Capitol Reflections Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PART I - MAY 2005

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART II - FALL 1977

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART III - JULY 2005

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  PART IV

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  PART V

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  PART VI

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  Further Praise for Capitol Reflections:

  “Javitt has melded his professional and political expertise to craft a chilling thriller that should alert every reader to the very real dangers we face in the twenty-first century. His characters are compelling and realistic, very much like the dedicated people who served with me during my tenure as Surgeon General. His plot, while (hopefully) fictional, could just as easily be a headline from tomorrow’s newspapers.”

  —Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General

  “Javitt has written a grab-you-by-the-throat thriller that could easily be tomorrow’s lead news story. Under the guise of a compelling read lurks a keep-you-guessing plot that should cause any intelligent reader to worry about the safety of us all. An intrepid female physician, a town full of bad guys, and the safety of the American people at stake. Seems like a surefire recipe for success.”

  —Janet Rehnquist, former Inspector General, Health and Human Services

  “A fast-moving, medical twist-and-turner, written with a knowledgeable pen and a creative wit.”

  —Fran Kritz, Washington Post & Los Angeles Times columnist

  “Compelling and terrifying. This book is a must for mystery and adventure readers—and for everyone concerned about what he puts in his body.”

  —Ben Stein, bestselling author, Emmy-winning TV host, and national commentator

  “Capitol Reflections may read like fiction, but the truth should scare us more. Our food safety laws were written long before we ever imagined, much less created genetically-modified food. Within the guise of a great thriller, Jonathan Javitt has vividly illustrated the danger that confronts us all if we don’t act soon.”

  —Wayne Pines, former Associate

  Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug

  Administration

  “Author Javitt, a well-known epidemiologist, physician and health advisor to three presidents, presents this frighteningly believable first novel of a health crisis, political corruption and cover-ups; the work brings Robin Cook and David Baldacci to mind.”

  —Author Online

  Dedicated to the memory of Capt. Henry Krakauer, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of the U.S. Public Health Service, Gwen’s true mentor and an inspiration to the rest of us.

  PART I

  MAY 2005

  1

  Marci Newman, coiffed, petite and impeccably dressed in a gray business suit, picked up her briefcase and left the new Pequod’s coffee bistro in SoHo, clutching her double skim latte by its cardboard sleeve. She carefully wove her way through an obstacle course of vendors, deliverymen, and pedestrians. As usual, she had just inhaled a salad, along with a few guilty puffs of the cigarettes she’d “given up” years ago, during her all-too-short lunch break before heading back to the daily grind of the city courts in Foley Square. She was especially pressed for time, having walked an extra three blocks and passing four other espresso bars for her daily dose of Pequod’s. The additional stress was worth it, though; ever since the new chain took New York by storm, nobody else’s latte tasted quite as good. Marci knew she wasn’t the only one who felt this way. In the months since Pequod’s entered the city, the lines at the ubiquitous Starbucks shops dwindled to a trickle.

  Marci’s friends and colleagues claimed she needed to eat more and find time for rest and relaxation. Her college roommate, Gwen, now an epidemiologist for the Food and Drug Administration, was forever preaching to Marci about slowing down, getting exercise, reducing her caseload, maybe even getting out and dating occasionally. Marci smiled at the thought of seeing Gwen tonight for dinner, even though it would lead to a reprise of this ongoing lecture. Marci loved Gwen dearly and even loved the fact that Gwen never got off her back about her lifestyle.

  Of course, she was never going to do anything about that lifestyle. So what if she was “professionally overextended”? She wasn’t soccer mom material, anyway. She wasn’t about to give up the pro bono work she added to her caseload at Denniger, Sachman & Wayne even at the risk of exhaustion and spinsterhood.

  Marci’s latest pro bono cause was Anh Nguyen. Ms. Nguyen was being evicted from her apartment by a slumlord looking to turn a quick profit by flipping the tenement to a developer who, in turn, intended to convert the property to condos with a trendy boutique on the ground floor bordered by a bookstore and gourmet coffee shop (probably a Pequod’s, though Marci didn’t want to let that sway her). To the real estate crowd who traded property like Monopoly cards, Anh was just another nuisance holdout, a pothole on the road they called “urban renewal.” Anh had lived in the building—apartment 5B—since coming to New York in the early seventies as a refugee from America’s adventures in Southeast Asia. Her first home, a Vietnamese village surrounded by fecund rice paddies was turned into a napalm-fueled sheet of flame, along with her husband and five of her seven children. The thought of losing the only remaining point of constancy in her life was more than this seventy-six-year-old Hmong woman could bear.

  Marci would do her part to save her. Right now, Marci felt as though she could save anyone—she was invincible. She was playing a vital role in the greatest city in the world on one of its picture-perfect May days—seventy-five degrees, blue skies, and lots of sun. She felt good. Superb, in
fact. The street sounds overwhelmed her like a symphonic orchestra at its climax. She was a modern day Walt Whitman taking in the poetry that was Manhattan’s lifeblood. Everything was clear and sharp; every pedestrian, taxi, pigeon, and store sign in perfect focus. She was definitely “on,” which she knew would not have been the case had she eaten a large meal. A full stomach doesn’t win cases. Lettuce and litigation made a much better combination.

  She continued walking, still thinking of Anh. The case was perfect for her. The law was against her, the facts were against her, and the New York judges played golf with the real estate boys every Saturday morning. All Marci had going for her was Anh’s sincerity and her own social-grievance-engendered spunk. Oh yes, and one other thing: yesterday the slumlord was indicted for bribing a public official. Marci knew that the slumlord’s crime and her particular case were separate legal situations and that it was also possible the slumlord had already bribed the judge on her case. On the other hand, ever since Joan Salzman became chief prosecutor to the city’s ethics board, city officials were thinking very carefully about doing favors for their old cronies. Suddenly, Marci and Anh had a fighting chance. That was usually all Marci ever needed.

  “You help Anh.”

  Marci remembered the first words she had heard from the frail woman with passion in her eyes. She was waiting outside Marci’s office building. Marci would later learn that Anh had waited for hours. The receptionist for the firm did not make a practice of admitting anyone without an appointment, certainly not an elderly woman wearing a faded housecoat. But Anh Nguyen had stared down hundreds of automatic weapons in her village when the camouflaged A-teams surreptitiously stepped from the edge of the jungle; she was both persistent and tough. She crouched on the sidewalk, head resting on knees tucked close to her body, waiting for a lawyer with a sympathetic face to emerge from the glass high-rise.

  “Landlord tell Anh ‘Move out. No want. Building change owner.’ But Anh no go. Anh no leave home.” She paused, and Marci studied her face. At that point, Marci knew nothing about the woman, but she knew her eyes had seen more than its share of darkness. “Husband, children, brother, sister—leave, die, move way. Not here. Help Anh. Please.”

  In actuality, the speech lasted quite a bit longer and was punctuated by tears and more pleading. As the distressed stranger clawed at her Donna Karan jacket, Marci listened to every word. She knew long before the tiny woman had finished that she would handle the matter. Denniger, Sachman & Wayne expected Marci to represent a number of New York City landlords and developers. She was well aware of the bottom-feeders among them. She was going to take one on today.

  Stopping at a light, Marci raised her head and beheld the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the waters of the East River in its turn-of-the-century majesty. Beautiful, she thought. Absolutely spectacular. She wished she could stop and muse over its architecture, its intricacies, its history—even speculate on the lives of the people who built it and those who died in the attempt. Not now, though. She had a client to send home, happy and content, to apartment 5B. The bench trial that morning had been short and sweet. Marci clearly demonstrated that Anh’s landlord was selling the property after years of neglecting various building codes, not to mention the fact that he broke any number of clauses in Ms. Nguyen’s lease. The judge would summarily render his verdict and Marci would be back in her corner office with its commanding view of the city. Within two hours, she would be ready to see at least three more clients before surrendering to the close of another business day and meet with Gwen and Jack Maulder for dinner.

  Caught up in her thoughts, she barely noticed the man in a rumpled suit heading straight for her. He was dark-complected, with black, oily hair combed straight back above an unfashionably early five o’clock shadow. He smiled, revealing nicotine stains on his uneven teeth. He planted himself squarely in Marci’s path.

  “So,” he whispered into Marci’s ear, “are you ready for me to show you the night of your life?”

  Marci stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Fazio, if you had the equipment to back up your offer, I might actually get outraged enough to complain to the Bar Association about your pathetic desperation to lose your virginity. Last I heard, however, people couldn’t find your package with tweezers.” Marci smiled sweetly, as if she’d just complimented his tie. “Go find more slumlords to defend. And for God’s sake, try topping off your Chinese food with some Altoids. You reek.”

  “Is that any way to speak to a colleague in the world’s second oldest profession?” asked Joseph Fazio, attorney-at-law.

  “As I see it, Counselor, you only joined the second oldest profession in order to represent relatives who have the dubious distinction of belonging to the world’s first oldest.” Marci was pleased with the comeback; that double-latte had her firing on twelve cylinders. She stepped aside and strode intrepidly up the courthouse steps and through the main entrance, hoping to lose Fazio. She always felt the desire to take a shower after speaking with him.

  “Loosen up, Counselor,” urged Fazio, who unfortunately thought Marci was interested in continuing their exchange. “You’re obviously not getting any, and I’m just offering to help you with that problem. I’ll even buy dinner.”

  Marci pivoted sharply. “If you want to help me, tell your slumlord to fix up his building. Oh, right, he can’t because he’s too busy trying to figure out a way to stay out of jail at the moment. Otherwise—”

  “Yes, yes,” Fazio interrupted. “Otherwise, I should go fuck myself while you simultaneously defend the poor and keep corporate criminals safe over at Denniger, Sachman.”

  “I would never suggest an anatomic impossibility. That’s just your filthy mind at work.” Smiling coldly, Marci continued toward the nearest open elevator, turned, and watched Joseph Fazio stop abruptly, unable to push his considerable girth into the small cubicle.

  “Next car,” she called our cheerily as the doors slid closed.

  Marci stepped from the elevator directly into a wall of heat and humidity on the third floor. The building engineer was supervising workmen crawling through access panels in the ceiling, and it was obvious that the air conditioning wasn’t combating the eighty-degree temperature in the hallway. Marci silently cursed the city councilman who had shepherded the air conditioning contract through the process and the unknown relative of the councilman from whom it had been procured.

  She opened the door of the first courtroom on the right, noticing Fazio once again hot on her tail. The sight of the frail Vietnamese woman sitting at the back of the room immediately renewed her sympathy. Anh looked nervous and she wore the same housecoat she’d worn when she first encountered Marci.

  “They’ll probably call our case in a few minutes,” Marci whispered reassuringly as she slipped into a seat next to Anh and lightly touched her forearm. “Looks like another case is dragging a bit. Don’t worry.”

  Fazio sat down with his client, a man in his fifties, on the opposite side of the courtroom a few rows ahead. The disheveled tenement owner was wearing wrinkled navy-colored pants, a faded herringbone jacket, and workman’s shoes. Looking over his shoulder, he scowled at Anh and then began whispering something to Fazio.

  The courtroom was even warmer and stuffier than the hallway. Marci was beginning to perspire. She took a tissue from her purse to wipe beads of moisture from her forehead. The heat notwithstanding, her senses were still attuned to everything around her. She was able to follow two conversations being held in low tones far back in the room, as well as the more audible exchange between a lawyer and the judge.

  I guess this is the true meaning of multi-tasking, she said to herself, immodestly in awe of her own ability to follow the threads of so many simultaneous situations. Then, as she wiped her forehead again, she inhaled deeply. Something more than air seemed to escape from her when she exhaled. Suddenly, without warning, she felt drained.

  “Nguyen versus Lazlow,” a voice rang out. “Step forward and be heard.”

 
Marci took another deep breath, trying to regain her spark. She looked up and saw that the bailiff was staring at her. She started, suddenly aware that she had lost track of time. That never happened. She chided herself for the lapse, wondering if she should have gotten another shot of espresso with her latte.

  No time to think about that now. She took Anh by the hand and led her to the front of the courtroom. The bailiff read the case number while the judge casually shuffled papers.

  “Very well,” Judge Walter T. Jacobs declared, finally looking over glasses resting on the tip of his nose. “I’ve considered the testimony from this morning and I’m prepared to put this issue to rest. Does anyone have anything else to say?” His tone was that of a man who had little interest in what he was doing, someone who listened to dozens of petty disputes every day while his mind was on the putting green, gauging how far to the left a six-footer would break.

  Marci smiled very slightly as the phrase “turnstile justice” floated through her mind. You’re in, you’re out, slam bam, thank you, ma’am, she thought. Next case. Hi everyone! Welcome to the show!

  If that was the way things were, Marci believed the little guy—or gal, as the case might be—deserved to win one once in a while. And there was something in the judge’s eyes when he looked at Lazlow. Jacobs seemed repelled by the man, as though Lazlow got on an airplane seat next to him with a runny nose and a hacking cough.

  “Yes, your honor,” Marci said, reaching for a paper in her briefcase. “There’s one final document that—”