The Anthrax Letters: The Attacks That Shocked America Read Free Page A

so inflamed that flexing an arm or leg becomes an act of torment. Bloody fluids squeeze between the brain and skull, and the victim’s face may balloon out beyond recognition. The tightening vice around the brain causes excruciating pain and delirium. Survival depends on being provided appropriate antibiotics before the bacteria have released so much toxin that the body cannot recover. If inhalation anthrax is not treated in time, almost all victims suffer a tortured death. One organ after another is decimated—the lungs, the kidneys, the heart—until life is sucked away.
    It is because of such ghastly effects that anthrax and other biological agents have been prohibited as weapons by international agreement. The treaty that bans their development or possession by nations, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, uniquely describes their use as “repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” Yet despite this widely accepted moral precept, a germ weapon is seen by some not as a shameful blight but as a preferred instrument of terror.

chapter one
     

     

Deadly Diagnosis
    B ob Stevens wore a huge smile. He had just reached the observation deck with his wife, Maureen, and daughter, Casey, after a 26-story elevator ride through Chimney Rock, a mountain of granite. Before them lay the stunning expanse of North Carolina’s Chimney Rock Park. Far below and to the right was Lake Lure, long and calm. To the left stood Hickory Nut Falls, where icy water cascaded 400 feet down into a valley of rocks. Seventy-five miles away toward the horizon loomed King’s Mountain. “I feel at peace with the world,” Bob said.
    September 28, 2001, a Friday, was a perfect day to visit the park. The horror of September 11 was still raw, and an afternoon of natural splendor would be a pleasant distraction. The previous day Bob and Maureen had driven 11 hours from their Lantana, Florida, home to visit Casey in Charlotte. Then on Friday, after breakfast in Casey’s apartment, they drove west and picked up Route 74 toward Asheville. Ninety minutes later they were in the park. The sky was clear and the autumn air fresh. Color was everywhere—purple mountain flowers, aqua green lichen, red and orange oak leaves. As they walked along a trail, Bob detoured past some rocks to a waterfall. He cupped his hands, reached in, and drank two good scoops of water. Later, on the way back to Charlotte, they had dinner at an Italian restaurant before settling into Casey’s place for the evening. They were still giddy about the mountains and the changing colors.
    For Robert Stevens, 63, a veteran photo editor, the scenes in the park were especially enthralling. They fed his esthetic appetite in a way that the two-dimensional images he worked with could not. Still, Stevens enjoyed his job at the Sun , a supermarket tabloid published in Boca Raton, 20 minutes from Lantana. Like its half dozen sister publications owned by American Media, Inc., the Sun specialized in sensationalism. Bob had worked for one or another AMI tabloid, including the more famous National Enquirer , since emigrating from England in 1974. He had tried retirement in 2000 but missed his job and fellow workers. Back at his desk the next year, he delighted in servicing readers who liked stories about psychics and seers and pig races. So what if some tales were bizarre or exaggerated? The pictures he retouched had their own odd esthetic appeal—female Elvis impersonators, women who lost weight through prayer.
    Bob’s puckish humor seemed suited to the amusing themes he worked on. But he was serious about his craft. “The best in the business,” judged Lee Harrison, a fellow expatriate from England who had worked with Bob at the National Enquirer . “He’s brilliant on the computer, great at touching up photographs to make celebrities look good. Unless of course it was a story about a celebrity not looking too good,” Lee chuckled.
    Bob and Maureen were married in 1974 before leaving for the