September 25, 2018
Galveston, Texas
Back in Conference Room C on day two of the inspection, the surveyors ticked off the remaining areas to inspect. Ernie was dreading his second meeting with Dr. Drake.
“Jeez, I wish I’d toured the insectariums yesterday,” said Bert. “It’s BSL3, so no space suit, but listen to all the items…”
Ernie nodded without looking up as he continued his policy reviews.
“Hazard lights, alarms, check to see if the zappers are functional, check the logbooks. Did you know the researchers have to count out the mosquitos they use in every experiment and then account for them, dead or alive, when they finish?” Bert continued.
“No margin for error,” said Ernie. “Those little buggers are escape artists. Do the researchers have to autoclave their clothes when they leave?”
“Yup. Looks like a busy morning,” Bert said as he left the room to start his inspection.
Ernie made the rounds to interview a sampling of staff members about safety procedures. His quiz always made his victims nervous, but he could usually put them at ease and get what he needed for his report. He didn’t like to make it a punitive experience.
On this survey, he was the one who was a bundle of nerves. He had to pull off one more deception to defang Dr. Drake’s research. He needed Bert elsewhere when he met with the doctor. He knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
As luck had it, Bert returned to the conference room to make some notes just as Dr. Drake arrived for the scheduled meeting.
Ernie grabbed his laptop and some handwritten notes that he had made the night before.
“Shall we head to your office, Dr. Drake, so Bert can concentrate on his work?”
After a second’s hesitation, Dr. Drake agreed.
“Hey, don’t mind me. I wouldn’t mind hearing a bit about the study while I’m doing this busy work,” Bert said.
“Nope, I’m overruling the chair here. Our report’s due in forty-eight hours and you’d better get cracking!” Ernie responded with false bravado.
Turning to Dr. Drake, Ernie said, “Lead the way.” As he followed her through a series of corridors to her office, he used the brief interlude to calm his jangled nerves.
Ernie took in Dr. Drake’s office. For someone with an M.D/Ph.D, it’s pretty spartan. The desk was crowded with IT equipment and colored folders, all neatly arranged. This is where I’m going to lower the boom on Dr. Drake. As he proceeded to lay out his instructions on how she must change the purpose, methods, analysis, and conclusions of her study, he saw her disbelief.
“You want me to do what?” she stared at Ernie incredulously. “That’s the whole damn project! Where is this coming from? Why would I do such a thing?”
Regaining her composure, she leveled her gaze at him and said, “No. I refuse. I don’t know how this even has anything to do with you. You’re here to give us a merit badge before the CDC comes for the real thing. You asked intelligent questions about the study yesterday. What the hell has changed?”
Ernie was looking at his shoes. He mumbled something about discovering shortcuts and safety risks to the staff after reviewing her material the night before.
She had taken no shortcuts; there were no safety risks.
Rising to her full height, she looked down at Ernie, who was avoiding her gaze. “I’m going to get this in front of Dr. Thatcher upstairs. I’ll tell him exactly what you asked me to do. Mark my words, I am not going to let this ride. Certification or no certification, I’m not compromising my professional integrity.”
She walked around Ernie to the door, grabbed the knob and thrust it open so hard it hit the wall. “I think we’re done here.”
With that, Ernie shuffled out of her office without another word.
Hearing the commotion between Ernie and Dr. Drake, Billy Stanton, her assistant, came to see what was going on. Dr. Drake looked so furious, Billy thought he could almost see steam coming out of her ears.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Who does that sniveling creep think he is? Our research and methods are sound. There are no safety risks,” she said, still staring at the open door. “Williams will be his usual dickish self and stay out of the fray. It’s time to move our game up a notch.”
She remembered that Billy had come to her office to review the protocol for the next day’s data collection. “Sorry Billy, let’s sit down and take a look.”
Thirty minutes later, her cell phone rang, and she put it on speaker so that she could keep working on her computer. “Hello,” she said.
“Dr. Drake,” said a synthesized voice on the other end of the line. “I do not think you have fully understood the importance of not pursuing the publication of your research. There are some very important people who do not want this research made public. We know all about your past, and how little information you wish anyone to know about your life before Galveston. You should gracefully accept Dr. Pedersen’s suggestions. You have much to lose.” Click.
Billy saw the shocked look on Dr. Drake’s face.
“Who was that? Are you okay?” he asked.
Dr. Drake turned aside to compose herself. After shuffling a few papers on her desk and logging off her computer, she looked up at him. “Actually Billy, I feel great, freed actually. The survey is over. And something else that I was worried about for a long time just got resolved. I’m calling it a day and plan to celebrate. We all need to take a step back and enjoy life. Congratulations again on your new baby. Treasure every minute with him.”
Giving him a big smile and a thumb’s up, she left the room before Billy could respond.
Billy stood at the office window looking out to the seawall. He wasn’t sure what to do next.
Having clawed his way into the middle class, Billy was horrified at the thought of unemployment. Because his parents were drug addicts, his grandparents had stepped up to take care of him and their other grandkids. Despite their own health problems of multiple sclerosis and diabetes, they had done their best to stretch their disability checks. The small amount of foster care payments had barely been enough to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. He and his younger sister had gotten scholarships and worked through college to pay for their living expenses. His brother had succumbed to the family disease of addiction. That had broken his grandparents’ hearts.
Billy was determined to do better, even if it meant bending the rules a little. His wife’s teaching job had anchored them with health care and a steady paycheck. The unexpected second baby, so soon after their first, threatened their economic security. Because of undiagnosed pre-eclampsia, his wife had almost died, and her recovery had been slow. As was more common after a complicated birth, she was suffering from postpartum depression. Her return to teaching anytime soon looked doubtful.
This postdoc position with Dr. Drake wasn’t giving him the exposure he needed. Without telling her, he had contacted Dr. Drake’s superiors to see what he needed to do. Another path forward might be to talk to Dr. Pedersen. He seemed to be making a successful career in the private sector.
Ernie tried to collect himself for the final meeting of the survey. He headed back to Meeting Room C, wondering if anyone had overheard his dressing down by Dr. Drake. He was taken aback when Billy Stanton came up behind him.
“Dr. Pedersen, do you have a minute?”
Ernie was in no mood for a conversation with Billy. He frowned and shrugged. “Not right now,” he said as he picked up his pace. He heard voices from further behind them. “I’ve got to get to the last meeting.”
In an attempt to appear unruffled, Ernie turned to Billy and added, “Maybe later.”
The summation conference was a parenthetical meeting with the same staff leaders that the surveyors had met the previous morning. Kudos were handed out to the sections with no deficiencies. Constructive criticisms were made where appropriate.
As chair, Bert explained that Ernie and he were the eyes and ears of the U.S. Biosafety Association. They would get their report in by the end of the week and let the lab know if the division would be granted two more years of certification.
Ernie added that he didn’t think they had anything to worry about. A collective sigh of relief could be heard at this point.
Scanning the room while the good news was imparted, Ernie noted that Williams sat quietly in the front row with only the faintest of smiles. Billy Stanton was present. But no Dr. Drake. Billy looked flushed and kept fiddling with his watch. Ernie wondered if it was a smart watch which was giving Billy more information than he could process during the meeting. He noted Julia, the antsy IT specialist beat a hasty retreat from the room. Thinking back on his confrontation with Dr. Drake, he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. He was more than ready to say good-bye to Gulf National Lab.
Hailing a ride, the surveyors left directly from the lab for Hobby Airport south of Houston. Ernie and Bert were quiet as they rode across the causeway that connected Galveston Island to the mainland. Looking west, the bay was aqua blue. Sailboats were catching breezes. Fishermen and pelicans completed the picturesque scene.
But looking to the east, Ernie saw a dystopia. A railroad trestle framed a seemingly endless landscape of refineries and chemical storage tanks. Ominous flames shot who-knows-what into the atmosphere. The contrast was a good metaphor for Ernie’s mental state. He was cheered by the prospect of putting his financial woes behind him, just as he was disgusted to find himself embroiled with such lowlifes.
Once through security at the airport, the men sipped beers at The Bayou Bend Cafe and enjoyed large servings of gumbo on their expense account. They exchanged small talk. Ernie was tired of survey chat. As Bert got ready to go to his gate, Ernie wished him a safe and pleasant flight. He said that he would manage the bill and promised to send Bert the completed sections of the report by the 48-hour deadline. Ernie’s flight to Minneapolis wasn’t scheduled to leave for another hour.
The flight left on schedule—without Ernie. He made his way back down I45 to Galveston. He had received another phone call. Dr. Drake had not backed off. She was actively exploring other avenues to expedite the release of her findings. Ernie’s contact said that plan B was needed.
Once he was back in Galveston, Ernie checked into a no tell motel near the seawall and close to the Fisherman’s Folly. Trying to minimize his electronic footprint for the next 24 hours, he paid cash for the car rental and the motel. He called his wife to explain that the survey had gone over schedule. When she didn’t answer, he left a message. Hope she’s not suspicious when she hears me lamenting missing an evening at home.
He decided to finish up what he could from the survey. He completed the electronic checklists he was responsible for and shot them off to Bert.
With time on his hands before being due back at Fisherman’s Folly, Ernie changed into his running clothes and braved the heat for a quick run. That usually cleared his head, although he doubted it would that afternoon.
The seawall extended in both directions from where he stood at 29th Street. It was an actual wall with a sidewalk on top. Perfect for walkers and runners, Ernie mused. He had picked up a glossy tourist magazine in the motel which described the history of the seawall. Seventeen feet high, concave toward the water, it allowed for engineers to raise the altitude of the town by pumping sand harvested from the bay behind the wall into a platform upon which to rebuild the neighborhoods of Galveston after the devastating hurricane. With successive additions, the seawall now stretched about 10 miles long. The concave face deflected the power of raging storm surf upward instead of allowing it to go straight at The Island’s buildings.
In an effort to pass more time, Ernie read on.
The storms kept coming. Ernie was amazed at how stubbornly the citizens of Galveston reasserted themselves and rebuilt on a disaster-plagued sandbar. Similarly, he had read how folks in Houston had rebuilt their homes in the same floodplain four times, counting the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey.
His run provided the needed distraction. The other visitors enjoying a late afternoon on the seawall gave him a lot to look at. Galveston attracted an eclectic crowd. He made his way back to his motel room as the sun was getting low and the shadows of the remaining beach umbrellas were getting longer.
After showering, he changed into the clothes he had been instructed to wear to his meeting—jeans and a tee shirt. It was best that nobody remembered a country club client appearing twice in one week.
He found his way, again on foot, to Fisherman’s Folly. As instructed, he took the last seat on the left side of the bar. The mirror in front of him reflected a table of guys huddled in the corner. All were about thirty to forty years old and wearing tee shirts, black or white, with the letter Q emblazoned on it. Oh Lordy, thought Ernie as he squirmed on the bar stool. Is this a gay thing I’ve walked in on?
Not that he cared about anyone’s choice of partner, he just didn’t want to be propositioned. His evening was destined to be bad enough without that complication. Yes, he had also read how Galveston had been a safe haven for libertines and practitioners of alternative lifestyles. He flinched when one of the Q guys took a seat next to him.
“I’m Travis.”
The hit man was gay? Ernie wondered. Not that it mattered, he reminded himself again.
The man noticed Ernie’s gaze drop to his tee shirt and proudly explained.
“QAnon, man,” Travis said. “Have you seen us on TV? We’re coming out of the shadows since the president showed us that he’s on our side.”
Ernie was vaguely aware of Q-Anon. He knew its membership consisted of a bunch of conspiracy-obsessed nut jobs who inflamed each other online. When he’d stumbled upon an article about the organization, he’d learned that the members believed an intertwined narrative—including that all the presidents since Reagan had been servants of the “Deep State.” Their theories bounced all over the place, from belief in politicians who were involved in child trafficking, to the existence of a cabal of Jewish financiers, and yes, to that hoax that scientists were peddling about climate change.
Somehow, they’d concluded that it was President Donald J. Drum who would finally bring this all to light and a new day would dawn. Q referred to a shadowy figure in the Department of Energy with a high level of security clearance. Q-Anon was the community of people who tried to decode his or her messages. They found significance in the number seventeen, as Q was the 17th letter of the alphabet.
When Drum mentioned, in his fiery rallies, that he’d only been to the swamp that was Washington, D.C. seventeen times and that the Mueller investigation was being run by seventeen angry democrats, the Q-Anon faithful went wild. They could be seen at presidential rallies in their Q shirts waving their Q posters.
As Ernie faced Travis at the bar, his anxiety increased with Travis’s obvious infatuation with his group. To Ernie, they sounded like raving maniacs. Better to get this over with.
Getting down to business, Travis said, “I’ve been told to take out some lady scientist and that you’re the guy to give me the specifics.”
Ernie tried to disguise his horror at Travis’s blunt declaration. He hadn’t bargained for this, but Ernie couldn’t walk away now. He was already in too deep with these people, whoever they were. Not only would he forfeit his payment, but he was sure they had the wherewithal to ruin his career. His job was to provide details, given by his source, to Travis about the target and arrange payment.
As they talked, Ernie learned more about the man. It turned out Travis worked on an offshore oil drilling rig, a job that required twenty-one days at sea and then twenty-one days off. The timing worked out quite nicely.
“My next tower starts in two days,” he said.
“Tower?”
“That’s how we pronounce tour. Don’t ask me why. I can do the job and then disappear.”
They covered the bases in fifteen minutes. It felt like an eternity to Ernie.
Travis slid off the stool and regrouped with his Q people.
Ernie knew his own payoff was contingent on keeping this operation under wraps. That, and destroying Drake’s plans for releasing her results. He wondered for the umpteenth time what on earth he had gotten himself into. He was sickened by the idea of murder. In the end, he rationalized, he wasn’t the one committing the deed. If he didn’t agree to play his part, surely they would find someone else. And Jesus, he needed the money. He was in deep, and the people on the other end of his calls would not let him forget it.
Ernie tried to calm himself with a double scotch. It didn’t help. He abandoned the bar and made his way back to the motel for another restless night.