Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure

They're operating with a skeleton crew, too. The timing couldn't be worse.'

'Or perhaps more deliberate,' I said. 'If you were a bad person planning to commit serial crimes with a virus, what better time than when the significant federal health agencies are in extremis? And this furlough's been going on for a while and not predicted to end anytime soon.'

He was silent.

'John,' I went on, 'you helped with the autopsy. Have you ever seen a disease like this?'

'Only in textbooks,' he grimly replied.

'How does smallpox suddenly just reappear on its own?'

'If that's what it is.'

'Whatever it is, it's virulent and it kills,' I tried to reason with him.

But he could do nothing more, and the rest of the night I wandered from room to room in AOL. Every hour, I checked my e-mail. Deadoc remained silent until six o'clock

the next morning when he walked into the M.E. room. My heart jumped as his name appeared on screen. My adrenaline began to pump the way it always did when he talked to me. He was on the line, it was up to me. I could catch him, if only I could trip him.

DEADOC: Sunday I went to church bet you didn't SCARPETTA: What was the homily about? DEADOC: sermon

SCARPETTA: You are not Catholic. DEADOC: beware of men

SCARPETTA: Matthew 10. Tell me what you mean. DEADOC: to say he s sorry

SCARPETTA: Who is he? And what did he do? DEADOC: ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of

Before I could answer, he was gone, and I began flipping through the Bible. The verse he quoted this time was from Mark, and again, it was Jesus speaking, which hinted to me, if nothing else, that deadoc wasn't Jewish. Nor was he Catholic, based on his comments about church. I was no theologian, but drinking of the cup seemed to refer to Christ's eventual crucifixion. So deadoc had been crucified and I would be, too?

It was my last few hours here and my nurse, Sally, was more liberal with the phone. I

paged Lucy, who called me back almost instantly.

'I'm talking to him,' I said. 'Are you guys there?'

'We're there. He's got to stay on longer,' my niece said. 'There are so many trunk lines, and we got to line up all the phone companies to trap and trace. Your last call was coming in from Dallas.'

'You're kidding,' I said in dismay.

'That's not the origin, just a switch it was routed through. We didn't get any farther because he disconnected. Keep trying. Sounds like this guy's some kind of religious nut.'

Later that morning I left in a taxi as the sun was getting high in the clouds. I had nothing but the clothes on my back, all of which had been sterilized in the autoclave or gassed. I was in a hurry, and guarding a large white cardboard box printed with PERISHABLE RUSH! RUSH! and IMPORTANT KEEP UPRIGHT and other big blue warnings.

Like a Chinese puzzle, my package was boxes within boxes containing BioPacks. Inside these were Bio-tubes of Lila Pruitt's liver, spleen and spinal fluid, protected by fiber-board shields, and bubble and corrugated wrap. All of it was packed in dry ice with INFECTIOUS SUBSTANCE and DANGER stickers warning anyone who got beyond the first layer. Obviously, I could not let my cargo out of sight. In addition to its well-proven hazard, it could be evidence should it turn out that Pruitt was a homicide. At the Baltimore-Washington International airport, I found a pay phone and called Rose.

'USAMRIID has my medical bag and microscope: I didn't waste time. 'See what you can do about getting them shipped overnight. I'm at BWI, en route to CDC.'

'I've been trying to page you,' she said.

'Maybe they can return that to me, too.' I tried to remember what else I was missing.

'And the phone,' I added.

'You got a report back that you might find interesting. The animal hairs that turned up with the torso. Rabbit and monkey hairs.'

'Bizarre,' was the only thing I could think to say.

'I hate to tell you this news. The media's been calling about the Carrie Grethen case. Apparently, something's been leaked.'

'Goddamn it!' I exclaimed as I thought about Ring.

'What do you want me to do?' she asked.

'How about calling Benton. I don't know what to say. I'm a little overwhelmed.'

'You sound that way.'

I looked at my watch. 'Rose, I've got to go fight my way on a plane. They didn't want to let me through X-ray, and I know what's going to happen when I try to board with this thing.'

It was exactly what I expected. When I walked into the cabin, a flight attendant took one look and smiled.

'Here.' She held out her hands. 'Let me put this in baggage for you.'

'It's got to stay with me,' I said.

'It won't fit in an overhead rack or under your seat, ma'am.' Her smile got tight, the line behind me getting longer.

'Can we discuss this out of traffic?' I said, moving into the kitchen.

She was right next to me, hovering close. 'Ma'am, this flight is overbooked. We simply don't have room.'

'Here,' I said, showing her the paperwork.

Her eyes scanned the red-bordered Declaration For Dangerous Goods, and froze halfway down a column where it was typed that I was transporting 'Infectious substances affecting humans.' She glanced nervously around the kitchen and moved me closer to the rest rooms.

'Regulations require that only a trained person can handle dangerous goods like these,' I reasonably explained. 'So it has to stay with me.'

'What is it?' she whispered, her eyes round.

'Autopsy specimens.'

'Mother of God.'

She immediately grabbed her seating chart. Soon after, I was escorted to an empty row in first class, near the back. 'Just put it on the seat next to you. It's not going to leak or anything?' she asked.

'I'll guard it with my life,' I promised.

'We should have a lot of vacancies up here unless a bunch of people upgrade. But don't you worry. I'll steer everyone.' She motioned with her arms, as if she were driving.

No one came near me or my box. I drank coffee during a very peaceful flight to Atlanta, feeling naked without my pager or phone, but overjoyed to be on my own. In the Atlanta airport, I took one moving sidewalk and escalator after another, traveling what seemed miles, before I got outside and found a taxi.

We followed 85 North to Druid Hills Road, where soon we were passing pawnshops and auto rentals, then vast jungles of poison oak and kudzu, and strip malls. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was in the midst of the parking decks and parking lots of Emory University. Across the street from the American Cancer Society, CDC was six floors of tan brick trimmed with gray. I checked in at a desk that had guards and closed circuit TV.

'This is going to Bio Level 4, where I'm meeting Dr Bret Martin in the atrium,' I

explained.

'Ma'am, you'll need an escort,' one of the guards said.

'Good,' I said as he reached for the phone. 'I always get lost.'

I followed him to the back of the building, where the facility was new and under intense surveillance. There were cameras everywhere, the glass bulletproof, and corridors were catwalks with grated floors. We passed bacteria and influenza labs, and the red brick and concrete area for rabies and AIDS.

'This is impressive,' I said, for I had not been here in several years.

'Yeah, it is. They got all the security you might want. Cameras, motion detectors at all exits and entrances. All the trash is boiled and burned, and they use these filters for the air so anything that comes in is killed. Except the scientists.' He laughed as he used a card key to open a door. 'So what bad news you carrying in?'

'That's what I'm here to find out,' I said, and we were in the atrium now.

BL-4 was really nothing more than a huge laminar flow hood with thick walls of concrete and steel. It was a building within a building, its windows covered with blinds. Labs were behind thick walls of glass, and the only blue-suited scientists working this furloughed day were those who had cared enough to come in anyway.