Unnatural Exposure

  “Cashier’s check.”

  “He gave this to someone in person?” Marino asked.

  “No. He made the reservation by mail. No one ever saw anything except the paperwork in your hand. Like I said, we never saw him.”

  “What about the envelope this thing came in?” Marino said. “Did you save it so maybe we got a postmark?”

  The ranger shook his head. He nervously glanced at suited scientists, who were listening to his every word. He stared at the trailer and wet his lips.

  “You mind my asking what’s in there. And what’s going to happen to me ’cause I went in?” His voice cracked and he looked like he might cry.

  “It could be contaminated with a virus,” I said to him. “But we don’t know that for sure. Everybody here is going to take care of you.”

  “They said they were going to lock me up in some room, like solitary confinement.” Fear erupted, his eyes wild, voice loud. “I want to know exactly what’s in there that I might have got!”

  “You’ll be in exactly the same thing I was last week,” I assured him. “A nice room with nice nurses. For a few days of observation. That’s all.”

  “Think of it as a vacation. It really ain’t that big of a deal. Just because people are in these suits, don’t go getting hinky,” Marino said as if he were one to talk.

  He went on as if he were the great expert in infectious diseases, and I left the two of them and approached the camper alone. For a moment, I stood within feet of it and looked around. To my left were acres of trees, then the river where our boats were moored. Right of me, through more trees, I could hear the sounds of a highway. The camper was parked on a soft floor of pine needles, and what I noticed first was the scraped area on the white-painted tongue.

  Getting close, I squatted and rubbed gloved fingers over deep gouges and scrapes in aluminum in an area where the Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, should have been. Near the roof, I noticed a patch of vinyl had been scorched, and decided someone had taken a propane torch to the second VIN. I walked around to the other side.

  The door was unlocked and not quite shut because it had been pried open by some sort of tool, and my nerves began to sing. My head cleared and I became completely focused, the way I got when evidence was screaming a different story than witnesses claimed. Mounting metal steps, I walked inside and stood very still as I looked around at a scene that might mean nothing to most, but to me confirmed a nightmare. This was deadoc’s factory.

  First, the heat was up as high as it would go, and I turned it off, startled when a pathetic white creature suddenly hopped across my feet. I jumped and gasped as it stupidly ran into a wall, and then sat, quivering and panting. The pitiful laboratory rabbit had been shaved in patches and scarified with infection, his eruptions horrible and dark. I noticed his wire cage, and that it seemed to have been knocked off a table, the door wide open.

  “Come here.” Squatting, I held out my hand as he watched me with pink-rimmed eyes, long ears twitching.

  Carefully, I inched my way closer because I could not leave him out. He was a living source of propagating disease.

  “Come on, you poor little thing,” I said to the ranger’s monster. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  Then I gently had him in my hands, his heart beating staccato as he violently trembled. I returned him to his cage, then went to the rear of the camper. The doorway I stepped through was small, the body inside practically filling the bedroom. The man was facedown on gold shag carpet that was stained dark from blood. His hair was curly and dark, and when I turned him over, rigor mortis had come and already passed. He reminded me of a lumberjack in a filthy pea coat and trousers. His hands were huge with dirty nails, his beard and mustache unkempt.

  I undressed him from the waist up to check the pattern of livormortis, or blood settling by gravity after death. Face and chest were reddish purple, with areas of blanching where his body had been against the floor. I saw no indication that he had been moved after death. He had been shot once in the chest at close range, possibly with the Remington double-barreled shotgun by his side, next to his left hand.

  The spread of pellets was tight, forming a large hole with scalloped edges in the center of his chest. White plastic filler from the shotgun clung to clothing and skin, which again did not indicate a contact wound. Measuring the gun and his arms, I did not see how he could have reached the trigger. I saw nothing to indicate that he had rigged up anything to help him. Checking pockets, I found no wallet, no identification, only a Buck knife. The blade was scratched and bent.

  I spent no more time with him but came outside, and the team from USAMRIID was restless, like people waiting to go somewhere and afraid they’re going to miss their flight. They stared as I came down the steps, and Marino hung back. He was almost lost in trees, orange arms folded across his chest, the ranger standing beside him.

  “This is a completely contaminated crime scene,” I announced. “We have a dead white male with no identification. I need someone to help me get the body out. It needs to be contained.” I looked at the captain.

  “It goes back with us,” he said.

  I nodded. “Your guys can do the autopsy and maybe get someone from the Baltimore Medical Examiner’s office to witness. The camper’s another problem. It’s got to go somewhere it can be worked up safely. Evidence needs to be collected and decontaminated. This, frankly, is out of my range. Unless you have a containment facility that can accommodate something this big, maybe we’d better get this to Utah.”

  “To Dugway?” he said, dubiously.

  “Yes,” I said. “Maybe Colonel Fujitsubo can help with that.”

  Dugway Proving Ground was the Army’s major range and test facility for chemical and biological defense. Unlike USAMRIID, which was in the heart of urban America, Dugway had the vast land of the Great Salt Lake desert for testing lasers, smart bombs, smoke obscurance or illumination. More to the point, it had the only test chamber in the United States capable of processing a vehicle as large as a battle tank.

  The captain thought for a moment, his eyes going from me to the camper as he made up his mind and formalized a plan.

  “Frank, get on the phone and let’s get this mobilized ASAP,” he said to one of the scientists. “The colonel will have to work with the Air Force on transport, get something here fast because I don’t want this thing sitting out here all night. And we’re going to need a flatbed truck, a pickup truck.”

  “Should be able to get that around here, with all the seafood they ship,” Marino said. “I’ll get on it.”

  “Good,” the captain went on. “Somebody get me three body bags and the isolator.” Then he said to me, “I’ll bet you need a hand.”

  “I certainly do,” I said, and both of us began walking toward the camper.

  I pulled open the bent aluminum door, and he followed me inside, and we did not linger as we passed through to the back. I could tell by Clark’s eyes that he had never seen anything like this, but with his hood and air pack, at least he did not have to deal with the stench of decomposing human flesh. He knelt at one end and I at the other, the body heavy and the space impossibly cramped.

  “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” he said loudly as we struggled with rubbery limbs.

  “Someone turned the heat up as high as it would go.” I was already out of breath. “To hasten viral contamination, decomposition. A popular way to screw up a crime scene. All right. Let’s zip him in. This is going to be tight, but I think we can do it.”

  We started working him into a second pouch, our hands and suits slippery with blood. It took us almost thirty minutes to get the body inside the isolator, and my muscles were trembling as we carried it out. My heart was pounding and I was dripping sweat. Outside, we were thoroughly doused with a chemical rinse, as was the isolator, which was transported by truck back to Crisfield. Then the team started work on the camper.

  All of it, except for the wheels, was to be wrapped in heavy blue tin
ted vinyl that had a HEPA filter layer. I took off my suit with great relief, and retreated into the warm, well-lit rangers’ station, where I scrubbed my hands and face. My nerves were jangled and I would have given anything to crawl into bed, down shots of NyQuil and sleep.

  “If this ain’t a mess,” Marino said as he came in with a lot of cold air.

  “Please shut the door,” I said, shivering.

  “What’s eating you?” He sat on the other side of the room.

  “Life.”

  “I can’t believe you’re out here when you’re sick. I think you’ve lost your friggin’ mind.”

  “Thank you for the words of comfort,” I said.

  “Well, this ain’t exactly a holiday for me, either. Stuck out here with people to interview, and I got no wheels.” He looked frayed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll find something. Rumor has it Lucy and Janet are in the area and have a ride.”

  “Where?” I started to get up.

  “Don’t get excited. They’re out trying to find people to interview, like I gotta do. God, I gotta smoke. It’s been almost all day.”

  “Not in here.” I pointed to a sign.

  “People are dying of smallpox and you’re bitching about cigarettes.”

  I got out Motrin and popped three without water.

  “So what will all these space cadets do now?” he asked.

  “Some of them will stay in the area, tracking down any other people who may have been exposed either on Tangier or in the campground. They’ll work in shifts with other team members. I guess you’ll be in contact with them, too, in case you come across anyone who might have been exposed.”

  “What? I’m supposed to walk around in an orange suit all week?” He yawned and cracked his neck. “Man, aren’t they a bitch? Hot as hell except up in the hood.” He was secretly proud that he had worn one.

  “No, you won’t be wearing a plastic suit,” I said.

  “And what happens if I find out someone I’m interviewing was exposed?”

  “Just don’t kiss him.”

  “I don’t think this is funny.” He stared at me.

  “It’s anything but that.”

  “What about the dead guy? They going to cremate him when we don’t know who he is?”

  “He’ll be autopsied in the morning,” I said. “I imagine they’ll store his body for as long as they can.”

  “The whole thing’s just weird.” Marino rubbed his face in his hands. “And you saw a computer in there.”

  “Yes, a laptop. But no printer or scanner. I’m suspicious this is someone’s getaway. The printer, the scanner, at home.”

  “What about a phone?”

  I thought for a minute. “Don’t remember seeing one.”

  “Well, the phone line runs from the camper to the utility box. We’ll see what we can find out about that, like whose account it is. I’ll also tell Wesley what’s going on.”

  “If the phone line was used only for AOL,” Lucy said as she walked in and shut the door, “there won’t be any telephone account. The only account will be AOL, which will still come back to Perley, the guy whose credit card number got pinched.”

  She looked alert but a little tousled in jeans and a leather jacket. Sitting next to me, she examined the whites of my eyes, and felt the glands in my neck.

  “Stick out your tongue,” she seriously said.

  “Stop it!” I pushed her away, coughing and laughing at the same time.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Where’s Janet?” I said.

  “Talking. Out somewhere. What kind of computer’s in there?”

  “I didn’t take time to study it,” I replied. “I didn’t notice any of the particulars.”

  “Was it on?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t check.”

  “I need to get in it.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, looking at her.

  “I think I need to go with you.”

  “Will they let you do that?” Marino asked.

  “Who the hell is they?”

  “The drones you work for,” he replied.

  “They put me on the case. They expect me to break it.”

  Her eyes never stopped moving to windows and the door. Lucy had been infected and would succumb from her exposure to law enforcement. Beneath her jacket she wore a Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol in a leather holster with extra magazines. She probably had brass knuckles in her pocket. She tensed as the door opened and another ranger hurried in, his hair still wet from the shower, eyes nervous and excited.

  “Can I help you?” he asked us, taking off his coat.

  “Yeah,” Marino said, getting up from his chair. “What kind of car you got?”

  Fourteen

  The flatbed truck was waiting when we arrived, the vinyl-shrouded camper on top of it gleaming an eerie translucent blue beneath the stars and moon and still hooked to a pickup truck. We were parking nearby on a dirt road at the edge of a field when a huge plane passed alarmingly low overhead, its roar louder than a commercial jet.

  “What the hell?” Marino exclaimed, opening the door of the ranger’s Jeep.

  “I think that’s our ride to Utah,” Lucy said from the back, where she and I were sitting.

  The ranger was staring up through his windshield, incredulous, as if the rapture had come. “Holy shit. Oh my God. We’re being invaded!”

  A HMMWV came down first, wrapped in corrugated cardboard, a heavy wooden platform underneath. It sounded like an explosion when it landed on the hard-packed dead grass of the field and was dragged by parachutes caught in the wind. Then green nylon wilted over the multiwheeled vehicle, and more rucksacks blossomed in the heavens as more cargo drifted down and tumbled to the ground. Paratroopers followed, oscillating two or three times before landing nimbly on their feet and running out of their harnesses. They gathered up billowing nylon as the sound of their C-17 receded beyond the moon.

  The Air Force’s Combat Control Team out of Charleston, South Carolina, had arrived at precisely thirteen minutes past midnight. We sat in the Jeep and watched, fascinated as airmen began double-checking the compactness of the field, for what was about to land on it weighed enough to demolish a normal landing strip or tarmac. Measurements were made, surveys taken, and the team set out sixteen ACR remote control landing lights, while a woman in camouflage unwrapped the HMMWV, started its loud diesel engine and drove it off its platform, out of the way.

  “I got to find some joint to stay around here,” Marino said as he stared out at the spectacle. “How the hell can they land some big military plane on such a little field?”

  “Some of it I can tell you,” said Lucy, who was never at a loss for technical explanation. “Apparently, the C-17’s designed to land with cargo on unusually small, unapproved runways like this. Or a dry lake bed. In Korea, they’ve even used interstates.”

  “Here we go,” Marino said with his usual sarcasm.

  “Only other thing that could squeeze into a tight place like this is a C-130,” she went on. “The C-17 can back up, isn’t that cool?”

  “No way a cargo plane can do all that,” Marino said.

  “Well, this baby can,” she said as if she wanted to adopt it.

  He began looking around. “I’m so hungry I could eat a tire, and I’d give up my paycheck for a beer. I’m gonna roll down this window here and smoke.”

  I sensed the ranger did not want anyone smoking in his well-cared-for Jeep, but he was too intimidated to say so.

  “Marino, let’s go outside,” I said. “Fresh air would do us good.”

  We climbed out and he lit a Marlboro, sucking on it as if it were mother’s milk. Members of the USAMRIID team who were in charge of the flatbed truck and its creepy cargo were still in their protective suits and staying away from everyone. They were gathered on the rutted dirt road, watching airmen work on what looked like acres of flat land that in warmer months might be
a playing field.

  A dark unmarked Plymouth rolled up at almost two A.M., and Lucy trotted to it. I watched her talk to Janet through the open driver’s window. Then the car drove away.

  “I’m back,” Lucy spoke quietly, touching my arm.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, and I knew the life they lived together had to be hard.

  “Under control, so far,” she said.

  “Double-O-Seven, it was nice of you to come out and help us today,” Marino said to Lucy, smoking as if it were his last hour to enjoy it.

  “You know, it’s a federal violation to be disrespectful to federal agents,” she said. “Especially minorities of Italian extraction.”

  “I hope to hell you’re a minority. Don’t want others out there like you.” He flicked an ash as we heard a plane far off.

  “Janet’s staying here,” Lucy said to him. “Meaning, the two of you will be working this together. No smoking in the car, and you hit on her, your life is over.”

  “Shhhh,” I said to both of them.

  The jet’s return was loud from the north, and we stood silently, staring up at the sky as lights suddenly blazed on. They formed a fiery dotted line, marking green for approach, white for the safe zone, and finally warning red at the end of the landing strip. I thought how weird it would seem for anyone who had the misfortune of driving by as this plane was coming in. I could see its dark shadow and winking lights on wings as it dropped lower and its noise became awesome. The landing gear unfolded and emerald green light spilled out from the wheel well as the C-17 headed straight for us.

  I had the paralyzing sensation that I was witnessing a crash, that this monstrous flat-gray machine with vertical wing tips and stubby shape was going to plow into the earth. It sounded like a hurricane as it roared right over our heads, and we put our fingers in our ears as its huge wheels touched down, grass and dirt flying, great chunks chewed out of ruts made by big wheels and 130 tons of aluminum and steel. Wing flaps were up, engines in thrust reverse as the jet screamed to a stop at the end of a field not big enough for football.

  Then pilots threw it in reverse and began loudly backing it up along the grass, in our direction, so there would be enough of a landing strip for it to take off again. When its tail reached the edge of the dirt road, the C-17 stopped, jet exhaust directed up away from us. The back opened like the mouth of a shark as a metal ramp went down, the cargo bay completely open and lighted and gleaming of polished metal.