Page 10 of Acting on Instinct
Stan’s chuckle was a chesty rumble. “No problem. A chance to geek out about weird historical illnesses makes it a good day. For me, anyway. Not so much for the phossy jaw guy. To answer your question, white phosphorus is lipid-soluble, which means it dissolves easily in human tissue. It goes into the body and halts the bone-rebuilding process in osteoblasts. So bone is broken down by osteoclasts, and normally the osteoblasts build it back, right?”
“Right,” Lynx said as she wandered over to her chair and sat with her phone held out for all to hear. “That explains the brittle bones crushing under a strong blow.”
“But this is a 19th-century problem,” Nomad said. “How do you do, sir? Thank you for your expertise. I’m the second of—” He’d almost said Lynx, but that was a call sign, and perhaps Stan didn’t know that she used that name at work. Nomad didn’t know her real name, and he didn’t have White’s familiarity with the woman to tease her with the obviously familial nickname "Baby Girl," a nickname from a man who had known her since she was a child. “I’m the second of the associates.” He offered a bit lamely.
“Mainly, that’s true. However, you’d be wrong to say it hasn’t shown up over the last hundred and twenty years. WWI and WWII, for example, white phosphorus was used by Allied troops as a multi-purpose tool—smoke screens, location marking, and incendiary weapons. Dangerous stuff. Phosphorus spontaneously combusts when it comes into contact with air and burns at 1,500° Fahrenheit. You’ll see photographs of the men from time to time who worked with the white phosphorus and got phossy jaw. You can guess at the cause of their disfigurement because the only way to try to save someone would be to remove their jaw. And even then, there’s no guarantee.”
“Horrible,” Lynx said. “How long would that take, would you say, to develop phossy jaw, Stan?”
“Timeline? Okay, well, if this is someone you’ve encountered and punched, that makes the exposure time a little harder. For the most part, off the top of my head, it would take years—two or three of poorly ventilated exposure before it was visibly a problem.”
“That long, hey?” Nomad asked. Dead end.
“You didn’t see a problem, though, right?” Stan asked.
“Orange hair sticking out of his cap, awkward gait, the tiniest hint of glow in the dark, possibly. But then the spark that had me recall your story was the garlic breath and shattered jaw,” Lynx said.
“There’s a thing they call the seeping phase, and you can get all those symptoms at that time. The glow and the garlic breath occur well before the bone deformity. Someone punched him, right? That’s what deformed his jaw.”
“Yes, sir,” Nomad said.
“Were his eyes jaundiced-looking?” Stan asked.
“I’ll go back and check if any of the images are clear enough to tell,” Lynx said.
“How long would the exposure be for the glowing garlic breath to be present?” White asked.
“Six months to a year, depending on the person and the environment, is my best guess,” Stan said. “There are a lot of ‘depends on’ going on here, genetics, frequency, and duration of exposure, too much for me to give you a better idea. Six to twelve months should cover most of the symptoms you described. And there’s nothing else that I know of that gives your breath a chemiluminescent glow and makes you stink of garlic. Garlic breath alone could be a toxin like selenium, tellurium, or even arsenic poisoning.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw glowing breath. And once you’re out of that environment, do things begin to reverse?” Lynx asked.
“No, that kind of poisoning becomes a chronic condition. Sure, he’ll start feeling better. His lung irritation will subside, but the phossy jaw is unstoppable. It’s a chain reaction.”
There was a knock at the Strike Force War Room door. “Stan, I’m going to open the door for associate number three.”
Chapter Four
Nomad
Lynx walked to the door and held it wide. “Hey there.” She brushed a welcoming hand through the air, inviting the newcomer to find a place at the table. “I have someone on speaker phone. You’re associate three.”
“Okay,” the guy grinned as he walked in. Nomad assumed this was Dawson from Tidal Force; he had the gait of a special-operations guy, and he did the initial sweep of the room before he walked all the way in.
Lynx shut the door and called out. “Okay, we can keep going. You said there were cases of this in WWI and WWII. Have you heard of this in modern times?”
“I like the history side of these crazy medical issues I don’t do anything modern. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fascinating, sir, I’d never heard of such a thing,” Nomad said.
Lynx looked at Dawson. “We’re talking about phossy jaw.”
Dawson nodded to let her know he understood what she meant.
“Stan, thank you so much for this information. If I have more questions, is it okay if I give you a call today?”
“I’m heading into the station. How ‘bout you call me with them tomorrow?”
“Perfect, thanks, Stan. Love you.”
