“I can tell you one candidate,” said Marissa. “Calvin Markham.” Mr. Frank nodded. “Yup, here’s Markham’s name along with a number of other conservative candidates. At least we know the political bent.”
“Right wing,” said Marissa.
“Probably very right wing,” said Mr. Frank. “I’d guess they are trying to knock off DRGs-Diagnosis-Related Groups-limit immigration of foreign medical school graduates, stop HMO start-up subsidies and the like. Let me call someone I know at the Federal Elections Commission.”
After some chitchat, he asked his friend about the Physicians’ Action Congress. He nodded a few times while he listened, then hung up and turned to Marissa. “He doesn’t know much about PAC either, except he looked up their Statement of Organization and told me they are incorporated in Delaware.”
“Why Delaware?” questioned Marissa.
“Incorporation is cheapest there.”
“What are the chances of finding out more about the organization?” asked Marissa.
“Like what? Who the officers are? Where the home office is? That kind of stuff?”
“Yes,” said Marissa.
Picking up the phone again, Frank said: “Let’s see what we can learn from Delaware.”
He was quite successful. Although initially a clerk in the Delaware State House said that he’d have to come in person for the information, Mr. Frank managed to get a supervisor to bend the rules.
Mr. Frank was on the line for almost fifteen minutes, writing as he listened. When he was done, he handed Marissa a list of the board of directors. She looked down: President, Joshua Jackson, MD; vice-president, Rodd Becker, MD; treasurer, Sinclair Tieman, MD; secretary, Jack Krause, MD; directors, Gustave Swenson, MD; Duane Moody, MD; and Trent Goodridge, MD. Opening her briefcase, she took out the list of partners for Professional Labs. They were the same names!
Marissa left the AMA with her head spinning. The question that loomed in her mind was almost too bizarre to consider: what was an ultraconservative physicians’ organization doing with a lab that owned sophisticated equipment used only for handling deadly viruses? Purposely, Marissa did not answer her own question.
Her mind churning, Marissa began walking in the direction of her hotel. Other pedestrians jostled her, but she paid no heed.
Trying to pick holes in her own theory, Marissa ticked off the significant facts: each of the outbreaks of Ebola had occurred in a private group prepaid health-care facility; most of the index patients had foreign-sounding names; and in each case where there was an index patient, the man had been mugged just prior to getting sick. The one exception was the Phoenix outbreak, which she still believed was food borne.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a display of Charles Jourdan shoes-her one weakness. Stopping abruptly to glance in the store window, she was startled when a man behind her almost knocked her over. He gave her an angry look, but she ignored him. A plan was forming in her mind. If her suspicions had any merit, and the previous outbreaks had not been the result of chance, then the index patient in New York was probably working for a prepaid health-care clinic and had been mugged a few days previous to becoming ill. Marissa decided she had to go to New York.
Looking around, she tried to figure out where she was in relation to her hotel. She could see the el in front of her and remembered that the train traveled the Loop near the Palmer House.
She began walking briskly when she was suddenly overwhelmed with fear. No wonder she’d been attacked in her home. No wonder the man who’d caught her in the maximum containment lab had tried to kill her. No wonder Markham had had her transferred. If her fears were true, then a conspiracy of immense proportions existed and she was in extreme jeopardy.
Up until that moment she’d felt safe in Chicago. Now, everywhere she looked she saw suspicious characters. There was a man pretending to window-shop she was sure was watching her in the reflection. She crossed the street, expecting the man to follow. But he didn’t.
Marissa ducked into a coffee shop and ordered a cup of tea to calm down. She sat at a window table and stared out at the street. The man who had scared her came out of the store with a shopping bag and hailed a cab. So much for him. It was at that moment that she saw the businessman. It was the way he was carrying his briefcase that caught her attention, his arm at an awkward angle, as though he couldn’t flex his elbow.