Amerithrax (26 page)

The USPS temporarily closed the Princeton Post Office, while in New York, Morgan Post Office employees were given the option of working on another floor or at the Farley Building across the street. That afternoon, the USPS awarded a $40 million contract to the Titan Corp. of San Diego to provide eight systems of electron beam equipment to sanitize mail. By this point, 5,477 suspicious incidents had been reported. Scares averaged 608 a day.

Meanwhile, the FBI awaited an analysis from the Insti- tute of Pathology to learn what additive their energy- dispersive X-ray spectroscope had identified. Both the U.S. and Iraq used a chemical additive in processed anthrax. These additives removed the electrostatic charge between spores created by the mechanical milling process that made fine dust. For their process American scientists had settled on a special form of silica to keep the particles from binding together. Silica was a common industrial drying agent.

Soviet and Iraqi biowarfare programs used bentonite in- stead. Bentonite, a clay additive, with aluminum helps re- duce the static charge of spores so they float freely and stay as small as possible. The sophistication of the Daschle an- thrax suggested that Iraq was behind the attacks.

Federal scientists tracked down records of Iraq’s biolog- ical arms program and biological samples. They analyzed them in laboratories run by biologists Paul S. Keim of

Northern Arizona University and Paul J. Jackson of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. They reex- amined seven anthrax strains that Iraq bought from ATCC in the 1980s.

None of the strains were identified as the suspected strain, Ames, and none of the seven matched the mailed anthrax. Instead they resembled a strain labs across the world used in research. The CIA knew Iraq had unsuccess- fully tried to buy that Ames strain from British researchers in 1988 and 1989. Raymond H. Cypess, president of the germ bank, put to rest the theory that mislabeling might have accidentally put the lethal Ames germ in Iraq’s possession. “We never had [the Ames strain],” he said, “and we can say that on several levels of analysis.”

Finally, the X-ray spectroscope found silica and oxygen to be the additives mixed with the Daschle spores as a coating— silicon oxide. Amerithrax had put powdered glass into his anthrax. Major General Parker said that tests had turned up no signs of aluminum—a main building block of bentonite. “If I can’t find aluminum,” he told reporters, “I can’t say it’s bentonite.” And if there was no bentonite, Iraq had not made the letter anthrax. Tommy Thompson, D. A. Hender- son and other HHS officials, and the FBI saw Iraqi anthrax close-up. Parker brought them six tubes of orange anthrax simulant powder from Al Hakam. Crude and lumpy, and mostly bentonite, it looked nothing like the Daschle spores.

It looked more and more as if Amerithrax was a domestic terrorist.

“We looked for any shred of evidence that would bear on this, or any foreign source,” a senior intelligence official said of an Iraq connection. “It’s just not there.”

PUBLICLY,
White House officials made no mention of the failure to find an Iraq-Amerithrax connection. That would be tantamount to a declaration of war. Instead they inten- sified focus on the United States. Amerithrax might not be one of the nation’s enemies; he might be one of their own, someone the scientists aiding the FBI might know. “Like

many people, when the case of anthrax emerged so close to September 11, I couldn’t believe it was a coincidence,” Tom Ridge said. Because of the timing, he had logically assumed that the anthrax attack came from a foreign nation, but as no one unearthed any evidence to confirm his initial suspi- cion, Ridge began to rethink the problem. “But now, based on the investigative work of many agencies,” Ridge said, “we’re all more inclined to think that the perpetrator is do- mestic.” Ari Fleischer, speaking for the White House, agreed. “The evidence is increasingly looking like it was a domestic source,” he said.

A domestic terrorist after the events of 9-11 was an un- holy thought. But as they looked back over the last two months, the detectives realized Amerithrax had acted in a very “un-terrorist-like” manner. He went out of his way to make certain his letters did minimal damage. He taped the seams of his envelopes to prevent powder from escaping. He enclosed the spores in a pharmaceutical fold, warned the recipients the contents were anthrax, and even suggested a medication. Terrorists would have used an antibiotic- resistant strain such as the one Dr. Alibek had developed for the Soviets at their Stepnogorsk facility in the late 1980s. They would have used a more efficient delivery system. An envelope is an extremely crude device for spreading infec- tious aerosols. As one bioterrorism expert, Michael Oster- holm of the University of Minnesota, put it, someone was firing a “powerful bullet through an ineffective gun.”

Among the reasons administration officials now consid- ered the source of the anthrax to most likely be domestic were these: Apparently, Amerithrax personally knew Dr. Assaad, the scientist at Fort Detrick that he tried to impli- cate. He had access to a U.S. Ames anthrax strain that was identical to U.S. weapons labs material. He chose the polit- ical targets of American conservatives.

The most promising evidence against Amerithrax was the anthrax itself, which federal scientists and contractors were still studying. The FBI counted on catching the killer through marker genes that would identify the age of the anthrax. If they could unravel the DNA of the strain they could trace it back to the facility where it had been made.

However, virtually no specimen remained after the tests for follow-up studies. What the authorities needed toward the end of October was an unopened letter from Amerithrax. Unknown to them one was available—somewhere in the mail system and hot as a nuclear reactor. The post office continued to fine-tune its emergency response.

“In postal facilities when a suspected anthrax-containing parcel is found,” the USPS ordered its district and senior plant managers, “follow procedures listed in MI 860-1999- 3,
Emergency Response to Mail Allegedly Containing An- thrax
and your local Emergency Action Plan.” Designated personnel were to examine the scene to determine if an emergency existed, then tape off the area. In event of “Pos- sible Room or Area Contamination by Airborne Gas (dust, fumes or vapors introduced into the air with criminal in- tent)” workers were to turn off any local fans or ventilation units, leave the area, close doors behind, and call the In- spection service, police, and Hazmat team. The USPS ad- vised in a seven-page letter, “Any powder or granulated substance is suspicious at this time... unless the contents are readily identified... do not try to clean up the powder. Do not do anything to create a dust cloud. If possible gently cover the spill with anything.” Compounding the situation was an ink-drying processing many businesses used that left a residual powder on mail. In a small office setting, all peo- ple in the immediate area were to be listed and all contam- inated clothing sealed in a plastic bag as soon as possible. In a large plant setting, workers were to shut down equip- ment, keep others away, and contact the immediate super- visor.

USPS Chief Operating Officer Pat Donahoe recom- mended to district managers that carriers scan for any pow- dery substance around the ledge of the customer mail deposit door
before
they opened a collection box. Should they find traces, they were to block customer access to the chute, secure the area, and watch for any individual loitering nearby. If they opened the collection box and found suspi- cious mail
inside
, they were to put any pulled mail back, then close and lock the box. If they identified a dangerous substance
after
placing mail inside the postal truck, they

were to cover the hamper, close all windows and doors, and lock the vehicle. “If you become suspicious of an accepted piece of mail, do not handle it. Isolate it and cordon off the immediate area. Report the incident to the supervisor. Retain any surveillance tape and label it with date and time.”

Capitol mail began to back up. Anthrax was found on the machinery at the military base that sorts mail for the White House. Authorities implemented elaborate proce- dures—treating mail with radiation—to protect Congress and other federal institutions from biological warfare.

All mail sent to key federal institutions (identified by zip codes 20200 through 20599) was routed through privately run facilities in Lima, Ohio, or Bridgewater, New Jersey, where it was treated with radiation, then trucked to D.C. The sanitized mail was sorted and examined by postal in- spectors for signs that “may jump out as being suspicious.” Postal workers at a station on V St. NE clipped corners off some envelopes to search for powder. Then the mail was transferred to congressional sorting facilities such as the Suburban Processing and Distribution office in Gaithersburg where Senate mail underwent additional screening by Cap- itol employees. The House employed a separate firm, Pitney Bowes, to screen its mail. There was official remorse and backpedaling because authorities had given the wrong ad- vice to postal workers in the line of fire.

Twice a day, at 3:00 a.m. and at 3:00 p.m., the CIA and FBI prepared a Threat Matrix Index. This highly classified report enumerated the most dependable terrorist threats from around the world. They averaged between forty and one hundred. A report at 3:00 a.m. on October 27 indicated Al Qaeda would try to outdo the 9-11 attack. White House and Justice Department officials took it seriously, calling the threat “the most serious we’ve seen.” Another top intelli- gence official said accounts were “hyped.”

ON
Thursday, October 25, the USPS ordered environment testing of its processing and distribution centers. That after- noon a friend saw Kathy T. Nguyen on the No. 6 train in Manhattan. The moon-faced woman wore a wide, round hat.

She had wide lips, a broad nose, neatly penciled brows, and hair not quite as black as her penetrating eyes. She was sturdy-shouldered with high cheekbones. A photo of her in her youth showed an exuberant, curly-haired girl who loved to dance. Though barely into her sixties, she favored black and lace, like a widow (though she was only divorced), and tiny pearl earrings. And like the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital where she stocked the operating and recov- ery rooms with supplies, she was antiseptic, well-organized, and businesslike.

The Vietnamese immigrant, complaining of a headache and flulike symptoms, had left her job in the medical supply room in the hospital basement early. Ms. Nguyen made her way home to the Bronx apartment where she lived alone. The next day, despite feeling worse, she returned to work. Over the next two days, she developed fatigue, chills, chest pain, and a cough productive of sputum which became blood-tinged.

On Saturday, Josefa Richardson, a neighbor and close friend, left several messages on Nguyen’s answering ma- chine. All went unreturned. On Sunday, October 28, Nguyen, short of breath and muscles aching, called David Cruz, her building superintendent, and asked a favor. “Would you drive me to the hospital?” she said. Cruz immediately got her to the Intensive Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital, a white- and pastel-colored building near Central Park in Manhattan. Dr. Shane Dawson was the surgery resident on call that night. The ICU doctor noted the following:

Heart rate 110/min and respiratory rate 38/min, with room-air oxygen saturation of 92% by pulse oximetry. She was awake, alert, and completely oriented. She had prominent jugular venous distention at 60 degrees. She had a history of hypertension. Serum chemistries and co- agulation studies were normal.

Ms. Nguyen required oxygen delivery by a nonrebreather mask to maintain adequate oxygenation. Her chest X ray was initially interpreted as showing:

pulmonary venous congestion with bilateral pleural effu- sions. Therapy for congestive heart failure was initiated, but an echocardiogram in the emergency department showed normal ejection fraction. There were no substan- tial wall motion abnormalities, only a small pericardial ef- fusion.

Her doctor changed her therapy to levofloxacin for atyp- ical pneumonia. But Nguyen’s respiratory status worsened. She was intubated and put on a respirator in an eighth-floor room.

Also on Sunday, the nation’s postal facilities flew their flags at half-staff in honor of Morris and Curseen. The two Brentwood workers had been buried over the weekend. Not far from Brentwood, at the Brookland Station, workers held a two-hour candlelight vigil in their honor. A three-peaked circus tent, striped broadly like the American flag, billowed in the darkness of the Brentwood parking lot. It was a tem- porary home for the displaced Branch 142 letter carriers. In the D.C./Baltimore area 2,211 employees were tested; 6,250 were on medication. Of forty-six facilities tested, including Maryland and Virginia, three had been closed. All seventy employees of the Southwest Post Office at 45 L Street were told to report to the Anacostia Station for work. Mail deliv- ery in D.C. for customers in Zip Code 20034 was to resume the next morning.

On Monday, October 29, bilateral chest tubes were placed, and 2.5 liters of serosanguinous fluid were drained from Nguyen’s right side. Doctors took another liter from her left. Then her preliminary tests came back.

A young surgeon on the ninth floor exclaimed, “Holy shit, this looks like anthrax!” Nguyen’s blood cultures and pleural fluid (taken twenty hours earlier) had grown
B. an- thracis.
Nguyen had inhalational anthrax, but nothing linked her infection with the other anthrax cases.

“This wasn’t Tom Brokaw or Senator Daschle,” said Dr. Dawson. “She was just a lady who goes home and buys her groceries. When I realized she somehow contracted it going about her daily life, that’s when it hit home. Everyone’s scared. No one knows.”

Though her regimen was changed to ciprofloxacin, rifam- pin, clindamycin, and ceftazidime, Nguyen’s clinical con- dition progressively worsened. Her chart now read:

A bronchoscopy showed hemorrhagic mucosa through- out the entire tracheobronchial tree, friable and collaps- ible airways, and purulent secretions in multiple segments bilaterally. A CT scan of the chest showed massive mediastinal bleeding, thickened bronchial mu- cosa.