Syndrome

by Thomas Hoover

  Jennifer looked puzzled. "You mean he-"

  "Oh, did I mention that his crazy wife showed up after he left and essentially accused me of being a hooker? I suppose that comes under the heading of bad news."

  "Great. Does that mean she's going to start second-guessing whatever we do?"

  "The communication channels between Mr. Bartlett and Mrs. Bartlett don't appear to be all that great. They live on different floors in his place-which really is a huge old mansion on Gramercy Park, by the way-and the job would be in his part, the lower level." She explained the Bartletts' living arrangements. "He wants to redo the garden-level floor. It was originally the servants' quarters. Like Upstairs, Downstairs."

  "So he's upstairs and she's way upstairs."

  "And let's hope she stays there."

  Ally fetched herself a cup of coffee, checked in with everybody to see how they were doing, and then settled herself at her computer. She had the latest program in computer-aided design (CAD) and she wanted to program in the dimensions and layout of the space. And since she had a copy of the blueprints, the first thing she would do would be to run them through her flatbed scanner and incorporate them into the program. She didn't get a chance to take any digital photos with CitiSpace's snazzy (and expensive) new Nikon. But if the job went forward there'd be plenty of time later.

  Everybody's computers were connected to the Net via a broadband DSL hookup and they were never turned off. Because of that, the computers were vulnerable to being hacked so Jen had installed a firewall program to keep out snoops.

  She sat down and stared at the screen saver, which was an ever-changing series of tropical beaches at sunset. She sipped at her coffee-this was the one cup she allowed herself each day, always saved for the moment when she felt she needed to be most alert-and reached to turn on the scanner. The tightness in her chest that she had momentarily experienced in the cab had completely disappeared and she felt perfectly normal.

  What was she going to do about her mother and the clinic in New Jersey? Nina certainly appeared to want to go. And with the inevitability of what lay in store for someone with early-onset Alzheimer's, taking her out there was surely worth doing. But as for her own heart, she wasn't so sure she thought the reward was worth the risk. But she'd decided to hold off on a decision till she could have a firsthand look at the institute.

  She took another sip of coffee and then tapped the keyboard. When she did that, the screen would normally bring up the "desktop."

  But not this time. A file was open, and she was certain she hadn't left it open. What's this?

  "Jen, could you come here a minute? There's something funny."

  The first page of the file that had been pulled up and opened was an ID photo of herself.

  "This is what was running. Has somebody been fooling around with this computer?"

  Jennifer looked puzzled when she saw it "Not that I know of."

  "Then how did this get. .?” She just sat staring. "I didn't open this file. Does this thing have a mind of its own?"

  About eight years ago, Kate Gillis at Manhattan Properties-with whom Ally had an occasional after-work drink- told her she'd scanned all her vital personal documents into her computer at home. She'd said it was an easy way to make a safety backup.

  Seemed like a good idea, so Ally had stored a copy of her birth certificate, her driver's license, all her credit cards, her passport, a set of medical records, even the mortgage on her apartment. She'd even scanned in an ID photo, just for the heck of it. She also suggested to Grant that he do the same.

  Brilliant, right? Well, maybe not.

  The reason was, she'd routinely made an updated copy on a flash memory and then copied it onto this computer here in the office. Like a second backup.

  "I had everything ready for you for your meeting with Bartlett, so nobody here has touched your computer this morning." Jennifer furrowed her brow. "Could somebody have picked the locks and come in last night and done this, like a prank or something?"

  "Come on. That's totally far-fetched." She was trying to imagine how somebody could have gotten in and out and left no trace. Impossible. "This must just be something stupid I did when I came down yesterday after seeing Mom. I don't remember it, but I guess I was pretty tired."

  "I've never seen you that tired."

  Jen's right, she thought. I was on the city's Web site checking the Department of Buildings' Housing Code, but I certainly didn't pull up my personal data. Computers do strange things, but to open a data file for no reason?That would require a higher intelligence.

  Right?

  "Jen, you're our resident computer expert. We leave these things hooked up all the time. I know we have a firewall, but what are the chances that somebody could defeat it somehow and hack into our computers?"

  Jennifer was a software whiz and she had all the designs for all the clients on their CAD system, which they used to create a virtual-reality space and allow clients to "walk" through.

  "Well, that's entirely possible. Our firewall software is over a year old. Let me take a look. Maybe I can reverse-engineer what happened. If somebody went through pulling up files, I might be able to figure it out."

  Ally relinquished her chair and stood staring as Jennifer started checking the firewall.

  It was scary to think that some stranger could know everything about you. But on the other hand what difference could it make? She had nothing to hide. Still, it was creepy. Her Social Security and credit card information was in that file. Could that be-

  "Shit. Ally, you're not going to believe this. Whoever did this was damned good. We've been seriously hacked."

  "How do you know?" She bent over to look.

  "Our firewall software has been disabled. In fact, the actual program wasuninstalled. Jesus, that's cool. I think we'd better shut down everybody's Internet connection right this minute, till we can get some new software."

  "That's incredible. You mean somebody-"

  "Honey, hackers have gotten into Microsoft's own site. Even the Pentagon, so I've heard. Anything is possible."

  "This is not good."

  "What are you thinking?" Jen was still staring at the screen and tapping at the keyboard.

  "I'm thinking what a jerk I was. I keep all my personal information in that file, like a safety backup in case my apartment burned down or something. Scanned it in. My passport, driver's license, credit cards, medical records, everything."

  Jennifer looked puzzled. "You can just cancel the credit cards. As for the rest of the stuff, what could anybody possibly want with it?"

  "I don't know, Jen. I don't even know if we were hacked by somebody who wants to find out about me, or just look at our designs."

  She was reflecting that when somebody goes through your files, they want the information for a purpose. And that purpose couldn't be positive for you, or they wouldn't have started their undertaking with a surreptitious act.

  "Well, I'm going to check around and download a new firewall program. Right now."

  "Shit, I don't need this. I've got enough on my mind already. Mom wants to go out to a clinic in the wilds of northern New Jersey and see a doctor there. And the whole thing makes me nervous."

  "Oh Jesus, is the place called the Dorian Institute by any chance?"

  "How did-?"

  "I'm such a scatterbrain. I took a message for you while you were gone. From a Dr. Van de Something. I think that's the name of the place he's with. He wants you to call him back as soon as possible."

  Monday, April 6

  11:43a.m.

  Would she call back? Karl Van de Vliet had to believe she would but nothing in this world was sure.

  On the nineteen-inch screen of his office IBM, he was scrolling the medical file that he'd downloaded earlier that morning. How Grant Hampton got his hands on it, he didn't know and didn't want to know.

  Yes, Alexa Hampton would be perfect. She had aortic valve stenosis, well along, the same condition that had precipitated the coronary
destruction that took Camille from him. It was the great tragedy of his life.

  He studied the charts carefully, trying to assure himself he was making the right choice. What if the stem cell procedure on her heart didn't work? To fail would mean he couldn't have saved Camille after all. That was actually the main reason he'd kept putting it off. He didn't want to know if he couldn't have rescued her.

  But Alexa Hampton was the obvious candidate. Her clinical condition had deteriorated to the point that, at some level, you might even say she had nothing to lose by undergoing an experimental procedure.

  And she was perfect in another way as well. Other than her heart condition, which she could do nothing about, she was in excellent physical shape. Her last blood pressure was 110 over 80 and her pulse was 67. She clearly had been exercising, which had been both good and bad for her heart, though on balance probably a plus. In fact, it was indicative of a strong fighting spirit, which was often the best prognosticator of all.

  He looked up to see Dr. Debra Connolly walking in. He had just paged her. She was an M.D. who had been his personal research assistant during her grad school days at Stanford. Now she was a full and valued member of the research team. Just turned thirty, she also was a smashing blonde, five-nine, with a figure that would stop traffic, even in her white lab smock. She held Van de Vliet in the reverence always bestowed on a brilliant, beloved mentor.

  "Hi, Deb, I wanted you to take a look at this." He indicated the screen. She knew all about the Beta and what had happened to Kristen, the Syndrome, but she didn't know about the plan to subject Alexa Hampton to two procedures at once: one for her aortic valve stenosis and another to develop antibodies to combat the looming side effects of the Beta in Winston Bartlett.

  "This is the patient I was telling you about. I wanted you to see this. Let's pray she signs on for the trials, because she looks like she could be perfect, in a lot of ways."

  But if she doesn't call back, he told himself,what am I going to do?

  "What am I looking at?" Debra asked, scrolling the page. "Is this what I think it is?"

  "It's her medical history."

  "How did you get it?" She turned back. "Did she send it?"

  "No, Deb, and I don't think you really want to know."

  "Somehow, I think I probably should." She looked again at the screen. "We're in this together."

  "All I know is, I got an e-mail from Grant Hampton, and this was an attachment. She must have been keeping it on a computer somewhere. I understand he's her brother, but how he got it, I have no idea. He said we're not supposed to let her know we have it."

  "How recent-"

  "This final battery of tests is less than two weeks old," he said, pointing to the date on the corner of the page. Then he scrolled. "Take a look at her high-speed CT scan. See that degenerative calcification there. Now look at the same test last year." He scrolled past a number of pages. "See." He tapped the screen, then scrolled back to the first image. "Over the past year there's been a significant buildup. She's made-to-order for the clinical trials."

  And there was another reason he wanted her, which he was reluctant to admit to himself. There was a photo of Alexa Hampton in her medical files and something about her reminded him of Camille. Her eyes had a lot of spirit. They made you want to root for her. It was nothing short of ironic that this woman had the exact same medical condition that took the life of Camille, who had been at his side during the early stages of the research that now might provide a cure. But for Camille it had come too late. It was more than ironic; it was heartbreaking. Now, though, to save Alexa Hampton would be a kind of circular recompense. He took a last look, then closed the file.

  "Does she want to be in the clinical trials? There's not much time left. We'd have to get her-"

  "I just left a message at her office," he said revolving around in his chair. "Grant has talked to her, and so has W.B. This very morning. She's aware that time is of the essence. But there's no guarantee she'll do it."

  He glanced at his mute phone. If she didn't call back today, he had a feeling that Winston Bartlett might just have her seized and brought to the institute by force.

  "I see that her blood type is AB," Debra said. "Extremely rare."

  Funny she should notice, he thought. Is she going to put it together?

  "That's the same as Bartlett's blood type," she continued. "Interesting coincidence, huh?"

  "Right."

  "You're already fond of her, aren't you?" Deb asked finally. He detected the usual tinge of rivalry seeping into her voice. "Without even meeting her."

  Dear God, he thought, don't start that. It's the same with every attractive female patient under the age of fifty.I don't have time for games now.

  The truth was, Karl Van de Vliet was turned on by Debra Connolly. What red-blooded primate wouldn't be? But she was half his age and to act on that attraction would be to guarantee trouble. He had enough to worry about without a lab romance. Besides, he was still thinking about Camille. They'd had the kind of long-lasting, thick-and-thin love Debra would never understand.

  However, she did sufficiently understand the problems with the Beta procedure and the Syndrome, so he had to flirt back. She had to be kept on the reservation. Feign an interest but not enough for it to go anywhere.

  "Deb, she's just an ideal fit for the study, that's all. Nothing more."

  The stem cell procedure for her stenosis should go forward with only minimal risk. There was every reason to hope he could rejuvenate the tissue in Alexa's left ventricle. It was merely an extrapolation of the kind of heart procedure that had worked such a wonder for Emma Rosen.

  The real challenge was simultaneously attempting the Beta- related procedure. The trick was to stimulate the development of antibodies through a moderate dosage of the special Beta enzyme, tempering it enough that it didn't go critical and begin replicating uncontrollably, the way it had in Kristen, and (probably) very soon in W.B. Not so low as to be inoperative but not so high that it would go out of control. The "Goldilocks dosage," not too much, not too little. The problem was, he wasn't absolutely sure what that dosage was.

  Should he tell Alexa Hampton the full story about what he was doing? About the Beta? That ethical question, he had decided, he would leave to Grant Hampton, Bartlett's hustler of a CFO. It was his sister, after all. Presumably, he'd tell her whatever she needed to know to make an informed decision. Let the responsibility be on his head.

  The phone on his desk finally rang.

  Chapter 10

  Monday, April 6

  12:57 p.m.

  Stone Aimes was floating through cyberspace, through the massive data pages of the National Institutes of Health. Since the Gerex Corporation had a complete clampdown on their clinical-trial results, he was attempting an end run. By going to the source, he was hoping he could find out whether or not Karl Van de Vliet's experiments with stem cell technology were succeeding.

  He needed that information to finish his book, and he hoped that the remainder of the advance could be used to pay for his daughter Amy's private school in New York, if he got it in time. He was dreaming of a life in which she could come back to live with him at least part of the year. Sometimes, particularly days like this-Monday was his official day off-he couldn't avoid the fact he was incredibly lonely.

  But first things first He had gone to the section that described the many and varied clinical trials the NIH had under way. Then he used "scrambled eggs," the entry protocol given to him by Dale Coverton, to circumvent security on the site and get him into the second-level NIH data files. He was hoping to find the names of patients who had gone through the Gerex stem cell procedure and could be interviewed.

  It really wasn't all that difficult, or even-he told himself-unethical to get in this far. No big deal. Entry protocols were available to any high-level NIH employee who had the right security grade. Now he was poking through the reams of proprietary data that the Gerex Corporation had submitted to initiate the clinical
trials.

  It was one of the more ambitious studies he'd ever seen, not in numbers of patients necessarily but certainly in scope. They were indeed running stage-three clinical trials of their stem cell procedure on a variety of maladies. There was no double-blind placebo. You either were cured or you were not.

  Jesus, it was incredible. They were shooting for nothing less than the unified field theory of medicine, aiming not just to patch some failing element of the human body but to regenerate entire organs. Among their stated objectives were building pancreatic islets, reconstructing the ventricles of the heart, reconstituting the damaged livers of individuals with advanced cirrhosis. They were also accepting patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

  "Christ," he said, scrolling past page after page, "how come they're suddenly so secretive about this?"

  If Van de Vliet had achieved results in just a fraction of those trials, it would herald the beginning of a new age in medicine.

  The NIH monitor for the Gerex trials was Cheryl Gates, just as Dale had said. Her photo was featured along with the introductory description of the trials. Nice-looking, he thought, probably late thirties, dark hair, dark-rimmed glasses. She wasn't wearing much makeup in the photo, probably to emphasize how serious she was. Sooner or later, he told himself, he had to find a way to meet her. ..

  He stared at his IBM Aptiva screen a moment longer, overwhelmed at what he was seeing, then got up and walked into the kitchen and made a peanut butter sandwich, whole wheat. It was a rehearsal for the possibly hard times to come. Then he retrieved a Brooklyn Lager from the fridge. It was his day off and the sun was over the yardarm.

  He lived on the fourth floor of a brownstone in Yorkville, in New York's East Eighties. The apartment was small, but it was rent stabilized which meant he was paying well under market value-$1,128 a month on a place that probably could go for close to twice that on the open market. He'd lucked into it after he and Jane split-even though they weren't married they'd bought a condo in the West Fifties, and at the breakup they'd switched the mortgage to her name-but the problem now was, how was he going to pay even this piddling rent (not to mention child support for Amy) after he got fired from theSentinel? That day, he sensed was fast approaching. And if it happened before the book was finished he was just three months away from going back to freelancing. That was how long his "nest egg" would last.