He doesn't know what we're talking about."
"I see. If you're going to run errands, you need to bring along at least two guns."
"You want to tell me how the hell he can afford a car like that?" Marino glanced over at me. "He probably doesn't make half what I do, and that Lexus he's got probably cost close to fifty grand."
"The Colt he was carrying isn't cheap, either," I said.
"He's getting money from somewhere."
"Snitches always do."
"That's all you think he is?"
"Yeah, for the most part. I think he's been doing shit work, probably for Green."
The radio suddenly interrupted us with the loud blare of an alert tone, and then we were given answers that were even worse than any we might have feared.
"All units be advised that we have just received a teletype from state police that gives the following information, a dispatcher repeated. "The nuclear power plant at Old Point has been taken over by terrorists. Shots have been fired and there are fatalities."
I was shocked speechless as the message went on and on.
"The chief of police has ordered that the department move to emergency plan A. Until further notice all day shift units will remain on their posts. Updates will follow. All division commanders will report to the command post at the police academy immediately."
"Hell no," Marino said as he slammed the accelerator to the floor. "We're going to your office."
Chapter 11
HE INVASION OF THE OLD POINT NUCLEAR POWER Tplant had happened swiftly and horrifically, and in disbelief we listened to the news while Marino sped through town. We did not utter a sound as an almost hysterical reporter at the scene rambled in a voice several octaves above what it usually was.
"Old Point nuclear power plant has been seized by terrorists," he repeated. "This happened about forty-five minutes ago when a bus carrying at least twenty men posing as CP amp;L employees stormed the main administration building. It is believed that at least three civilians are dead." His voice was shaking, and we could hear helicopters overhead. "I can see police vehicles and fire trucks everywhere, but they can't get close. Oh my God, this is awful…"
Marino parked on the side of the street by my building.
For a while we could not move as we listened to the same information again and again. It did not seem real, for less than a hundred miles from Old Point, here in Richmond, the afternoon was bright. Traffic was normal and people walked along sidewalks as if nothing had happened. My eyes stared without focusing, my thoughts flying through lists of what I must do.
"Come on, Doc." Marino cut the engine off. "Let's go inside. I got to use the phone and get hold of one of my lieutenants. I've got to get things mobilized in case the lights go out in Richmond, or worse."
I had my own mobilizing to do and started with assembling everyone in the conference room, where I declared a statewide emergency.
"Each district must be on standby and ready to implement its part of the disaster plan," I announced to everyone in the room. "A nuclear disaster could affect all districts.
Obviously, Tidewater is the most imperiled and the least covered. Dr. Fielding," I said to my deputy chief, "I'd like to put you in charge of Tidewater and make you acting chief when I can't be there."
"I'll do the best I can," he said bravely, although no one of sound mind would want the assignment I just gave him.
"Now, I won't always know where I'm going to be throughout this," I said to other anxious faces. "Business goes on as usual here, but I want any bodies brought here.
Any bodies from Old Point, I'm saying, starting with the shooting fatalities."
"What about other Tidewater cases?" Fielding wanted to know.
. "Routine cases are done as usual. I understand we do have another autopsy technician to fill in until we can find a permanent replacement."
"Any chance these bodies you want here might be contaminated?" my administrator asked, and he had always been a worrier.
"So far we're talking about shooting victims," I said.
"And they couldn't be."
"No."
"But what about later?" he went on.
"Mild contamination isn't a problem," I said. "We just scrub the bodies and get rid of the soapy water and clothes.
Acute exposure to radiation is another matter, especially if the bodies are badly burned, if debris is burned into them, as it was in Chernobyl. Those bodies will need to be shielded in a special refrigerated truck, and all exposed personnel will wear lead-lined suits."
"Those bodies we'll cremate?"
"I would recommend that. Which is another reason why they need to come here to Richmond. We can use the crematorium in the anatomical division. Marino stuck his head inside the conference room.
"Doc?" He motioned me out.
I got up and we spoke in the hall.
"Benton wants us at Quantico now," he said.
"Well, it won't be now," I said.
I glanced back at the conference room. Through the doorway I could see Fielding making some point, while one of the other doctors looked tense and unhappy.
"You got an overnight bag with you?" Marino went on, and he knew I always kept one here, "is this really necessary?" I complained.
"I'd tell you if it wasn't."
"Give me just fifteen minutes to finish up this meeting."
I brought confusion and fear to closure as best I could, and told the other doctors I could be gone for days because I'd just been summoned to Quantico. But I would wear my pager. Then Marino and I took my car instead of his, since he had already made arrangements for repairs to the bumper Roche had hit. We sped north on 95 with the radio on, and by now we had heard the story so many times we knew it as well as the reporters.
In the past two hours, no one else had died at Old Point, at least not that anybody knew of, and the terrorists had let dozens of people go. These fortunate ones had been allowed to leave in twos and threes, according to the news.
Emergency medical personnel, state police and the FBI were intercepting them for examinations and interviews.
We arrived at Quantico at almost five, and Marines in camouflage were vigorously blasting the rapid approach of night. They were crowded in trucks and behind sandbags on the range, and when we passed close to a knot of them gathered by the road, I was pained by their young faces. I rounded a bend, where tall tan brick buildings suddenly rose above trees. The complex did not look military, and in fact, could have been a university were it not for the rooftops of antennae. A road leading to it stopped midway at an entrance gate where tire shredders bared teeth to people going the wrong way.
An armed guard emerged from his booth and smiled because we were no strangers, and he let us through. We parked in the big lot across from the tallest building, called Jefferson, which was basically the Academy's selfcontained downtown. Inside were the post office, the indoor range, dining hall and PX, with upper floors for dormitory rooms, including security suites for protected witnesses and spies.
New agents in khaki and dark blue were honing weapons in the gun-cleaning room. It seemed I had smelled the solvents all of my life, and could hear compressed air blasting through barrels and other parts whenever I wanted to in my mind. My history had become entwined with this place.
There was scarcely a corner that did not evoke emotion, for I had been in love here, and had brought into this building my most terrible cases. I had taught and consulted in their classrooms, and inadvertently given them my niece.
"God knows what we're about to walk into," Marino said as we got on the elevator.
"We'll just take it one inch at a time," I said as the new agents in their FBI caps vanished behind shutting steel doors, He pressed the button for the lower level, which had been intended as Hoover's bomb shelter in a different age. The profiling unit, as the world still called it, was sixty feet below ground, with no windows or any other relief from the horrors it found, I frankly had never understood how Wesley could endure it year after year, for whenever I sat in consultations that lasted more than a day, I was crazed.