Invasive Procedures Read online

  Wyatt was startled. He stepped back and looked at her, his own tears stopped. “Mom, I’m okay. Really. I’m not hurt, see?” He wiped his cheeks and forced a smile.

  Monica managed to smile back. She was kneeling, which made them equal in height. She pulled his forehead to hers and took a deep calming breath.

  The sobs ceased. Her breathing slowed.

  Be strong, Monica, she told herself. That’s what Wyatt needs right now. Strength. He’s pretending to be brave because he sees that you’re distraught. He’s trying to help you. You need to do the same. Focus.

  She looked into his eyes and felt her muscles relax. “I’m just happy to see you,” she said. “That’s all. I was worried about you.”

  “I wasn’t sure you were going to come,” he said.

  “Of course I was going to come.”

  “You sounded scared on the phone.”

  She glanced back at the door. “I was scared.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Me too.”

  She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Well, I’m here now. And nothing is going to happen to you.”

  Wyatt smiled again, and this time is was genuine. They embraced.

  “They gave me a shot,” he said when they parted. “I told them I wasn’t supposed to have any shots, not by anyone who wasn’t a doctor, but they gave it to me anyway.”

  She put her hand on the side of his face. “It’s okay,” she said, not knowing if it was true. “I’m not angry. They gave me one, too. We’re going to be fine.”

  He nodded his head, visibly relieved to have her reassure him.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?” she said.

  He looked at the floor and spoke quietly. “We were walking to school, Rosa and me, and this van . . . it pulled over and . . .”

  His bottom lip quivered.

  Monica pulled him close again. “Shh. It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. It’s okay.” Galen had recounted to Monica on the drive how his associates—which Monica interpreted to mean “large men like Stone”—had taken Wyatt that morning while Wyatt and Rosa were walking to school. But to hear Galen describe it, it had been a pleasant experience for everyone, and Wyatt had practically been a willing participant. Monica knew better.

  She rubbed Wyatt’s back and held him for a minute in silence. When they parted, he was calm again.

  Monica looked around the room. It was clearly intended to resemble a child’s bedroom. The walls were painted a pale blue. The twin bed in the corner had blankets and sheets printed with colorful dinosaurs. “Wyatt loved dinosaurs. The rug on the floor was in the shape of the United States, with each of the state boundaries and capitals clearly marked. In the corner sat a widescreen, high-definition television, the kind that Monica had seen in electronic stores with ridiculous price tags. Three long cords twisted from the back of it and connected to a video-game console, which sat on the floor beside a precariously tall stack of unopened video games.

  “Did you play a game?” she asked, motioning toward the television.

  “They have Potato Commandos,” Wyatt said with a sniffle. He reached over and retrieved the case.

  “You’ve been wanting this one,” Monica said, flipping the box over and looking at the screen shots on the back. It was a silly game. Armed potatoes waddled around dirt fields shooting each other and exploding into mounds of mashed buttery carnage. It was far less violent than some of the other games Wyatt had asked for, and Monica had intended to get it for him for his birthday.

  “Did you try it out?” she asked. The plastic wrapping had been removed and lay on the ground beside him.

  “Where’s Rosa?” he asked. Monica saw that he was twisting his right forefinger. It was a nervous habit he had.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t think they hurt her.” She took his hands in hers.

  “They gave her a shot,” he said.

  “Yes, they told me.”

  “Is she dead? Did the shot . . . kill her?” His voice was soft again, almost a whisper.

  “No no no, Wyatt. The shot made her sleep. She’s not dead. She’s fine. She’s probably awake by now.” Monica didn’t know if it was true, of course, but Galen had said as much, and right now it did Wyatt good to hear it.

  “Is she going to come get us? I want to go home.”

  Monica put her hands on his arms. “I know you do, sweetheart, but—”

  There was a knock on the door, and Galen poked his head in. “It’s time, Doctor. We should get going.”

  Monica didn’t look at him. Let him wait.

  Galen disappeared into the corridor, and the door closed.

  “Who’s that?” Wyatt said.

  “Nobody.” She felt her voice getting high again. It did that when her throat tightened and she felt the urge to cry. She exhaled again and kept her cool. “I need to go right now but—”

  “No.” He clung to her, suddenly panicked.

  She took his face in her hands again and spoke gently. “Wyatt, I need you to be brave. I need you to be strong. Can you do that for me? I have to go now, but I’m not leaving the building, all right? I’ll be back very soon. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise you.”

  “But I don’t want to be by myself.”

  Monica’s heart ached. “I’ll be back to check on you soon. You can count on it.”

  “When can we leave, then? When can we go?”

  “Soon. We’re going to go soon. Here, let’s give this Potato Commandos a whirl, what do you say?” She pushed the eject button and dropped the game disc into the slot. The machine took a moment to recognize the disc, and then the music began. A potato wearing an Uncle Sam costume pointed at the screen and called for recruits.

  “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you,” Wyatt said.

  “You can’t, sweetheart. Besides, look at this great room. It’s got dinosaurs, games, lots of cool stuff. We can’t go without you trying some of it out, right?”

  He didn’t look persuaded.

  “I’m coming back,” she said. “I promise.”

  “Pinky swear?” he asked, holding up his little finger.

  She hooked it into hers. “Pinky swear.”

  Outside in the corridor Galen greeted Monica happily. “Well, what do you think? Quite the little boy’s room, isn’t it? I designed it myself. At first, I had a big rocking horse brought in, but some of the men thought Wyatt might be a little old for that. I see now that they were right. He’s very tall for his age. Fascinating games, though, don’t you think? Potatoes shooting potatoes. It’s wonderfully immature, I know, but I can’t help but laugh at it.” He gave a giddy chuckle.

  Monica felt sick again. She wanted nothing more than to go back into the room, grab Wyatt, and run. Stone was no longer around. She was alone now with Galen and felt fairly confident that she and Wyatt could outrun him.

  But Stone couldn’t be far. Plus she had no idea where she was exactly, which direction led to an exit, and how far away help might be once she found it. If she was in a hospital, maybe help was closer than she realized.

  Then again, Galen had said he had designed the room for Wyatt himself. If it was a hospital, it wasn’t a functioning one.

  “Well, no need to diddle daddle,” he said. “I imagine you’ll want to meet them as soon as possible.”

  “Meet who?”

  “Your patients,” he said, rubbing his hands together. Then he turned on his heels and headed down the corridor. After a few steps he turned back and motioned for her to follow. “Well, come on then.”

  Monica took a final look at the door. Even with it closed she could hear the sounds of the video game. Wyatt was occupied. And for now, more importantly, he was safe. If she did what she was asked, he’d remain safe. Or so she hoped.

  “Time is precious, Doctor,” Galen said, walking backward and waving her to come quickly.

  With no other option
but to obey, Monica followed.

  6

  SCRIPTURE

  The Gulfstream was somewhere over the Midwest, heading toward Los Angeles. By now, Frank felt even more unsettled by the image of the dead police officer and the rest of the V16 report. If what Agent Riggs said was true, these Healers, as they called themselves, had two identities. The public knew them as civil servants, a fringe religion based more on human kindness than on any specific theology. They wore black capes, gave out free food, and treated simple surface wounds with bandages and Neosporin. A walking first-aid kit with a meal to boot.

  But in the shadows, unbeknownst to most, Healers had a much more complex agenda. There they had built a virus in hopes of using it to heal those with genetic diseases.

  “And the cape,” Frank said, “this cape you found in the rubble after the explosion, that’s the only bit of evidence you have to link these . . . Healers to the labs and the virus?”

  “No,” said Riggs. “We also found this.” He opened a briefcase and removed a plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag was a badly burned book, no bigger than a thin paperback. He offered the bag to Frank.

  “What is it?” Frank said.

  “Open it.”

  Frank unsealed the plastic bag, removed the book, and examined its cover. It was made of brown suede and had been damaged by both fire and the water that had extinguished the fire. Frank checked the spine and gently wiped some of the soot off the cover in hopes of finding a title. There wasn’t one.

  Carefully, so as not to damage the pages any more than they already were, Frank opened the book. Most of the pages were burned at the corners or heavily wrinkled from water damage. At first Frank thought this a journal, since the text was handwritten instead of printed.

  Then he found the illustrations.

  Glued into the book at what seemed a random order were hand-drawn illustrations that reminded Frank of drawings found in monastic manuscripts. Except instead of featuring saints and angels or pious-looking cardinals, these drawings all depicted the same young, dark-haired man in a white shirt and red necktie. In the first illustrations the man had a hand extended, raising someone from a sickbed.

  He was a Healer in the traditional sense.

  One of the illustrations was much more difficult to decipher. In it, the young man in the red necktie stood in the center of the page, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. Held between his hands was a syringe with the needle pointed heavenward with gold rays of light shooting forth from the needle’s tip. Flanking the man in the red necktie were two naked men nearly twice his size, their muscles massive, their necks thick. Rays of light from the syringe rested on selected parts of their body: their arms, their legs, their chest, their nose, their feet. Frank was clueless as to the drawing’s meaning.

  Continuing on, he flipped to the final illustration. It was wider than the others, filling two full pages and only slightly damaged by fire. Here there were five men in red neckties, all identical, like quintuplets, standing in a circle, arms linked. Their hands were pressed together in front of them. Light shot from their fingertips and converged into a single orb of golden light glowing above them. The caption at the bottom of the illustration read: The Council of the Prophets.

  Frank looked up at Riggs, an eyebrow raised. “Council of the Prophets?”

  Riggs shrugged. “Your guess is as good as ours. What is clear is that these Healers are a few doughnuts short of a dozen. If you think the illustrations are weird, you should try reading the text.”

  “What is it?” Frank said, turning the book over in his hands.

  “As far as we can tell, it’s the Healer Bible, so to speak. Their book of scripture.”

  Frank flipped back to the beginning. The title page had survived the fire.

  THE BOOK OF BECOMING

  Helping Man Reach His Full Potential

  by George Galen

  “George Galen,” Frank said, looking up at Riggs with a tone of recognition. “Why is that name familiar to me?”

  “He’s a geneticist,” said Riggs. “Something of a scientific legend, I’m told. Years ago he served as one of the principal researchers on the Human Genome Project.”

  Ah yes, thought Frank. Pompous George Galen. He had enjoyed a brief flash of fame following the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. What was supposed to have taken researchers fifteen years to complete, Galen and the others had done in thirteen, two years ahead of schedule. The project successfully identified the thirty thousand or so protein-coding genes in human DNA and determined the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. The resulting database was to be used as the foundation for further genetic research and sequencing. All life sciences were affected by it: biology, medicine, even sociology to some extent. It was the supposed beginning of the genomic age.

  But the project was not without its obstacles, Frank remembered. Galen clashed often with colleagues, arguing over what researchers called ELSI, or the ethical, legal, and social implications of the human genome. According to some accounts, one argument became so heated that Galen threw a chair, which struck and broke a research assistant’s nose. No charges were ever filed, but Galen thereafter brought a contentious mood to the project. The New York Post even ran a cartoon in which two lab assistants were strangling each other with strands of DNA.

  It was a public relations nightmare.

  The situation only worsened when the project concluded and Galen returned to his post at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a small component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There Galen discovered that his annual budget was still a paltry two percent of the NIH’s annual allotted spending.

  Galen claimed he had been cheated. With the genome mapped, he was ready to translate the sequence information into potential health benefits. But to do so he needed money. And lots of it.

  Rather than take his case to the NIH, however, Galen did the unthinkable: he hit the talk-show circuit, slandering the NIH and blaming it for all the medical maladies Galen believed would be cured should he be granted the proper resources and funding. What he said about the presidential administration and those in Congress responsible for allocating the NIH’s funding was no less scathing.

  It was professional suicide. Galen was thereafter ignored in all scientific circles. The NHGRI sent him packing and stripped him of all standing. Even universities, which had always extended an inviting hand, now turned a blind eye. Time magazine even ran a front cover article entitled “Fallen from Grace.” After that, Galen slipped from the public radar.

  That was seven or eight years ago.

  “Galen is a Healer?” asked Frank.

  “So it seems,” said Riggs.

  “I suppose that makes sense,” said Frank. “If you’re going to attempt to make a gene-therapy virus, and do what modern medicine has not yet achieved, you’re going to need the talents of someone like George Galen.”

  “Yes,” Riggs agreed.

  “What about the guy in all the illustrations?” said Frank. “The guy with the tie.”

  Riggs shrugged. “Not sure. But whoever he is, Galen and the Healers consider him their prophet.”

  “And the Council of the Prophets? These men that look like five versions of the same guy. What about them?”

  “Like I said, your guess is as good as ours. The book raised more questions than it answered. But it did help in one respect.”

  “And that is?”

  Riggs gestured for the book, and Frank handed it to him.

  “Here in the back.” He flipped to the end of the book. “We found a list.”

  Frank looked. There, handwritten on the page, was a list of names and addresses. Some of the addresses were burned away or only partially legible, but some remained unscathed. Beside each name was written a genetic disease.

  “Who are these people?” Frank asked.

  “Patients,” Riggs said. “People whom the Healers have treated with the virus.
”

  Frank felt his stomach tighten. “What do you mean ‘treated’? They were given the virus?”

  “After we found the book—and remember this was all in the last forty-eight hours—we went to one of these addresses to talk to this person.” He pointed to the first name on the list. “Patrick Caneer. Sickle-cell anemia.”

  “And?”

  “And we found him, in bed, with an IV in his arm and with several large sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling in a circle around his bed. Like the boy in the bubble.”

  “A containment curtain?”

  “A do-it-yourself containment curtain,” Riggs said. “Healers had hung the plastic, given him the virus, and then told him to stay in bed for three days while the virus ran its course and cured his sickle-cell anemia.”

  Frank was momentarily dumbfounded. The audacity of a homemade curtain, the idea that a little tarp and some duct tape could keep a virus like VI6 in check, made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Compared to all the many doors and precautions that existed in Biosafety Level 4, a few sheets of plastic was practically nothing.

  “And when you found him, how was he?” Frank said.

  “Scared out of his mind,” said Riggs, “not because of the virus, but because he thought we were going to arrest him. Decent kid. In his early twenties.”

  “He wasn’t harmed by the virus?”

  “Remember, the virus can be engineered for a specific person. In this case, it had been engineered for Patrick Caneer. The strain of virus carried exactly what he needed, the genes to cure his sickle-cell. To everyone else, however—Patrick’s family, his neighbors—the virus was a terrible threat. Lethal, even. Let’s not forget our friend here.” He tapped the image of the dead police officer. “And the Healers are obviously aware of the threat. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother to build a containment curtain. Patrick also informed us that the Healers explained to his family the need to steer clear of the kid while the virus ran its course.”

  Insane. Absolutely insane. So irresponsible in the handling of a lethal virus that it took Frank a second to gather his thoughts. “And when you found him,” he said finally, “he was okay?”