Cause of Death

by Patricia Cornwell

  "Kay," Wesley explained this to me while Marino looked on with angry eyes, "we don't know that an Old Point isn't already happening in Europe because what's going on in Virginia didn't happen overnight. We're worried about major cities elsewhere."

  "So, are you telling me these New Zionist fruit loops are in England, too?" It was Marino who asked, and he was about to boil over.

  "Not that we are aware of, but unfortunately, there are plenty of others to take their place," Wesley said.

  "Well, I got an opinion." Marino looked accusingly at me. "We got a possible nuclear disaster on our hands.

  Don't you think you ought to stick around?"

  "That would be my preference."

  The general made the salient remark, "If you help, hopefully it won't be necessary for you to stick around because there won't be anything for you to do."

  "I understand that, too," I said. "No one believes in prevention more than I do."

  "Can you manage it?" Wesley asked.

  "My offices are already mobilizing to handle whatever happens," I said. "The other doctors know what to do. You know I'll help in any way I possibly can."

  But Marino was not to be soothed. "it ain't safe." He stared at Wesley now, "You can't just go sending the doc through airports and all the hell over the place when we don't know who's out there or what they want."

  "You're right, Pete," Wesley thoughtfully said. "And we're not going to do that."

  CHAPTER 12

  THAT NIGHT I WENT HOME BECAUSE I NEEDED clothes, and my passport was in the safe. I packed with nervous hands as I waited for my pager to beep. Fielding had been calling me on the hour to hear updates and air his concerns. The bodies at Old Point remained where the gunmen had left them, as best we knew, and we had no idea how many of the plant's workers remained imprisoned inside.

  I slept restlessly under the watch of a police car parked on my street, and I sat up when the alarm clock startled me awake at five A.m. An hour and a half later, a Learjet awaited me at the Millionaire Terminal in Henrico County, where the area's wealthiest businessmen parked their helicopters and corporate planes. Wesley and I were polite but guarded as we greeted each other, and I was having trouble believing we were about to fly overseas together. But it had been planned that he would visit the embassy before it was suggested that I should go to London, too, and General Sessions did not know about our history. Or at least this was how I chose to view a situation that was out of my hands.

  "I'm not sure I trust your motives," I said to Wesley as the jet took off like a race car with wings. "And what about this?" I looked around. "Since when does the Bureau use Learjets, or did the Pentagon arrange this, too?"

  "We use whatever we need," he said. "CP&L has made available any resource it has to help us resolve this crisis. The Learjet belongs to them."

  The white jet was sleek, with burlwood and teal green leather seats, but it was loud, so we could not speak softly.

  "You don't have to worry about using something of theirs?" I said.

  "They're just as unhappy about all this as we are. As far as we know, with the exception of one or two bad apples, CP&L is blameless. In fact, it and its employees are clearly the most profoundly victimized."

  He stared ahead at the cockpit and its two well-built pilots dressed in suits. "Besides, the pilots are HRT,- he added. "And we checked every nut and bolt of this thing before we took off. Don't worry. As for my going with you--he looked at me-"I'll say it again. What happens now is operational. The ball has been passed to FIRT. I will be needed when terrorists begin to communicate with us, when we can at least identify them. But I don't think that will be for several days."

  "How can you possibly know that?" I poured coffee.

  He took the cup from my hand and our fingers brushed.

  "I know because they're busy. They want those assemblies, and there are only so many they can get per day."

  "Have the reactors been shut down?"

  "According to the power company, the terrorists shut down the reactors immediately after storming the plant. So they know what they want, and they are down to business."

  "And there are twenty of them."

  "That's approximately how many went in for their a] leged seminar in the mock control room. But we really can't be sure how many are there now."

  "This tour," I said, "when was it scheduled?"

  "The power company said it was originally scheduled in early December for the end of February."

  "Then they moved it up." I wasn't surprised in light of what had happened lately.

  "Yes," he said. "It was suddenly rescheduled a couple of days before Eddings was killed."

  "it sounds like they're desperate, Benton."

  "And probably more reckless and not as prepared," he said. "And that's better and worse for us."

  "And what about hostages? Is it likely they will let all of them go, based on your experience?"

  "I don't know about all of them," he said, staring out the window, his face grim in soft side lights.

  "Lord," I said, "if they try to get the fuel out, we could have a national disaster on our hands. And I don't see how they think they can pull this off. Those assemblies probably weigh several tons each and are so radioactive they could cause instant death if you got close. And how will they get them away from Old Point?"

  "The plant's surrounded by water for purposes of cooling the reactors. And nearby, on the James, we're watching a barge we believe belongs to them."

  I remembered Marino telling me of barges delivering large crates to the New Zionist compound, and I said, "Can we take it?"

  "No. We can't take barges, submarines, nothing right now. Not until we can get those hostages out." He sipped coffee, and the horizon was turning a pale gold.

  "Then the best-case scenario is they will take what they want and leave without killing anybody else," I supposed, although I did not think this could happen.

  "No. The best-case scenario is we stop them there." He looked at me. "We don't want a barge full of highly radioactive material on Virginia's rivers or out at sea. What are we going to do, threaten to sink it? Besides, my guess is they'll take hostages with them." He paused. "Eventually, they'll shoot them all."

  I could not help but imagine those poor people now as fright shocked every nerve cell every moment they breathed. I knew about the physical and mental manifestations of fear, and the images were searing and I seethed inside. I felt a wave of hatred for these men who called themselves the New Zionists, and I clenched my fists.

  Wesley looked down at my white knuckles on the armrests, and thought I was afraid of flying. "It's only a few more minutes," he said. "We're starting our descent."

  We landed at Kennedy, and a shuttle waited for us on the tarmac. It was driven by two more fit men in suits, and I did not ask Wesley about them because I already knew.

  One of them walked us inside the terminal to British Airways, which had been kind enough to cooperate with the Bureau, or maybe it was the Pentagon, by making two seats available on their next Concorde flight to London. At the counter, we discreetly showed our credentials and said we had not packed guns. The agent assigned to keep us safe walked with us to the lounge, and when I looked for him next, he was perusing stacks of foreign newspapers.

  Wesley and I found seats before expansive windows looking out over the tarmac where the supersonic plane waited like a giant white heron being fed fuel through a thick hose attached to its side. The Concorde looked more like a rocket than any commercial craft I had seen, and it appeared that most of its passengers were no longer capable of being impressed by it or much of anything. They served themselves pastries and fruit, and some were already mixing Bloody Marys and mimosas.

  Wesley and I talked little and constantly scanned the crowd as we held up newspapers like every other proverbial spy or fugitive on the run. I could tell that Middle Easterners, in particular, caught his eye, while I was more wary of people who looked like us, for I remembered Joel Han
d that day I had faced him in court and had found him attractive and genteel. If he sat next to me right now and I did not know him, I would have thought he belonged in this lounge more than we.

  "How are you doing?" Wesley lowered his paper.

  "I don't know." I was agitated. "So tell me. Are we alone or is your friend still here?"

  His eyes smiled.

  "I don't see what's amusing about this."

  "So you thought the Secret Service might be nearby. Or undercover agents."

  "I see. I guess that man in the suit who walked us here is special services for British Airways."

  "Let me answer your question this way. If we're not alone, Kay, I'm not going to tell you."

  We looked at each other a moment longer, and we had never traveled abroad together, and now did not seem like a good time to start. He was wearing a blue suit so dark it was almost black and his usual white shirt and conservative tie. I had dressed with similar somber deliberation, and both of us had our -lasses on. I thought we looked like partners in a law firm, and as I noticed other women in the room I was reminded that what I did not look like was anybody's wife.

  Paper rustled as he folded the London Times and glanced at his watch. "I think that's us," he said, getting up as Flight 2 was called again.

  The Concorde held a hundred people in two cabins with two seats on either side of the aisle. The decor was muted gray carpet and leather, with spaceship windows too small to gaze out. Flight attendants were British and typically polite, and if they knew we were the two passengers from the FBI, Navy, or God knows, the CIA, they did not indicate so in any way. Their only concern seemed to be what we wanted to drink, and I ordered whiskey.

  "It's a little early, isn't it?" Wesley said.

  "Not in London it's not," I told him. "It's five hours later there."

  "Thank you. I'll set my watch," he dryly said as if he'd never been anywhere in his life. "I guess I'll have a beer," he told the attendant.

  "There, now that we're on the proper time zone, it's easier to drink," I said, and I could not keep the bite out of my voice.

  He turned to me and met my eyes. "You sound angry."

  "That's why you're a profiler, because you can figure out things like that."

  He subtly looked around us, but we were behind the bulkhead with no one across the aisle, and I almost did not care who was at our rear.

  "Can we talk reasonably?" he quietly asked.

  "It's hard to be reasonable, Benton, when you always want to talk after the fact."

  "I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I think there's a transition missing somewhere."

  I was about to give him one. "Everyone knew about your separation except me," I said. "Lucy told me because she heard about it from other agents. I would just like to be included in our relationship for once."

  "Christ, I wish you wouldn't get so upset."

  "Not half as much as I do."

  "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to be influenced by you," he said.

  We were talking in low voices, leaning forward and together so that our shoulders were touching. Despite the grave circumstances, I was aware of his every move and how it felt against me. I smelled his wool jacket and the cologne he liked to wear.

  "Any decision about my marriage can't include you," he went on as drinks arrived. "I know you must understand that."

  My body wasn't used to whiskey at this hour, and the effect of it was quick and strong. I instantly began to relax, and shut my eyes during the roar of takeoff as the jet leaned back and throbbed, thundering up through the air. From then on, the world below became nothing but a vague horizon, if I could see anything out the window at all. The noise of engines remained loud, making it necessary for us to continue sitting very close to each other as we intensely talked on.

  "I know how I feel about you," Wesley was saying. "I have known that for a long time."

  "You have no right," I said. "You have never had a right.

  "And what about you? Did you have a right to do what you did, Kay? Or was I the only one in the room?"

  "At least I'm not married or even with anyone," I said.

  "But no, I shouldn't have."

  He was still drinking beer and neither of us was interested in canapes and caviar that I suspected would prove the first running of a long gourmet game. For a while we fell silent, flipping through magazines and professional journals while almost everyone else inside our cabin did the same. I noticed that people on the Concorde did not talk to each other much, and I decided that being rich and famous or royal must be rather boring.

  "So I guess we've resolved that issue then," Wesley started again, leaning closer as I picked at asparagus.

  "What issue?" I set down my fork, because I was lefthanded and he was in the way.

  "You know. About what we should and shouldn't do."

  He brushed against my breast and then his arm stayed there as if all we had said earlier was voided at Mach two.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Yes?" His voice was curious. "What do you mean, yes?"

  "Yes about what you just said." With each breath I took, my body moved against him. "About resolving things."

  "Then that's what we'll do," he agreed.

  "Of course we will," I said, not entirely certain what we had just agreed to do. "One other thing," I added. "If you ever get divorced and we want to see each other, we start over."

  "Absolutely. That makes perfect sense."

  "In the meantime, we're colleagues and friends."

  "That's exactly what I want, too," he said.

  At half past six, we sped along Park Lane, both of us silent in the backseat of a Rover driven by an officer of the Metropolitan Police. In darkness, I watched the lights of London go by, and I was disoriented and vividly alive. Hyde Park was a sea of spreading black, lamp smudges of light along winding paths.

  The flat where we were staying was very close to the Dorchester Hotel, and Pakistanis pooled around that grand old hotel this night, protesting their visiting prime minister with fervor. Riot police and dogs were out in numbers, but our driver seemed unconcerned.

  "There is a doorman," he said as he pulled in front of a tall building that looked relatively new. "Just go in and give him your identification. He will get you into your accommodations. Do you need help with your bags?"

  Wesley opened his door. "Thanks. We can manage."

  We got out and went inside a small reception area, where an alert older man smiled warmly at us from behind a polished desk.

  "Oh right. I've been expecting you," he said.

  He got up and took our bags. "If you'll just follow me to the lift here."

  We got on and rose to the fifth floor, where he showed us a three-bedroom flat with wide windows, bright fabrics and African art. My room was comfortably appointed, with the typical English tub large enough to drown in and toilet that flushed with a chain. Furniture was Victorian with hardwood floors covered in worn Turkish rugs, and I went over to the window and turned the radiator up high. I switched off lamps and gazed out at cars rushing past and dark trees in the park moving in the wind.

  Wesley's room was down the hall at the far end, and I did not hear him walk in until he spoke.

  "Kay?" He waited near my doorway, and I heard ice softly rattle. "Whoever lives here keeps very fine Scotch.

  I've been told we are to help ourselves."

  He walked in and set tumblers on the sill.

  "Are you trying to get me drunk?" I asked.

  "It's never been necessary in the past."

  He stood next to me, and we drank and leaned against each other as we looked out together. For a long time we spoke in small, quiet sentences, and then he touched my hair, and kissed my ear and jaw. I touched him, too, and our love for each other got deeper as kisses and caresses did.

  "I've missed you so much," he whispered as clothing became loosened and undone.

  We made love because we could not help ourselves. That was our
only excuse and would hold up in no court I knew.

  Separation had been very hard, so we were hungry with each other all night. Then at dawn I drifted off to sleep long enough to awaken and find him gone, as if it all had been a dream. I lay beneath a down-filled duvet, and images were slow and lyrical in my mind. Lights danced beneath my lids and I felt as if I were being rocked, as if I were a little girl again and my father were not dying of a disease I did not understand back then.

  I had never gotten over him. I supposed my attachments to all men had sadly relived my being left by him. It was a dance I moved to without trying, and then found myself in silence in the empty room of my most private life. I realized how much Lucy and I were alike. We both loved in secret and would not speak of pain.