The Nirvana Plague Read online

  “Among active duty personnel.”

  “You have soldiers with psychiatric disorders?”

  “We do now.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “Doctor,” she said, “it’s happening on the line. It’s happening to perfectly healthy young men and women.”

  “On the battlefield?”

  “Yes. On the battlefield.”

  “What makes you think it’s the same disorder I wrote up?”

  She smiled again — more than a flash this time. He saw he’d finally asked the right question. “That’s why I want you to come to Bethesda and join my team.”

  Marley studied her. Pull the other one.

  She waited for a response.

  He realized she wanted to see how he would react.

  “OK,” he said, more or less seriously. “I’m in.”

  “We’re going to figure out what this thing really is and find a way to stop it. Organizational meeting will be 0800 in Building 33. You’ll be housed on the NIH campus. There’s a C-20 transport with priority clearance waiting at O’Hare to fly us back to Washington.”

  Marley couldn’t suppress a stunned grin. “What, now?”

  “Yes.” She nodded toward the two guards. “This is Lieutenant Tyminski and Lieutenant Tennover.” She waved Tennover forward. “I’m assigning Lieutenant Tennover to you as your personal aide. From this moment, you won’t go anywhere without him. When you reach Andrews—”

  Tennover nodded stiffly. “Doctor.”

  Marley blinked up at him — carrot-top, spattered all over with freckles, soft round face — bucks to balls he’d been called “Red” his whole life.

  Lieutenant Tyminski, on the other hand, was tall, dark, and ugly. If he had ever smiled, it hadn’t left a mark.

  Benford looked like she was ready to go. She was just waiting for Marley to catch up.

  “You want me to take off to Washington tonight? Just like that?”

  “No, doctor, not tonight. Now.”

  He kept trying to smile, for safety’s sake, but he couldn’t keep it up in front of her. “You couldn’t call first?”

  “Dr. Marley,” she said slowly, “listen to me carefully, please. We are in the early stages of an outbreak of infectious psychosis. Nobody in the general public really knows that yet, and almost nobody in the government. And that’s the way we want to keep it. You have direct clinical experience with this disease. Your paper is the first description of it in the medical literature outside classified Defense Department studies. And, frankly, it’s the most intelligent thing anybody has said about it in or out of the government. I realize you could never have imagined an hour ago this is how your day would end up, but it has. This is real. This is happening. Your country needs you.”

  Not a hint of self-consciousness or irony or satire. Your country needs you. What’s it gonna be, boy?

  “Well,” he said, “I have patients, you know.”

  “If you’d been hit by a bus crossing the street this morning, your patients—”

  He put up a hand to stop her. “All right. I get the point.”

  “I have a car outside. We’ll drive you home so you can pack, then take you on to O’Hare. Why don’t you let the lieutenant drive your car, and I’ll fill you in on the details en route?”

  A black sedan, government plates, crouched like a cat in front of the hospital, illegally parked, motor running. A white Chicago PD patrol car sat behind it, lights flashing. For a second, Marley thought the cops were calling a tow on it — which was funny. Then he realized it was a police escort — which was not.

  Marley surrendered his car keys to Tennover and pointed toward the staff parking lot across the street. Holding up the carfinder, the lieutenant trotted off, following its beacon. Marley followed Benford into the back of the government car. Her other aide dropped into the driver’s seat like a fighter pilot into a flight simulator.

  Benford extracted a tablet from a metal case on the seat beside her and handed it to him.

  He looked at it blankly.

  “That’s your machine,” she said. “Put your finger in the circle. That will authenticate it to your biochemical signature. Nobody but you will be able to use it.”

  “Which finger?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’ll want to review those materials today, so you can hit the ground running tomorrow.”

  He didn’t touch it. He thought of making some joke about the psychosexual implications of putting his finger in the hole: what if he couldn’t get it back out again? He looked up at her. “How long is this going to take?”

  “As long as it takes. We have been ordered to submit a plan of action by the end of the week. The plan itself will determine what happens after that.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why all the dramatics? I mean, flying out here to fetch me straight back to Washington, hit the ground running tomorrow, and all that. Why all this cloak and dagger urgency now if you’ve known about this thing since January?”

  “The initial outbreaks were scattered, they weren’t recognized as anything more than ordinary battle stress reaction. It wasn’t until February that someone at the Pentagon began to suspect something more might be going on. Memos were generated, reports made, and so on. Eventually, the problem attracted enough interest that the Joint Chiefs commissioned an analysis. A panel was formed, looked into it and drew a conclusion. The conclusion was that there was nothing to it. It could not be ruled out that individual incidents were not stress reactions or phony medical chapters. Clusters were attributed to statistical anomalies and copycatting. The recommended response was psychotherapy or disciplinary action. I was on that panel, but I dissented from their conclusions.”

  She paused.

  Her lieutenant swung the car through a left. Heading for the expressway. He knew exactly how to get to Marley’s house.

  Marley nodded. “So.”

  “So,” she continued, “the JCS didn’t quite buy it either. The outbreaks continued and seemed to be getting worse. And then a similar outbreak was reported in the non-classified literature.”

  “My paper.”

  “Yes.”

  “That brings us up to today. You’ll find a detailed timeline on that computer,” she said, as if trying to convince him to imprint it.

  They stopped at a traffic light.

  Marley looked out the tinted window. Men and women in trench coats hunched their shoulders against the cold wind. From the grimy plate glass of a failed boutique a naked mannequin watched the street, one delicate hand poised to bestow a blessing. Steam danced over a sidewalk grate in an eddy of wind; a bald beggar sat muttering to himself in its warmth.

  Pulling his attention back into the car, he ID’d himself to his new computer with the ball of his thumb.

  “I guess I’d better call my wife,” he said, “and tell her I won’t be home for dinner this month.”

  “Good. Here’s what you can tell her.…”

  Chapter 7

  Coffee Alley occupied the alley-corner of a block of glass-front shops on Sherman Avenue in Evanston, hard by the campus. A dozen tables lay scattered between the counter in the back and the tinted glass walls in the front. From speakers in the ceiling, old Van Morrison recordings melted down into the ambience. Students sat hunched over battered tablets, sipping coffee from cardboard cups, making it last as long as it could stay warm. A couple of faculty members sat near the counter, looking more relaxed, discussing the morning news over their own tablets.

  Karen nodded to them as she passed on her way to the back, shoulder bag bouncing against her hip.

  “Hullo, Karen!” the proprietor said, looking up from behind the counter.

  Ally was tall and thin. Big wet violet eyes. Straight auburn hair kept back in a braid. She favored long, dark, shapeless dresses with paisley prints. Purple fingernails. Cheap silver rings on most of her fingers.

  “Morning, Ally �
� afternoon rather. What’s going on with Carl? His secretary just called saying he was going to be out of town on business for ‘an indefinite period.’ Wanted me to reschedule Roger with Dr. Alexander.”

  “Yeah, he called me about an hour ago,” she said. “From the airport! — Let’s have some coffee. Want some lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Anything. I don’t care.”

  “I think we still have some of that left. Take a seat, I’ll bring it out.”

  Karen stayed at the counter, talking to her while she brought out some rolls and spread, sliced the rolls, and slathered them with faux tuna delight — made from chickpeas and God knew what else.

  “So where did he say he was going?”

  Ally answered over her shoulder from the cutting table: “Washington.”

  “What about?”

  “He said he’d been asked to serve on some kind of government commission at the NIH. A research project or something.”

  “Government research? Was this the first you heard about it?”

  “Weird, huh?”

  “Is that all he said?”

  “Pretty much. I’m sure he’ll call later. He was about to get on the plane. Sounded rushed. Said he had to call the office too, to arrange coverage for his appointments.”

  “Roger’s not going to see Alexander. He’s not going to see anyone anymore.”

  Ally plopped two cups of coffee on the counter in front of Karen.

  “Didn’t he say what the rush was about?” Karen said.

  “No.”

  Karen took the coffees, and Ally came round the end of the counter with two plates of food. They sat down close by the cash register so Ally could help customers as needed. At the next table, the two Northwestern staff were still reading and chatting about current events.

  “Did he say what kind of research?”

  “Something psychiatric I suppose.”

  “So your husband calls you from the boarding gate at the airport to tell you he suddenly has to jet off to Washington to do some emergency psychiatric research for the NIH?”

  Ally laughed. “When you put it like that.…”

  “Maybe it’s another woman! Maybe he’s got something going on the side in DC!”

  “Maybe he’s running away from home at last.”

  “At last?”

  “Well.” Ally looked away.

  “Anyway, it couldn’t be that,” Karen said. “He wouldn’t have called the office if it was that.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Ally wasn’t smiling.

  “I guess it’s not funny,” Karen said.

  The news was flickering silently on the screens in each corner of the room.

  Karen’s phone bleeped in the bottom of her bag, and she fished it out. “Yes?”

  An unfamiliar male voice responded. “Dr. Hanover?”

  “Speaking.”

  “My name is Gordon DeStefano. I’m with the Chicago Board of Health.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re looking for your husband, Dr. Hanover. Where are you now?”

  “What?”

  “We’re looking for you husband. Roger Sturgeon. Where are you now, Dr. Hanover?”

  “I’m, uh — Why are you looking for Roger? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Could you tell me where you are, please? I mean, is there somewhere we could meet you? We’d like your help.”

  After ten years of living with a brilliant schizophrenic astrobiologist, Karen had learned how to keep her feet in the most bizarre conversations. But even Roger made more sense than this voice on the line. “What’s wrong?”

  “Like I said, nothing’s wrong. We—”

  “If nothing’s wrong then why are you looking for my husband?”

  “There’s no need for you to be concerned. We’ll explain everything when we see you. Now where can we pick you up?”

  “If there’s nothing for me to be concerned about then there’s nothing to explain, is there?”

  “Where are you, please?”

  She punched off the call, and immediately rang Roger’s phone.

  Ally was watching her from behind her coffee cup.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Karen was listening to Roger’s phone ring. “The hell if I know! Some fool from the board of health. — Answer, goddammit!”

  “Board of health?”

  “That’s what he sa — Roger?”

  The ringing had stopped, but Roger didn’t answer.

  “Hello?” she said louder. She heard noises, people talking. Sounded like students. She heard someone breathing. “Roger! Are you there?”

  “Here,” came the answer.

  “Roger. Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  “Yes. But where is that?”

  “Well…”

  “Are you on campus?”

  “Yes,” Roger said.

  She heard a beep on the line. Board-of-Health man calling her back. She ignored it.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Well…” He was considering the question, parsing it.

  “What’s all?”

  “Roger, hand the phone to someone else, will you? Anybody. Hand it to someone. Hand the phone to someone.”

  Roger didn’t say anything.

  She listened intently.

  Someone said, “No thanks.”

  Someone laughed.

  Then: crack. He’d dropped the phone. She heard footsteps crunching past.

  She shouted into the phone.

  “Roger! God damn it!”

  The two professors stopped talking and looked at her. Everyone was looking at her.

  She stood up abruptly. “I’ve got to go find him.” She was already crossing toward the exit. “He’s probably down by Tech. That’s where he goes.”

  Ally stood and called after her: “Anything I can do?”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  She jogged across campus, carrying her bag in one hand, and her phone in the other, dodging the students thronging between classes. She headed for the Technology Institute building. He liked to go there and wander about. She still knew some of the Tech faculty, and knew it made them uncomfortable to have their former colleague lurking about the hallowed halls of science with his intellect in ruins, but she didn’t care. As for Roger, he seemed to take no notice of his friends or his enemies.

  Her phone kept ringing in her hand, but she knew it wasn’t Roger calling her back. She wondered what the nice Board-of-Health man wanted with Roger. She wanted to think there was no connection between this and Carl Marley going out of town, but the timing was too pat. Or was she getting paranoid? Roger had lost his paranoia. Had he shifted it to her?

  She trotted and skipped along the west side of the Tech building, trying to see over everyone else. She hoped he wasn’t inside. The place was immense — miles of corridors.

  She wondered if the students coming out knew him. Maybe she should ask them if they’d seen him. “You know the one? The nutcase with the black bag and the old boots without laces? Used to teach here long ago, back when you were still a virgin? Have you seen him?”

  Then she remembered that it sounded like he was outside when she’d called him. She remembered the footsteps passing the phone, crunching like they were on pavement, not terrazzo floors. She headed around toward the Shakespeare Garden. He liked to go and sit there. Sometimes, when it was warm, she’d bring a sandwich at lunch time and find him there, and they’d sit and eat on the long bench.

  But he wasn’t in the little park. She couldn’t get the image out of her head that Roger was dead. That was the reason the phone fell on the ground. Maybe that’s why “they” were looking for him. They’d found out that whatever he’d caught in the hospital was actually deadly. But it was already too late. Whatever he’d caught had just killed him, five minutes ago.

  Fear swept her along through the garden. Panic and dread together. And as al
ways, as in every pathetic crisis that she chased him through, there came that shameful little wish, the secret hope that maybe this time was the last time, that maybe now it would all at last be over and she could breathe again.

  But it wasn’t over.

  Chapter 8

  The C-20 that flew them to Andrews was big enough for over a dozen passengers, but they had it all to themselves. The two aides stretched out in the back of the cabin and dozed. Marley and his new boss sat up forward in a quad of facing seats.

  Benford came from the galley with two cold bottles of water and gave Marley one. She loosened her tie and put her feet up on the seat next to him. Now we’re buddies, see, I’m relaxing. She indicated his tablet, and said, “You’ll want to soak up as much of that material as you can. I need to catch up on messages.”

  Marley fell to his studies. An enormous volume of documentation had been amassed by the previous panel, far more than he could review in the next few hours. He decided to ignore the conclusions and analyses and go straight to the source materials. He sorted it all chronologically and starting working his way backwards through time.

  3 March 2027. 0530h LT, 1430udt.

  Vanala, Kashmir, India.

  Operation Broad Reach.

  Cpt Jas. Caldwell.

  Delta Co. 2nd Mech Infantry.

  Unknown psychiatric disorder continues to affect frontline personnel. Cpl Petifer affected last night, began to exhibit typical symptoms — disorientation, passivity, confusion, failure to follow or understand command orders. Maj Dr. Wharmby took him off line 0100h LT. Delta’s force now stands reduced by 30%.

  Enemy emplacements continue artillery barrage hourly from multiple locations. Intelligence on their positions and movements extremely low reliability. Shelling is intense but ineffective. Nightsmoke agent makes our surveillance and nightvision equipment useless. Delta has been able to hold but not advance.

  Status: Unable to continue effective operations. Dr. Wharmby advises evacuation and quarantine of affected personnel. Command affirms request. Advised: Delta is undermanned. Replacement personnel required to continue operations. If current conditions continue, it will be impossible to hold.

  There were dozens of Situation Reports like this one from COs and field doctors in various theatres, from Argentina to Pakistan. Medical reports from forward hospitals gave the symptoms in more clinical terms, but not much more useful detail. Subsequent psychiatric evaluations from base hospitals shed little additional light. He read through a few of the patient charts carefully, comparing the daily notes and observations against the conclusions and diagnoses. Symptoms and observations clearly supported the conclusions drawn. He didn’t get it.