Seizure Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Seizure

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2004 by Robin Cook

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1011-9132-3

  A BERKLEY BOOK®

  Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: September, 2004

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  prologue

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  epilogue

  author’s note

  Titles by Robin Cook

  SEIZURE

  SHOCK

  ABDUCTION

  FEVER

  GODPLAYER

  VECTOR

  TOXIN

  INVASION

  CHROMOSOME 6

  CONTAGION

  ACCEPTABLE RISK

  FATAL CURE

  TERMINAL

  BLINDSIGHT

  VITAL SIGNS

  HARMFUL INTENT

  MUTATION

  MORTAL FEAR

  OUTBREAK

  MINDBEND

  BRAIN

  SPHINX

  COMA

  THE YEAR OF THE INTERN

  FOR AUDREY

  Although her faculty of reminiscence has faltered, mine hasn’t; so heartfelt thanks, Mom, for all your love, dedication, and sacrifices particularly during my early years . . . an appreciation made more poignant and profound now that I have a healthy, happy, and rambunctious three-year-old boy of my own!

  Acknowledgments

  As with many of my novels, particularly those dealing with expertise beyond my undergraduate chemistry and graduate medical training in surgery and ophthalmology, I have benefited greatly from the professional erudition, wisdom, and experience of friends and friends of friends for the research, plotting, and writing of Seizure, whose storyline spans medicine, biotechnology, and politics. A host of people have been extraordinarily generous with their valuable time and insights. Those whom I would specifically like to acknowledge are (in alphabetical order):

  Jean Cook, MSW, CAGS: a psychologist, a perceptive reader, a courageous critic, and an invaluable sounding board.

  Joe Cox, J.D., LLM: a gifted tax lawyer as well as a reader of fiction, who is conversant with corporate structure, financing, and offshore legal issues.

  Gerald Doyle, M.D.: a compassionate internist cast from a bygone mold, with a first-class referral list of accomplished clinical physicians.

  Orrin Hatch, J.D.: a venerated senior senator from Utah, who graciously allowed me to experience firsthand a typical day in the life of a senator and who regaled me with humorous stories of late senators whose biographies were a fertile source for creating my fictional Ashley Butler.

  Robert Lanza, M.D.: a human dynamo who tirelessly struggles to bridge the gap between clinical medicine and 21st-century biotechnology.

  Valerio Manfredi, Ph.D.: an exuberant Italian archeologist and author himself, who magnanimously arranged introductions and my visit to Turin, Italy, for my research into the remarkable Shroud of Turin.

  prologue

  Monday, February 22, 2001, was one of those surprisingly warm midwinter days that falsely prophesied the arrival of spring to the inhabitants of the Atlantic seaboard. The sun was bright all the way from Maine to the tip of the Florida Keys, providing a temperature variation astonishingly less than twenty degrees Fahrenheit. It was to be a normal, happy day for the vast majority of people living within this lengthy littoral, although for two exceptional individuals, it was to be the start of a series of events that would ultimately cause their lives to tragically intersect.

  1:35 P.M.

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  Daniel Lowell looked up from the pink phone message he held in his hand. Two things made it unique: First, the caller was Dr. Heinrich Wortheim, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Harvard, saying he wanted to see Dr. Lowell in his office, and second, the little box labeled URGENT was marked with a bold X. Dr. Wortheim always communicated by letter and expected a letter in return. As one of the world’s premier chemists occupying Harvard’s lofty and heavily endowed department chair, he was eccentrically Napoleonic. He rarely mixed directly with the hoi polloi that included Daniel, even though Daniel was head of his own department, which came under Wortheim’s authority.

  “Hey, Stephanie!” Daniel called out across the lab. “Did you see this phone message on my desk? It’s from the emperor. He wants to see me in his office.”

  Stephanie looked up from the dissecting stereomicroscope she’d been using and glanced at Daniel. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said.

  “You didn’t say anything to him, did you?”

  “How would I have a chance to say anything to him? I’ve only seen him twice during my entire Ph.D. travail—when I defended my dissertation and when he handed me my diploma.”

  “He must have some idea about our plans,” Daniel surmised. “I suppose it’s not too surprising, considering all the people I’ve approached to be on our scientific advisory board.”

  “Are you going to go?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  It was only a short walk from the lab to the building that housed the departmental administrative offices. Daniel knew he was facing a confrontation of sorts, but it didn’t matter. In fact, he was looking forward to it.

  The moment Daniel appeared, the departmental secretary motioned him to go directly into Wortheim’s inner sanctum. He found the aging Nobel laureate behind his antique desk. With his white hair and thin face, Wortheim appeared older than his purported seventy-two years. But his appearance did not diminish his commanding personality, which radiated from him like a magnetic field.

  “Please sit down, Dr. Lowell,” Wortheim said, regarding his visitor over the top of his wire-rimmed reading glasses. He had had a trace German accent despite his having lived in the United States most of his life.

  Daniel did as he was told. He knew a faint, insouciant smile, which he was certain would not be missed by the department head, lingered on his face. Despite Wortheim’s age, his faculties were as sharp as ever and attuned to any slight. And the fact that Daniel was supposed to kowtow to this dinosaur was part of th
e reason he was so certain of his decision to leave academia. Wortheim was brilliant, and he’d won a Nobel Prize, but he was still mired in last century’s inorganic synthetic chemistry. Organic chemistry in the form of proteins and their respective genes was the present and future of the field.

  It was Wortheim who broke the silence after the two men had eyed each other. “I gather from your expression that the rumors are true.”

  “Could you be more specific?” Daniel responded. He wanted to be sure his suspicions were correct. He hadn’t planned to make an announcement for another month.

  “You have been forming a scientific advisory board,” Wortheim said. He got to his feet and began to pace. “An advisory board can mean only one thing.” He stopped and stared at Daniel with acrimonious disdain. “You’re planning to tender your resignation, and you have or you are about to found a company.”

  “Guilty as accused,” Daniel proclaimed. He couldn’t keep his smile from expanding to a full grin. A deep red had suffused over Wortheim’s face. Undoubtedly, Wortheim equated the situation to Benedict Arnold’s traitorous behavior during the American Revolutionary War.

  “I personally went out on a limb when you were recruited,” Wortheim snapped. “We even built the laboratory facility that you demanded.”

  “I won’t be taking the lab with me,” Daniel responded. He couldn’t believe Wortheim was trying to make him feel guilty.

  “Your flippancy is galling.”

  “I could apologize, but it would be insincere.”

  Wortheim returned to his desk. “Your leaving is going to put me in a difficult position with the president of the university.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Daniel said. “I can say that in all sincerity. But this kind of bureaucratic shenanigan is part of the reason I’m not going to miss academia.”

  “What else?”

  “I’m tired of sacrificing my research time for teaching.”

  “Your teaching burden is one of the least onerous in the department. We negotiated that when you came on board.”

  “It still keeps me from my research. But that’s not the major issue, either. I want to reap the benefits of what my creativity has produced. Winning prizes and getting articles in scientific journals isn’t enough.”

  “You want to be a celebrity.”

  “I suppose that’s one way to put it. And the money will be nice, too. Why not? People with half my ability have done it.”

  “Have you ever read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis?”

  “I don’t have much chance to read novels.”

  “Maybe you should take the time,” Wortheim suggested scornfully. “It might make you rethink this decision before it’s irreversible.”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” Daniel said. “I think it is the right thing for me.”

  “Would you like my opinion?”

  “I think I know what your opinion is.”

  “I think it’s going to be a disaster for both of us, but mainly for you.”

  “Thank you for your words of encouragement,” Daniel said. He stood up. “See you around the campus.” Then he walked out.

  5:15 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  “Thank you all for coming to see me,” Senator Ashley Butler said in his usual cordial, Southern drawl. With a smile plastered onto his doughy face, he glad-handed a group of eager-faced men and women who’d leapt to their feet the moment he burst into his small senate office conference room along with his chief of staff. The visitors were grouped around the central oak library table. They were representatives of a small business organization from the senator’s state capital who were lobbying for tax relief, or maybe it was insurance relief. The senator did not remember exactly, and it wasn’t on his schedule as it should have been. He made a mental note to bring the lapse up with his office manager. “I’m sorry I’m late coming in here,” he continued, after energetically pumping the last person’s hand. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you folks, and I wanted to get in here sooner, but it’s been one of those days.” He rolled his eyes for emphasis. “Unfortunately, because of the hour and another pressing engagement, I can’t stay. I’m sorry, but Mike here is great.”

  The senator gave the staffer assigned to meet with the group an acknowledging slap on the shoulder, urging the young man forward until his thighs were pressed up against the table. “Mike’s the best I’ve got, and he’ll listen to your problems and then brief me. I’m sure we can help, and we want to help.”

  The senator gave Mike’s shoulder another series of pats, along with an admiring smile like a proud father’s at his son’s graduation.

  In a chorus, the visitors thanked the senator for seeing them, especially in view of his demanding schedule. Zealous smiles defined each and every face. If the people were disappointed at the brevity of the meeting and the fact that they’d had to wait almost a half hour, they didn’t show it in the slightest.

  “It’s my pleasure,” Ashley gushed. “We’re here to serve.”

  Spinning around, Ashley turned to leave. As he reached the door, he waved. His home-state visitors responded in kind.

  “That was easy,” Ashley murmured to Carol Manning, his long-term chief of staff, who’d followed from the conference room at her boss’s heels. “I was afraid they were going to hogtie me with a litany of sad stories and unreasonable demands.”

  “They seemed like nice people,” Carol said vaguely.

  “Do you think Mike can handle them?”

  “I don’t know,” Carol said. “He’s not been here long enough for me to have much of an idea.”

  Leading the way, the senator strode down the long hall toward his private office. He glanced at his watch. It was five-twenty in the afternoon. “I assume you remember where you are taking me now.”

  “Of course,” Carol said. “We’re going back to Dr. Whitman’s office.”

  The senator shot a reproachful look in Carol’s direction while pressing his forefinger against his lips. “That’s hardly for general consumption,” he whispered irritably.

  Without the slightest acknowledgment of his office manager, Dawn Shackelton, Ashley grabbed the papers she held up as he passed her desk and entered his private office. The papers included a preliminary schedule for the following day, along with a list of the calls that had come in during the time he’d been over at the capital for a late roll call vote, plus the transcript of an impromptu interview with someone from CNN who’d waylaid him in the hall.

  “I’d better get my car,” Carol said after glancing at her own watch. “We’re due at the doctor’s office at six-thirty, and there’s no telling what kind of traffic we’ll be facing.”

  “Good idea,” Ashley said, going around behind his desk while glancing at the list of calls.

  “Should I pick you up at the corner of C and Second?”

  Ashley merely grunted an affirmative. A number of the calls were important, coming from the heads of several of his many political action committees. As far as he was concerned, fund-raising was the most important part of his job, especially since he was facing a reelection campaign for the November after next. He heard the door close behind Carol. For the first time all day, a silence descended over him. He raised his eyes. Also for the first time all day, he was alone.

  Instantaneously, the anxiety he’d felt upon awakening that morning spread through him like a wildfire. He could feel it from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his fingers. He’d never liked going to the doctor. When he was a child, it had been the simple fear of a shot or some other painful or embarrassing experience. But as he’d gotten older, the fear had changed and had become more powerful and distressing. Seeing the doctor had become an unwelcome reminder of his mortality and the fact that he was no longer a spring chicken. Now it was as if the mere act of going to the doctor increased his chances of having to face some horrible diagnosis like cancer or, worse yet, ALS—also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

  A few years
earlier, one of Ashley’s brothers had been diagnosed with ALS after experiencing some vague neurological symptoms. After the diagnosis, the powerfully built and athletically inclined man who’d been much more of a picture of health than Ashley had rapidly become a cripple and within months had died. The doctors had been helpless.

  Ashley absently placed the papers onto his desk and stared off into the distance. He too had begun to have some vague neurological symptoms a month earlier. At first he just dismissed them, attributing their appearance to the stress of his work or having drunk too much coffee or not having gotten a good night’s sleep. The symptoms waxed and waned but never went away. In fact, they slowly seemed to get worse. The most distressing was the intermittent shaking of his left hand. On a few occasions it had been necessary for him to hold it with his right hand to keep people from noticing. Then there was the feeling of sand in his eyes, making them water embarrassingly. And finally there was an occasional sensation of stiffness that could make standing up and starting to walk a mental and physical effort.

  A week earlier, the problem had finally driven him to see the doctor despite his superstitious reluctance to do so. He didn’t go to Walter Reed or the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. He was too afraid the media would discover that something was amiss. Ashley didn’t need that kind of publicity. After almost thirty years in the Senate he’d become a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with, despite his reputation as an obstructionist who regularly bucked his party’s dictates. Indeed, with his advocacy and consistency on various fundamentalist and populist issues like states’ rights and prayer in school, and his anti–affirmative-action and anti-abortion stances, he’d succeeded in blurring party lines while developing a growing national constituency. Reelection to the senate would not be a problem with his well-oiled political machinery. What Ashley had his sights on was a run for the White House in 2004. He didn’t need anyone speculating or circulating rumors about his health.

  Once Ashley had overcome his reluctance to seek a medical opinion, he visited a private internist in Virginia whom he’d seen in the past and whose discretion he could trust. The internist in turn immediately referred him to Dr. Whitman, a neurologist.