MONDAY, APRIL 24
Lee awoke with the sunrise, feeling invigorated. His energy surprised him, given how frantic the previous day had been. Getting “The Cabin Clinic” operational had been a herculean effort, and he owed Paul more than a fancy Starbucks drink for his contributions.
Stepping quietly onto the front porch, Lee stretched his limbs and felt his back lengthen. Morning dew clung to leaves and tall grasses. He inhaled deeply, taking in the fresh pine smell scenting the air. All around him, birds were calling to each other in melodious tweets, chirps, and warbles. Lee sipped coffee from his mug, savoring the taste.
The peace he felt here was profound. His joints felt looser, including that troublesome knee. Even with everything happening to Cam and Susie, Lee could still take a moment to appreciate the beauty of this special place. No wonder Karen was so reluctant to sell.
The cabins had everything that was needed to live comfortably—working plumbing (well water and septic), and electricity. Come the winter months these cabins were closed down, but propane used for heating and cooking kept the pipes from freezing and insulation allowed for year-round use if anyone so desired. Eventually, Josh emerged from his bedroom to join Lee on the porch, clutching a mug of steaming coffee in his hands. His hair was a tangled mess.
“How’d you sleep, champ?”
Josh stretched, yawned lazily, and took a sip of coffee. “Not enough,” he said. “The birds woke me.”
Josh had loved coming to the camp as a boy. When Lee’s work allowed, he and Josh would trek out here on weekends to dig for worms. Afterwards, they’d spend hours on the lake, fishing from the flat-bottom canoe, catching and releasing small bass along with the occasional trout. The time had gone in a blink, and while the idea of the days being long and the years being short was a cliché, that did not make it untrue.
Lee asked: “You sure you don’t mind sticking around here a while to help your mother out?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
Josh said this quickly—a little too quickly, actually—and Lee sent his son a knowing sideways glance.
“She’s a pretty girl,” Lee said.
“Who?”
Josh’s attempt at ignorance would have fooled nobody. Lee just smiled.
“How you feeling about Hannah?”
“Who?”
This time Lee laughed.
“Anyway, Mom lent me her SIG, not to mention all of Grandpa’s guns. Those are still in good working order. We’ll keep Susie safe. You have my word.”
Josh came with plenty of military training. Lee had no doubt about his ability.
“Once I figure out what’s going on with her, make the connection to Cam, maybe we can get the president to take over protection duties. A lot depends on what the toxicologist reports back to us.”
“Like I said, I’ll be fine here for a while. No problems.”
Lee put his arm around his boy, embraced the moment, and wished it could last longer.
When they finished their coffee, Lee headed to the kitchen, where he cooked up some scrambled eggs and wheat toast. They had brought enough groceries to last only a few days, but modern conveniences were reasonably close by. The supermarket was a twenty-minute drive and a major hospital was only thirty-five minutes from camp. If all went well, Susie would need dialysis and nothing more, but Lee was glad to have easy access to a hospital in case of emergency. He still did not understand what was causing Susie’s symptoms, which meant the possibility of new symptoms occurring.
He and Josh ate their breakfast at the dining room table. The cabin walls were decorated with flea market paintings, the rug beneath the table had gone threadbare, but the view out the window into a verdant and vast forest made this a five-star dining experience in Lee’s opinion.
When his cell phone rang, Lee figured it was Karen calling. The caller ID did show a D.C. area code, but it was not a number Lee recognized.
He answered the call. “Dr. Blackwood here.”
“Hello, Dr. Blackwood, this is Vera Sacks from XLR Labs calling with results from your priority job.”
Excitement rose as Lee thought about Gleason and finally getting some answers.
“Go on,” he said.
“I have both sets of results for you. I’ll start with the SB sample.”
Susie Banks, Lee thought.
Lee had selected XLR Labs for their use of high-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, the two best techniques for identifying compounds by comparison. Like all doctors, Lee had suffered through organic chemistry, but the course was never in his wheelhouse, and he hated to admit the science XLR Labs used to analyze the ProNeural product line was a bit over his head. But the end result was easy enough to understand.
Lee found a pen and some paper on the bookshelf and wrote down the compounds and amounts present as Vera read through the findings in the three different pills analyzed: SOAR, FOCUS, and SUPER O-3.
In total, Lee’s list contained twelve different naturally occurring substances, including bacopa monnieri, an herb native to the wetlands of Eastern India, and periwinkle, the seeds of which yielded vincamine, thought to be a natural memory enhancer. In addition to ginseng, rosemary, vitamin D and K, as well as omega-3, the ProNeural pill line contained huperzine-a, an alkaloid compound found in firmoss; theanine, found in green tea; and tryptophan, an amino acid and mood enhancer obtained only through diet and supplements, best known for its association with turkey. There was also spearmint, basil, marjoram, palm, wheat, daisy, and dracaena, which Vera identified as a houseplant. When Vera read off the make-up of Cam’s supplements, they exactly matched the ingredients in the SB samples.
Lee asked Vera to repeat her findings on the off chance he had missed something important. He checked off each item as she read it back to him, and no, he had not missed anything.
“What is it, Dad?” Josh asked when Lee ended his call. “You seem a little freaked out.”
But Lee did not answer. Instead he called his neurologist friend at the MDC, the person who had done Cam’s MRI and EEG, Dr. Marilyn Piekarski. When she answered, Lee gave a quick overview of the issue before he read through the results from XLR Lab’s analysis of the nootropics.
“There’s virtually nothing in these,” Dr. Piekarski told Lee, confirming his suspicion. “Just a bunch of herbs and plant compounds.”
“What’s your bottom line on this, Marilyn. Help me put some pieces together.”
“I’m no expert, Lee, but I know some of these designer nootropics contain a class of drugs called racetams, which includes complex, synthetic compounds like piracetam. In the U.S., piracetam isn’t FDA approved and can’t be included in supplements like nootropics, but in the U.K. it’s less regulated and used to treat myoclonus, of all things. So, if you told me that compound was present in the ProNeural samples, or something like it, I might give my answer more thought. But it isn’t. Bottom line, these supplements aren’t causing Susie or Cam’s symptoms. Impossible.”
* * *
FLANKED BY Josh and Lee on the front porch of Susie’s cabin, Karen drank from her mug of coffee and dubiously studied Lee’s handwritten list of ingredients from XLR Lab’s report. She was dressed casually in jeans and a comfy sweatshirt; it was the way Lee remembered her when they’d come here in years past. Inside the cabin, Susie was still asleep. Valerie had gone out early to take a walk around the property and check out the lake.
“So this makes no sense to me,” Karen said, focusing intently on the list. “I cook with a lot of these ingredients, and I don’t feel any smarter for it.”
“Dr. Piekarski said some nootropics contain synthesized compounds, complex drugs manufactured in a lab, as opposed to the natural extracts like what we found in the ProNeural line.”
“So what does this mean? What about Gleason?”
“It means we’re still at square one,” Lee said. “It means that if this is what Gleason is giving Cam, it’s not causing his moodiness, organ enlargement, seizures, none of it. Same goes for Susie.”
“What about the red spot in Susie’s eyes?” Karen asked.
“CO poisoning, most likely,” Lee said. “We knew all along it was a possible cause.”
“So this was all for nothing?” Karen’s voice was distressed. “I don’t buy it. Not for one second. Someone wants this girl dead, Lee. Someone wanted those twins dead, too. Something is wrong with Cam, and the link between all four of them is the TPI. There’s a reason. We need to find it.” She sounded sure of herself.
Josh snapped his fingers. “Go back to what you said at the restaurant, Mom. Maybe this stuff isn’t the only thing Yoshi is giving his star students. Maybe he’s feeding them something more complex.”
Lee and Karen gave him their full attention.
“I mean—and I’m thinking out loud here,” Josh continued, “what if Yoshi is giving these kids something other than his placebo supplements to achieve his impressive results, and when complications arise, he’s burying the evidence? It would be easy enough to give Cam something without Dr. Gleason knowing—or maybe—” Josh paused, thinking it through. “Maybe Gleason’s helping Yoshi out. I mean there’s a reason Gleason’s tried so hard to keep you away from Cam, right, Dad? If these guys come up with some brain-boosting breakthrough, they’ll stand to make millions.”
“Billions,” Lee corrected.
“So call the president,” Josh said. “Tell him what we found in those supplements.”
Karen shook her head, dismissing the idea. “And tell him I think Yoshi Matsumoto may be experimenting on Cam and the others? Tell him we don’t know if Gleason’s involved or not? That some experiment, we don’t know what, went wrong and now someone, we don’t know who, is going to try to take out Cam to hide the evidence? Look at how our last conversation with the president went down, Lee. First he’ll go apoplectic, and after that he’ll push me right out of the White House. We are teetering on the edge here.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” Lee asked.
“I’ll go back to Washington, right now, and be extra eyes and ears around Cam.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lee said. “Maybe the president would go crazy, but Ellen won’t. I need to talk to Yoshi, see what else might be going on here. I’ll tell Ellen we got samples of Susie’s ProNeural nootropics tested and I have some questions, nothing alarming, but I’d like some clarification on a few things. She doesn’t need to know what we found just yet. I’ll ask for her help arranging a meeting for me with Yoshi and Dr. Gleason at the TPI. See where that leads us.”
“What about me?” Josh asked.
“You stay on guard duty,” Karen said. “We’ll drive into town, rent two cars. That way you and Valerie will each have a vehicle here. I’ll come back soon, but you can hold down the fort for a while, I trust.”
“I spent years on patrol and post,” Josh said, his eyes glazing with the memory. “I can handle it. Not a problem.”
“Yeah, well, here’s a problem, and I’m not sure how to fix it,” Karen said. “Until we figure out what’s going on, I’ve got to keep Cam away from the True Potential Institute, not to mention his doctor. He has the World Junior Chess Championships coming up. He’s going to want to train.”
“And Gleason’s not going to suddenly drop Cam from his patient roster,” Lee said. “What do you suggest?”
“I suggest you do more than just talk to Yoshi Matsumoto,” Karen said. “You’ve got to hurry up and get us some real answers.”