AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, I commuted to Rocky Flats the next morning. During the drive, I ate my usual morning pick-me-up, an apple and a low-fat cinnamon scone washed down with a blend of dark Sumatran java and goat’s blood.
I “worked” in the same building as Dr. Wong and knew him in passing. I was one of many health physicists at Rocky Flats, most of whom were contractors or on loan from another DOE facility, so my presence was no novelty. As a government contractor, it didn’t take much for me to look gainfully employed. I walked around with a notebook full of whatever papers I had found in my desk. I signed up for meetings I would never attend. In general, I kept a lower profile than a bedbug in a mattress.
Dr. Wong was the key to the next step in my investigation. To bait him into revealing the Tiger Team report, I created a bogus excerpt from an incident summary about Building 707. Using details Tamara had given me, I entered the names of the three RCTs, their contamination levels, and a description of their survey.
I printed out the document and knocked on Dr. Wong’s office door. He invited me in.
The room smelled of talc and miconazole nitrate, the active ingredient of antifungal foot spray. Stacks of binders, spiral-bound reports, and thick folders covered every horizontal surface of his office except the floor, flotsam created in the wake of any bureaucracy.
Dr. Wong sat hunched at his desk, reading a book and finishing a chocolate snack cake. His comb-over flopped away from his brown, bald head. A computer monitor and in- and out-boxes formed a barricade across the front of his desk.
Arranged left to right on the wall behind him were his framed diplomas: a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; a masters in health physics from Georgetown; and a doctorate in health science from MIT. On an end table in the right corner of the room rested a gray safe the size of a single-drawer cabinet. A magnetic placard on the safe’s door read: CLOSED.
Narrow-shouldered and with a sloppy gut, Dr. Wong’s pear-shaped body settled into the chair. As a senior health physicist, DOE paid him well, yet he wore clunky government-issue black-framed glasses, a cheap short-sleeved shirt, and a clip-on tie. Dr. Wong dressed like he was moonlighting at Radio Shack.
He crinkled the empty cellophone wrapper of the snack cake and looked up from his book: Pathological Effects of Thermonuclear Weapons, Volume IV-Maximizing Civilian Mortality. He tapped the cover. “Oh for the good old days, when working here had a purpose.”
“Sorry to disturb your nostalgia, Doctor, but I found something that might concern you.”
Dr. Wong looked at his monitor and jiggled the computer mouse. “I don’t see that we have an appointment.”
“We don’t.” I held up the summary. “This will only take a minute.”
He squinted at my badge. “Mr. Gomez, first make an appointment. That’s the protocol, and this is why DOE has an undeserved reputation for sloppiness. People keep circumventing protocol. The nuclear industry is governed by rules, at every level.”
“It’s an excerpt from an incident summary,” I insisted. “I think you should review it.”
He gestured to the in-box. “Drop it there.”
I couldn’t just leave the form, I needed to see his reaction.
“This looks serious. Something about three RCTs getting seventeen rems in Building 707.”
Dr. Wong’s bland, round face turned dark with shock. He scurried around the desk and snatched the summary from my hand. He studied the form with a quiet, smoldering intensity, turning it over and over as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes told him.
He stood barefoot, his trouser cuffs rolled up to mid-shin, his crooked toes dusted with white powder, the source of the miconazole nitrate smell. He was a short man, so I couldn’t see why Tamara had called him Big Wong. If it involved the doctor dropping his pants, I didn’t want to find out.
“Where’d you get this?” he snapped, oblivious to the comb-over hanging from his head like an open pot lid.
“In my desk, out there.” I pointed to the cubicles beyond his door.
“Well, Mr. Gomez-I mean, Felix,” he camouflaged his distress with a smile, “I wouldn’t be too concerned about this.”
“It looks serious to me. I’ve been in this business a while,” I lied. “British Nuclear Fuels. DOD. The EPA. Lawrence Livermore.”
Dr. Wong strained to keep his toothy grin while his eyes seemed ready to burst like the bulbs of overheated thermometers. “This summary is nothing to worry about, believe me.”
I offered my hand. “Then where should I file it?”
“I’ll take care of this.” He stepped back to the safe, peeled off the magnetic placard, and flipped it over. The reverse side read: SECRET OPEN.
Dr. Wong grasped the combination dial. He looked over his shoulder at me. “That’s all. I’ll take care of this.”
At last I was on a hot trail. In that safe sat the Tiger Team report. Gilbert Odin could pull his head off the chopping block; and I could wrap this case up, pocket my fee, and go back to California.
I left Rocky Flats, ate dinner-red enchiladas smothered with bull blood-and returned to the office late that evening. The building was empty and dark. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, I entered and removed my contact lenses. In the shadowy interior, everything looked remarkably clear to my vampire vision.
Like any resourceful private detective I carried a locksmith’s kit and readily picked the lock of Dr. Wong’s office door. The room still smelled like foot spray. I walked directly to the safe and inspected it. A chain looped from the safe’s lifting shackle and ran through an eyebolt along the baseboard. I didn’t see any wires for an alarm.
This was going to be easy. Closing my eyes to focus my attention, I placed my hands on the safe and delicately turned the combination dial, first to the right and then to the left. I heard and felt the faint clicks when the notches of each tumbler rotated under the bolt-release mechanism. Discerning the subtle differences between the three tumblers, I lined up the first tumbler, then the middle, then the third. Pressing the release button, I twisted the handle.
The safe clicked, and the door swung open.
I was as heady with pride as if I’d hit a home run.
But wait. Inside I found a box of Little Debbie chocolate snack cakes, a can of foot spray, and a dog-eared Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, dated 1986. Stacked to the right in folders marked SECRET were documents detailing rad-contaminated biological waste. These papers were dated from last year and described mice, pigeons, and a cat found dead inside the Building 776 glove boxes, an incident of no relevance to me. Next to these I found my bogus incident summary but nothing else about the nymphomania or the Tiger Team report.
Damn. My home run had just turned into a pop fly.
After closing the safe, I shed the gloves, replaced my contacts, and drove home, sour with disappointment. I could think of nothing better than to snuggle into the comfort of a warm coffin and forget the day. I unlocked my apartment and leaned wearily against the front door to push it open.
A stream of cayenne pepper spray splashed my face. My eyes burned. In the instant before I clamped them shut, I glimpsed the brilliant-red aura of my attacker. I bent over, gagging, and rubbed my face to wipe away the searing liquid. Something hard slammed into the back of my head. My thoughts exploded into a thousand colored sparks that quickly dissolved into blackness.