Plum Island (31 page)

She looked at me as if I were a half-wit. She directed her attention toward Beth and prattled on a bit, then said, “Well,
you don’t need me to show you up to the top. There’s a path right there. It’s not difficult going up, but be careful on the
sea side. It drops steeply and there aren’t many footholds.” She added, “This bluff is actually the terminal moraine of the
last ice age. The glacier ended right here.”

In fact, the glacier stood before me now. I said, “Thank you for your time and patience, Mrs. Wiley.”

She started to walk off, then looked at Beth and asked her, “Do you have any idea who could have done it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Did it relate to their work?”

“In a way. But nothing to do with germ warfare or anything dangerous.”

Margaret Wiley didn’t look convinced. She went back to her car, started it, and drove off in a cloud of dust. I called after
her, “Eat my dust, Margaret. You old—”

“John!”

I brushed the dust off my clothes again. I said to Beth, “Do you know why Daughters of the American Revolution don’t have
group sex?”

“No, but I’m about to find out.”

“You are. Daughters of the American Revolution don’t have group sex because they don’t want to have to write all those thank-you
notes.”

“Do these jokes come from an inexhaustible supply?”

“You know they do.” We both looked up at the bluff. I said, “Let’s see that twenty-five-G view.”

We found the small path, and I went first. The path led through some thick bushes, a lot of scrub oak, and a few bigger trees
that looked like maples, but could have been banana trees, for all I knew.

Beth, dressed in a khaki poplin skirt and street shoes, wasn’t having an easy time of it. I pulled her up over a few steep
spots. She hiked her skirt up, or it rode up, and I was treated to a perfect pair of legs.

It was only about fifty feet to the top, the equivalent of a five-story walk-up, which I used to be able to do with enough
energy left to kick down a door, wrestle a perp to the floor, slap the cuffs on, and drag him down to the street and into
a PD. But that was then. This was now, and I felt shaky. Black spots danced before my eyes, and I had to stop and kneel down.

Beth asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah…. Just a minute….” I took a bunch of breaths and then continued on.

We reached the top of the bluff. The growth here was much more stunted because of the wind and salt air. We looked out over
the Long Island Sound, and truly it was an incredible panorama. Although the south slope of the bluff was only fifty feet
from the base to the crest, the north slope down to the beach was about a hundred feet. It was, as Mrs. Wiley warned, very
steep, and when we peered down over the edge, we could see sea grasses, erosion gullies, mud slides, and rock falls that swept
down to a nice long beach that stretched east and west for miles.

The Sound was calm, and we saw a few sailboats and powerboats. A huge cargo ship was heading west toward New York or one of
the Connecticut ports. About ten miles away, we could make out the Connecticut coast.

The bluff ran west for a mile or so and disappeared at a point of land jutting into the Sound. To the east, the bluff ran
with the beach for several miles and ended at Horton Point, which was identifiable because of the lighthouse.

Behind us, the way we had come up, were the flat farmlands, and from up here, we could see the quiltwork of potatoes, grapevines,
orchards, and corn. Quaint clapboard houses and white, not red, barns dotted the green fields. I said, “What a view.”

“Magnificent,” Beth agreed. She asked, “Worth twenty-five thousand?”

“That is the question.” I looked at her. “What do you think?”

“In theory, no. But up here, yes.”

“Well put.” I saw a boulder in the tall grass and sat on it, staring out to sea.

Beth stood to my side, also staring out to sea. We were both sweaty, dirty, dusty, out of breath, and tired. “Time for cocktails,”
I said. “Let’s head back.”

“Just a minute. Let’s be Tom and Judy. Tell me what they wanted here, what they were seeking.”

“Okay….” I stood on the boulder and looked around. The sun was setting, and way off to the east the sky was purple. To the
west, it was pink and overhead it was blue. Gulls sailed, whitecaps raced across the Sound, birds sang in the trees, a breeze
blew out of the northeast, and there was a smell of autumn as well as salt. I said to Beth, “We’ve spent the day on Plum Island.
We were in biocontainment all day, wearing lab clothes, surrounded by viruses. We shower out, race to the
Spirochete
or to the ferry, cross the Gut, get into our car, and come here. This is wide open, clean, and invigorating. This is life….
We brought a bottle of wine and a blanket. We drink the wine, we make love, we lie on the blanket, and watch the stars come
out. Maybe we go down to the beach and swim or surf cast under the stars and moon. We are a million miles from the laboratory.
We go home, ready for another day in biocontainment.”

Beth stayed silent for a while, then, without replying, she moved to the edge of the bluff, then turned and walked to the
only substantial tree on the crest, a ten-foot-tall, gnarled oak. She bent down, then straightened up, holding a coil of rope
in her hand. “Look at this.”

I joined her and looked at her find. The rope, made of green nylon about a half an inch thick, was knotted every three feet
or so for handholds. One end was tied to the base of the tree. Beth said, “There’s probably enough rope here to reach the
beach.”

I nodded. “That would certainly make the climb up and down easier.”

“Yes.” She knelt and looked down the slope. I did the same. We could see where the grass was worn from the climbs up and down
the face of the bluff. It was, as I said, a steep slope, but not too difficult for anyone in decent shape, even without a
rope.

I leaned farther over the edge and noticed that where the grass had eroded there were those reddish streaks of clay and iron
in the soil. I noticed something else: about ten feet below, a sort of shelf or ledge appeared. Beth noticed it, too, and
said, “I’m going to have a look.”

She pulled at the rope, and satisfied that it was securely attached to the tree trunk, and the tree trunk was securely attached
to the ground, she took the rope in both hands and walked backwards down the ten feet to the ledge, playing out the rope as
she descended. She called up, “Come on down. This is interesting.”

“Okay.” I walked down the slope, holding the rope in one hand. I stood on the ledge beside Beth.

She said, “Look at that.”

The ledge was about ten feet long and three feet deep at the widest. In the center of the ledge was a cave, but you could
tell it was not natural. In fact, I could see shovel marks. Beth and I crouched down and peered into the opening. It was small,
about three feet in diameter and only about four feet deep. There was nothing inside the excavation. I couldn’t imagine what
this was for, but I speculated, “You could stash a picnic lunch and a cooler of wine in there.”

Beth added, “You could even put your legs in there and your body out on this ledge, and go to sleep.”

“Or have sex.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

“Well, it’s true.” I stood. “They may have intended to make this bigger.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.” I turned toward the Sound and lowered myself into a sitting position, my feet dangling over the ledge. “This
is nice. Have a seat.”

“I’m getting cold.”

“Here, you can have my T-shirt.”

“No, it smells.”

“You’re no petunia yourself.”

“I’m tired, I’m dirty, my pantyhose are ripped, and I have to go to the bathroom.”

“This is romantic.”

“It could be. But it’s not now.” She stood, grabbed the rope, and walked up to the crest. I waited until she got to the top,
then followed.

Beth coiled the rope and put it back at the base of the tree as she’d found it. She turned, and we found ourselves face-to-face,
about a foot apart. It was one of those awkward moments, and we stood for exactly three seconds, then I put my hand out and
brushed her hair, then her cheek. I moved in for the big smooch, confident we were about to lock lips, but she stepped back
and uttered the magic word that all modern American men have been Pavloved to respond to. “No.”

I immediately jumped back six feet, and I clasped my hands behind my back. My little woody dropped like a dead tree, and I
exclaimed, “I mistook your friendly banter for a sexual come-on. Forgive me.”

Actually, that’s not exactly what happened. She did say “no,” but I hesitated, a look of abject disappointment on my face,
and she said, “Not now,” which is good, then “maybe later,” which was better, then “I like you,” which was best.

I said, “Take your time,” which I sincerely meant, as long as she didn’t take more than seventy-two hours, which is sort of
my limit. Actually, I’ve waited longer.

We didn’t say anything else about that, but walked down the landward side of the bluff and got into the black PD.

She started the car, threw it into gear, then put it back into park, and leaned over and kissed me perfunctorily on the cheek,
then into gear again and off we went, raising dust.

A mile later, we were on Middle Road. She had a good sense of direction and headed back to Nassau Point without my help.

She saw an open service station, and we both used the respective lavs to freshen up, as they say. I couldn’t remember the
last time I looked this dirty. I’m a pretty dapper guy on the job, a Manhattan dandy in tailor-made suits. I felt like a kid
again, dirty Johnny rooting around the Indian burial sites.

In the service station office, I bought some really gross snacks—beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, and gummy bears. Out
in the car, I offered some to Beth, who refused. I said, “If you chew this all together, it tastes like a Thai dish called
Sandang Phon. I discovered that by accident.”

“I hope so.”

We drove a few minutes. The combo of beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, and gummy bears actually tasted awful, but I was
starving, and I wanted that dust out of my throat. I asked Beth, “What do you think? I mean, about the bluff?”

She thought a moment, then replied, “I think I would have liked the Gordons.”

“You would have.”

“Are you sad?”

“Yeah … I mean, we weren’t best buddies … I only knew them a few months, but they were good people, full of fun and life.
They were too young to have ended their lives like that.”

She nodded.

We drove across the causeway onto Nassau Point. It was getting dark.

She said, “My brain is telling me this piece of land is what it appears to be. A romantic retreat, a place to call their own.
They were Midwesterners, they probably came from land, and they found themselves here as tenants in a place where land means
a lot, like where they came from…. Right?”

“Right.”

“And yet….”

“Yes. And yet…. And yet, they could have saved themselves about twenty Gs if they’d leased for five years.” I added, “They
had to
own
the land. Think about that.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

We wound up at the house where the Gordons had lived, and Beth pulled up behind my Jeep. She said, “It was a long day.”

“Come back to my place. Follow me.”

“No, I’m going home tonight.”

“Why?”

“There’s no reason to be here twenty-four hours a day any longer, and the county won’t pay for the motel.”

“Stop at my place first. I have to give you the computer printouts.”

“They’ll wait until tomorrow.” She said, “I need to go to the office tomorrow morning. Why don’t I meet you tomorrow about
five o’clock?”

“My place.”

“All right. Your place, five
P.M.
I’ll have some information by then.”

“Me, too.”

“I’d rather you didn’t proceed until you see me,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Get your status straight with Chief Maxwell.”

“Will do.”

“Get some rest,” she said.

“You, too.”

“Get out of my car.” She smiled. “Go home. Really.”

“I will. Really.” I got out of her car. She made a U-turn, waved, and drove off.

I got into my Jeep, determined not to do anything that would make it speak French. Seat belt on, doors locked, emergency brake
off. I started the engine and the car didn’t utter a peep.

As I drove back to my bay farm estate, or farm bay estate, or whatever, I realized I hadn’t remembered to use the remote to
start the vehicle. Well, what difference did it make? The new car bombs all exploded after about five minutes anyway. Besides,
no one was trying to kill me. Well, someone
had
tried to kill me, but that had to do with something else. Quite possibly, that was random, or if it were planned, the shooters
considered that I was out of action, and whatever I’d done to piss them off was avenged without me having to be actually dead.
That’s the way the Mafia operated—if you survived, you were usually left alone. But these gentlemen who were blasting away
at me looked decidedly Hispanic. And those hombres didn’t always consider the job done until you were planted.

But that wasn’t my concern at the moment. I was more concerned about what was going on around here, whatever it was. I mean,
here I am in a very peaceful part of the planet, trying to get my mind and body to heal, and right beneath the surface we
have all sorts of weird crap going down. I kept thinking about that pig bleeding from its ears and nose and mouth…. I realized
that people on that little island had discovered stuff that could exterminate almost every living thing on the planet.

The convenient thing about biological warfare has always been easy deniability, and its untraceable origins. The entire culture
of biological research and weapons development has always been permeated with lies, deception, and denial.

I pulled into the driveway of Uncle Harry’s house. My tires crunched over the seashells. The house was dark, and when I shut
off my headlights, the entire world fell into darkness. How do rural people live in the dark?