Critical Reaction (15 page)

“Of course,” Adam said, unflinching.

“You see it in a slide show down at headquarters, did you?”

Silence.

Poppy half rose out of his chair. “
So
when are you
boys at headquarters going to tell me what was in
that cloud that night!
”

At this, Adam clasped Poppy in a long gaze. The rigid mask slid away, replaced by a stony smile—cold as an undertaker’s condolence, Poppy thought. The HR rep turned to Dave.

“Mr. Prior, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to release Mr. Martin for a few days. I don’t believe he’s been examined on a psychological level for the aftereffects of the incident. I was hoping to clear things up this evening, but his continued fixation on this particular point of the gunshot only highlights the need for in-depth testing. It may go so far as to impact his security clearance.”

Dave looked stunned. “When?”

“Starting tonight. Indefinite leave. We’ll make arrangements for the examinations.”

Poppy didn’t like small spaces, but he’d never had real claustrophobia before. It had to be what he was feeling now—like the walls of this box of an office were an arm’s length apart and closing. He wanted to shout at this pale-faced man, younger
than his eldest boy, who had to know that a psych exam could end what remained of his career here.

He needed to get away and clear his head, let his heart slow down before he came over the desk at this guy and made the psych exam a formality.

Without another word, Poppy stood, took the statement forms from the desk, and made the half step toward the closed door. There, he turned back, stifling the rancor in his voice with an enormous effort. “Know where I can find Lew?” Poppy asked. “He owes me twenty on our gin games.”

Adam Worth smiled wanly, a counterfeit of friendliness Poppy’d seen in an IRS agent once. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say.”

Poppy glanced at Dave, who looked back in pained helplessness.

“Dave, my headache’s gotten a whole lot worse,” Poppy said. “I’m cutting out early. Besides,” he finished, holding up the forms, “I’ve got some paper work to do.”

Without awaiting a reply, Poppy turned and headed down the corridor toward the exit into the parking lot.

CHAPTER 14

Dr. Schutten awoke disoriented. It was very dark. Still, he expected to see
something
through the bedroom window shades—or the faint glow of the nightlight in the master bathroom.

Except now he remembered that this wasn’t his bedroom. He felt the firm hospital mattress beneath his hips, the lassitude in his arms and legs that had to be from the painkillers. This was the room that had become a virtual cell, where he’d been sedated for pain for so many months that he’d nearly lost track of time.

What had woken him up?

“Dr. Schutten?”

He turned his head to the left. The outline of a man was just visible, seated across the room.

“Yes,” he answered in a voice as dry as crumbling leaves.

“Dr. Schutten, I didn’t turn on the light because I didn’t want to startle you. Are you feeling well enough to talk?”

“I suppose,” he rasped.

“Good. Doctor, I know we’ve covered this ground many times, but I’ve been asked to run a few questions by you once again.”

“I’ve told you everything I remember.”

“Well, I’m sure you have. But we’re restarting Project Wolffia very soon. The new team leader couldn’t come to interview you, but asked me to run a few questions by you once more. Is that alright?”

He felt so tired. “Alright,” the doctor answered reluctantly. “Who is the new team leader?”

The voice hesitated. “Well, that’s secure information just now. Can I proceed?”

“First, please answer me truthfully. I’m not recovering from the gunshot wound, am I.”

“
The physician assures us you’ll be fine. There were . . . complications from the radiation you absorbed.”

Liar. The sympathy in his voice was as thin as frost.

“Now may we continue, Doctor?”

Such nonsense. “Yes.”

“Good. Dr. Schutten, in the last successful test at LB5 the night before the explosion, did the trigger configuration fully conform to the parameters contained in Dr. Fenton’s notes?”

The trigger configuration. The explosion.

The memories of that night were always vivid—particularly when they crept up on him in the dark. Dr. Fenton was with Matthew making final adjustments to the trigger across the lab in the open testing chamber—the furthest point from the emergency exit. Annie was nearer, running monitoring protocols.

Annie had looked up at him with a look of inquiry—sweet, sweet Annie, she was always the most sensitive, in every way. Then he sensed what had inspired her glance, too: a subtle shift in pressure in a room where pressure was controlled with such precision—instantly followed by the sound of liquid rumbling, gurgling, descending from above. Then a deeper pressure change, like a sudden drop in an airplane—and Annie’s eyes changing from questioning to stricken, as she called his name in a voice like shattering glass.

This wasn’t a glove-box breach like the month before—that had been bad enough, but mostly contained and with enough warning to escape the lab. This drastic and uncontrolled pressure change was catastrophic, coming as it did when the test
chamber was
still open
, with the chemical trigger set to respond to just such an event.

He shouted and rushed for the emergency exit door. It
was
him, wasn’t it—shouting a warning? Could it have been Annie or Matthew or Dr. Fenton? He was nearly out of the interior door when the first enormous explosion struck; fumbling with the little-used exterior door when the second one knocked him down; and stumbling up the outside stairs when the third muffled roar came through both sets of shut doors, shaking the concrete beneath him. He’d taken two quick steps on the grass beyond the exit well of the staircase before the sledgehammer struck his back, followed by an echo of gunfire and the cold earth against his cheek.

Though he tried to fight it, panic now washed over him like released floodwaters. Dr. Schutten grasped the hospital bed with the hand of his uninjured side, easing his breathing to control it. Easy relaxed breaths—just as the nurse had instructed him. Again. Again.

The memory slowly faded and his mind began to clear.

When he finally opened his eyes once more, he saw that the figure hadn’t moved in the darkness. No call for a nurse. No expression of concern.

“Can we proceed?” the man asked.

“I suppose,” Dr. Schutten answered harshly.

The questions came now in quick succession, and he answered through a thin haze of lingering anxiety. At last, the voice took on a tone of finality.

“And you’re sure the trigger configuration at the last successful test
fully conformed
to the prototype parameters contained in Dr. Fenton’s notes?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The figure finally stood.

Suddenly, Dr. Schutten didn’t want to be alone. “The explosion was so unexpected,” he said hurriedly. “The pressure spike
could not have occurred at a worse time, especially with the test plutonium in the lab. And Dr. Fenton once warned that a major test failure might overtax the aging HVAC system at LB5—even blow out the smokestack filters. He feared radiation could be released inside and outside of the building. Was he right? Did that happen?”

The figure stopped moving. “Yes. The plutonium near the test chamber was burned. And the filters were blown. Radiation was released.”

“Annie was such a sweet girl,” Dr. Schutten rushed to continue. “She was married and had two small children. She hated the secrecy of the Project. They had me over to dinner once.”

No response.

“I shouted, you know,” Dr. Schutten added urgently. “Before I left the room. Could you tell that Annie and the others had been warned? Did they nearly escape?”

Pause. “Yes, Doctor,” he said. “They nearly escaped.”

The figure began moving once more.

“Wait,” Dr. Schutten called out. “It’s been so long. Was there a service for Annie and the others?”

“Yes,” the man said. “There was a belated special memorial service. Just recently, actually. You weren’t well enough to be there, so we didn’t tell you about it. But perhaps we can arrange to get you out to their resting place soon.”

Adam stopped outside the door to Dr. Schutten’s suite and took a deep breath. His first meeting earlier tonight out on the reservation grounds with the security guard, Martin, had been tense enough. But these meetings with Dr. Schutten were far more draining, though in a different sort of way. Mostly it was the man’s growing maudlin displays. Adam wondered how he would face his own death. With more dignity, he assured himself.

He picked up Dr. Schutten’s medical records folder from
where he’d left it on the floor before entering the room. Yes, he’d read it correctly. The physician’s most recent notes confirmed the gunshot wound was still not healing, the necrosis almost certainly due to radiation poisoning. It was obvious the scientist correctly sensed the seriousness of his condition. It was a matter of weeks or even days now.

Adam glanced at the treating physician’s final chart note from his last visit, hinting that Dr. Schutten would have stood a greater chance of survival in the Sherman Hospital rather than here, in this jury-rigged suite at the Sherman Retirement Home. Adam shook his head angrily. The specialist wasn’t being flown here weekly at a princely sum to render ethical judgments, much less record them: he was here to attempt to treat the man. If they could have taken Schutten to the hospital, they would have—but how was that possible given the secrecy of the Project?

If Adam wasn’t already planning on eventually destroying these records, he’d have torn the physician’s comments out on the spot.

At least Dr. Schutten was a solitary bachelor, enabling Adam to pay his household expenses without arousing suspicions these past months. Such a lonely life. There hadn’t been a single personal inquiry about the man in all that time.

Adam smiled at the most important news of the night. Dr. Schutten’s answers today confirmed once again how close they’d been last fall before the explosion. The minor test failure they’d managed to cover up in September had been no more than a stumble compared to the October surprise. The earlier test failure
had
caused the loss of four injured workers, forcing him to bring in the unvetted temporary replacements to keep up pretenses with the DOE. And it was the presence of those replacements during the October explosion that were such a source of headaches for Adam now.

But those headaches were, at last, under control. Adam glanced at his watch.

Three a.m. No wonder his eyelids felt like sandpaper.

He left the private suite, nodding to the security guard posted at the door, then walked down the hall to the lift. The floor numbers over the door tracked his descent as Adam pondered other details—whether to give the retirement home the sixty-day notice to release Covington’s lease on Schutten’s suite, whether his plan for Schutten’s remains was appropriate. He supposed there was no rush on the notice. They were certainly under no budget constraints, and the cover story of a wealthy man seeking seclusion for his illness was standing up. As for Dr. Schutten’s resting place, their choices were few.

The elevator reached the ground floor and he left past the front desk of the retirement home, unmanned at this late hour. The skeleton staff must have been making their rounds.

As he stepped through the exit into the cool evening air, Adam decided he’d send a coded report to Vice-President Foote about Dr. Schutten yet tonight. He liked the idea of Foote receiving an email from his project supervisor with a time stamp of four a.m.

And as a topper—as a cherry on the dish—he’d mention what a great day was approaching for America, laced with some veiled excitement. That should make the old man’s morning.

CHAPTER 15

F
ORTY
-F
OUR
D
AYS
U
NTIL
T
RIAL
P
RINCETON
U
NIVERSITY

Ryan stood in the shadow of Princeton’s Firestone Library, searching the adjacent plaza for a campus map. A student in shorts with a messenger bag over one shoulder passed his view.

“Excuse me,” Ryan called out. “Can you tell me where Jadwin Hall is located?”

“Other end of campus,” the boy said, gesturing past the tall gothic chapel on the far side of the plaza. “Down Washington Street by the football stadium.”

Ryan nodded as the boy turned away.

Emily was pulling the fundamental tasks of trial preparation today: interviewing witnesses, preparing witness testimony, outlining a trial strategy. She had grudgingly accepted the notion that she had no time to do all that plus address the critical expert issue, and so had agreed to Ryan taking this meeting with Dr. Nadine.