Plum Island

by Nelson DeMille

  I asked Mr. Stevens, “What kind of sidearms am I seeing in the holsters of your guards?”

  He replied, “The pistols are Army-issue Colt .45 automatics.” He looked around the bus, then asked, “Did I say something interesting?”

  Max informed him, “We think the murder weapon was a .45.”

  Beth said, “I’d like to do an inventory of your weapons, and I’d like to run a ballistics test on each of them.”

  Paul Stevens didn’t reply enthusiastically.

  Beth asked, “How many .45 pistols do you have here?” He said, “Twenty.”

  Max inquired, “Do you have one on you?”

  Stevens patted his jacket and nodded.

  Beth asked, “Do you always carry the same piece?”

  “No.” He added, “I draw one from the Armory every weekday.” He looked at Beth and said, “It sounds like I’m being interrogated.”

  “No,” Beth replied, “you’re only being asked questions as a friendly witness. If you were being interrogated, you’d know it.”

  Mr. Nash, behind me, said, “Perhaps we should let Mr. Stevens get on with his agenda. We’ll have time to question people later.”

  Beth said, “Proceed.”

  Mr. Stevens, still standing, said, “All right. Before we move on, I’ll give you my little speech that I give to visiting scientists, dignitaries, and the press.” He glanced at his stupid clipboard, then began in a rote tone, “Plum Island comprises 840 acres of mostly forest and some pastureland and a parade ground, which we’ll see later. The island is mentioned in the ships’ logs of early Dutch and English sailors. The Dutch named the island after the beach plum that grows along the shore—Pruym Eyland in old Dutch, if anyone is interested. The island belonged to the Montauk Indian tribe, and it was bought by a fellow named Samuel Wyllys in 1654 from Chief Wyandanch. Wyllys and other settlers after him used the island to pasture sheep and cattle, which is ironic considering what it is used for now.”

  I yawned.

  “Anyway,” Stevens continued, “there was no permanent settlement on this island. So, you might ask, how did the settlers pasture cattle on an island that was uninhabited? According to records, the Gut between Orient and Plum was so shallow in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds that cattle could cross at low tide. A hurricane around the late seventeen hundreds deepened the Gut and that ended the island’s usefulness as pasture. However, from the beginning of the English presence, the island was visited by a succession of pirates and privateers who found the island’s isolation very convenient.”

  I felt a sudden panic attack coming on. Here I was trapped in a small bus with this monotonal, monochromatic moron who was starting with Genesis, and we were only up to about 1700 or something with three centuries to go, and the friggin’ bus wasn’t even moving, and I couldn’t leave unless I shot my way out. What did I do to deserve this? Aunt June was looking down on me from heaven and laughing her butt off. I could hear her, “Now, Johnny, if you can tell me what I said yesterday about the Montauk Indians, I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.” No, no, no! STOP!

  Stevens went on, “During the Revolution, American patriots from Connecticut used the island to stage raids on the Tory strongholds in Southold. Then, George Washington, who’d visited the North Fork—”

  I put my hands over my ears, but I could still hear a low hum.

  Finally, I raised my hand and asked him, “Are you a member of the Peconic Historical Society?”

  “No, but they helped me compile this history.”

  “Is there, like, a brochure or something that we can read later, and you can save this for a congressman?”

  Beth Penrose said, “I find this fascinating.”

  Messrs. Nash and Foster made some seconding noises.

  Max laughed and said, “You’re outvoted, John.”

  Stevens smiled at me again. Why did I think he wanted to pull his .45 and empty his magazine in me? He said, “Bear with me, Detective. We have some time to kill anyway.” He continued, but I noticed that he sped up his words. “So, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the government purchased 130 acres of the island for coastal defenses, and Fort Terry was established. We’ll see the abandoned Fort Terry later.”

  I glanced at Beth and saw she was staring intently at Paul Stevens, apparently absorbed in his narrative. As I stared at Beth Penrose staring at Paul Stevens, she turned toward me, and we made eye contact. She seemed embarrassed that I’d caught her looking at me, and she smiled quickly and turned back to Stevens. My heart skipped a beat. I was in love. Again.

  Mr. Stevens was going on, “I should point out that there are over three hundred years of historical artifacts here on the island, and that if it weren’t for the restricted access to this island, there would be a good number of archaeologists digging in what are mostly untouched sites. We’re currently negotiating with the Peconic Historical Society to see if we can come to some arrangement about an experimental dig. In fact,” he added, “the Gordons were members of the Peconic Historical Society, and they were the liaisons between the Department of Agriculture, the historical society, and some archaeologists at Stony Brook State University. The Gordons and I had identified some good sites that we felt wouldn’t compromise or interfere with safety and security.”

  All of a sudden, I was interested. Sometimes a word or phrase or name comes up in an investigation, and then it comes up again, and it becomes something to think about. Such was the Peconic Historical Society. I mean, my aunt belonged to it, and you see flyers and bulletins around from this bunch, and they do cocktail parties, fund-raisers, lectures, and all that stuff, and that’s pretty normal. Then the Gordons, who don’t know Plymouth Rock from a scotch on the rocks, join up, and now Oberführer Stevens drops it into his spiel. Interesting.

  Mr. Stevens prattled on, “In 1929, there was a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United States, and the Department of Agriculture opened its first station on the island. This begins the modern history of the island in respect to its present mission. Any questions?”

  I had a few questions about the Gordons snooping around the island away from where they were supposed to be working in the laboratory. These were clever people, I concluded. The speedboat, then the Peconic Historical Society, then the cover of the archaeological digs so they could recon the island. It was possible that none of this was related, and it was all coincidence. But I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe that underpaid scientists from the Midwest often get involved in an expensive power-boating hobby and archaeology and local historical societies. These things are not consistent with the resources, the personalities, the temperaments, or the past interests of Tom and Judy Gordon. Unfortunately, the questions I had for Mr. Stevens couldn’t be asked without giving away more than I was likely to get.

  Mr. Stevens was going on about the Department of Agriculture, and I was able to safely tune out and do some noodling. I realized that before Stevens had mentioned the archaeological interest of the Gordons, he’d said something else that had pinged in my brain. I mean, think of a sonar wave moving through the water—the wave hits something and sends a ping back to the earphones. Ping. Something that Stevens said had pinged, but I was so bored senseless when he’d said it, I missed it and now I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t remember what it was that caused the ping.

  Stevens announced, “All right, we’ll drive around the island a bit.”

  The driver woke up and threw the mini-bus into gear. The road, I noticed, was well paved, but there were no other vehicles to be seen, and no other people.

  We drove around the area of the huge main building, and Mr. Stevens pointed out the water tower, the sewage decontamination plant, the power station, machine shops, and steam plants. The place seemed to be self-contained and self-sufficient, making me think again of a Bondian villain’s lair where a madman plotted the destruction of the planet. All in all, this was some operation, and we hadn’t even seen the inside of the main researc
h building yet.

  Now and then we passed a building that Mr. Stevens failed to identify, and if any of us asked him about the building, he’dsay, “Paint Storage,” or “Feed Storage,” or something. And well they may have been, but the man didn’t inspire credibility. In fact, I had the distinct feeling he enjoyed the secrecy crap and got his jollies by pulling our chains a little.

  Nearly all the buildings, except for the new main research building, were former military structures, most made of red brick or reinforced concrete, and the vast majority of the buildings were deserted. All in all, this had once been a substantial military installation, one in a string of fortresses that guarded New York City against a hostile navy that never showed up.

  We came to a grouping of concrete buildings with grass growing through the cement pavement. Stevens said, “The big building is called 257, after the old Army designation. It was the main laboratory some years ago. After we moved out, we decontaminated it with poison gas, then sealed it forever, just in case anything in there is still alive.”

  No one spoke for a few seconds, then Max asked, “Isn’t this where there was a biocontainment leak once?”

  “That was before my time,” Stevens said. He looked at me and smiled his waxy smile. “If you’d like to take a look inside, Detective, I can get you the key.”

  I smiled back and asked, “Can I go alone?”

  “That’s the only way you can go into 257. No one will go in there with you.”

  Nash and Foster chuckled. Boy, I haven’t had so much fun since I tripped on some slime and landed on a ten-dayold corpse. I said, “Hey, Paul, I’ll go if you go.”

  “I don’t particularly want to die,” Stevens replied.

  As the bus drew closer to Building 257, I saw that someone had painted in black on the concrete a huge skull and crossbones, and it struck me that this death’s-head had actually two meanings—the Jolly Roger, the pirate flag that the Gordons had flown from their mast, and it was also the symbol for poison or contamination. I stared at the black skull and bones against the white wall, and when I turned away, the image was still in front of my eyes, and when I looked at Stevens, the death’s-head was superimposed on his face, and the skull and Stevens were both grinning. I rubbed my eyes until the optical illusion faded. Jeez, if it hadn’t been broad daylight with people around, this could get creepy.

  Stevens continued, “In 1946, Congress authorized money to build a research facility. The law states that certain infectious diseases may not be studied on the mainland of the United States. This was necessary in the days when biocontainment wasn’t very advanced. So, Plum Island, which was already wholly owned by the government and which happened to be shared by the Department of Agriculture and the Army, was a natural site for the study of exotic animal diseases.”

  I asked, “Are you saying that only animal diseases are studied here?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Mr. Stevens, while we’d be upset if the Gordons stole foot-and-mouth virus, and the cattle herds of the United States, Canada, and Mexico were wiped out, that is not the reason we’re all here. Are there diseases present in the Plum Island laboratory—crossover diseases—that can infect humans?”

  He looked at me and replied, “You’ll have to ask the director, Dr. Zollner, that question.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Stevens thought a moment, then said, “I’ll say this— because of the coincidence of the Department of Agriculture sharing this island for a while with the Army, there was a lot of speculation and rumor that this was a biological warfare center. I guess you all know that.”

  Max spoke up and said, “There is plenty of evidence that the Army Chemical Corps was developing diseases here at the height of the Cold War to wipe out the entire animal population of the Soviet Union. And even I know that anthrax and other animal diseases can be used as biological weapons against a human population. You know that, too.”

  Paul Stevens cleared his throat, then explained, “I didn’t mean to imply that there wasn’t any biological warfare research done here. Certainly there was for a while in the early 1950s. But by 1954, the offensive biological warfare mission had changed to a defensive mission. That is to say, the Army was studying only ways to prevent our livestock industry from being purposely infected by the other side.” He added, “I will not answer any more questions of that nature … but I will say that the Russians sent a biological warfare team here a few years ago, and they found nothing to cause them any anxiety.”

  I always thought that voluntary arms compliance inspections were sort of like a suspected murderer leading me on a guided tour of his house. No, Detective, there’s nothing in that closet of any interest. Now, let me show you my patio.

  The bus turned onto a narrow gravel road, and Mr. Stevens went on with his prescribed talk, concluding with, “So, since the mid-1950s, Plum Island is undoubtedly the world’s foremost research facility for the study, cure, and prevention of animal diseases.” He looked at me and said, “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Detective Corey?”

  “I’ve survived worse.”

  “Good. Now we’ll leave the history behind us and do some sightseeing. Right ahead of us is the old lighthouse, first commissioned by George Washington. This present one was built in the mid-1850s. The lighthouse isn’t used any longer and is an historic landmark.”

  I looked out the window at the stone structure sitting in a field of grass. The lighthouse more resembled a two-story house with a tower rising out of its roof. I asked, “Do you use it for security purposes?”

  He looked at me and said, “Always on the job, aren’t you? Well, sometimes I have people stationed there with a telescope or a night-vision device when the weather is too nasty for helicopters or boats. The lighthouse is then our only means of 360-degree surveillance.” He looked at me and asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to know about the lighthouse?”

  “No, that’s about it for now.”

  The bus turned onto another gravel lane. We were now heading east along the north shore of Plum Island, with the coastline to the left and gnarled trees to the right. I noticed that the beach was a pleasant stretch of sand and rocks, virtually virginal, and except for the bus and the road, you could imagine yourself as a Dutchman or Englishman in sixteen-whatever stepping onto this shore for the first time, walking along the beach, and trying to figure out how to screw the Indians out of the island. Ping. Ping.

  There it was again. But what was it? Sometimes, if you don’t force it, it just comes back by itself.

  Stevens was prattling on about ecology and keeping the island as pristine and wild as possible, and while he was going on about that, the helicopter flew over, looking for deer to slaughter.

  The road generally followed the coastline, and there wasn’t much to see, but I was impressed with the loneliness of the place, the idea that not a solitary soul lived here and that you were unlikely to meet anyone on the beach or on the roads, which apparently went nowhere and had no purpose except for the one road that ran between the ferry and the main lab.

  As if reading my mind, Mr. Stevens said, “These roads were all built by the Army to connect Fort Terry to the coastal batteries. The deer patrols use the roads, but otherwise, they’re empty.” He added, “Since we’ve consolidated the entire research facility into one building, most of the island is empty.”

  It occurred to me, of course, that the deer patrols and the security patrols were one and the same. The helicopters and boats may well have been looking for swimming deer, but they were also looking for terrorists and other bad actors. I had the disturbing feeling that this place could be breached. But that wasn’t my concern, and it wasn’t why I was here.

  So far, the island had turned out to be less spooky than I’d expected. I didn’t actually know what to expect, but like a lot of places whose sinister reputation precedes them, this place didn’t seem too bad once you saw it.

  When you see this island on maps and navigatio
n charts, most of the time there aren’t any features shown on the island—no roads, no mention of Fort Terry, nothing except the words, “Plum Island—Animal Disease Research—U.S. Government—Restricted.” And the island is usually colored yellow—the color of warning. Not real inviting, not even on a map. And if you see it from the water, as I did several times with the Gordons, it looks shrouded in mist, though I wonder how much of that is real and how much is in the mind.

  And if you go so far as to picture the place as you might think it looks, you get this Poe-like image of the ultimate dim Thule, a dark landscape of dead cattle and sheep, bloating and rotting on the fields, vultures feeding on the carrion, then dying themselves from the infected flesh. That’s what you think, if you think about it. But so far, the place looked sunny and pleasant. The danger here, the real horror, was bottled up in the biocontainment areas, in Zones Three and Four, and the big-time Temple of Doom, Zone Five. Tiny slides and test tubes and petri dishes crawling with the most dangerous and exotic life forms that this planet has evolved. If I were a scientist looking at this stuff, I might wonder about God—not about His existence, but His intent.

  Anyway, that was about as much deep thought as I was capable of without getting a headache.

  Beth asked Paul Stevens, “How do boaters know not to land here?”

  “There’s a warning on all maps and charts,” Mr. Stevens replied. “In addition, there are signs along all of the beaches. Plus, the patrols can deal with anchored or beached boats.”

  Beth asked, “What do you do with trespassers?”

  Stevens replied, “We warn the boaters not to come near or on the island again. Second offenders are detained and turned over to Chief Maxwell.” He looked at Max. “Right?”