Dream a Little Dream of Me
Two years, three months later – Lebanon
"Mr. Hawthorne."
"Mr. Hawthorne."
"Wake up, Mr. Hawthorne, it's time to go."
Decker opened his eyes and looked around the room. As he twisted his body and shifted his weight to sit up, the ropes that bound his hands and feet slipped off like oversized gloves and shoes.
"It's time to go, Mr. Hawthorne," the voice of a young boy said again.
Decker rubbed his eyes and looked toward the voice. There in the open doorway of his room stood Christopher Goodman. Now 14 years old, he had grown remarkably since Decker last saw him. "Christopher?" Decker asked, puzzled at this obviously unexpected turn of events.
"Yes, Mr. Hawthorne," Christopher answered.
"What are you doing here!?" Decker asked in confused disbelief.
"It's time to go Mr. Hawthorne. I've come to get you," Christopher said, making no attempt to explain.
Christopher walked from the room and signaled for him to follow. Decker lifted the 115 pounds that remained of his body and followed Christopher out of the room and toward the front door. Halfway there, Decker hesitated. There was something he was trying to remember, something too important to forget, something he could not leave behind.
"Tom!" he said suddenly. "Where's Tom?" he asked of the friend he had not seen since they were brought to Lebanon.
Christopher hesitated and then raised his arm slowly and pointed toward another door. Silently, Decker opened it, looking for any sign of his captors. There was none. Inside, Tom lay on a mat identical to the one Decker had now spent nearly three years sleeping on, sitting on, eating on… living on. Tom was lying with his face to the wall. Decker entered and began untying the bonds that held his friend's feet.
"Tom, wake up. We're getting out of here," he whispered.
Tom sat up and looked at his rescuer. For a moment they just stared at each other's faces. Decker forced his eyes away and began untying Tom's hands. He had not looked in a mirror at any time during his captivity, and though he knew that his body was emaciated, he had not seen his face, where the most dramatic effects of his captivity were evident. Seeing Tom's face, he was struck with such grief and sympathy for his friend's similar condition that he had to look away to hold back tears.
Outside the apartment, Decker and Tom walked stealthily down the hall, hoping to avoid detection. Christopher, on the other hand, walked on ahead of them, showing absolutely no sign of concern about the seriousness of the situation. They went down a long stairway, cluttered with trash and broken bits of plaster and glass. Still there was no sign of their captors. As they emerged into the open air Decker closed his eyes as the bright sunlight struck him in the face with its warmth and glow.
When he opened his eyes again, he looked around at the empty room and realized that he had been dreaming. The morning sun shown in on his face through the cracks in the boarded-up window. Usually Decker dreamed of his family. When he awoke from those dreams he would close his eyes again to try to hold on for one more moment to the vestiges of the illusion. It was all he had. This dream, however, was just a curious distraction.
Decker flipped over onto his back. As he twisted his body and shifted his weight to sit up, the ropes that bound his hands and feet slipped off like oversized gloves and shoes.
He shook his head to reorient his thinking; was he still dreaming? He wasted no more time thinking about it, but quickly got to his feet. The door was unlocked, and he quietly cracked it open to look into the apartment. It looked just as it had in his dream. No one else was there. He crept toward the room which, in his dream, held his friend. Until this moment Decker had not known where Tom was, or even if he was still alive, but when he looked into the room, there was Tom.
Moments later Decker and Tom were walking down the hall and then down the same cluttered stairway. When they emerged from the building, Decker used his hand to shield his eyes in anticipation of the sunlight. None of this made any sense, but if he was dreaming this time he didn't want to wake up.
The two men moved from doorway to doorway, building to building, staying out of sight as much as possible. As they continued down the street they saw no one; it was like a ghost town. They decided to try to put as much distance between themselves and their captors as they could right away and then wait until nightfall to go on. All they knew to do was to move south toward Israel. They had no idea how far they were from the border, but with their eyes they silently pledged to each other to die rather than be recaptured. When they were a safe distance away, Decker related the strange dream of their rescue, though he did not tell Tom about Christopher's unusual origin. Later Decker regretted revealing the dream and made Tom promise not to repeat it to anyone.
For the next three nights Decker and Tom worked their way southward. As much as possible they stayed off the roads and away from any sign of population. On this night they had started early, about an hour before sundown. Decker could tell that their time was running out. Soon he and Tom would be too weak to travel. Their diet was limited to what they could catch, which meant mostly insects. On their first day they found a small wild dog which apparently had been killed by another animal, but reluctantly decided that it had been dead too long for them to eat. They regretted that decision now.
Just before dark Tom and Decker came to a well-traveled road. Waiting in a field of tall grass, they planned their crossing for after dark, hoping that traffic would be lighter and they could cross unseen.
As night fell, the traffic continued nearly unabated, though there were occasional gaps of several minutes between passing vehicles. Slowly, they approached the road, stopping short about fifty yards. The road was straight and flat and they could see several miles in each direction. A series of trucks passed, then there appeared to be a break. The nearest vehicles were coming from the east, about three miles off.
Decker and Tom moved quickly. As they reached the small rise on which the road was built, it seemed they would have no trouble getting across. Then, unexpectedly, halfway up the rise, Decker felt a tug at his leg. Looking down, he saw that he had caught his pant leg on some barbed wire fencing. He tried to pull free but the barbs dug into his leg and he fell, catching his other leg in the same tangled mass.
Tom had already stepped into the road when he heard Decker call out. He hurried back to help free him, but as the seconds passed they were forced to reassess the situation. The next group of vehicles was getting too close. Their only option seemed to be to lie as flat and still as they could and hope that the slight rise of the road would hide them from the direct beams of the passing vehicles.
Tom lay on his stomach next to Decker and held his breath. The vehicles inched closer, moving much slower than Decker had first thought. As the first truck passed, Tom moved suddenly. Before Decker could stop him, he was running into the road shouting and waving his arms. It's over, Decker thought.
The next truck stopped a few yards from Tom. From the back of the truck came men in uniforms, carrying rifles. They surrounded Tom, with their rifles pointing at him. Another group encircled Decker, who was still on the ground. Slowly Decker rolled to his back and looked up at the men. Each man wore a light blue helmet with an emblem of fig leaves surrounding a globe. The same emblem, which Tom had seen on the first truck, was emblazoned on the flags which flew from the antennas and was painted on the door of each of the vehicles. Decker recognized it. They were from UNIFIL, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon.
That night Tom and Decker showered, were given clean clothes, and slept in real beds. Their stomachs could not handle much food, but before they fell asleep in the quarters of the U.N. compound, they each had two pieces of bread and a half cup of beef stew.
The next morning Tom and Decker were invited to share breakfast with the Swedish U.N. commander. "I read the report of the team that picked you up last night," the commander said as they walked across the compound to the mess hall. "That convoy you stopped had a very special guest on it. That's why the men responded as they did – they thought you might be Hizballah. That group of crazies would love to get their hands on somebody like Ambassador Hansen."
At breakfast Tom and Decker met the commander's special guest, the British Ambassador to the U.N., Jon Hansen. He was very interested in the story of their capture and escape, which they gladly told him, but neither mentioned the dream about Christopher. After breakfast they were taken to the compound's communications building. The U.N. post had one phone link to the United States via satellite, used primarily for contact with the U.N. headquarters in New York. Tom, who had no close family, insisted that Decker call first.
It was just after one o'clock in the morning in Washington when the phone rang. Decker listened as it rang two more times. Only partially roused from a deep sleep, Elizabeth Hawthorne picked up the phone. "Hello," she mumbled, her eyes still closed.
Decker listened to the sleepy, sweet sound of her voice. "Hello, honey. It's me," he said as tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Elizabeth quickly sat up in her bed. "Decker! Is that you?"
The love he heard in her voice brought new tears to his eyes and he could barely breathe as he answered, "Yes, it's me."
"Where are you?!" she asked anxiously. "Are you all right?"
"I'm in Lebanon at a United Nations post. Tom's with me. We're both okay. We escaped."
"Thank God!" she said. "Thank God!"
"They'll be taking us to Israel to a hospital for a check-up and observation. Can you come to Israel right away?"
"Yes! Of course!" she said as she wiped her own tears.
"How are Hope and Louisa?" he asked.
"They're fine, fine. They won't believe me when I tell them you called. They'll say that I was dreaming. I'm not dreaming, am I?"
"No," he answered, reassuringly, "You're not dreaming."
"Do you want to talk to them?" she asked. Her voice was excited and hurried. Her mind raced. She wanted to ask everything, say everything, do everything all at once.
"No, not right now. We're going to leave soon, so I can't stay on very long and Tom wants to call a cousin or uncle or something."
"How is Tom?" she asked, responding to the latest stimulus.
"He's fine. We're both fine. Just tell Hope and Louisa that I love them and that I'm looking forward to seeing them. Okay?"
"Of course," she said. And then it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know where he was going in Israel. "Where will you be? What hospital?"
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I don't have any details, but I didn't want to wait to call you."
"No. No. That's okay," she said and then thought for a moment. "The girls and I will be on the next plane to Israel. When you get to the hospital, call Joshua and Liana. Tell them where you are, and when I arrive I'll call them for the message."
"Joshua and Liana?" Decker asked, surprised at the apparent familiarity. "You mean the Rosens?"
"Of course, Decker. They've been a great help and support to me while you've been gone. They're such wonderful people. Here's their number."
Decker took down the number. "I've got to go now," he said and then paused to be sure she would hear him. "I love you," he said softly but clearly.
"I love you!" she answered.
The Swedish commander arranged for two trucks and a squad of armed men to take Decker and Tom the 120 kilometers to the Israeli border. From there Israeli security would take them to a hospital in Tel Aviv. But Ambassador Hansen had other plans. Hansen was a good politician and here was an opportunity for some very positive publicity. It was, after all, his convoy that had rescued them.
When their convoy arrived in Israel, Tom and Decker were greeted by reporters from four international news agencies who had been called from Lebanon by Ambassador Hansen's aide. There were more reporters at the Tel-Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. Hansen handled questions from the press himself 'in order to take the burden off the boys,' he said. He agreed to allow the press to take a few pictures of Tom and Decker, but curiously managed to figure prominently in each. Neither Tom nor Decker really minded. They had talked and joked together on the trip through Lebanon and to Tel Aviv. They liked Hansen – he was a 'jolly good' sort. He was also a politician; getting publicity was part of his job. They were just happy to be free.
After they checked into the hospital, Decker phoned the Rosens. Feeling more his old self, he decided to be a little playful. "Joshua," he said as though nothing unusual had happened, "this is Decker. So where have you been lately? I haven't seen you around."
"That'll do you no good, Decker Hawthorne," Rosen answered. "I know all about you and Tom. Elizabeth called us as soon as she made her plane reservations to tell us the good news. Besides, you've been on television all afternoon."
Decker laughed warmly. "When will she get in?"
"Just a second. Liana! "Rosen called to his wife. "Decker's on the phone. What time did Elizabeth say her plane would be arriving?"
There was a pause. Liana took advantage of her husband's poor memory for such things, and took the phone away from him. "Hello, Decker," she said. "Welcome home!"
"Thanks Liana. It's good to be home," he answered, by which he meant anywhere away from Lebanon.
"I saw you on TV," she said. "You're skin and bones."
"Yeah, well I didn't care for the menu."
"You know, I make some of the best chicken soup."
"Tell him about Elizabeth, already," Decker could hear Joshua saying in the background.
"Oh, yes. Elizabeth's plane will be here tomorrow at 11:36 a.m. Don't you worry about a thing. Joshua and I will pick up her and the children at the airport and bring them to the hospital. If you'd like," she added as an aside, "I'll bring you some of my chicken soup. I've heard hospital food is atrocious."
Decker appreciated their kindness. "Sure, Liana; sounds great."
Decker called the Washington office ofNewsWorld, where it was nine in the morning, and asked to speak to his editor, Tom Wattenburg. He was all ready to say, "Hi, Tom. This is Decker. Any calls for me?" when the switchboard operator said that Tom Wattenburg had retired and that his replacement was Hank Asher.
"Hank," Decker said when Asher came to the phone, "you mean they promoted you ahead of me?"
"Well, if you'd show up for work once in a while," Asher responded. "And by the way, I've got a bone to pick with you." It took a second for Decker to catch on that Asher wasn't really mad about something, but was just kidding the kidder. "I get up this morning and what do I see? Your ugly mug on the Today Show. You guys called NEC but you didn't notify your own magazine! And another thing, you took the key to the hotel room when you left and I ended up havin' to pay for it: cost me four bucks."
"Hey, we didn't have anything to do with calling NBC," Decker said in his defense. "But no kidding? The Today Show?'
"Yeah, and seems like everywhere else, too," he answered, trying to sound disgusted. "But at least they mentioned that you guys work for News World." Actually the publicity for NewsWorldwas great and would certainly boost sales for the edition Asher had planned for Tom and Decker's 'first-person' article on their lives as hostages.
Tel Aviv, Israel
The next morning as he shaved and brushed his teeth, Decker examined his face in the mirror. He was getting used to his skeletal appearance, but now he was thinking of Elizabeth. How would she react? The important thing was that he was back. In a few months he'd be back to normal physically. It was best to concentrate on the positive. What would never be "back to normal" was the way he felt about her. The bittersweet truth was that in his isolation he had come to love her in a way that he never could have otherwise.
Because of her flight, Elizabeth probably had not seen him on television, so when she walked in the door of the hospital in a few hours she would be seeing him for the first time. As he finished brushing his teeth, Decker noticed a box of sterile cotton balls and was struck by one of those crazy ideas that sometimes hit him. He stuffed several pieces in his cheeks to see if it would make his face look fuller. Looking in the mirror, it appeared he had mumps. Decker laughed so hard he almost swallowed one of the cotton balls. Fortunately, these ideas usually only hit him when he was alone.
One thing was certain, though. Decker did not want to be wearing a hospital gown when Elizabeth arrived. He tried to charm a nurse into doing some shopping for him, but to no avail. Then he thought of Hansen. Decker figured Hansen owed him and Tom a favor for all the good publicity, so he called the British Embassy. This time he was in luck. Hansen sent over two aides and a local tailor who measured Decker and Tom for suits. The aides did some quick shopping at Polgat's on Ramat Alenby (Alenby Street), an outlet of fine men's clothes. They brought the suits to the hospital, along with the tailor and a sewing machine, and the tailor hemmed the suits on the spot.
When Elizabeth arrived, Decker and Tom were sitting in the hospital lobby sipping tea and reading the English edition of the Jerusalem Post. They looked like transplants from a fancy English gentlemen's club, an appearance which they played to the hilt. Theact worked fine until Elizabeth's and Decker's eyes met. Then it was all hugs, kisses, and tears. Despite the suit, Elizabeth immediately realized the seriousness of Decker's condition as she put her arms around him. The bones in his back were easily distinguishable through the fabric. Instinctively she understood what Decker was trying to do and tried to not look too worried.
Liana Rosen put down her thermos of chicken soup and hugged Tom. Hope and Louisa jointly hugged their dad and somehow the hugs merged. Soon it evolved into a mass hug. Even Scott Rosen, who had come along with his parents, joined in.
After a few moments of this they sat down to talk. Elizabeth sat beside Decker and they held hands as they all talked about what had happened over the last three years. On the other side of Decker, Hope and Louisa took turns sitting next to their father. Decker was amazed at how much his daughters had changed. Hope was now sixteen and Louisa, eleven. He had never noticed how much they both looked like their mother. He had missed so much of their lives. Decker tried not to focus on his regrets.
Joshua and Liana introduced Tom and Decker to their son, Scott, a brawny, 260 pound, 6 foot 3 inch, Orthodox Jew with thick black curly hair and beard. The Rosen family had grown much closer over the past three years.
Everyone wanted to know how Tom and Decker had escaped and what had happened during their captivity. Again, neither mentioned the dream. Sometime later the subject turned to how they became hostages in Lebanon in the first place. Until that moment no one realized that they had actually been abducted in Israel and then smuggled over the border. Everyone assumed that they had gone into Lebanon to pursue some story and were taken hostage while there. Upon learning the truth, Scott Rosen became enraged at the thought of such a thing happening in Israel. He asked if they had reported the details to the Israeli authorities. They had not, but agreed to tell the police later that day. Scott didn't want them to wait. He insisted that they call the police immediately and when they said it could wait, Scott became indignant. "Well, I'll just go call them for you," he said and walked off to find a phone.
Liana Rosen, who had been getting more embarrassed by the minute, apologized for her son. "I'm really sorry, Decker and Tom," she said. "He's just so firm in his beliefs that nothing comes before God and Israel."
"Or is it Israel first and then God?" her husband interrupted.
Liana understood her husband's exasperation. "When the Palestinians destroyed the Western Wall, Scott went crazy with rage," she said. "He wanted to put every Palestinian in Israel on trial."
"He wanted to do much worse than that and you know it," Joshua interrupted again, this time earning himself a firm pinch on the leg from Liana. Despite the pinch, or more likely, to spite the pinch, he continued. "If he had not been with us at the very time it happened, I might believe he was one of those who attacked the Dome of the Rock after the wall was destroyed."
"What?" asked Decker and Tom in unison. "What happened?" Tom added by himself.
"Did NewsWorld have a team here to cover it?" Decker asked.
"Oh, Daddy!" said Hope in recognition of the silly unimportance of his question.
"Exactly one week after the wall was destroyed," Joshua explained, "a group of about forty Israelis attacked the Dome of the Rock. They killed a dozen Muslim guards and drove the rest out of the Mosque before setting explosives. They totally destroyed it. Some have accused the police of being part of the conspiracy because, by the time they arrived, all of the Israeli terrorists had escaped." Rosen's inflection on the word 'terrorists' made clear his revulsion. He did not like terrorists, no matter which side they were on.
"Anyway, a lot of people hollered, and the U.N. complained. It would have been a lot worse, I suppose, but many thought that it was fair retribution for the Palestinians destroying the Wall and killing the Israeli guards. The Arab countries rattled their sabers and the Knesset rattled ours. It probably did more for Arab unity than anything in the past sixty years. Even Syria and Iraq are talking again."
"The police said they didn't have any suspects and when it turned out that no one would be punished for destroying the Dome, the Palestinians protested. Ayatollah Oma Obeji threatened invasion. The Hizballah threatened to kill their hostages… uh," everyone around Tom and Decker suddenly seemed to grow uncomfortable. "… uh, you," he concluded. Joshua realized his faux pas and tried to regroup. "I guess we weren't supposed to tell you about that for awhile. Well, what are we hiding?" asked Joshua, in what he intended to be a rhetorical question. "After all, you were there. You probably knew about it before we did," he concluded, trying to defend his slip of the tongue. "Anyway, you're safe now."
"Uh… no. Nobody mentioned it to me," Tom said, unsure how he felt about the revelation that his and Decker's lives had been used as bargaining chips.
Liana was pinching him again so Joshua tried to change the subject. "Oh! Here's something that will interest you, Tom. Work has begun on a new Temple."
"What?!" Tom asked. "When?"
"Six months ago, after Moshe Greenberg became Prime Minister."
"Prime Minister?!" Decker said in profound surprise, "that radical?"
"Don't let Scott hear you say that." Rosen said. "But, actually Greenberg doesn't seem quite so radical now as he once did. Nowadays he's considered somewhat of a moderate. I don't know if that's because he's changed or that the mood of the country has swung so much further to the right as a result of the continuing threats from our Arab neighbors."
"What about the Temple?" Tom asked, attempting to bring the conversation back on course.
"Oh, it's really quite a massive undertaking, as you might expect. They removed all the stones from the remains of the Western Wall and from the old steps which had been excavated. They'll use what they can and the rest will be put in a museum or something. They dug out the tunnels, but found only some minor artifacts," Rosen replied.
"I guess that supports your theory that the Knights Templar took everything and that the Ark of the Covenant is in France," Tom said. "So, how long before the Temple is finished?"
"The completion date is set for four years from now. That is, if we don't go to war with somebody about it before then. You may have noticed that the border guard has been increased. There's been no fighting yet, but the Syrians have had a large force amassed near our mutual border since the work on the Temple began."
"Enough news and politics, already," Liana Rosen interrupted. "Maybe Elizabeth would like to talk for awhile."
Joshua thought hard for a second as though there was something important that he was supposed to remember. "Uh, oh yes, of course," Joshua agreed, as though he suddenly recalled his part in some conspiracy with Liana and Elizabeth. "Maybe Elizabeth has… uh… something to say."
"Go ahead, Dear," said Liana, urging her on.
Decker listened intently. "Decker, while you were gone, you know that Hope and Louisa and I spent a lot of time with Joshua and Liana. They were a great support to us. I don't think we could have made it through all this without them. And, well, I just wanted to tell you that while you were away, I, that is to say, the girls and I… "
At that moment Scott Rosen returned, flanked by two plainclothes detectives. They wanted the address of the house where Tom and Decker had been taken hostage and they wanted it now. They also wanted descriptions of the men who did it, and any other details that Tom and Decker could remember.
When the police left two hours later, Decker and Elizabeth were finally able to be alone for awhile. Scott Rosen had taken a cab to the police station to tell them how to do their jobs, Joshua and Liana took Hope and Louisa to eat, and Tom had fallen asleep. Elizabeth decided that the news about her and the girls could wait.
"I missed you," Decker said softly, as he held his wife close.
"I missed you," she responded.
"I never knew how much you meant to me until I didn't have you. I thought of you every hour. Constantly. When we get back, I'm going to tell Hank Asher that I'm not taking any assignments where I'll have to be away from home for more than three days."
As the night waned on, the couple went outside and sat under the stars. Elizabeth listened quietly, holding her husband's emaciated body to her as he recited the poetry he had composed for her over the past three years.
Two days later, Decker was told that he would be released from the hospital the following morning. Tom was to remain for continued observation and more tests. Apparently he had developed some serious problems with his back and kidneys while in captivity. That night Decker was able to leave the hospital for dinner so he and Elizabeth shared a romantic candle-lit dinner in old Jaffa.
"Elizabeth," Decker said at one point when the mood grew quiet, "I'm sure you must remember all the times I've said that I've never really felt there was any one place that I could call home. I guess it's just that I've lived so many places."
Elizabeth remained silent but nodded affirmation. Decker reached across the small round table and placed his left hand over hers. With his right hand, he reached over and softly ran the back of his fingers along the smooth form of her face.
"Over the last three years I decided that if I ever got home to you, then that's where home would be. Elizabeth, I've decided that home is a state of mind," he said, his voice changing in tonal quality to sound slightly professorial but not lecturing. Elizabeth recognized the tone. It meant that her husband was about to share what he believed to be a jewel of wisdom for which he had paid a high price.
"Home is where you decide to make it, and I've decided that when we get back to Washington we're going to make that home, whatever that means and whatever that takes."
A single tear came to Elizabeth's eyes. Having Decker back had kept her emotions at a fever pitch since he first called her from the U.N. outpost. It had been a constant struggle not to cry. Now, the intensity of Decker's feelings, though she didn't fully understand them, nudged her gently and briefly over the edge, and she wept.
Decker and Elizabeth finished their meal, then stayed at the table to talk. They did not speak of their time apart but rather of good times they had spent together in years past. As Elizabeth spoke, Decker looked across the table admiringly at his wife, watching her every move. Elizabeth noticed the attention with no small amount of enjoyment. Finally she mentioned it to him.
"Decker," she whispered in feigned embarrassment, "you look like you're undressing me with your eyes."
"Oh," he responded with a smile and a gleam, "I'm way past that."
Decker was feeling much better.
Derwood, Maryland
The Hawthorne family arrived at Dulles Airport outside Washington early in the morning and were surprised to find a limousine waiting there to pick them up – courtesy of Hank Asher. For the next three days Decker, Elizabeth, Hope and Louisa spent time getting to know each other again. They bought jumbo steamed blue crabs at Vinnie's Seafood and went to a small park they knew at one of the C &O canal locks. They stayed around the house and just talked. They cooked steaks on the grill. They went shopping. They drove around town so Decker could get reacquainted. They just did whatever they wanted to do.
At about noon on the third day the phone rang and Decker answered it. It was Professor Goodman.
"Decker, we need to talk," Goodman said with what seemed to Decker to be a bit of self-important urgency.
"Sure, Professor. I want to follow up on that story we talked about, anyway. How about some time in a month or so?" After three years as a hostage, even the 'biggest story since Columbus discovered America' could wait a few more weeks.
"Not soon enough." Goodman's voice gave no indication he was even aware that Decker had been gone.
"Well, I'm really not in any shape for a long trip," Decker responded. "I've just gotten back from three years in a small room in Lebanon and I thought I'd take it easy for awhile."
"Yes, I know all about that," Goodman said. "I do read the newspaper, you know. You're quite a celebrity. But you don't have to go anywhere. Martha and I are in Washington. In fact we're here in Derwood, at the German restaurant two blocks from your house."
"What are you doing here?" Decker asked in surprise.
"I came out for a scientific conference. Martha had never seen Washington and insisted on coming along. Christopher is staying with a friend from school. So can we come over or not?"
Decker quickly talked it over with Elizabeth and they agreed to have the Goodmans come over, but Decker insisted that the professor promise it would take no more than an hour. Harry and Martha Goodman arrived in just minutes. Elizabeth had never met Martha Goodman and both women felt a little uncomfortable – Mrs. Goodman for imposing, and Elizabeth about being imposed upon.
Professor Goodman made it clear that the subject of the conversation was for Decker's ears only, so Elizabeth suggested that Mrs. Goodman go for a walk with her and the girls.
As soon as they left, Goodman began.
"I'm sorry to barge in on you but it isn't really for my welfare that I'm here. There are a thousand other reporters out there who would love to get an exclusive on what I'm about to tell you."
Decker realized that Goodman was probably right. He just hadn't planned on getting back to work quite so soon. "Of course," he said. "It's just that I really need to spend some time with my family."
"I understand that. But what I'm about to tell you will change the world forever. Forgive me, I just thought you might be interested," Goodman added with mild sarcasm.
Decker's once overpowering curiosity had lain dormant for nearly three years. Deep inside he felt it stir again. "I don't want to impose any more than necessary," Goodman said, "so I'll leave a copy of my notes for you to study later. Right now, I'll just give you a summary."
Decker retrieved a fresh yellow legal pad and Goodman began.
"First of all, you remember that the last time we talked, we discussed the methodology I used for creating the viral cancer antibodies, and I told you that it would probably also work on AIDS and other viral strains? Well, that work has continued with some outstanding results. But as important as that work is, all that I could really ever hope to accomplish with that methodology was to use the C-cells as an agent for producing antibodies. That seemed to me to be little more than running a 'pill factory.' Well, I didn't want to just make 'pills.' Even if they could cure cancer or AIDS, it still seemed to be such a waste of potential. What I really wanted to do was to figure out some way of altering the cells of living people to enhance their own immune system.
"For a long time it just ate at me. How could I ever hope to alter the genetic structure of every cell in the human body? You can make changes on a few cells in a laboratory. With C-cells it's even possible, as we both know, to create a totally immune individual like Christopher. But how do you give that immunity to someone else like you or me? That had me stumped."
Decker listened quietly, nodding when appropriate. Goodman was going to tell his story the way he wanted to tell it, and the best thing to do was just listen.
"Then I had an idea. Decker, do you know how the AIDS virus works?" Decker thought he had a pretty good idea, but before he could answer the question, Goodman continued. "All around the outside of the AIDS virus are tiny spikes which are made of glycoproteins. These spikes are imbedded in a fatty envelope which forms the outer shell of the virus. Inside this envelope are RNA strands, each with a quantity of reverse-transcriptase enzyme. The spikes bind the AIDS cells to healthy cells of the immune system, called T-cells, by establishing an attractive link with certain receptor molecules which occur naturally on the healthy T-cells. The infection occurs when the virus is absorbed into the interior of the healthy cell. Once inside the T-cell each individual strand of RNA material in the virus is converted into a complementary strand of DNA by the reverse-transcriptase enzyme. Enzymes which occur naturally in the cell duplicate the DNA strand, which then enters into the nucleus of the cell. That strand then becomes a permanent part of the heredity of that cell!" Goodman paused for Decker's reaction.
"Okay, so then what?" Decker had understood most of Goodman's explanation but failed to comprehend the significance.
"Don't you see? The AIDS virus is able to alter the genetic structure of living cells and it does it inside the body!"
Suddenly Decker realized what Goodman was getting at. "You mean you could remove the harmful genetic material from the nucleus of the AIDS virus… "
"… and replace it with the specific immunity-providing DNA strands from the C-cells," Goodman said, finishing Decker's sentence. "Except, of course, viral cells do not have a nucleus, they have simply a core." Goodman – ever the professor – could not allow such an error, no matter how insignificant to the main topic, to pass uncorrected. "That way it's not necessary to alter each individual cell of the body. We can accomplish nearly the same result by just altering the T-cells!"
"And that result is… " Decker urged.
"Total immunity! Maybe even reversing the aging process! Life expectancies of two, three, four hundred years, maybe more!" Goodman's voice had grown as excited as he dared risk without sacrificing the appearance of appropriate scientific aloofness.
"So when can you begin to move beyond theory on this?"
"I already have," Goodman answered. "I began working on it two and a half years ago. For the first six months I focused my efforts on a cold virus. I felt that the dangers involved in using an AIDS virus were too great, and I must concede that the problems I encountered with my previous AIDS research soured me on having anymore to do with it."
"Does the cold virus work like the AIDS virus?" Decker asked.
"Similarly, but the AIDS virus is actually a retro- or reverse-virus because of the existence of the reverse-transcriptase enzyme which converts the RNA strand into a DNA strand. There are a number of other differences as well, but for the early studies the differences didn't really matter. All I needed was a carrier, some means of bringing the desired genetic information to the individual T-cells of the immune system. I got as far as the creation of an extremely resilient second-generation test strain. Of course at that time I was still experimenting to isolate the specific DNA strands in the C-cells that were needed for transplant into the carrier virus.
"Then two years ago my lab was vandalized. They destroyed thousands of dollars' worth of equipment and ruined my research. Fortunately, a lot of the expensive equipment was locked up or on loan at the time."
"So what happened to that test strain?" Decker asked with a hint of concern.
"That's what I'm saying. They smashed everything and threw it around the lab."
"Wait a minute," Decker interrupted, "You mean they released the altered cold virus?"
"Yes, but… " Goodman saw the look of concern on Decker's face. "I assure you, no one was in any danger from the cold virus. You couldn't even have gotten a cold from it."
"Are you certain?"
"Decker, it's been two years. If anything was going to happen, it would have happened by now. So, let me get back to my story. After the vandals destroyed my lab, I had to go back and reorganize all my notes. As I did, it became more and more clear to me that the AIDS virus was really the best medium to use as the carrier. Actually, those vandals probably saved me months of unproductive research.
"Think of it, Decker. Fifteen years ago it looked like AIDS could be on its way to being as bad as the Black Plague; and by some time in the next decade it may, combined with the C-cells, be the source of virtual immortality!"
By the time Decker and Goodman finished their conversation, Elizabeth, Mrs. Goodman, Hope and Louisa had returned from their walk and retreated to the patio for iced tea. They had talked long enough to find that they liked each other's company. After the Goodmans left, Elizabeth told Decker how much she enjoyed talking with Martha and that Martha had suggested that she come along with Decker next time he went to Los Angeles.
"Well," said Decker, pleased that his wife was pleased, "I'm glad you two hit it off. She really is a nice person. And as far as you coming along, I'd like that too. So what did you two talk about?" he asked.
"Well, mostly we talked about you and how wonderful it is to have you back. But, let's see… We talked about Professor Goodman. Did you know he's been notified that in December he's going to receive the Nobel Prize for medicine for his cancer research?"
"You're kidding!" Decker said. "He didn't even mention it."
"That's why they were here in Washington. He was invited to address the annual convention of the American Cancer Society."
"I can see I've got a lot of catching up to do," Decker said. "So what else did you talk about?"
"Well, she told me all about her grandnephew, Christopher. She's very proud of him. He's apparently a very precocious child. Oh, and this is kind of interesting: Martha said that two weeks ago she and Professor Goodman were talking about you. He had this important story – I guess what he came over to tell you about today – and apparently he was reluctant to give it to another reporter even though, at the time, you were still being held hostage. But – and this is the strange part – as they were talking about it, her grandnephew, Christopher, came over and just sort of matter-of-factly said that Professor Goodman should wait because you'd be free soon. She said she asked him about it later and he said he wasn't sure how he knew; he just had a feeling."