Ashley ran a hand across his brow. Some perspiration had appeared, despite the coolness of the room. He could feel that his pulse was racing. What if he had ALS after all? What if he had a brain tumor? Back when Ashley was a state senator in the early seventies, one of his colleagues came down with a brain tumor. Ashley tried vainly to remember what the man’s symptoms had been, but he couldn’t. All he could remember was seeing the man become a shadow of his former self before dying.
The door to the outer office cracked open. Dawn’s carefully coiffed head poked in. “Carol just called on her cell phone. She’ll be at the rendezvous location in five minutes.”
Ashley nodded and got to his feet. Encouragingly, he had no difficulty whatsoever. The fact that the medication Dr. Whitman had given him had seemingly worked miracles was to him the only bright spot in the whole affair. The worrisome symptoms had all but disappeared save for a bit of hand shaking just prior to another dose. If the problem could so easily be treated, perhaps he shouldn’t worry so much. At least that’s what he tried to convince himself.
Carol was right on time, as Ashley expected. She’d been working with him for sixteen years of his near-thirty-year senatorial tenure and had proved her reliability, dedication, and loyalty over and over. As they headed for Virginia, she even tried to take advantage of the time by discussing the day’s events and what to expect for the morrow, but she quickly caught on to the degree of Ashley’s preoccupation and fell silent. Instead, she concentrated on the hellish traffic.
Ashley’s anxiety ratcheted upward the closer they got to the doctor’s office. By the time he got out of the car, his perspiration had reappeared. Over the years, Ashley had learned to listen to his intuition, and his intuition was setting off alarm bells. There was something wrong in his brain, and he knew it, and he knew he was trying to deny it.
The appointment had been scheduled for Ashley’s benefit after the doctor’s regular office hours, and a sepulchral stillness hung over the vacant waiting room. The only light came from a small desk lamp creating a dim puddle of illumination on the empty receptionist’s desk. Ashley and Carol stood for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then an inner door opened, flooding the space with raw fluorescent light. Within the doorway was Dr. Whitman’s featureless backlit silhouette.
“Sorry about this inhospitable welcome,” Dr. Whitman said. “Everyone has gone home.” He flipped a wall switch. He was dressed in a starched white doctor’s coat. His demeanor was all business.
“No need for an apology,” Ashley said. “We appreciate your discretion.” He eyed the doctor’s face, hoping for some softening of his expression to interpret as an auspicious sign. There wasn’t any.
“Senator, please come into my office.” Dr. Whitman motioned within. “Ms. Manning, if you would be so good as to wait out here.”
The doctor’s office was a study in compulsive neatness. The furniture consisted of a desk with two guest chairs. The objects on the desk were all carefully aligned, while the books in the bookshelf were arranged according to size.
Dr. Whitman motioned to one of the guest chairs before taking his own seat. With elbows on the desk, he steepled his fingers. He stared at Ashley once the senator was seated. There was a pregnant pause.
Ashley had never been quite so uncomfortable. His anxiety had peaked. Ashley had spent most of his adult life jockeying for power, and he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Yet at that moment, he was utterly powerless.
“You said on the phone that the medication I gave you helped,” Dr. Whitman began.
“Wonderfully,” Ashley exclaimed, suddenly cheered by Dr. Whitman’s starting with the positive. “Almost all my symptoms disappeared.”
Dr. Whitman nodded knowingly. His expression remained inscrutable.
“I would have assumed that was good news.”
“It helps us make the diagnosis,” Dr. Whitman said.
“Well… what is it?” Ashley asked after an uncomfortable pause. “What’s the diagnosis?”
“The medication was a form of levodopa,” Dr. Whitman began in a doctoral tone. “The body can convert it into dopamine, which is a substance involved in some neuronal transmission.”
Ashley took a deep breath. A sudden wave of anger threatened to bubble to the surface. He didn’t want to be lectured, as if he were a student. He wanted the diagnosis. He felt he was being teased like a cat teases a cornered mouse.
“You’ve lost some cells that are involved with the production of dopamine,” Dr. Whitman continued. “These cells are in a part of your brain called the substantia nigra.”
Ashley held up his hands as if surrendering. He suppressed his urge to lash out verbally by swallowing with some difficulty. “Doctor, let’s get to the point. What do you think my diagnosis is?”
“I’m about ninety-five percent sure you have Parkinson’s disease,” Dr. Whitman said. He leaned back. His desk chair squeaked.
For a moment, Ashley didn’t speak. He didn’t know much about Parkinson’s disease, but it didn’t sound good, and some images of celebrities struggling with the disorder popped into his mind. At the same time, he felt relieved he’d not been told he had a brain tumor or ALS. He cleared his throat.
“Is this something that can be cured?” Ashley allowed himself to ask.
“Currently, no,” Dr. Whitman said. “But as you’ve experienced with the medication I gave you, it can be controlled for a time.”
“What does that mean?”
“We can keep you relatively symptom-free for a while, maybe a year, maybe longer. Unfortunately, because of your history of relatively rapidly developing symptoms, in my experience the medications will lose their effectiveness more quickly than with many other patients. At that point, the disease will be progressively debilitating. We’ll just have to deal with each circumstance as it arises.”
“This is a disaster,” Ashley mumbled. He was overwhelmed by the implications. His worst fears were coming to pass.
one
6:30 P.M., Wednesday, February 20, 2002
One Year Later
It seemed to Daniel Lowell that the taxi had senselessly pulled to a stop mid-block in the center of M Street in Georgetown, Washington D.C., a busy four-lane thoroughfare. Daniel had never liked riding in taxis. It seemed the height of ridiculousness to trust one’s life to a total stranger who more often than not hailed from a distant Third World country and frequently was more interested in talking on his cell phone than paying attention to driving. Sitting in the middle of M Street in the darkness with rush-hour traffic whizzing by on both sides and the driver carrying on emotionally in an unknown language was a case in point. Daniel glanced over at Stephanie. She appeared relaxed and smiled at him in the half-light. She gripped his hand affectionately.
It was only by leaning forward that Daniel could see there was a traffic light suspended from above to facilitate a rather awkward mid-block left-hand turn. Glancing at the other side of the street, he could see a driveway leading to a nondescript, boxy brick building.
“Is this the hotel?” Daniel questioned. “If it is, it doesn’t look much like a hotel.”
“Let’s hold our evaluation until we have a little more data,” Stephanie responded in a playful tone.
The light changed and the taxi leapt forward like a racehorse out of the gate. The driver only had one hand on the steering wheel as he accelerated through the turn. Daniel steadied himself to keep from being thrown against the car door. After a big bounce over the junction of the street and the hotel’s driveway, and then another sharp left-hand turn beneath the hotel’s porte cochere, the driver braked hard enough to put significant tension on Daniel’s seat belt. A moment later, Daniel’s door was pulled open.