“I appreciate your concerns, Dr. Marcus, but that information is confidential by law.” The administrator looked over the top of her glasses at him. “You should know that.”
Marcus took a deep breath and looked around the office, shifting in his seat. “Yes, of course I know that, Ms. Buxton, but that law was written to protect the identity of donors who might be infected with HIV. It was never meant to foreclose access to the names of individuals who may have received tainted blood.”
Ms. Buxton reached forward and placed her hand on a file resting on the top of her desk. Both she and Marcus looked down at the folder. “Irwin Memorial’s policy on these matters is clear. The names of both the donor and the recipient are protected.”
“But in this case I have the name of the donor,” Marcus said, leaning forward in his chair.
Ms. Buxton looked down at her notes. “Ah yes. Jason Kramer. Collected May 20 from a corporate donation at Anderson Kaplan.”
Marcus reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a piece of paper, then unfolded it and laid it on Ms. Buxton’s desk, partially covering the sign that read “Gloria Buxton–Supervisor.” Marcus pointed a finger at the paper. “That’s a signed consent form from Jason authorizing you to release the information.”
Ms. Buxton glanced down and gave the form a cursory inspection. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Without the donee’s consent too, my hands are tied.” She pushed the paper back across the desk. “Sorry,” she said, smiling.
Marcus studied her face for a moment looking for some sign of compromise, but the smile remained fixed. Marcus put his head down and rubbed his forehead. “All right,” he said, without looking up, “I’ll come clean.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “That blood may kill whoever got it.”
Ms. Buxton shook her head. “I already checked the file. That blood passed every screen with flying colors.”
Marcus looked up and locked eyes with Ms. Buxton. “You didn’t know what to look for.”
Ms. Buxton’s smile fell. “What do you mean?” she said
Marcus looked away. “Nothing,” he said as he stood and extended his hand. “Thanks for your time.”
Ms. Buxton remained seated, looking up at Marcus, eyes fixed. “If this situation is going to expose Irwin Memorial to some liability,” she said, “I need to know about it. Right now.”
Marcus withdrew his hand and moved to the door. “Have a nice day,” he said over his shoulder. Ms. Buxton’s mouth was still open when the door closed behind him.
Marcus returned to his car in the parking lot and sat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He thought about walking back up to Buxton’s office and quietly placing five one-hundred dollar bills on her desk. She can’t make much money, he thought. Finally, with a sigh, he picked up his phone and called Phillip Porter.
“Mr. Porter? Craig Marcus. You were right about Irwin Memorial. They collected Jason’s blood, but I can’t get them to tell me who the recipient was.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Porter said. “As long as we know it was Irwin, I can handle it from here.”
“I almost had it,” Marcus said. “There was a file on her desk with the name in it and—”
“Dr. Marcus,” Porter interrupted, “I said that was the end of it. We’ll call you with the information when we have it. Good bye.”
Marcus put the phone back into the cradle and started his car. He glanced at the clock in the dashboard and shouted “Oh, hell!” as he slammed the BMW into gear and roared out south onto Masonic Drive back toward UCSF. He grabbed the phone again and speed dialed number. “Hi,” he said. “I need you to get a message to Ruth Wilson and Vincent Samuels. I have a meeting with them scheduled at—” he glanced at the clock again “—right now, but I’m running a few minutes late. Let them know I’m on my way.”
Doctors Wilson and Samuels looked up when Marcus burst into the room. “Glad you could make it,” Vincent said.
Marcus moved to the conference table and opened his briefcase. “Sorry,” he said. “I was double booked. So, now that we’re all here, let’s begin.”
“Almost all here,” Vincent corrected, frowning and tapping his pencil on the table.
“What do you mean?” Marcus looked to Ruth for support, but she kept her eyes down, locked on her hands folded on the table.
“All of us except the patient,” Vincent said. “We’re missing the patient.” He glowered at Marcus and waited, and then Ruth looked up and watched him as well.
Marcus felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He took a deep breath. “The patient,” he said, “has been sequestered for security reasons.”
“Security reasons!” Vincent jumped to his feet and started around the table toward Marcus, breathing hard. “What bull! You and I both know Phillip Porter smelled a profit and so decided to tuck our golden boy away somewhere safe.” He stopped in front of Marcus’ chair and panted down on him. Marcus smelled sweat and coffee and stress.
“CDC knew this research was being underwritten by Porter Pharmaceuticals,” Marcus said. “As Porter’s Director of Research, I am obligated—”
“Director of Research! What a joke!” Vincent said, his face in Marcus’. “Everybody knows you’re nothing but a yes man for Porter, smiling and making nice, publishing trumped up research about how wonderful your boss’s company is.”
Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but Ruth held up her hand. “There’s no reason this project can’t go forward even if Mr. Kramer is . . . sequestered . . . for a time,” she said. “We still have enough blood and tissue samples to last us for the time being.” She turned to Dr. Marcus. “Craig, do you expect we will be able to have access to Kramer again at some point in the future?”
Marcus’ and Vincent’s stare-down continued. “Yes, I’m sure you will,” Marcus said.
“Very good then,” Ruth continued. “I see no reason we can’t proceed with our meeting.” She looked at Vincent. “Can you, Dr. Samuels?”
Vincent started to puff up again, but resigned and settled back into his chair instead. “No,” he said, “I guess I can’t.”
“Thank you, Ruth,” Marcus said to Dr. Wilson. He pulled a folder from his briefcase and opened it. “So, where are we? Any new theories on the blood factor? Where it comes from, how he makes it, how it works, how we make more, you know, the usual stuff.”
Ruth and Vincent exchanged glances. Marcus saw it, and his eyebrows popped up. “What?” he said.
“Since no one is going to say it, I’ll say it. Is it possible this guy has some kind of immunity?” Vincent said.
Marcus jumped on him, firing objections. “That’s ridiculous. TL is a totally new virus. His immune system had never been exposed to it before. You can’t be immune to something your body has no defenses to. And so far, nobody else’s immune system has fought this thing off.”
“Exactly,” Vincent said, “if you have no defenses. But the body does have one inherent and specialized line of defense against infections, in addition to plain old white blood cells. Interferon.”
Marcus snorted, but Vincent pushed ahead. “I’m surprised by your reaction, Craig,” Vincent said. “I thought you were the resident expert on interferon.”
Marcus went red, but Ruth put her hand on his arm. Marcus took a deep breath before continuing. “Naturally occurring interferon is far too weak to explain results like this,” he said. “Jason’s remission was so total, so complete . . . the closest we’ve ever come is with the altered interferon I was using in my research as a grad student—”
“And we all know what a success that was,” Vincent said, cutting in.
Ruth sucked air and winced, and the room went quiet. Marcus looked down at his hands and examined his nails, then stood and closed his briefcase with a loud pop. “I think we’re done here,” he said. Marcus looked at his watch. “I’ll see you back in Marin.” He removed his case from the table and left the room.
The two doctors sat in silence until Ruth finally broke the ice. “Nice,” she said. “Our one shot at the Nobel Prize, and you just burned the bridge. Hell, you nuked it.”
Vincent turned to Ruth and smiled. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small vial full of clear, light yellow liquid, and held it up for Ruth to see, turning it over and over in his fingers. The liquid caught the sunlight and glowed with an amber iridescence. “You’re wrong,” he said. “We don’t need the bridge anymore.”