Читать книгу The Pinocchio Syndrome - David Zeman - Страница 9

Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Gaithersburg, Maryland

8 P.M.

Dan Everhardt was discovered by his secretary ten minutes after the onset of his illness. Alarmed by his failure to emerge from the still-running shower, she opened the door and saw him lying under the spattering water, his eyes still open.

Within the hour the vice president was taken to Walter Reed, where he was placed under observation in the intensive care unit. His vital signs were normal, but he continued to display symptoms of a massive disturbance of function whose precise characteristics were difficult to pin down.

The night of his admission his primary physician received a visit from a Secret Service agent named Joseph Kraig.

‘Dr Isaacson,’ Kraig said, shaking the physician’s hand. ‘Thank you for making time to see me.’

‘We received a call from the White House asking us to cooperate with you in every way possible,’ the doctor said, not looking very happy about Kraig’s presence. ‘It seemed only reasonable to go along.’

The doctor studied Kraig, who was a deceptively ordinary-looking man in a dark suit. Kraig looked to be in his late thirties, prematurely gray at the temples, with shoulders and arms that bespoke good physical conditioning. He had quiet eyes whose neutral expression suggested a coiled inner force kept carefully hidden. Something about him was frightening; something else was reassuring. It was hard to tell the difference.

‘What can you tell me about the vice president?’ Kraig asked.

‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘it’s very ambiguous. At first we suspected a stroke. There is a rather dramatic impairment of mental function. But the tests we’ve done so far – EKG and so forth – don’t indicate any circulatory problem. I’m leaning toward the functional, but I’m far from sure.’

‘Functional?’ Kraig asked.

‘By that I mean a mental or emotional disturbance without a physical basis,’ the doctor said. ‘Of course, it’s too soon to say.’

‘Could you show me?’ Kraig asked.

‘I’d rather not,’ the doctor said. ‘It wouldn’t be appropriate for anyone outside the family …’

‘Has the family seen him?’ Kraig asked.

‘Only his wife. She didn’t think it would be good for the children to —’

Agent Kraig moved closer to the doctor and spoke in a low voice.

‘I understand your concerns, Doctor. But it is important that I get a clear view of the situation right away. Would you like me to have the head of the Secret Service call you?’

The doctor sighed. ‘No, let’s get it over with. Let me see if he’s awake first.’

The doctor left Kraig to wait in the corridor and disappeared into the hospital room. After a couple of minutes he emerged.

‘Come on in.’

Kraig followed the doctor into the room. Vice President Everhardt was propped up in the hospital bed, looking at the television screen on the ceiling. Not for the first time Kraig noticed the vice president’s size. He had the bulk of a football player.

‘Mr Vice President, I’d like you to meet someone,’ Dr Isaacson said. ‘This is Agent Kraig. He’s with the Secret Service.’

Everhardt looked at Kraig. There was something wrong with the expression in his eyes. Kraig could not put it into words, but the gaze didn’t seem lucid. The eyes seemed elsewhere.

‘That’s Kraig with a ‘K,’ Mr Vice President,’ Kraig said, moving forward to extend a hand.

Everhardt ignored the outstretched hand. He kept looking at Kraig for a few seconds, then looked back at the TV screen, on which an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie was playing.

‘You can call me Joe if you like,’ Kraig said. ‘Everybody does.’

Everhardt gave no sign of having heard the remark.

‘Mr Vice President,’ said the doctor, ‘I’d like to show Agent Kraig a couple of the things we were trying to do before. If that’s all right with you.’

Everhardt looked at the TV in silence.

‘Just to make sure there’s no mistake,’ the doctor said, ‘is your full name Daniel James Everhardt?’

No response.

The doctor took one of Everhardt’s hands. Everhardt looked down at his hand.

‘Can you just give my hand one firm squeeze?’ the doctor asked.

Everhardt stared at the clasped hands, but did not obey the command. At length he looked back up at the TV, leaving his hand in the doctor’s.

‘All right, Mr Vice President. Can you just look from the TV to Agent Kraig, and then back at the TV?’

There was no response.

The doctor gave Kraig a significant look. Then he pushed the call button on the phone beside the bed. A moment later a nurse appeared.

‘Yes, Doctor?’ she asked.

Everhardt looked at the nurse. His hand remained in the doctor’s.

‘Nothing, Nurse. My mistake,’ said the doctor.

The nurse left the room.

‘Mr Vice President, can you look at me?’ the doctor asked.

Everhardt, whose eyes had returned to the TV screen, did not react to the question.

The doctor escorted Kraig from the room.

‘You saw the essentials,’ he said.

‘He seems aware of his surroundings,’ Kraig said.

‘He is. His reflexes are normal. He reacts to new sights, to sounds. But he can’t do anything on command,’ the doctor said. ‘Nothing at all. He can look at the nurse when she walks in, but he can’t do it if I tell him to look at her.’

‘Did he walk in here under his own power?’ Kraig asked.

The doctor shook his head. ‘When they found him he was immobile. Rigid. He seemed to resist any attempt to move him.’

‘What about language?’ Kraig asked.

‘He hasn’t said a single word since they brought him in. He can’t repeat a word, or even a sound. He’s groaned a couple of times, but he hasn’t spoken. We don’t know if he can speak.’

Kraig was perplexed. ‘I’m not a doctor,’ he said, ‘but this seems very strange.’

‘It is very strange,’ the doctor said. ‘To have a paralysis of function this massive while all the vital signs are normal, and while he can obviously see and hear and react, is not something I’ve ever seen.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Kraig asked.

‘Keep him under observation. Run some more tests. Some more blood studies to look for infection or a metabolic disorder. Some more sophisticated neurological studies. An EEG and skull X-ray to rule out an atypical seizure disorder or brain tumor. Maybe an MRI.’

The doctor gave Kraig a look. ‘And, I think, a complete psychiatric workup with a thorough history.’

‘Why psychiatric?’

‘Well, his condition has some features of catatonic schizophrenia or certain types of conversion disorders. We’ll also have to rule out a factitious disorder.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The layman would call it faking,’ the doctor said. ‘I’d prefer to call it a kind of stress-related dysfunction. As you know, the vice president is under considerable stress at the moment. As is the president.’

‘You mean the calls for a special election?’ Kraig asked.

‘There could be a lot of ambivalence about a thing like that,’ the doctor said. ‘Especially in these troubled times.’

‘I see what you mean.’ Kraig knew that Dan Everhardt was a career legislator who probably would never have dreamed of running for high executive office if the president had not chosen him as his running mate five years ago. Now that the president was under attack, Dan Everhardt had to absorb the same blows from the media and from hostile forces in Congress.

‘You’re saying that he has a strong motive to be sick,’ Kraig offered. ‘Because it would get him off the hook politically.’

‘That’s correct,’ the doctor said. ‘Not that it’s a conscious decision on his part. The symptoms wouldn’t be this convincing if it was.’

There was a silence. The doctor started to say something, but stopped himself.

‘Yes, Doctor?’ Kraig asked.

‘Did you hear about that strange epidemic out in Iowa?’ the doctor asked.

‘You mean the people who can’t talk?’

‘Yes. It’s just a hunch on my part, but the vice president’s symptoms remind me of the reports about those people. I think it would be worth checking out.’

‘I’ll take care of it,’ Kraig said, making a note on a small spiral pad.

The doctor looked worried. ‘If this thing wasn’t confined … If it was a communicable disease of some sort …’

‘Yes?’ Kraig raised an eyebrow.

‘We wouldn’t know how to combat it,’ the doctor said. ‘We wouldn’t have a clue.’

Kraig looked at him in silence.

‘Of course, that’s very unlikely,’ the doctor went on. ‘What happened in Iowa is probably some kind of mass hysteria.’

‘Probably?’ Kraig asked.

‘Probably,’ the physician concluded. ‘In any case, we’ll work with what we have.’

‘Thank you for seeing me, Doctor.’

‘The hospital administrator tells me the media are waiting for a statement,’ the doctor said. ‘I waited to hear from you. From the government, I mean.’

‘I appreciate it. We can draft something together,’ Kraig said.

An hour later Joseph Kraig stood beside the hospital spokesman, an administrator named Dr Cobb, as he faced a large group of reporters outside the main hospital entrance. Video cameras were running, the bright lights making Kraig squint.

‘Dr Cobb, how is the vice president?’ The question came from several directions at once.

‘The vice president is well,’ Dr Cobb said. ‘We’ve been running a lot of tests today, and the patient is understandably tired. The tests will continue tomorrow.’

‘What is the current diagnosis, Doctor?’ Again several voices shouted this at once.

‘We’re not prepared to make a definitive diagnosis until a full battery of tests has been run.’

Every word so far, Kraig reflected, had been approved by the White House. This was no time for ad-libbing. Kraig’s eyes scanned the mob of reporters and video men. They looked like jackals closing in for the kill. The microphones on their poles were like the proboscises of oversized insects who fed on the pain of humans.

‘Doctor, is there any truth to the rumor that Vice President Everhardt’s condition has baffled your physicians?’

The question was asked by a young female reporter with dark hair, a woman Kraig did not remember seeing before.

‘No truth,’ Dr Cobb said.

‘Doctor, is it true that the vice president is mentally incapacitated?’

‘Not true,’ Cobb answered with some irritation.

‘Doctor, is there truth to the story that the vice president’s illness is connected in some way to the epidemic in Iowa?’

The questions were coming from the same reporter, who outdid even her Washington peers in rapid-fire attack.

‘Not at all,’ Cobb said.

To Kraig’s surprise, the next question was addressed to him.

‘Agent Kraig, are you concerned about protecting the health of other federal officials?’

Kraig narrowed his eyes at the reporter. Who was this hound, anyway?

‘It’s our job to protect the president and those who work alongside him,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how the vice president’s condition affects that.’

‘Does Vice President Everhardt’s incapacitation make you worry about the safety of other government officials?’

‘I wouldn’t call it incapacitation,’ Kraig said.

‘Have you interviewed the vice president yourself, Agent Kraig?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘And how did you find him?’

‘I have nothing to add to what Dr Cobb has told you.’

‘Agent Kraig, isn’t it true that Vice President Everhardt hasn’t said a single word since he became ill?’ The reporter’s dark eyes seemed to bore into Kraig.

Kraig frowned. He had had enough. ‘I repeat, I have nothing to add to what Dr Cobb has told you.’

Karen Embry nodded with a politeness tinged by lingering suspicion. She looked crisp and professional in her dark suit and blouse. Her hair had been brushed with care, and her makeup accentuated her delicate features. There were a lot of female reporters present, from the wire services and cable stations as well as the local media, but none was quite as attractive as Karen. It would have been hard for an observer to recognize in her the young woman who had dragged herself out of bed at seven o’clock this morning with a crushing hangover. But there was no such observer. Karen made sure that no outsider ever saw her without her professional armor on. And her beauty was part of that armor.

The news conference lasted another twenty minutes, all of them uncomfortable, as Dr Cobb parried questions from dozens of reporters. Finally, citing the late hour, the doctor called a halt to the session.

Grateful to make his escape, Kraig left the hospital and drove back to his office.

Since the attack on the Pentagon of September 11, 2001, many of the major federal agencies had been covertly moving around the city. The Secret Service was presently located in a nondescript office building a block away from HUD, in the shadow of Interstate 395. From the weedy parking lot full of unmarked vehicles no one would have guessed the place was a government facility. Only the name tags the agents and secretaries clipped on as they approached the entrance betrayed the true nature of the operation.

Most of the agents were out, but Kraig’s boss, Ross Agnew, was in. It was Agnew who had gotten Kraig this assignment. They had known each other as trainees twelve years ago. Agnew, a graduate of the University of Virginia and a former FBI agent, was a natural-born administrator and a gifted politician. He was the temperamental opposite of Kraig, a field agent who liked solitude and distrusted authority. But they got along well.

‘How is Everhardt?’ Agnew asked.

‘He didn’t look good to me,’ Kraig said. ‘But I’m not a doctor.’

‘Not good in what way?’

Kraig shook his head. ‘A sort of paralysis,’ he said. ‘He can’t talk, and he can’t obey simple commands. So far they can’t find anything wrong with him physically. If it’s mental, it’s bad mental.’

‘I take it he’s not in any condition to go back to work,’ Agnew said.

‘No way.’ Kraig shook his head.

Agnew thought for a moment.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell the White House. They’re not going to like it. Deep concern at the top level. You know what I mean.’

Kraig nodded. He cared little for politics. If it weren’t for that maniac Colin Goss angling to get into the White House, Kraig would not have cared who occupied the place.

‘Do you think the president will have to appoint another man?’ Agnew asked.

‘If Everhardt goes on this way, I’d say so,’ Kraig replied. ‘He’s incapacitated.’

‘Who do you think it might be?’

‘Search me.’ Kraig sat down.

He thought for a moment before saying, ‘Everhardt’s doctor was wondering about the epidemic in Iowa. There are some symptoms in common.’

‘Really?’ Agnew asked. ‘Which ones?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Kraig frowned. ‘I don’t know that much about Iowa.’

There was a silence.

‘Does the doctor think this might be something communicable?’ Agnew asked.

‘He doesn’t know. He seemed worried by the prospect.’

Kraig sat listening to the muted hum of the traffic on the expressway. He looked at the pictures on Agnew’s walls, most of which showed sailboats or fishing boats on the Chesapeake Bay. Agnew was leaning back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other. His knee stuck up well above the desktop. He was immensely tall, six feet eight or nine, and had once had the misfortune of guarding Chris Webber for three quarters in the NCAA semifinals.

Then he asked, ‘Do you see this changing our drill about the president or the top executive people?’

Agnew raised an eyebrow. ‘Why would it change anything?’

‘I had a reporter ask me that question at Walter Reed,’ Kraig said. ‘It was a strange question, but it had me thinking in the car. What if it were possible to incapacitate a public official intentionally, as a form of terror?’

‘Hmm,’ Agnew mused. ‘The Ipcress File. Is that what you’re thinking of?’

‘Yeah. If you can’t kill a guy, or force him out through scandal, you mess up his mind somehow.’

‘Science fiction,’ Agnew mused. ‘But anything is possible.’

There was a silence.

‘Why don’t you fly out there and see what you can learn?’ Agnew asked.

‘Iowa?’

‘Yeah.’

Kraig nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘But first go home and get a good night’s sleep,’ Agnew said. ‘I have a feeling the next few weeks aren’t going to be fun.’

Kraig gave Agnew a long look. ‘Right,’ he said.

Kraig stood up and left the office.