Thibodeau was silent. He’d never much liked Ricci, but had developed a certain trust in him. In his abilities, his self-command in tough spots. Now he didn’t know what to think. Ricci hadn’t changed on the outside, it was true. Inside, though, something was very different. It was as if those hard, unsharing eyes of his were mirrored glass surfaces. Thibodeau didn’t know what was going on behind them.
“The sensors,” Ricci said. “They mass spec?”
Thibodeau nodded yes.
“The spectrometry units I’ve seen look like U-Haul trailers,” Ricci said. “They’re too big to cart around offices — the military tows them around with Humvees.”
Thibodeau shrugged.
“Be true for most of them,” he said. “Think it’s because of all the air they got to suck in for accurate samples. There’s hoses, plus a vacuum collector and a separate laser chromatography unit in the housing. Adds up to a lot of space. The laser machine shoots beams of light through the air sample, and that light bends off whatever particles get caught with it. Then a computer tell us what those particles are, depending on the angle it bends at, sort of how our eyes see color.” He paused, pulling at his beard some more. “Far’s the system goes, you’d have to ask our R and D noggins for every detail of how it works. The handle I got is that it’s like an invisible electronic nose, sniffs for germs and chemicals just the way our noses… or to put it better, the nose of a trained bloodhound… can pick up the smell of things in the air. Special cells in the nose, what the noggins call receptors, they be connected to nerves that can tell the brain what those things are. Then the brain translates the info as smells. Our invisible nose, now, it uses them sensors I told you about—microsensors, they called, made of different polymers — exactly like the receptors. But instead of having nerve connections, they attach to optical fibers. Coat ’em, actually. One coated fiber maybe pick up anthrax or smallpox. Another can recognize the sleeper bug that almost killed the boss. A third can catch a whiff of cyanide, sarin gas, or some other nerve agent that been released—”
Ricci made a slicing gesture to check him.
“Let’s skip ahead,” he said. “Say we’re attacked. The invisible nose twitches, we evacuate, get emergency medical treatment for people we know were exposed, make sure everybody else that might’ve been affected is examined. That’s our immediate response. Now how do we conduct decontamination and site inspection? Who takes charge of the investigation? The feebs and CDC? FEMA? Or homeland security people? We supposed to let them walk right on in, go clomping all over each other’s tracks like they did at Gordian and his daughter’s homes a couple years ago? Or when they mucked up that anthrax mail probe in ’01?”
Thibodeau blew a breath out his pursed lips. “Be quite a bunch of questions,” he said. “I guess what happens far as outside agencies depends on the particulars. If there’s a threat of public infection, we need to let them know… and where chembio’s the problem, you have to expect that’s going to be the case. But ain’t nobody can beat us comes to dealing with problems of multiple jurisdiction. So we try to coordinate, hope they have the sense to work with us and not around us. That way we don’t have hassle figuring out how to work around them.”
“What about the first part of what I asked you?” Ricci said. “Same example. The sensors find a trace of something bad. A strain of virus. Bacteria. Is there some way we can clean the place up before it spreads?”
Thibodeau expelled another breath. He really did hate to think about this subject.
“We installed decon fog dispensers with the capacity to wipe out certain bugs,” he said. “Anthrax, that’s one of them. Got a long list of others I can show you… be dozens of others. Once we know the premises’re empty, the fog’s released, goes all the places the bioweapon would. Air vents, the spaces between computer keys, wherever. They tell me the fog particles are ultra-fine, smaller than the spores. Kills them by breaking ’em down right to their DNA.”
“And the bugs it can’t kill?”
“Brings us back around to the issue of readiness, an’ how we apply policies that’re already in place. Somebody walks into the building and we don’t like the looks of him, I want him checked out. That’s whether he’s wearin’ a mail deliverer’s uniform, got his name on a visitor list, or be the head of a senate delegation. He can walk on air right before our eyes, heal the blind and crippled, say he’s Jesus Christ himself in a hurry to announce his Second Coming. We think he looks suspicious, he ain’t getting past the guard station unless he’s ready to wait for us to feel convinced. And if that means we want to search-wand his robes and examine his sandals for plastic explosives, maybe ask him to give us phone numbers so we can call The Blessed Mother an’ Holy Father in Heaven to verify his identity, suite. So be it.”
“There are going to be complaints,” Ricci said.
Thibodeau shrugged.
“Israeli security been handling things that way for years at their airports and main office buildings, and they don’t catch no grief,” he said. “Ain’t nobody’s freedoms bein’ violated. A person does want to object, it’s his or her right to leave. The fancy tech’s great. I’m glad we got it. But me, I’m lettin’ our people be guided by their own eyes, ears, and noses more’n any electronic ones. Puttin’ my stock in the human element.”
“You didn’t hear me argue.” Ricci stared into his face. “I just want to know which element you mean.”
The remark surprised Thibodeau, and his expression showed it.
“Afraid I don’t understand,” he said.
“I think maybe you do,” Ricci said. “We can pick and choose our options, or lay them out across the board. I’m curious how it’ll be for you when the heat’s on.”
Thibodeau was silent. He wasn’t sure how to answer, truly wasn’t sure he’d even gotten Ricci’s inference. But his fixed stare and strange tone of voice were unsettling.
Ricci sat watching him a while longer. Thibodeau was almost glad when he finally rose in front of the desk.
“I guess we’re done,” Ricci said.
Thibodeau looked at him. Done sounds fine, he thought. Except they weren’t.
“We never did talk about the personal field equipment,” he said.
“No,” Ricci said. “Maybe we’ll make some time later.”
Thibodeau wasn’t sure why he found himself opening his desk drawer and reaching into it. He supposed that uncertainty was, in its way, a fitting note on which to end their little let’s-get-reacquainted talk, which had left him wondering about a lot of things… foremost among them the point Ricci had been trying to make, and now his own.
“Might want to keep these handy,” he said, and tossed a couple of aluminum squeeze tubes from the drawer onto his desktop. They were about two inches long — the size of toothpaste samplers.
Ricci picked them up.
“What’s inside?” he said.
“Guy from special development got them to me a couple days ago,” Thibodeau said. “It’s wound closure gel. We’re getting ready to deliver a ton of it to the military — they already issue something like it to their forward combat troops, but this’s supposed to seal the skin better’n any other kind of dressing, keep it clean and breathing until an injured soldier get to a MASH unit. The idea’s for all our field personnel to carry the stuff, too. Case somebody gets his hide perforated way I did a few years back.”
“How come you’re giving them to me now?”
“I got to read over the test reports this week, decide whether to approve ’em for issue,” Thibodeau said. It was a truth that felt like a lie. “Thought you might want to have your say.”