The Hunt For The Anthrax Killers

Meanwhile, in the population at large, the vengeful and neurotic have not magically been reformed. Law-enforcement agents have turned into butlers for a public that, unlike its leaders, has no shortage of imagination. Samples of dirt, detergent and sugar are clogging Fort Detrick and the few other labs that can test for anthrax. An oozing Albuquerque package is found to contain homemade tamales. White powder that brings to a halt a Little Rock, Ark., rally for drug-free schools turns out to be powdered sugar from a funnel cake.

Likewise, before and after the anthrax scares, 800,000 U.S. postal employees worked at a place infamous for turning people into maniacs. And the African-American citizens of the Washington area still live and sort mail in the shadow of the largely white U.S. Capitol, which has long inhabited a cleaner and safer parallel universe.

It was in this context that mail clerk Curseen collapsed early on Monday morning, Oct. 22, and died hours later. Looking back on the confusing days prior, it's clear that his death didn't occur in a vacuum. A full week before Curseen died, just after the Daschle aide opened the letter, postal officials were aware that it had gone through the Brentwood distribution center in northeast Washington--where all congressional mail is shipped. That very evening, Oct. 15, in a series of conference calls, officials from all federal agencies involved in the investigation--including the FBI, the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, the Postal Inspection Service and the CDC--learned from Fort Detrick scientists what turned out to be the key facts: the Daschle letter contained "highly virulent" anthrax with a high "spore concentration," according to a participant in the briefings. And it was "aerosolized." The word "weaponized" was not used, but it didn't need to be, this official says. It was understood that these anthrax spores would hang in the air.

No one moved to close the Brentwood office or warn employees that they might be at risk. "We were dealing with a sealed letter that arrived in the Daschle office," says CDC director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. "People say, 'Why couldn't you have guessed that sealed envelopes could have leaked this material?' Our experience had been that sealed envelopes don't leak." Koplan also says the CDC was not informed of the spores' small size, a claim that was disputed by a source involved in the briefings.

The next day, Tuesday, Oct. 16, Curseen came down with flulike symptoms. Thinking it was indeed the flu, he kept working. On Wednesday, more than two dozen workers on Capitol Hill tested positive for exposure, and members of Congress began to fret. The bacteria is "very potent and clearly produced by someone who knows what he or she is doing," said Senate leader Daschle. Those alarm bells were prematurely silenced, though, by Tom Ridge, the country's new Director of Homeland Security. "There's no results that would suggest that it has been quote, weaponized, unquote." But 40 members of Daschle's office were treated, as was everyone on the surrounding two floors.

The Postal Service did not push for the same proactive treatment because, officials say, they were taking their cue from the CDC. "We're not medical experts," says spokesman Gerry Kreienkamp. "We do what the CDC tells us to do. And they give us advice based on the risks that are known at the time."