Plum Island

No one responded to that.

He continued, 'In fact, it is not a biological warfare center. There is no such thing in the United States. However, I'd be less than truthful if I didn't say that biological warfare specialists sometimes visit the island to be briefed and to read reports on some of these experiments. In other words, there is a crossover between animal and human disease, between offensive biological warfare and defensive biological warfare.'

Convenient crossovers, I thought.

Mr. Nash sipped his Java, considered, then continued, 'African swine fever, for instance, has been associated with HIV. We study African swine fever on Plum, and the news media makes up this junk about… whatever. Same with Rift Valley fever, the Hanta virus, and other retroviruses, and the filoviruses such as Ebola Zaire and Ebola Marburg… '

The kitchen was really quiet, like everyone knew this was the scariest topic in the universe. I mean, when it was nuclear weapons, people were either fatalistic or never believed it was going to happen. With biological warfare or biological terrorism, it was imaginable. And if the right plague got loose, it was lights out world, and not in a quick incandescent flash, but slowly, as it spread from the sick to the healthy, and the dead lay rotting where they fell, a Grade B movie coming to your neighborhood soon.

Mr. Nash continued in that sort of half-reluctant, half-hey-look-what-I-know-that-you-don't kind 'of voice. He said, 'So… these diseases can and do infect animals, and therefore their legitimate study would fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture… The department is trying to find a cure for these diseases, to protect American livestock and by extension to protect the American public, because even though there is usually a species barrier in regard to animal diseases infecting humans, we're discovering that some of these diseases can jump species… With the recent Mad Cow Disease in Britain, for instance, there is some evidence that people were infected by this disease… '

Maybe my ex-wife was right about meat. I tried to picture a life of soybean cheeseburgers, chile no carne, and hot dogs made out of seaweed. I'd rather die. All of a sudden I felt love and warmth for the Department of Agriculture.

I realized, too, that what Mr. Nash was putting out was the official crap-stuff about animal diseases crossing species barriers and all that. In fact, if the rumors were correct, Plum Island was also a place where human infectious diseases were specifically and purposely studied as part of a biological warfare program that no longer officially existed. On the other hand, maybe it was rumor, and maybe, too, what they were doing on Plum Island was defensive and not offensive.

It struck me that there was a very thin line between all of this stuff. Bugs are bugs. They don't know cows from pigs from people. They don't know defensive research from offensive research. They don't know preventive vaccines from air-burst bombs. Hell, they don't even know if they're good or bad. And if I listened to Nash's crap long enough, I would start to believe that Plum Island was developing exciting new yogurt cultures.

Mr. Nash was staring into his Styrofoam coffee cup as if realizing that the coffee and the water could have already been infected with Mad Cow Disease. Mr. Nash continued, 'The problem is, of course, that these bacteria and virus cultures can be… I mean, if someone got his hands on these micro-organisms, and has the knowledge to propagate more from the samples, then, well, you'd have a great deal of it reproducing, and if it got into the population somehow… then you may have a potential public health problem.'

I asked, 'You mean like an end-of-the-world plague with the dead piling up in the streets?'

'Yes, that kind of public health problem.'

Silence.

'So,' Mr. Nash said in a grave tone, 'while we are all anxious to discover the identity of the murderer or murderers of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, we're more anxious to discover if the Gordons took something off that island and transferred it to an unauthorized person or persons.'

No one spoke for a time, then Beth asked, 'Can you… can anyone on the island determine if anything is actually missing from the laboratories?'

Ted Nash looked at Beth Penrose the way a professor looks at a favorite student who has asked a brilliant question. Actually, it wasn't that good a question-but anything to get those panties off, right, Ted?

Mr. Cool replied to his new protegee, 'As you probably suspect, Beth, it may not be possible to discover if anything is missing. The problem is, the micro-organisms can be propagated secretly in some part of the Plum Island laboratory or in other places on the island, then taken off the island, and no one would ever know. It's not like chemical or nuclear agents, where every gram is accounted for. Bacteria and virus like to reproduce.'

Scary, if you think about it…microbugs are low-tech compared to nuclear fission or manufacturing nerve gas. This is home lab stuff, cheap to produce, and it replicates itself in-what did we use in bio lab? Beef bouillon? No more cheeseburgers for me.

Ms. Penrose, proud of her last question, asked Mr.-Know-It-All, 'Can we assume the organisms studied on Plum Island are particularly deadly? What I mean is, do they genetically engineer these organisms to make them more lethal than they are in their natural state?'

Mr. Nash did not like that question and replied, 'No.' Then added, 'Well, the laboratory at Plum Island does have genetic engineering capabilities, but what they do is take viruses and genetically alter them so they can't cause disease, but can stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies in the event the real virus ever infects the organism. This is sort of a vaccine, made not by weakening the infectious organism and injecting it, which can be dangerous, but by genetically changing the organism. To answer your question in short, any genetic engineering done on Plum Island is to weaken a virus or bacteria, not to increase its power to cause disease.'

I said, 'Of course not. But that's also possible with genetic engineering.'

'Possible. But not on Plum Island.'

It occurred to me that Nash was genetically altering information-taking the germ of the truth, if you will, and weakening it so we got a mild dose of the bad news. Clever fellow.

I was tired of the scientific crap, and I addressed my next question to Mr. Foster. 'Are you people doing anything to keep this bottled? Airports, highways, and all that?'

Mr. Foster replied, 'We've got everyone out there looking for… whatever. We have all area airports, seaports, and train stations being watched by our people, local police, and Customs people, and we have the Coast Guard stopping and searching vessels, and we've even got the Drug Enforcement Agency using their boats and planes. The problem is, the perpetrators would have had about a three-hour head start because quite frankly we weren't notified in a timely fashion…'

Mr. Foster looked at Chief Maxwell, who had his arms crossed and was making a face.

A word here on Sylvester Maxwell. He's an honest cop, not the brightest bulb in the room, but not stupid either. He can be stubborn at times, though that seems to be a North Fork trait and not peculiar to the chief. Being in charge of a small rural police force that has to work with the much larger county police force and on occasion the state police, he's learned when to protect his turf and when to retreat.

Another point: the geographical realities of a maritime jurisdiction in the era of drug running has put Max in close proximity to the DEA and the Coast Guard. The DEA always assumes the local gendarmes may be in on the drug trade; the locals, like Max, are positive the DEA is in on it. The Coast Guard and FBI are considered clean, but they suspect the DEA and the local police. The Customs Service is mostly clean, but there have to be some bad guys who take bucks to look the other way. In short, drugs are the worst thing that has happened to American law enforcement since Prohibition.

And this led me from thinking about Max to thinking about drugs, about the Gordons' thirty-foot Formula with big, powerful engines. Since the facts didn't seem to fit the Gordons selling end-of-the-world plague for money, maybe the facts did fit drug running. Maybe I was on to something. Maybe I'd share this with everyone as soon as I worked it out in my mind. Maybe I wouldn't.

Mr. Foster threw a few more zingers at Chief Maxwell for his tardiness in contacting the FBI, making sure he was on the record about that. Sort of like, 'Oh, Max, if only you'd come to me sooner. Now, all is lost, and it's your fault.'

Max pointed out to Foster, 'I called county homicide within ten minutes of learning of the murder. It was out of my hands at that point. My ass is covered.'

Ms. Penrose felt eight eyes on her ass and said, 'I had no idea the victims were Plum Island people.'