Cause Of Death

Chapter 11

HE INVASION OF THE OLD POINT NUCLEAR POWER Tplant had happened swiftly and horrifically, and in disbelief we listened to the news while Marino sped through town. We did not utter a sound as an almost hysterical reporter at the scene rambled in a voice several octaves above what it usually was.

"Old Point nuclear power plant has been seized by terrorists," he repeated. "This happened about forty-five minutes ago when a bus carrying at least twenty men posing as CP amp;L employees stormed the main administration building. It is believed that at least three civilians are dead." His voice was shaking, and we could hear helicopters overhead. "I can see police vehicles and fire trucks everywhere, but they can't get close. Oh my God, this is awful…"

Marino parked on the side of the street by my building.

For a while we could not move as we listened to the same information again and again. It did not seem real, for less than a hundred miles from Old Point, here in Richmond, the afternoon was bright. Traffic was normal and people walked along sidewalks as if nothing had happened. My eyes stared without focusing, my thoughts flying through lists of what I must do.

"Come on, Doc." Marino cut the engine off. "Let's go inside. I got to use the phone and get hold of one of my lieutenants. I've got to get things mobilized in case the lights go out in Richmond, or worse."

I had my own mobilizing to do and started with assembling everyone in the conference room, where I declared a statewide emergency.

"Each district must be on standby and ready to implement its part of the disaster plan," I announced to everyone in the room. "A nuclear disaster could affect all districts.

Obviously, Tidewater is the most imperiled and the least covered. Dr. Fielding," I said to my deputy chief, "I'd like to put you in charge of Tidewater and make you acting chief when I can't be there."

"I'll do the best I can," he said bravely, although no one of sound mind would want the assignment I just gave him.

"Now, I won't always know where I'm going to be throughout this," I said to other anxious faces. "Business goes on as usual here, but I want any bodies brought here.

Any bodies from Old Point, I'm saying, starting with the shooting fatalities."

"What about other Tidewater cases?" Fielding wanted to know.

. "Routine cases are done as usual. I understand we do have another autopsy technician to fill in until we can find a permanent replacement."

"Any chance these bodies you want here might be contaminated?" my administrator asked, and he had always been a worrier.

"So far we're talking about shooting victims," I said.

"And they couldn't be."

"No."

"But what about later?" he went on.

"Mild contamination isn't a problem," I said. "We just scrub the bodies and get rid of the soapy water and clothes.

Acute exposure to radiation is another matter, especially if the bodies are badly burned, if debris is burned into them, as it was in Chernobyl. Those bodies will need to be shielded in a special refrigerated truck, and all exposed personnel will wear lead-lined suits."

"Those bodies we'll cremate?"

"I would recommend that. Which is another reason why they need to come here to Richmond. We can use the crematorium in the anatomical division. Marino stuck his head inside the conference room.

"Doc?" He motioned me out.

I got up and we spoke in the hall.

"Benton wants us at Quantico now," he said.

"Well, it won't be now," I said.

I glanced back at the conference room. Through the doorway I could see Fielding making some point, while one of the other doctors looked tense and unhappy.

"You got an overnight bag with you?" Marino went on, and he knew I always kept one here, "is this really necessary?" I complained.

"I'd tell you if it wasn't."

"Give me just fifteen minutes to finish up this meeting."

I brought confusion and fear to closure as best I could, and told the other doctors I could be gone for days because I'd just been summoned to Quantico. But I would wear my pager. Then Marino and I took my car instead of his, since he had already made arrangements for repairs to the bumper Roche had hit. We sped north on 95 with the radio on, and by now we had heard the story so many times we knew it as well as the reporters.

In the past two hours, no one else had died at Old Point, at least not that anybody knew of, and the terrorists had let dozens of people go. These fortunate ones had been allowed to leave in twos and threes, according to the news.

Emergency medical personnel, state police and the FBI were intercepting them for examinations and interviews.

We arrived at Quantico at almost five, and Marines in camouflage were vigorously blasting the rapid approach of night. They were crowded in trucks and behind sandbags on the range, and when we passed close to a knot of them gathered by the road, I was pained by their young faces. I rounded a bend, where tall tan brick buildings suddenly rose above trees. The complex did not look military, and in fact, could have been a university were it not for the rooftops of antennae. A road leading to it stopped midway at an entrance gate where tire shredders bared teeth to people going the wrong way.

An armed guard emerged from his booth and smiled because we were no strangers, and he let us through. We parked in the big lot across from the tallest building, called Jefferson, which was basically the Academy's selfcontained downtown. Inside were the post office, the indoor range, dining hall and PX, with upper floors for dormitory rooms, including security suites for protected witnesses and spies.

New agents in khaki and dark blue were honing weapons in the gun-cleaning room. It seemed I had smelled the solvents all of my life, and could hear compressed air blasting through barrels and other parts whenever I wanted to in my mind. My history had become entwined with this place.

There was scarcely a corner that did not evoke emotion, for I had been in love here, and had brought into this building my most terrible cases. I had taught and consulted in their classrooms, and inadvertently given them my niece.

"God knows what we're about to walk into," Marino said as we got on the elevator.

"We'll just take it one inch at a time," I said as the new agents in their FBI caps vanished behind shutting steel doors, He pressed the button for the lower level, which had been intended as Hoover's bomb shelter in a different age. The profiling unit, as the world still called it, was sixty feet below ground, with no windows or any other relief from the horrors it found, I frankly had never understood how Wesley could endure it year after year, for whenever I sat in consultations that lasted more than a day, I was crazed.

I had to walk or drive my car. I had to get away.

"An inch at a times" Marino repeated as the elevator stopped. "There ain't no inch or mile that's going to help this scenario. We re a day late and a dollar short. We started putting the pieces together after the game was goddamn over."

"it isn't over," I said.

We walked past the receptionist and around a corner, where a hallway led to the unit chief's office.

"Yeah, well, let's hope it don't end with a bang. Shit, If only we had figured it out sooner." His stride was long and angry.

"Marino, we couldn't have known. There isn't a way."

"Well, I think we should have figured out something sooner. Like in Sandbridge, when you got the weird phone call and then everything else."

"Oh for God's sake," I said. "What? A phone call should have tipped us off that terrorists were about to seize a nuclear power plant?"

Wesley's secretary was new and I could not remember her name.

"Good afternoon," I said to her. "Is he in?"

"May I tell him who you are?" she asked with a smile.

We told her, and were patient as she rang him. They did not speak long.

When she looked back at us she said, "You may go in."

Wesley was behind his desk, and when we walked in he stood. He was typically preoccupied and somber in a gray herringbone suit and black and gray tie.

"We can go in the conference room," he said.

"Why?" Marino took a chair. "You got some other people coming?"

"Actually, I do," he replied.

I stood where I was and would not give him my eyes any longer than was polite.

"I'll tell you what," he reconsidered. "We can stay in here. Hold on." He walked to the door. "Emily, can you find another chair?"

We got settled while she brought one in, and Wesley was having a hard time keeping his thoughts in one place and making decisions. I knew what he was like when he was overwhelmed. I knew when he was scared.

"You know what's going on," he said as if we did.

"We know what everybody else does," I replied.

"We've heard the same news on the radio probably a hundred times."

"So how about starting from the beginning," Marino said. -CP amp;L has a district office in Suffolk," Wesley began.

"At least twenty people left there this afternoon in a bus for an alleged in-service in the mock control room of the Old Point plant. They were men, white, thirties to early forties, posing as employees, which they obviously are not.

And they managed to get into the main building where the control room is located."

"They were armed," I said.

"Yes. When it was time for them to go through the x-ray machines and other detectors at the main building, they pulled out semiautomatic weapons. As you know, people have been killed-we think at least three CP amp;L employees, including a nuclear physicist who just happened to be paying a site visit today and was going through security at the wrong time."

"What are their demands?" I asked, and I wondered how much Wesley had known and for how long. "Have they said what they want?"

He met my eyes. "That's what worries us the most. We don't know what they want."

"But they're letting people go," Marino said.

"I know. And that worries me, too," Wesley stated.

"Terrorists generally don't do that." His telephone rang.

"This is different." He picked up the receiver. "Yes," he said. "Good. Send him in."

Major General Lynwood Sessions was in the uniform of the Navy he served when he entered the office and shook hands with each of us. He was black, maybe forty-five and handsome in a way that was not to be dismissed. He did not take off his jacket or even loosen a button as he formally took a chair and set a fat briefcase beside him.

"General, thank you for coming," Wesley began.

"I wish it were for a happier reason," he said as he bent over to get out a file folder and legal pad.

"Don't we all," Wesley said. "This is Captain Pete Marino with Richmond, and Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner of Virginia." He looked at me and held my gaze. "They work with us. Dr. Scarpetta, as a matter of fact, is the medical examiner in the cases that we believe are related to what is happening today."

General Sessions nodded and made no comment.

Wesley said to Marino and me, "Let me try to tell you what we know beyond the immediate crisis. We have reason to believe that vessels in the Inactive Ship Yard are being sold to countries that should not have them. This includes Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Algeria."

"What sort of vessels?" Marino asked.

"Mainly submarines. We also suspect that this shipyard is buying vessels from places like Russia and then reselling them."

"And why have we not been told this before?" I asked.

Wesley hesitated. "No one had proof."

"Ted Eddings was diving in the Inactive Yard when he died," I said. "He was near a submarine."

No one replied.

Then the general said, "He was a reporter. It's been suggested that he might have been looking for Civil War relics."

"And what was Danny doing?" I measured my words because I was getting tired of this. "Exploring a historic train tunnel in Richmond?"

"It's hard to know what Danny Webster was into," he said. "But I understand the Chesapeake police found a bayonet in the trunk of his car, and it is consistent with the tool marks left on your slashed tires."

I looked a long time at him. "I don't know where you got your information, but if what you've said is true, then I suspect Detective Roche turned that evidence in."

"I believe he turned in the bayonet, yes."

"I believe all of us in this room can be trusted." I kept my eyes on his. "If there is a nuclear disaster, I am mandated by law to take care of the dead. There are already too many dead at Old Point." I paused. "General Sessions, now would be a very good time to tell the truth."

The men were silent for a moment.

Then the general said, "NAVSEA has been concerned about that shipyard for a while."

"NAVSEA? What the hell is that?" Marino asked.

"Naval Sea Systems Command," he said. "They're the people responsible for making certain that shipyards like the one in question abide by the appropriate standards."

"Eddings had the label N-V-S-E programmed into his fax machine," I said. "Was he in communication with them?"

"He had asked questions," General Sessions said. "We were aware of Mr. Eddings. But we could not give him the answers he wanted. Just as we could not answer you, Dr. Scarpetta, when you sent us a fax asking who we were."

His face was inscrutable. "I'm certain you can understand that."

"What is D-R-M-S out of Memphis?" I then asked.

"Another fax number that Eddings called, as did you," he said. "Defense Reutilization Marketing Service. They handle all surplus sales, which must be approved by NAVSEA."

"This is making sense," I said. "I can see why Eddings would have been in touch with these people. He was on to what was happening at the Inactive Yard, that the Navy's standards were being violated in a rather shocking way.

And he was probing for his story."

"Tell me more about these standards," Marino said.

"Exactly what is the shipyard supposed to abide by?"

"I'll give you an example. If Jacksonville wants the Saratoga or some other aircraft carrier, then NAVSEA makes certain that any work done to it meets the Navy's standards."

"Like in what way?"

"For example, the city has to have the five million it will take to fix it up, and the two million for maintenance each year. And the water in the harbor must be at least thirty feet deep. On the other hand, where the ship is moored, someone from NAVSEA, probably a civilian, is going to appear about once a month and inspect the work being done to the vessel."

"And this has been happening at the Inactive Ship Yard?" I asked.

"Well, right now, we're not sure of the civilian doing it." The general looked straight at me.

Then it was Wesley who spoke, "That's the problem.

There are civilians everywhere, some of them mercenaries who would buy or sell anything with absolute reckless disregard for national security. As you know, a civilian company runs the Inactive Yard. It inspects the ships being sold to cities or for salvage."

"What about the submarine in there now, the Exploiter?" I asked. "The one I saw when I recovered Eddings' body?"

"A Zulu V class ballistic missile sub. Ten torpedo tubes plus two missile tubes. It was made from 1955 to 1957," General Sessions said. "Since the sixties, all subs built in the U.S. are nuclear-powered."

"So the sub we're talking about is old," Marino said.

"It's not nuclear."

The general replied, "It couldn't be nuclear-powered.

But you can put any type of warhead on a missile or torpedo you want."

"Are you saying that the sub 1 dove near might be retrofitted to fire nuclear weapons?" I asked as this frightening specter just loomed bigger.

"Dr. Scarpetta," said the general as he leaned closer to me, "we're not assuming that sub has been retrofitted here in the United States. All that was needed was for it to be brought back up to speed and sent out to sea where it might be intercepted by a principality that should not have it.

Work could be done there. But what Iraq or Algeria cannot do for themselves on their own soil is produce weapons grade plutonium."

"And where is that going to come from?" Marino asked.

It's not like you can get that from a power plant. And if the terrorists think otherwise, then I guess we're dealing with a bunch of redneck dumb shits."

"it would be extremely hard, if not close to impossible, to get plutonium from Old Point," I agreed.

"An anarchist like Joel Hand doesn't think about how hard it might be," Wesley said.

"And it is possible," Sessions added. "For about two months after new fuel rods have been placed in a reactor, there is a window in which you can get plutonium."

"How often are the rods replaced?" Marino asked.

"Old Point replaces one-third of them every fifteen months. That's eighty assemblies, or about three atom bombs if you shut down the reactors and get the assemblies out during that two-month window."

"Then Hand had to know the schedule," I said.

"Oh, yes." I I thought of the telephone records of CP amp;L executives that someone like Eddings might have illegally accessed.

"So someone was on the take," I said.

"We think we know who. One high-ranking officer, really," Sessions said. "Someone who had a lot of say in the decision to locate the CP amp;L field office on property adjacent to Hand's farm."

"A farm belonging to Joshua Hayes?"

. "Yes." I

"Shit," Marino said. "Hand had to be planning this for years, and he sure as hell was getting a lot of bucks from somewhere."

"No question about either," the general agreed. "Something like this would have to be planned for years, and someone was paying for it."

"You need to remember that for a fanatic like Hand," Wesley said, "what he is engaged in is a religious war of eternal significance. He can afford to be patient."

"General Sessions," I went on, "if the submarine we're speaking of is destined for a distant port, might NAVSEA know that?"

"Absolutely."

"How?" Marino wanted to know.

"A number of things," he said. "For example, when ships are stored at the Inactive Yard, their missile and torpedo tubes are covered with steel plates outside the hull.

shaft inside the ship so the And a plate is welded over the screw is fixed. Obviously, all guns and communications are removed."

"Meaning that a violation of at least some of these regulations could be inspected from the outside," I said. "You could tell by looking at the vessel if you were near it in the water."

He looked at me and caught my meaning precisely.

"Yes, you could tell."

"You could dive around this sub and find that the torpedo tubes, for example, are not sealed. You might even be able to tell that the screw was not welded."

"Yes," he said again. "All of that you could tell."

"That's what Ted Eddings was doing."

"I'm afraid so." It was Wesley who spoke. "Divers recovered his camera and we've looked at the film, which had only three exposures. All blurred images of the Exploiter's screw. So it doesn't appear he was in the water long before he died."

"And where is that submarine now?" I asked.

CA USE of D EAT H 26i The general paused. "You might say that we're in subtle pursuit of it."

"Then it's gone."

"I'm afraid it left port about the same time the nuclear power plant was stormed."

I looked at the three men. "Well, I certainly think we know why Eddings had gotten increasingly paranoid about self-protection."

"Someone must have set him up," Marino said. "You can't just decide at the last minute to poison someone with cyanide gas."

"His was a premeditated murder committed by someone he must have trusted," Wesley said. "He wouldn't have told just anybody what he was doing that night."

I thought of another label in Eddings's fax machine. CPT could stand for captain, and I mentioned Captain Green's name to them.

"Well, Eddings must have had at least one inside source for his story," was Wesley's comment. "Someone was leaking information to him and I suspect this same someone set him up or at least assisted in it." He looked at me.

"And we know from his phone bills that over the past few months, he had quite a lot of communication with Green, by phone and fax, that seems to have begun last fall when Eddings did a rather harmless profile on the shipyard."

"Then he started digging too deep," I said.

"His curiosity was actually helpful to us," General Sessions said. "We started digging deeper, too. We've been investigating this situation longer than you might imagine."

He paused, and smiled a little. "In fact, Dr. Scarpetta, you have not been as alone at some points as you might have thought."

"I sincerely hope you'll thank Jerod and Ki Soo," I said, assuming they were SEALs.

But it was Wesley who replied, "I will, or perhaps you can yourself next time you visit HRT. "General Sessions," I moved on to what seemed a rather more mundane topic. "Would you happen to know if rats are a concern in decommissioned ships"

"Rats are always a worry in any ship," he said.

"One of the uses of cyanide is to exterminate rodents in the hulls of ships," I said. "The Inactive Yard may keep a supply of it."

As I've indicated, Captain Green is of great concern to us." He knew just what I meant. -Vis-vis the New Zionists?" I asked.

"No," Wesley answered for him. "Not as opposed to but as with. My speculation is that Green is the New Zionists' direct link to anything military, such as the shipyard, while Roche is simply his toady. Roche is the one who harasses, snoops and snitches."

"He didn't kill Danny," I said.

"Danny was killed by a psychopathic individual who blends well enough with normal society that he did not draw any attention to himself as he waited outside the Hill Cafe. I'd profile this individual as a white male, early thirties to early forties, experienced in hunting and in guns, in general."

" Sounds like the spitting image of the drones who took over Old Point," Marino remarked.

"Yes," Wesley said. "Killing Danny, whether he was the intended victim or not, was a hunting assignment, like shooting a groundhog. The individual who did this probably bought the Sig forty-five at the same gun show where he got the Black Talons."

"I thought you said the Sig once belonged to a cop," the admiral reminded him.

"Right. It ends up on the street and eventually gets sold secondhand," Wesley said.

"To one of Hand's followers," Marino said. "The same kind of guy that took out Shapiro in Maryland."

"The exact same kind of guy."

"My big question is what they think you know," the admiral asked me.

"I've thought about that a lot and can't come up with anything," I replied.

"You have to think like they do," Wesley said to me.

"What is it they think you might know that others don't9"

"They might think I have the Book," I said for lack of anything else that came to mind. "And apparently that is as sacred as an Indian burial ground to them."

"What's in it that they wouldn't want anyone else to know?" Sessions asked.

"It would seem that the revelation most dangerous to them would be the plan they've already carried out," I replied.

"Of course. They couldn't carry it out if someone tipped their hand." Wesley looked at me, a thousand thoughts in his eyes. "What does Dr. Mant know?"

"I haven't had the chance to ask him. He doesn't answer my calls, and I've left messages numerous times."

"You don't think that's rather strange?"

"I absolutely think it's strange," I said to him. "But I don't think anything extreme has happened, or we would have heard. I think he's afraid."

Wesley explained to the general, "He's the medical examiner in charge of the Tidewater District."

"Well, then, perhaps you should go see him," the general suggested to me.

"In light of circumstances, this doesn't seem the ideal time," I said.

"On the contrary," the general said. "I think this is precisely the ideal time."

"You might be right," Wesley agreed. "Our only hope, really, is to get inside these people's heads. Maybe Mant has information that could help. Maybe that's why he's hiding."

General Sessions shifted in his chair. "Well, I vote for it," he said. "For one thing, we've got to worry about this same kind of thing happening over there, as you and I have already discussed, Benton. So that business already awaits anyway, doesn't it'! It won't be any big deal for another person to go along, providing British Airways doesn't mind, short notice and all." He seemed amused in a wry way. "if they do, I expect I'll just have to call the Pentagon.

"Kay," Wesley explained this to me while Marino looked on with angry eyes, "we don't know that an Old Point isn't already happening in Europe because what's going on in Virginia didn't happen overnight. We're worried about major cities elsewhere."

"So, are you telling me these New Zionist fruit loops are in England, too?" It was Marino who asked, and he was about to boil over.

"Not that we are aware of, but unfortunately, there are plenty of others to take their place," Wesley said.

"Well, I got an opinion." Marino looked accusingly at me. "We got a possible nuclear disaster on our hands.

Don't you think you ought to stick around?"

"That would be my preference."

The general made the salient remark, "If you help, hopefully it won't be necessary for you to stick around because there won't be anything for you to do."

"I understand that, too," I said. "No one believes in prevention more than I do."

"Can you manage it?" Wesley asked.

"My offices are already mobilizing to handle whatever happens," I said. "The other doctors know what to do. You know I'll help in any way I possibly can."

But Marino was not to be soothed. "it ain't safe." He stared at Wesley now, "You can't just go sending the doc through airports and all the hell over the place when we don't know who's out there or what they want."

"You're right, Pete," Wesley thoughtfully said. "And we're not going to do that."