After the Truth (Book One)

Eight

Arriving in Los Angeles two days later was like walking into a whirlwind. No sooner had we landed then Evelyn and I found ourselves in a crowded conference room on the eighth floor of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard. There we were introduced to a myriad of people and acronyms. There was Special Agent Williams from the FBI, DEA Special Agent Markham, Associate Director Fallow from CDC, a Dr. Wallace from FEMA and a Jack Ford from the County Coroner's office. There was even a Colonel from the US Air Force. Each one of them had at least one colleague with them and although Jack gave pleasant small talk as he poured us coffees and we took the two vacant seats he indicated for us, everyone else in the room silently inspected us as if we were suspects about to be interrogated.

I had barely taken my first sip of bitter, stale coffee when AD Fallow from the Centres for Disease Control took control of the meeting.

'We need to know exactly what we are dealing with, Drs Longdon and Apate,' he said brusquely. 'We've got seven dead healthy teenagers and one dead healthy male in his early twenties on our hands. County and FBI coroner's can find no cause of death and the only possible substances that might affect the health of these children is very low levels of cannabis found in four of the victim's bodies.'

Before we left Geneva we had been given the reports of the County Coroner's Office autopsies so we were not coming into this meeting completely devoid of facts, but the mention of cannabis was new to me, somehow the FBI were involved and had conducted second pathological examinations. I guessed, correctly, that the potential cannabis link between the victims had instigated the inclusion of the DEA in our meeting.

The eight victims of this cluster had died over the course of the last ten days. The first, an eighteen-year old girl called Jessica Hylton had died at home, in front of her parents. The next day 3 children of the same age, a boy and two girls, were all found dead in their bedrooms within five hours of each other. Three days later another girl, a Francis Ingram, died on the street. Witness statements said she was walking along talking on the telephone and then suddenly dropped down dead. Two days later Robin Beckham, twenty-two, was found dead in his apartment, it was estimated he had been dead for twelve hours. Two days after that a boy and girl, both seventeen, the youngest of all the victims, died in a shopping mall when confronted by a security guard who suspected them of shop lifting.

With the cluster of victims everyone was trying to find the link between them all. Several had been found. The links that had been identified were the high school all the children attended, their general locality within ten miles of each other and, what was seen most importantly, all the children had attended a Christian Summer camp two weeks before the first victim died. Robin Beckham was at the camp too, as the children's Thought Leader. Initial investigation by the CDC had concentrated on the camp site, two hours north of Santa Clara, but no toxic or viral contagions had been found.

Despite my doubts on the warmth of the reception we were receiving the, CDC had been very detailed in the package of information they had sent us. It included video from the shopping mall security camera that contained the moments when the last two victims, a boy called Paul Vert and a girl called Nancy Freeman, died as they were confronted by a mall security guard. It was easily possible to see from the footage that the boy and girl were stealing. The shop they were in was an outdoor sports shop and they were seen to be trying to steal hiking gear.

As in Brazil, on the flight from Geneva, I ghoulishly watched the video of the children dying over and over again. Each time I was looking for some indication of what was going on inside their body at the point of death, but each time it was the same as with the footage of Father Cardoso's last moments. They simply stopped living. One second they were alive, the next they were dead, their bodies no longer supported and simply slumping to the floor. The shop security guard reacted quickly, shouted for help whilst simultaneously attempting CPR on Nancy. A second security guard came over quickly and performed a similar procedure on Paul, but both to no avail. The boy and girl were announced dead on arrival at the nearby Northridge Hospital.