by Steven Gore
“The smartest crooks, the most dangerous ones, adapt these paradigms to a changing environment. That is, crime evolves. That’s not news. However, my evolution reference points toward something else. It’s this: Every adaptation is also a liability. Let me say that again: Every adaptation is a liability. Why? Because it creates a new dependence on the environment.”
Gage looked down at the questioner. She reminded him of Sylvia Washington as a young San Francisco detective. Intent. Earnest. Serious.
“And when the environment changes, the adaptation fails and . . . sorry, I don’t know your name . . .”
“Cynthia Fairbourne, National Criminal Intelligence Service, London.”
“Cynthia, you can complete the sentence, the adaptation fails because . . .”
“We’re part of the environment.”
“Exactly. We’re part of what the crooks adapt to and once we figure out the adaptation, we can make it a liability.”
“But what if we can’t adapt,” Fairbourne said. “Like now, criminals are using encrypted e-mails and text messages. Since we don’t have the computing power to break in, we don’t know what they’re saying. What then?”
“We just have to work smarter. And we don’t necessarily need to know what’s in them in order to focus our investigations.”
Gage looked away from Fairbourne and let his eyes sweep the crowd.
“How many of you worked narcotics in the 1980s?”
A hundred hands went up.
“That was before cell phones were common. All the dealers used pagers and pay phones, too many to intercept. We didn’t know what they were saying. Every crime seemed to be a black box. But we learned the paradigms and became experts in surveillance. When Crook A did X we learned that Crook B would do Y.”
He paused and punched the air with his forefinger for emphasis.
“Remember, once they commit themselves to e-mail, even encrypted ones, they’re dependent on the environment they have adapted to. Just like a letter or text message, every e-mail has to start somewhere and end somewhere. We got lazy in the ’90s and the early 2000s when the crooks got addicted to cell phones. All we needed were wiretaps and they kept snitching themselves off. But those days are over. So . . .”
Gage raised his eyebrows and nodded at Fairbourne, and she completed the sentence:
“Learn the paradigms and work smart.”
CHAPTER 24
Instead of taking the bayside freeway through San Francisco south past the airport and the industrial flank of the peninsula toward Palo Alto, Gage cut inland across the commuter traffic and mall-ridden flatlands and broke out into the coastal mountains. He and Faith let their minds drift as they watched the deer grazing on the hillsides and hawks circling against the blue sky and the light shimmering on the distant reservoir. A twenty-five-minute vacation from worry—
That ended when he turned east and they spotted the sign for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
They both made the same association: accelerator-nuclear-radiation-cancer.
The vacation was over.
A half hour after Gage had blood drawn, a nurse escorted them into a conference room in which Dr. Stern was waiting, along with a male oncology resident and a female research fellow.
After Stern introduced them, the resident shook Faith’s hand and smiled at her.
“I’m sure you don’t remember me, Professor.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I took one of your classes, about ten years ago. It was wonderful. I spent the whole quarter lost in fantasies of traveling the world, going to remote places like you. I almost changed majors.”
“Thanks, but right now I’m truly grateful you didn’t.” She reached out and touched the young man’s shoulder. “We’ll be needing your help.”
Stern directed Gage and Faith to one side of the conference table, the doctors to the other.
“Before we start,” Stern said, “let me say that we’ve discussed these results with the tumor board. I called a multidisciplinary case conference at the radiation oncology department this morning.”
Gage felt himself launched by the phrases “Tumor board and a multidisciplinary case conference” into a world structured by people and facts and titles and organizations and events that were as alien to him as a physics lab. And he knew he’d better find his bearings or risk losing himself to what he didn’t understand. He’d done it before, in the early days of his career when he’d learned to operate in the dope world or how to investigate homicides. But that was all about other people’s bodies, not his own—except the time he was shot. That was simply a race against death. Rough emergency room medicine. Stop the bleeding and wait. There was nothing for him to learn, it was just a struggle against the darkness.
“At this point, we have a very clear picture of the disease and its progression. The bad news is that you’re already at stage three. The good news is that the bone marrow biopsy was negative.”
Faith slipped her hand inside Gage’s under the table and squeezed it.
“The extent of the disease accounts for some of the symptoms, the nausea for example.”
“And the dizziness?” Faith asked, and then held her breath.
“The MRI showed that the cancer hasn’t spread into his brain.”
Faith exhaled.
“We suspect, however, that one or more of the enlarged lymph nodes are putting pressure on one of his arteries, which in turn reduces oxygen supply, causing the dizziness.”
“Then why isn’t it constant?” Graham asked. “It’s happening less lately.”
“In the short term, moving about repositions the point of contact and may reduce the pressure. In the long term, lymphoma can wax and wane. That is, shrink enough to stop interfering with blood flow.”
Stern slid over two blood test summaries, one based on blood drawn earlier that day and one taken at the time of his biopsy.
“I’ve highlighted the tumor markers, ones that tell us about the course of the disease. The changes confirm that the lymphoma has mutated very recently, maybe just in the last month or so, and has become aggressive.”
“Which means?” Gage asked.
“That we should begin treatment before it turns into a wildfire.”
Gage caught the motion of the resident nodding.
“During the first few weeks you’ll be able to carry on normally, but after that you’ll start to experience some of what appear to be worsening symptoms, nausea for example, and you’ll be at increased risk of infection as the chemotherapy depresses your immune system. You’ll need to take some time off and you’ll need to make sure you are no more than twenty minutes from an emergency room. It’s a good idea to plan for it now. It will be a rough regimen, but we need to match the aggressiveness of the treatment to the aggressiveness of the disease.”
Gage noticed he was facing a wall of medical books and journals behind Stern. He scanned the alphabet: American Journal of Clinical Oncology. British Journal of Cancer. Bulletin du Cancer. Leukemia and Lymphoma.
What’s it come down to?
“Are you ready to give us the bottom line?” Gage asked.
The resident stirred in her chair. The researcher stared ahead.
Stern’s eyes remained fixed on Gage, and then said, “We know that, at least, we can shrink the tumors.”
“But the cancer will still be there,” Gage said. It wasn’t a question.
“Unless there’s a revolution in the treatment of your type of lymphoma, it won’t go away.”
“And the tumors will start growing again.”
“Yes.”
“How many times can you stop it?”
“Maybe twice. Maybe three times.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. As little as one month. As long as eighteen months, maybe even longer.”
“So basically what you’re saying is that one way or another, later or sooner, it’s going to kill me.”
Gage winced as he
said the words. He knew he was pushing too hard and Faith wasn’t ready. He held her hand under the table in apology.
“You’re healthy in every other way, so yes, in the end.”
“What about clinical trials?” Faith cut in. “I’ve been reading where . . .”
“Right now we’re trying two variations on the best available treatments to see which is most successful in extending the time to recurrence.”
“So I’ll play guinea pig?”
“Sort of.”
Gage scanned further down the alphabet: Medical Oncology. Pathology and Oncology Research. Radiotherapy and Oncology.
His eyes drifted back to Pathology.
Gage pushed it to the end. They both needed to know.
“Assuming I don’t get run over crossing the street, what exactly will I die of?”
“Pneumonia. Your immune system will eventually fail.”
Gage heard Faith take in a breath. He remembered her father dying, suffocated by fluid collecting in his lungs. He reached his arm around her as tears formed in her eyes.
Stern, Faith, and the others stood up to leave. Gage remained seated. He looked up at Stern. There was a question left.
“You said there’s such a thing as a complete response,” Gage said.
Stern nodded.
“What are my chances?”
“I can’t answer that with any precision. It’s one of the things we’re trying to find out by doing this comparison. But whatever response you have will be time limited since we can’t eliminate the cancer at the DNA level.”
CHAPTER 25
We’re going to have to pass on the Sheridan case,” Gage told Alex Z and Sylvia when he stepped into her second-floor office. “I need you to write up what you’ve done so far. I’ll forward everything on to Joe Casey. The FBI can take over.”
Seeing them standing close together, Gage had the feeling they had been waiting for him.
Alex Z peered up at him. “What’s going on, boss?”
“I’ll need to take a little time off, so it’s time to phase out.”
“You’re talking about chemotherapy, aren’t you?” Sylvia asked. “I’m so sorry. What can I . . .”
“Just carry on with your work.”
“Have you told the rest of the staff? I’ve heard people talking, wondering why you haven’t been checking in with them. I even got a call from Derrell in London asking if something is wrong.”
“I’ll do it later today.” Gage looked at Alex Z. “Set up a conference call so people out of the country can listen in.”
“Can’t we take a break, let things lie for a while, and finish after your treatment?” Sylvia asked.
“By the time I’m done and able to work again, the chips will have made it to wherever they’re going and will have disappeared into new computers. It’ll be as if it never happened. The case is out of our hands, whether we sit on what we know or give it to Casey.”
“But there’s no way Casey can do it.” Sylvia’s tone was flat, no sign of the frustration he knew she felt. “And I figured out what you were going to do. You weren’t going to hand this case off to the FBI. If it weren’t for the diagnosis, you would’ve gone to China and worked backward to Ah Ming yourself.”
Gage smiled. “I knew hiring you was a brilliant move.”
Sylvia didn’t smile back.
“You think the Chinese are going to cooperate with the FBI? Their economy is built on theft, and their police are infiltrated with gangsters. Everything we’ve done will just end up in a file box somewhere.”
“I’m not sending any of our people over there.” Gage spread his hands to encompass the three floors of investigators. “No one else in the office has the kind of connections I have in China, and without them it’s too dangerous. And remember, that file box is called intelligence. Someday the FBI will get another chance at Ah Ming and our stuff will help.” He looked back and forth between them. “That’s how it has to be, so let’s wrap this up.”
Gage returned to his office to call Burch in order to arrange a final meeting with Lucy. He also needed to begin following his own orders by preparing an investigative memo for Casey to accompany the data and reports.
As he sat down at his computer and opened a new document, he felt a kind of finality, like he’d come to accept the reality of the possibility he’d presented to Burch: that it was time to hand the firm over to his staff and follow Faith around the world. And now, staring at the blank screen and reaching for the keyboard, he felt like he was about to write his professional last will and testament. He’d always told his staff that investigators were only as good as their last case, and this was his.
CHAPTER 26
Faith paused at Gage’s office door carrying a binder of her lymphoma research. She observed him in profile as he focused on his screen. She watched him type a few words, then glance to his left, reaching for some papers near the windowsill. He looked up as though something outside had caught his attention and paused. After a few moments, he shook his head, then moved a sheet closer to his keyboard.
A quarter of a century, Faith thought to herself. A quarter of a century. Where did it go? If only I could stop time, get some of those years back.
She knew that they hadn’t been wasted; they were just gone, lost in the infinity of the past.
What is it about time? she asked herself. It marches, grinds, skips, flees, stops. What does that mean, time stops? It doesn’t stop. It just seems to when the mind can’t deal with the present.
Time doesn’t stop, the mind just freezes.
Time.
What is time?
I know. I know exactly. It’s an acid that eats away at life.
GAGE TURNED AND LOOKED AT FAITH, but now she didn’t see him.
“I was just there myself,” Gage said to her.
Faith blinked. “Where?”
He pointed to the side of his head. “In here.”
He got up from his chair, walked to her, and folded his arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” Gage said. “You don’t deserve this.”
“No, Graham. I wouldn’t trade a minute, not a second . . .”
They held each other in silence, in their private universe, then Gage took her hand, interwove their fingers, and they walked back into the world.
THE GLARE OF THE NOONDAY SUN, ricocheting off glass and steel of nearby buildings gave the street a clarity, a distinctness of color and shape that was rare in the city. Even the surface of the windless bay seemed as flat and shiny as a sheet of gray-blue steel.
They walked a few blocks inland to Wushan Garden and entered through what used to be the driveway of the converted auto repair shop. The owner waved at them, and then hurried through the crowded restaurant toward them.
“Graham, why you not call?” Danny Tang said in his restaurant English. “I got no table.”
“We’ll wait. I wasn’t sure what our plans would be. I didn’t want to leave you with empty seats.”
“Come to kitchen. I show you something.”
“I’d like to, but Faith and I have some things we need to talk through.”
“Go ahead.” Faith smiled and tilted her head toward the back of the restaurant. “We have time.”
Danny led Gage through the dining room toward the steaming, rattling, banging, sizzling sounds of his kitchen. They ducked though swinging doors, past the flaming woks, and into the walk-in refrigerator-freezer.
“Look at this one.” Danny pointed at a forty-pound halibut hanging from a hook. “I caught early morning outside Golden Gate. How much you like? I drop off this afternoon.”
“That’s a beauty, but I couldn’t.”
“You better say. I bring anyway.”
“Okay, but only enough for Faith and me for dinner tonight.”
When Gage returned to the dining room, Faith was sitting in a booth sipping tea with the clinical trial literature lying unopened on the table.
“What poor, unsuspecting creature did D
anny yank from its watery home this time?”
“Halibut.”
“I thought he was a salmon guy.”
Gage shrugged and smiled. “I guess it got away.” He picked up his menu. “You know what you want?”
“It’s not in my hands. Danny’s wife told me she wants to try a new dish on us. Something vegetarian she said even you would like.”
Gage shook his head. “Why does everyone suddenly want to turn me into a guinea pig?”
“It must be your soft fur,” Faith said, running her hand down the back of his head.
He glanced back toward the kitchen. “I hope it isn’t something with eggplant.”
“I was looking out for you. She promised. No eggplant.”
Gage pointed at her binder. “So what does the Internet have to say about my chemical dip?”
“Everything confirms what Stern said. All the first-line treatments are pretty much the same, chemotherapy plus an antibody to target the fast-growing cells.”
“So it’s kind of a crapshoot which one we go with.”
“That’s not the recommended language. Apparently the proper medical phrase is equally efficacious.”
“I’m thinking that maybe I should do it at UC San Francisco,” Gage said. “That way we won’t have to drive down to Stanford for every infusion. Maybe they can send her the progress reports and I can still get my checkups with her.”
“Stern figured you might want to do that and also get a second opinion before you start, so she e-mailed me a list of doctors.” Faith took a sheet from the binder and passed it to him. “These are the lymphoma people.”
“Sounds like a horror movie.”
“Sorry, lymphoma specialists.”
“Stern is all right,” Gage said, looking down the list. “I like a doctor who’s not afraid of being second-guessed. I’ll make some calls this afternoon.”
Danny approached the table gripping a steaming plate of mushrooms and broccoli in one hand and a bowl of noodles in the other. He served them a little of each, then stood back.
“I am thinking of this for the menu. It’s up to you. You two like it, it’s on. You not like it, it’s off.”
