Gideon's Corpse

by Douglas Preston

  “We’re fucked,” said the SWAT team guy, a big beefy fellow with hammy forearms and an incongruously high voice. “We’re going to die. There’s nothing they can do. Not with radiation.”

  Gideon said nothing. The ignorance of most people about radiation was appalling.

  The man moaned. “God, my head’s pounding. It’s starting already.”

  “Hey, shut up,” said Fordyce.

  “Fuck you, man,” the man flared. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

  Fordyce said nothing, his jaw tightening.

  “You hear me?” The man’s voice was rising. “I didn’t sign up for this shit!”

  Gideon looked at the SWAT team member and spoke in low, measured tones. “The blood on you is radioactive. You’d better strip. And you, too.” He looked at Hammersmith. “Anyone with the hostage taker’s blood on any article of clothing, take it off.”

  This set off a frantic activity in the van, the sense of panic rising, a ridiculous scene in which everyone was suddenly stripping and trying to get blood off their skin and hair. All except the SWAT guy. “What does it matter?” he said. “We’re fucked. Rot, cancer, you name it. We’re all dead now.”

  “Nobody’s going to die,” said Gideon. “Everything depends on just how hot Chalker was and what kind of radiation we’re dealing with.”

  The SWAT guy raised his massive head and stared at him with red eyes. “What makes you such a radiation rocket scientist?”

  “Because I happen to be a radiation rocket scientist.”

  “Good for you, punk. Then you know we’re all dead and you’re a fucking liar.”

  Gideon decided to ignore him.

  “Lying peckerwood.”

  Peckerwood? Exasperated, Gideon looked up at him again. Could he be crazy from radiation poisoning, too? But no, this was simple, mindless panic.

  “I’m talking to you, punk. Don’t lie.”

  Gideon combed his hair out of his face with his fingers and looked back down at the floor. He was tired: tired of this jackass, tired of everything, tired of life itself. He didn’t have the energy to reason with an irrational person.

  The SWAT team member rose abruptly from his seat and seized Gideon’s shirt, lifting him out of his seat. “I asked you a question. Don’t look away.”

  Gideon looked at him: at the engorged face, the veins bulging in his neck, the sweat popping on his brow, the trembling lips. The man looked so utterly and completely stupid, he couldn’t help himself: he laughed.

  “You think it’s funny?” The SWAT guy made a fist, getting ready to strike.

  Fordyce’s punch to the man’s gut came as fast as a striking rattler; he gave an oof! and fell to his knees. A second later Fordyce had him in a hammerlock. The agent bent over and spoke into his ear, in a low voice, something Gideon did not catch. Then he released the man, who collapsed on his face, groaned, and—after gasping for air—managed to rise back up to his knees.

  “Sit down and be quiet,” said Fordyce.

  The man quietly sat down. After a moment he began to cry.

  Gideon adjusted his shirt. “Thanks for saving me the trouble.”

  Fordyce said nothing.

  “Well, so now we know,” Gideon went on after a moment.

  “Know what?”

  “That Chalker wasn’t crazy. He was suffering from radiation poisoning—almost certainly gamma rays. A massive dose of gamma radiation scrambles the mind.”

  Hammersmith raised his head. “How do you know?”

  “Anyone who works up at Los Alamos with radionuclides has to learn about the criticality accidents that happened there in the early days. Cecil Kelley, Harry Daghlian, Louis Slotin, the Demon Core.”

  “The Demon Core?” Fordyce asked.

  “A plutonium bomb core that was mishandled twice. It went critical each time, killing the scientists handling it and irradiating a bunch of others. It was finally used in the ABLE shot in ’46. One thing they learned from the Demon Core was that a high dose of gamma radiation makes you go crazy. The symptoms are just what you saw with Chalker—mental confusion, raving, headache, vomiting, and an unbearable pain in the gut.”

  “That puts a whole new spin on things,” said Hammersmith.

  “The real question,” said Gideon, “is the form that craziness took. Why would he claim they were beaming rays into his head? Experimenting on him?”

  “I’m afraid that’s a classic symptom of schizophrenia,” said Hammersmith.

  “Yes, but he didn’t have schizophrenia. And why would he say his landlord and landlady were government agents?”

  Fordyce raised his head and looked at Gideon. “You don’t think that poor fuck of a landlord was a government agent—do you?”

  “No. But I wonder why he kept talking about experiments, why he denied having lived in the apartment. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Fordyce shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s starting to make sense to me. A lot of sense.”

  “How so?” Gideon asked.

  “Put it together yourself. The guy works at Los Alamos. Has a top-secret security clearance. Designs nuclear bombs. Converts to Islam. Disappears for two months. Next thing, he shows up irradiated in New York City.”

  “So?”

  “So the son of a bitch joined a jihad! With his help, they got their hands on a nuclear core. They mishandled it just like that Demon Core you mentioned, and Chalker got his ass irradiated.”

  “Chalker wasn’t a radical,” Gideon said. “He was quiet. He kept his religion to himself.”

  Fordyce laughed bitterly. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  There was a silence in the entire van. Everyone was listening intently now. Gideon felt a growing sense of horror: what Fordyce said had the ring of truth. The more he thought about it, the more he realized the man was probably right. Chalker had the personality for it; he was exactly the kind of insecure, confused person who would find his calling in jihad. And there was no other way to explain the intense dose of gamma rays he must have been exposed to, to make him so very hot.

  “We’d better face it,” said Fordyce as the van slowed. “The ultimate nightmare has come true. Islamic terrorists have got themselves a nuke.”

  8

  THE VAN DOORS opened into an underground, garage-like space, where they were herded through a tunnel of plastic. To Gideon, who knew their radiation exposure was probably secondary and fairly minor, it seemed like overkill, more designed to follow some bureaucratic protocol than anything else.

  They were shunted into a high-tech waiting area, all chrome and porcelain and stainless steel, with monitors and computer displays winking softly from all angles. Everything was new and had obviously never been used before. They were separated by sex, stripped, given three sets of showers, examined thoroughly, asked to undergo blood work, given shots, provided with clean clothes, tested again, and then finally allowed to emerge into a second waiting area.

  It was an amazing subterranean facility, brand new and state of the art, clearly built after 9/11 to handle a radiological terrorist attack in the city. Gideon recognized various kinds of radiation testing and decontamination equipment, far more advanced than even what they had at Los Alamos. As extraordinary as the place was, he was not surprised: New York City would certainly need a major decontamination center like this.

  A scientist entered the waiting room, smiling and wearing a normal white lab coat. He was the first person they’d had contact with who was not in a radiation or hazmat suit. He was accompanied by a small, gloomy man in a dark suit whose size belied an air of command. Gideon recognized him immediately: Myron Dart, who had been deputy director of Los Alamos when Gideon first arrived at the lab. Dart had been appointed from Los Alamos to government service of some kind. Gideon hadn’t known him well, but Dart had always seemed competent and fair. Gideon wondered how he’d handle this emergency.

  The cheerful scientist spoke first. “I’m Dr. Berk and you’re all now clean,” he said, beaming
at them as if they had passed a final exam. “We’re going to have individual counseling, and then you’ll be free to resume your lives.”

  “How bad was the exposure?” Hammersmith asked.

  “Very minor. The counselor will discuss with each person his or her actual exposure readings. The hostage taker’s radiation exposure occurred elsewhere, not on site, and radiation exposure isn’t like the flu. You can’t catch it from someone else.”

  Now Dart stepped forward. He was older than Gideon remembered, his face long and narrow, shoulders sloped. His dress was impeccable as usual: gray suit with an understated pinstripe, beautifully cut, the lavender silk tie giving him an incongruously fashionable look. He carried with him a quiet air of self-assurance. “My name is Dr. Myron Dart, and I’m commander of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team. There’s one very important thing I need to impress on all of you.” Dart placed his hands behind his back while his gray eyes perused the group, slowly and deliberately, as if he were about to speak to each person individually. “So far, the news that this was a radiological incident hasn’t leaked out. You can imagine the panic if it were to do so. Each and every one of you must keep absolutely quiet about what happened today. There are only two words you need to know: no and comment. That goes for everyone who is going to ask you what happened, from reporters to family. And they will ask.”

  He paused. “You will all be signing nondisclosure papers before your release. I’m afraid you won’t be released until you sign these papers. There are criminal and civil penalties for violating the terms of the nondisclosure, spelled out in the documents. I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be, and I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  Not a word was said. Dart himself had spoken mildly, but something about the very quietness of his voice told Gideon the guy wasn’t kidding.

  “I apologize,” said Dart, “for the inconvenience and the scare. Fortunately, it appears the exposure for all of you was slight to none. I will now turn you over to the very competent hands of Dr. Berk. Good day.”

  And he left.

  The doctor consulted his clipboard. “Let’s see. We’re going to proceed alphabetically.” Now he was like a camp counselor. “Sergeant Adair and Officer Corley, please come with me?”

  Gideon glanced around at the assembled group. The SWAT team member who had freaked out in the van was no longer with them, and he thought he could hear, faintly, somewhere in the bowels of that vast facility, the man screaming and threatening.

  Suddenly the door opened and Myron Dart reentered, accompanied by Manuel Garza. Dart looked seriously put out. “Gideon Crew?” His eyes fastened on Gideon, and he fancied he saw recognition in those eyes.

  Gideon rose.

  Garza came over. “Let’s go.”

  “But—”

  “No discussion.”

  Garza walked rapidly to the door, Gideon hurrying to keep up. As they passed Dart, the man looked at him with a cool smile. “You have interesting friends, Dr. Crew.”

  9

  DURING WHAT PROMISED to be a long crosstown ride to Little West 12th Street, in gridlock traffic, Garza said nothing, his eyes straight ahead, concentrating on driving. The nighttime streets of New York were their usual blaze of light, action, noise, and bustle. Gideon could feel the man’s dislike of him radiating from his face and body language. Gideon didn’t care. The silence let him prepare for what he was sure was going to be an unpleasant confrontation. He had a pretty good idea of what Glinn would want now.

  When Gideon was twelve, he had witnessed his father gunned down by FBI snipers. His father had been a civilian cryptologist working for INSCOM, the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command, and had been involved with the group that developed codes. The Soviets broke one of those codes only four months after it was introduced, and twenty-six operatives and double agents had been rolled up in a single night, all tortured and killed. It was one of the worst intelligence disasters of the Cold War. They had said it was his father’s fault. His father had always suffered from depression, and under the pressure of the accusations and investigations he broke down, took a hostage, and was shot and killed in the doorway of Arlington Hall Station—after he had surrendered.

  Gideon had witnessed the entire thing.

  In the years following, Gideon’s life had gone off the rails. His mother began drinking. A succession of men came and went from the house. They moved from town to town, following one broken relationship or school expulsion after another. As his father’s money had dwindled, they lived in houses, then apartments, trailers, motel rooms, and boardinghouses. His strongest memory of his mother during those years was of her sitting at the kitchen table, glass of Chardonnay in her hand, cigarette smoke curling about her raddled face with its thousand-yard stare, Chopin’s Nocturnes playing in the background.

  Gideon was an outsider and he developed a loner’s interests: math, music, art, and reading. One of their moves—he was seventeen at the time—had brought them to Laramie, Wyoming. One day, he’d gone into the local historical society and spent the day, killing time instead of going to school. Nobody would find him—who’d think of looking there? Occupying an old Victorian house, the historical society was a dusty warren of rooms with dark corners, packed with memorabilia and Western bric-a-brac—six-shooters that killed famous outlaws nobody had ever heard of; Indian artifacts; pioneer curios; rusty spurs; bowie knives; and a miscellany of paintings and drawings.

  He found refuge in a room in the back where he could read. After a while his attention was attracted by a small woodblock print, one of many badly hung prints wedged uncomfortably along a wall. It was by an artist he had never heard of, Gustave Baumann, and it was called Three Pines. A simple composition, with three small, straggly trees, growing on a barren ridge. But somehow, the more he stared at the print, the more it drew him in; the more remarkable, even miraculous, it became. The artist had managed to imbue those three pines with a sense of dignity, of worth, of essential treeness.

  The back room at the historical society became his refuge. They never figured out where he was. He could even strum his guitar and the deaf old lady who dozed at the admissions desk never noticed. He didn’t know how or why, but over time Gideon fell in love with those snaggle-toothed trees.

  And then his mother lost her job and they were going to have to move again. Gideon hated to say good-bye to the print. He couldn’t imagine never seeing it again.

  And so he stole it.

  It turned out to be one of the most thrilling things he’d ever done. And it had been so easy. A few casual questions revealed that the historical society had virtually no security, and its set of dusty accession catalogs was never checked. So one bitterly cold winter’s day he walked in with a small screwdriver in his back pocket, removed the print from the wall, and put it under his coat. Then, before leaving, he wiped down the wall the print had been hung on to get rid of the dust mark, shifted two other prints to cover up the screw holes and obscure the gap. The entire process took five minutes, and when he was done nobody would even know a print was missing. It was, truly, a perfect crime. And Gideon told himself it was justified—nobody loved the print, nobody saw the print, nobody even looked at it, and the historical society was letting it rot in a dark corner. He felt virtuous, like a father adopting an unloved, orphaned child.

  But what a delicious thrill it had been. A physical sensation. For the first time in years he felt alive, his heart pounding, his senses razor-keen. Colors seemed brighter; the world looked different—at least for a while.

  He hung the print above the bed in his new room in Stockport, Ohio, and his mother never noticed it, never remarked on it.

  He was sure the print was almost worthless. A few months later, browsing through various auction catalogs, he discovered it had a value of six to seven thousand dollars. At the time his mother was in desperate need of rent, and he considered selling it. But he couldn’t imagine parting with it.

  But by that time he needed a
nother thrill. Another fix.

  So he began to haunt the nearby Muskingum Historical Site, where they had a small collection of etchings, engravings, and watercolors. He picked out one of his favorites, a lithograph by John Steuart Curry called The Plainsman, and stole it.

  Piece of cake.

  It came from an edition of two hundred fifty, and so was untraceable and thus easy to sell on the legitimate market. The World Wide Web was just coming into being, which made it all so much easier and anonymous. He got eight hundred dollars for the print—and his career as a small-time historical society and art museum thief was launched. His mother never had to worry about rent again. Gideon made up vague stories about odd jobs and helping after school, and she was too addled and desperate to question where the money was really coming from.

  He stole for money. He stole because he loved certain specific pictures. But most of all, he stole for the thrill. It created a high like nothing else, a feeling of self-worth, of floating above the hidebound, mindless, and blinkered masses.

  He knew these were not worthy feelings, but the world was a messed-up place, so why not step outside the rules? He hurt nobody. He was like Robin Hood, lifting unappreciated works of art and putting them in the hands of people who truly loved them. He went on to college, soon dropped out, moved to California, and ultimately devoted himself full-time to visiting small museums, libraries, and historical societies, selling what he had to and keeping the rest.

  And then he got the call. His mother was dying in a DC hospital. He went to her side. And on her deathbed she told him the story: of how his father hadn’t been responsible for the cryptological security breakdown, after all. Just the opposite: he had pointed out the flaws and been ignored. And then, when it went bad, they’d made him the fall guy, framed by the general in charge of the project—the same general who ordered that he be shot in the act of surrendering.