Intervention

by Robin Cook

  Newhouse made a show of looking at his watch. “I’m afraid it is getting late. I do have a few patients I must see. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “I’d like you to give me the courtesy of answering my question,” Jack said, standing his ground.

  A wry smile crept across Newhouse’s face. He suddenly decided this uninvited visitor was a possible troublemaker and ought to be thrown out on his ass. Yet an inkling of concern that Jack might be some sort of city inspector instead of an oddball made him hesitate. Jack had, Newhouse thought, an authoritative air, an unexpected inquisitiveness, and a bold confidence that gave weight to his possibly being an official. And even though Newhouse’s office had never previously been inspected, he thought there always could be the first time, which could be a disaster. He knew for a fact that his X-ray room was not properly shielded in the ceiling. With all that in mind, he asked, “What was your question again?”

  “I want to know if Keara Abelard had a manipulation of her cervical spine.”

  “Generally, we don’t divulge confidential information about our patients,” Newhouse said defensively.

  “Do you keep records of what you do to patients?”

  “Of course we keep records! We need to document the course of improvement. What kind of question is that?”

  “I can subpoena your records, so you might as well just tell me.”

  “You can’t subpoena my records,” Newhouse declared, although without much confidence. He was now more worried Jack was not quite what he’d assumed: a prospective new patient with the thought of making an appointment.

  “You said Keara Abelard’s headache went away after your treatment. Did you know it came back?”

  “No, I didn’t know. She didn’t call me. If she had, I would have seen her immediately.”

  “The headache came back with a vengeance,” Jack snapped. “And I need to know if you adjusted her cervical spine.”

  “And why do you need to know, Mr. Stapleton? Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Dr. Jack Stapleton,” Jack spat. “New York City medical examiner.” He flashed his badge in Newhouse’s face. “Keara Abelard died suddenly last night, without apparent cause, which makes her a medical-examiner case. I am the investigating medical examiner. I need to know if you manipulated her neck when you saw her on Friday. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to get the police over here to take you in.”

  Jack knew he was exaggerating his power and a bit out of control. There was no way he could have Newhouse arrested. But Jack was furious enough to make such a claim, because the man had snuffed out the life of a beautiful, promising young woman. What was really at the bottom of Jack’s over-the-top behavior—which he would have realized if he’d stopped to think about it—was his anger at his son’s illness and his inability to do anything about it.

  “All right,” Newhouse shouted, after recovering from the shock of learning of Keara’s death. “I manipulated her cervical spine like I’ve done for thousands of others. And you know something? It worked. It worked because I fixed her subluxated fourth cervical vertebra. And she walked out of here a grateful, well woman, without pain for the first time in weeks. If she died, she died of something else, something that happened to her over the weekend, not because of my treatment, if that’s what you are implying.”

  “Of course I’m implying your treatment killed her,” Jack yelled. “And do you know how you did it? Your thrust, as you call it, tore the delicate lining of her vertebral arteries, which in turn caused bilateral vertebral artery dissections and ultimately blockage. I trust you know what the vertebral arteries are?”

  “Of course I know what they are,” Newhouse shouted back. “Now get out of my office. You can’t prove I did anything wrong, because I didn’t. And I cannot imagine it’s okay for you to be accusing me like this. You have some nerve coming in here under false pretenses. You are going to hear from my lawyer. I can promise you that.”

  “And you’ll be hearing from the DA,” Jack yelled. “I’m going to sign the death certificate as homicide. ‘Innate intelligence,’ my ass! That’s the screwiest nonsense I’ve heard in my life. You mentioned you ‘straight’ chiropractors call your colleagues mixers or traitors who restrict their work to back problems exclusively. What do the mixers call you guys, quacks?”

  “Get out!” Newhouse roared, his face threateningly close to Jack’s.

  It was as if a lightbulb went off in Jack’s head. He suddenly realized he was within inches of an enraged man, nearly to the point of fisticuffs. What was he doing? What was he thinking?

  Jack backed up a step. He wasn’t necessarily afraid—Newhouse didn’t look especially fit—but Jack didn’t want to make a bad situation worse. What he wanted to do was get the hell out of there.

  “Now that we see eye to eye, I think I’ll be going,” Jack said, reverting to sarcasm. “Don’t bother to see me to the door,” he added, holding up his hand as if waving Newhouse off. “I’ll see myself out.”

  Jack made a beeline out of the inner office. Lydia and several patients had heard at least part of Jack and Newhouse’s shouting match. All were sitting tensely, ready to bolt for safety’s sake. Their mouths were slightly open, eyes unblinking, as they watched Jack transit reception. Jack’s last gesture was to wave ’bye at Lydia before ducking through the office’s outer door.

  Outside Jack went straight to his bike, fumbling with the multiple locks while glancing nervously over his shoulder. He was astonished at his behavior, marveling at how out of control he’d become with Newhouse. Of course, now that he was thinking rationally, he recognized it all went back to JJ, emphasizing how important it was for him to get a grip on that situation. It also emphasized the importance of his crusade to help in that regard, but he needed to be thinking of the forest, not the trees. He had to focus on alternative medicine in general, not just chiropractic nor Newhouse because of an emotional response to Keara Abelard’s tragedy.

  Once his bike was free, Jack jumped on and sped away, heading south. Reaching speed he began to worry about the potential repercussions of his ill-considered site visit. If Bingham or Calvin got word of his latest shenanigans, it could very well cause a premature end to his nascent crusade. It might even be serious enough to get him put on administrative leave. From Jack’s perspective either outcome would be a serious problem.

  10

  12:53 P.M., TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2008

  ROME

  (6:53 A.M., NEW YORK CITY)

  Shawn looked out the window as the Egyptair Boeing 737-500 made its final approach into Rome’s Fiumicino airport. He could see nothing but the plane’s wing. It was as if they were in a San Francisco fog bank. They had been circling the airport for almost a half-hour.

  Other than the current tension, the day’s travel had been enjoyable. They easily passed through Egyptian passport control and security. Shawn was a bit concerned because the codex was in his carry-on, wrapped in a towel in a Four Seasons pillowcase. If it had been found, Shawn would have been disappointed, although he didn’t worry about legal consequences. He was prepared to tell the truth—that he’d bought it as a souvenir—and then lie that he’d been sure it was a fake like most everything else sold in Khan el-Khalili antiquities shops.

  Saturninus’s letter was a different story. Shawn had carefully covered each sheet of papyrus with clear plastic wrap he’d gotten from the Four Seasons kitchen, and then glued each between separate pages of a large, coffee table-style photography book of ancient Egyptian monuments hastily purchased in the hotel’s gift shop. Through security Shawn had carried it in full sight in his hands. If the letter had been discovered there would have been a definite problem, but Shawn felt there was little risk. To Sana he’d downplayed it completely, falsely saying he’d done it in the past without the slightest difficulty. “As long as the book goes through the scanner, they’re happy,” he’d said to reassure her.

  There was a sudden hard bump that made Shawn start. The plane h
ad dropped below the low cloud cover. Through the now-rain-streaked window, Shawn could see soggy green fields and traffic-clogged roads. Despite it being the middle of the day, most of the vehicles had their headlights on. Looking ahead, he could dimly see the airport and, more important, the oncoming runway. A moment later, the plane touched down and the engines reversed.

  Shawn let out a minor sigh of relief and glanced at Sana. She smiled. “Doesn’t look like the best weather,” she commented, leaning forward so she could see out.

  “It can be rainy in winter.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to matter to us,” Sana said, adding a wink to her smile.

  “I think you’re right,” Shawn agreed. He reached over and gave his wife’s hand a squeeze, and she squeezed back. Both were tense with anticipation.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Sana said. “Why don’t I go to baggage claim, and you go get the rental car? It’s got to save us time.”

  “That’s a super idea,” Shawn said. He glanced back at his wife. He was genuinely surprised and appreciative. Usually, she left all the planning to him. Now she was being proactive and offering to help. To his delight, it seemed that she was equally as excited as he was. She had peppered him with questions about early Christianity, Judaism, and even Near Eastern pagan religion throughout the flight.

  “So, what do you think our schedule should be once we leave the airport?” Sana asked eagerly.

  “We’ll check in to the hotel, have a bite to eat, then find a place to get some basic tools. Then I think we should check out the necropolis or Scavi, so there will be no surprises when we sneak back tonight to get the ossuary. As I recall, the Scavi is open until five-thirty or thereabouts.”

  “Like what kind of tools?”

  “A hammer and a chisel and a couple of flashlights. Maybe a battery-powered cutting device, just to be sure.”

  “For cutting what?”

  “Soft rock and maybe brick. I’m hoping we don’t need it. Power tools were actually banned by the pope when he authorized the modern excavation, to avoid any collateral damage, but we’re not going to worry about that detail. Where we’ll be working, the only thing we might damage is the ossuary itself.”

  “Aren’t you expecting we’ll be digging in just plain dirt?” Sana asked. In her mind, the idea of cutting into rock made the scope of the project significantly more daunting.

  “No, it’s going to be more like hardpan, a claylike layer mixed with gravel but highly compacted to seem like very soft stone. As I mentioned, the tomb that Peter’s followers made for him on the Vaticanus hill adjacent to Nero’s circus was an underground chamber with a barrel vault. They dug a large hole and then built two parallel brick foundation walls oriented in an east-west direction. Saturninus’s letter says that the ossuary was placed midway at the base of the north wall and concealed before the excavation hole outside the walls was filled back in.”

  “And the base of the north wall is where we’re going to find the ossuary?”

  “That’s right. During the last major excavation, more than fifty years ago, the archaeologists tunneled under that north wall to get inside the original tomb’s chamber, to avoid destroying the mishmash of graves, altars, and trophies clustered above Peter’s underground tomb. Starting from soon after his death until not that long ago, people clamored to be buried as close as possible to him. Anyway, it’s in the roof of that tunnel where we are going to find the ossuary.”

  “I’m having trouble picturing all this.”

  “For good reason. Soon after Peter’s death, the whole hill became not just the place for future popes to be buried but a popular Roman necropolis filled with graves and mausoleums. Today, because of its location beneath Saint Peter’s, only a small portion of it has been excavated. And within a twenty-foot or so cubic area right around Peter’s tomb, there is such a hodgepodge of ancient construction, you can’t believe it. To make things more complicated, sometime in the first century a monument called the Tropaion of Peter was built just above his grave. Then in the fourth century, Constantine built his basilica around this monument, using it as an altar. During the Renaissance, Saint Peter’s was built on top of Constantine’s basilica, locating the high altar directly atop what had been Constantine’s altar, now some forty feet above the floor of Peter’s original tomb.”

  “It sounds like a layer cake,” Sana said.

  “That’s a good analogy,” Shawn agreed.

  Once inside the terminal and through passport control, Shawn and Sana split up, with Sana heading for the baggage area and Shawn for the rental-car stands. Within half an hour they were on their way.

  The drive into Rome was fine until they got into the city limits. Rain, traffic, and the lack of a decent map left them praying they’d eventually come across a recognizable monument.

  After fifteen white-knuckled minutes, they spotted the Colos seum. Shawn quickly pulled over, and from there they plotted their way to the top of the Spanish Steps and the Hotel Hassler.

  The route they’d chosen took them along the Foro Romano to the wedding cake monument to Vittorio Emanuele II. From there they headed north on the busy Via del Corso.

  “My, this looks different than it does in the sunshine,” Sana said, eyeing the pedestrians as they scurried about, huddled under their black umbrellas. “The dark clouds, the rain, and all the ruins make it seem sinister. Certainly not the Hollywood image as the city of love.”

  After several more key turns they found themselves on Via Sistina and then in front of the hotel. The doorman immediately came to Shawn’s side.

  “Are you checking in?” he asked graciously.

  When Shawn indicated yes, the doorman waved to a colleague, who emerged with a second umbrella to shelter Sana while a porter gathered the luggage.

  Once inside, they were whisked through check-in. Shawn was particularly pleased that the overnight package sent by his assistant from the Metropolitan Museum was waiting for him.

  Shawn immediately began chatting up the attractive desk clerk.

  “You’re not Italian, I don’t believe,” he said. “You have a most charming accent.”

  “I’m Dutch.”

  “Really,” Shawn said. “Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities.”

  “I see you are from New York,” the receptionist said, cleverly diverting the conversation away from herself and to Shawn.

  Oh, please! Sana thought. Impatiently, she shifted her weight from one hip to the other. She was afraid Shawn would launch into his life history. Thankfully, the well-trained receptionist expertly handled the situation by coming out from behind the counter to show them to their room, while maintaining a continuous flow of conversation describing the hotel’s amenities, including the restaurant and its spectacular view.

  The room was on the third floor. Shawn went to the window, which looked out over the Spanish Steps. “Come out here and see this,” Shawn called to Sana, who’d gone into the bathroom to see if it was as posh as everything else.

  “Pretty amazing, wouldn’t you say?” Shawn said as Sana joined him and both gazed out at the Spanish Steps. Despite the rain, tourists were taking pictures of themselves. “Even though we can’t quite see it, we’re facing the dome of Saint Peter’s. If it doesn’t clear by morning, we’ll have to come back someday when it’s not raining so you can appreciate it.”

  Turning back inside, Sana unpacked and Shawn opened his package, dumping the contents on the desk. “Thank you, Claire!” he said, surveying the objects.

  Sana came up behind him and peered over his shoulder. “Did you get everything we need?”

  “I did. Here’s my Vatican picture ID,” Shawn said, handing her the laminated card.

  “This picture looks like a mug shot,” Sana joked.

  “Okay, enough teasing,” Shawn joked back, snatching the photo from her hands. In its place he handed her the access permit to the Vatican’s necropolis, the Scavi, meaning “excavation” in Italian. It was a very formal document,
complete with the official seal of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology. “This is what is going to get us past the Swiss Guards tonight.”

  “I’m impressed,” Sana said, handing the paper back. “Things seem to be falling into place. What about the keys?”

  Shawn held them up and jangled them before pocketing them along with the ID card and the access permit.

  “Looks like we are in business.”

  A few minutes later, Shawn and Sana headed down to the concierge’s desk and asked where they could get a quick bite.

  “Caffè Greco,” one of the two concierges said without hesitation, the other concierge nodding in full agreement. “It’s just down the steps and straight on Via Condotti. It’s on the right.”

  “Can you also tell me where I can find a hardware store?” Shawn asked.

  The concierges eyed each other quizzically. This was a first.

  After some charades and a quick dictionary consult, Shawn and Sana were directed to a nearby ferramenta called Gino’s on the Via del Babuino.

  With map in hand and two hotel umbrellas, the couple first went to Caffè Greco, where they made short work of lunch. Next they used the hotel’s map to seek out Gino’s ferramenta shop, which was, as the concierges promised, a short walk up Via del Babuino. As they approached the shop, the dusty window display of tools and housewares appeared as if it hadn’t been changed in years. When the door closed behind them, they were instantly enveloped in a palpable silence. The interior was as dusty as the window display. At the register were a half-dozen customers patiently and noiselessly waiting for service. A lone employee scanned a thick catalog.

  Shawn and Sana were taken aback by the silence. It was heavy, like a church. What minimal sound there was seemed to be dampened by the plethora of merchandise, much of which was stacked in variously sized cardboard boxes. A black-and-white cat slept curled up on a humidifier carton. The atmosphere was a far cry from the hardware stores Shawn remembered from his youth growing up in the American Midwest. There, hardware stores were usually busy and loud, as much a hangout as a place to buy hardware.