The X-ray technician was suspicious of David’s request for lead aprons, but he decided that since David wouldn’t be taking them any farther than the hospital next door, it would be okay. Besides, he wasn’t used to contradicting doctors. He gave David, Angela, and Ronnie nine lead aprons as well as one pair of lead gloves used for fluoroscopy. David still had the Geiger counter, as well.
Weighed down with their burden, the three made their way back to the hospital. They got strange looks from the staff and visitors they passed on their way to the second floor, but no one tried to stop them.
“All right,” David said once they reached the door of the conference room. He was practically out of breath. “Put everything right here.” He dropped the aprons he was carrying to the floor next to the closed conference room door. Angela and Ronnie did likewise.
David tried the Geiger counter again. Immediately the needle pegged to the right. “Jesus Christ!” David said. “We couldn’t get any better evidence than that.” David thanked Ronnie and sent him on his way. He then explained to Angela what he thought they should do. David pulled on the lead gloves and picked up three aprons. He carried one in his hands while he tossed the other two over his shoulder. Angela picked up four in her arms.
David opened the door and went into the conference room, with Angela close behind. Traynor, who’d been interrupted in mid-sentence, glared at David. Those in attendance–Sherwood, Beaton, Cantor, Caldwell, Arnsworth, and Robeson–all turned to stare at the source of this rude interruption. As the assembled members of the board began to murmur, Traynor banged his gavel, crying for order.
Scanning the cluttered conference table, David spotted the source instantly. It was a cylinder about a foot long whose diameter matched the size of the bore in the treatment arm he’d examined only minutes ago. Several Teflon rings were embedded in its circumference. On its top was a locking pin. The cylinder was standing upright next to a model of a parking garage just as Van Slyke had indicated.
David started for the cylinder, clutching a lead apron in both hands.
“Stop!” Traynor yelled.
Before David could get to the cylinder, Caldwell leapt to his feet and grabbed David around his chest.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Caldwell demanded.
“I’m trying to save all of you if it isn’t too late,” David said.
“Let him go,” Angela cried.
“What are you talking about?” Traynor demanded.
David nodded toward the cylinder. “I’m afraid you have been having your meeting around a cobalt-60 source.”
Cantor leaped to his feet; his chair tipped over backward. “I saw that thing,” he cried. “I wondered what it was.” Saying no more, he turned and fled from the room.
A stunned Caldwell relaxed his grip. David immediately lunged across the table and snatched up the brass cylinder in his lead gloves. Then he rolled the cylinder in one of his lead aprons. Next he wrapped that apron in another and that one in another still. He proceeded to do the same with the aprons Angela was carrying while she stepped out of the conference room to get the others. David was anxious to cover the cylinder with as many layers of lead as possible.
As David was wrapping the last load of the aprons around the bulky parcel, Angela got the Geiger counter.
“I don’t believe you,” Traynor said, breaking a shocked silence. But his voice lacked conviction. Cantor’s sudden departure had unnerved him.
“This is not the time for debate,” David said. “Everyone better get out of here,” he added. “You’ve all been exposed to a serious amount of radiation. I advise you to call your doctors.”
Traynor and the others exchanged nervous glances. Panic soon broke out as first a few and then the remaining board members, including Traynor, ran from the room.
David finished with the last apron and took the Geiger counter. Turning it on, he was dismayed to see that it still registered a significant amount of radiation.
“Let’s get out of here,” David said. “That’s about all we can do.”