Wounded Earth (25 page)

J.D.
yawned. “Surely it says somewhere in this safety plan that key personnel must be allowed to sleep in order to perform effectively.”

“You're right,” Larabeth said. “Answer the next question properly and you can have your nap.” She looked at her watch. “I'm afraid it will be a short nap.”

“One more question,” he said. ”Go ahead, I'm ready.”

“It's a five-part question.”

“That's cheating. You said one. But go ahead anyway. I know all the answers.”

She leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Here goes,” she said. “What is Level A safety protection?”

He rubbed his eyes and said, “Moon suits, like the bad guys wore in E.T. Complete body protection and self-contained breathing apparatus. Air can also be supplied through a tube, just as long as the worker is receiving pure air, not filtered stuff from the work area.”

“Very good,” she said. “I hope things don't get so bad that you have to use Level A. How about Level B?”

“Same as Level A, only there can be some areas of exposed skin.”

“Level C?”

“Like Level B, except the respirator doesn't have to provide outside air. Filtering contaminated air is okay. And since I know your next question will be Level D, I will answer before you ask. How's that for cooperation? Level D protection is limited body protection, mostly just to repel splashes of contaminants that aren't too dangerous. We were wearing Level D protection in the Nebraska cornfield—protective jumpsuits and rubber gloves.”

“And usually a hard hat,” she said. ”Very good. Now, what's Level E protection?”

“You've got me there. Does this mean I get no sleep at all?”

“No,” she said, “you get an A-plus. Level E is a field tech's joke. When some hotshot struts around a site dressed in an expensive suit, a silk tie, and a very shiny hard hat, that's called Level E protection.”

“I get it. Am I supposed to make jokes, so I can fit in with this crowd?”

“No.” Larabeth's response was so sudden and certain, that it took J.D. by surprise. “Don't talk unless you have to. Don't make jokes. They might not come out right. If someone talks about ‘Level E Protection’, go ahead and laugh. Just try to blend in until the time is right, then give Cynthia the letter and keep her safe while she carries out the plan.”

“Yes, ma'am. Am I done for the night? It's a long drive home.”

“It's too late to go home. I've pulled a lot of all-nighters in this office, so I'm prepared. This couch we're sitting on makes a bed. You can have it and I'll put the cushions on the floor.” She held out her hand to silence his protest. “Take the comfortable bed. Cynthia, me, everybody that Babykiller has put in danger—we need you well-rested.”

“Will you be safe while I'm gone?” he asked.

“I'm sure the FBI will do their best.” She moved to stand up, but stopped for a moment. “I will miss you, though. You make me feel safe, it's true. But, besides that, I'll miss you. And I'll worry the whole time you're gone.”

J.D. didn't speak for a moment. She was the same Larabeth he'd known for years. After all this time, she was still so beautiful that it startled him at unexpected moments. But there was a softness, too, well-hidden, yet always there. Tonight, the softness was out in the open. That was the part of her that he loved.

“If you mean that, if you'll miss me, then don't make me miss you tonight.” He reached a tentative hand to touch her hair. “Don't leave me.”

She leaned toward him, only slightly, but it was enough. His arm encircled her waist and drew her to him. He didn't pause to unfold the sofa bed. He had been thinking of her all night, long before he knew there was a bed available. He had waited a long time and the couch was enough.

* * *

Babykiller flipped on the TV, expecting to be entertained. He wasn't disappointed.

“This is Jean Bower, with the latest update of the situation here at the Hanford Site, a Cold-War-era nuclear facility in eastern Washington. According to official reports, there has finally been some activity in the vicinity of the K-basins, where a fire has been raging since yesterday.”

Babykiller sighed. Yes. Highly entertaining.

“Because of the possibility of terrorist involvement, the FBI has assumed control of the investigation. The following actions are complete.

"Nonessential personnel have been evacuated. Non-governmental personnel, including the press, have been barred from the site. The National Guard is being mobilized in the event that Richland is evacuated. Anonymous sources report that a corridor along the Columbia River will also be evacuated.

“A ‘Hot Zone’ has been defined near the K-basins,” she continued. “There is no other official information, but this reporter has found that defining a ‘Hot Zone’ for personnel decontamination is a necessary preliminary to sending workers onto an emergency site.”

“Hanford representatives have declined to comment on the possible danger to area residents, but archival information sheds light on the gravity of the situation. First and most frightening, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists states that a worst-case scenario involving the K-basins would lead to a nuclear chain reaction or ‘criticality’ event. Under certain conditions, both the stored uranium and its rusted cladding will burn when exposed to air.”

Babykiller took notice. This reporter clearly didn't enjoy parroting 30 seconds of official information, then working to pad the rest of her 5-minute report. She had done her homework. She was obviously using the time between broadcasts to beef up her knowledge. She was getting much better information now than she would get later from the inevitable deluge of publicity-seeking nuclear physicists. The young woman had a future.

Ordinarily, he would have considered recruiting her into his organization but he himself had no future. He was hopeful that the cancer would let him live long enough to take a few people with him. A few thousand people. And, likely, more than that.

* * *

J.D. traced the scars on Larabeth's abdomen. He didn't have to look at her back. There were scars there, too. He had felt them while she slept.

She opened her eyes a bit. “No, it wasn't shrapnel.”

J.D.'s big brother had fought in Vietnam. He'd seen shrapnel wounds. They were more jagged. And they came from one direction. These scars wrapped around her body.

“Well, I won't make you guess,” she said. ”You couldn't. It was late at night and I was working my second shift straight. The rains had just started and they hadn't cooled Saigon a bit. We opened every window in the ward, trying to keep the patients comfortable, but we just got a miserable breath of hot, wet air.”

She closed her eyes and J.D. wondered whether she was still with him, whether she had returned to the rainy season in Saigon. “The heat didn't matter,” she said. “’The ward was full of head and spinal wounds, one after the other, and most of those guys weren't going to care whether they were hot or wet or dead, not ever again. Of course, you live in New Orleans,” she said with a bitter chuckle. “You know about real humidity.”

His lips twisted into a smile, but it hurt. “Right.”

“I was hanging an IV for Lieutenant Doe, the only man in the room who I thought might, maybe, function again one day. He was lying next to an Asian man whose chart said he was a South Vietnamese soldier. I remember wondering whether I was lavishing care on a Viet Cong. How would I know? Then another patient, a real Viet Cong, I guess, jumped out of bed and slammed me up against the wall.”

She unconsciously rubbed her hand over the scars on her abdomen. “He must have stolen a scalpel from the surgeon's tray and waited for his chance. He was well on his way to killing me before I knew it.”

She paused, and he felt her breath catch. “If you could have seen the faces of my patients, the ones who were conscious. Their bodies had failed them and now they were failing me. Their eyes were terrible.”

She blinked the tears back and resumed the story in her matter-of-fact way. “It was sheer instinct. The IV bottle was still in my hand. I smashed it against the wall and sliced the man's throat. It was brutal and it was ugly, but I'm alive. He's not.”

J.D. pulled her closer, so that her head was cradled on his shoulder and she couldn't see his face. “And what happened then?”

“The few patients who could still talk or make noise raised a ruckus so loud that the MP in charge of security came running. They found me unconscious on the floor. I was all cut up and my pelvis was crushed from being slammed against a concrete wall and hitting a concrete floor, then having a full-grown man fall on it. It's a good thing they found me quickly. I wouldn't have lasted long, not at the rate I was losing blood.”

J.D. threw a protective arm over her scars. “I'm surprised they were able to save you at all.”

“Well, the state of the surgical art in 1972 was hardly up to today's standards, but I
was
lying one room away from an operating room that was built for victims of violent trauma.”

“You have a point there.”

“If I knew those surgeons as well as I think I did, I'm pretty sure the air in the O.R. was blue the whole time they were patching me up. I'll bet they cursed the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, the Army, women who were stupid enough to volunteer to work in a war zone, and the government that was stupid enough to let them.”

“Were you there for a long time, recovering?”

“Oh, no. Even wounded soldiers didn't stay in that hospital for long. They either died or they stabilized enough to go to an Army hospital in Japan. I was only there a little while, but you'd better believe I was a novelty. A female patient, and one who had killed a Viet Cong, too. They gave a little party when I left. The other patients on the trauma ward made me a going-away bouquet out of some surgical sponges and sutures. One guy made me a card that said, ‘We'll miss you, but thanks for taking Charlie with you.” He had drawn a graphic picture of me, covered in blood, standing over a very dead Viet Cong. The bouquet fell apart years ago, but I still have the card.”

“Is it all behind you now, Larabeth? Nothing left but a soldier's going-away card and a bunch of scars?”

“There's the occasional dream, but they don't come very often any more. Sometimes the scars still hurt. Sometimes they hurt a lot. I can deal with those things.”

She was silent. He asked, “What is it that you can't deal with?”

“When they patched me up, the doctors said I'd be okay. Not great, but okay. My internal organs would repair the damage done by the scalpel and the bone fragments and the glass shards and they would learn how to do their jobs again. My pelvis would stay a little warped, but it would be able to do its job. I'd be almost back to normal. Except for one thing. A small thing in comparison to my life, but important to me.” She was silent again.

“Can you tell me what it was?” he asked.

“They told me I could never have children.”

J.D had to leave in half an hour. Shaving his head with a pair of office scissors and an electric razor was going to take some time, but it could wait a bit. Right now, he needed to be with Larabeth. He needed to hold her and he needed to kiss her wounds. Each one. It took him a long time, because there were so many.

The
hotel phone sang its shrill double-ring. Yancey thought it was his wake-up call, so he rolled over and picked up the phone without speaking. Agent-in-charge Chao's voice emanated from the receiver and, even in his sleep, Yancey tried to sit up straight, out of respect for Chao.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes, sir,” Yancey said. “Did you receive my message?”

“The transcripts of the tapes Dr. McLeod passed you this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I've read them. Is Lefkoff fully aware of everything on those tapes?”

“Of course.” Yancey's cocksure voice trailed into uncertainty. “Shouldn't he be?”

“Listen carefully. Lefkoff is a traitor and Guillaume Langlois's blood is on his hands. Don't give him access to any more information, and keep him away from Dr. McLeod. Can you do that?”

“Certainly,” Yancey said, already trying to figure out a plausible reason to keep Lefkoff away from his Audubon Park rendezvous with Larabeth.

“Good. I'll be in touch.” The line went dead and Yancey was left alone. He was young and he still thought betrayal was rare. Resting his face in his hands, he wondered if he was angry at Lefkoff because he had lied to him or because he had made him feel like a fool.

* * *

Babykiller continued to enjoy the news broadcasts from Hanford, but they had become repetitive. The press was playing a monotonous riff on the notion that the emergency team had been slow to respond to the crisis. Television hates a vacuum, and people could only look for so long at a long-distance aerial view of the bombed-out K-basins and the flaming helicopter lying between them. The networks needed news.

Between newscasts, he amused himself with photographs and videotapes of Larabeth. His associates had made good use of those videocameras that were small enough to hide under a hat.

He had a few tapes of everyday Larabeth—walking down the hallway at BioHeal or driving that garish pink car. He could watch the woman of his dreams, clad in orange, deliver her Audubon Park speech all over again. He especially liked to watch her collapse with shock over Guillaume Langlois's fatal injuries. If he had thought someone would grieve so for him, he would have stayed on the straight and narrow path.