Michael Connelly - The Overlook

Bosch nodded.

“Do these tubes protect whoever handles them?”

“No, the only thing that knocks down the gamma rays from cesium is lead. The safe they keep the tubes in is lined with lead. The device they transport them in is made of lead.”

“Okay. So how bad is this stuff going to be if it gets out there in the world?”

Brenner gave it some thought before answering.

“Out there in the world it is all about quantity, delivery and location,” he said. “Those are the variables. Cesium has a thirty-year half-life. Generally, they consider ten half-lifes the safety margin.”

“You’re losing me. What’s the bottom line?”

“The bottom line is that the radiation danger diminishes by half every thirty years. If you set off a good amount of this stuff in an enclosed environment-like maybe a subway station or an office building-then that place could be shut down for three hundred years.”

Bosch was stunned as he registered this.

“What about people?” he asked.

“Also depends on dispersal and containment. A high-intensity exposure could kill you within a few hours. But if it’s dispersed by an IED in a subway station, then my guess is the immediate casualties would be very low. But a body count is not what this would be about. It’s the fear factor that would be important to these people. You set something off like this domestically and what’s important is the wave of fear it sends through the country. A place like Los Angeles? It would never be the same again.”

Bosch just nodded. There was nothing else to say.

AT SAINT AGGY’S THEY ENTERED through the main lobby and asked the receptionist for the chief of security. They were told that the security chief worked days but that she would locate the night-shift security supervisor. While they waited they heard the helicopter land on the long front lawn of the medical center and soon the four-member radiological team came in, each man wearing a radiation suit and carrying a face guard. The leader of the group-it said KYLE REID on his nameplate-carried a handheld radiation monitor.

Finally after two prompts to the woman at the front desk, a man who looked like he had been rousted from a bed in a spare patient room greeted them in the lobby. He said his name was Ed Romo and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the hazmat suits worn by the members of the lab team. Brenner badged Romo and took charge. Bosch didn’t object. He knew that they were now on turf where the federal agent would be best suited to walk point and maintain investigative velocity.

“We need to go to the hot lab and check the materials inventory,” Brenner said. “We also need to see any records or key-card data that will show us who has been in and out of there in the last twenty-four hours.”

Romo didn’t move. He paused as if groping for understanding of the scene in front of him.

“What’s this about?” he finally asked.

Brenner took a step closer to him and invaded his space.

“I just told you what it’s about,” he said. “We need to get into the hot lab in oncology. If you can’t get us in there, then find somebody who can. Now.”

“I gotta make a call first,” Romo said.

“Good. Make it. I’ll give you two minutes and then we’re going to run you over.”

The whole time he was making the threat Brenner was smiling and nodding.

Romo took out a cell phone and stepped away from the group to make the call. Brenner gave him the space. He looked at Bosch with a sardonic smile.

“Last year I did a security survey here. They had a key lock on the lab and the safe and that was it. They upgraded after that. But you build a better mousetrap and the mice just get smarter.”

Bosch nodded.

Ten minutes later Bosch, Brenner, Romo and the rest of the lab team all stepped out of the elevator in the medical clinic’s basement. Romo’s boss was on his way in but Brenner was not waiting. Romo used a key card to gain entrance to the oncology lab.

The lab was deserted. Brenner found an inventory sheet and a lab log on an entrance desk and started reading. There was a small video monitor on the desk that showed a camera view of a safe.

“He was here,” Brenner said.

“When?” Bosch asked.

“Seven o’clock, according to this.”

Reid pointed to the monitor.

“Does that record?” he asked Romo. “Can we see what Kent did when he was in there?”

Romo looked at the monitor as though it were the first time he had ever seen it.

“Um, no, it’s just a monitor,” he finally said. “Whoever’s on the desk is supposed to watch whatever is taken out of the safe.”

Romo pointed to the far end of the lab, where there was a large steel door. The trefoil warning symbol for radioactive materials was posted on it at eye level, along with a sign.

CAUTION!

RADIATION HAZARD

PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

MUST BE WORN

CUIDADO!

PELIGRO DE RADIACIÓN

SE DEBE USAR

EQUIPO DE PROTECCIÓN

Bosch noticed that the door had a push-button combination lock as well as a magnetic key-card swipe slot.

“It says here that he took one source of cesium,” Brenner said, as he continued to study the log. “One tube. It’s a transfer case. He was taking the source over to Burbank Medical Center for a procedure there. It names the case. A patient named Hanover. It says that there were thirty-one pieces of cesium left in inventory.”

“Is that all you need, then?” Romo asked.

“No,” Brenner said. “We have to physically inspect the inventory. We’ll need to enter the safe room and then open the safe. What’s the combination?”

“I don’t have it,” Romo said.

“Who does?”

“The physicists. The head of the lab. The chief of security.”

“And where is the chief of security?”

“I told you. He’s coming.”

“Get him on the speaker.”

Brenner pointed to the phone on the desk. Romo sat down. He put the phone on speaker and tapped in a number from memory. It was answered immediately.

“This is Richard Romo.”

Ed Romo leaned forward to the phone and looked as though he was embarrassed by the revelation of the obvious nepotism at play.

“Uh, yeah, Dad, this is Ed. The man from the FB-”

“Mr. Romo?” Brenner cut in. “This is Special Agent John Brenner of the FBI. I believe we met and spoke about security issues a year ago. How far away are you, sir?”

“Twenty to twenty-five minutes. I remember-”

“That’s too far, sir. We need to open the hot lab safe right now to determine its contents.”

“You can’t open that without hospital approval. I don’t care who-”

“Mr. Romo, we have reason to believe the contents of the safe were turned over to people without the interests or safety of the American people in mind. We need to open the safe so that we know exactly what is here and what is missing. And we can’t wait twenty to twenty-five minutes to do it. Now, I have properly identified myself to your son and I have a radiation team in the lab right now. We have to move , sir. Now, how do we open the safe?”

There was silence from the speakerphone for a few moments. Then Richard Romo relented.

“Ed, I take it you are calling from the desk in the lab?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, unlock it and open the bottom-left drawer.”

Ed Romo rolled his chair back and studied the desk. There was a key lock on the upper-left drawer that apparently unlocked all three drawers.

“Which key?” he asked.

“Hold on.”

Over the speakerphone there was the sound of a key ring being jingled.

“Try fourteen-fourteen.”

Ed Romo pulled a key ring off his belt and went through the keys until he found one stamped with the number 1414. He then inserted it into the lock on the desk drawer and turned it. The bottom drawer was now unlocked and he pulled it open.