Donna now drew our attention to the doors in the rear of the lobby. The doors were painted that peculiar warning yellow, like the color of Plum Island on a map, and they stood out against the colors of the lobby, which were mostly shades of gray. On the left door was a sign that said, "Locker Room — Women," and on the right, "Locker Room — Men." Both doors said, "Authorized Personnel Only."
Donna said, "These doors lead to the biocontainment areas. This lobby along with the administrative offices is actually a separate building from the biocontainment building, though this appears to be one structure. But, in fact, what connects this area with biocontainment are those two locker rooms."
Max inquired, "Are there any other ways in or out of the biocontainment areas?"
Donna replied, "You can go in through the service entrance where the animals, the feed, supplies, and everything are brought in. But you can't leave that way. Everything and everybody that leaves has to go through the decontamination area, which includes the showers."
Mr. Foster inquired, "How are the products of dissection — wastes and all that — disposed of?"
"Through the incinerator or designated drains that lead to the water and waste decontamination plant," Donna replied. She added, "That's it — these two doors in, a service door in the rear, drains and incinerators, and on the roof, special air filters that can trap the smallest virus. This is a very tight building."
Each of us was thinking our own thoughts about the Gordons, about smuggling stuff out of the labs.
Donna continued, "The locker rooms are still Zone One, like this lobby. But when you move from the locker rooms, you go into Zone Two, and you have to be dressed in lab whites. Before you move out of Zone Two, Three, or Four, and back into Zone One, you have to shower. The shower is a Zone Two area."
"Is the shower co-ed?" I inquired.
She laughed. "Of course not." She added, "I understand that you all have been cleared to go into Zones Two, Three, and Four if you want to."
Ted Nash smiled his stupid smile and asked, "Will you be accompanying us?"
She shook her head. "I don't get paid for that."
Neither did I at a dollar a week. I asked Donna, "Why aren't we cleared for Zone Five?"
She looked at me, sort of surprised. "Five? Why would you want to go there?"
"I don't know. Because it's there."
She shook her head. "There are only ten or so people who are authorized to go into Five. You have to put on this kind of space suit — "
"Were the Gordons authorized to go into Five?"
She nodded.
"What goes on in Zone Five?"
"You should ask Dr. Zollner that question." She glanced at her watch and said, "Follow me."
"Stay together," I added.
We walked up the staircase, me trailing behind because my bad leg was getting draggy and also because I wanted to check out Donna's legs and butt. I know I'm a pig — I could conceivably contract swine fever.
So, we began a tour of the two wings that flanked the two-story lobby. Everything was painted the same dove gray or dark gray, which I guess has replaced the pukey green of older federal buildings. On the walls of the corridors were photos of past lab directors, scientists, and researchers.
I noticed that almost all the doors in the long corridors were closed and they were all numbered, but none of them had the name of a person or function on them, except the lavatories. Good security, I thought, and again I was impressed with Paul Stevens' paranoid mind.
We entered the research library where a few egghead types were browsing through the stacks or reading at tables. Donna said, "This is one of the finest libraries of its type in the world."
I couldn't imagine too many animal disease libraries in the universe, but I said to Donna, "Wow!"
Donna retrieved a handful of brochures, press releases, and other propaganda from a long table and handed them out to us. The tri-fold brochures had titles such as "Hog Cholera," "African Swine Fever," "African Horse Sickness," and something called "Lumpy Skin Disease," which, judging from the scary photos in the brochure, I think one of my old girlfriends had. I couldn't wait to get home and read this stuff, and in fact I said to Donna, "Can I have two more rinderpest brochures, please?"
"Two more…? Sure…" She retrieved them for me. She was really nice. She then got us each a copy of the monthly magazine called Agricultural Research, whose cover featured a hot story titled "Sex Pheromone to Foil Cranberry Fruitworm." I asked Donna, "Can I have a brown wrapper to cover this?"
"Uh… oh, you're kidding. Right?"
George Foster said to her, "Try not to take him too seriously."
Au contraire, Mr. Foster — you should take me very seriously. But if you confuse my doltish sense of humor with carelessness or inattention, so much the better.
So, we continued the fifty-cent tour, Part Two. We saw the auditorium, then came to the second-floor cafeteria, a nice, clean modern room with big windows from which you could see the lighthouse, the Gut, and Orient Point. Donna offered us coffee, and we all sat at a round table in the nearly empty dining, area.
We chatted a minute, then Donna said, "The researchers in biocontainment fax their lunch orders to the kitchen. It's not worth showering out — that's what we call it — showering out. Someone delivers all the orders into Zone Two, then whoever delivers has to shower out. The scientists are very dedicated, working in biocontainment eight or ten hours a day. I don't know how they do it."
I asked Donna, "Do they order hamburgers?"
"Excuse me?"
"The scientists. Do they order beef and ham and lamb and stuff like that from the kitchen?"
"I guess… I date one of the researchers. He likes his steak."
"And he does dissections on diseased and putrid cows?"
"Yes. I guess you get used to it."
I nodded. The Gordons did dissections, too, and they loved their steaks. Weird. I mean, I just can't get used to stinking human corpses. Anyway, I guess it's different with animals. Different species and all that.
I knew this might be the only time I'd be able to get away from the herd so I glanced at Max and stood, announcing, "Men's room."
"Over there," Donna said, pointing to an opening in the wall. "Please don't leave the cafeteria."
I put my hand on Beth's shoulder and pressed down, indicating she should stay with the Feds. I said to her, "Make sure Stevens doesn't come back and slip anthrax in my coffee."
I went to the passage where the two rest rooms were located. Max joined me, and we stood in the dead-end corridor. Rest rooms are much more likely to be bugged than corridors. I said, "They can say they fully cooperated, showed us the whole island, and the entire facility except for Zone Five. In fact, it would take a few days to cover this whole building, including the basement, and it would take a week to interrogate the staff."
Max nodded. He said, "We have to assume the people here are as anxious as we are to figure out what, if anything, is missing." He added, "Let's trust them on that."
I replied, "Even if they find out or already know what the Gordons stole, they're not going to tell us. They'll tell Foster and Nash."
"So what? We're investigating a murder."
"When I know what and why, I'm close to who," I said.
"In normal cases — with cases of national security and all that stuff, you're lucky if they tell you anything. There's nothing on this island for us. They control the island, the workplace of the victims. We control the murder scene, the home of the victims. Maybe we can horse-trade some information with Foster and Nash. But I don't think they care who killed the Gordons. They want to make sure the Gordons didn't kill the rest of the country. You know?"