Seizure

five

10:05 P.M., Thursday, February 21, 2002

The taillights of Carol Manning’s Suburban faded as the vehicle moved down Louisiana Avenue and then merged with the other traffic before disappearing into the general gloom of the night. Stephanie and Daniel had watched them until the point that they were no longer discernable, then looked into each other’s faces. Their noses were mere inches apart, since their bodies were pressed together beneath their umbrella. They were once again standing motionless at the curb in front of Union Station, just as they had been an hour earlier when they were waiting to be picked up. Then they had been curious with anticipation. Now they were dumbfounded.

“Tomorrow morning, I’m going to swear this was all a delusion,” Stephanie said, with a shake of her head.

“There’s definitely a dreamlike unreality to it all,” Daniel admitted.

“Bizarre is a better adjective.”

Daniel lowered his eyes to the senator’s business card he had clutched in his free hand. He turned it over. Scribbled in the senator’s erratic handwriting was a cell phone number to be used to contact him directly in the next twelve hours. Daniel stared at the number as if committing it to memory.

A gust of wind erupted and changed the drizzle momentarily from vertical to horizontal. Stephanie shivered as the moisture peppered her face. “It’s cold. Let’s get back to the hotel! There’s no sense standing here and getting soaked.”

As if waking from a trance, Daniel apologized and glanced around the plaza in front of the station. A taxi stand was off to one side, with several cabs conveniently waiting. Angling the umbrella into the wind, he urged Stephanie forward. Arriving at the first taxi in line, Daniel held the umbrella for Stephanie before climbing in himself.

“Four Seasons hotel,” Daniel said to the driver, who was watching his rearview mirror.

“Tonight was ironic as well as bizarre,” Stephanie said suddenly, as the cab pulled away. “The same day I hear a smidgen about your family from you, I hear the whole story from Senator Butler.”

“I find that more irritating than ironic,” Daniel said. “Hell, it’s an out-and-out violation of my privacy that he had me investigated by the FBI. It’s also appalling that the FBI would do it. I mean, I’m a private citizen under no suspicion of any crime. Such abuse smacks of the days of J. Edgar Hoover.”

“So everything Butler said about you is true?”

“Essentially, I suppose,” Daniel responded vaguely. “Listen, let’s talk about the senator’s offer.”

“I can tell you my reaction to it right off the top. I think it stinks!”

“You don’t see any positive aspects?”

“The only positive aspect I can see is that it has confirmed our impressions of the man as a quintessential demagogue. He’s also a detestable hypocrite. He’s against HTSR purely for political reasons, and he’s willing to ban it and its research despite its potential to save lives and relieve suffering. At the same time, he wants it for himself. That’s obscene and inexcusable, and we’re certainly not going to be a party to it.” Stephanie gave a short derisive laugh. “I’m sorry I gave my word to keep his illness a secret. This whole thing is a story the media would die for, and I’d love for them to have it.”

“We certainly can’t go to the media,” Daniel stated categorically. “And I don’t think we should be rash. I think Butler’s offer deserves consideration.”

A surprised Stephanie turned to look at Daniel. She tried to see his face in the dim light. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Let’s list the knowns. We’re well acquainted with growing dopaminergic neurons from stem cells, so it’s not as if we’ll be floundering around in the dark in that regard.”

“We’ve done it with murine stem cells, not human cells.”

“The process is the same. Colleagues have already done it with human stem cells using the same methodology. Making the cells is not going to be a problem. Once we have the cells, we can follow the exact protocol we used for the mice. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work for a human. After all, every last mouse we’ve treated has done remarkably well.”

“Except for the ones that died.”

“We know why the ones that didn’t make it died. It was before we perfected the injection technique. All the mice that we injected properly have survived and have been cured. With a human volunteer, we would have available a stereotaxic device that doesn’t exist for rodents. That will make the injection more exact, infinitely easier, and hence safer. Besides, we wouldn’t do the injection ourselves. We’d find a neurosurgeon who’d be willing to lend a hand.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Stephanie said. “It sounds like you’ve already talked yourself into doing this crazy, unethical experiment, and that’s what it would be: an uncontrolled, risky experiment on a single human subject. No matter what the outcome, it would be devoid of value, except possibly for Butler.”

“I don’t agree. By doing this procedure, we will save CURE and HTSR, meaning millions of people will ultimately benefit. It seems to me a minor compromise in ethics is a small up-front price to pay for an enormous back-end payoff.”

“But we’ll be doing exactly what Senator Butler accused the biotech industry of doing in his opening statement this morning: using ends to justify means. It would be unethical to experiment on Senator Butler, plain and simple.”

“Yeah, well, perhaps to some degree, but who are we putting at risk? It’s the villain! He’s the one asking for it. Worse yet, he’s conniving for it by extorting us with information he got by somehow coercing the FBI to do an illegal investigation.”

“That all may be true, but two wrongs don’t make a right, and it doesn’t absolve us of our complicity.”

“I think it would. We’ll make Butler sign a release, and we’ll put everything in the release, including the fact that we are fully aware that doing the procedure would be considered unethical by any research advisory board in this country, because it’s being done without an appropriately approved protocol. The release will state unequivocally that it was Butler’s idea to do the procedure and to do the procedure outside of the country. It will also state that he used extortion to get us to participate.”

“Do you think he’d sign such a release?”

“We won’t give him any choice. Either he signs it or he doesn’t get the benefit of HTSR. I’m comfortable with the idea that we’ll be doing the procedure in the Bahamas, so we won’t be violating any FDA rules, and we’ll have a rock-solid release in case we need it. The onus will be squarely on Butler’s shoulders.”

“Let me think about it for a few minutes.”

“Take your time, but I really think the moral weight favors our doing it. It would be different if we were forcing him in any way, shape, or form. But we’re not. It’s the other way around.”

“But it could be argued that he’s uninformed. He’s a politician, not a doctor. He doesn’t truly know the risks. He could die.”

“He’s not going to die,” Daniel said emphatically. “We’ll err on the conservative side, meaning the worse-case scenario is that we won’t give him enough cells to get his dopamine concentration high enough to get rid of all his symptoms. If that happens, he’ll be begging us to do it again, which will be easy, since we’ll maintain the treating cells in culture.”

“Let me mull it over.”

“Sure,” Daniel said.

They rode the rest of the way in silence. It wasn’t until they were going up in the hotel elevator that Stephanie spoke up: “Do you honestly think we would be able to find an appropriate place to do the procedure?”

“Butler spent a good deal of effort on all this,” Daniel said. “He wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Frankly, I’d be shocked if he didn’t have the clinic he mentioned investigated for appropriateness at the same time he had me investigated.”

“I suppose that’s possible. Actually, I remember reading about the Wingate Clinic about a year ago. It was a popular, unaffiliated infertility clinic out in Bookford, Massachusetts, before it moved under pressure to the Bahamas. It was quite a scandal.”

“I remember it too. It was run by a couple of maverick infertility guys. Their research department was doing unethical reproductive cloning experiments.”

“Unconscionable is a better description, like trying to get human fetuses to gestate in pigs. I remember they were also implicated in the disappearance of a couple of Harvard coed egg donors. The principals had to flee the country and barely managed to avoid extradition back to the States. All in all, it sounds like the absolute opposite of the kind of place and people we should get involved with.”

“We wouldn’t be getting involved with them. We’d do the procedure, wash our hands, and leave.”

The elevator doors opened. They started down the hall toward their suite.

“What about a neurosurgeon?” Stephanie asked. “Do you honestly think we’d be able to find someone to take part in this shenanigan? He or she will know there’s something fishy about it.”

“With the proper incentive, that shouldn’t be a problem. Same with the clinic.”

“You mean money.”

“Of course! The universal motivator.”

“What about Butler’s demand for secrecy? How would we handle that?”

“Secrecy is more his issue than ours. We won’t use his real name. Without those glasses and dark suit, I imagine he’s a rather nondescript, nebbish sort of guy. With a splashy short-sleeved shirt and a pair of sunglasses, maybe no one will recognize him.”

Stephanie used her keycard to open their door. They took off their jackets and went into the sitting room.

“What about something from the minibar?” Daniel suggested. “I’m in the mood to celebrate. A couple of hours ago, I thought we were stuck beneath a black cloud. Now there’s a ray of sunshine.”

“I could use some wine,” Stephanie responded. She rubbed her hands together to warm them before curling up in the corner of the couch.

Daniel popped the cork on a half bottle of cabernet and poured a hefty portion into a balloon goblet. He handed it to Stephanie before getting himself a neat Scotch. He sat down in the opposite corner of the couch. They touched glasses and took sips from their respective drinks.

“So, you want to go ahead with this crazy plan?” Stephanie said.

“I do, unless you can come up with some compelling reason not to.”

“What about this Shroud of Turin nonsense? I mean, divine intervention! What a preposterous and presumptuous idea!”

“I disagree. I think it is a stroke of genius.”

“You have to be joking!”

“Absolutely not! It would be the ultimate placebo, and we know how powerful placebos can be. If he wants to believe he’s getting some of Jesus Christ’s DNA, it’s fine by me. It would give him a powerful incentive to believe in his cure. I think it is a brilliant idea. I’m not suggesting we have to get DNA from the shroud. We could just tell him we have, and it would afford the same result. But we can look into it. If there is blood on the shroud like he contends and we can get access to it like he suggests, it would work.”

“Even if the bloodstain is from the thirteenth century?”

“The age shouldn’t make any difference. The DNA would be in fragments, but that wouldn’t be a problem. We’d still use the same probe we’d use on a fresh DNA sample to form the segment we need, and then augment it by PCR. In a lot of ways, it would add a bit of challenge and excitement. The hardest part will be resisting the temptation to write the procedure up for Nature or Science after the fact. Can you imagine the title: ‘HTSR and the Shroud of Turin Combine to Produce the First Cure of Human Parkinson’s Disease.’ ”

“We’re not going to be able to publish this affair,” Stephanie said.

“I know! It’s just fun to think about it being a harbinger of things to come. The next step will be a controlled experiment, and we’ll certainly be able to publish that. At that point, CURE will be in the limelight, and our funding miseries will be long gone.”

“I wish I could share your enthusiasm.”

“I think you will, once things start falling into place. Even though timing wasn’t mentioned tonight, I’m going to assume the senator would be eager to do it sooner rather than later. That means we should start with the preliminaries tomorrow when we get back to Boston. I’ll look into making the arrangements with the Wingate Clinic and lining up the neurosurgeon. How about you take on the Shroud of Turin portion.”

“That should at least be interesting,” Stephanie said, trying to generate some eagerness about the thought of treating Butler, despite what her intuition was telling her. “I’ll be curious to find out why the church still considers it a relic after it was proved to be a fake.”

“The senator obviously thinks it’s real.”

“As I recall, the carbon dating was confirmed by three independent labs. It would be hard for that to be debunked.”

“Well, let’s see what you find out,” Daniel said. “In the meantime, we better start planning some serious travel.”

“You mean Nassau?”

“Nassau and probably Turin, Italy, depending on what you find out.”

“Where are we going to get the money for such travel?”

“From Ashley Butler.”

Stephanie’s eyebrows lifted. “Maybe this escapade isn’t going to be so bad after all.”

“So, are you with me on this?” Daniel questioned.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“That’s not very positive.”

“It’s the best I can do at the moment. But I imagine I’ll come around as things progress, like you suggested.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Daniel announced. He got up from the couch and gave Stephanie’s shoulder a squeeze in the process. “I’m going to have another Scotch. Let me fill your glass.”

Daniel poured the additional drinks, then sat back down. After glancing at his watch, he put Butler’s business card down in front of him and lifted the phone onto the coffee table. “Let’s tell the senator the news. I’m sure he’ll be irritatingly smug, but to borrow his phrase, Such is life.” Daniel used the speakerphone button to get a dial tone. The call went through and was picked up quickly. Ashley Butler’s baritone Southern drawl inundated the room.

“Senator,” Daniel called out, interrupting Ashley’s verbose hello. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s late and I just wanted to let you know that I have decided to take you up on your offer.”

“Well, glory be!” Ashley intoned. “And so soon! I was afraid you were going to let this simple decision spoil your slumber and that you would not be calling until the morning. Well, I am pleased as punch! Can I assume Dr. D’Agostino has agreed to participate as well?”

“I have agreed,” Stephanie said, trying to sound positive.

“Excellent, excellent!” Ashley echoed. “Not that I am surprised, since this affair is to all our benefit. But I most sincerely do believe that being of the same mind and having unanimity of purpose is key to success, and we most certainly want success in this endeavor.”

“We assume you would like to do this straightaway,” Daniel said.

“Most assuredly, my dear friends. Most assuredly. I’m on borrowed time in terms of concealing my infirmity,” Ashley explained. “There is no time to lose. Conveniently for our purposes, a Senate recess is coming up. It commences about a month from now on March twenty-second and runs through April eighth. Normally I head home to politick, but instead it is the period of time I have had my heart set upon for my treatment. Is a month an adequate amount of time for you scientists to formulate the appropriate curative cells?”

Daniel glanced at Stephanie and spoke to her softly, just above a whisper: “That’s quicker than I thought he’d have in mind. What do you think? Could we do it?”

“It’s a long shot,” Stephanie whispered with a shrug. “First, we’d need a few days to culture his fibroblasts. Then, assuming a successful nuclear transfer creating a viable pre-embryo, we’d need five or six days for the blastocyst to form. After that, we’d need a couple of weeks of culturing on feeder cells after harvesting the stem cells.”

“Is there a problem?” Ashley questioned. “I cannot for the life of me hear what you good folks are discussing.”

“Just a second, Senator!” Daniel said into the speakerphone. “I’m talking with Dr. D’Agostino about timing. She would be doing most of the actual hands-on work.”

“Then we’d have to get them to differentiate into the proper nerve cells,” Stephanie added. “That will take another couple of weeks, or maybe a little less. The mouse cells were fine after only ten days.”

“So what would you guess, if all goes well?” Daniel asked. “Would a month work?”

“It’s theoretically possible,” Stephanie said. “It could be done, but we’d have to start almost immediately with the cellular work, like tomorrow! The problem with that idea is that we’d have to have human oocytes available, and we don’t.”

“Oh, jeez!” Daniel mumbled. He bit his lower lip and furrowed his brow. “I’m so accustomed to working with a surfeit of cow eggs that I forgot about the supply problem with human eggs.”

“It’s a major stumbling block,” Stephanie admitted. “Even in the best of circumstances where we already had a egg donor waiting in the wings, we’d need a month or so to stimulate her and retrieve them.”

“Well, perhaps our maverick infertility friends can help us in this regard as well. As a functioning infertility center, they’d surely have a few extra eggs available. Considering their unethical reputation, I bet with the right inducement we could talk them into providing us with what we will need.”

“It’s possible, I suppose, but then we’d be even more beholden to them. The more they do for us, the less easy it will be to wash our hands and leave like you so blithely suggested a moment ago.”

“But we don’t have a lot of choice. The alternative is giving up on CURE, HTSR, and all our blood, sweat, and tears.”

“It has to be your call. But for the record, it makes me feel uncomfortable to be obligated to the Wingate people in any form, knowing their history.”

Daniel nodded a few times as he mulled over the issues, sighed, and then turned back to the speakerphone. “Senator, there’s a chance we can have some treatment cells in a month. But I have to warn you that it’s going to require effort and a bit of luck, and we have to start immediately. You’ll have to be cooperative.”

“I will be as cooperative as a baby lamb. I’ve already started the process a month ago by making plans to arrive in Nassau on the twenty-third of March and to stay on the island for as much of the recess period as needed. I have even made a reservation for you. That’s how confident I was about your participation. It is important to have done this early, because it is high season in the Bahamas at this time of the year. We’ll be staying at the Atlantis resort, where I had the pleasure of staying last year with this plan in mind. It is a hotel complex sizable enough to provide adequate anonymity of coming and going without raising suspicions. They also have a casino, and as you might imagine, I do enjoy gambling when I am fortunate enough to have a few extra dollars in my pocket.”

Daniel exchanged glances with Stephanie. On the one hand, he was glad Ashley had made early reservations to help the project, but on the other hand, he was irritated at having been taken for granted.

“Will you be registered under your own name?” Stephanie questioned.

“Indeed I will,” Ashley said. “But I will be using an assumed name for my trip to the Wingate Clinic.”

“What about this clinic?” Daniel demanded. “I trust that you have looked into it as carefully as you have looked into my past.”

“Your trust is well placed. I think you will find the clinic well suited for our purposes, although the personnel less so. The purported head of the clinic is Dr. Spencer Wingate, who is something of a blowhard, although apparently well qualified in the field of infertility. He seems more interested in being an island socialite and looks forward to flying off to the continent to drum up business in the courts of Europe. The man in secondary command is Dr. Paul Saunders, and he runs the show on a day-to-day basis. He is a more complicated individual who sees himself as a world-class researcher despite his lack of appropriate training beyond clinical infertility. I’m confident both individuals will be accommodating if you merely appeal to their individual vanities. For them to have the prospect of working with someone with your credentials and stature is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“You flatter me, Senator.”

Stephanie smiled at Daniel’s sarcasm.

“Only because it is well deserved,” Ashley said. “Besides, one should have faith in one’s doctor.”

“It would be my guess that doctors Wingate and Saunders will be more interested in money than my resume,” Daniel said.

“It is my thought that they will be interested in your resume to gain stature and to help them make money,” Ashley commented. “But their venal nature and their lack of research training is not a concern of ours, other than to be aware of it and to take advantage of it. It is their facility and equipment we are interested in.”

“I hope you realize that doing this procedure under these circumstances is not going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Nor would I want it to be cheap,” Ashley responded. “I want the expensive, high-quality, first-class version. Rest assured, I have access to more than sufficient funds to cover any expenses that impinge upon my political career. But I will expect your personal services to be pro bono. We are, after all, exchanging favors.”

“Agreed,” Daniel said. “But prior to rendering any services, Dr. D’Agostino and I will require you to sign a special release that we will draw up. This release will spell out the exact way that this affair originated as well as all the attendant risks involved, including the fact that we have never done the procedure on a human being.”

“As long as I can be assured of the confidentiality of this release, I will have no qualms about signing it. I can understand you would want it for your protection. I am absolutely certain I would want the very same thing if I were in your position, so there should be no problem whatsoever, provided it does not include anything unreasonable or inappropriate.”

“I can assure you it will be reasonable,” Daniel said. “Next, I’d like to encourage you to use your resources as you suggested to find out about access to the Shroud of Turin so we can get a sample.”

“I have already instructed Ms. Manning to initiate the appropriate meetings with the various prelates with whom I have had a working relationship. I will assume it will happen in the next few days. How big a sample would be required?”

“It can be extremely small,” Daniel said. “Merely a few fibers would be adequate, but it would have to be fibers coming from a section of the shroud containing a bloodstain.”

Ashley laughed. “Even an ignorant, nonscientist like myself would assume as much. The fact that you need only a small sample should help immeasurably. As I mentioned last night, I know there were such samples taken and then called back by the church.”

“We’d need them as soon as possible,” Daniel added.

“I understand completely the need for expeditiousness,” Ashley responded. “Is there anything else you require of me?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “We will need you to have a punch biopsy of your skin tomorrow morning. If there is a chance we can produce the curative cells in a month, we’ll need to take your biopsy back with us tomorrow when we return to Boston. Your private physician can arrange having the biopsy with a dermatologist, who can have a courier bring it over to us at the hotel. It will serve as a source of fibroblasts that we will grow in tissue culture.”

“I will see to it first thing in the morning.”

“I believe that is all for now,” Daniel said. He looked at Stephanie, and she nodded in agreement.

“I have a vitally important request of my own,” Ashley said. “I think we should exchange special email addresses and use the Internet for all our communications, which should be generic and short. The next time we talk directly should be at the Wingate Clinic on New Providence Island. I am committed that this affair be a closely guarded secret, and the less direct contact we have, the better. Is that acceptable?”

“By all means,” Daniel agreed.

“As for expense money,” Ashley said, “I will advise you by email of a confidential account at an offshore bank in Nassau, set up by one of my political action committees, from which you will be able to withdraw funds. I will, of course, expect an accounting in the future. Is that acceptable?”

“As long as there’s enough money,” Daniel said. “One of the major expenses will be to obtain the necessary human egg cells.”

“I reiterate,” Ashley said, “there will be more than adequate funds available. Rest assured!”

A few minutes later, after a final long-winded farewell from Ashley, Daniel leaned forward and disconnected the speakerphone. He lifted the phone back onto the end table. Then he swung around to face Stephanie. “I had to laugh when he called the head of the Wingate Clinic a blowhard. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

“You were right about him putting a lot of thought into this affair. I was shocked when he said he’d made travel reservations a month ago. There’s no doubt in my mind he had the Wingate Clinic investigated.”

“Are you feeling better about being involved in curing him?”

“To a degree,” Stephanie admitted. “Especially since he says he’ll have no compunction signing a release that we write. At least I’ll have the feeling he’s considered the experimental nature of what we will be doing and the attendant risks. I wasn’t at all sure of that before.”

Daniel slid across the couch, put his arms around Stephanie, and hugged her against his body. He could feel her heart beating in her chest. Pushing himself back enough to look into her face, he stared into the dark depths of her eyes. “Now that we have seemingly gotten things under control in the political/business/research arena, how about starting out where we left off last night?”

Stephanie returned Daniel’s stare. “Is that a proposition?”

“Indeed, it is.”

“Is your autonomic nervous system going to cooperate?”

“A lot better than it did last night, I can assure you.”

Daniel got to his feet and helped Stephanie to hers.

“We forgot the do-not-disturb sign,” Stephanie said, as Daniel eagerly pulled her toward the bedroom.

“Let’s live dangerously,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.