Gruber finally found and removed a small orange box from the drawer. Briscoe saw it appeared to have a red-circled arm and hammer logo on its side. That’s just normal baking soda, he thought. Then Gruber placed it on the counter, opened the box, and removed two measured teaspoons, stirring them briskly into a small beaker of tap water.
Speaking from across the room, he motioned to the nearby hand sink and said, “Now, before you take this chelator I want you to wash your hands and face thoroughly with soap, rinse your mouth with tap water and then gargle first and drink this.”
The water was cold, the soap medicinal, but Briscoe lathered his hands for minutes, rubbing then together until they warmed. He bent down, sucked a mouthful of water from the faucet, swished it in his mouth, then spat it out. He imagined himself getting better.
“Good. Now gargle and drink this. Bottoms up.”
It tasted of salt and flat sparkling water. His face distorted as he swallowed.
“That’s nasty. Is that baking soda? Tastes like it?”
“Yes, and I want you to take five more cocktails like that today. Spaced two hours apart. It’s an excellent over-the-counter chelator. Just mix a teaspoon of baking soda to one cup of water, stir rapidly until it dissolves and drink it up. Simple.”
“Anything else I can do?” It was getting late and he wanted to leave for home. Adam’s threat had become personal; he was contaminated. He needed a long cleansing shower.
Gruber took a small plastic specimen cup from the overhead shelf and handed it to him. “Yes. Go two doors down the hallway toward the stairs. On the left, you’ll find the men’s room. Fill this to the line and bring it back. I’m going to use my new million dollar toy, there, courtesy of our DHS, to measure how much of the isotope is in your body,” he said, pointing to the mass spectrometer. “They’ve been concerned something like this would happen.” He looked back to the exam table, the donut flake still there, and said, “That piece of contaminated donut should identify it.”
Moments later, he returned with the full cup and handed it over. Gruber took it and handed him back a full brown pill bottle. Squinting, in need of reading glasses, he tried to focus on the label.
TAKE ONE TABLET BY MOUTH ONCE PER DAY FOR 30 DAYS.
NAC 500MG TAB QTY 30 EXP DATE 02/21/2017
“What’s NAC?” he asked.
“N-Acetyl-Cysteine, another powerful chelator. It’s a harmless amino acid but mixed with the NaHCO3 in baking soda, pulls heavy metal isotopes, screaming and kicking, out of your system. They should clear you up shortly, but I’ll need to run another urinalysis in four weeks.”
“If we’re still here,” Briscoe said, obliquely. Looking one month into the future was difficult for him knowing pi day was only twenty-two days out. He stuffed the pills in his pocket and readied himself to leave.
Gruber stopped him. “One more thing, Officer Briscoe.”
“Sure, go ahead.” His face flushed, expecting more bad news.
“Can you estimate the diameter of that indentation in the boat’s deck? You said you felt it.”
“About twenty inches or so. Why?”
“I have a reference book with details of all nuclear warheads in existence. Your information may aid me in identifying a specific warhead, if there is one, and from that, the fissionable element inside.”
“Um-hmm.”
“Sorry, not to make light of your condition, but I also have to view this from a forensics angle. We need to determine what did this to you.”
“Of course. I understand. Good luck… and will you please tell Lieutenant Poole I needed to get home.” Closing the door, he looked back, exhausted and said, “Going home now for a long shower and a hot meal.”
“Goodbye officer. Take care.”
WINDFALL
Poole spent much of the night studying the video, yet the meeting started on time, as usual. In a larger mirrored interview room, still in the SID Lab, nine uniformed and civilian members assembled around the large table. In the air, heavy with grave matters, they discussed everything from the deciphered clues and newly discovered information to their picks for the upcoming March Madness games. Briscoe, again, was conspicuous by his absence.
New to the taskforce roster were representatives Captain Edgar Bell from the U.S. Navy, Commander Roger Norton, NWS Seal Beach and Ensign John Dover, U.S. Coast Guard Station, Laguna Beach. Dr. Charles Gruber, MD, Ph.D. O.C. Nuclear Forensics Lab, was also in attendance at Poole’s invitation.
Across the narrow end of the room hung a seventy-inch flat screen television, normally used for replaying crime scene videos and viewing training documentaries. Today it was a remote-viewing, time-traveling window into the SJC Starbucks’ parking area; a victimless crime scene, but one of telling importance.
She motioned to Keller to start the video. The room lights dimmed. The screen flashed brightly. The wide screen transported them there. They were looking down onto the street from a vantage point just under the Starbuck’s sign. Taken by a newly upgraded HD security camera, it showed a black-and-white CHP cruiser pulling into a parallel parking space behind a red-curbed hydrant space near the entrance of the store. A uniformed traffic officer reached across the car’s cabin, rolled down the passenger window a few inches, then did the same for the driver’s window, exited the car, locking it, and went inside.
Other than time-clock digits ticking up rapidly in the screen’s upper right corner, the view appeared frozen. Two minutes and thirty-two seconds passed; a black compact had idled by, one customer had entered the store, and two had exited balancing steaming white-and-green cups in drink carriers. Then, from the left side of the screen, a black Prius slowly pulled up beside the hydrant, behind the cruiser, and stopped.
Riveted to the scene, taskforce members shuffled their chairs, leaning forward to better view the unfolding visual.
The Prius’ door flew open; a hunched-over individual in a black hoodie shuffled out to the curb and up to the cruiser’s passenger door. Black cane in one hand, plastic baggie in the other, the figure emptied the baggie through the cracked window, crouched over, turned toward the camera and returned to the Prius. All within twelve seconds on the advancing time clock. The last frames of the video showed the Prius pulling from the space and driving off down Ortega.
Before Keller could switch the lights on, Gruber exclaimed, “I know him! I know that person. Go back and freeze the image where he turns toward the camera.”
Amid gasps and whispers from the team, Keller backed up the video and stopped; a cloaked face was barely visible as he turned back to the Prius. Unmistakably resembling Hannibal Lecter, he was missing the face grill. His lightly-tinted aviator glasses though, viewed from above, provided the same effect.
“Yes, that’s him. He’s a nuclear physicist, like me. I–I’ve seen his photograph in my journals. He won a Nobel Prize. H-his name is Simon something.” He raced through his speech, stuttering, stammering, and paused. “I can’t remember his last name.”
At the head of the table, Poole quietly opened her laptop, brought up a Google search screen and keyed in SIMON NOBEL PRIZE PHYSICIST. The results screen, listing nearly a million entries, told the story. Two Nobel laureates named Simon, one from Switzerland, the other, an American, filled the results. “His last name is Fogner,” she said, then remembering, stopped. Making a subconscious connection, she grabbed her scribbled-up evidence copy, looked at the byline, and saw it: From Gin Nose. All the letters were there, anagrammed to Simon Fogner.