Seizure (3 page)

“I probably shouldn't bring this up . . .” Daniel began.

“Then don't,” Stephanie interjected, having an immediate inclination of where Daniel was heading.

“But I should,” Daniel said. “In fact, I have to, and this is a better time than later. Several days ago, you said you were going to research our tormentor, Senator Ashley Butler, with the idea of possibly giving me some help for tomorrow's hearing. I know you looked into it, but you didn't say anything. How come?”

“My recollection is that you agreed to forget about the hearing for tonight.”

“I agreed to try to forget about the hearing,” Daniel corrected. “I haven't been totally successful. Did you not bring up what you learned because you didn't find anything helpful or what? Help me here, and then we can put it all aside for the rest of the night.”

Stephanie looked off for a few beats to organize her thoughts. “What do you want to know?”

Daniel let out a short, exasperated laugh. “You're making this more difficult than it needs to be. To be truthful, I don't know what I want to know, because I don't know enough to even ask questions.”

“He's not going to be easy.”

“We already had that impression.”

“He's been in the senate since 1972, and his seniority gives him significant clout.”

“I'd assumed as much, since he's the chairman of the subcommittee,” Daniel said. “What I need to know is what makes him tick.”

“My impression is he's a rather typical, old-fashioned Southern demagogue.”

“A demagogue, huh?” Daniel questioned. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “I suppose I have to admit to my stupidity here. I've heard the word
demagogue
before, but to tell you the truth, I don't really know exactly what it means other than its pejorative sense.”

“It refers to a politician who makes use of popular prejudices and fears to gain and hold power.”

“You mean, in this instance, like the public's concern about biotechnology in general.”

“Exactly,” Stephanie admitted. “Especially when the biotechnology involves words like
embryo
and
cloning.
”

“Meaning embryo farms and Frankenstein scenarios.”

“Precisely,” Stephanie said. “He plays on people's ignorance and worst fears. And in the Senate, he's an obstructionist. It's always easier to be against issues than for issues. He's made a career of it, even bucking his own party on numerous occasions.”

“It doesn't sound good for us.” Daniel moaned. “It rules out trying to convince him with any kind of rational argument.”

“Unfortunately, that's my take as well. That's why I haven't told you what I'd learned about him. It's depressing someone like Butler is even in the Senate, much less having the seniority and power he has. Senators are supposed to be leaders, not people who are there for power's sake.”

“What's depressing is that this dimwit has the power to block my creative and promising science.”

“I don't have the feeling he's a dimwit,” Stephanie corrected. “Quite the contrary. He's been very creative in his own right. I'd even have to say Machiavellian.”

“What are some of his other issues?”

“The usual fundamentalist, conservative ones. States' rights, of course. That's a biggie. But also he's against things like pornography, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and that sort of thing. And, oh yeah, he's against abortion.”

“Abortion?” Daniel questioned with surprise. “He's a Democrat and not pro-choice? He's starting to sound like a member of the Republican hard right.”

“I told you he's not afraid of bucking his party when it suits him. He's definitely against abortion, although his stance has required some maneuvering and backpedaling on occasion. In the same way, he's been tap-dancing around civil rights issues. He's a clever, conniving, blue-collar, populist conservative who, unlike Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, did not bolt the Democratic Party.”

“Amazing!” Daniel commented. “You'd think people would have eventually seen him for what he really is, self-serving and personally power hungry, and voted him out. Why do you think the party hasn't teamed up against him if he's bucked them on key issues?”

“He's just too powerful,” Stephanie said. “He's a fund-raising powerhouse with interlocking political action committees, foundations, and even corporations run on behalf of his various populist issues. Other senators are frankly afraid of him with the kind of PR money he can wield. He's not afraid or shy about using his deep pockets against anyone who's crossed him when they come up for reelection.”

“This is sounding worse and worse,” Daniel murmured.

“I did learn something curious,” Stephanie added. “It's rather a coincidence, but you and he have a few things in common.”

“Oh, please!” Daniel complained.

“For one thing, you're both from large families,” Stephanie said. “In fact, you're both from families with nine children, and you both are third in line with two older brothers.”

“That is a coincidence! What are the chances of that?”

“Pretty small. One would have to assume you two are more alike than you think.”

Daniel's face clouded over. “Are you serious?”

Stephanie laughed. “No, of course not! I'm teasing! Loosen up!” She reached across the table, picked up Daniel's wine, and handed it to him. Then she lifted her own glass. “Enough about Senator Butler! Let's toast to our health and our relationship, because whatever happens tomorrow, at least we have that, and what's more important?”

“You're right,” Daniel said. “To us!” He smiled, but inside he felt his stomach ball up into a knot. Try as he might, he could not dismiss the specter of failure that was looming like a dark cloud.

They clicked glasses and drank, eyeing each other over the rims.

“You really are alluring,” Daniel said, trying to regain the moment back in the bathroom at the hotel when Stephanie had stepped out of the shower. “Beautiful, smart, and very sexy.”

“That's more like it,” Stephanie responded. “So are you.”

“You're also a teaser,” Daniel added. “But I still love you.”

“I love you, too,” Stephanie said.

Once the dinner was over, Stephanie was eager to get back to the hotel. They walked quickly. After the warmth of the restaurant, the night chill penetrated their coats. In the hotel's empty elevator, Stephanie kissed Daniel passionately, backed him into a corner, and pressed against him erotically.

“Hold on!” Daniel said with a nervous laugh. “There's probably a security video in here.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Stephanie murmured, as she quickly straightened up and smoothed her coat. Her eyes scanned the elevator's ceiling. “I never thought of that.”

When the elevator opened on their floor, Stephanie took Daniel's hand and encouraged him to walk quickly down the hall to their door. She smiled as she opened it with her room card. Once inside, she made a production out of locating the DO NOT DISTURB sign and hanging it outside the door. With that accomplished, she took Daniel's hand and pulled him from the small foyer into the bedroom.

“Coats off!” she ordered, throwing hers onto a side chair.
She then pushed him backward onto the bed. Climbing on top of him with her knees on either side of his chest, she started to loosen his tie. Suddenly, she stopped. She noticed his forehead was glistening with perspiration.

“Are you okay?” she questioned with concern.

“I'm having a hot flash,” Daniel confessed.

Stephanie slid off to the side and pulled Daniel up to a sitting position. He wiped his forehead and looked at the moisture in his hand.

“You're also pale.”

“I can imagine,” Daniel said. “I think I'm having an autonomic nervous system mini-crisis.”

“That sounds like medical doctor-speak. Can you explain that in normal English?”

“I'm just overwrought. I'm afraid I've had some sort of sympathetic adrenaline rush. I'm sorry, but I don't think sex is in the picture.”

“You don't have to apologize.”

“I think I do,” Daniel said. “I know you are expecting it, but as we were walking back, I had a feeling it just wasn't in the cards.”

“It's all right,” Stephanie insisted. “It's not going to make or break the evening. I'm more interested in making sure you're going to be all right.”

Daniel sighed. “I'll be all right after tomorrow, when I know what's going to happen. Uncertainty and I have never gotten along particularly well, especially when it involves something bad.”

Stephanie put her arms around him and hugged him. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Later, after Stephanie had been motionless long enough for her breathing to deepen in sleep, Daniel pulled back the covers and slipped out of bed. He'd not been able to fall asleep with his mind and pulse racing. He put on a hotel robe and wandered out into the sitting room. At the window, he looked out at the view.

What kept coming back to his mind was Heinrich Wortheim's prophecy of disaster and the fact that it seemed to be coming to pass. The problem was that Daniel had burned bridges when he left Harvard. Wortheim would never take
him back and might even try to blackball him at other institutions. On top of that, Daniel had also burned some bridges when he left Merck in '85 to go back to academia when he'd accepted the Harvard post.

The champagne bottle nestled in its cooler caught Daniel's attention. He pulled it out of the water; its ice had long ago melted. He held it up to the light coming from outside the window. There was still almost a half bottle left. He poured himself a glass and tasted it. It was somewhat flat but still reasonably cold. He took a few sips as he redirected his attention out the window.

He knew his fear of having to return to Revere Beach, Massachusetts, was irrational, but it didn't make it any less real. Revere Beach was where he'd grown up in a family headed by a small-time businessman who'd blamed his series of failures on his wife and progeny, particularly those who embarrassed him. Unfortunately, that was mostly Daniel, who had the misfortune of following two older brothers who'd been high school superstar athletes, a fact that had provided a modicum of solace for their father's fragile ego. In contrast, Daniel had been a spindly kid more interested in playing chess and producing hydrogen from water, Drano, and aluminum foil in the cellar. The fact that Daniel had gotten himself into Boston Latin, where he excelled academically, had had no effect on his father, who continued to use him mercilessly as a scapegoat. Even Daniel's scholarships to Wesleyan University and then to Columbia Medical School had changed little other than to estrange him from his siblings for a time.

Daniel finished the champagne in his glass and helped himself to more. As he continued to sip the wine, his mind wandered to Senator Ashley Butler, his current bête noire. Stephanie had said she was teasing when she'd suggested that he and the senator were more alike than he'd assumed. He wondered if she really felt that way, since it was indeed such a coincidence that he and the senator had similar types of families. Way in the back of Daniel's mind, there was a thought that maybe there was some truth to the idea. After all, Daniel had to admit that he envied the power the man could wield in putting Daniel's career in jeopardy.

Daniel put his glass down on the coffee table and turned
back toward the bedroom. He moved slowly in the darkness of the unfamiliar surroundings. He was far from confident that he could fall asleep while his intuition was so actively telling him that disaster was coming, yet he didn't want to stay up all night. He thought he'd get back in bed and try to relax, and if he couldn't sleep, at least he'd rest.

9:51
A
.
M
., Thursday, February 21, 2002

 

The door to
Senator Ashley Butler's inner office burst open, and the senator emerged with his chief of staff in tow. He snapped up the paper proffered by his office manager, Dawn, who was seated at her desk.

“It's your opening statement for your subcommittee hearing,” she called after the senator, who was already rounding the turn into the main corridor and heading toward the front door of his senate office. She was accustomed to being ignored and didn't take it personally. Since she was the one who typed the senator's daily schedule, she knew he was already behind. He was supposed to have been at the hearing already so it could begin at ten sharp.

Ashley merely grunted after he'd read the first few lines on the paper and handed the sheet behind him to Carol for her to take a peek. Carol was more than Ashley's chief of staff who hired and fired personnel. When the two of them reached the waiting room for his office complex and he paused to say hello and shake hands with the half-dozen or so people waiting to see various staffers, Carol had to herd him toward the door, lest they be later than they already were.

Out in the Senate Office Building's marbled hall, they picked up the pace. It was difficult for Ashley, whose stiffness had returned despite the medication prescribed by Doctor Whitman. Ashley had described the stiffness as a feeling like trying to walk through molasses.

“How does that opening statement look to you?” Ashley asked.

“Fine, as much as I've read,” Carol answered. “Do you think Rob had Phil take a look at it?”

“I should hope so,” Ashley snapped. They walked for a short distance in silence before Ashley added, “Who the hell is Rob?”

“He's your relatively new head aide for the Health Policy Subcommittee,” Carol explained. “I'm sure you remember him. He literally sticks out in a crowd. He's the tall redhead who came over from Kennedy's staff.”

Ashley merely nodded. Although he prided himself on having a facility for remembering names, he could no longer keep up with all the names of the people who worked for him since his staff had ballooned to more than seventy people, and there was inevitable turnover. Phil, however, was a familiar name, since he'd been around almost as long as Carol. As Ashley's chief political analyst, Phil was a key player, and it was important for everything that was going into a hearing transcript or the Congressional Record to be run by him.

“What about your medication?” Carol questioned. Her heels rang out like gunshots as they hit the marble floor.

“I took it,” Ashley clipped irritably. To be one hundred percent certain, his hand surreptitiously slipped into the side pocket of his jacket and felt around. As he suspected, the pill he'd put in earlier was no longer there, meaning he'd taken it just before leaving his private office. He wanted a good high level of the drug in his blood for the hearing. The last thing he wanted was for someone in the media to notice any symptoms, like his hand shaking during the proceedings, particularly not now that he had a plan to obviate the problem.

Rounding a turn in the corridor, they bumped into several particularly liberal senatorial colleagues heading in the opposite direction. Ashley paused and slipped easily back into his signature, syrupy, Southern drawl while complimenting his
fellow politicians' hairstyles, modish contemporary suits, and flamboyant ties. In a humorously self-deprecatory style, he compared their dapper attire with his own plain dark suit, dark nondescript tie, and ordinary white shirt. It was the same style of clothes he'd worn when he'd first arrived at the Senate back in 1972. Ashley was a man of habit. Not only did he still wear the same type of clothes, he still bought his entire wardrobe from the same conservative haberdashery back in his hometown.

After he and Carol continued on their way, she commented on the degree of Ashley's cordiality.

“I'm just buttering them up.” Ashley sneered. “I need their votes on my bill coming up next week. You know I cannot abide such foppery, especially hair transplants.”

“Indeed I do,” Carol said. “That's why I was taken aback.”

As they neared the side entrance to the hearing room, Ashley slowed. “Quickly review for me once again what you and the rest of the staff found out about this morning's first witness. I've got a special plan brewing on my back burner that I definitely want to succeed.”

“His professional resume is what stands out in my mind,” Carol said. She closed her eyes for a moment to help mobilize her memory. “He's been a science prodigy since middle school, and he breezed through both medical school and his Ph.D. studies. That's impressive, to say the least! On top of that, he rapidly became one of the youngest department-head scientists at Merck before being actively recruited to a prestigious post at Harvard. The man must have an IQ in the stratosphere.”

“I remember the curriculum vitae. But that's not what's important now. Talk to me about Phil's take on the man's personality!”

“I remember Phil guessed he was self-centered and cocky because of the way he's so dismissive of his fellow scientists' work. I mean, most people, even if they feel that way, keep it to themselves. He's got to be brash.”

“What else?”

They reached the door to the side room and hesitated. Farther down the hallway at the main entrance to the hearing room, a small crowd was milling about, and the babble of their voices drifted toward them.

Carol shrugged. “I can't remember much else, but I have the dossier with me that the staff put together, which certainly incorporates Phil's impressions. Do you want to take the time to read it over again before we begin the hearing?”

“I was hoping you'd talk to me about the man's fear of failure,” Ashley said. “Is that something you remember?”

“Now that you mention it, yes, I believe that was one of Phil's points.”

“Good!” Ashley said, with his eyes staring off into the distance. “And combining that with an apparent ego the size of a racehorse's paddock gives me an opportunity to exert some significant leverage, wouldn't you agree?”

“I suppose, but I'm not sure I'm following you. I do remember Dan thought that he had a fear of failure out of proportion to his accomplishments and his obvious intelligence. After all, he could probably be successful at anything he wanted to do, provided he put his mind to it. How does his fear of failure give you leverage, and leverage for what?”

“He might be able to do anything he sets his mind to, but apparently at this moment in time he wants to become a celebrity entrepreneur, a fact which he apparently shamelessly admitted in one of his interviews. And to do this, he's made a rather large gamble career-wise and financially. He wants his newly founded company based on his patented procedure to succeed for very personal, if not superficial, reasons.”

“So what is it you want to do?” Carol asked. “Phil wants you on record favoring a ban on his procedure. It's that simple.”

“Circumstances have made it a little more complicated than that. I want to make the good doctor do something he most assuredly wouldn't want to do.”

Concern spread across Carol's broad face. “Does Phil know about this?”

Ashley shook his head. He made a motion for Carol to give him back the prepared opening statement and took it when she held it out.

“What is it you want the doctor to do?”

“You and he will know tonight,” Ashley said, as his eyes began scanning the opening statement. “It would take too long to explain at the moment.”

“This is scaring me,” Carol admitted out loud. She looked
up and down the hallway as Ashley read his speech. She shifted her weight uneasily. Carol's ultimate goal and the reason she'd sacrificed so much of her own life to her current position was that she wanted to run for Ashley's office when he retired, a situation that promised to occur sooner rather than later because of the Parkinson's disease diagnosis. She was more than qualified, having served as a state senator prior to coming to Washington to run Ashley's show, and at this late date with her goal in sight, she didn't want him pulling some sort of stunt to do what Bill Clinton did to Al Gore. Ever since that fateful evening visit to Dr. Whitman, Ashley had been preoccupied and unpredictable. She cleared her throat to get her boss's attention. “Exactly how are you planning on getting Dr. Lowell to do something he doesn't want to do?”

“By setting him up and then pulling the rug out from under him,” Ashley said, with his eyes rising to meet Carol's. He grinned conspiratorially. “I'm in a battle here, and I want to win. To do that, I'm going to follow an age-old cue from
The Art of War
: Figure out the necessary points of engagement, then arrive there with overwhelming force! Let me see the financial report on his company!”

Carol juggled the file of papers she was carrying before producing the paper Ashley wanted. She handed it to him, and he rapidly scanned it. She watched his face for clues. She wondered if she should call Phil on her cell phone the second she had a chance and warn him to be ready for the unexpected.

“This is good,” Ashley mumbled. “This is very good. It's a lucky thing I have those contacts over at the Bureau. We couldn't have gotten much of this on our own.”

“Maybe you should go over with Phil whatever it is you are planning to do,” Carol suggested.

“No time,” Ashley responded. “In fact, what time is it now?”

Carol glanced at her watch. “It's after ten.”

Ashley held out his left hand supported by his right in order to check for any tremor. There was a slight one, but it was hardly noticeable. “That's as good as can be expected. Let's go to work!”

Ashley entered the hearing room from the side door to the right of the horseshoe-shaped, raised dais. The room was filled
with a meandering, jostling crowd of people from which emerged a buzz of incoherent conversation. Ashley had to worm his way between colleagues and staffers to reach his seat. The redheaded Rob appeared immediately with a second copy of Ashley's prepared opening statement. Ashley waved him off by flapping the copy he already had in his hand. Ashley took his seat and adjusted the goosenecked microphone.

After Ashley's eyes had made a rapid circuit around the comfortably familiar Greek revival décor of the hearing room, they came to rest on the two figures seated at the witness table below him. At first his attention was magnetically drawn to the attractive young woman with the shiny, minklike hair framing her face. Ashley had an affinity for beautiful women, and this female in front of him filled the bill. She was dressed in a demure, deep blue suit with a white collar that contrasted sharply with her tanned, olive complexion. Despite her modest attire, she exuded a healthy sensuality. Her dark eyes were riveted on Ashley, giving him the impression he was staring down two gun barrels. He had no idea who she was or why she was there, but he thought her presence promised to make the hearing a bit more enjoyable.

Reluctantly, Ashley switched his attention from the comely woman to Dr. Daniel Lowell. The doctor's eyes were paler than his companion's, yet they reflected an equal degree of brassiness with their unblinking stare. Ashley guessed the doctor was reasonably tall, despite the fact that he was slouching back in his chair. He was slight of build, with a thin, angular face capped by a shock of unruly salt-and-pepper hair. Even his dress suggested a degree of insolence comparable to that reflected in his eyes and posture. In contrast to his companion's appropriate business apparel, he was sporting a casual tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, an open shirt without a tie, and, his legs visible beneath the table, a pair of jeans and sneakers.

Ashley smiled inwardly as he picked up his gavel. He guessed that Daniel's apparent attitude and dressing down was a weak attempt to prove he wasn't threatened by being called to testify before a Senate subcommittee. Perhaps Daniel thought he could bring his Ivy League, academic persona as a form of intimidation against Ashley's small-town, Baptist
college experience. But it wasn't going to work. Ashley knew he had Daniel in his arena with the usual home-court advantage.

“The Subcommittee on Health Policy of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will now come to order,” Ashley announced with a pronounced Southern intonation as he banged his gavel. He waited for a few moments, as the previously disorderly group of attendees took their seats. Behind him, he could hear the various staffers do the same. He glanced down at Daniel Lowell, but the doctor had not moved. Ashley glanced to his right and left. Most of his subcommittee members were not present, although four were. Those present were either reading memoranda or talking in whispers with their aides. There wasn't a quorum, but it didn't matter. No vote had been scheduled, and Ashley was not going to call for one.

“This hearing will proceed on Senate Bill 1103,” Ashley continued, as he placed his opening statement notes on the table in front of him, folded his arms, and cupped his elbows in his palms to forestall any potential tremor. He tilted his head back slightly to see the print better through his bifocals. “This bill is a companion bill to the bill already passed by the House to ban the cloning procedure called . . .”