When they got a look at what it was, they all said no, naturally. Since the Army couldn’t get permission to move it, one thousand cylinders of Wet Eye just sat there in the tombs at Anniston until this year, when this country finally ratified the Chemical Weapons Treaty.”
“I don’t remember going after permission to move this stuff,” Waddell said.
“I asked the Army international-law types about that. It seems your JCS reps to the CW Convention put language in about five years ago, stating that unannounced movement of chemical munitions for the purposes of destruction was authorized. Since that language is now in a treaty, and since treaties supersede national laws, your people did not have to ask permission. They just shipped it.”
“Wow. And when we finally shipped them, we lost one.”
“So it would appear. But I guess my point is that we have even more reason to find it quickly, because if it isn’t in its coffin, it might be changing into something a lot worse than Wet Eye.”
“Is that possible? Jesus. This is awful.”
“Well, I’m going to have the group do some discreet checking. The cylinders purportedly were taken out of their coffins and put into tombs awaiting’ destruction at the contained furnace facility at Tooele. If it had been my call, the cylinders would never have been separated from their coffins.”
“Why in hell were they?”
“You’re going to love it. Federal regulations, this time covering surplus, reusable Defense Department material. Remember all that “Fleecing of America’ TV coverage last year on the Defense Logistics Agency’s huge spare-parts inventory? Well, now the Defense Department is required by Congress to offer any reusable thing it declares surplus to the DRMO system. The rules go so far as to state that any nontoxic or nonhazardous material associated even with the chemical weapons program has to be destroyed in the DRMO demil process.”
“That’s crazy. The coffins could have been destroyed right there at Tooele!”
“Left hand, regulate the right hand. Yes, sir, they certainly could have. I suspect this rule probably had more to do with sustaining work for the DRMOs than with the CW program. Anyway, the empty coffins were then all shipped from Tooele back to Anniston, which, in turn, consigned them to the nearest DRMO, which is in Georgia, we think. Being CW-related material, they would have been earmarked to go directly to demil, of course. I’m not sure how the demil process works, but if you approve, the Security Working Group is going to trace them.”
“If I approve?”
“As soon as Headquarters U.S. Army starts asking questions about a shipment of CW containers, wouldn’t you expect a buzz?
I didn’t want to do anything until we’ve thought through the risk of public disclosure. Was I right?”
Waddell nibbed his face with his hands and nodded. “Yes, of course you were. Especially considering this business about the biological component.” Waddell returned to his desk before continuing. “This aspect, I think, we should keep to ourselves for the time being.”
“Really, General?”
“Yes. The group doesn’t need to know about the biologic angle in order to find it.”
“And General Carrothers?”
“Same argument. This is a need-to-know issue right now.”
Fuller just looked at him for a moment, but Waddell wouldn’t look at him. Then Fuller had an idea. “I think I need to turn some of my people on to a simulation drill,” he said. “See if we can determine or predict what might be happening in a cylinder of Wet Eye living outside of its coffin.”
“Okay,” Waddell replied distractedly. “But surely if someone at a DRMO found something in a CW container, wouldn’t we have been notified?”
“You’re assuming that anyone at a DRMO would open a CW environmental container. I know I wouldn’t. Look, if we’re real, real lucky, Myer, and the demil process is a totally contained process, we can maybe make the case here that the cylinder must have been destroyed. If it was lost, it was in one of those coffins. All the coffins have probably been destroyed by now. Shit on us for letting one get loose, but everyone can relax now, because it most likely went through a contained demil process.”
Waddell sat back in his chair. This was the first ray of hope he had seen since this crisis had begun. It would depend on the DRMO, of course, but Fuller was right: If they could certify that a batch of containers had been shipped from Utah, the same number as had been shipped originally from Anniston, and assuming that no one at the DRMO had opened them, just sent them directly to a closed destruction process, then the logical assumption was that anything in the containers would also have been destroyed, assuming it was a contained process, as Fuller had pointed out. Lots of assumptions there, he thought. He blotted out a quick vision of a dozen civilian workers streaming out of a building somewhere with bleeding sockets where their eyes had been. He looked over at Fuller, who was watching him work it out.
“Which DRMO in Georgia, exactly?” Waddell asked.
16
Gwinette Warren led Stafford across the large screened porch and through a formal entryway. The ceilings inside were at least fourteen feet high, and the interior was cool, somewhat dark, and smelled of crayons. The front doorway opened into a main hallway, with a large airy parlor room on the left that had been converted into a classroom for small children.
The double doors to what should have been its twin on the right were closed. A staircase rose up the left side of the fiall to the second floor. Stafford wondered where the children were, but Mrs. Warren walked straight back into an expansive well-lighted kitchen area, and then she turned right into an office, where she invited Stafford to sit down.
The office was long and somewhat narrow, reflecting its antecedent as the kitchen pantry. There was a desk near the single window and high bookshelves down one of the long sides. The opposite wall had several framed academic certificates, as well as what looked like a collection of family pictures. A large white PC sat to one,side of the desk, and behind and to the left of the desk, there was an alcove crowded with other office equipment. In front of the desk were two upholstered chairs, and behind them a small conference table. She sat across from him in one of the upholstered chairs and crossed her slim legs.
Stafford found himself distracted by this woman. He secretly wanted another moment to examine her face, but he forced himself to get back to business. “Well, Mrs. Warren, I believe you called me.” “Yes, I did,” she said. Her voice was husky, as he had noticed before, and her diction was unusually precise, with only the barest trace of a Georgia accent.
“Before we begin, I’d appreciate it if you would explain what you are, Mr. Stafford. I’m not familiar with your organization.”
Her gaze was direct, but if she was aware of his interest in her as a woman, she gave no sign of it.
Stafford proffered his credentials, which she dutifully examined. He briefly explained the mission of the DCIS, and why he was in Atlanta.
“I’m assuming your call has something to do with what happened in the airport that day?”
She gave him a long, level look before replying. In the subdued lighting of her office, her enormous green eyes were the color of jade.
“Yes, Mr. Stafford, it does,” she said. “I’m not sure where to begin with this. Perhaps I ought to tell you about Willow Grove School first.”
“This is a school? I thought the sheriff said it was a home.”
“It’s both, but he’s right. It’s first and foremost a group home, what used to be called an ‘orphanage.’ This house has been in my father’s family for a longtime. My father was a doctor, and my mother was a schoolteacher here in Graniteville. This place was called Willow Grove Farm back when I was born here. I came back to it permanently almost ten years ago, when I was divorced. It was my father’s idea, originally, to start an orphanage.”