Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

"That's the science building, isn't it?" he asked.

"What?" she sobbed.

"Science building, right?"

"Yes, it's awful. How could anything like this happen?"

Remo rolled up the window.

"You should have made it faster through the Rockies."

"I got you here late, huh?" said the driver.

"Yes and no."

"I just hope there weren't people in there," said the driver. He had the look of horror that comes when people realize that life is not as secure as they have themselves convinced. The look would disappear as the driver once again rebuilt the illusion that he was not in fact at the gates of death with every breath he took.

"That's awful," he said. "To think it could happen here."

"Where should it happen?"

"Well, somewhere else."

"Like death. Death happens somewhere else, right?" said Remo.

"Well, yeah. Yeah," said the driver. "It should happen somewhere else." He stared as ambulances were loaded at the building, some rushing away with sirens on high, others taking a slow, even pace. They were the ones carrying the dead.

"Whoever did that ought to be punished," the driver said.

"I think you're right. Sloppy work should always be punished."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, dear driver to whom I am trying to give a greater tip than just money because he is an American of my own blood, there is one sure thing that will be punished in this world and that is doing something wrong- making a wrong decision or making a wrong move. That's always punished. Evil? Well, maybe that's just an extension of wrong thought."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked the driver, shaking behind the wheel. Firemen were lowering bodies from the charred holes in the fourth-floor wall. The driver was not looking at Remo, but at the bodies.

What Remo was talking about was that the person who had blown up the science building had committed suicide just as surely as if he had put a gun to his own temple. He had made a mistake; he would be punished. But Remo was tired of talking and got out of the cab.

The Denver cab driver badly wanted to get back across the Rockies. He presumed that in Denver university buildings did not go up in roaring blasts.

Remo watched him speed away. But the driver was so shaken and confused that he picked up a fare at the corner, who got out just as quickly as he entered. As he backed out the fare stared at the driver as though he were insane. The cab drove off; the fare remained, standing on the corner and scratching his head, watching the out-of-state plates move away.

Remo strolled onto the Berkeley campus, annoyed that the college scientist who had been working on a way to harness the sun's energy was probably dead, and that somebody had been crude enough to use a bomb to try to destroy an idea.

"It's awful, it's awful," sobbed a woman in white laboratory coat. Her blonde hair had frazzled black ends, not the roots but the ends that had obviously felt the fire of the explosion. She was talking to a young reporter behind a fire engine that sat useless before the entrance to the science building.

The reporter, a young man who looked as if he had slept in his gray suit, then rolled through lunch with it, was taking notes.

"The FBI warned us about a possible attempt on the doctor's life, but we thought it was just fascist propaganda."

"What did they say?" asked the reporter.

"They said there might be an attempt on the doctor's life and ... oh, god ... they examined the lab for bombs but there weren't any and then they left and then, oh, god, it was awful... the wall came in. The whole wall. Like it was dust. And then there was the fire and then I couldn't hear anything."

"You there," said Remo sternly. "Who told you you could speak to reporters?"

"I didn't . . ." said the woman, but she couldn't finish her sentence.

"Not until we get everything cleared up first. Then you can talk to reporters."

"Who are you?" asked the reporter.

"Strategic Security," whispered Remo in hushed tones of confidence. "That doctor's death may not mean beans. We already have everything we need. All they killed was another human being. I'll talk to you later. This is off the record."

And the reporter, having heard a government official say that a human life was unimportant, contentedly moved on to interview other people, secure in the knowledge that he had a contact who would not only hang himself later, but probably take his own department into complete embarrassment with him. He did not even bother to ask what Strategic Security was.

Remo found out from the woman with the frazzled hair that the two FBI men had carried a briefcase with them into the doctor's laboratory. It was their bomb-detecting equipment, she said. One was fat and one was thin, too fat and too thin to be FBI men, she thought at first, but she had seen their metal badges so they had to be authentic, right?

Remo got her to promise she would say nothing about it to anyone. She must go home and rest. With an authoritative snap of his fingers, Remo pulled a patrol car over.

"She's in a state of shock," Remo said to the two patrolmen in the front seat, while guiding the woman into the rear. "Take her home."

"Shouldn't she go to a hospital for shock?"

"Not for this kind. C'mon, move it. There's been an explosion here. I'm going to speak to the chief right now."

The patrolmen, hearing the name that would absolve them of responsibility, drove away on a campus thoroughfare, and the chief of police, seeing an authoritative man in his thirties giving instructions to his own men, assumed that the man had some official standing. Especially when the man came over and assured him that nothing important had been damaged.

"Just some deaths, but damn, we were lucky. Incredibly lucky. Whole experiment in perfect shape. Incredible. Lucky."

Remo watched a rubber bag with the remains of the people who had been in the wrong room on the fourth floor being wheeled to an ambulance. The wheeling was a gesture of respect for the human dead. What was in the bags were body fragments only. Much of what had been in the laboratory would be sifted for evidence and if there were no complaints about missing pieces of relatives-as there rarely were in these situations-any miscellaneous ear or thumb might be just handily flushed down the toilet. Only the funeral homes would continue the myth.

"Where's the highest ranking college official here?" Remo asked. The chief pointed to a pudgy loaf of a man who stood by himself, looking up at the fourth floor and nodding as if a workman were explaining a building modification to him.

"Dean of students," said the chief.

"Right," said Remo. He thanked the chief and officiously moved through the crowd, telling everyone to step aside. The dean of students hardly noticed Remo. He appeared deep in thought.

"Everything's in good order. But keep it hush-hush."

"What's in good order?" asked the dean of students.

"Can't say," said Remo.

"No. Not government work. I hope this doesn't mean we're going to have another demonstration. It's been so quiet lately. I don't want another demonstration."

"One of your professors has been killed, hasn't he?"

"Yes. He had tenure," said the dean of students. Rather than ask what that meant, Remo moved on to the reporter in the gray suit.

"All right," he said. "This is a backgrounder. You can't quote me directly. All we lost were a few bodies. The project is in tip-top shape. Jeezus, we were lucky."

"The name of the project? How do you spell it?"

"That's classified. The name is classified. Just say it was a project of maximum high significance."

"That doesn't mean a frigging thing," said the reporter. Remo winked broadly.

"I'm going to quote a source saying that all we lost were lives. Do you want that?" asked the reporter.