“Well … I could take any test tube here, or even in another lab, go into the ladies’ room and insert the tube or vial in one of two orifices. No one would miss a single vial, especially if it hadn’t been logged and identified. Then I go into the shower room, throw my lab clothes into a hamper, shower, and go to my locker. At this point I could remove the vial from wherever and put it in my handbag. I get dressed, leave through the lobby, get on the bus to the ferry, and go home. No one watches you shower. There are no cameras. You’ll see when you leave here yourself.”
I asked, “And larger items. Items too big to … well, too big.”
“Whatever will fit under your lab clothes can make it as far as the shower room. It is there where you have to be clever. For instance, if I took a sequencing gel into the shower room, I could hide it in my towel.”
Beth said, “You could also hide it in the hamper with your lab clothes.”
“No, you can never go back. The clothes are contaminated. In fact, after you use the towel, that must also go into a separate hamper. It is here that anyone who is looking would see if you were carrying anything. But if you shower out at an odd time, the chances are you will be alone.”
I tried to picture this scene, of Judy or Tom smuggling God knew what out of this building yesterday afternoon when no one else was in the shower room. I asked Dr. Chen, “If it’s assumed that everything in here has some degree of contamination, why would you want to put a vial of something in your whatever?”
She replied, “You practice some basic decon first, of course. You wash your hands with the special soap in the rest rooms, you may use a condom to wrap a vial or test tube, or use sterile gloves or sheet latex for larger items. You have to be careful, but not paranoid.”
Dr. Chen continued, “As for computer information, it can and is electronically transferred from biocontainment to the offices in the administration area. So it’s not necessary to steal disks or tapes.” She added, “As for handwritten and typewritten notes, graphs, charts, and so forth, it’s standard procedure to fax all of that out of here and into your own office. There are fax machines all around, as you can see, and each office outside of biocontainment has an individual fax. That’s the only way you can get notes out of here. Years ago, you had to use special paper, rinse it in a decontaminating fluid, leave it to dry, then retrieve it the next day. Now, with the fax, your notes are waiting for you when you return to the office.”
Amazing, I thought. I’ll bet the folks who invented the fax never thought of that. I can picture the TV commercial—“Laboratory notes covered with germs? Fax them to your office. You have to shower, but they don’t.” Or something like that.
Beth looked at Dr. Chen and asked her directly, “Do you think the Gordons took anything out of here that was dangerous to living things?”
“Oh, no. No, no. Whatever they took—if they took anything—wasn’t pathogenic. Whatever it was, it was therapeutic, helpful, antidotal, however we want to term it. It was something good. I would bet my life on that.”
Beth said, “We’re all betting our lives on that.”
We left Dr. Chen and the X-ray room and continued our tour.
As we walked, Dr. Zollner commented, “So, as I said before, and as Dr. Chen seems to agree, if the Gordons stole anything, it was a genetically altered viral vaccine. Most probably a vaccine for Ebola since that was the main thrust of their work.”
Everyone seemed to agree with that. My own thinking was that Dr. Chen had been a little too pat and perfect, and that she didn’t know the Gordons as well as she or Zollner said she did.
Dr. Zollner gave a commentary as we strolled the labyrinthine corridors. He said, “Among the viral diseases we study are malignant catarrh, Congo Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and bluetongue. We also study a variety of pneumonias, rickettsial diseases, such as heartwater, a wide range of bacterial diseases, and also parasitic diseases.”
“Doc, I got a C in biology and that’s because I cheated. You lost me on the rickshaw disease. But let me ask you this—you have to produce a lot of this stuff in order to study it. Correct?”
“Yes, but I can assure you we don’t have the capacity to produce enough of any organism in the quantities needed for warfare, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I said, “I’m getting at random acts of terrorism. Do you produce enough germs for that?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“That word again, Doc.”
“Well, yes, enough for a terrorist act.”
“Is it true,” I inquired, “that a coffee can full of anthrax, spritzed into the air around Manhattan Island, could kill two hundred thousand people?”
He thought a moment, then replied, “That could be. Who knows? It depends on the wind. Is it summertime? Is it lunchtime?”
“It’s like tomorrow evening rush hour.”
“All right …two hundred thousand. Three hundred thousand. A million. It doesn’t matter because no one knows and no one has a coffee can full of anthrax. Of that, I can assure you. The inventory was quite specific on that.”
“That’s good. But not as specific on other things?”
“As I told you, if anything is missing, it is an antiviral vaccine. That is what the Gordons were working on. You’ll see. Tomorrow you will all wake up alive. And the day after, and the day after that. But six or seven months from now, some pharmaceutical company, or some foreign government, will announce an Ebola vaccine, and the World Health Organization will purchase two hundred million doses to start with, and when you discover who is getting the richest from this vaccine, you will discover your murderer.”
No one replied for a few seconds, then Max said, “You’re hired, Doctor.”
Everyone smiled and chuckled. In fact, we all wanted to believe, we did believe, and we were so relieved that we were walking on air, giddy over the good news, thrilled that we weren’t going to wake up with terminal bluetongue or something, and in truth no one was focusing as closely on the case now as we had been earlier. Except me.
Anyway, Zollner continued showing us all sorts of rooms and talked about diagnoses and reagent production, monoclonal antibody research, genetic engineering, tick-borne viruses, vaccine production, and so forth. It was mind-boggling.
It takes an odd type to go into this sort of work, I thought, and the Gordons, whom I considered normal people, must have been considered by their peers as somewhat flamboyant by comparison—which was how Zollner described them. I mentioned this to Zollner and he replied, “Yes, my scientists here are rather introverted … like most scientists. Do you know the difference between an introverted biologist and an extroverted biologist?”
“No.”
“An extroverted biologist looks at your shoes when he talks to you.” Zollner laughed heartily at this one, and even I chuckled, though I don’t like it when people upstage me. But it was his lab.
Anyway, we saw the various places where the Gordons’ project had been worked on, and we also saw the Gordons’ own lab.
Inside the Gordons’ small lab, Dr. Zollner said, “As project directors, the Gordons mostly supervised, but they did some work here on their own.”
Beth said, “No one else worked in this lab?”
“Well, there were assistants. But this laboratory was the private domain of the Doctors Gordon. You can be sure I spent an hour in here this morning looking for something that was not right, but they wouldn’t leave anything incriminating around.”
I nodded. In fact, there may have been incriminating evidence at any previous time, but if yesterday was to be the culmination of the Gordons’ secret work and final theft, then they would have sanitized the place yesterday morning or the day before. But that supposed that I believed all of this stuff about an Ebola vaccine, and I wasn’t sure I did.
Beth said to Dr. Zollner, “You are not supposed to enter the workplace of homicide victims and look around, remove things, or touch anything.”
Zollner shrugged, as well he
should under these circumstances. He said, “So, how was I supposed to know that? Do you know my job?”
Beth said, “I just want you to know—”
“For next time? All right, the next time two of my top scientists are murdered, I’ll be sure not to go into their laboratory.”
Beth Penrose was bright enough to let it go and said nothing.
Clearly, I thought, Ms. By-the-Book was not handling the unique circumstances of this case very well. But I gave her credit for trying to do it right. If she’d been one of the crew on the Titanic, she’d have made everyone sign for the life jackets.
We all looked around the lab, but there were no notebooks, no beakers labeled “Eureka,” no cryptic messages on the blackboard, no corpses in the supply closet, and in fact, nothing at all that the average lay person could understand. If anything interesting or incriminating had been here, it was gone, compliments of the Gordons, or Zollner, or even Nash and Foster if they’d ventured this far on their earlier visit this morning.
So, I stood there and tried to commune with the spirits that possibly still occupied this room—Judy, Tom … give me a clue, a sign.
I closed my eyes and waited. Fanelli says the dead speak to him. They identify their murderers, but they always speak Polish or Spanish or sometimes Greek, so he can’t understand them. I think he’s pulling my leg. He’s crazier than I am.
Unfortunately, the Gordons’ lab was a bust, and we continued on.
We spoke to a dozen scientists who worked with or for the Gordons. It was obvious that (a) everyone loved Tom and Judy; (b) Tom and Judy were brilliant; (c) Tom and Judy wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it advanced the cause of science in the service of man and beast; (d) the Gordons, while loved and respected, were different; (e) the Gordons, while scrupulously honest in their personal dealings, would probably screw the government and steal a vaccine worth its weight in gold, as someone phrased it. It occurred to me that everyone was reading from the same script.
We continued our walk and climbed a staircase to the second floor. My bad leg was dragging, and my bad lung was wheezing so loudly I thought everyone could hear it. I said to Max, “I thought this wasn’t going to be strenuous.”
He looked at me and forced a smile. He said to me softly, “I get claustrophobic sometimes.”
“Me too.” In truth, it wasn’t claustrophobia that was troubling him. Like most men of courage and action, myself included, Max didn’t like a danger he couldn’t pull his gun on.
Dr. Zollner was going on about the training programs that were conducted here, the visiting scientists, graduate students, and veterinarians who came from all over the world to learn and teach here. He also spoke of the facility’s foreign cooperative programs in places like Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Canada, and England. “In fact,” he said, “the Gordons went to England about a year ago. Pirbright Laboratory, south of London. That’s our sister lab there.”
I asked Dr. Zollner, “Do you get visitors from the Army Chemical Corps?”
Dr. Zollner looked at me and commented, “Whatever I say, you see something to question. I’m glad you’re listening.”
“I’m listening for the answer to my question.”
“The answer is it’s none of your business, Mr. Corey.”
“It is, Doctor. If we suspect that the Gordons stole organisms that can be used in biological warfare, and that’s what got them murdered, then we have to know if such organisms exist here. In other words, are there biological warfare specialists here in this building? Do they work here? Experiment here?”
Dr. Zollner glanced at Messrs. Foster and Nash, and then said, “I would be less than truthful if I said no one from the Army Chemical Corps comes here. They are extremely interested in vaccines and antidotes for biological hazards…. The United States government does not study, promote, or produce agents of offensive biological warfare. But it would be national suicide not to study defensive measures. So, someday, when that bad fellow with the can of anthrax paddles his canoe around Manhattan Island, we can be ready to protect the population.” Dr. Zollner added, “You have my assurances that the Gordons had no dealings with anyone from the military, did not work in that area, and in fact, had no access to anything so lethal—”
“Except Ebola.”
“You do listen. My staff should pay as much attention. But why bother with an Ebola weapon? We have anthrax. Trying to improve on anthrax is like trying to improve on gunpowder. Anthrax is easy to propagate, easy to handle, it diffuses nicely into the air, kills slowly enough for the infected population to spread it around, and cripples as many victims as it kills, causing a collapse of the enemy’s health care system. But, officially, we don’t have anthrax bombs or artillery shells. The point is, if the Gordons were trying to develop a biological weapon to sell to a foreign power, they wouldn’t bother with Ebola. They were too smart for that. So put that suspicion to rest.”
“I feel much better. By the way, when did the Gordons go to England?”
“Let’s see … May of last year. I recall that I envied them going to England in May.” He asked me, “Why do you ask?”
“Doc, do scientists know why they’re asking questions all the time?”
“Not all the time.”
“I assume the government paid all expenses for the Gordons’ trip to England.”
“Of course. It was all business.” He thought a moment, then said, “Actually, they took a week in London at their own expense. Yes, I remember that.”
I nodded. What I didn’t remember was any unusually large credit card bills in May or June of last year. I wondered where they’d spent the week. Not in a London hotel, unless they skipped out on the bill. I didn’t recall any large cash withdrawals either. Something to think about.
The problem with asking really clever questions in front of Foster and Nash was that they heard the answers. And even if they didn’t know where the questions were coming from, they were smart enough to know—contrary to what I indicated to Zollner—that most questions had a purpose.
We were walking down a very long corridor, and no one was speaking, then Dr. Zollner said, “Do you hear that?” He stopped dead and put his hand to his ear. “Do you hear that?”
We all stood motionless, listening. Finally, Foster asked, “What?”
“Rumbling. It’s a rumbling. It’s …”
Nash knelt down and put the palms of his hands on the floor. “Earthquake?”
“No,” Zollner said, “it’s my stomach. I’m hungry.” He laughed and slapped his fat. “Lighten up,” he said in his German accent, which made it sound even more funny. Everyone was smiling except Nash, who stood stiffly and brushed his hands off.
Zollner went to a door painted bright red, on which was plastered six standard OSHA-type signs, as follows: Bio-hazard, Radioactive, Chemical Waste, High Voltage, Poison Hazard, and finally, Untreated Human Waste. He opened the door and announced, “Lunch Room.”
Inside the plain white cement block room were a dozen empty tables, a sink, a refrigerator, microwave oven, bulletin boards covered with notices and messages, and a water cooler and coffee maker, but no vending machines, the fact being that no one wanted to come in here and service them. Sitting on a counter was a fax machine, a menu of the day’s fare, and paper and pencil. Dr. Zollner said, “Lunch is on me.” He wrote himself a big order which I saw included the soup du jour, which was beef. I didn’t even want to think about where the beef came from.
For the first time since I left the hospital, I ordered JellO, and for the first time in my life, I skipped the meat dishes.
No one else seemed particularly hungry, and they all ordered salads.
Dr. Zollner faxed the order and said, “The lunch hour here doesn’t start until one, but they will deliver quickly because I requested it.”
Dr. Zollner suggested we wash our hands, which we all did at the sink with some weird brown liquid soap that smelled like iodine.
We all got coffee and sat. A few other people
came in and got coffee and took things out of the refrigerator or faxed orders. I looked at my watch to see the time and saw my wrist.
Zollner said, “If you’d brought your watch in, I’d haveto decontaminate it and quarantine it for ten days.”
“My watch wouldn’t survive a decontamination.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was five minutes to one P.M.
We made small talk for a few minutes. The door opened and a man in lab whites entered, pushing a stainless steel cart which looked like any other lunch cart, except it was covered with a sheet of plastic wrap.
Dr. Zollner pulled off the wrap and disposed of it, then— perfect host—gave us each our orders and dismissed the man and the cart.
Max asked, “That guy has to shower now?”
“Oh, yes. The cart is first put in a decon room and retrieved later.”
I asked, “Is it possible to use that cart to smuggle large items out of here?”
Dr. Zollner was arranging his large lunch in front of him with the expertise of a real trencherman. He looked up from his labor of love and said, “Now that you mention it, yes. That cart is the only thing that makes a regular journey between administration and biocontainment. But if you used it to smuggle, you’d have to have two other people in on it. The person who pushes it in and out, then the person who washes it and takes it back to the kitchen. You’re very clever, Mr. Corey.”
“I think like a criminal.”
He laughed and dug into the beef soup. Yuck. I regarded Dr. Zollner as I slurped my lime Jell-O. I liked the guy. He was funny, friendly, hospitable, and smart. He was lying through his teeth, of course, but other people had forced him to do that. Probably the two jokers across the table, for starters, and God knew who else in Washington had briefed Dr. Z on the phone all morning while we were rambling around the ruins and getting brochures on rinder-pest and blue balls or whatever. Dr. Z in turn had briefed Dr. Chen, who was a little too perfect. I mean, of all the people we could have questioned, Zollner led us to Dr. Chen, whose work seemed to be only peripherally related to the Gordons’ work. And she was introduced as a good friend of the Gordons, but wasn’t; I’d never heard her name mentioned before today. And then there were the other scientists to whom we’d spoken briefly, before Zollner whisked us off—they, too, had been on the same page as Chen.
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