Plum Island (19 page)

Donna said, “From here, we are in direct contact with Washington and with other research facilities all over the U.S., Canada,
Mexico, and the world. We’re also in contact with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. In addition, we have a direct
line to our fire department and to other key places on the island, plus the National Weather Service, and many other agencies
and organizations who support Plum Island.”

“Such as the military?” I asked.

“Yes. Especially the Coast Guard.”

Gibbs put the phone down and joined us. We did the intro thing.

Gibbs was a tall guy of about thirty-something, blue eyes and short blond hair like his boss, neatly pressed trousers and
shirt, with a blue tie. A blue blazer hung over one of the chairs. Gibbs, I was sure, was a product of the laboratory here,
cloned from Stevens’ pecker or something. Gibbs said, “I can answer any questions you may have about this office.”

Beth said to Donna, “Would you mind leaving us with Mr. Gibbs for a few minutes?”

She looked at Gibbs, who nodded.

Donna went out into the corridor.

Max, being the only Plum Island neighbor in our group, had his own agenda and asked Gibbs, “What do you do if there’s a major
nor’easter or hurricane on the way?”

Gibbs replied, “During working hours, we evacuate.”

“Everyone?”

“Some people have to stay behind to look after the store. I would stay behind, for instance. So would Mr. Stevens, a few other
security people, some firemen, a maintenance man or two to be sure the generators and air filters keep working, and maybe
one or two scientists to monitor the bugs. I guess Dr. Zollner would want to go down with his ship.” He laughed.

Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t get into the funny part of fatal diseases blowing all over the place.

Gibbs added, “During nonworking hours, when the island is nearly deserted, we would have to get key people
on
the island. Then, we would have to get our ferries and other watercraft to the submarine pens at New London where they’ll
be safe. The subs go out to the ocean and dive deep where
they’re
safe.” He added, “We know what we’re doing here. We’re prepared for emergencies.”

Max said, “If there were ever a biocontainment leak, would you be kind enough to call me?”

“You’d be almost the first to know,” Mr. Gibbs assured the chief.

Max replied, “I know that. But I’d like to know by telephone or radio—not by coughing up blood or something.”

Gibbs seemed a little put off and said, “My SOP manual instructs me who to call and in what order. You are among the first.”

“I’ve asked that a warning siren be installed here that can be heard on the mainland.”

“If we call you,
you
can sound a siren for the civilian population if you want.” Gibbs added, “I’m not anticipating any biocontainment leaks,
so the point is moot.”

“No, the point is this place scares the shit out of me, and I’m not feeling any better now that I see it.”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

I was glad to hear that. I asked Mr. Gibbs, “What if there were armed intruders on the island?”

Gibbs looked at me and asked, “You mean like terrorists?”

“Yeah, I mean like terrorists. Or worse, disgruntled postal workers.”

He was not amused and replied, “Well, if our security people couldn’t handle it, we would call the Coast Guard. Right from
here.” He jerked his thumb toward a radio.

“What if this room was knocked out first thing?”

“There’s a second CCC in the building.”

“In the basement?”

“Maybe. I thought you were investigating a murder?” I love rent-a-cops giving me lip. I said, “That’s correct. Where were
you at 5:30 last night?”

“Me?”

“You.”

“Oh … let me think—”

“Where’s your .45 automatic?”

“Uh … in the drawer over there.”

“Has it been fired recently?”

“No … well, I sometimes take it to the pistol range—”

“When was the last time you saw the Gordons?”

“Let me think—”

“How well did you know the Gordons?”

“Not well.”

“Did you ever have a drink with them?”

“No.”

“Lunch? Dinner?”

“No. I said—”

“Did you ever have occasion to speak to them officially?”

“No … well …”

“Well?”

“A few times. About their boat. They liked to use the Plum Island beaches. The Gordons would come here by boat sometimes on
Sundays and holidays, and they’d anchor their boat off one of the deserted beaches on the south side of the island, then swim
to shore, trailing a rubber raft. On the raft they had their picnic stuff. We have no problem with that. In fact, we used
to have a July Fourth picnic for all the employees and their families. It was the one time when we allowed nonworkers on the
island, but we had to stop that because of liability concerns….”

I tried to picture such a holiday outing, sort of like beach blanket biocontainment.

Gibbs went on, “The Gordons never brought anyone with them, which would have been against the rules. But their boat presented
a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“Well, for one thing, during the day, it attracted other pleasure boaters who thought they could also come ashore and use
the island. And after dark, it presented our patrol boats with a navigation hazard. So I spoke to them about both problems
and we tried to work it out.”

“How did you try to work it out?”

“The easiest solution would have been for them to come into the cove and take one of our vehicles to the remote end of the
island. Mr. Stevens had no problem with that even though it bent the rules about official vehicle use and all that. It was
better than what they were doing. But they didn’t want to come into the cove or use a vehicle. They wanted to do it their
way—take their speedboat to one of the beaches, rubber-raft, and swim. More fun, they said. More spontaneous and adventurous.”

“Who runs this island? Stevens, Zollner, or the Gordons?”

“We have to pamper the scientists here or they get upset. The joke among the nonscientists is that if you annoy or argue with
a scientist about anything, you wind up getting mysteriously sick with a three-day virus.”

Everyone got a chuckle out of that.

Kenneth Gibbs went on, “Anyway, we got them to agree to leave their navigation lights on, and I made sure the Coast Guard
helicopters and boats knew their boat. We also made them promise to anchor only where we had one of our big ‘No Trespassing’
signs on the beach. That usually keeps the fainthearted away.”

“What were the Gordons doing on the island?”

Gibbs shrugged. “Picnicking, I guess. Hiking.” He added, “They had the run of almost nine hundred deserted acres on holidays
and after working hours.”

“I understand they were amateur archaeologists.”

“Oh, right. They ran around the ruins a lot. They were collecting things for a Plum Island museum.”

“Museum?”

“Well, just a display. It was supposed to go in the lobby, I think. The stuff’s stored in the basement.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Mostly musket balls and arrowheads. One cow bell … a brass button from a Continental Army uniform, some odds and ends from
around the time of the Spanish-American War … a whiskey bottle … whatever. Mostly junk. It’s all catalogued and stored in
the basement. You can see it if you want.”

Beth said, “Maybe later.” She asked, “I understand that the Gordons were organizing an official dig. Do you know about that?”

“Yeah. We don’t need a bunch of people from Stony Brook or the Peconic Historical Society rooting around the island. But they
were trying to work it out with the USDA and the Department of the Interior.” He added, “Interior has the final say about
artifacts and all that.”

I asked Mr. Gibbs, “Didn’t it ever occur to you that the Gordons might be up to something? Like smuggling stuff out of the
main building and hiding it out by a beach during a so-called archaeological dig, then recovering it later with their boat?”

Kenneth Gibbs did not reply.

I prompted, “Did it occur to you that the picnicking and archaeological crap was a cover for something?”

“I … guess in retrospect … hey, everybody’s on my case, like I should have suspected something. Everybody forgets that those
two were golden. They could do whatever the hell they wanted, short of pushing Zollner’s face in a pile of cow crap. I don’t
need Monday-morning quarterbacking.” He added, “I did my job.”

Probably he did. And, by the way, I heard the ping again.

Beth was talking to Gibbs and she asked, “Did you or any of your people see the Gordons’ boat after it left the cove yesterday
at noon?”

“No. I asked.”

“In other words, you can be certain that the boat was not anchored off this island yesterday afternoon?”

“No, I can’t be certain of that.”

Max inquired, “How often do your boats make the circuit of the island?”

Gibbs answered, “We usually use one of the two boats. Its route covers about eight or nine miles around the island, so at
about ten to twelve knots, you’re talking about a complete circle every forty to sixty minutes, unless they stop someone for
something.”

Beth said, “So if a boat were lying a half mile or so away from Plum Island and a person aboard was watching with binoculars,
he or she would see your patrol boat—
The Prune
, right?”

“
The Prune
and
The Plum Pudding.
”

“Right, he or she would see one of those patrol boats, and if that person or persons knew the routine, he, she, or they would
know they had forty to sixty minutes to come toward shore, anchor, get to shore in a rubber raft, accomplish whatever, and
get back to their boat without anyone seeing them.”

Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat and said, “Possible, but you’re forgetting the helicopter patrols and the vehicle patrols that
skirt the beach. The helicopter and vehicles are completely random.”

Beth nodded and observed, “We just did a tour of the island, and in the nearly two hours, I only saw the Coast Guard helicopter
once, and a vehicle—a pickup truck— once, and your patrol boat once.”

“As I say, it’s random. Would you take a chance?”

“I might,” Beth said. “Depends on the payoff.”

Gibbs informed us, “There are also random Coast Guard boats that make passes now and then, and if you want me to be very candid,
we have electronic devices that do most of the work.”

I asked Gibbs, “Where are the monitors?” I motioned around the office.

“In the basement.”

“What do you have? TV cameras? Motion sensors? Noise sensors?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“All right,” Beth said. “Write out your name, address, and phone number. You’ll be asked to come in for questioning.”

Gibbs seemed annoyed, but also relieved he was off the hook for now. Also, I had the strong suspicion that Gibbs, Foster,
and Nash had made one another’s acquaintance earlier this morning.

I went over to look at the stuff on the wall near the radios. There was a big map of eastern Long Island, the Sound, and southern
Connecticut. On the map were a series of concentric circles, with New London, Connecticut, at the center. It looked like one
of those atomic bomb destruction maps that tell you how fried your ass is going to be relative to your distance from ground
zero. I saw on this map that Plum Island was within the last circle, which I guess was either good or bad news, depending
on what this map was about. The map didn’t explain, so I asked Mr. Gibbs, “What is this?”

He looked to where I was pointing and said, “Oh, there’s a nuclear reactor in New London. Those circles represent the various
danger zones if there were an explosion or meltdown.”

I considered the irony of a nuclear reactor in New London posing a danger to Plum Island, which itself posed a danger to everyone
in New London, depending on the wind. I asked Kenneth Gibbs, “Do you think the nuke people have a map showing the danger to
them of a biocontainment leak on Plum Island?”

Even straight Mr. Gibbs had to smile at that, though it was a weird smile. Gibbs and Stevens probably practiced that smile
on each other. Gibbs said, “Actually, the people at the nuclear reactor do have a map such as you describe.” He added, “I
sometimes wonder what would happen if an earthquake caused a biocontainment leak
and
a nuclear leak at the same time. Would the radioactivity kill the germs?” He smiled again. Weird, weird. He mused philosophically,
“The modern world is full of unimaginable horrors.”

This seemed to be the Plum Island mantra. I suggested helpfully, “If I were you, I’d wait for a good southerly wind and release
the anthrax. Get them before they get you.”

“Yeah. Good idea.”

I asked Mr. Gibbs, “Where is Mr. Stevens’ office?”

“Room 250.”

“Thanks.”

The intercom buzzed and a male voice came out of the speaker saying, “Dr. Zollner will see his guests now.”

We all thanked Mr. Gibbs for his time, and he thanked us for coming, which made us all liars. Beth reminded him that she’d
be seeing him in her office.

We met Donna out in the corridor, and as we walked, I commented to her, “These doors don’t have names or titles on them.”

“Security,” she replied tersely.

“Which is Paul Stevens’ office?”

“Room 225,” she replied.

Proving once again that the best security is a lie. She led us to the end of a corridor and opened door number 200.