The Pinocchio Syndrome. David Zeman
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Название: The Pinocchio Syndrome
Автор: David Zeman
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007394654
isbn:
The assistant unzipped the body bag. Thankfully, the smell that emerged from the corpse when he pulled down the zipper was essentially formaldehyde, reminding her of her lab days at college.
The face of the body was like that of any cadaver, gray and expressionless, the features slack.
‘Caucasian male, about forty,’ Dr Waterman said.
As he pulled the bag aside, Karen saw the distorted hands.
‘Hardened, fused,’ she said.
‘Correct. More like modified cartilage than skin.’ The doctor picked up one of the hands. ‘I’ve never seen anything remotely like it.’
I have. Karen was thinking that the corpse’s hands were almost identical in appearance to the hands of the victims in Australia. She did not volunteer what she knew.
‘Have you done tissue studies?’ she asked.
‘Informally, on my own, yes. I probably shouldn’t have – the big shots in Atlanta will want complete control – but I couldn’t resist. It’s not normal tissue. I’m not enough of a cell biologist to understand it, but I do know that in all my years of tissue biopsies I’ve never seen changes like this.’
He showed her the feet. Just as in Australia, the digits were distorted and partially fused, and the heel and sole had pulled together in a hooflike shape. Death had done nothing to alter the distinctive, troubling look of the foot.
‘I’ve checked my medical books,’ he said. ‘No luck. I can’t find a disease, no matter how rare, that has this feature.’
Karen felt a suspicious throb of lightheadedness as she studied the corpse. It occurred to her rather remotely that she hadn’t had much to eat in the last three days.
Before she could complete the thought her eyes began to roll up in her head. Her lips and hands tingled. She tried to steady herself against the gurney, but failed.
The doctor caught her before she could fall to the floor.
She came to in his office, lying on a deep leather couch. He was standing over her with a glass of water in his hand. She felt horrible. Her head ached intensely, her stomach was queasy, and she felt too dizzy to sit up.
‘I’m embarrassed,’ she said.
‘Don’t be,’ he smiled. ‘It happens all the time here.’
‘It really wasn’t the body, so much,’ she said weakly. ‘I’ve been on airplanes for the last three or four days. I’m jet-lagged.’
He smiled indulgently. ‘Yes, that would do it too.’
He revived her with water followed by strong coffee. He insisted that she remain lying on the couch. He was surprised to see her pursue her story even in her weakened state.
‘You reported this to the state health authorities?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘I copied my e-mail to the CDC in Atlanta. Nobody got back to me. Either they’re swamped, or it’s a bureaucratic thing. A snafu.’
‘I’d like to ask you to do me a favor,’ Karen said. ‘Can you keep a lid on this for another twenty-four hours while I check out a couple of things?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ the doctor said. ‘We’re supposed to report anything out of the ordinary.’
‘You’ve already reported it,’ Karen said. ‘All I’m asking is that you sit tight for one day. There are people at the federal level who need to know about this.’
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