Mirrors (4 page)

“Has it worked?”

“So far, yes, but XK59 has the potential to unveil our secrecy.”

Outside, we had reached the base of Capitol Hill where police had cordoned off a raucous crowd protesting WAFTA. On both sides—protestors and police—tempers flared, a volatile mix that seemed poised to explode at any point.

The Rayburn House
Office Building was built in 1965 for the House of Representatives. Located across the street from the Capitol, it straddles the south side of Independence Avenue. I’d seen the building previously on a visit to the Library of Congress but never had reason to enter it.

We paused at a guard station where a sentry checked Bird’s ID. He waved us to a subterranean garage from which we rode an elevator to a third floor conference room. Three men and a woman had assembled at a table leaving four chairs free. A bare wall glowed blue from the lamp of an overhead projector while, sitting just beyond the blue and apart from the table, a diminutive man slunk in a chair.

Silence fell over the room as we entered.

“Gentlemen,” a burly man at the head of the table called in a gravelly voice steeped in a southern accent. He attempted to stand but his paunch struck the table, sending him back. “Please take your seats so we can begin.”

Bird lifted a deferential hand toward the man as he addressed me. “Dr. Krispix, please meet The Honorable Homer McCloskey, Chairman of the Task Force that oversees the UNIT.”

“Ah, Jason Krispix,” McCloskey bellowed. “We appreciate you taking time from PAHO to work with us.”

“Yes sir,” I said, observing discordance between his welcome and the cold eyes that bore in on me. Had I been in court, I would have been the defendant meeting the prosecutor.

We took our seats.

“I wish these were better times,” McCloskey continued, “but we play the cards as they’re dealt.” He pivoted. “Dr. Moon-Oz, your report, please.”

Muñoz placed his hands on a laptop, unfazed by the mispronunciation of his name, but before he could speak, a lanky figure leaned forward onto the table and asked, “No introductions?” His voice undulated through phlegm.

“My apologies,” McCloskey quipped. Although his tone was deferential, he glared at the lanky man. “Go ahead, Pete, start us off.”

“Congressman Peter Shaker,” the man gurgled through more phlegm. “Eighth district, Virginia—serving the suburbs just across the Potomac River from us.” He slumped to the point where his graying goatee swiped the table. An arched nose protruded between sunken eyes the color of alpine lakes.

I nodded obligingly.

McCloskey shifted his glare to the man beside Shaker, making me wonder whether the Chairman of the Task Force was irascible by nature or simply having a bad day.

“Nick Kosta, thirtieth district, Texas,” the man said, his voice little more than a whisper. He had a pleasing quality—suave, gentile, urbane—yet his cheeks were hollow, skin sallow, eyes haggard. He was languid, all but his moustache, a silver sliver that quivered anxiously.

“The final introduction is mine to make,” McCloskey said, his face finally brightening. He motioned to the sole woman. “This is Dr. Sigrid Bjornstad, a psychiatrist from the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. We recruited her for her expertise in profiling psychopaths. After Dr. Moon-Oz speaks, she’ll discuss the mysterious messages the XK59 victims received after they fell ill.”

Bjornstad was all vertical lines—sleek, tall, and poised. She had long blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders in the style of the Swiss girl portrayed on chocolate bars who stands in a dirndl before a chalet and snow-capped mountains. I expected her to break into
Sixteen going on Seventeen
or
Do Re Mi
, but she sat stone-faced with nary a twitch.

McCloskey held his smile for Bjornstad well after she nodded diplomatically. Rotating, he said, “You’ll have to forgive the absence of the remaining Task Force members. With the WAFTA vote approaching quickly, a number of them are double-or triple-booked.” His eyes tightened. “Dr. Bird, I trust you underscored the need for the strictest secrecy here.”

Bird nodded.

“Very well, Dr. Mooz-Oz, the floor’s yours.”

From the wall, a soft “ahem.”

McCloskey rolled his eyes. “Oh, almost forgot you, didn’t I, Paul? Are you there still?” He looked over his shoulder.

The diminutive figure squeaked, “Aye, sir.”

“Speak up, my friend!”

The man stood. “Paul DeTrigger, Task Force assistant.”

“That’s my boy,” McCloskey chortled. “Keeps the trains runnin’ here.”

It struck me then: I’d heard McCloskey’s warbling drawl on Sunday talk shows among policy wonks, journalists, and politicos. He was a wizen Representative who floated trial balloons for the Administration, a man who staunchly defended its policies and took barbs flung at it. He was an ideal front man because his down-home style disarmed critics: an attack on “Gramps McClosker” was an assault on America’s seniors, and few ventured to launch such attacks.

I studied him closely. His hair was parted in the middle, creating two arched tufts that jiggled when he moved. Without makeup, he revealed more wrinkles than on television, although his eyes were truer blue than the camera made them to be. With each syllable he uttered, his bushy white eyebrows sailed up and down like horses on a carousel. I could see now how he’d held his seat in Congress for forty years: He was a marquis of middle-America, a man who gracefully accepted the foibles of aging—stooped back, knotted hands, skin thinned from years of sun—without succumbing to them. It would have taken a mighty foe to unseat him, one with an invincible war chest of the sort yet to amass in his New Orleans district.

“Well, then, Dr. Moon-Oz,” he said. “Without further ado, I ask you to take a moment to summarize your professional background for my colleagues.”

“A pleasure, sir,” Muñoz said. “I was born and raised in Peru but came to the United States after medical school to train in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Following that, I assumed the job I hold now at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. My work there focuses on dengue virus, a pathogen transmitted by mosquitoes that causes, among other things, a bleeding disorder called dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome that shares similarities with the illnesses we’re seeing with XK59.”

“Which is why we recruited Dr. Moon-Oz in the first place,” McCloskey interjected. “Some initially thought dengue virus might be responsible for the illnesses.”

“Not all of us,” Congressman Peter Shaker objected. He looked at McCloskey with defiance. “It would be most unusual for dengue virus, transmitted as it is by mosquitoes, to strike simultaneously in various regions of the U.S. given its virtual absence from our country for decades.”

Flagstaff whispered into my ear: “Shaker’s a physician, too. He practiced for decades before coming to Congress.”

“A valid point,” Muñoz relinquished, “but with global warming we may see more domestically-acquired mosquito-borne infections.” He pointed to me. “Dr. Krispix can attest to that. The virus he’s working with, West Nile, abruptly entered the U.S. in 1999 and has been spreading throughout the Americas since.”

Bird, disquieted it seemed for being excluded from a doctor-to-doctor exchange, added: “So, before we discovered XK59 in the victims, we considered a wide array of diagnoses. That’s why we tested the victims for more than forty viruses known to produce fever and bleeding.” He nodded at Muñoz, who, taking the cue, started his slide show.

“This is just a partial list of viruses we checked the victims for,” Muñoz noted. “But none were present, including dengue.” He turned to me. “West Nile’s not listed because it doesn’t cause bleeding.”

“Which leads us to XK59,” Bird said, moving Muñoz along.

“Yes,” Muñoz agreed, displaying a look of irritation for being prodded. “So, let’s define what I mean by a ‘case of XK59 poisoning.’ ”

He advanced the slide.

“As you can see, it’s any person in the U.S. who, beginning as early as three weeks ago, experienced abrupt bleeding and exhibited XK59 in one or more tissue specimens.”

“Did you quantify the level of XK59 in the victims?” I asked.

“That’s under way at—”

“—our lab,” Bird spurted. “We should have the results shortly.”

Another slide
…

“This is what epidemiologists call an ‘epidemic curve,’ ” Muñoz explained. “It plots the cases by date of onset of illness, location, and whether they survived or died. As you can see, there are twelve victims we know about so far from around the country, all hospitalized. Three have died. The latest fell ill a little more than a week ago on July 20th.”

I flinched at the location of the most recent fatal case:
Marinero, CA
.

Congressman Kosta stirred. “Had the victims gathered at a common site any time—at a conference, airplane, or wedding, for example?”

“No,” Muñoz replied, “which leads me to ask Dr. Krispix something: Is it conceivable the protein could spread through the air?”

My eyes held fast on the name,
Marinero, CA
. “Airborne transmission?” I asked, finally prying them away. “I doubt it because I found that ultraviolet light disrupts the protein and, besides, if airborne transmission accounted for the cases, we’d probably have seen far more illnesses by now.”

“What about water?”

“Unlikely because chlorine denatures XK59.”

Muñoz tapped the keyboard
…

“As you see, both males and females of varying races and ethnicities have become ill.”