Seizure

eight

7:25 P.M., Friday, February 22, 2002

“Oh, jeez!” Stephanie mumbled out loud after glancing at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty! It was amazing to her how time could fly when she was absorbed, and she’d been absorbed all afternoon. First, she’d been captivated at the bookstore with the books about the Shroud of Turin, and for the last hour, she’d been mesmerized by what she was learning sitting in front of the computer.

She had returned to the office just before six to find it empty. Assuming Daniel had gone home, she had sat down at her makeshift desk in the lab, and with the help of the Internet and a few newspapers’ archives, she had involved herself in finding out what had happened to the Wingate Clinic a little less than a year previously. It had been engrossing if disturbing reading.

Stephanie slid her laptop into its soft case, grabbed the plastic bag from the bookstore, and pulled on her coat. At the lab door she killed the lights, which then required her blindly to make her way across the already darkened reception area. Once outside on the street, she turned toward Kendall Square. She walked with her head bent over against the biting wind. Typical of New England weather, there had been a marked change from earlier in the afternoon. With the wind now coming from the north instead of the west, the temperature had plummeted into the mid-twenties from the relatively balmy upper forties. Along with the north wind came snow flurries that had coated the city as if it had been dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

At Kendall Square, Stephanie caught the Red Line subway out to Harvard Square, familiar territory from her university years. As usual and despite the weather, the square was alive with students and the rabble that gravitates to such an environment. Even a few street musicians had braved the harsh weather. With blue fingers, they serenaded the passersby. Stephanie felt sorry enough for them to leave a train of dollar bills in their upturned hats as she passed from Harvard Square through Eliot Square.

The lights and bustle of the honky-tonk quickly dropped behind as Stephanie trudged out Brattle Street. She passed through a section of Radcliffe College as well as the celebrated Longfellow House. But she was unmoved by her surroundings. Instead, she mused about what she had learned over the previous three and a half hours and was eager to share it with Daniel. She was also interested to hear what he had found out.

It was after eight by the time she mounted the front steps of Daniel’s condominium building. He occupied the top floor unit of a converted three-story late-Victorian house complete with all the trimmings, including elaborate bargeboard. He had bought the condo in 1985 when he had returned to academia at Harvard. It had been a big year for Daniel. Not only had he left his job at Merck pharmaceuticals; he had also left his wife of five years. He had explained to Stephanie that he had felt stifled by both. His wife had been a nurse whom he met while doing his combined medical residency and Ph.D., a feat Stephanie equated to running back-to-back marathons. He had told Stephanie that his ex-wife was a plodder and that being married to her had made him feel like Sisyphus, constantly rolling a rock up a hill. He had also said that she had been too nice and had expected him to be the same. Stephanie had not known what to make of either explanation, but she did not press the issue. She was thankful they had not had any children, which apparently the former wife had desperately wanted.

“I’m home!” Stephanie shouted, after pressing the apartment’s door closed with her rear end. Balancing her laptop bag and book bag on the tiny foyer table, Stephanie got out of her coat and opened the closet door to hang it up.

“Is anybody here?” she yelled, although her voice was muffled from being directed into the closet. When she was finished with her coat, she turned around. She started to yell again, but Daniel’s form filling the entrance to the hall startled her. He was no more than several feet away. The noise that issued from her lips was more of a peep than anything else.

“Where the hell have you been?” Daniel demanded. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s around eight,” Stephanie managed. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Why didn’t you phone? I was about to call the police.”

“Oh, come on! You know me and bookstores. I went to more than one and got caught up. In both places, I ended up sprawled out in the aisle, reading and trying to decide what to buy. Then, when I got back to the office, I wanted to take advantage of the broadband.”

“How come you didn’t have your cell phone on? I’ve tried to call you a dozen times.”

“Because I was in a bookstore and when I got to the office, it didn’t cross my mind. Hey! I’m sorry if you were concerned about me, okay? But now I’m home, safe and sound. What did you make for dinner?”

“Very funny,” Daniel growled.

“Ease up!” Stephanie said, giving Daniel’s sleeve a playful tug. “I appreciate your concern, really I do, but I’m starved and you must be too. How about we head back to the square for dinner. Why don’t you call the Rialto while I jump in the shower. It’s Friday night, but by the time we get there, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“All right,” Daniel said reluctantly, as if he were agreeing to some major undertaking.

It wasn’t until nine-twenty that they walked into the Rialto restaurant, and just as Stephanie predicted, there was a table ready and waiting. Since they were both famished, they immediately studied the menu and quickly ordered. At their request, the waiter promptly brought out their wine and sparkling water to slake their thirst and bread to take the edge off their hunger.

“All right,” Stephanie said, sitting back in her chair. “Who wants to talk first?”

“It might as well be me,” Daniel said. “Because I don’t have a lot to report, but what I do have is encouraging. I telephoned the Wingate Clinic, which sounds to me to be well equipped for our needs, and they will let us use their facilities. In fact, I’ve already agreed on the price: forty thousand.”

“Whoa!” Stephanie remarked.

“Yeah, I know: It’s a bit high, but I was reluctant to bargain. Initially, after I informed them they would not be able to take advantage of our use of their facilities for promotional purposes, I was afraid all bets were off. Luckily, they came back around.”

“Well, it’s not our money, and we certainly have enough. What about the oocyte issue?”

“That’s the best part. I was told they can supply us with human oocytes without any problem whatsoever.”

“When?”

“They claim whenever we want.”

“My goodness,” Stephanie said. “That certainly begs one’s curiosity.”

“Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“What about a neurosurgeon?”

“No problem there either. There are several on the island beating the bushes for work. The local hospital even has stereotaxic equipment.”

“That is encouraging.”

“I thought so.”

“My news is good and bad. What do you want to hear first?”

“How bad is bad?”

“Everything is relative. It’s not bad enough to preclude what we are planning, but it is bad enough for us to be wary.”

“Let’s hear the bad to get it over with.”

“The principals at the Wingate Clinic are worse than I remembered. By the way, with whom did you speak when you called the clinic?”

“Two of the principals: Spencer Wingate himself and his majordomo, Paul Saunders. And I must tell you, they are a couple of clowns. Imagine this: They publish their own supposed scientific journal, and the process of writing and editing only involves themselves!”

“You mean there’s no editorial review board?”

“That’s my impression.”

“That’s laughable, unless someone subscribes to the journal and takes whatever’s in the journal as gospel.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Well, they are a lot worse than clowns,” Stephanie said. “And worse than just perpetrators of unethical reproductive cloning experiments. I used newspaper archives, particularly The Boston Globe’s, to read up on what happened last May when the clinic was suddenly moved offshore to the Bahamas. Remember I mentioned last night in Washington that they had been implicated in the disappearance of a couple of Harvard coeds? Well, it was a lot more than mere implication, according to a couple of extremely credible whistle-blowers who happen to have been Harvard Ph.D. candidates. They had managed to get jobs at the clinic to find out the fate of eggs they had donated. During their sleuthing, they found out a lot more than they had bargained for. At a grand jury hearing, they claimed to have seen the missing women’s ovaries in what they called the clinic’s ‘egg recovery room.’ ”

“Good God!” Daniel said. “Why weren’t Wingate people indicted, with that kind of testimony?”

“Lack of evidence and a high-priced legal defense team! Apparently, the principals had a preplanned evacuation protocol that included the immediate destruction of the clinic and its contents, particularly its research facilities. Everything went up in a maelstrom of flames while the principals left in a helicopter. So an indictment wasn’t handed down. The final irony is that without an indictment, they were able to collect on their insurance for the fire.”

“So what is your take on all this?”

“Simply that these people are definitely not nice, and we should limit our interaction with them. And after what I read, I’d like to know the origin of the eggs they will be supplying us with, just to be sure we’re not supporting something unconscionable.”

“I don’t think that is a good idea. We’ve already decided that taking the ethical high road is a luxury we can’t afford if we are going to save CURE and HTSR. Questioning them at this juncture might cause problems, and I don’t want to jeopardize using their facilities. As I mentioned, they were not overly enthusiastic after I nixed any use of our involvement for promotional purposes.”

Stephanie played with her napkin as she thought over what Daniel had said. She didn’t like dealing with the Wingate Clinic at all, but it was true that she and Daniel didn’t have a lot of choice with the time constraints they were under. It was also true that they were already violating ethics by agreeing to treat Butler.

“Well, what do you say?” Daniel asked. “Can you live with this?”

“I suppose,” Stephanie said without enthusiasm. “We’ll do the procedure and scram.”

“That’s the plan,” Daniel said. “Now let’s move on! What’s your good stuff?”

“The good stuff involves the Shroud of Turin.”

“I’m listening.”

“This afternoon, before I went to the bookstore, I told you that the shroud’s story was more interesting than I had imagined. Well, that was the understatement of the year.”

“How so?”

“My current thinking is that Butler might not be so crazy after all, because the shroud might very well be real. This is a surprising turnaround, since you know how skeptical I am.”

Daniel nodded. “Almost as much as I.”

Stephanie eyed her lover after his last comment in hopes that there would be some evidence of humor like a wry smile, but there wasn’t. She felt a twinge of irritation that Daniel had to be a little more, no matter what the issue. She took a sip of her wine to get her mind back to the subject at hand. “Anyway,” she continued, “I started reading the material at the bookstore, and I had trouble stopping. I mean, I can’t wait to get back to the book I bought. It was written by an Oxford scholar named Ian Wilson. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be getting more books, thanks to the Internet.”

Stephanie was interrupted by the arrival of their meal. She and Daniel impatiently watched as the waiter served them. Daniel held off speaking until the waiter had withdrawn. “Okay, you have piqued my curiosity. Let’s hear the basis of this surprising epiphany.”

“I started my reading with the comfortable knowledge the shroud had been carbon-dated by three independent labs to the thirteenth century, the same century in which it had suddenly appeared historically. Knowing the precision of carbon-dating technology, I did not expect my belief that it was a forgery to be challenged. But it was, and it was challenged almost immediately. The reason was simple. If the shroud had been made when the carbon dating suggested, the forger would have had to be shockingly ingenious several quanta above Leonardo da Vinci.”

“You’re going to have to explain,” Daniel said between mouthfuls. Stephanie had paused to start her own dinner.

“Let’s start with some subtle reasons the forger would have to have been superhuman for his time and then move on to more compelling ones. First off, the forger would have had to have knowledge of foreshortening in art, which had yet to be discovered. The image of the man on the shroud had his legs flexed and his head bent forward, probably in rigor mortis.”

“I’ll admit that’s not terribly compelling,” Daniel remarked.

“How about this one: The forger would have had to know the true method of crucifixion used by the Romans in ancient times. This was in contrast to all contemporary thirteenth-century depictions of the crucifixion, of which there were literally hundreds of thousands. In reality, the condemned individual’s wrists were nailed to the crossbeam, not his palms, which would not have been able to hold his weight. Also, the crown of thorns was not a ringlet, but rather like a skullcap.”

Daniel nodded a few times in thought.

“Try this one: The bloodstains block the image on the cloth, meaning this clever artist started with bloodstains and then did the image, which is backward from the way all artists would work. The image would be done first, or at least the outline. Then the details like blood would be added to be certain they would be in the correct locations.”

“That’s interesting, but I’d have to put that one in the category with the foreshortening.”

“Then let’s move on,” Stephanie said. “In 1979, when the shroud was subjected to five days of scientific scrutiny by teams of scientists from the U.S., Italy, and Switzerland, it was unequivocally determined that the shroud’s image was not painted. There were no brushstrokes, there was an infinite gradation of density, and the image was a surface phenomenon only with no imbibition, meaning no fluid of any kind was involved. The only explanation they came up with of the origin of the image was some kind of oxidative process of the surface of the linen fibers, as if they were exposed in the presence of oxygen to a sudden flash of intense light or other strong electromagnetic radiation. Obviously, this was vague and purely speculative.”

“All right,” Daniel said. “I must admit you are getting into the downright compelling arena.”

“There’s more,” Stephanie said. “Some of the U.S. scientists examining the shroud in 1979 were from NASA, and they subjected the shroud to analysis by the most sophisticated technologies available, including a piece of equipment known as a VP-8 Image Analyzer. This was an analog device that had been developed to convert specially recorded digital images of the surface of the moon and Mars into three-dimensional pictures. To everyone’s surprise, the image on the shroud contains this kind of information, meaning the density of the shroud’s image at any given location is directly proportional to the distance it was from the crucified individual it had covered. All in all, it would have had to have been one hell of a forger if he anticipated all this back in the thirteenth century.”

“My word!” Daniel voiced, as he shook his head in amazement.

“Let me add one other thing,” Stephanie said. “Biologists specializing in pollen have determined that the shroud contains pollen that only comes from Israel and Turkey, meaning the supposed forger would have had to be resourceful as well as clever.”

“How could the results of the carbon dating have been so wrong?”

“An interesting question,” Stephanie said, while taking another bite of her dinner. She chewed quickly. “No one knows for sure. There have been suggestions that ancient linen tends to support the continued growth of bacteria that leave behind a transparent, varnish-like biofilm that would distort the results. Apparently, there has been a similar problem with carbon-dating some linen on Egyptian mummies, whose antiquity is known rather precisely by other means.

“Another idea suggested by a Russian scientist is that the fire that scorched the shroud in the sixteenth century could have skewed the results, although it’s hard for me to understand how it could have skewed it more than a thousand years.”

“What about the historical aspect?” Daniel asked. “If the shroud is real, how come its history only goes back to the thirteenth century, when it appeared in France?”

“That’s another good question,” Stephanie said. “When I first started reading the shroud material, I gravitated to the scientific aspects, and I’ve just started with the historical. Ian Wilson has cleverly related the shroud to another known and highly revered Byzantine relic called the Edessa Cloth, which had been in Constantinople for over three hundred years. Interestingly enough, this cloth disappeared when the city was sacked by crusaders in 1204.”

“Is there any documentary evidence that the shroud and the Edessa Cloth are one and the same?”

“That’s right where I stopped reading,” Stephanie said. “But it seems likely there is such evidence. Wilson cites a French eyewitness to the Byzantine relic prior to its disappearance, who described it in his memoirs as a burial shroud with a mystical, full, double-body image of Jesus, which certainly sounds like the Shroud of Turin. If the two relics are the same, then history takes it back at least to the ninth century.”

“I can certainly understand why all this has captured your interest,” Daniel said. “It’s fascinating. And getting back to the science, if the image wasn’t painted, what are the current theories as to its origin?”

“That question is probably the single most intriguing. There really aren’t any theories.”

“Has the shroud been studied scientifically since the episode you mentioned in 1979?”

“A lot,” Stephanie said.

“And there are no current theories?”

“None that have stood up to further testing. Of course, there is still the vague idea of some kind of flash of strange radiation… ” Stephanie let her voice trail off as if to leave the idea hanging in the air.

“Wait a second!” Daniel said. “You’re not about to spring some divine or supernatural nonsense on me, are you?”

Stephanie spread her hands palms-up, shrugged, and smiled all at the same time.

“Now I have the feeling you are toying with me,” Daniel remarked with a chuckle.

“I’m giving you an opportunity to come up with a theory.”

“Me?” Daniel questioned.

Stephanie nodded.

“I couldn’t come up with a hypothesis without having actual access to all the data. I assume the examining scientists have used things like electron microscopy, spectroscopy, ultraviolet fluorescence, as well as appropriate chemical analysis.”

“All of the above and more,” Stephanie said. She sat back, with a provocative smile. “And still, there is no accepted theory about how the image was produced. It’s a conundrum for sure. But come on! Be a sport! Can’t you think of something with the details I’ve related?”

“You’re the one who’s done the reading,” Daniel said. “I think you should come up with the suggestion.”

“I have,” Stephanie said.

“I’m wondering if I dare ask what it is.”

“I find myself leaning in the direction of the divine. Here’s my reasoning: If the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, and if Jesus was resurrected, meaning he went from the material to the nonmaterial, presumably in an instant, then the shroud would have been subjected to the energy of dematerialization. It was the flash of energy that created the image.”

“What the hell is the energy of dematerialization?” Daniel asked with exasperation.

“I’m not sure,” Stephanie admitted with a smile. “But it stands there would be a release of energy with a dematerialization. Look at the energy released with rapid elemental decay. That creates an atom bomb.”

“I suppose I don’t have to remind you that you’re employing very unscientific reasoning. You’re using the shroud’s image to posit dematerialization so you can use dematerialization to explain the shroud.”

“It’s unscientific, but it makes sense to me,” Stephanie said with a laugh. “It also makes sense to Ian Wilson, who described the shroud’s image as a snapshot of the Resurrection.”

“Well, if nothing else, you’ve certainly convinced me to take a peek at the book you have.”

“Not until I’m done!” Stephanie joked.

“What has this information about the shroud done to your reaction about using its bloodstains to treat Butler?”

“I’ve come around one hundred and eighty degrees,” Stephanie admitted. “At this point, I’m all for it. I mean, why not enlist the potentially divine for all our sakes? And, as you said down in Washington, using the shroud’s blood will add some challenge and excitement while creating the ultimate placebo.”

Daniel lifted his hand, and he and Stephanie high-fived across the table.

“What about dessert?” Daniel questioned.

“Not for me. But if you have some, I’ll have a decaf espresso.”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t want dessert. Let’s get home. I want to see if there are any emails from the venture capital people.” Daniel motioned for the waiter to get the check.

“And I want to see if there are any messages from Butler. The other thing I learned about the shroud is that we’re definitely going to need his help to get a sample. On our own, it would be impossible. The church has it sealed up under elaborate security within a space-age box in an atmosphere of argon. They also categorically stated there would be no more testing. After the carbon-dating fiasco, they are understandably gun-shy.”

“Has there been any analysis of the blood?”

“Indeed there has,” Stephanie said. “It was tested to be type AB, which was a lot more common in the ancient Near East than it is generally now.”

“Any DNA work?”

“That too,” Stephanie said. “Several specific gene fragments were isolated, including a beta globulin from chromosome eleven and even an amelogenin Y from chromosome Y.”

“Well, there you go,” Daniel said. “If we can get a sample, it will be a piece of cake pulling out the segments we need with our HTSR probes.”

“Things better start happening quickly,” Stephanie warned. “Otherwise, we’re not going to have the cells in time for Butler’s Senate recess.”

“I’m well aware,” Daniel said. He took his credit card back from the waiter and signed the receipt. “If the shroud is going to be involved, we’ve got to go to Turin in the next few days. So Butler better get cracking! Once we have the sample, we can fly directly to Nassau from London on British Airways. I checked that out earlier this evening.”

“We’re not going to do the cellular work here at our lab?”

“Unfortunately, no. The eggs are down there, not up here, and I don’t want to take the risk of shipping them, and I want them fresh. Hopefully, the Wingate lab is as well equipped as they claim, because we’ll be doing everything there.”

“That means we’ll be leaving in a few days and be gone a month or more.”

“You got it. Is that a problem?”

“I suppose not,” Stephanie said. “It’s not a bad time to spend a month in Nassau. Peter can keep things going in the lab. But I’ll have to go home tomorrow or Sunday to see my mom. She’s been under the weather, as you know.”

“You’d better do it sooner rather than later,” Daniel said. “If word comes through from Butler about the shroud sample, we’re out of here.”