Syndrome

happen.

'All right, whatever you decide, we need to get some preliminaries out of the way. For one thing, we must have a complete new cardiology exam. Nothing in the file you brought presents an obvious red flag, but still, it's essential that we have an up-to-the-minute stress test. Toward that end I've taken the liberty of arranging for a checkup at the New York University Faculty Practice Radiology on East Thirty-fourth Street. Among other things, they can run a high-speed computed tomography screening using ultrafast X rays. Also, I'd like to see a phonocardiogram. A sonic analysis of 'murmurs' can tell us a lot about valve abnormalities. Regardless of what you decide to do here, it's a good idea for you to have this done regularly anyway.'

'You've already scheduled tests?' Her tone of voice told him she was mildly taken aback at the presumption.

'It's just that the NYU Faculty Practice is sometimes difficult to get into on short notice. They can be booked for weeks in advance. But a cardiologist I know there, Lev Amram, has agreed to make room for you this afternoon. It's a professional courtesy. There'll be no charge. After that, and assuming you want to proceed, you should get a good night's rest and then come back here as early as possible tomorrow morning. You should pack for a three- week stay, though we'll provide you with pretty much everything you'll need here.'

Just get her here.

'You know,' she said, 'I was actually hoping we could do this on an outpatient basis. I know you like to have your patients here for constant observation, but I run a business that needs me there every day.'

'Alexa,' he said, putting every last ounce of authority he had into his voice, 'this is not a conventional procedure, and it's possible you might suddenly need special care of some kind. This is an experimental clinical trial, so we don't know what can happen. That's why I really must insist that you be here twenty-four hours a day.' He looked at her with great tenderness. 'We're talking about the possibility of completely repairing your heart. Surely you don't expect just to drop by now and then for that.'

'All right, point taken,' she said, 'but-if we go forward with this-I'll need to hire at least one temp to be at the office while I'm gone. Somebody to at least handle the phone. That could take time.'

'Surely someone there could manage to handle that,' he said. She's getting resistant again, he told himself. Don't let that happen. 'And there's also the matter of your mother. I think it would be wise for you to be nearby during the early stages of her procedure. When her mind starts climbing out of the abyss, it's important for a close family member to be there to provide a visual and emotional anchor. It truly can make all the difference. I fully expect that her functions of attention and recall will return to those normal for a woman her age, or quite possibly even better, but it will happen a lot quicker if you're here to help her, to remind her of things.'

'This is a lot to digest.' Ally turned and sat down in a chair. 'All right, I might as well get the exam. It doesn't mean I've agreed to anything here.'

He heard the ambivalence and knew he had no choice but to do what he was going to have to do tomorrow.

'I will proceed on the assumption that you'll be entering the program. Truthfully, if you don't, a week from now your mother is going to be asking you why.' He smiled. 'In any case, we need to have those tests done in the city. Also some blood work here. We're affiliated with a lab. I want to check your T-cells and certain other markers, like C-reactive protein and homocystine. It's something you should do regularly anyway.'

'All right, then,' she said finally. 'But after that, let me go see how Mom's doing. Then I'll arrange things with Maria somehow and drive back to the city.'

'By the way, before I forget, we have to complete a formal application for your mother to admit her into the clinical trials, and we also need a signed liability waiver. I assume you have power of attorney for her by now. If you don't, then we may not legally be able to proceed.'

'I have it.'

'Then let's get started' he declared almost certain he had her.

Chapter 14

Tuesday, April 7

11:35a.m.

Stone Aimes was in his cubicle, staring at the phone when it rang.

He prayed this was the call he'd been waiting for. As a gamble, a long shot, he'd requested that Jane Tully, his former live-in lover and theSentinel's part-time corporate counsel, do him a small favor. After he hacked the NIH Web site, he'd asked her to pass along just one question concerning Gerex to Winston Bartlett's corporate attorneys: Why had a patient been abruptly and mysteriously terminated, without explanation, from the clinical trials now under way by the Gerex Corporation? If that wouldn't get a rise out of Bartlett, he didn't know what would. It was the only part of the corporation's encrypted NIH file that seemed irregular. But would Bartlett take the bait?

He reached for the phone.

'Aimes here.' Around him came the clatter of computer keys and muted laughter from the direction of the water cooler. Everybody had watched a Tivo of the latest Sunday night and they were still critiquing the shows. Mondays were everybody's day off, so Tuesdays were the first chance to catch up. The staff was also starting to rev up again for the coming week's edition, everybody with the hope that their particular assignment would have legs and make its author a household name. Stone, however, felt like this was either the first day of the rest of his life or the last day of a career built on dealing to inside straights.This cannot go on much longer, he kept telling himself; it was an unstable condition. His soul was already over the fence, keeping company with that wild, free ox he liked to muse about.

'Stone,' came a husky female voice, strained and yet strong. Just as he'd hoped, it was Jane, whose office was down on the third floor. 'Can you come down? Right now.'

'Did you hear back from-'

'Stone,' she admonished her voice growing urgent, 'just come down. Do itnow, all right?'

'Sure.' He paused a moment, wondering. Why did she sound so upset? Had his plan somehow backfired? 'I'm on my way.'

He glanced up at the fluorescent light over his head like a pitiless hovering spaceship, and wondered if this was going to be the break he had been praying for. There was a nervousness in Jane's voice that indicated something major was afoot.Somethingwas about to change.

He switched off his Compaq laptop and reached for his brown corduroy jacket, which was hanging from a hook on the side of the glass-walled cubicle. He straightened his brown knit tie as he stepped on the elevator, and for some reason he found himself thinking of his daughter, Amy.

He mimed a toast.Here's looking at you, kid.

She was in the fifth grade and lived with her mother, Joyce, in a small condominium nestled in the hills near El Cerrito, where his ex-wife grew up. Joyce was a television producer who had left him to go back out there, where she got work as a garden designer. When he got over the shock, he finally concluded she loved California more than she loved him. Maybe not an unreasonable choice. But then she got custody of Amy, based solely on the fact that his income was inadequate to send her to private school in New York and the public schools were out of the question. But Joyce had agreed that if he ever had the money, she could live with him some of the time. This book, he hoped, would make that happen.

He still didn't know why he and Joyce couldn't have made a go of it. It had occurred to him that there was the real possibility she had fallen in love with the idea of a dashing investigative reporter, not the grueling reality. These days she had Amy all the time except for three weeks in July, and he had so many things to regret he scarcely knew where to start.

He kept a year-old photograph of Amy on his desk, in a frame far too expensive for a snapshot of a young girl on a black horse named Zena. But it was Zena that his $1,500 a month in child support had helped to pay for, and he felt it somehow bonded them.