She had peeled away the wide yellow tape that covered the door to Michaelson’s office. “I’ve been waiting right here since seven a.m. Never can tell when one of those clowns wants to stick his face in here and mess everything up.” She snorted in the direction of Gary Lesserec and his hacker teammates.
“I believe I share your opinion, Ms. Beaumont,” Craig said. “Do you have a copy of Michaelson’s schedule for his last couple of days? Where he was, who he met with?”
“We can get that out of his day planner,” Tansy said, moving expertly to the avalanche of clutter on the worktable and, without so much as digging around, yanked out the single volume she wanted. She flipped through calendar-marked pages. “He never would let me keep his schedule, no matter how many times he messed it up. Claimed that if he could manage to forget about something, then it wasn’t all that important anyway.”
She paused for a beat as she found the right pages and handed them to Craig. “What I’m trying to say is that just because he wrote a meeting down here doesn’t mean he actually went to it. And that doesn’t mean these places are the only meetings he attended either.”
Paige leaned over to look at the schedule. “I’ve got another way to verify it, though. Remember that computer badge check I told you we could run, Craig? I’ve already started another one to trace the CAIN booths Dr. Michaelson used in the last couple of days. I’m also getting a record of all phone calls originating from and coming to his office, and an affidavit from the people he visited since returning from Washington.”
He grinned at her. “Good work. I’m going to have to hire you over at the Bureau if you keep this up. Can you get that to me later this morning?”
“I’ll work on it,” Paige said, heading for the office door.
Tansy made a clucking sound to get their attention. “Meanwhile, Mr. Kreident — you’ve got your own work to do.” She indicated the open repository crammed with haphazardly filed documents. “Everything’s just the way he left it.”
The black four-drawered safe seemed to grow larger as he stared at it. The repository fairly overflowed with envelopes and folders, each bearing a thick red border around the side and stamped with the initials SRD. Secret Research Data. The folders bulged with reports, typed papers, handwritten notes, and scribbled drawings. Opening the other heavy drawers, he found more of the same.
“Your list might not help much,” Tansy said. “Dr. Michaelson’s favorite stamp was SECRET WORK PAPER. That way he didn’t have to document any of the classified memos or reports he wrote. He only needed a number assigned if he mailed them off site through classified mail channels… or when I caught him being sloppy and rapped him on the knuckles for it.” She sighed and turned away as her face seemed to crumple. “I’m going to miss him.”
With a resigned expression, Craig pulled out a stack of documents from the top drawer of the repository and glanced at the title of the top report: (S) A 500 MEGAJOULE DIRECT FUSION DEVICE and started flipping through the printout of classified document titles Paige had given him, checking off the number.
Slowly and tediously, he began to work his way through the folders.
“I think Tansy and I have reconstructed Dr. Michaelson’s last day,” Paige said, poking her head into the stuffy office.
Craig looked up from the pile of classified documents. Paige’s strawberry red outfit brought a much-needed brightness into the small room. Craig put down the folder filled with memos and notes describing something called “Rhoades-Malme diffusion” and rubbed his eyes. The inventory printout lay on his lap, dotted with checkmarks.
He glanced at the pile of documents on the floor next to his chair. “I’m about a third of the way through this top drawer and I can’t find anything that looks out of place.”
Paige picked her way through the clutter to the outside window on the far wall. “Why do you have the miniblinds closed? How about a little sun?”
Craig let out a sigh of relief when warm yellow light flooded the room, drowning the harsh white fluorescents. Glancing at the clock, he figured he’d been sitting for nearly two and a half hours. Craig stood up and stretched. “Let’s go over the schedule, then. I could use a break.”
“Kay-O. Tansy has cleared a table for us.”
They left Michaelson’s office to see where Tansy Beaumont had, literally, shoved papers on the floor to clear a narrow table in one of the cubicles. Tansy scuttled back to her office as the phone rang.
As Craig looked over her shoulder, Paige spread out a sheaf of papers. “Michaelson arrived at Livermore back from Washington at around noon on the day of his death. They’re having trouble downloading the CAIN booth records, but once we get that list we’ll be able to have an exact time he entered and left the T Program complex.
“We know that Michaelson showed up at the VR lab while everyone was gone for lunch. He wasn’t too happy about seeing the place deserted with all the new work he had just dumped on them.
“Michaelson then spent most of the afternoon in various meetings, making phone calls. He has something called a ‘boob tour’ written down for the late afternoon. I have no idea what that means — other than the crude implications.”
Tansy returned just in time to overhear. “Oh, that was a tour of the Plutonium Facility with Deputy AD Aragon. Dr. Michaelson always called him a ‘boob.’ From what I hear, they had quite an argument during the tour.”
“So Michaelson and this Aragon didn’t get along?” Craig picked up the sheet and studied the notes.
“I’m not privy to all the facts,” Paige said, “but I understand there was quite a bit of friction between them.”
“One-way friction,” Tansy interrupted. “Mr. Aragon was like a puppy-dog, always trying to make friends with Dr. Michaelson, but Hal couldn’t stand him.”
Paige added, “I’ve already tried to call Mr. Aragon, but he’s home on sick leave today.”
Craig put down the paper. “Nice coincidence. Let’s get back to that.” He nodded at her notes. “What happened after Michaelson left the plutonium building?”
“He had a late meeting with the Lab Director. Dr. Michaelson was apparently under quite a bit of pressure from the President to get this verification initiative off the ground, so he was pushing the Director for a substantial increase in manpower. The front office is willing to schedule you with the Director any time you want to talk to him, if you think that’s necessary.”
“What about after Michaelson left the Director’s office — did anybody keep track of him after that?”
“No, but once the CAIN records are available, we’ll have the exact time he entered the VR lab for the last time.”
“And the time that anyone else left the lab as well.”
Tansy held up a yellow message slip clutched in her gnarled fingers. “Sorry for interrupting, Mr. Kreident, but you’re supposed to call the FBI forensics lab.”
With a rush of adrenaline, he took the note from Tansy’s hand. “Can I use this phone?” He pointed to the phone beside the workstation in the cubicle.
“Dial 8 to get an outside line,” Tansy said.
Craig punched in the number. “This is Kreident. What do you have?”
The voice of the woman lab tech sounded bleached and brittle, as if she had seen it all. “First cut on Michaelson’s cause of death. We know he’s had some coronary problems in the past, but no evidence of a heart attack here. Something a lot weirder.”
Craig sat up in his chair, pulling out his notepad. “So what did they find?”
“Looks like HF poisoning. Hydrofluoric acid. Caused those severe burns on his hands and face. According to our chemical toxicologists, HF penetrates the skin and begins eating away the nerves until it permeates the bones. Bad thing is you don’t even know it until too late. A five-percent bodily exposure is usually a fatal dose. Michaelson got it over 14 % of his body. Pretty nasty way to go.”