Plum Island

I tried to picture such a holiday outing, sort of like beach blanket biocontainment.

Gibbs went on, "The Gordons never brought anyone with them, which would have been against the rules. But their boat presented a problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"Well, for one thing, during the day, it attracted other pleasure boaters who thought they could also come ashore and use the island. And after dark, it presented our patrol boats with a navigation hazard. So I spoke to them about both problems and we tried to work it out."

"How did you try to work it out?"

"The easiest solution would have been for them to come into the cove and take one of our vehicles to the remote end of the island. Mr. Stevens had no problem with that even though it bent the rules about official vehicle use and all that. It was better than what they were doing. But they didn't want to come into the cove or use a vehicle. They wanted to do it their way-take their speedboat to one of the beaches, rubber-raft, and swim. More fun, they said. More spontaneous and adventurous."

"Who runs this island? Stevens, Zollner, or the Gordons?"

"We have to pamper the scientists here or they get upset. The joke among the nonscientists is that if you annoy or argue with a scientist about anything, you wind up getting mysteriously sick with a three-day virus."

Everyone got a chuckle out of that.

Kenneth Gibbs went on, "Anyway, we got them to agree to leave their navigation lights on, and I made sure the Coast Guard helicopters and boats knew their boat. We also made them promise to anchor only where we had one of our big 'No Trespassing' signs on the beach. That usually keeps the fainthearted away."

"What were the Gordons doing on the island?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Picnicking, I guess. Hiking." He added, "They had the run of almost nine hundred deserted acres on holidays and after working hours."

"I understand they were amateur archaeologists."

"Oh, right. They ran around the ruins a lot. They were collecting things for a Plum Island museum."

"Museum?"

"Well, just a display. It was supposed to go in the lobby, I think. The stuff's stored in the basement."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Mostly musket balls and arrowheads. One cow bell… a brass button from a Continental Army uniform, some odds and ends from around the time of the Spanish-American War… a whiskey bottle… whatever. Mostly junk. It's all catalogued and stored in the basement. You can see it if you want."

Beth said, "Maybe later." She asked, "I understand that the Gordons were organizing an official dig. Do you know about that?"

"Yeah. We don't need a bunch of people from Stony Brook or the Peconic Historical Society rooting around the island. But they were trying to work it out with the USDA and the Department of the Interior." He added, "Interior has the final say about artifacts and all that."

I asked Mr. Gibbs, "Didn't it ever occur to you that the Gordons might be up to something? Like smuggling stuff out of the main building and hiding it out by a beach during a so-called archaeological dig, then recovering it later with their boat?"

Kenneth Gibbs did not reply.

I prompted, "Did it occur to you that the picnicking and archaeological crap was a cover for something?"

"I… guess in retrospect… hey, everybody's on my case, like I should have suspected something. Everybody forgets that those two were golden. They could do whatever the hell they wanted, short of pushing Zollner's face in a pile of cow crap. I don't need Monday-morning quarterbacking." He added, "I did my job."

Probably he did. And, by the way, I heard the ping again.

Beth was talking to Gibbs and she asked, "Did you or any of your people see the Gordons' boat after it left the cove yesterday at noon?"

"No. I asked."

"In other words, you can be certain that the boat was not anchored off this island yesterday afternoon?"

"No, I can't be certain of that."

Max inquired, "How often do your boats make the circuit of the island?"

Gibbs answered, "We usually use one of the two boats. Its route covers about eight or nine miles around the island, so at about ten to twelve knots, you're talking about a complete circle every forty to sixty minutes, unless they stop someone for something."

Beth said, "So if a boat were lying a half mile or so away from Plum Island and a person aboard was watching with binoculars, he or she would see your patrol boat-The Prune, right?"

"The Prune and The Plum Pudding."

"Right, he or she would see one of those patrol boats, and if that person or persons knew the routine, he, she, or they would know they had forty to sixty minutes to come toward shore, anchor, get to shore in a rubber raft, accomplish whatever, and get back to their boat without anyone seeing them."

Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat and said, "Possible, but you're forgetting the helicopter patrols and the vehicle patrols that skirt the beach. The helicopter and vehicles are completely random."

Beth nodded and observed, "We just did a tour of the island, and in the nearly two hours, I only saw the Coast Guard helicopter once, and a vehicle-a pickup truck-once, and your patrol boat once."

"As I say, it's random. Would you take a chance?"

"I might," Beth said. "Depends on the payoff."

Gibbs informed us, "There are also random Coast Guard boats that make passes now and then, and if you want me to be very candid, we have electronic devices that do most of the work."

I asked Gibbs, "Where are the monitors?" I motioned around the office.

In the basement."

"What do you have? TV cameras? Motion sensors? Noise sensors?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"All right," Beth said, "Write out your name, address, and phone number. You'll be asked to come in for questioning."

Gibbs seemed annoyed, but also relieved he was off the hook for now. Also, I had the strong suspicion that Gibbs, Foster, and Nash had made one another's acquaintance earlier this morning.

I went over to look at the stuff on the wall near the radios. There was a big map of eastern Long Island, the Sound, and southern Connecticut. On the map were a series of concentric circles, with New London, Connecticut, at the center. It looked like one of those atomic bomb destruction maps that tell you how fried your ass is going to be relative to your distance from ground zero. I saw on this map that Plum Island was within the last circle, which I guess was either good or bad news, depending on what this map was about. The map didn't explain, so I asked Mr. Gibbs, "What is this?"

He looked to where I was pointing and said, "Oh, there's a nuclear reactor in New London. Those circles represent the various danger zones if there were an explosion or meltdown."

I considered the irony of a nuclear reactor in New London posing a danger to Plum Island, which itself posed a danger to everyone in New London, depending on the wind. I asked Kenneth Gibbs, "Do you think the nuke people have a map showing the danger to them of a biocontainment leak on Plum Island?"

Even straight Mr. Gibbs had to smile at that, though it was a weird smile. Gibbs and Stevens probably practiced that smile on each other. Gibbs said, "Actually, the people at the nuclear reactor do have a map such as you describe." He added, "I sometimes wonder what would happen if an earthquake caused a biocontainment leak and a nuclear leak at the same time. Would the radioactivity kill the germs?" He smiled again. Weird, weird. He mused philosophically, "The modern world is full of unimaginable horrors."

This seemed to be the Plum Island mantra. I suggested helpfully, "If I were you, I'd wait for a good southerly wind and release the anthrax. Get them before they get you."

"Yeah. Good idea."

I asked Mr. Gibbs, "Where is Mr. Stevens' office?"