The Pinocchio Syndrome. David Zeman

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СКАЧАТЬ freelance. I specialize in public health stories.’

      ‘That’s nice,’ Kraig said.

      There was a silence. The reporter knew Kraig wasn’t going to give her anything she could use. But, like any good journalist, she wanted to establish him as a contact.

      ‘I heard it was something about the decision-making process,’ she said.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Everhardt. Something to the effect that he can understand things – some things at least – but can’t make decisions based on what he knows. So he can’t act. He’s paralyzed.’

      Kraig turned toward the parking lot, beyond which a sad vista of apartments and two-story office buildings blocked the horizon.

      ‘No comment,’ he said.

      ‘I heard the White House is really worried,’ she said. ‘Without Everhardt for the polls, they’re not sure the president can hold off Colin Goss.’

      ‘I’m not a pollster,’ Kraig said.

      She nodded. ‘A lot of people are concerned about the viability of the administration. The voters are terrified of another nuclear attack like the Crescent Queen. Goss has been pulling a lot of strings in Congress. If anything happens to make the president look weaker than he is already, there might be a resolution asking him to resign. This Everhardt thing certainly doesn’t make him look stronger.’

      Kraig said nothing. He knew Colin Goss was putting pressure on the administration. Frankly, he thought it would be better for the country if Goss was in that hospital bed instead of Dan Everhardt. Goss was a true menace. In this sense, Kraig did have a political mind.

      ‘That’s not my department,’ he said.

      There was a silence.

      ‘I heard that some of the doctors think Everhardt’s problem may be functional,’ she said.

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ Kraig asked.

      ‘Mental. Emotional. Everhardt has been under a lot of stress recently. Maybe he cracked under the strain.’

      Kraig was looking at her face now. There was an odd concentration in her eyes, almost an animal concentration. He wondered for a split second whether she was on something, some sort of upper. But he rejected the idea. She was simply a newshound, ready to knock down any obstacle that stood between her and a story. Her kind didn’t need uppers. The stories themselves were their drug.

      ‘Everhardt is a good man,’ she said, ‘but he’s not really cut out for the presidential wars. Consider the way Colin Goss had him buffaloed on Washington Today. Maybe the pressure was getting too great for him.’

      Kraig cut her off. ‘I don’t have anything for you,’ he said.

      ‘As I say, I don’t want you to leak anything,’ she said. ‘I just want …’

      Kraig gave her a dark smile. ‘What is it you want, Miss Embry?’

      ‘Call me Karen. Please.’

      Kraig was not taken in by her friendliness.

      ‘What is it you want?’

      ‘I don’t want to chase windmills,’ she said. ‘I would like to have a contact who can help me stay on the right track. I really don’t want to print things that aren’t true.’ She hesitated. ‘Call it a friend I want,’ she said. ‘And I can be a friend in return.’

      Kraig gave her a long look. A tough reporter, wise to every angle an evasive government would try to pull on her. Looking for a scoop, and willing to trade. Trade what?

      Something told him not to blow her off completely.

      ‘Then stop jumping to conclusions,’ he said, ‘and start looking for better sources.’

      ‘That’s why I’m here.’ That intent look was still in her eyes.

      ‘I have work to do,’ Kraig said, taking out his keys. ‘See you.’

      He went inside and closed the door. The ceiling light in his foyer sent dim rays into the empty apartment. He felt an urge to turn on all the lights in the place and fill it with music, as quickly as possible.

      But after hanging up his coat he looked out the window to see if the girl was gone.

      She was standing on his steps, looking at the closed front door. She had pretty shoulders under that long hair. She must be cold out there.

      He felt an impulse, half sexual and half pure loneliness, to let her in and give her a drink. He hesitated for a long moment. Then he reached for the doorknob. At that instant she started down the steps to the parking lot. She moved quickly, all business, her car keys in her hand. Yet as she opened the car door she looked younger, almost girlish.

      Sighing, Kraig turned back to the emptiness of home.

       7

       November 17

      Eighteen hours after she left Joseph Kraig’s apartment Karen Embry stood in a hospital ward in Des Moines, Iowa, staring at a little girl.

      The girl’s arms were curled around a ragged teddy bear. Her fingers were frozen against the fur. The creases in her hospital gown remained exactly as they were when it was put on, for she had not moved since they brought her in. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling of the ward, as though the answer to a long-pondered riddle would appear there at any minute.

      The ward was crowded. There were no medical facilities in the affected part of the state capable of handling the victims. The majority had been taken by ambulance or National Guard transport to hospitals in Sioux City and Des Moines.

      The epidemic that had spread through a dozen towns in five counties now seemed to have stopped. No new victims had been found since the initial outbreak. This fact came as a relief to the public health officials, but did little for the harried medical professionals who were struggling to deal with fifteen hundred gravely sick adults and children.

      A cold front was sweeping across the Midwest and the Plains states, bringing wind chills below zero. Local inhabitants were wearing down jackets and parkas they had not expected to need for another month. Visitors, like Karen, found themselves underprotected against the intense cold.

      The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta had sent a team of specialists to investigate the epidemic. Unfortunately for them, there were no unaffected citizens to interview. Every man, woman, and child in each affected town had been struck down by the mystery illness.

      Karen learned all this upon her arrival at the university hospital in Des Moines from the CDC official in charge, Mark Hernandez. Though Hernandez was not happy to see Karen, he had been instructed by his superiors that good relations with the press were crucial at this sensitive time.

      He helped Karen put on anticontamination gear. ‘It’s almost СКАЧАТЬ