46
Mark and Gwen spent
a fitful night tossing and turning in separate beds. It was more
than a little strange for Mark to have Gwen that close and yet that
far away. Easy boy. She’s married and
pregnant. They don’t get much more “off-limits” than
that.
Up at dawn, they
went to a coffee shop across the street and then returned to the
room. Gwen showered while Mark went online and began doing
research. He also placed a call to Lonny Reisman to see if his
friend had been able to refine BioNet’s original findings and
another call to the paper to let them know that he was still alive,
still undercover, and still “working on a killer
story.”
“So what’s up?”
asked Gwen, emerging from the bathroom wearing a fresh blouse and
pair of denim jeans, her hair still slightly damp. Mark admired her
for a millisecond—all that he would allow under the
circumstances—before returning his attention to the laptop
screen.
“I’ve just spoken to
my friend at Active Healthcare,” Mark said. “His company has stats
in the form of millions of claims and doctors’ reports. The seizure
pattern goes far beyond what BioNet found.”
Gwen’s eyes opened
wide. “How so?”
“The trend also
exists in small to midsize cities. Muncie, Hattiesburg, Pensacola,
Modesto, Carlsbad, Flagstaff, and dozens that you might not even
recognize. Mandeville, Louisiana. Garden City, Kansas. Jamestown,
North Dakota. Farmington, Arizona. Essex Junction, Vermont. The
list goes on and on. There are seizure spikes everywhere, although
the actual number of seizures, fatal or otherwise, is naturally
much smaller in these populations. They would probably have shown
up in a system as sophisticated as BioNet sooner or later, but
Lonny’s outfit has a much richer data feed.”
“Then the crisis is
far worse than we could have imagined.” Gwen retrieved the pictures
she had taken of Gene McMurphy’s map. Red dots marked the cities,
large and small, that Mark, BioNet, and the AE files had found.
Gwen clenched her fist. “We’ve got to notify somebody, Mark, before
this continues. I took an oath to protect the health and welfare of
this nation’s citizens.”
“I know, I know. But
we’ve been through this before. We don’t know who to trust right
now. We need some hard data.”
“Showing what? That
Marci was aware of a very dangerous man named Dieter Tassin? We
already have that, and a sex slave story is not exactly going to
provide the attorney general or the FDA commissioner with useful
information on this case. I’d say we’re way off course. We already
have hard data on seizure activity.”
Mark loved
opportunities like the one Gwen just lobbed to him.
“Okay, then. Follow
this. I’ve been using the Wall Street
Journal database on consumer spending to find out what
people have been buying during the last year. It’s highly accurate.
What Lonny Reisman’s data does for medical trends, the Journal’s database can do for spending patterns. It
can pinpoint very specific data on almost any product that’s out
there.”
“I can tell by the
look on your face that you think you’ve found
something.”
“It appears so.
First, my research indicates that cigarette purchasing patterns
have remained very stable. The number of young people starting to
smoke pretty much equals the number of people who quit or die from
lung cancer or emphysema. There’s just no trend indicating that
cigarette sales are up.”
“But that misses the
point. The number of packs sold isn’t as important as what’s
actually in those packs.”
“Yes, and we need to
continue to consider that. But one product that has skyrocketed in
sales is coffee.”
Gwen shook her head.
“And I’m sure you could say the same for a thousand other
products—various auto makes, appliances, iPods, clothing,
what-have-you. Besides, gourmet coffee is popular these days. So
what? There’s just nothing in coffee that can cause a seizure.
Caffeine is the active ingredient, and while it certainly alters
metabolism, it just doesn’t affect the seizure
threshold.”
“You’re so sure that
tobacco can be tampered with, but you won’t entertain the
possibility that—”
Gwen’s cell phone
rang. She pulled it out and flipped it open.
“No!” Mark said
emphatically.
He was too
late.
“Hello—”
Mark leaped up,
grabbed the cell, and clicked it off.
“Shoot,” said Gwen.
“Reflex. That was dumb. I guess I was hoping it was the hospital
since they have my cell number.”
Mark looked at the
number of the missed call. “The call wasn’t from an area code
anywhere around here.”
“That means we hit
the road again, doesn’t it?”
“You got
it.”
They packed
hurriedly, paid their bill, and got back in the
Suburban.
“Do you have any
idea where we’re going?”
“Do you know of a
lab where I can get a coffee bean analyzed?”
“I can’t believe you
just asked me that.”
“Gwen, the plants at
the bottom of the map in your pictures? It’s hard to tell in the
dim lighting, but they look like coffee plants.”
Gwen leaned her head
against the window and sighed in frustration. “The best place to go
is Quantico. Jack has a lot of Secret Service buddies who work
there. I think we’d get in with no problem, and they have a lab at
the facility.”
“Quantico it is,”
declared Mark. “Before we even get there, I’ll have you convinced
that coffee is behind all this.”