“I’ll do the best I can,” he said bravely, although no one of sound mind would want the assignment I just gave him.
“Now, I won’t always know where I’m going to be throughout this,” I said to other anxious faces. “Business goes on as usual here, but I want any bodies brought here.
Any bodies from Old Point, I’m saying, starting with the shooting fatalities.”
“What about other Tidewater cases?” Fielding wanted to know.
. “Routine cases are done as usual. I understand we do have another autopsy technician to fill in until we can find a permanent replacement.”
“Any chance these bodies you want here might be contaminated?” my administrator asked, and he had always been a worrier.
“So far we’re talking about shooting victims,” I said.
“And they couldn’t be.”
“No.”
“But what about later?” he went on.
“Mild contamination isn’t a problem,” I said. “We just scrub the bodies and get rid of the soapy water and clothes.
Acute exposure to radiation is another matter, especially if the bodies are badly burned, if debris is burned into them, as it was in Chernobyl. Those bodies will need to be shielded in a special refrigerated truck, and all exposed personnel will wear lead-lined suits.”
“Those bodies we’ll cremate?”
“I would recommend that. Which is another reason why they need to come here to Richmond. We can use the crematorium in the anatomical division. Marino stuck his head inside the conference room.
“Doc?” He motioned me out.
I got up and we spoke in the hall.
“Benton wants us at Quantico now,” he said.
“Well, it won’t be now,” I said.
I glanced back at the conference room. Through the doorway I could see Fielding making some point, while one of the other doctors looked tense and unhappy.
“You got an overnight bag with you?” Marino went on, and he knew I always kept one here, “is this really necessary?” I complained.
“I’d tell you if it wasn’t.”
“Give me just fifteen minutes to finish up this meeting.”
I brought confusion and fear to closure as best I could, and told the other doctors I could be gone for days because I’d just been summoned to Quantico. But I would wear my pager. Then Marino and I took my car instead of his, since he had already made arrangements for repairs to the bumper Roche had hit. We sped north on 95 with the radio on, and by now we had heard the story so many times we knew it as well as the reporters.
In the past two hours, no one else had died at Old Point, at least not that anybody knew of, and the terrorists had let dozens of people go. These fortunate ones had been allowed to leave in twos and threes, according to the news.
Emergency medical personnel, state police and the FBI were intercepting them for examinations and interviews.
We arrived at Quantico at almost five, and Marines in camouflage were vigorously blasting the rapid approach of night. They were crowded in trucks and behind sandbags on the range, and when we passed close to a knot of them gathered by the road, I was pained by their young faces. I rounded a bend, where tall tan brick buildings suddenly rose above trees. The complex did not look military, and in fact, could have been a university were it not for the rooftops of antennae. A road leading to it stopped midway at an entrance gate where tire shredders bared teeth to people going the wrong way.
An armed guard emerged from his booth and smiled because we were no strangers, and he let us through. We parked in the big lot across from the tallest building, called Jefferson, which was basically the Academy’s selfcontained downtown. Inside were the post office, the indoor range, dining hall and PX, with upper floors for dormitory rooms, including security suites for protected witnesses and spies.
New agents in khaki and dark blue were honing weapons in the gun-cleaning room. It seemed I had smelled the solvents all of my life, and could hear compressed air blasting through barrels and other parts whenever I wanted to in my mind. My history had become entwined with this place.