Chapter 72. Cure
Atlanta, Georgia. Headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In the lobby of the curved blue-glass headquarters for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Charlie Winston, John Morse, and Zach Morse sat in the tan leather chairs, waiting for Jacob Roessler to meet them. Winston and John Morse each had Styrofoam cups of coffee. Winston took out two packs of sweetener and stirred them in the coffee cup with a red straw, swirling the white powder around. Zach Morse had found a blue PowerAde in the soda machine. Winston checked his watch. They had been waiting for fifteen minutes. Winston took out the two plastic water bottles containing the oily water from the Boyuca healing pool. After ten minutes, Roessler stepped off the elevator in jeans and a white lab coat. He passed by the security desk and greeted Winston.
“Charlie, it’s good to have you back.”
“Thanks, Jacob,” said Winston. “Jacob, let me introduce some friends of mine. This is John Morse, who is a professor from UCLA. And this is Zach Morse, his son, who happens to be a student of mine at Emory. These two accompanied me on our little island excursion.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Roessler, extending his hand for a shake.
“Same to you,” said John and Zach Morse, shaking his hand.
There was no one near them in the corner of the lobby where they met, but Winston nevertheless kept his voice low.
“Hello, Jacob, thanks for meeting with us on short notice.”
“Anything for the cause, you know. How did you get back into the country with everything on lockdown?”
Winston looked at Morse cagily. “We’ll tell you that some other time.”
“Okay,” shrugged Roessler. “Now tell me about this discovery.” Winston showed him the water bottles.
“Jacob, this water is absolutely incredible. And I believe it might be able to cure this virus.”
“Why do you say it is so powerful? It just looks like oily water to me.”
“Jacob, on our trip, I had the tips of the four fingers on this hand sliced off by a blade, all the way up to the first knuckle. There was no hospital for treatment. I had lost a lot of blood. I had fractured my tibia. Then, I was burned. Jacob, I was literally on fire. My face, my torso, my arms, everything was burned. I fell into a pool of this water, and all four of my fingers spontaneously regenerated. Here, you can see the scars across my fingers where the cut was made. My burns went away as if nothing had ever happened. You can barely make out any residual damage. My tibia was healed. Zach here had frostbite so bad on both feet that we thought for sure he would never be able to run again. One dip in that water and his feet are good as new. Jacob, we would have to test this, but this water might cure cancer. It might cure paraplegia. Who knows what it could do?”
Roessler looked at the bottles skeptically. “Charlie, sorry, but I am a little skeptical. A Wonder Drug? This sounds like a fish story to me. You say Zach got frostbite? On a tropical island?”
“I was put in a meat locker for an entire night,” said Zach. “Trust me, it happened.”
“So primitive islanders have mastered the art of refrigeration? Charlie, you are not ‘punking’ me, are you? Because if you have a camera on me or something, this is not very funny. I have a lot of work to do.”
“I thought you would say that. I knew the only person who would believe me is Murielle. But since she is not here, you are the next best thing, Jacob.”
John Morse saw they were getting the cold shoulder, and took a stab. “Young man, I understand your skepticism. As a respected scientist, naturally you should be skeptical. But what does a scientist do? He starts with a hypothesis and he collects data to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Your hypothesis is that this water is plain, old, ordinary water with no curative properties. So let’s put your hypothesis to the test and get you the data you need.” John Morse then took out a pocket knife and cut the outside of his forearm down the middle, leaving a four inch gash. Morse winced at the pain as blood gushed from the wound.
“Hey! What did you do that for?” asked Roessler.
“Charlie, will you do the honors, please?”
Winston quickly took out a handkerchief, dabbed it on the wound to stop the blood, and then poured a small amount of the healing water onto the cut. Within a few seconds, the wound cauterized. The water bubbled and fizzled along the cut line. Soon there was a barely visible scar. Roessler was amazed.
“Charlie, that is truly incredible. I will get this up to the lab right away. How much of this water do you have?”
“Just these two bottles,” said Winston. Morse gave him a frown, hinting to him not to give up too much information. Winston decided not to reveal that more water was back on Drame’s yacht. “Yes, that’s it.”
“Okay, I will take these two, run some quick tests on them, and then get them back to you.”
“Well, Jacob, here’s the thing. I would like to keep one bottle, you know, for safekeeping.” Winston was really thinking that he wanted to try this water out on his son’s legs. Roessler pulled the second bottle back.
“Charlie, there are lots of tests we need to run. There are millions of Americans who could be saved by this. If I run out of water after testing the first bottle, I don’t want to have to wait while you get all the way back down to the CDC. We are on the clock. But trust me, I won’t use it all. I am thinking maybe a bottle and a half. And I should be finished before midnight tonight. If this works, then we will analyze the chemical composition, and we can synthesize more of the water.” Winston did not like this plan, but he knew time was of the essence, and the entire country could be killed by this Ebola virus.
“Okay, but here’s my cell. You call me the minute the tests are done, day or night, and I will be back down here. And don’t use it all, okay? We worked very hard to get that.”
“No problem, Charlie. And thanks again. And good luck finding Murielle.” Roessler looked down at the table and paused. “That’s funny,” said Roessler.
“What’s funny?” asked Winston.
“Your coffee, you have two packets of Equal. That’s exactly how Murielle takes her coffee.”
“I guess if you’re married long enough, you even start to look like each other,” said Winston. “Call me later.”
Charlie Winston went out into the parking lot and took out a cigarette before getting in the car. He took a large drag and blew smoke into the air. John Morse noticed that he wasn’t getting into the car.
“What is it?” asked Morse. Winston looked off into the distance, pensive.
“That comment about the coffee,” said Winston.
“What about it?” asked Morse.
“They don’t have a coffee machine on their floor at the C.D.C. Murielle always complains about it because she frequently has to work late. And she doesn’t drink coffee in the morning or at lunch, only when she is up working late. I find it odd that Jacob would have ever seen her drink coffee, much less know how many packets of Equal she uses.”
“Maybe she got coffee from the cafeteria, or on a different floor, or brought it in from Starbucks. There could be a million explanations for that.”
“I guess so,” said Winston reluctantly, stamping out his cigarette and getting into the car. He dropped off Morse and his son at a downtown Marriott near the University, and then returned the rental car to the Atlanta airport. From there, he got a cab home.
Back at the C.D.C., Jacob Roessler began testing the miracle water. He looked at several drops under a microscope and it looked like something from outer space. He had never seen a chemical composition like it. It seemed to change chemical compositions back and forth, like it couldn’t make up its mind. He took the water to the Level 4 Biohazard lab and suited up. Once inside, he removed cages containing three white rabbits--one which had been infected with the Mackinac Ebola Virus ten days earlier, another which had been infected eight days earlier, and a third which had been infected six days earlier. All three were showing clear signs of the disease. Using a syringe, he carefully injected some of the healing water into each rabbit, and then returned the animals to their cages.
He also took some of the water and, with a pipette, applied the healing water to a glass dish containing monkey pancreas tissue which had been ravaged by the Mackinac Ebola Virus. He took a tiny sample of the tissue with the water sample applied, and put it under the electron microscope. He did not expect the water to act so quickly, but under the enhanced magnification, it looked like the black clusters of virus-filled cells appeared to be dissolving. He was astonished. He had never seen anything like it. For a moment, his good angel got the better of him, and, thinking as a scientist, he thought of all the diseases that this water could cure—epilepsy, cancer, Alzheimer’s. He was as excited as he had ever been. But then he thought about his mission. He thought about his sister and his mother and father. He was not going to give up on his mission now when they were so close. The tendrils of revenge swirled their way around his conscience, urging him to take the evil path.
He left the Hot Zone and removed his Biohazard suit, washing in the antiseptic shower. He decided to perform some work for an hour or two. When he returned to the Hotzone two hours later, he couldn’t believe his eyes. All three white rabbits were healthy and active. The water was a total cure. He took samples of blood from each rabbit and looked at the blood stained slides under the microscope. The blood looked just about normal.
It wasn’t possible. Roessler repeated the tests again, this time with infected pigs and infected spider monkeys. By 10:00 p.m., he had his answer. Every mammal was cured with the wonderful new water from the Island of Boyuca.
Seattle, Washington.
FBI Agents Green and Wilcox knocked on the door of attorney Gene Gerstein and his dermatologist wife, Dr. Sarah Stone. Gerstein answered the door in jeans and an Oregon University sweatshirt, holding a coffee mug.
“Sorry for the late hour, Mr. Gerstein. We called before. I am Agent Green and this is Agent Wilcox. We are from the FBI.”
“Yes, of course, Agent. Come right in.” The agents were ushered into the family room and onto the black couch. The doctor came down the stairs in short order and took a seat in a black leather chair.
“What’s this all about?” asked the father.
“We are here inquiring about your son,” said Green.
“You mean Levi?” asked the father.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Has he done something wrong?” asked the mother. “Levi, get down here!” A moment later, a lanky teenager, about sixteen years old, came down the stairs.
“What is it, Mom? I’m doing homework.”
Agents Green and Wilcox looked at each other.
“Is this your only son, ma’am?” asked Wilcox. The two parents looked at each other nervously, and then told their son to go back to his room.
“What is this all about, Agent?” asked the father.
“I am not at liberty to say, sir. All I can say is that your son has become a very important witness in a federal investigation,” said Wilcox. “Now, do you have another son?”
“Yes, Agent Wilcox, we have another son. But he has not been home in many years.”
“What was his name?” asked Green.
“Jacob. Jacob Gerstein.”
“Was he adopted?”
“Yes, Detective, he was.”
“Where is he now?” asked Wilcox.
“I am sorry to say this, Agent Wilcox,” said the mother. “But we don’t know. Jacob was a very difficult boy. He was born in Croatia, and his birth mother, father and sister were murdered in the Bosnian conflict. And then he had to separate from his brothers, who were the only ones he had left. He had so many psychological issues. He would have night terrors and wake up crying and wetting the bed. Then he would be moody and aggressive. We just could not handle him. He would get into fights with the other boys. He was abusive and rude. My husband and I do not tolerate that kind of behavior. We believe children need rules, and Jacob just did not want to live by the rules. Finally, when he was sixteen, he asked to move out on his own.”
“So he ran away?” asked Agent Green.
“Not exactly. He was determined to leave no matter what we said, mind you. There was no changing that one’s mind.” The mother began crying.
“My wife and I make quite a bit of money,” said the father, “and I did not want him to turn to crime or wind up in a gutter somewhere, so we set up a trust with a local bank. And the bank representative is the trustee. Jacob can access the trust whenever he wants, as long as he gets the approval of the trustee. The trust also conditioned receipt of funds on Jacob getting psychological treatment. So Jacob moved out, went to New York, got an apartment, and finished up high school there. The apartment and his schooling were paid for by the trust, of course. We had a subsequent conversation about two years later with his psychologist in New York. He told us that Jacob responded very well to treatment, and ultimately seemed to come to grips with his childhood trauma. We learned from the psychologist that Jacob’s birth father’s crop was wiped out by some kind of virus, and it was that event which resulted in his family having to move, and ultimately wind up in the Srebrenica concentration camps, where his birth mother and father were killed. That seemed to make sense to us, because Jacob used to spend long hours in his room reading books on biology. I guess he was trying to make sense of what happened to his family. Anyway, the psychologist said Jacob had changed his name, and then went on to college, where he apparently did very well.”
“What is his new name?”
“Jacob was insistent that we not know it. He felt abandoned by us and he wanted nothing to do with us. A good friend of ours saw him on the streets of New York about six years ago and said that he looked very good. He grew up to be a handsome young man.”
“What is his job now?”
“I really couldn’t tell you,” said the mother.
“Who would know his new name now?”
“The bank trustee.”
“What is his name?” asked Green.
“I don’t recall, but I have his card. I will go get it for you.” The father went into his den to retrieve the card.
“Could you do me a favor, Detective?” asked the mother.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you do find him, could you tell him that we love him and that we are sorry and we would really like to talk to him again?”
“I will certainly give him that message if I see him, ma’am,” said Green.
“Thank you.”
The FBI agents took the card and left the house. They would not be able to talk to the bank representative until the morning. Then they would learn the identity of Jacob Roessler.