Plum Island

by Nelson DeMille

  There was a lot of smoke and mirrors in this place, and I’m sure there always had been. I said to Zollner, “I don’t believe this story about the Ebola vaccine. I know what you’re hiding and what you’re covering up.”

  Dr. Zollner stopped in mid-chew, which was a chore for him. He stared at me.

  I said, “It’s the Roswell aliens, isn’t it, Doc? The Gordons were about to blow the lid on the Roswell aliens.”

  The room was real quiet, and even some of the other scientists glanced at us. Finally, I smiled and said, “That’s what this green Jell-O is—alien brains. I’m eating the evidence.”

  Everyone smiled and chuckled. Zollner laughed so hard he almost choked. Boy, I’m funny. Zollner and I could do a great routine; Corey and Zollner. That might be better than The Corey Files.

  We all went back to our lunches and made chitchat. I glanced at my companions. George Foster had looked a little panicky when I said I didn’t believe the Ebola vaccine thing, but he was fine now, eating alfalfa sprouts. Ted Nash had looked less panicky and more murderous. I mean, whatever was going on here, this was not the time or place to yell bullshit or liar. Beth and I made eye contact, and as usual I couldn’t tell if she was amused by me or if she was annoyed. The way to a woman’s heart is through her funny bone. Women like men who make them laugh. I think.

  I looked at Max, who seemed less phobic in this almost normal room. He seemed to enjoy his three-bean salad, which is not the thing that should be on a menu in an enclosed environment.

  We picked at the chow, then the conversation got back to the possibly purloined vaccine. Dr. Z said, “Someone before mentioned that this vaccine would be worth its weight in gold, which made me recall something—a few of the vaccines that the Gordons were testing had a golden hue, and I recall the Gordons once referring to the vaccines as liquid gold. I thought that odd, perhaps, because we never speak in terms of money or profit here….”

  “Of course not,” I said. “You’re a government agency. It’s not your money, and you never have to show a profit.”

  Dr. Zollner smiled. “And the same in your business, sir.”

  “The very same. In any case, now we believe that the Gordons came to their senses, and, no longer satisfied with working in the interests of science for government wages, they discovered capitalism and went for the gold.”

  “Correct.” He added, “You’ve spoken to their colleagues, you’ve seen what they did here, and now you can draw only one conclusion. Why are you still skeptical?”

  “I’m not skeptical,” I lied. Of course I was skeptical; I’m a New Yorker and a cop. But I didn’t want to upset Dr. Zollner, Mr. Foster, or Mr. Nash, so I said, “I’m just trying to make sure the facts fit. The way I see it, either the Gordons’ murders had nothing to do with their work here, and we’re all following a false trail—or if their murders were related to their work, then most probably it had to do with the theft of a viral vaccine worth millions. Liquid gold. And it would appear that the Gordons were double-crossed, or maybe they tried to double-cross their partner, and were murdered—” Ping.

  Jeez. There it was again. What … ? It was out there. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear its echo, and I could sense its presence, but what was it?

  “Mr. Corey?”

  “Huh?”

  Dr. Zollner’s twinkling blue eyes were appraising me through his little wire frame glasses. He said, “Is there something on your mind?”

  “No. Oh, yeah. If I had to remove my watch, why can you keep your glasses?”

  “That’s the one exception. There is an eyeglass bath on the way out. Does this lead you to yet another clever thought or theory?”

  “Gel sequencing plates disguised as eyeglasses.”

  He shook his head. “Idiotic. I think the gel plates were smuggled out in the lunch cart.”

  “Right.”

  Dr. Z looked at the clock on the wall and said, “Shall we continue?”

  We all stood and deposited our plastic and paper in a red trash can lined with a red plastic bag.

  Out in the corridor, Dr. Zollner said, “We will now enter Zone Three. There is a higher risk of contagion in Zone Three, of course, so if anyone does not want to go, I will have someone escort you back to the shower room.”

  Everyone seemed eager to burrow further into the bowels of hell. Well, that might be overstating the response. Presently, we moved through a red door that was marked “Zone Three.” Here, Zollner explained, his researchers worked with live pathogens—parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other yuckies—and he showed us a lab where a woman sat on a stool at a sort of opening in the wall. She had a mask on and her hands were covered with latex gloves. In front of her face was a plastic shield, something like a sneeze shield at a salad bar, but she wasn’t handling cole slaw. Zollner said, “There is an exhaust in the opening where the pathogens are, so the risk of anything floating into the room is small.”

  “Why,” Max asked, “does she have a mask and we don’t?”

  “Good question,” I agreed.

  Zollner said, “She’s much closer to the pathogen. If you want to get closer to take a look, I’ll get you a mask.”

  “Pass,” I said.

  “Pass,” everyone agreed.

  Dr. Zollner moved closer to the woman and exchanged a few inaudible words with her. He turned, approached us, and said, “She’s working on the virus that causes blue-tongue disease.” He thought a moment, then said, “Perhaps I got too close.” He stuck out his tongue, which was actually bright blue, and looked down his nose. “God in heaven … or is it the blueberry pie I had for lunch?” He laughed. We laughed. In truth, the gallows humor was wearing thin, even for me, and I have a lot of tolerance for stupid jokes.

  We all left the room.

  This part of the building looked less populated than Zone Two, and the people I saw looked a bit less jolly.

  Zollner said, “There isn’t much to see here, but if I say that, then Mr. Corey will insist on seeing every nook and cranny of the place.”

  “Oh, Dr. Zollner,” I said, “have I given you cause to say such things about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, let’s see every nook and cranny of the place.”

  I heard some groans, but Dr. Z said, “Very well, follow me.”

  We spent the next half hour or so looking at nooks and crannies, and in truth, most of Zone Three looked the same—room after room of men and women peering through microscopes, making slides out of slime, slides from the blood and tissue of living and dead animals, and so on. Some of these people actually had their lunches with them and were eating while they played around with disgusting stuff.

  We spoke to another dozen or so men and women who knew or worked with Tom and Judy, and while we were getting a more clear and more fully formed picture of their work, we didn’t learn much new about their heads.

  Still, I thought this was a useful exercise—I like to fix in my mind the milieu of the deceased, and later I usually think of something bright to follow up on. Sometimes, just casual chats with friends, family, and colleagues will turn up a word or two that can lead to the solution. Sometimes.

  Zollner explained, “Most of these viruses and bacteria cannot cross the species barrier. You could drink a test-tube-ful of foot-and-mouth disease virus and not get much more than an upset stomach, though a cow would die from a quantity that would fit on the head of a pin.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because the genetic makeup of a virus has to be able to … well, mesh with a cell to infect it. Human cells do not mesh with FMD virus.”

  Beth said, “But there’s some evidence that Mad Cow Disease has infected humans.”

  “Anything is possible. That’s why we’re careful.” He added, “Bugs bite.”

  Actually, bugs suck.

  We went into another brightly lit room, and Zollner said, “In here we work with parasites. The worst is the screw-worm. We’ve found a clever way to control this
disease. We have discovered that the male and female screwworms only mate once in their lives, so we sterilize millions of the males with gamma rays and drop them by plane over Central America. When the male mates with the female, no off-spring result. Clever, yes?”

  I had to ask, “But is the female screwworm fulfilled?”

  “She must be,” Zollner replied. “She never mates again.”

  Beth offered, “There’s another way to look at that.” Zollner laughed. “Yes. There is a female point of view there.”

  The persiflage finished, we all took turns looking at screwworm larvae under a microscope. Disgusting.

  And on we went, into laboratories, and into rooms where horrible microbes and parasites were grown and stored, and into all sorts of weird places whose purposes and functions I only dimly understood.

  I kept in mind that my friends, Tom and Judy, walked these corridors and entered many of these rooms and labs every day. And yet, they seemed not to be depressed or anxious about any of it. At least not so I noticed.

  Finally, Dr. Z said, “That’s all of Zone Three. Now, once again I must ask you if you want to go farther. Zone Four is the most contaminated of all the zones, more so, actually, than Zone Five. In Five, you are always in a biohazard suit and respirator, and everything is decontaminated often. In fact, there is a separate shower for Zone Five. But Zone Four is where you will see the animal pens, the sick and dying animals, and also the incinerator and the necropsy rooms, if you wish. So, though we are clinically dealing here with animal diseases only, there may be other pathogens in the ambient environment.” He added, “That means germs in the air.”

  Max asked, “Do we get face masks?”

  “If you wish.” He looked around and said, “All right. Follow me.”

  We approached yet another red door, this one marked “Zone Four,” with the biohazard symbol. Some clown had stuck a particularly gruesome skull-and-crossbones decal on the door—the skull was cracked and a snake slithered out of the crack and threaded itself through one of the skull’s eye sockets. Also, a spider was crawling out of the grinning mouth. In fact, Dr. Zollner said, “I believe Tom is responsible for that horrible thing. The Gordons added some levity to this place.”

  “Right.” Until they died.

  Our host opened the red door, and we found ourselves in a sort of anteroom. There was a metal cart in the small room on which was a box of latex gloves and a box of paper face masks. Dr. Z said, “For anyone who wishes.”

  This was sort of like saying parachutes or life vests are optional. I mean, either you need the damn things or you don’t.

  Zollner clarified his offer. “It’s not mandatory. We’re going to shower out after this anyway. I personally don’t bother with gloves or masks. Too cumbersome. But you may feel better with them.”

  I had the distinct feeling he was daring us, as in, “I always take the shortcut through the cemetery, but if you’d rather walk the long way, that’s okay with me. Wimp.”

  I said, “This place can’t be any dirtier than my bathroom.”

  Dr. Zollner smiled. “Most probably a lot cleaner.”

  Apparently no one wanted to look like a pussy by practicing good prophylaxis, which is how little bugs get us in the end, so off we went, through the second red door, and found ourselves in the same kind of gray concrete corridor as in the rest of the biocontainment zones. The difference here was that the doors were wider, and each one had a big latching handle on it. Zollner explained, “These are airlock doors.”

  I noticed, too, that every door had a small window, and a clipboard hung from the wall beside each one.

  Dr. Zollner took us to the closest door and said, “All these rooms are pens and all have viewing windows. What you see may upset you or make your lunch unsettled. So no one has to look.” He examined the clipboard hanging on the concrete wall and said, “African equine fever….” He peeked through the viewing window and said, “This guy’s not bad. Just a bit listless. Take a look.”

  We all took turns looking at the beautiful black horse in the enclosed, prison-like room. True enough, the horse looked okay, except now and then you could see him heave as if he were having trouble breathing.

  Zollner explained, “All the animals in here have been challenged with a virus or bacteria.”

  “Challenged?” I asked. “Is that like infected?”

  “Yes, we say challenged.”

  “Then what happens? They become less than well, then go into an involuntary nonbreathing mode?”

  “Correct. They get sick and die. Sometimes, however, we sacrifice them. That means we kill them before the disease has run its full course.” He added, “I think everyone who works here likes animals, which is why they are involved with this type of work. No one in this facility wants to see these creatures suffer, but if you ever saw millions of cattle infected with foot-and-mouth disease, you’d see why the sacrifice of a few dozen here is necessary.” He put the chart back and said, “Come.”

  There was a great warren of these unhappy rooms, and we went from pen to pen where a variety of animals were in various stages of dying. At one pen, the cow saw us and walked unsteadily up to the door and looked at us looking at her. Dr. Zollner said, “This one is in bad shape. Advanced FMD—see how she walked? And look at those blisters on her mouth. She can’t even eat at this stage because of the pain. The saliva looks like rope, it’s so thick. This is a dreadful disease and an old enemy. There are accounts of this in ancient writings. As I said, this disease is highly contagious. An outbreak in France once spread to England on the wind across the Channel. It is one of the smallest viruses yet discovered, and it seems to be able to live dormant for long periods of time.” He stayed silent a moment, then said, “Someday, something like this may mutate and begin infecting human hosts….”

  By now, I think, we were all mentally and physically challenged, as Dr. Z might say. In other words, our minds were numb and our asses were dragging. Worse, though, our spirits were down, and if I had a soul, it would be troubled.

  Finally I said to Dr. Zollner, “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve seen enough.”

  Everyone seconded that.

  I, however, had a last, stupid thought, and I said, “Can we see what the Gordons were working with? I mean, the simian Ebola?”

  He shook his head. “That is Zone Five.” He thought a minute, then said, “But I can show you a pig with African swine fever, which, like Ebola, is a hemorrhagic fever. Very similar.”

  He led the way to another corridor and stopped at a door numbered “1130.” He examined the chart on the wall and said, “This one’s in the final stages … the bleeding-out stage … he’ll be gone by morning … if he goes before then, he’ll be put in a cooler, then dissected first thing tomorrow, then incinerated. This is a very frightening disease that has nearly wiped out the swine population in parts of Africa. There is no known vaccine or treatment. As I say, it’s a close cousin to Ebola….” He looked at me and motioned toward the viewing window. “Look.”

  I stepped up to the window and looked inside. The floor of the room was painted red, which surprised me at first, but then I understood. Near the center of the room was a huge pig, lying on the floor, almost motionless, and I could see blood around its mouth, snout, and even its ears. Despite the red floor, I noticed a glistening pool of blood near its hindquarters.

  Behind me, Zollner was saying, “You see it bleeding out, yes? Hemorrhagic fever is terrible. The organs turn to mush…. You can see now why Ebola is so feared.”

  I noticed a big metal drain in the center of the floor, and the blood was running into the drain, and I couldn’t help it, but I was back in the gutter on West 102nd Street, and my life was draining into the damned sewer and I could see it, and I knew how the pig felt watching his own blood leaking out of him, and the rushing sound in the ears, and the pounding in the chest as the blood pressure dropped and the heart tried to compensate by beating faster and faster until you knew it was going
to stop.

  I heard Zollner’s voice from far away. “Mr. Corey? Mr. Corey? You can step away now. Let the others take a look. Mr. Corey?”

  CHAPTER 13

  We don’t want any viruses or bacteria hitchhiking a ride back to the mainland,” Dr. Zollner said, unnecessarily. We stripped, put the lab whites and slippers in a hamper and the paper underwear in a trash can.

  I was not totally focused, just sort of doing what everyone else was doing.

  We all followed Dr. Z to the shower room—Max, Nash, Foster, and I—and we stood under the showerheads washing our hair with a special shampoo, scrubbing our nails with a brush and disinfectant. We all gargled with some sort of horrid mouthwash, rinsed and spit. I kept soaping up and rinsing off until finally Zollner said, “That’s enough. You’ll catch pneumonia and die.” He laughed.

  I dried off with the provided towel, threw it in a hamper, then walked, naked, back to my locker, germ-free and squeaky clean, at least on the outside.

  Other than the men I’d entered with, there was no one around. Even the attendant wasn’t visible. I could see how a person could conceivably smuggle large items out of the lab and into the locker room. But I don’t think that’s what happened, so it didn’t matter if it were possible or not.

  Zollner had disappeared and come back with locker keys, which he distributed.

  I opened my locker and began getting dressed. Some very thoughtful fellow, quite possibly Mr. Stevens, had been kind enough to launder my shorts and in doing so had inadvertently washed the red clay right out of my pocket. Oh, well. Good try, Corey.

  I examined my .38 and it looked okay, but you never know when some joker is going to file the firing pin, clog the barrel, or take the powder out of your rounds. I made a mental note to check the piece and the ammo more closely at home.