to him. The volumes, every one of them, were in use. She pointed across the library to a worktable that was set apart from the others. Along the edge of the table, stacks of bound journals formed a wall, obscuring the person using them from view.

  Eric thanked the librarian, made his way past the card catalogues and tables, and peered over the wall of books. A black woman, her jet hair pulled back in a tight bun, was taking notes on an article in the Journal of Tropical Diseases. Eric waited a few seconds to be noticed, then cleared his throat. The woman finished writing a sentence before she looked up.

  She was in her early or mid-twenties, and was absolutely stunning. Her wide dark eyes graced a face that was as smooth, as perfectly shaped and sensual, as any he had ever seen; and her ornate gold earrings and agate necklace, quite possibly picked off a vendor's tray on Boylston Street or Harvard Square, looked priceless on her.

  "Hi," Eric managed. "I've been searching for you."

  "For me?"

  Her expression was less open than it mi
ght have been, and beneath her remarkable beauty Eric sensed an intensity that made him a bit uneasy. She pushed back from the table. Her jeans and loose beige sweater failed to hide a figure that was at once slender and full-breasted.

  "Actually, what I've been searching for are these," he said, gesturing to the volumes and wondering if the sudden dryness in his mouth and thickness in his lips and tongue were noticeable in his speech.

  The woman eyed him curiously for a moment and then said simply, "Take whichever ones you want. Just bring them back when you're done."

  "Thanks, I appreciate that." Eric tucked several of the books in one arm and the woman returned to her notes. "Are you a med student?" he asked, reluctant to leave.

  "Ph.D.," she said without looking up.

  "Oh."

  He waited for more, then shrugged and turned away.

  "I'm sorry," he heard her say. "I didn't mean to be rude. I'm just under a lot of pressure to get this work done."

  "I understand," he said, turning back. "Is your thesis in toxicology?"

  "Sort of." She ran her finger absently down one pile of volumes. "I'm in the department of anthropology at B.U. My work is on the use of pharmacoactive substances in the religious rites of certain Third World countries."

  Well, you're incredibly beautiful. Eric stopped himself at the last instant from saying the words. He would hardly have been the first to say them--the urge to do so was almost knee-jerk.

  "Well, thanks for sharing these," he said instead. "Ill bring them back for an exchange when I'm done. Are you going to be here long?"

  "Probably until closing."

  "See you later then."

  Once again Eric had to force himself to turn away from her. He was very happily in the process of falling in love with Laura Enders, but he suspected that no man, however committed, would have reacted differently.

  Over the hour that followed he made two more trips to the woman's table to exchange books. With each visit he learned a bit more about her. Her name was Anna Delacroix. She had finished her required course work at Boston University, and was just beginning the writing phase of a thesis probing the connection between certain African and New World cultures as manifest through their ritual use of psychoactive drugs. She had traveled extensively, first through Europe and Asia as a high-fashion model, and later, on her own, through Africa and the Caribbean basin.

  Eric's initial impression of her intensity was, it seemed, quite on the mark.

  "The life you've led sounds exciting," he remarked as he made his third exchange of journals.

  "I have seen many things on my travels that you simply would not believe," she said, with no particular emphasis.

  "Such as?"

  Fascinated now, Eric circled to her side of the table.

  Anna Delacroix stopped what she was doing and eyed him as she had when they first met, perhaps deciding whether he was someone worth sharing such stories with. Then she said simply, "I have seen a man fly."

  By this time Eric knew far better than to be flip with her. And there was nothing in her manner, her voice, or the almost mystical glow in her eyes to encourage him otherwise.

  "Tell me about it, please," he said.

  "Are you really interested?"

  "Yes. Yes, I am."

  "Sit then. Do you know of the country Gabon?" she asked.

  Her focus was now locked on his face, and whether unsettled by her beauty or the deep commitment in her eyes, Eric had trouble holding her gaze.

  "I know it's in Africa," he said.

  "West Africa, actually. On the coast. I heard of a priest in the central highlands of that country who could levitate himself, and I sought him out."

  "You traveled alone to these places?"

  "When necessary. I assure you, Dr. Eric, I can take very good care of myself. I found the village, and grew to know the man. We spoke for hours each night. Still, it was nearly two weeks before he would show me what he could do. One evening, just after sunset, while there was still much light in the sky, he climbed to the top of a tower made of bamboo. The topmost platform of the tower was, I was told, nearly thirty meters--ninety feet--high. For several minutes the priest stood right on the edge of the platform, his arms stretched straight out like wings. From where I sat he was a black crucifix against the deepest blue sky you could imagine. It was an incredible, incredible sight. Then he simply leaned forward and floated free of the platform."

  Eric tried to remain expressionless, but he knew she could read the incredulity in his eyes.

  "In answer to the questions you are too polite to ask," she went on, "no, I did not take anything at all, and yes, he did, although he wouldn't tell me what. It took perhaps ten minutes for him to drift to the ground. It could have been much longer. I was so mesmerized by what I was witnessing that I lost all track of time."

  "No tricks?"

  She shook her head. "No tricks," she said. "At least not the kind you mean."

  "Photos?"

  "He wouldn't allow it. And frankly, I had no desire to take them. It was neither his wish nor mine that I go out and convince the world of what he could do. He knew, his people knew, and I knew, and that was quite enough."

  "Well, now I know," Eric said.

  "Yes, but you don't believe it. It's written all over your face."

  "Not that long ago, you would have been right. I wouldn't--couldn't--have believed your account. But what you see in me now is astonishment, mixed perhaps with skepticism, not disbelief. I'm a good doctor, Anna, and yet, I'm here plowing through these volumes because of a growing belief that both I and a friend of mine, who is also a fine physician, have each recently pronounced patients dead in our hospital who were, in fact, very much alive."

  The woman glanced at the volumes. Then she nodded and smiled knowingly, as if the pieces of a puzzle had fallen in place.

  "Tetrodotoxin," she said, almost reverently.

  "Exactly. Do you know much about it?"

  "I do. For one thing, it will most likely be a full chapter in my thesis, if not more. And for another, some of my roots are Haitian--my father, I have been told, though I never knew him, was born there."

  "Do you believe the drug has the power to slow metabolism without stopping it? To take a body to the line of death without crossing over?"

  "Do you?"

  "I ... I don't know what to believe."

  Once again Anna Delacroix's eyes held fire.

  "The drug can do what you ask ... and more," she said.

  Eric felt her energy, her heat. He ran the edge of his hand across the sweat on his forehead.

  "How do you know?" he asked hoarsely. "Is there proof? Proof a scientist could not refute?"

  For more than a minute she said nothing. Eric studied her exquisite face, her perfect mouth, and silently prayed that she would at least share with him what she knew.

  Finally she took one of her file cards, carefully printed an address on it, and passed it to him.

  "This place is in Allston," she said. "Can you find it?"

  He glanced at the card. "I can find it."

  "Ten o'clock tonight, then. Come alone and meet me there, Dr. Eric, and you shall have your proof." She stood. "Perhaps when this night is over, you will know in your heart that there are those who can fly ... and those who can die without dying."

  She turned quickly, picked up her notes and her jacket, and moments later was gone.

  Shielded by a new-moon darkness, Laura and Bernard Nelson made their way from the alley where he had parked, down several more alleys, and finally across the street to the entrance of the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home. For two hours they had placed periodic calls to the mortuary, each time reaching only Donald Devine's answering machine. Finally, Nelson had shrugged and said simply, "I guess we go."

  The detective carried with him a small black medical bag, containing what he called his "tools of truth"--two powerful penlights, various Exacto knives, screwdrivers, tape, a crowbar, pliers, a voltage meter and battery-p
owered soldering iron, wire, suction cups, a ring of keys and other oddly cut pieces of metal ... and one Littman Cardiosonic stethoscope.

  "If we're stopped by the police," he said as they set off, "you had better do a damn good job of convincing them that I'm your family doctor making a house call on your ailing aunt. If they ever open this little kit of mine, we're cooked."

  The wooden shutters on the upstairs windows were pulled closed. Nelson checked the windows on the alley side of the structure and reported that they, too, were shuttered. They rang the doorbell several times, listening each time to the melodic chimes echoing from within.

  "What tune are those playing?" Laura whispered.

  The detective smiled.

  "It would appear our Mr. Devine has a sense of humor," he said. "They're playing Tchaikovsky. A snippet of the death of Odette from Swan Lake."

  "You could tell that from seven or eight notes?"

  "Maggie's a ballet nut. After six or seven years of being dragged, I finally gave up and got interested."

  "You're amazing."

  "Tell me that after we're inside," Nelson said, tossing his cigar stub aside as he scanned first the edge of the door jamb, and then the windows.

  "You're sure you want to do this?" she asked.

  "That's still up to you. How committed are you to finding out what this mysterious mortician is up to?"

  "Very committed."

  "In that case, stay in close to the building, in the shadows, and keep your eyes on the street. I'm going back into the alley and around to the rear. Listen for a tap from the inside of the door. If it's clear for me to open it, tap back twice. If not, tap once and then head back to the car. I'll meet you there."

  Nelson reached in his medical bag and withdrew a nip of Jack Daniel's.

  "To the truth," he said.

  "To the truth," Laura echoed.

  She took a small sip, and in a single quick gulp, Bernard Nelson disposed of the remainder. He then slid along the side of the Gates of Heaven and disappeared down the alley.