Lethal Exposure

CHAPTER THREE

Tuesday, 5:15 a.m.

O’Hare InternationalAirport

Chicago, Illinois

Craig was convinced that whoever had designed the redeye flight from San Francisco to Chicago should be shot. The plane had departed at 11:20 P.M. and would arrive into O’Hare at 5:30 in the morning.

Even so, the flight was packed full of weary passengers who had either been willing to put their bodies through this ordeal to save a few bucks, or had been too pressed for time to come in the day before. For Craig, this was his only option to meet Trish at the Fox River Medical Center the following morning.

June Atwood had been happy to give him a few days leave, personal leave, since this case wasn’t under his jurisdiction. Also, according to Trish-Patrice, he reminded himself-an FBI team was already investigating an unrelated case, some sort of explosion near the particle accelerator, and he didn’t want to step on any toes. Some agents got touchy over their turf, so he had made a quick call to let them know he was coming.

Ben Goldfarb, Craig’s partner and designated alternate for his caseload, was set to return from Washington today, but Craig had arranged for him to stop off at O’Hare on the way. Though Goldfarb hadn’t seen his wife Julene and the girls for two weeks, he agreed to an extra day or two in Chicago, his old stomping grounds. Craig expected he and Goldfarb could meet with Trish and take care of her questions in a minimal amount of time.

“Trish LeCroix’s involved in a murder case, and you’re going out to help?” Goldfarb had sounded astonished. “Why would you want to do that?”

Defensively, Craig said, “It’s not like she’s the wicked ex-wife or anything. We’re still really good friends.”

“Oh sure, that’s why you talk about her all the time and write her letters every week,” Goldfarb said. “But if you need me, I’ll be there.” The truth was, though the short, curly-haired agent was a top-notch investigator, Craig also wanted him there for moral support.

After getting an armed boarding pass at the airline’s counter, Craig had boarded the flight well before the First Class passengers, took his new Sig-Sauer out of his holster and had placed it in his bag stowed under his feet. Now the flight played a film, one of the summer’s popular children’s features; Craig could not fathom why the airline would play a children’s movie from one o’clock to three o’clock in the morning, when any self-respecting parent would have made sure a child was deeply asleep.

Craig dozed off and on, cramped in his seat with an airline blanket wrapped around him. He had stored his suit jacket in the overhead bin to keep from looking disheveled in the morning. He tried to read a few of his science magazines on the way, but had trouble concentrating.

Craig chased dreams and memories that had been lurking beneath his subconscious, visions of a saucy, dark-haired Trish as they went to movies together, or walked up the steep streets in San Francisco ’s Chinatown looking at bizarre trinkets. Trish never liked to buy, but she had a voracious appetite for window shopping. When she did want to purchase something, she went only to the best of stores, never to a street vendor.

Overlaid on those dreams came other memories.

Memories of Paige Mitchell, who was laughing and easy to talk to, always ready with conversation. Dreams tumbled together as they went swimming in the cold Livermore Lab pool, as they met at King Arthur’s Buffet at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas, and as they discussed cases over microbrewed beers.

Craig struggled back to full wakefulness as the airplane began to descend. Paige and Trish both in the same place-Fermilab was going to be interesting all right…

Barely awake at the crack of dawn, he fought his way along the jetway, trying not to bump too many bleary-eyed passengers. Carrying his briefcase in one hand and his garment bag in the other, Craig spotted Goldfarb immediately.

The shorter agent grinned, his curly hair tousled as it always was. “Welcome to the Windy City, Craig,” Goldfarb said. “City of the Big Shoulders, and all those tourist clichés.” He cradled a full cup of Starbucks coffee in his hand as he tossed an empty one into a trash can. Craig wondered how many the other agent had already gulped while waiting. He seemed unconscionably full of energy for such an early hour.

Goldfarb took Craig’s garment bag with his free hand as he extended the full coffee cup. “Here you go-a grande double espresso. I thought you’d need it.”

Craig took the cup gratefully. The first rich sip burned his tongue, but the second warmed his chest like a shot of smooth, single-malt scotch. “Thank you,” he said. “Sorry you had to get here so early.”

“Anything to meet a friend,” Goldfarb said. “Besides, I got to watch the Concord come in about an hour ago. Very slick. It’s a promotional event from British Airways this month, O’Hare direct to New Delhi, India. They say it decelerates over Lake Michigan so the sonic boom doesn’t knock out any windows.” He gestured down the long concourse. “The little bird is still parked at the gate. You can go see it if you want.”

The supersonic jet aircraft was indeed something Craig would like to see as part of his interest in high-tech gadgetry, but he just wanted to get the day started, freshen up in the rest room where he could shave and prepare himself to meet Trish. He took another swallow of his coffee, a big one. “I’ll catch it on the way out.”

Goldfarb led the way from the gate. “I checked with the Chicago SSA about the explosion at Fermilab, let him know we’d be in town. Some kind of substation or blockhouse blew up near the accelerator. The case agent is a guy named Schultz-lots of Germans around here- and he’s just starting the investigation, looking into various kinds of explosives, terrorist connections. Doesn’t have many leads yet, though.”

“What about the murder victim?” Craig asked, then sipped more coffee.

Goldfarb shrugged. “That’s the funny part. Some scientist got a radiation overdose, but he wasn’t close to any of the blockhouses-and he certainly wasn’t murdered. The explosion at the blockhouse happened after hours, and the place was deserted. They’re just toolsheds for diagnostic equipment. No record of any person nearby getting killed, or even injured.” He paused. “I think Trish’s just yanking your chain. Crying wolf because she knows you’ll come running out here.”

Craig scowled. “We’ll find out as soon as we get there. I’ve arranged to meet her at the Fox River Medical Center in Aurora, Illinois. It should be about an hour drive.”

“I already rented the car,” Goldfarb said. “The best I could get us was a Ford Taurus, gold. Hope that doesn’t shatter Trish’s image of you.”

Craig brushed the comment aside. “She goes by Patrice now. And I’m not concerned about my image with her. Just here to help out, that’s all.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Goldfarb said. He was quiet for a moment, as if there was something else on his mind. He scratched the back of his head. “Say, didn’t Paige Mitchell get assigned here too?” He raised his eyebrows in an impish expression.

Craig nodded brusquely and headed off to the rental-car pickup with Goldfarb close beside him, surrounded by airport crowds.

Goldfarb pulled their rental car up to the Fox River Medical Center, a brick-walled hospital built sometime in the late 1960s, surrounded by grass and tall oak trees. The medical center butted up against the languid Fox River, which meandered across the flatlands of Illinois, through the old city of Aurora. Tree-lined walkways sliced across the hospital grounds, interrupted by scattered benches and a few drinking fountains. The trees were spotted with yellow, red, and gold leaves, showing the first signs of the coming winter.

Inside, Craig paced the lobby, glancing up too quickly every time the elevators dinged and the doors opened. He caught Goldfarb watching his reactions in bemused silence. “What?” demanded Craig.

Goldfarb spread his hands. “Nothing.”

When Trish finally emerged from the elevators, she wore a neat, white uniform, moving with confident grace. Craig froze. He suddenly forgot all of the clever opening phrases he had intended to say.

Trish spotted him instantly and came right over, tossing her short, dark hair. She always moved in a straight-line path, never deviating along the way.

“Craig!” she said. “So good to see you again. Thanks for coming.” She gave him a quick formal hug, which he returned stiffly. They backed apart, perhaps more quickly than was necessary, and she looked at him through subtle, wire-framed glasses that showcased her sepia eyes.

“Good to see you again, too. Your call was quite a surprise.” He fumbled for words. “Um, I’ve brought Ben Goldfarb with me. You might remember him.”

“Of course I remember Agent Goldfarb.” She reached out a slender hand to grasp his.

“If you’re going to call me Agent Goldfarb, do I have to call you ‘Doctor LeCroix,’ or can I just go back to calling you Trish, and you call me Ben?” He grinned at her.

Trish laughed. “All right, first names then,” she said, “but you may as well call me Patrice. Trish was from a long time ago. A kid’s name.”

Goldfarb glanced at Craig and shrugged. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

Trish turned all business. “I’m sorry we had to get together again like this. It’s been a very difficult few days for me, Craig, as you’ll see in a minute. You’ll need to get moving before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Craig asked. “And why were you here in Chicago? I thought you were at Johns Hopkins-”

Trish was already marching toward the elevators. “Come on, I want you to meet the victim.”

“Great way to start out my day,” Goldfarb said as he trailed along.

Visiting hours had not yet begun, but the three had to contend with orderlies and nurses on the early morning shift. They found a spot in the next elevator, but instead of going down to the morgue as Craig had expected, Trish took them to the third floor and down a corridor through doors marked “Intensive Care.”

“I’m here because of my work in the PR-Cubed, Craig,” she said. “You know I’m very active in the Physicians for Responsible Radiation Research.”

Craig nodded, stifling his distasteful expression. PR-Cubed was all she had talked about for months, but to him they seemed to be a bunch of blowhard Chicken Littles screaming that the sky was falling.

“We were here for a conference and seminar, and we met with the Director of Fermilab. He’s very anxious to make a good impression on us.”

“Did you know the victim?” Goldfarb asked.

“Yes, I know him. I met him in the Ukraine when I went over there to do my Chernobyl follow-up. That’s why I called you, Craig. I need to cut through the telephone-tag games and get somebody on this right away. He doesn’t have much time.”

She led the way to a room where the lights were on. A patient lay on the bed, a man with shaggy salt-and-pepper hair, long sideburns, and a sharp aquiline nose. A telemetry monitor, hung from a bracket in the ceiling, was connected to him. Four round, sticky patches on his chest held small clips to wires that led to a single cable plugged into the monitor. The man received oxygen through nose prongs, and an IV line snaked from a plastic bag marked 0.9% NaCl.

The man was half dressed, scribbling equations on a piece of scratch paper. In frustration he crumpled the paper, struggled to a sitting position, and tossed the wad toward the wastebasket He looked up, startled to see them at the door.

“Georg, you’re supposed to be lying down!” Trish scolded. “You’re only making things worse.”

“Worse?” he said in a rough, scratchy voice. “I am wasting time-and that makes things worse.”

Trish sighed and introduced them. “Georg, these are two FBI agents, Craig Kreident and Ben Goldfarb. They’re here to look into your case. This is Dr. Georg Dumenco, one of the most prestigious scientists at Fermilab. He’s on the short list for this year’s Nobel Prize in physics.”

Craig frowned, then lowered his voice. “I thought you said we were going to see the murder victim. Are you playing games with me?”

“He’s your murder victim,” Trish said, crossing her arms over her chest in challenge. “At the same time as the explosion at the accelerator, Georg was working in one of the experimental target areas. Something triggered an emergency beam dump, and Dr. Dumenco received a massive radiation exposure, more than fifteen hundred rads. Definitely lethal.”

“Ah, the scientist who received the radiation dose,” said Goldfarb, nodding. “But the Chicago office said he wasn’t anywhere near the blockhouse explosion. And… aren’t murder victims usually dead?”

Dumenco listened, unaffected, but Trish’s flat statement of the facts made Craig uncomfortable. He knew that bedside manner had never been one of her strong points.

“The explosion is irrelevant, Craig. This is about a lethal exposure. Georg has only a few days left to live- even less time than that before he degenerates so badly he won’t be any help at all.”

“Any help at all?” Craig raised an eyebrow at Trish.

“To find out who murdered him. Dumenco’s convinced his exposure was no accident. And I believe him. Someone did this to him intentionally, and he’s going to die for it.”

“Whoa!” Goldfarb said.

“Why didn’t you report this to the Chicago FBI office?” Craig said. “They’ve already got a team here investigating the explosion.”

Trish shook her head. Her short hair swung from side to side, catching the fluorescent lights. “I did. But their official position is the same as Fermilab’s-Dr. Dumenco’s exposure was an unfortunate accident, pending further investigation. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’re putting together a review board to study the matter, but it’ll take weeks to go over all the details, and Georg will be long dead by then. That’s why I need you to get on the case right away.”

Craig looked at Dumenco. The man’s skin had a ruddy appearance, as if he had been severely sunburned. The eyes were bright and intelligent, but shadowed with worry.

“Please do it, Craig-for me?” Trish said, reaching out to touch his arm. If anything, the gesture had the opposite effect, and Craig resented the fact that she played on his emotions.

But then Goldfarb spoke up. “Come on, Craig. Think of it as a challenge. It’s not often we have the murder victim himself still around to help us solve our case.”