Cause of Death

by Patricia Cornwell

  "I'll tell you what," he reconsidered. "We can stay in here. Hold on." He walked to the door. "Emily, can you find another chair?"

  We got settled while she brought one in, and Wesley was having a hard time keeping his thoughts in one place and making decisions. I knew what he was like when he was overwhelmed. I knew when he was scared.

  "You know what's going on," he said as if we did.

  "We know what everybody else does," I replied.

  "We've heard the same news on the radio probably a hundred times."

  "So how about starting from the beginning," Marino said. -CP&L has a district office in Suffolk," Wesley began.

  "At least twenty people left there this afternoon in a bus for an alleged in-service in the mock control room of the Old Point plant. They were men, white, thirties to early forties, posing as employees, which they obviously are not.

  And they managed to get into the main building where the control room is located."

  "They were armed," I said.

  "Yes. When it was time for them to go through the x-ray machines and other detectors at the main building, they pulled out semiautomatic weapons. As you know, people have been killed-we think at least three CP&L employees, including a nuclear physicist who just happened to be paying a site visit today and was going through security at the wrong time."

  "What are their demands?" I asked, and I wondered how much Wesley had known and for how long. "Have they said what they want?"

  He met my eyes. "That's what worries us the most. We don't know what they want."

  "But they're letting people go," Marino said.

  "I know. And that worries me, too," Wesley stated.

  "Terrorists generally don't do that." His telephone rang.

  "This is different." He picked up the receiver. "Yes," he said. "Good. Send him in."

  Major General Lynwood Sessions was in the uniform of the Navy he served when he entered the office and shook hands with each of us. He was black, maybe forty-five and handsome in a way that was not to be dismissed. He did not take off his jacket or even loosen a button as he formally took a chair and set a fat briefcase beside him.

  "General, thank you for coming," Wesley began.

  "I wish it were for a happier reason," he said as he bent over to get out a file folder and legal pad.

  "Don't we all," Wesley said. "This is Captain Pete Marino with Richmond, and Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner of Virginia." He looked at me and held my gaze. "They work with us. Dr. Scarpetta, as a matter of fact, is the medical examiner in the cases that we believe are related to what is happening today."

  General Sessions nodded and made no comment.

  Wesley said to Marino and me, "Let me try to tell you what we know beyond the immediate crisis. We have reason to believe that vessels in the Inactive Ship Yard are being sold to countries that should not have them. This includes Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Algeria."

  "What sort of vessels?" Marino asked.

  "Mainly submarines. We also suspect that this shipyard is buying vessels from places like Russia and then reselling them."

  "And why have we not been told this before?" I asked.

  Wesley hesitated. "No one had proof."

  "Ted Eddings was diving in the Inactive Yard when he died," I said. "He was near a submarine."

  No one replied.

  Then the general said, "He was a reporter. It's been suggested that he might have been looking for Civil War relics."

  "And what was Danny doing?" I measured my words because I was getting tired of this. "Exploring a historic train tunnel in Richmond?"

  "It's hard to know what Danny Webster was into," he said. "But I understand the Chesapeake police found a bayonet in the trunk of his car, and it is consistent with the tool marks left on your slashed tires."

  I looked a long time at him. "I don't know where you got your information, but if what you've said is true, then I suspect Detective Roche turned that evidence in."

  "I believe he turned in the bayonet, yes."

  "I believe all of us in this room can be trusted." I kept my eyes on his. "If there is a nuclear disaster, I am mandated by law to take care of the dead. There are already too many dead at Old Point." I paused. "General Sessions, now would be a very good time to tell the truth."

  The men were silent for a moment.

  Then the general said, "NAVSEA has been concerned about that shipyard for a while."

  "NAVSEA? What the hell is that?" Marino asked.

  "Naval Sea Systems Command," he said. "They're the people responsible for making certain that shipyards like the one in question abide by the appropriate standards."

  "Eddings had the label N-V-S-E programmed into his fax machine," I said. "Was he in communication with them?"

  "He had asked questions," General Sessions said. "We were aware of Mr. Eddings. But we could not give him the answers he wanted. Just as we could not answer you, Dr. Scarpetta, when you sent us a fax asking who we were."

  His face was inscrutable. "I'm certain you can understand that."

  "What is D-R-M-S out of Memphis?" I then asked.

  "Another fax number that Eddings called, as did you," he said. "Defense Reutilization Marketing Service. They handle all surplus sales, which must be approved by NAVSEA."

  "This is making sense," I said. "I can see why Eddings would have been in touch with these people. He was on to what was happening at the Inactive Yard, that the Navy's standards were being violated in a rather shocking way.

  And he was probing for his story."

  "Tell me more about these standards," Marino said.

  "Exactly what is the shipyard supposed to abide by?"

  "I'll give you an example. If Jacksonville wants the Saratoga or some other aircraft carrier, then NAVSEA makes certain that any work done to it meets the Navy's standards."

  "Like in what way?"

  "For example, the city has to have the five million it will take to fix it up, and the two million for maintenance each year. And the water in the harbor must be at least thirty feet deep. On the other hand, where the ship is moored, someone from NAVSEA, probably a civilian, is going to appear about once a month and inspect the work being done to the vessel."

  "And this has been happening at the Inactive Ship Yard?" I asked.

  "Well, right now, we're not sure of the civilian doing it." The general looked straight at me.

  Then it was Wesley who spoke, "That's the problem.

  There are civilians everywhere, some of them mercenaries who would buy or sell anything with absolute reckless disregard for national security. As you know, a civilian company runs the Inactive Yard. It inspects the ships being sold to cities or for salvage."

  "What about the submarine in there now, the Exploiter?" I asked. "The one I saw when I recovered Eddings' body?"

  "A Zulu V class ballistic missile sub. Ten torpedo tubes plus two missile tubes. It was made from 1955 to 1957," General Sessions said. "Since the sixties, all subs built in the U.S. are nuclear-powered."

  "So the sub we're talking about is old," Marino said.

  "It's not nuclear."

  The general replied, "It couldn't be nuclear-powered.

  But you can put any type of warhead on a missile or torpedo you want."

  "Are you saying that the sub 1 dove near might be retrofitted to fire nuclear weapons?" I asked as this frightening specter just loomed bigger.

  "Dr. Scarpetta," said the general as he leaned closer to me, "we're not assuming that sub has been retrofitted here in the United States. All that was needed was for it to be brought back up to speed and sent out to sea where it might be intercepted by a principality that should not have it.

  Work could be done there. But what Iraq or Algeria cannot do for themselves on their own soil is produce weapons grade plutonium."

  "And where is that going to come from?" Marino asked.

  It's not like you can get that from a power plant. And if the terrorists think otherwise, th
en I guess we're dealing with a bunch of redneck dumb shits."

  "it would be extremely hard, if not close to impossible, to get plutonium from Old Point," I agreed.

  "An anarchist like Joel Hand doesn't think about how hard it might be," Wesley said.

  "And it is possible," Sessions added. "For about two months after new fuel rods have been placed in a reactor, there is a window in which you can get plutonium."

  "How often are the rods replaced?" Marino asked.

  "Old Point replaces one-third of them every fifteen months. That's eighty assemblies, or about three atom bombs if you shut down the reactors and get the assemblies out during that two-month window."

  "Then Hand had to know the schedule," I said.

  "Oh, yes." I I thought of the telephone records of CP&L executives that someone like Eddings might have illegally accessed.

  "So someone was on the take," I said.

  "We think we know who. One high-ranking officer, really," Sessions said. "Someone who had a lot of say in the decision to locate the CP&L field office on property adjacent to Hand's farm."

  "A farm belonging to Joshua Hayes?"

  . "Yes." I

  "Shit," Marino said. "Hand had to be planning this for years, and he sure as hell was getting a lot of bucks from somewhere."

  "No question about either," the general agreed. "Something like this would have to be planned for years, and someone was paying for it."

  "You need to remember that for a fanatic like Hand," Wesley said, "what he is engaged in is a religious war of eternal significance. He can afford to be patient."

  "General Sessions," I went on, "if the submarine we're speaking of is destined for a distant port, might NAVSEA know that?"

  "Absolutely."

  "How?" Marino wanted to know.

  "A number of things," he said. "For example, when ships are stored at the Inactive Yard, their missile and torpedo tubes are covered with steel plates outside the hull.

  shaft inside the ship so the And a plate is welded over the screw is fixed. Obviously, all guns and communications are removed."

  "Meaning that a violation of at least some of these regulations could be inspected from the outside," I said. "You could tell by looking at the vessel if you were near it in the water."

  He looked at me and caught my meaning precisely.

  "Yes, you could tell."

  "You could dive around this sub and find that the torpedo tubes, for example, are not sealed. You might even be able to tell that the screw was not welded."

  "Yes," he said again. "All of that you could tell."

  "That's what Ted Eddings was doing."

  "I'm afraid so." It was Wesley who spoke. "Divers recovered his camera and we've looked at the film, which had only three exposures. All blurred images of the Exploiter's screw. So it doesn't appear he was in the water long before he died."

  "And where is that submarine now?" I asked.

  CA USE of D EAT H 26i The general paused. "You might say that we're in subtle pursuit of it."

  "Then it's gone."

  "I'm afraid it left port about the same time the nuclear power plant was stormed."

  I looked at the three men. "Well, I certainly think we know why Eddings had gotten increasingly paranoid about self-protection."

  "Someone must have set him up," Marino said. "You can't just decide at the last minute to poison someone with cyanide gas."

  "His was a premeditated murder committed by someone he must have trusted," Wesley said. "He wouldn't have told just anybody what he was doing that night."

  I thought of another label in Eddings's fax machine. CPT could stand for captain, and I mentioned Captain Green's name to them.

  "Well, Eddings must have had at least one inside source for his story," was Wesley's comment. "Someone was leaking information to him and I suspect this same someone set him up or at least assisted in it." He looked at me.

  "And we know from his phone bills that over the past few months, he had quite a lot of communication with Green, by phone and fax, that seems to have begun last fall when Eddings did a rather harmless profile on the shipyard."

  "Then he started digging too deep," I said.

  "His curiosity was actually helpful to us," General Sessions said. "We started digging deeper, too. We've been investigating this situation longer than you might imagine."

  He paused, and smiled a little. "In fact, Dr. Scarpetta, you have not been as alone at some points as you might have thought."

  "I sincerely hope you'll thank Jerod and Ki Soo," I said, assuming they were SEALs.

  But it was Wesley who replied, "I will, or perhaps you can yourself next time you visit HRT. "General Sessions," I moved on to what seemed a rather more mundane topic. "Would you happen to know if rats are a concern in decommissioned ships""

  "Rats are always a worry in any ship," he said.

  "One of the uses of cyanide is to exterminate rodents in the hulls of ships," I said. "The Inactive Yard may keep a supply of it."

  As I've indicated, Captain Green is of great concern to us." He knew just what I meant. -Vis--vis the New Zionists?" I asked.

  "No," Wesley answered for him. "Not as opposed to but as with. My speculation is that Green is the New Zionists' direct link to anything military, such as the shipyard, while Roche is simply his toady. Roche is the one who harasses, snoops and snitches."

  "He didn't kill Danny," I said.

  "Danny was killed by a psychopathic individual who blends well enough with normal society that he did not draw any attention to himself as he waited outside the Hill Cafe. I'd profile this individual as a white male, early thirties to early forties, experienced in hunting and in guns, in general."

  " Sounds like the spitting image of the drones who took over Old Point," Marino remarked.

  "Yes," Wesley said. "Killing Danny, whether he was the intended victim or not, was a hunting assignment, like shooting a groundhog. The individual who did this probably bought the Sig forty-five at the same gun show where he got the Black Talons."

  "I thought you said the Sig once belonged to a cop," the admiral reminded him.

  "Right. It ends up on the street and eventually gets sold secondhand," Wesley said.

  "To one of Hand's followers," Marino said. "The same kind of guy that took out Shapiro in Maryland."

  "The exact same kind of guy."

  "My big question is what they think you know," the admiral asked me.

  "I've thought about that a lot and can't come up with anything," I replied.

  "You have to think like they do," Wesley said to me.

  "What is it they think you might know that others don't9"

  "They might think I have the Book," I said for lack of anything else that came to mind. "And apparently that is as sacred as an Indian burial ground to them."

  "What's in it that they wouldn't want anyone else to know?" Sessions asked.

  "It would seem that the revelation most dangerous to them would be the plan they've already carried out," I replied.

  "Of course. They couldn't carry it out if someone tipped their hand." Wesley looked at me, a thousand thoughts in his eyes. "What does Dr. Mant know?"

  "I haven't had the chance to ask him. He doesn't answer my calls, and I've left messages numerous times."

  "You don't think that's rather strange?"

  "I absolutely think it's strange," I said to him. "But I don't think anything extreme has happened, or we would have heard. I think he's afraid."

  Wesley explained to the general, "He's the medical examiner in charge of the Tidewater District."

  "Well, then, perhaps you should go see him," the general suggested to me.

  "In light of circumstances, this doesn't seem the ideal time," I said.

  "On the contrary," the general said. "I think this is precisely the ideal time."

  "You might be right," Wesley agreed. "Our only hope, really, is to get inside these people's heads. Maybe Mant has information that could help. Maybe that's
why he's hiding."

  General Sessions shifted in his chair. "Well, I vote for it," he said. "For one thing, we've got to worry about this same kind of thing happening over there, as you and I have already discussed, Benton. So that business already awaits anyway, doesn't it'! It won't be any big deal for another person to go along, providing British Airways doesn't mind, short notice and all." He seemed amused in a wry way. "if they do, I expect I'll just have to call the Pentagon.