EARLY THE NEXT morning, fog was dense beyond my windows, and Quantico was quieter than usual. I did not hear a single gunshot on any range, and it seemed the Marines were sleeping in. As I walked out of double glass doors leading to the area where the elevators were, I heard security locks click free next door to my room.
I punched the down button and glanced around as two female agents in conservative suits walked on either side of a light-skinned black woman who was staring straight at my face as if we had met before. Loren McComb had defiant dark eyes, and pride ran deep within her, as if it were the spring that fed her survival and made all that she did flourish.
“Good morning,” I said with no feeling.
“Dr. Scarpetta,” one of the agents somberly greeted me as the four of us boarded the elevator together.
We were silent to the first floor, and I could smell the sour staleness of this woman who had taught Joel Hand how to build a bomb. She was wearing tight faded jeans, sneakers and a long, full white blouse that could not hide an impressive build that must have contributed to Eddings’ fatal error. I stood behind her and her wardens and watched the sliver of her face that I could see. She licked her lips often, staring straight ahead at doors which did not open soon enough for me.
Silence was thick like the fog outdoors, and then we were released on the first floor. I took my time getting off, and I watched the two agents lead McComb away without laying a finger on her. They did not have to, because they could, were it needed, just like that. They escorted Loren McComb down a corridor, then turned into one of the myriads of enclosed walkways called gerbil tubes, and I was surprised when she paused to look back at me again. She met my unfriendly stare and moved on, one step closer to what I hoped would be a long pilgrimage in the penitentiary.
Climbing stairs, I walked into the cafeteria where flags for every state in the union were hung on the walls. I met Wesley in a corner beneath Rhode Island.
“I just saw Loren McComb,” I said, setting down my tray.
He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be interviewed most of today.”
“Do you think she’ll be able to tell us anything that might help?”
He slid salt and pepper closer. “No. It’s too late,” he simply said.
I ate scrambled egg whites and dry toast, and drank my coffee black as I watched new agents and cops in the National Academy fix omelets and waffles. Some made sandwiches with bacon and sausage, and I thought how boring it was to get old.
“We should go.” I picked up my tray, because sometimes eating wasn’t worth it.
“I’m not finished eating, Chief.” He played with his spoon.
“You’re eating granola and it’s all gone.”
“I might get more.”
“No, you won’t,” I said.
“I’m thinking.”
“Okay.” I looked at him, interested to hear what he had to say.
“Just how important is this Book of Hand?”
“Very. Part of the problem started when Danny basically took one and probably gave it to Eddings.”
“Why do you think it’s so important?”
“You’re a profiler. You should know. It tells us how they will behave. The Book makes them predictable.”
“A terrifying thought,” he said.
At nine A.M. we walked past firing ranges to a half acre of grass near the tire house HRT used in the very maneuvers they would need now. This morning, they were nowhere to be seen, all of them at Old Point except our pilot, Whit. He was typically silent and fit in a black flight suit, standing by a blue and white Bell 222, a corporate twin-engine helicopter also owned by CP&L.
“Whit.” Wesley nodded at him.
“Good morning,” I said as we boarded.
Inside were four seats in what looked like the cabin of a small plane, and a co-pilot was busy studying a map. Senator Lord was completely engrossed in whatever he was reading, the attorney general across from him and preoccupied with paperwork, too. They had been picked up first in Washington and did not look like they had slept much, either, the last few nights.
“How are you, Kay?” The senator did not look up.
He was dressed in a dark suit and a white shirt with stiff collar. His tie was deep red, and he wore Senate cuff links. Marcia Gradecki, in contrast, wore a simple pale blue skirt and jacket, and pearls. She was a formidable woman with a face that was attractive in a strong, dynamic way. Although she had gotten her start in Virginia, before this moment we had never met.
Wesley made certain we knew each other as we lifted into a sky that was perfectly blue. We flew over bright yellow school buses that were empty this time of day, then buildings quickly gave way to swamps with duck blinds and vast acres of woods. Sunlight painted paths through the tops of trees, and as we began to follow the James, our reflection silently flew after us along the water.
“In a minute here, we’re going to fly over Governor’s Landing,” said Wesley, and we did not need headphones to speak to one another, only to the pilots. “It’s the realestate arm of CP&L, and where Brett West lives. He’s the vice president in charge of operations and lives in a nine-hundred-thousand-dollar house down there.” He paused as everybody looked down. “You can just about see it. There. The big brick one with the pool and basketball court in back.”
The development had many huge homes with pools and painfully young vegetation. There was also a golf course and a yacht club where we were told West kept a boat that right now was not there.
“And where is this Mr. West?” the attorney general asked as our pilots turned north where the Chickahominy met the James.
“At the moment we don’t know.” Wesley continued looking out the window.
“I’m assuming you believe he’s involved,” the senator said.
“Without question. In fact, when CP&L decided to open a district office in Suffolk, they built it on land they bought from a farmer named Joshua Hayes.”
“His records were also accessed in their computer,” I interjected.
“By the hacker,” Gradecki said.
“Right.”
“And you have her in custody,” she said.
“We do. Apparently, she was dating Ted Eddings, and that’s how he got into this and ended up murdered.” Wesley’s face was hard. “What I am convinced of is that West has been an accomplice to Joel Hand from the start. You can see the district office now.” He pointed. “And what do you know,” he added ironically, “it’s right next to Hand’s compound.”
The district office was basically a large parking lot of utility trucks and gas pumps, and modular buildings with CP&L painted in red on the roofs. As we flew around it and over a stand of trees, the terrain beneath us suddenly turned into the fifty-acre point on the Nansemond River where Joel Hand lived within a high metal fence that according to legend was electrified.
His compound was a cluster of multiple smaller homes and barracks, his own mansion weathered and with tall, white pillars. But it was not those buildings that worried us. It was others we saw, large wood structures that looked like warehouses built in a row along railroad tracks leading to a massive private loading dock with huge cranes on the water.
“Those aren’t normal barns,” the attorney general observed. “What was being shipped off his farm?”
“Or to it,” the senator said.
I reminded them of what Danny’s killer had tracked into the carpet of my former Mercedes. “This might be where the casks were stored,” I added. “The buildings are big enough, and you would need cranes and trains or trucks.”
“Then that would certainly link Danny Webster’s homicide to the New Zionists,” the attorney general said to me as she nervously fingered her pearls.
“Or at least to someone who was going in and out of the warehouses where the casks were kept,” I answered. “Microscopic particles of depleted uranium would be everywhere, saying that the casks are, in fact, lined with depleted uranium.”
“So this person could have had uranium on the bottom of his shoes and not known it,” Senator Lord said.
“Without a doubt.”
“Well, we need to raid this place and see what we find,” he then said.
“Yes, sir,” Wesley agreed. “When we can.”
“Frank, so far they haven’t done anything that we can prove,” Gradecki said to him. “We don’t have probable cause. The New Zionists haven’t claimed responsibility.”
“Well, I know how it works, too, but it’s ridiculous,” Lord said, looking out. “There’s no one down there but dogs, looks like to me. So you explain that, if the New Zionists are not involved. Where is everyone? Well, I think we damn well know.”
Doberman pinschers in a pen were barking and lunging at the air we circled.
“Christ,” Wesley said. “I never thought all of them might be inside Old Point.”
Neither had I, and a very scary thought was forming.
“We’ve been assuming the New Zionists maintained their numbers over recent years,” Wesley went on. “But maybe not. Maybe eventually the only people here were the ones in training for the attack.”
“And that would include Joel Hand.” I looked at Wesley.
“We know he’s been living here,” he said. “I think there’s a very good chance he was on that bus. He’s probably inside the power plant with the others. He’s their leader.”
“No,” I said. “He’s their god.”
There was a long pause.
Then Gradecki said, “The problem with that is he’s insane.”
“No,” I said. “The problem with that is he’s not. Hand is evil, and that’s infinitely worse.”
“And his fanaticism will affect everything he does in there,” Wesley added. “If he is in there”—he measured his words—“then the threat goes bizarrely beyond escaping with a barge of fuel assemblies. At any time, this could turn into a suicide mission.”
“I’m not sure why you’re saying that,” said Gradecki, who did not want to hear it in the least. “The motive is very clear.”
I thought of the Book of Hand and of how hard it was for the uninitiated to understand what a man like its author was capable of doing. I looked at the attorney general as we flew over rows of old gray tankers and transport ships, known as the Navy’s Dead Fleet. They were parked in the James, and from a distance it looked like Virginia was under siege, and in a way, it was.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that,” she muttered in amazement as she looked down.
“Well, you should have,” Senator Lord retorted. “You Democrats are responsible for the decommissioning of half the Navy’s fleet. In fact, we don’t have room to park them. They’re scattered here and there, ghosts of their former selves and not worth a tinker’s damn if we need seaworthy vessels fast. By the time you’d get one of those old tubs going, the Persian Gulf would be as long past as that other war they fought around here.”
“Frank, you’ve made your point,” she crisply said. “I believe we have other matters to attend to this morning.”
Wesley had put on a set of headphones so he could talk to the pilots. He asked for an update and then listened for a long time as he stared out at Jamestown and its ferry. When he got off the radio his face was anxious.
“We’ll be at Old Point in several minutes. The terrorists still have refused contact and we don’t know how many casualties might be inside.”
“I hear more helicopters,” I said.
We were silent, and then the sound of thudding blades was unmistakable. Wesley got back on the air.
“Listen, dammit, the FAA was supposed to restrict this airspace.” He paused as he listened. “Absolutely not. No one else has clearance within a mile—” Interrupted, he listened again. “Right, right.” He got angrier. “Christ,” he exclaimed as the noise got louder.
Two Hueys and two Black Hawks loudly rumbled past, and Wesley unfastened his seat belt as if he were going somewhere. Furious, he rose and moved to the other side of the cabin, looking out windows.
He had his back to the senator when he said with controlled fury, “Sir, you should not have called in the National Guard. We have a very delicate operation in place and cannot—let me repeat—cannot afford any sort of interference in either our planning or our airspace. And let me remind you the jurisdiction here is police, not military. This is the United States—”
Senator Lord cut in, “I did not call them, and we’re in complete agreement.”
“Then who did?” asked Gradecki, who was Wesley’s ultimate boss.
“Probably your governor,” Senator Lord said, looking at me, and I knew by his manner that he was enraged, too. “He would do something stupid like that because all he thinks about is the next election. Patch me into his office, and I mean now.”
The senator slipped the headset on and did not care who overheard when he launched in several minutes later.
“For God’s sake, Dick, have you lost your mind?” he said to the man who held the Commonwealth’s highest office. “No, no, don’t even bother telling me any of that,” he snapped. “You are interfering with what we’re doing out here, and if it costs lives you can be assured I’m going to announce who’s to blame . . .”
He fell silent for a moment, and the expression on his face as he listened was scary. Then he made several other salient points as the governor ordered the National Guard back. In fact, their huge helicopters never landed, but suddenly changed formation as they gained altitude. They flew right past Old Point, which just now we could see, its concrete containments rising in the clean blue air.
“I’m very sorry,” the senator apologized to us, because he was, above all, a gentleman.
We stared out at scores of police and law enforcement vehicles, ambulances and fire trucks, and flowering satellite dishes and news vans. Dozens of people were outside as if enjoying a lovely, brisk day, and Wesley informed us that where they were congregated was the visitors’ center, which was the command post for the outer perimeter.
“As you can see,” he explained, “it’s no closer than half a mile away from the plant and the main building, which is there.” He pointed.
“The main building is where the control room is?” I asked.
“Right. That three-story beige brick building. That’s where they are, at least most of them, we think, including the hostages.”
“Well, it’s where they’d have to be if they planned on doing anything with the reactors, like shutting them down, which we know they’ve already done,” Senator Lord remarked.
“And then what?” the attorney general asked.
“There are backup generators, so no one’s going to lose electricity. And the plant itself has an emergency power supply,” Lord said, and he was known for being an ardent advocate of nuclear energy.
Wide waterways ran on the plant’s two sides, one leading from the James, the other to a man-made lake nearby. There were acres of transformers and power lines, and parking lots with many cars, belonging to hostages and the people who had arrived to help. There did not seem an easy way to access the main building without being seen, for any nuclear power plant is designed with the most stringent security in mind. The point was to keep out everyone not authorized, and unfortunately, that included us. A roof entry, for example, would require cutting holes in metal and concrete, and could not be done without risk of being seen.
I suspected Wesley was thinking about a possible amphibious plan, for HRT divers could enter undetected either the river or the lake, and follow a waterway very close to one side of the main building. It looked to me that they could swim within twenty yards of the very door the terrorists had stormed, but how the agents would escape detection once ashore, I could not imagine.
Wesley did not spell out any plan, for the senator and the attorney general were allies, even friends, but they were also politicians. Neither the FBI nor the police needed Washington inserting itself into this mission. What the governor had just done was bad enough.
“Now if you’ll notice the large white RV that’s close to the main building,” Wesley said, “that’s our inner perimeter command post.”
“I thought that belonged to a news crew,” the attorney general commented.
“That’s where we try to establish a relationship with Mr. Hand and his Merry Band.”
“How?”
“For starters, I want to talk with them,” Wesley said.
“No one’s talked to them yet?” the senator asked.
“So far,” he said, “they don’t seem interested in us.”
The Bell 222 slowly made its loud descent as news crews assembled near a helipad across the road from the visitors’ center. We grabbed briefcases and bags and disembarked in the strong wind of flying blades. Wesley and I walked swiftly and in silence. I glanced back only once and saw Senator Lord surrounded by microphones while our nation’s most powerful lawyer delivered a string of emotional quotes.
We walked inside the visitors’ center with its many displays intended for schoolchildren and the curious. But now the entire area was divided by local and state police. They were drinking sodas, eating fast food and snacks near plats and maps on easels, and I could not help but wonder how much of a difference any of us could make.
“Where’s your outpost?” Wesley asked me.
“It should be with the squads. I think I spotted our refrigerator truck from the air.”
His eyes were roaming around. They stopped on the men’s room door opening and swinging shut. Marino walked out, hitching up his pants again. I had not expected to see him here. If for no other reason, I would have thought his fear of radiation would have kept him home.
“I’m getting coffee,” Wesley said. “Anybody?”
“Yo. Make it a double.”
“Thanks,” I said, then to Marino I added, “This is the last place I would have thought to find you.”
“See all these guys walking around in here?” he said. “We’re part of a task force so all the local jurisdictions got somebody here that can call home and say what the hell’s going on. Bottom line is, the chief sent my ass out here, and no, I’m not thrilled about it. And by the way, I saw your buddy Chief Steels out here, and you’ll be happy to know Roche has been suspended without pay.”
I did not reply, for Roche was not important right now.
“So that ought to make you feel a little better,” Marino went on.
I looked at him. His stiff white collar was rimmed in sweat, and his belt with all its gear creaked as he moved.
“While I’m here, I’ll do my best to keep an eye on you. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go wandering into the crosshairs of some drone’s high-powered rifle,” he added, smoothing back strands of hair with a big, thick hand.
“I’d appreciate it if I didn’t do that either. I need to check on my folks,” I said. “Have you seen them?”
“Yeah, Fielding’s in that big trailer the funeral home people bought for you. He was cooking eggs in the kitchen like he’s camping out or something. There’s a refrigerator truck, too.”
“Okay. I know exactly where it is.”
“I’ll take you over there, if you want,” he nonchalantly said, as if he didn’t care.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, because I knew I was part of the reason, no matter what he claimed.
Wesley was back, and he had balanced a paper plate of doughnuts on top of cups of coffee. Marino helped himself while I looked out windows at the bright, cold day.
“Benton,” I said, “where is Lucy?”
He did not reply, so I knew. My worst fears were confirmed right then.
“Kay, all of us have a job to do.” His eyes were kind, but he was unequivocal.
“Of course we do.” I set down my coffee because my nerves were bad enough. “I’m going out to check on things.”
“Hold on,” Marino said as he started his second doughnut.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, you will,” he said. “I’m going to make sure of that.”
“You do need to be careful out there,” Wesley said to me. “We know there’s someone in every window, and they could start shooting whenever they want.”
I looked at the main building in the distance, and I pushed open the glass door that led outside. Marino was right behind me.
“Where’s HRT?” I asked him.
“Where you can’t see them.”
“Don’t talk to me in riddles. I’m not in the mood.”
I walked with purpose, and because I could not see any sign of terrorism or its victims, this ordeal seemed a drill. Fire and refrigerator trucks and ambulances seemed part of a mock emergency, and even Fielding arranging disaster kits inside the large white trailer that was my outpost did not strike me as reality. He was opening one of the blue Army footlockers stamped with OCME, and inside was everything from eighteen-gauge needles to yellow pouches designed to hold the personal effects of the dead.
He looked up at me as if I had been here all along. “You got any idea where the stakes are?” he asked.
“Those should be in separate boxes with hatchets, pliers, metal ties,” I replied.
“Well, I don’t know where they are.”
“What about the yellow body pouches?” I scanned lockers and boxes stacked inside the trailer.
“I guess I’m just going to have to get all that from FEMA,” he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Where are they?” I asked, because hundreds of people from many agencies and departments were here.
“You go out and you’ll see their trailer directly to the left, next to the guys from Fort Lee. Graves Registration. And FEMA’s got the lead-lined suits.”
“And we’ll pray we don’t need them,” I said.
Fielding said to Marino, “What’s the latest on hostages? Do we know how many they’ve got in there?”
“We’re not really sure because we don’t know exactly how many employees were in the building,” he said. “But the shift was small when they hit, which I’m sure was part of the plan. They’ve released thirty-two people. We’re thinking there’s maybe about a dozen left. We don’t know how many of them are still alive.”
“Christ.” Fielding’s eyes were angry as he shook his head. “You ask me, every one of the assholes ought to be shot on the spot.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t get an argument out of me,” Marino said.
“At this moment,” Fielding said to me, “we can handle fifty. That’s the max between the truck we got here and our morgue back in Richmond, which is already pretty crowded. Beyond that, MCV’s mobilized if we need them for storage.”
“The dentists and radiologists are also mobilized,” I assumed.
“Right. Jenkins, Verner, Silverberg, Rollins. They’re all on standby.”
I could smell eggs and bacon and didn’t know if I felt hungry or sick. “I’m on the radio, if you need me,” I said, opening the trailer’s door.
“Don’t walk so fast,” Marino complained when we were back outside.
“Have you checked out the mobile command post?” I asked. “The big blue and white RV? I saw it when we were flying in.”
“I don’t think we want to go over there.”
“Well, I do.”
“Doc, that’s the inner perimeter.”
“That’s where HRT is,” I said.
“Let’s just check it out with Benton first. I know you’re looking for Lucy, but for God’s sake, use your head.”
“I am using my head and I am looking for Lucy.” I was getting angrier with Wesley by the moment.
Marino put his hand on my arm and stopped me, and we squinted at each other in the sun. “Doc,” he said, “listen to me. What’s going down ain’t personal. No one gives a shit that Lucy’s your niece. She’s a friggin’ FBI agent, and it ain’t Wesley’s duty to give you a report on everything she’s doing for them.”
I did not say anything, and he did not need to, either, for me to know the truth.
“So don’t be pissed at him.” Marino was still gently holding my arm. “You want to know? I don’t like it, either. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to her. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to either of you. And right now I’m about as scared as I’ve ever been in my goddamn fucking life. But I got a job to do and so do you.”
“She’s at the inner perimeter,” I said.
He paused. “Come on, Doc. Let’s go talk to Wesley.”
But we did not get a chance to do that, because when we walked into the visitors’ center, we found him on the phone. His tone was iron-calm and he was standing tensely.
“Don’t do anything until I get there, and it is very important that they know I’m on my way,” he was saying, slowly. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Use a bullhorn so no one gets close.” He glanced at Marino and me. “Just hold tight. Tell them you’ve got someone coming who will get a hostage phone to them immediately. Right.”
He hung up and headed straight for the door, and we were right behind him.
“What the hell’s going on?” Marino asked.
“They want to communicate.”
“What’d they do? Send a letter?”
“One of them yelled out a window,” Wesley replied. “They’re very agitated.”
We walked fast past the helipad, and I noted it was empty, the senator and attorney general long gone.
“So they don’t already have a phone?” I was very surprised.
“We shut down the phones in that building,” Wesley said. “They have to get a phone from us, and before this minute they haven’t wanted one. Now, suddenly they do.”
“So there’s a problem,” I said.
“That’s the way I’m reading it.” Marino was out of breath.
Wesley did not reply, but I could tell he was petrified, and it was rare that anything made him this way. The narrow road led us through the sea of people and vehicles waiting to help, and the tan building loomed larger. The mobile command post gleamed in the sun and was parked on the grass, the conical containments and the waterway they needed for cooling so close I could have hit them with a stone.
I had no doubt that New Zionists had us in their rifle sights and could pull the trigger, if they chose, pick us off one by one. The windows where we believed they watched were open, but I could not see anything behind their screens.
We walked around to the front of the RV where half a dozen police and agents were in plain clothes surrounding Lucy, and the sight of her almost stopped my heart. She was in black fatigues and boots, and was attached to cables again, as she had been at ERF. Only this time she wore two gloves, and Toto was awake on the ground, his thick neck connected to a spool of fiber optic line that looked long enough to walk him to North Carolina.
“It’s better if we tape down the receiver,” my niece was saying to men she could not see because of the CRTs over her eyes.
“Who’s got tape?”
“Hold on.”
A man in a black jumpsuit reached inside a large toolbox and tossed a roll of tape to someone else. This person tore off several strips of it and secured the receiver to the cradle of a plain black phone in a box firmly held in the robot’s grippers.
“Lucy,” Wesley spoke. “This is Benton Wesley. I’m here.”
“Hi,” she said, and I could feel her nervousness.
“As soon as you get the phone to them, I’m going to start talking. I just want you to know what I’m doing.”
“Are we ready?” she asked, and she had no idea I was there.
“Let’s do it,” Wesley tensely said.
She touched a button on her glove and Toto came to life in a quiet whir, and the one eye beneath his domed brain turned, as if focusing like a camera lens. His head swiveled as Lucy touched another button on a glove, and everyone watched in hushed anticipation as my niece’s creation suddenly moved. It plowed forward on rubber tracks, telephone tight in its grippers, the fiber optics and telephone cable unrolling from spools.
Lucy silently conducted Toto’s journey like an orchestra, her arms out and gently moving. Steadily, the robot rolled down the road, over gravel and through grass, until he was far enough away that one of the agents passed out field glasses. Following a sidewalk, Toto reached four cement steps leading up to the glass front entrance of the main building, and he stopped. Lucy took a deep breath as she continued to make her telepresence known to her metal and plastic friend. She touched another button, and the grippers extended with arms. They slowly lowered and set the telephone on the second step. Toto backed up and swiveled around, and Lucy began to bring him home.
The robot had not gotten far when all of us could see that glass door open, and a bearded man in khakis and a sweater swiftly emerged. He grabbed the telephone off the step and vanished inside.
“Good work, Lucy,” Wesley said, and he sounded very relieved. “Okay, goddamn it, now call,” he added, and he was not talking to us, but them. “Lucy,” he added, “when you’re ready, come on in.”
“Yes, sir,” she said as her arms coaxed Toto over every dip and bump.
Then Marino, Wesley and I climbed steps leading into the mobile command post, which was upholstered in gray and blue, with tables between seats. There was a small kitchen and bath, and windows were tinted so one could see out, but not in. Radio and computer equipment had been set up near the back, and overhead five televisions were turned to the major networks and CNN, the volume set low. A red phone on a table started ringing as we were walking down the aisle. It sounded urgent and demanding, and Wesley ran to pick it up.
“Wesley,” he said, staring out a window, and he pushed two buttons that both taped the caller and put him on speakerphone.
“We need a doctor.” The male voice sounded white and Southern, and he was breathing hard.
“Okay, but you’re going to need to tell me more.”
“Don’t bullshit with me!” he screamed.
“Listen.” Wesley got very calm. “We’re not bullshitting, all right? We want to help, but I need more information.”
“He fell in the pool and went into like a coma.”
“Who did?”
“Why the fuck does it matter who?”
Wesley hesitated.
“He dies, we’ve got this place wired. You understand? We’re going to blow you fucking up if you don’t do something now!”
We knew who he meant, so Wesley did not ask again. Something had happened to Joel Hand, and I did not want to imagine what his followers might do if he died.
“Talk to me,” Wesley said.
“He can’t swim.”
“Let me make certain I understand. Someone almost drowned?”
“Look. The water’s radioactive. It had the fucking fuel assemblies in it, you understand?”
“He was inside one of the reactors.”
The man screamed again, “Just shut the fuck up with your questions and get someone to help. He dies, everybody dies. You understand that?” he said as a gun loudly went off over the phone and cracked from the building at the same time.
Everyone froze, and then we could hear crying in the background. I thought my heart would beat out of my ribs.
“You make me wait another minute,” the man’s excited voice was back on the line, “and another one gets killed.”
I moved closer to the phone and before anyone could stop me, I said, “I’m a doctor. I need to know exactly what happened when he fell into the reactor pool.”
Silence. Then the man said, “He almost drowned, that’s all I know. We tried to pump water out of him but he was already unconscious.”
“Did he swallow water?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he did. Some was coming out of his mouth.” He was becoming more agitated. “But if you don’t do something, lady, I’m going to turn Virginia into a goddamn desert.”
“I’m going to help you,” I said. “But I need to ask you several more questions. Tell me his condition now?”
“Like I said. He’s out. It’s like he’s in a coma.”
“Where do you have him?”
“In the room here with us.” He sounded terrified. “He don’t react to anything, no matter what we try to do.”
“I’m going to have to bring in a lot of ice and medical supplies,” I said. “It’s going to take several trips unless I have some help.”
“You’d better not be FBI,” he raised his voice again.
“I’m a doctor out here with a lot of other medical personnel,” I said. “Now, I’m going to come and help, but not if you’re going to give me a hard time.”
He was silent. Then he said, “Okay. But you come alone.”
“The robot will help me carry things. The same one that brought you your phone.”
He hung up, and when I did, Wesley and Marino were staring at me as if I had just committed murder.
“Absolutely not,” Wesley said. “Jesus Christ, Kay! Have you lost your mind?”
“You ain’t going if I have to put you in a goddamn police hold,” Marino chimed in.
“I have to,” I said simply. “He’s going to die,” I added.
“And that’s the very reason why you can’t go in there,” Wesley exclaimed.
“He has acute radiation sickness from swallowing water in the pool,” I said. “He can’t be saved. Soon he will die, and then I think we know what the consequences might be. His followers will probably set off the explosives.” I said to Wesley, Marino, and the commander of HRT, “Don’t you understand? I’ve read their Book. He is their messiah, and they won’t just walk away when he dies. This whole thing will turn into a suicide mission, as you predicted.” I looked at Wesley again.
“We don’t know that they’ll do that,” he said to me.
“And you’ll take the chance they won’t?”
“And what if he comes to,” Marino said. “Hand’s going to recognize you and tell all his assholes who you are. Then what?”
“He’s not going to come to.”
Wesley stared out a window, and it wasn’t very hot in the RV, but he looked like it was summer. His shirt was limp from dampness, and he kept wiping his brow. He did not know what to do. I had one idea, and I did not think there could be another one.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I can’t save Joel Hand, but I can make them think he’s not dead.”
Everyone just stared at me.
Then Marino said, “What?”
I was getting frantic. “He could die any minute,” I said. “I’ve got to get in there now and buy you enough time to get in, too.”
“We can’t get in,” Wesley said.
“Once I’m in there, maybe you can,” I said. “We can use the robot to find a way. We’ll get him in, and then he can stun and blind them long enough for your guys to get in. I know you have the equipment to do that.”
Wesley was grim and Marino looked miserable. I understood the way they felt, but I knew what must be done. I went out to the nearest ambulance and got what I needed from paramedics while other people found ice. Then Toto and I made our approach with Lucy at the controls. The robot carried fifty pounds of ice while I was in charge of a large medical chest. We walked toward the front door of Old Point’s main building as if this were any other day and our visit was normal. I did not think of the men who had me in their scopes. I refused to imagine explosives or the barge loading up material that could help Libya build an atom bomb.
When we reached the door, it was immediately opened by what looked like the same bearded man who had appeared to get the hostage phone not long ago.
“Get in,” he gruffly said, and he was carrying an assault rifle on a strap.
“Help me with the ice,” I said.
He stared at the robot with its five bags held fast in grippers. He was reticent, as if Toto were a pit bull that might suddenly hurt him in some way. Then he reached for the ice and Lucy programmed her friend through fiber optics to release it. Next, this man and I were inside the building with the door shut, and the security area had been destroyed, X-ray and other scanning devices ripped out of place and riddled with bullets. There were blood drips and drag marks, and when I followed him around a corner, I smelled the bodies before I saw the slain guards who had been gathered into a ghastly, gory pile down the hall.
Fear rose in my throat like bile as we passed through a red door, and the rumble of combines shook my bones and made it impossible to hear anything said by this man who was a New Zionist. As I noticed the large black pistol on his belt, I thought about Danny and the .45 that had so coldly killed him. We climbed grated stairs painted red, and I did not look down because I would get dizzy. He led me along a catwalk to a door that was very heavy and painted with warnings, and he punched in a code as ice began to drip on the floor.
“Just do as you’re told,” I vaguely heard him say as we walked into the control room. “You understand me?” He nudged my back with his rifle.
“Yes,” I said.
There were maybe a dozen men inside, all dressed in slacks and sweaters or jackets, and carrying semiautomatic rifles and machine guns. They were very excited and angry, and seemed indifferent to the ten hostages sitting on the floor against a wall. Hands were tied in front of them, and pillowcases had been pulled over their heads. Through holes cut out for eyes, I could see their terror. The openings for their mouths were stained with saliva and they sucked in and out with rapid, shallow breaths. I noted bloody drag marks on the floor here, too, only these were fresh and led behind a console where the latest victim had been dumped. I wondered how many bodies I would later find should mine not be among them.
“Over there,” my escort ordered.
Joel Hand was on his back on the floor, covered by a curtain someone had ripped from a window. He was very pale and still wet from the pool where he had swallowed water that would kill him, no matter what I tried to do. I recognized his fair, full-lipped face from when I had seen him in court, only he looked puffier and older.
“How long has he been like this?” I spoke to the man who had brought me in.
“Maybe an hour and a half.”
He was smoking and pacing. He would not meet my eyes, one hand nervously resting on the barrel of his gun, which was aimed at my head as I set down the medical chest. I turned around and stared at him.
“Don’t point that at me,” I said.
“You shut up.” He stopped pacing and looked as if he would crack my skull.
“I’m here because you invited me, and I’m trying to help.” I met his glassy gaze and my voice meant business, too. “If you don’t want me to help, then go ahead and shoot me or let me leave. Neither one is going to help him. I’m trying to save his life and don’t need to be distracted by your goddamn gun.”
He did not know what to say as he leaned against a console with enough controls to fly us to the moon. Video displays on walls showed that both reactors were shut down, and areas in a grid lighted up red warned of problems I could not comprehend.
“Hey, Wooten, take it easy.” One of his peers lit a cigarette.
“Let’s open the bags of ice now,” I said. “I wish we had a tub, but we don’t. I see some books on those countertops, and it looks like there’s a lot of stacks of paper over there by that fax machine. Bring anything like that you can for a border.”
Men brought to me all sorts of thick manuals, reams of papers and briefcases that I assumed belonged to the employees they had captured. I formed a rectangular border around Hand as if I were in my backyard making a flower bed. Then I covered him with fifty pounds of ice, leaving only his face and an arm exposed.
“What will that do?” The man called Wooten had moved closer, and he sounded as if he were from out west somewhere.
“He’s been acutely exposed to radiation,” I said. “His system is being destroyed and the only way to put a stop to it is to slow everything down.”
I opened the medical chest and got out a needle, which I inserted into their dying leader’s arm and secured with tape. I connected an IV line leading to a bag on a stand that contained nothing but saline, a harmless salty solution that would do nothing one way or another. It dripped as he got cooler beneath inches of ice.
Hand was barely alive, and my heart was thudding as I looked around at these sweating men who believed that this man I pretended to save was God. One had taken his sweater off, and his undershirt was almost gray, the sleeves drawn up from years of washing. Several of them had beards, while others had not shaved in days. I wondered where their women and children were, and I thought of the barge in the river and what must be going on in other parts of the plant.
“Excuse me,” a quavering voice barely said, and at least one of the hostages was a woman. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Mullen, you take her. We don’t want nobody shitting in here.”
“Excuse me, but I have to go, too,” said another hostage, who was a man.
“So do I.”
“All right, one at a time,” said Mullen, who was young and huge.
I knew at least one thing the FBI did not. The New Zionists had never intended to let anyone else go. Terrorists place hoods over their hostages because it is easier to kill people who have no faces. I got out a vial of saline and injected fifty milliliters into Hand’s IV line, as if I were giving him some other magic dose.
“How’s he doing?” one of the men loudly asked as another hostage was led off to the bathroom.
“I’ve got him stabilized at the moment,” I lied.
“When’s he going to come around?” asked another.
I took their leader’s pulse again, and it was so faint I almost could not find it. Suddenly, the man dropped down beside me and felt Hand’s neck. Digging his fingers in the ice, he pressed them over the heart, and when he looked up at me, he was frightened and furious.
“I don’t feel nothing!” he yelled, his face red.
“You’re not supposed to feel anything. It’s critical to keep him in a hypothermic state so we can arrest the rate of irradiation damage to blood vessels and organs,” I told him. “He’s on massive doses of diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid, and he is quite alive.”
He stood, his eyes wild as he stepped closer to me, finger on the trigger of his Tec-9. “How do we know you aren’t just bullshitting or making him worse.”
“You don’t know.” I showed no emotion because I had accepted this was the day I would die, and I was not afraid of it. “You have no choice but to trust that I know what I’m doing. I’ve profoundly slowed down his metabolism. And he’s not going to come to any time soon. I’m simply trying to keep him alive.”
He averted his gaze.
“Hey, Bear, take it easy.”
“Leave the lady alone.”
I continued kneeling by Hand as his IV dripped and melting ice began to seep through the barricade, spreading over the floor. I took his vital signs many times and made notes, so it seemed that I was very busy in my attendance of him. I could not help but glance out windows whenever I could, and wonder about my comrades. At not quite three P.M., his organs failed him like followers that suddenly aren’t interested anymore. Joel Hand died without a gesture or sound as cold water ran in small rivers across the room.
“I need ice and I need more drugs,” I looked up and said.
“Then what?” Bear came closer.
“Then at some point you need to get him to a hospital.”
No one responded.
“If you don’t give me these things I’ve requested, I can do nothing more for him,” I flatly stated.
Bear went over to a desk and got on the hostage phone. He said we needed ice and more drugs. I knew Lucy and her team had better act now or I probably would be shot. I moved away from Hand’s spreading puddle, and as I looked at his face it was hard for me to believe that he had so much power over others. But every man in this room and those in the reactor and on the barge would kill for him. In fact, they already had.
“The robot’s bringing the shit. I’m going out to get it,” said Bear as he looked out the window. “It’s on its way now.”
“You go out there you’re probably going to get your ass shot off.”
“Not with her in here.” Bear’s eyes were hostile and crazed.
“The robot can bring it to you,” I surprised them by saying.
Bear laughed. “You remember all those stairs? You think that tin-ass piece of shit’s going to get up those?”
“It’s perfectly capable,” I said, and I hoped this was true.
“Hey, make it bring the stuff in so no one has to go out,” another man said.
Bear got Wesley on the hostage phone again. “Make the robot bring the supplies to the control room. We’re not coming out.” He slammed the receiver down, not realizing what he had just done.
I thought of my niece and said a prayer for her because I knew this would be her hardest challenge. I jumped as I suddenly felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my neck.
“You let him die, you’re dead, too. You got that, bitch?”
I did not move.
“Pretty soon, we got to sail out of here, and he’d better be going with us.”
“As long as you keep me in supplies, I will keep him alive,” I quietly said.
He removed the gun from my neck and I injected the last vial of saline into their dead leader’s IV line. Beads of sweat were rolling down my back, and the skirt of the gown I had put over my clothes was soaked. I imagined Lucy this minute outside the mobile outpost in her virtual reality gear. I imagined her moving her fingers and arms and stepping here and there as fiber optics made it possible for her to read every inch of the terrain on her CRTs. Her telepresence was the only hope that Toto would not get stuck in a corner or fall somewhere.
The men were looking out the window and commented when the robot’s tracks carried him up the handicap ramp and he went inside.
“I wouldn’t mind having one of those,” one of them said.
“You’re too stupid to figure out how to use it.”
“No way. That baby ain’t radio-controlled. Nothing radio-controlled would work in here. You got any idea how thick the walls are?”
“It’d be great for carrying in firewood when the weather sucks.”
“Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom,” one of the hostages timidly said.
“Shit. Not again.”
My tension got unbearable as I feared what would happen if they went out and were not back when Toto appeared.
“Hey, just make him wait. Damn, I wish we could close these windows. It’s cold as shit in here.”
“Well, you won’t get none of that clean, cold air in Tripoli. Better enjoy it while you can.”
Several of them laughed at the same time the door opened and another man walked in who I had not seen before. He was dark-skinned and bearded, wearing a heavy jacket and fatigues, and he was angry.
“We have only fifteen assemblies out and in casks on the barge,” he spoke with authority and a heavy accent. “You must give us more time. Then we can get more.”
“Fifteen’s a hell of a lot,” Bear said, and he did not seem to care for this man.
“We need twenty-five assemblies at the very least! That was the arrangement.”
“No one’s told me that.”
“He knows that.” The man with the accent looked at Hand’s body on the floor.
“Well, he ain’t available to discuss it with you.” Bear crushed out a cigarette with the toe of his boot.
“Do you understand?” The foreign man was furious now. “Each assembly weighs a ton, and the crane has to pull it from the flooded reactor to the pool, then get it into a cask. It is very slow and very difficult. It is very dangerous. You promised we would have at least twenty-five. Now you are rushing and sloppy because of him.” The man angrily pointed at Hand. “We have an agreement!”
“My only agreement is to take care of him. We gotta get him on the barge and take the doctor with us. Then we get him to a hospital.”
“This is nonsense! He looks already dead to me! You are lunatics!”
“He’s not dead.”
“Look at him. He is white as snow and does not breathe. He is dead!”
They were screaming at each other, and Bear’s boots were loud as he strode over to me and demanded, “He’s not dead, is he?”
“No,” I said.
Sweat rolled down his face as he drew the pistol from his belt and pointed it first at me. Then he pointed it at the hostages, and all of them cowered and one began to cry.
“No, please. Oh please,” a man begged.
“Who is it who needs to use the john so bad?” Bear roared.
They were silent, shaking as hoods sucked in and out and wide eyes stared.
“Was it you?” The gun pointed at someone else.
The control room door had been left open, and I could hear the whirring of Toto down the hall. He had made it up the stairs and along a catwalk, and he would be here in seconds. I retrieved a long metal flashlight that had been designed by ERF and tucked into the medical chest by my niece.
“Shit, I want to know if he’s dead,” one of the men said, and I knew my charade was over.
“I’ll show you,” I said as the whirring got louder.
I pointed the flashlight at Bear as I pushed a button, and he shrieked at the dazzling pop as he grabbed his eyes and I swung the heavy flashlight like a baseball bat. Bones shattered in his wrist, the pistol clattering to the floor, and the robot rolled in empty-handed. I flung myself down flat on my face, covering my eyes and ears as best I could, and the room exploded in blazing white light as a concussion bomb blew off the top of Toto’s head. There was screaming and cursing as terrorists blindly fell against consoles and each other, and they could not hear or see when dozens of HRT agents stormed in.
“Freeze, motherfuckers!”
“Freeze or I’m gonna blow your motherfucking brains out!”
“Don’t anybody move!”
I did not budge in Joel Hand’s icy grave as helicopters shook windows and feet of fast-roping agents kicked in screens. Handcuffs snapped, and weapons clattered across the floor as they were kicked out of the way. I heard people crying and realized they were the hostages being taken away.
“It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
“Oh my God. Oh thank you, God.”
“Come on. We need to get you on out of here.”
When I finally felt a cool hand on the side of my neck, I realized the person was checking for vital signs because I looked dead.
“Aunt Kay?” It was Lucy’s strained voice.
I turned over and slowly sat up. My hands and the side of my face that had been in water were numb, and I looked around, dazed. I was shaking so badly my teeth were chattering as she squatted beside me, gun in hand. Her eyes roamed the room as other agents in black fatigues were taking the last prisoners out.
“Come on, let me help you up,” she said.
She gave me her hand, and my muscles trembled as if I were about to have a seizure. I could not get warm, and my ears would not stop ringing. When I was standing, I could see Toto near the door. His eye had been scorched, his head blackened, the domed top of it gone. He was silent in his cold trail of fiber optic cable, and no one paid him any mind as one by one all of the New Zionists were taken away.
Lucy looked down at the cold body on the floor, at the water and IV, the syringes and empty bags of saline.
“God,” she said.
“Is it safe to go out?” I had tears in my eyes.
“We’ve just now taken control of the containment area, and took the barge the same time we took the control room. Several of them had to be shot because they wouldn’t drop their weapons. Marino got one in the parking lot.”
“He shot one of them?”
“He had to,” she said. “We think we got everyone—I guess about thirty—but we’re still being careful. This place is wired with explosives, come on. Are you able to walk?”
“Of course I am.”
I untied my soaked gown and yanked it off because I could not stand it anymore. Tossing it on the floor, I pulled off gloves and we walked quickly out of the control room. She snatched her radio off her belt and her boots were loud on the catwalk and the stairs Toto had maneuvered so well.
“Unit one-twenty to mobile unit one,” she said.
“One.”
“We’re clearing out now. Everything secure?”
“You got the package?” I recognized Benton Wesley’s voice.
“Ten-four. Package is a-okay.”
“Thank God,” came a reply unusually emotional for the radio. “Tell the package we’re waiting.”
“Ten-four, sir,” Lucy said. “I believe the package knows.”
We walked fast beyond bodies and old blood and turned in to a lobby that could not keep anyone in or out anymore. She pulled open a glass door, and the afternoon was so bright I had to shield my eyes. I did not know where to go and felt very unsteady on my feet.
“Watch the steps.” Lucy put an arm around my waist. “Aunt Kay,” she said. “Just hold on to me.”