17 June 2003

Ridiculous to Sublime

I was across the table from the Germans so late in the afternoon it was almost evening. My medical associate, a slim aesthetic ER physician, had spaced out a commitment, remembered only late that he had agreed to a meeting. The delegation arrived at the building promptly at five. It had been a slow day, by office standards, one filled with employees filing through my office seeking guidance and direction on the tasks we work in the interest of public health preparedness against terrorism. Of course, Washington being what it is, the leading terrorists are currently down the street, working for the new Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps buccaneers is a better word, since that describes a new aggregation of bureaucrats with eye for plunder and a seemingly limitless mandate to acquire new missions and resources.

Don't get me wrong, I support the President and the enabling legislation establishing Homeland Security and all the rest. But the crashing around and advancement of double-secret agendas gets tiresome. We used to know what we are doing, at least we thought we did. Our office was chartered under the Bio-Terrorism Act of 2002 to prepare for the next big attack. We were supposed to get ready in case the Bad Guys used something nasty against us. Instead we are re-organizing the government, which often substitutes for progress. Now, everywhere we turn, there is a hurriedly-called meeting asserting that whatever it is, it is a matter under their cognizance, per the new Homeland Security Directive. Which isn't the way I read it, but nobody has asked my opinion. Consequently, we spend a lot of talking about organization. One of the Homeland buccaneers, a retired Brigadier, is an example of our priorities. He hurriedly called a Saturday meeting last weekend to examine a plan for dealing with migrant populations. Crash priority. Have to have a report on the President's desk by Thursday.

Naturally, the mandate for the meeting did not arrive until a peremptory call came late Friday when ordinary bureaucrats were already slogging down the highway towards hearth and home. We puzzled over the summons. There were no migrant populations that week, which is not to say that there couldn't be, or that we shouldn't be ready for the odd ethnic minority which has to become one. Further, my experience with the inter-agency process has been that the Departments and Agencies could not coordinate the purchase of a bagel with cream cheese for the President in five days. Moreover, according to the BBC, Mr. Bush was to be in Aqaba, Jordan, that Thursday. But like I said, never mind. Maybe he needed a bagel, given his circumstances that week.

This Monday the office was odd, too. The Boss was off in Chicago giving a speech. He viewed it as an important policy declaration, so important that when he got around to reading it the Sunday before, Father's Day, he decided he needed the speechwriting team to come in and shore it up. Totally inadequate, he announced on the phone, and wanted action, chop-chop. So between Saturday meetings on non-migrating populations and inadequately-crafted major policy speeches, the office has been fairly busy. Two of my interviews were counseling sessions to try to convince some very bright young people that political appointees passed through this town like the flapping of a great black wing, and that the anger and humiliation that emanated around the event was all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I was pleased that the pep-talks gave me the opportunity to blend H.G. Welles and William Shakespeare. You don't get the chance to blend that kind of imagery in the office environment that often.

So, getting back to the five o'clock meeting and the Germans down the hall and everything else going on, my gifted physician got overwhelmed and forgot he had accepted an invitation to meet with them. He asked me to sit-in and greet to give the illusion we were prepared. After all, the meeting really was important. The Firm produces a specialty drug for which there is no current market. Better said, it is currently a very limited market with limitless potential. The drug is a compound that can be taken orally and which bonds with radioactive material. That allows the radioactive material to be excreted from the body before permanent damage is done to the cells and immune system. The only place for it before was in the nuclear industry, where they had an application for the drug as part of their small preparedness program. Of course, now it looked like we were all in the nuclear industry, in a way.

Earlier in the day the press had been abuzz with the report that a few dozen kilos of Cesium 137 had been confiscated in Thailand, and another significant amount had been located in Georgia. The other Georgia. I was confused, too. The amount of material was stunning. The experts who did the modeling had never considered dealing with an explosive device containing that much radioactive material. And the type was troubling, too, a powerful atomic number normally reserved for things like purifying blood samples. In very small doses. The amount reported was enough to purify a lot of people right into the great beyond.

I came into the meeting a couple minutes late, since I had a personnel issue to deal with. The Boss had called and vowed that the miscue on the speech would never happen again and he would take significant action on his return. I sighed and thought that Tuesday wouldn't be that good a day. Then I went down to talk to the Germans in the conference room. The Germans were courteous and they had an energetic and knowledgeable American front man. He used to be a key guy in the regulatory agency that would approve the application of the drug for the new mission, which was to be available for use in post exposure radiological events.

We had a good meeting, as these things go. I didn't have a lawyer with me to tell me what I could say and what I couldn't. So I responded positively to the description of what the German firm could produce, and when they could deliver it. I nodded sagely, thinking that a likely target for the real terrorists was right across the street at the Capitol, and that the people in my office were among the first potential consumers of the product. Which we would never acquire in time to be ready. But maybe there will be time. My Doctor asked some excellent technical questions. I made a couple supportive orations, carefully saying nothing. I was watching the conference room clock over the shoulder of the German with the best English. We seemed to be done after forty minutes and I announced that I deeply appreciated the opportunity to meet with them, but regrettably had an appointment across the river. We shook hands all around and they produced business cards, showing the headquarters address was in Berlin.

"Was your firm relocated to the capital?" I asked. "Was it in the former West Germany?" There was much merriment at that, and I realized this company and this drug had been developed by the Communists before the fall of the wall that divided Berlin, and that we were the likely beneficiaries of research conducted to enable Soviet armies to drive to the English Channel. I like good irony, and laughed along with our guests. Then I hurried out of the conference room and down the corridor to grab my gym bag.

I had a date with my roller-blading class in the back parking lot of the Ski Chalet off Columbia Pike. I arrived a few minutes to spare, and thoughts about the Germans and why I had to talk to them began to fade. I was a little shaky at first, but as I warmed up it began to slow across the asphalt in swift smooth strides, confident, poised. It felt like nothing in the world could touch me, not even the adamant pavement. It was sublime.