Chapter 14
Ingrid was not answering her phone. If anyone knew why the state police and these four Tyvek-suited individuals were at the hospital, it would be Ingrid, but Maggie’s calls to her went straight to voicemail.
She dialed Lloyd’s phone next. This time, at least, her call was answered.
“I’m a few miles north of New Haven and heading home,” he said. “I have no idea why Ingrid’s not answering her phone, and frankly, I’m worried. I haven’t been able to reach her all morning. It’s not like her, to be out of touch for so long.”
“Maybe her phone’s dead or she’s out of range. Or she’s taking a much-deserved nap.”
“No, Ben just swung by my house. He said her car’s gone.” A horn blared over the phone. “This bloody traffic.”
“Did you meet with that knife manufacturer?”
“Last night. He said the scratches on the blade are probably a result of the manufacturing process, but it doesn’t narrow down where the stiletto was made. This was a wild-goose chase. Now I just need to get home.”
“And I need to get out of this hospital. It’s driving me crazy, being stuck in here.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming call, and she glanced at the name. “Ben’s calling. I’d better take this.”
“Go. Find out where my bride is.”
She switched to Ben’s call. “I’m here.”
“When are you getting out of there? We can use your help.”
“On a number of fronts, apparently. Where’s Ingrid?”
“Wish I knew. I was just at her house and took a peek inside. No Ingrid, and the morning newspaper’s still on the front porch.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“You know what else doesn’t sound good? The reason why that chopper landed at the Cod Cove Resort.”
“It’s not just some rich guy here on vacation?”
“I checked the registration of the helicopter tail number. It’s from the Department of Energy. According to its flight path, it originated from the Brookhaven lab in Upton, New York. Declan says the crew unloaded what looked like radiological monitoring equipment.”
Maggie went to the window and stared down at the parking lot.
She thought about the two doctors she’d seen this morning, and the fresh round of blood and urine samples they’d collected from her.
And she remembered the odd question they’d asked, about whether she’d seen any leftover food or drink in Dr. Maslov’s room.
“I don’t like where this is going, Ben.”
There was a knock on the door. “I’ll call you back later,” she said to Ben, and turned to see two men walk into the room. Like the doctors who’d come in to see her earlier, both these men were garbed in Tyvek, and one of them carried what looked like a black suitcase.
“Ms. Bird?” said the man with the suitcase. “We’re sorry to disturb you, but we need to run another test.”
“What test is this?”
“It’s just a precaution. I promise, this one doesn’t involve needles, which you’re probably sick of by now. It won’t hurt a bit.”
She frowned as he opened the suitcase and revealed what was inside. “Is that a Geiger counter?”
The man paused and looked at his partner, then back at Maggie. “Have you seen one of these before?”
“Not lately.”
“Well, this won’t take long. If you could sit down, we’re just going to get a quick reading.”
“Why are you checking me for radioactivity?”
“Please. Just let us proceed.”
She sank onto the side of the bed. “In case you’re wondering, I feel perfectly fine,” she said. “I’ve felt fine since they shut me up in here, and they said my white blood cell count is normal. If I’ve been poisoned, wouldn’t it have shown up in my urine by now?”
“Who said anything about poison? What have you been told, exactly?”
“Not enough. But since you two are from the Department of Energy—”
The second man cut in: “How do you know that?”
“So it’s true. You are from the DOE.”
The pair exchanged chagrined looks. They’d come into this room expecting a cooperative woman in her sixties. They had not expected to spar with someone like Maggie.
“We’re from a branch of the DOE,” confirmed the second man. “RAP, Region One.”
“RAP?”
“The Radiological Assistance Program. We’re part of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Our team was alerted to a possible case of acute radiation sickness.”
“Then Dr. Maslov didn’t have Ebola? Was he poisoned?”
A pause. “Possibly.”
“You know, my doctors could have told me this earlier,” said Maggie. “Since I have something of a stake in the outcome.”
“Your doctors were working with incomplete information.”
The first man looked up from his equipment. “She’s negative. No gamma emissions.”
“What about alpha?” Maggie asked.
There was a silence. The two men stared at her.
“You know the difference between them?” asked the man with the Geiger counter.
“I know enough. Am I going to be sick?”
“I don’t think so,” said the second man as his partner packed up the equipment. “Your white count’s normal, and your earlier blood and urine tests showed no trace of polonium.”
“Polonium?” Maggie looked back and forth at the two men. “Is that what killed Dr. Maslov?”
“We can’t comment on that. We’re here only to assess whether there’s a threat to the public.”
“Am I a threat?”
“Not according to this test,” said the first man. “You’re clean.”
“And I’m not going to get sick?”
“Not from polonium, anyway. It’s dangerous only when inhaled or ingested.” He closed his equipment case, then he and his partner turned toward the door.
“What happens next?” said Maggie. “Does this mean I can leave the hospital?”
“We’re here just to test for radiation. That decision rests with a different agency.”
“Which one?” she asked.
But they were already walking out the door.
They had assured her she was radiation-free, but she headed straight to the shower anyway and scrubbed every inch of her skin with soap and water.
Instruments could be wrong, labs could make mistakes, and she did not want a single molecule of polonium to linger on her skin.
Barely an hour ago, she’d been worried about dying of Ebola, but polonium was a different matter entirely.
This was not an infection, not a virus passed inadvertently from patient to patient.
No, a fatal poisoning with polonium was definitely murder.
She knew that small amounts of polonium existed naturally in the earth, and in cigarette smoke, but there was only one country in the world where lethal quantities of it were manufactured: Russia.
She shut off the shower and watched the water trickle down the drain, imagining traces of radioactive waste washing into the sewer system.
When she’d first arrived at the hospital, all her clothing had been confiscated because they thought it might carry dangerous viral particles.
Instead, her clothes had been contaminated by something completely different, and now it would all have to be destroyed.
Goodbye, favorite shoes.
Her cell phone rang.
She wrapped a towel around her body and left the bathroom to retrieve her phone from the nightstand. It was Declan calling.
“A new development,” he said.
“I think I already know what it is. But you go first.”
“That chopper was from the Radiological Assistance Program, Region One. Their team’s based in the Brookhaven National Lab, and they’re now checking Maslov’s hotel room for radioactive contamination. It seems he might have been poisoned with—”
“Polonium-210.”
A pause. “So you know.”
“Don’t sound so defeated.”
“That’s not the sound of defeat. I’m worried. You were in his room. You gave him mouth to mouth.”
“I’m fine. Brookhaven also sent a team to the hospital, and they just checked me for gamma radiation. I got the all clear. I’m just waiting to hear from my doctors when I can leave.”
Declan gave a sigh. “Thank God.”
“But now we have a problem, don’t we? The Russians just assassinated a man on US soil.”
“Not our problem, Maggie. We’re retired, remember?”
“As if we can resist digging into this. I know Ingrid won’t be able to.”
“Which brings up a bigger problem.”
“Bigger than a political assassination in our little town?”
“Ingrid’s missing.”
Maggie paused. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Sagging bath towel, wet hair, shocked face. “What do you mean, missing?”
“She’s still not answering her phone. Needless to say, Lloyd’s frantic. We need you out here, Mags. It’s all hands on deck.”