We did this as we cut and weighed, and I recorded the pertinent information on a protocol. She suffered the typical degenerative changes of fatty streaks and fatty plaques of the aorta. Her heart was dilated, her congested lungs consistent with early pneumonia. She had ulcers in her mouth and lesions in her gastrointestinal tract. But it was her brain that told the most tragic story of her death. She had cortical atrophy, widening of the cerebral sulci and loss of the parenchyma, the telltale hints of Alzheimer’s.
I could only imagine her confusion when she had gotten sick. She may not have remembered where she was or even who she was, and in her dementia may have believed some nightmarish creature was coming through her mirrors. Lymph nodes were swollen, spleen and liver cloudy and swollen with focal necrosis, all consistent with smallpox.
She looked like a natural death, the cause of which we could not prove yet, and two hours later, we were done. I left the same way I had come in, starting with the hot side room, where I took a five-minute chemical shower in my suit, standing on a rubber mat and scrubbing every inch with a stiff brush as steel nozzles pounded me. Dripping, I reentered the outer room, where I hung the suit to dry, showered again and washed my hair. I put on a sterile orange suit and returned to the Slammer.
The nurse was in my room when I walked in.
‘Janet is here writing you a note,’ she said.
‘Janet?’ I was stunned. ‘Is Lucy with her?’
‘She’ll slide it through the pass box. All I know is there’s a young woman named Janet. She’s alone.’
‘Where is she? I must see her.’
‘You know that isn’t possible just now.’ She was taking my blood pressure again.
‘Even prisons have a place for visitors,’ I almost snapped. ‘Isn’t there some area where I can talk to her through glass? Or can’t she put on a suit and come in here like you do?’
Of course, all this required permission, yet again, from the colonel, who decided that the easiest solution was for me to wear a HEPA filter mask and go into the visitors’ booth. This was inside the Clinical Research Ward, where studies were conducted on new vaccines. She led me through a BL-3 recreation room, where volunteers were playing Ping-Pong and pool, or reading magazines and watching TV.
The nurse opened the wooden door to Booth B, where Janet was seated on the other side of glass in an uncontaminated part of the building. We picked up our phones at the same time.
‘I can’t believe this,’ was the first thing she said. ‘Are you all right?’
The nurse was still standing behind me in my telephone-booth-sized space, and I turned around and asked her to leave. She didn’t budge.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, and I’d about had it with her. ‘This is a private conversation.’
Anger flashed in her eyes as she left and shut the door.
‘I don’t know how I am,’ I said into the phone. ‘But I don’t feel too bad.’
‘How long does it take?’ Fear shone in her eyes.
‘On average, ten days, at the most fourteen.’
‘Well, that’s good, then, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I felt depressed. ‘It depends on what we’re dealing with. But if I’m still okay in a few days, I expect they will let me leave.’
Janet looked very grown-up and pretty in a dark blue suit, her pistol inconspicuous beneath her jacket. I knew she would not have come alone unless something was very wrong.
‘Where’s Lucy?’ I asked.
‘Well, actually, both of us are up here in Maryland, outside Baltimore, with Squad Nineteen.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘Yes,’ Janet said. ‘We’re working on your files, trying to trace them through AOL and UNIX.’
‘And?’
She hesitated. ‘I think the quickest way to catch him is going to be online.’
I frowned, perplexed by this. ‘I’m not sure I understand . . .’
‘Is that thing uncomfortable?’ She stared at my mask.
‘Yes.’
I was sorrier for the way it looked. It covered half of my face like a hideous muzzle and kept knocking the phone as I talked.