Unnatural Exposure

'Everybody's looking for you,' she said.

'They always are.' I frowned at the number on my pager's display. 'Now who the hell is that?'

'Marino's on his way here,' she went on. 'They're sending a helicopter. To the helipad at MCV. USAMRIID's in the air right now, heading here. They've let the Baltimore Medical Examiner's office know a special team's going to have to handle this, that the body will have to be autopsied in Frederick.'

I gave her my eyes as my blood seemed to freeze. 'Body?'

'Apparently there's some campground where the FBI traced a call.'

'I know about that.' I had no patience. 'In Maryland.'

'They think they've found the killer's camper. I'm not clear on all the details. But it has what might be a lab of some type. And there's a body inside.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'Whose body?'

'They think, his. A possible suicide. Shot.' She peered at me over the top of her glasses, and shook her head. 'You should be home in bed with a cup of my chicken soup.'

Marino picked me up in front of my office as wind gusted through downtown and whipped state flags on tops of buildings. I knew instantly that he was angry when he pulled out before I' d barely shut the door. Then he had nothing to say.

'Thanks,' I said, unwrapping a cough drop.

'You're still sick.' He turned onto Franklin Street.

'I certainly am. Thank you for asking.'

'I don't know why I'm doing this,' he said, and he was not in uniform. 'Last thing I

want to do is get near some goddamn lab where someone's been making viruses.'

'You'll have special protection,' I replied.

'I should probably have it now, being around you.'

'I have the flu and am no longer infectious. Trust me. I know these things. And don't be mad at me, because I have no intention of putting up with it.'

'You'd better hope the flu's what you got.'

'If I had something worse, I would be getting worse and my fever would be higher. I

would have a rash.'

'Yeah, but if you're already sick, don't that mean you're more likely to catch something else? Like, I don't know why you want to be making this trip. 'Cause I sure the fuck don't. And I don't appreciate being dragged into it.'

'Then drop me off and be on your way,' I said. 'Don't even think about whining to me right now. Not when the entire world's going to hell.'

'How's Wingo?' he asked in a more conciliatory tone.

'I'm frankly scared to death for him,' I replied.

We drove through MCV, turning into a helipad behind a fence where patients and organs arrived when they were medflighted to the hospital. USAMRIID had not arrived yet, but in moments we could hear the powerful Blackhawk, and people in

cars and walking along sidewalks stopped and stared. Several drivers pulled off the road to watch the magnificent machine darken the sky as it hammered in, blasting grass and debris as it landed.

The door slid open and Marino and I climbed inside, where crew seats were already occupied by scientists from USAMRIID. We were surrounded by rescue gear, and another portable isolator that was collapsed like an accordion. I was handed a helmet with a microphone, and I put this on and fastened my five-point harness. Then I helped Marino with his as he perched primly on a fold-down seat not built for people his size.

'God knows I hope reporters don't get wind of this,' someone said as the heavy door shut.

I plugged the cord of my microphone into a port in the ceiling. 'They will. Probably already have.'

Deadoc liked attention. I could not believe he would leave this world silently, or without his presidential apology. No, there was something else in store for us, and I did not want to imagine what that might be. The trip to Janes Island State Park was less than an hour, but complicated by the fact that the campground was densely wooded with pines. There was nowhere to land.

Our pilots set us down at the Coast Guard station in Crisfield, in a marina called Somer's Cove, where sailboats and yachts battened down for winter bobbed on the dark blue ruffled water of the Little Annemessex River. We went inside the tidy brick station long enough to put on exposure suits and life vests while Chief Martinez briefed us.

'We got a lot of problems going at the same time,' he was saying as he paced the carpet inside the communication room, where all of us were gathered. 'For one thing, Tangier folk have kin here, and we've had to station armed guards at roads leading out of town because now CDC is concerned about Crisfield people going anywhere.'

'No one's gotten sick here,' Marino said, as he struggled to get cuffs over his boots.

'No, but I'm worried that at the very start of this thing, some people snuck through the cracks, got out of Tangier and came here. Point being, don't expect much friendliness in these parts.'

'Who's at the campground?' someone else asked.

'Right now, the FBI agents that found the body.'

'What about other campers?' Marino said.

'Here's what I've been told,' Martinez said. 'When the agents went in, they found maybe half a dozen campers and only one with a phone hookup. That was campsite sixteen, and they banged on the door. Nothing, so they look in a window and see the body on the floor.'

'The agents didn't go inside?' I said.

'No. Realizing it might be the perp's, they worried it could be contaminated and didn't. But I'm afraid one of the rangers did.'

'Why?' I asked.

'You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat. Apparently one of the agents had gone to the airstrip where you landed to pick up two other agents. Whatever. At some point, no one was looking and the ranger went inside, came right back out like a ball of fire. Said there was some kind of monster in there straight out of Stephen King. Don't ask me.' He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

I looked at the USAMRIID team.

'We'll take the ranger back with us,' said a young man whose Army pins identified him as a captain. 'By the way, my name is Clark. This is my crew,' he said to me.

'They'll take good care of him, put him in quarantine, keep an eye on him.'

'Campsite sixteen,' Marino said. 'We know anything about who rented that?'

'We don't have those details yet,' Martinez said. 'Everybody suited up?' He scanned us and it was time to go.

The Coast Guard took us in two Boston Whalers because where we were going was too shallow for a cutter or patrol boat. Martinez was piloting mine, standing up and calm as if racing forty miles an hour on choppy waters was a very normal thing to do. I honestly thought I might sail overboard at any moment as I held hard to the rail, sitting on the side. It was like riding a mechanical bull, air rushing so fast into my nose and mouth, I could barely breathe.

Marino was across the boat from me and looked like he might get sick. I tried to mouth a reassurance to him, but he stared blankly at me as he held on with all his strength. We eventually slowed in a cove called Flat Cat, thick with cat-tails and spartina grass, where there were NO WAKE signs as the park got near. I could see nothing but pines. Then as we got closer, there were paths and bathrooms, a small ranger station, and only one camper peeking through. Martinez glided us into the pier, and another Guardsman tied us to a piling as the engine quit.

'I'm gonna puke,' Marino said in my ear as we clumsily climbed out.

'No you're not.' I gripped his arm.

'I ain't going inside that trailer.'

I turned around and looked at his wan face.

'You're right. You're not,' I said. 'That's my job, but first we need to locate the ranger.' Marino stalked off before the second boat had docked, and I looked through the woods toward the camper that was deadoc's. Rather old and missing whatever had towed it, it was parked as far from the rangers' station as was possible, tucked in the shadow of loblolly pines. When all of us were ashore, the USAMRIID team passed out the familiar orange suits, air packs and extra four-hour batteries