Syndrome - Thomas Hoover (best summer books .TXT) 📗

Tuesday, April 7

10:32 P.M.

Winston Bartlett looked at the white phone on the oak end table beside his chair and argued with himself about picking it up and calling the Dutchman. When Van de Vliet was at his office at the institute, they communicated by encrypted videophone. By this time, though, he was usually home, but he still hadn’t called to say what had happened with Alexa Hampton. Now they would have to talk over an open line. Damn him.

After his explosive run-in with Stone Aimes-damn him too-Bartlett had gone up to the Park Avenue place to check on Kristen firsthand and try to console her. But he wasn’t actually sure she recognized him; at times she seemed to and then at other times she would just stare at him blankly. Her mind increasingly had an in-and-out relationship with reality, and today was an out day.

The time had come to be deeply concerned about her. She couldn’t be kept under wraps forever. He had checked her into the Dorian Institute under an assumed name, Kirby Parker, to try to avoid any publicity. Now that was the only name she could remember. How had the Syndrome done that to her?

Kristen Starr, whose identity was known to several million watchers of cable TV, could no longer remember her own name. Karl had worked with her every day, but no medication he had tried had even minimally slowed the Syndrome’s progress.

The Beta had seemed so promising. Kristen’s body had been rejuvenated-her face was looking like she’d had perfect plastic surgery, and there’d been no discernible side effects. It was everything they’d all hoped for. Kristen was elated and even the normally cautious Van de Vliet was buoyed.

Yes, the Beta was so close. Karl had to find a way to make it work.

In spite of all Winston Bartlett’s entrepreneurial derring-do, he always knew he was at the mercy of time. He was getting ever closer to that final dance with destiny. But… but what if the Beta could be made to work the way Van de Vliet theorized it might? Was there the possibility the music would never stop?

Nursing a second Glenfiddich, he looked around the room, the third-floor study/bedroom, finding it pleased him as always. This room of his five-story mansion was a handmade gem from New York’s turn-of-the-century Gilded Age, with molded plasterwork ceilings and brass doorknobs and mahogany paneling. Favorites from his superlative Japanese sword collection lined the walls, giving him constant joy. He wanted to live to enjoy it for another three score and ten.

The only galling thing about the place was that he had to share it with Eileen, who had the top two floors. They had been living in marital purgatory for the past twenty-eight years, ever since she found out about the existence of his natural son. Because of that humiliation, she had refused to give him the one thing he most wanted from her, his freedom. She let it be known that as long as he flaunted a string of mistresses in the cheap tabloid press, she was determined to stay in his face.

He sighed and took a last sip of his scotch, then set it down and clicked on the phone. Van de Vliet had rented a small villa half a mile down the lakeshore, south from the institute, and he lived alone. Until recently he’d been sleeping in the lab. There was no encrypted phone where he lived, so this had damned well better be brief.

“Karl, it’s me. How did it go today with the new Beta prospect? I contracted her to do some work here, hoping to do my part to get her with the program. I was expecting to hear from you by now.”

“I’ve met with her and she had a stress test this afternoon in the city. Other than the aortic stenosis, she seems to be in superb shape, which is important. I’m assuming-make that hoping-that she’ll come back in the morning and formally enter the clinical trials. I’ll let you know if she does. Till that happens, I have no progress to report.”

“All right, but how soon after that do you think you could get started with the Beta matter?”

There was a pregnant pause, and then…

“W.B., we truly need to talk, and maybe not on this line. Just before I left the lab, I ran another simulation on the Mothership to try to figure out what dosage level of Beta enzyme would be safe. But it’s like trying to extrapolate backwards, and I just don’t have enough data. I’m beginning to wonder if using her to try to create telomerase antibodies is actually such a good idea. It’s just so risky….” His voice trailed off.

“Karl, everything in life is a goddam risk. I know I’m supposed to be the beneficiary here, but if the antibody concept works out, we might still be able to do something for… Beta One.”

“I’m already doing everything I know how for her. That’s a tragedy we’re all still in denial about. And now we’re talking about risking yet another woman. Yes, maybe it’s the answer, but for now I don’t know what a safe dosage of enzyme should be. It has to be enough to generate the antibodies, but not so great that… You know what I’m talking about.”

I sure as hell do, Bartlett thought. I’m looking at the Syndrome myself.

“Karl, just think of what it could mean if you could get the Beta to work the way the other procedures do. What great medical discovery didn’t have a few missteps at the beginning? This is experimental medicine that could change the world. So, dammit, we’ve got to take risks.”

“Why are we having this conversation at this time of night? Over an unsecure phone?”

“Because we don’t have a lot of time,” Bartlett growled.

“We’ve got nineteen days left on the clinical trials. That’s certainly enough time to conclude the procedure on her heart. But if we also try to—”

“Karl,” Bartlett said “it’s the Beta we should be focusing on. I’m looking at the Syndrome myself now, though I think I’ve got the strength of will to handle it. My mind is a lot stronger than Kris… Beta One’s. But I don’t want to have to find out. You’ve got to get this fucking problem fixed.”

“If we do use her, I can’t begin to tell you how unethical this is about to become.”

Bartlett wanted to remind Van de Vliet that ethics were the least of their problems at the moment, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you aired over an unsecure phone connection.

“Karl, just fucking do it,” he said finally. “If she’s not under way with the Beta before the end of this week, ethics are not going to be your primary concern. I may have to revisit some of our agreements. Cross me and you forfeit a lot.”

“All right” He sighed. “I know what I can do to make sure she’s in.”

“Good. Do it, whatever it is.” He now had to warn Van de Vliet about Stone Aimes, but how much information should he provide? He quickly decided to keep it simple. “Oh, and as though we didn’t already have enough problems, there’s something else I need to alert you about. There’s a smart-ass reporter from the New York Sentinel nosing around. Yesterday he got to my legal department and asked about Beta One, though he doesn’t know her name yet. He somehow found out she was terminated from the clinical trials. Please tell me you haven’t been talking to the press behind my back.”

“My God, I’ve been waiting for this to happen.” Van de Vliet sounded like someone who had just had the wind knocked out of him. “You know, Grant once mentioned that a reporter had been pestering him about getting an interview with me.”

“When?”

“Maybe two months ago, possibly three.”

“First I’ve heard about it,” Bartlett said. “I wish he’d told me. I could have taken steps.”

“It might be the same person. Now that I think about it, I do remember he mentioned the Sentinel. How much do you think he knows?”

“I’m not sure. The question in my mind is, how did he find out about her in the first place? He’s supposedly doing a book about us, Karl, a book about this project.”

“Well, that’s the first I’ve heard about that. Christ! A book!”

“I think he’s just fishing at the moment. But this should be a warning. We’ve got to keep security tight.”

“What do you know about him? Is he good?”

Yes, Bartlett thought, he’s damned good. The truth is, I’m almost proud of him sometimes.

“He’s the medical columnist for the paper. So happens, I own the building where their editorial offices are.”

“I don’t have time to read newspapers.”

“Well, he’s good enough that we may have to handle him somehow.”

“What are you trying to say?” Van de Vliet asked, though he sounded like he already knew.

“What I’m saying is, he’s a pro, and I get the strong impression he’s hungry.”

“Hungry for money or for fame?”

“If I knew that, I’d know what to do next,” Bartlett said. Probably some of both, he thought, if the kid is anything like his old man.

“Then why don’t we give him an interview? Meet the whole matter head-on. I’ve always found it better to shape the