Unnatural Exposure

by Patricia Cornwell

  “A good point,” Martin said, adjusting his ear piece. “It does very well when dried, and at room temperature can survive months to a year. It is sensitive to sunlight, but inside the atomizers, that wouldn’t be a problem. Doesn’t like heat, which, unfortunately, makes this an ideal time of year.”

  “Then depending on what people do when they have these delivered,” I said, “there could be a lot of duds out there.”

  “Could be,” Martin hoped.

  Wesley said, “Clearly, the offender we’re looking for is knowledgeable of infectious diseases.”

  “Has to be,” Fujitsubo said. “The virus had to be cultured, propagated, and if this is, in fact, terrorism, then the perpetrator is very familiar with basic laboratory techniques. He knew how to handle something like this and keep himself protected. We’re assuming only one person is involved?”

  “My theory, but the answer is, we don’t know,” Wesley said.

  “He calls himself deadoc,” I said.

  “As in Doctor Death?” Fujitsubo frowned. “He’s telling us he’s a doctor?”

  Again, it was hard to say, but the question that was most troublesome was also the hardest to ask.

  “Dr. Martin,” I said as Martinez silently leaned back in his chair, listening. “Allegedly, your facility and a laboratory in Russia are the only two sources of the viral isolates. Any thoughts on how someone got hold of this?”

  “Exactly,” Wesley said. “Unpleasant thought that it may be, we need to check your list of employees. Any recent firings, layoffs? Anybody quit during recent months and years?”

  “Our source supply of variola virus is as meticulously monitored and inventoried as plutonium,” Martin answered with confidence. “I personally have already checked into this and can tell you with certainty that nothing has been tampered with. Nothing is missing. And it is not possible to get into one of the locked freezers without authorization and knowledge of alarm codes.”

  No one spoke right away.

  Then Wesley said, “I think it would be a good idea for us to have a list of those people who have had such authorization over the past five years. Initially, based on experience, I am profiling this individual as a white male, possibly in his early forties. Most likely he lives alone, but if he doesn’t or he dates, he has a part of his residence that is off limits, his lab . . .”

  “So we’re probably talking about a former lab worker,” the S.A.C. said.

  “Or someone like that,” Wesley said. “Someone educated, trained. This person is introverted, and I base this on a number of things, not the least of which is his tendency to write in the lower case. His refusal to use punctuation indicates his belief that he is not like other people and the same rules do not apply to him. He is not talkative and may be considered aloof or shy by associates. He has time on his hands, and most important, feels he has been mistreated by the system. He feels he is due an apology by the highest office in the land, by our government, and I believe this is key to this perpetrator’s motivation.”

  “Then this is revenge,” I said. “Plain and simple.”

  “It’s never plain or simple. I wish it were,” Wesley said. “But I do think revenge is key, which is why it is important that all government agencies that deal with infectious diseases get us the records of any employees reprimanded, fired, laid off, furloughed or whatever, in recent months and years.”

  Fujitsubo cleared his throat. “Well, let’s talk logistics, then.”

  It was the Coast Guard’s turn to present a plan. Martinez got up from his chair and fastened large maps to flip charts, as camera angles were adjusted so our remote guests could see.

  “Can you get these in?” Martinez asked the agent at the console.

  “Got them,” she said. “How about you?” She looked up at the monitors.

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if you could zoom in more.”

  She moved the camera in closer as Martinez got out a laser pointer. He directed its intense pink dot at the Maryland-Virginia line in the Chesapeake Bay that cut through Smith Island, just north of Tangier.

  “We got a number of islands going up this way toward Fishing Bay and the Nanticoke River, in Maryland. There’s Smith Island. South Marsh Island. Bloodsworth Island.” The pink dot hopped to each one. “Then we’re on the mainland. And you got Crisfield down here, which is only fifteen nautical miles from Tangier.” He looked at us. “Crisfield’s where a lot of watermen bring in their crabs. And a lot of Tangier folks have relatives in Crisfield. I’m real worried about that.”

  “And I’m worried that the Tangiermen are not going to cooperate,” Miles said. “A quarantine is going to cut off their only source of income.”

  “Yes, sir,” Martinez said, looking at his watch. “And we’re cutting it off even as we speak. We got boats, cutters coming in from as far away as Elizabeth City to help us circle the island.”

  “So as of now, no one’s leaving,” Fujitsubo said as his face continued to reign over us from the video screen.

  “That’s right.”

  “Good.”

  “What if people resist?” I asked the obvious question. “What are you going to do with them? You can’t take them into custody and risk exposure.”

  Martinez hesitated. He looked up at Fujitsubo on the video screen. “Commander, would you like to field this one, sir?” he asked.

  “We’ve actually already discussed this at great length,” Fujitsubo said to us. “I have spoken to the secretary of the Department of Transportation, to Vice Admiral Perry, and of course, the Secretary of Defense. Basically, this thing is speeding its way up to the White House for authorization.”

  “Authorization for what?” It was Miles who asked.

  “To use deadly force, if all else fails,” Martinez said to all of us.

  “Christ,” Wesley muttered.

  I listened in disbelief, staring up at doomsday gods.

  “We have no choice,” Fujitsubo spoke calmly. “If people panic and start fleeing the island and do not heed Coast Guard warnings, they will—not if—but will bring smallpox onto the mainland. And we’re talking about a population which either has not been vaccinated in thirty years. Or an immunization done so long ago it’s no longer effective. Or a disease that has mutated to the extent that our present vaccine is not protective. There isn’t a good scenario, in other words.”

  I didn’t know if I felt sick to my stomach because I wasn’t well or because of what I’d just heard. I thought of that weather-beaten fishing village with its leaning headstones and wild, quiet people who just wanted to be left alone. They weren’t the sort to obey anyone, for they answered to a higher power of God and storms.

  “There must be another way,” I said.

  But there wasn’t.

  “By reputation, smallpox is a highly contagious infectious disease. This outbreak must be contained,” Fujitsubo exclaimed the obvious. “We’ve got to worry about houseflies hovering around patients, and crabs headed for the mainland. How do we know we don’t have to worry about the possibility of mosquito transmission, as in Tan-apox, for God’s sake? We don’t even know what all we’ve got to worry about since we can’t fully identify the disease yet.”

  Martin looked at me. “We’ve already got teams out there, nurses, doctors, bed isolators so we can keep these people out of hospitals and leave them in their homes.”

  “What about dead bodies, contamination?” I asked him.

  “In terms of United States law, this constitutes a Class One public health emergency.”

  “I realize that,” I said, impatiently, for he was getting bureaucratic on me. “Cut to the chase.”

  “Burn all but the patient. Bodies will be cremated. The Pruitt house will be torched.”

  Fujitsubo tried to reassure us. “USAMRIID’s got a team heading out. We’ll be talking to citizens, trying to make them understand.”

  I thought of Davy Crockett and his son, of people and their panic when space
-suited scientists took over their island and started burning their homes.

  “And we know for a fact that the smallpox vaccine isn’t going to work?” Wesley said.

  “We don’t know that for a fact yet,” Martin answered. “Tests on laboratory animals will take days to weeks. And even if vaccination is protective in an animal model, this may not translate into protection for humans.”

  “Since the DNA of the virus has been altered,” Fujitsubo warned, “I am not hopeful that vaccinia virus will be effective.”

  “I’m not a doctor or anything,” Martinez said, “but I’m just wondering if you could vaccinate everyone anyway, just in case it might work.”

  “Too risky,” Martin said. “If it’s not smallpox, why deliberately expose people to smallpox, thereby possibly causing some people to get the disease? And when we develop the new vaccine, we’re not going to want to come back several weeks later and vaccinate people again, this time with a different pox.”

  “In other words,” Fujitsubo said, “we can’t use the people of Tangier like laboratory animals. If we keep them on that island and then get a vaccine out to them as soon as possible, we should be able to contain this thing. The good news about smallpox is it’s a stupid virus, kills its hosts so fast it will burn itself out if you can keep it restricted to one area.”

  “Right. So an entire island gets destroyed while we sit back and watch it burn,” Miles angrily said to me. “I can’t believe this. Goddamn it.” He pounded his fist on the table. “This can’t be happening in Virginia!”

  He got out of his chair. “Gentlemen. I would like to know what we should do if we start getting patients in other parts of this state. The health of Virginia, after all, is what the governor appointed me to take care of.” His face was dark red and he was sweating. “Are we supposed to just do like the Yankees and start burning down our cities and towns?”

  “Should this spread,” Fujitsubo said, “clearly we’ll have to utilize our hospitals, have wards, just as we did during earlier times. CDC and my people are already alerting local medical personnel, and will work with them closely.”

  “We realize that hospital personnel are at the greatest risk,” Martin added. “Sure would be nice if Congress would end this goddamn furlough so I don’t have one hand and both legs tied behind my back.”

  “Believe me, the president, Congress, knows.”

  “Senator Nagle assures me it will end by tomorrow morning.”

  “They’re always certain, say the same thing every time.”

  The swelling and itching of the revaccination site on my arm was a constant reminder that I had been inoculated with a virus probably for nothing. I complained to Wesley all the way out to the parking lot.

  “I’ve been reexposed, and I’m sick with something, meaning I’m probably immunosuppressed, on top of it all.”

  “How do you know you don’t have it?” he carefully asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then you could be infectious.”

  “No, I couldn’t be. A rash is the first sign of that, and I check myself daily. At the slightest hint of such a thing, I would go back into isolation. I would not come within one hundred feet of you or anybody else, Benton,” I said, my anger unreasonably spiking at his suggestion that I might risk infecting anyone with even a mundane cold.

  He glanced over at me as he unlocked doors, and I knew that he was far more upset than he would let on. “What do you want me to do, Kay?”

  “Take me home so I can get my car,” I said.

  Daylight was fading fast as I followed miles of woods thick with pines. Fields were fallow with tufts of cotton still clinging to dead stalks, and the sky was moist and cold like thawing cake. When I had gotten home from the meeting, there had been a message from Rose. At two P.M., Keith Pleasants had called from jail, desperately requesting that I come see him, and Wingo had gone home with the flu.

  I had been inside the old Sussex County Courthouse many times over the years, and had grown fond of its antebellum quaintness and inconveniences. Built in 1825 by Thomas Jefferson’s master brick mason, it was red with white trim and columns, and had survived the Civil War, although the Yankees had managed to destroy all its records first. I thought of cold winter days spent out on the lawn with detectives as I waited to be called to the witness stand. I remembered the cases by name that I had brought before this court.

  Now such proceedings took place in the spacious new building next door, and as I drove past, heading to the back, I felt sad. Such constructions were a monument to rising crime, and I missed simpler times when I had first moved to Virginia and was awed by its old brick, and its old war that would not end. I had smoked back then. I supposed I romanticized the past like most people tend to do. But I missed smoking and waiting around in miserable weather outside a courthouse that barely had heat. Change made me feel old.

  The sheriff’s department was the same red brick and white trim, its parking lot and jail surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire. Imprisoned within, two inmates in orange jumpsuits were wiping down an unmarked car they had just washed and waxed. They eyed me slyly as I parked in front, one of them popping the other with a shammy cloth.

  “Yo. What’s going,” one of them muttered to me as I walked past.

  “Good afternoon.” I looked at both of them.

  They turned away, not interested in someone they could not intimidate, and I pulled open the front door. Inside, the department was modest on the verge of depressing, and like virtually all other public facilities in the world, had profoundly outgrown its environment. Inside were Coke and snack machines, walls plastered with wanted posters and a portrait of an officer slain while responding to a call. I stopped at the duty post, where a young woman was shuffling through paperwork and chewing on her pen.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m here to see Keith Pleasants.”

  “Are you on his guest list?” Her contact lenses made her squint, and she wore pink braces on her teeth.

  “He asked me to come, so I should hope I am.”

  She flipped pages in a loose-leaf binder, stopping when she got to the right one.

  “Your name.”

  I told her as her finger moved down a page.

  “Here you are.” She got up from her chair. “Come with me.”

  She came around her desk and unlocked a door with bars in the window. Inside was a cramped processing area for fingerprints and mug shots, a banged-up metal desk manned by a heavyset deputy. Beyond was another heavy door with bars, and through it I could hear the noises of the jail.

  “You’re gonna have to leave your bag here,” the deputy said to me. He got on his radio. “Can you get on over here?”

  “Ten-four. On my way,” a woman answered back.

  I set my pocketbook on the desk and dug my hands in the pockets of my coat. I was going to be searched and I did not like it.

  “We got a little room here where they meet with their lawyers,” the deputy said, jabbing his thumb as if he were hitching a ride. “But some a these critters listen to ever word, and if that’s a problem, go upstairs. We got an area up there.”

  “I think upstairs might be better,” I said as a female deputy, hefty with short frosted hair, came around the corner with her hand-held metal detector.

  “Arms out,” she said to me. “Got anything metal in your pockets?”

  “No,” I said as the detector snarled like a mechanical cat.

  She tried it up and down one side and the other. It kept going off.

  “Let’s get rid of your coat.”

  I draped it on the desk as she tried again. The detector continued to make its startling sound as she frowned and kept trying.

  “What about jewelry,” she said.

  I shook my head as I suddenly remembered I was wearing an underwire bra that I had no intention of announcing. She put down the detector and began to pat me down while the other deputy sat at his desk and watched slack-jawed, as if he were gawk
ing at a dirty movie.

  “Okay,” she said, satisfied that I was harmless. “Follow me.”

  To get upstairs, we had to walk through the women’s side of the jail. Keys jangled as she unlocked a heavy metal door that loudly banged shut behind us. Inmates were young and hard in institutional denim, their cells scarcely big enough for an animal, with a white toilet, bed and sink. Women played solitaire, and leaned against their cages. They had hung their clothes from bars, and trash barrels were close and crammed with what they hadn’t wanted for dinner. The smell of old food made my stomach flop.

  “Hey mama.”

  “What we got here?”

  “A fine lady. Umm-umm-umm.”

  “Hubba-hubba-hubba!”

  Hands came through bars, trying to touch me as I went past, and someone was making kissing sounds while other women emitted harsh, wounded outbursts that were supposed to be laughs.

  “Leave her in here. Just fifteen minutes. Ooohhh come to mama!”

  “I need cigarettes.”

  “Shut up, Wanda. You always needin’ something.”

  “Y’all quiet on down,” the deputy said in a bored singsong as she unlocked another door.

  I followed her upstairs and realized I was trembling. The room she put me in was cluttered and disorganized, as if it might have had a function in an earlier time. Cork boards were propped against a wall, a hand cart parked in a corner, and some sort of pamphlets and bulletins were scattered everywhere. I sat in a folding chair at a wooden table scarred with names and crude messages in ballpoint pen.

  “Just make yourself at home and he’ll be up,” she said, leaving me alone.

  I realized that cough drops and tissues were in my pocketbook and coat, neither of which I had with me now. Sniffing, I shut my eyes until I heard heavy feet. When the male deputy escorted Keith Pleasants in, I almost did not recognize him. He was pale and drawn, thin in baggy denims, his hands cuffed awkwardly in front of him. His eyes filled with tears when he looked at me, and his lips quivered when he tried to smile.

  “You sit down and stay down,” the deputy ordered him. “Don’t you let me hear no problem up here. Got it? Or I’m back and the visit’s history.”