TWENTY-TWO


WASHINGTON, D.C.

Organized chaos. That’s exactly what Benjamin Platt saw when he arrived at Fitzgerald Elementary School. Police officers with whistles guided a line of cars with disheveled parents picking up the last of the children. A group of what looked to be school administrators and teachers were helping paramedics escort children to waiting ambulances. The frenetic energy spilled across the street to bystanders and into the neighborhood where people watched from their front lawns.

As Platt got out of his Land Rover a cable-TV camera crew started setting up. He recognized the well-dressed anchor-woman eyeballing him, trying to decide whether or not he was someone important. By the time he flashed his credentials at the first police officer, Platt could hear the newscaster calling out to him. Too late. He slid his messenger bag higher on his shoulder, strode on without a glance back.

He made it up the steps before another uniformed cop stopped him.

“Essentials only beyond this point, sir,” the cop told him.

Before Platt could respond he heard a woman from inside the doorway say, “It’s okay. He’s been cleared.”

Tall, lean, attractive but with a hard edge and a clenched jaw telegraphing don’t mess with me. Her short blond hair spiked up in places as if she had just come in from the wind, though there wasn’t a breeze. She wore street clothes: jeans with a tucked-in knit shirt tight across full breasts and a shoulder holster displaying her Glock nestled close underneath her arm, so that anyone who dared to admire her physique also got an eyeful of the metal, another warning not to mess with her. Her badge hung from her belt but Platt didn’t need to look at it. He recognized the District detective.

“Hello, Detective Racine.”

“CDC guy’s waiting for you. I’ll take you to him.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

Not even five feet inside, Platt immediately smelled the sour vomit, splatters of it left on the floor. Otherwise the hallway was eerily quiet. Racine led the way, unfazed by the smell. Platt glanced into the empty classrooms. They rounded one corner and suddenly had to step aside for two men dressed in full SWAT gear.

He waited for them to pass before he asked Racine, “What the hell’s going on? I thought this was a food contamination?”

“Mr. CDC called in a domestic terrorism alert. Sixty-three kids puking up their cookies all in a matter of an hour. Tends to trip an alarm or two.”

“Any fatalities?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Aren’t you homicide?”

“Yes.”

Platt stopped mid-stride to look at her.

“I was already here,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Off duty. I was picking up my partner’s kid.”

He started walking again. “Picking up your partner’s kid, that seems beyond the call of duty,” he said, trying to lighten the tone.

“Not my professional partner. My personal partner.”

“Oh.” He didn’t know what to do with that tidbit of information. In the few times he had met her at Maggie’s house, he hadn’t picked up on the fact that she was gay. He chose to not comment. “Does Bix know you were here when it started?”

“Bix?”

“The CDC guy.”

“No. We’re here to secure the area. That’s all we bring to this party. He doesn’t much care what else we have to offer. FBI and Homeland Security have people here.”

Platt nodded. Sounded like Bix was getting all his ducks in a row, so to speak. But for a guy who wanted to keep things under wraps, he couldn’t be happy with the entourage of news media already setting up.

Earlier when Roger Bix had called Platt he only doled out scraps of information but had been adamant that this school’s incident was, in fact, related to the one in Norfolk, Virginia. When Platt asked how exactly he knew they were connected and what new information pointed to that—after all, just last night Bix didn’t even know what had caused the contamination in Norfolk—Bix would only say, “I have it on indisputable authority that these two incidents are, indeed, related.”

Obviously from the show of force Bix knew much more than he was willing to disclose. Platt wondered how the hell he could help if the man had already decided not to trust him.

“When I finish with Mr. Bix I’d like to talk to you about what you saw,” Platt told Detective Racine as they turned another corner. “Would that be possible?”

“Sure. I’m not going anywhere for a few hours.” She pointed to a doorway and added, “I’ll be out front.”

She turned and left him. Even after she disappeared around the corner he could hear her heels echoing down the hall. The only other sound came from beyond the open door, hushed voices giving orders. One of which Platt already recognized.

Two men in dark suits shouldered past Platt on their way out, leaving only three people in the small office. Bix had a cell phone pressed against his ear as he sat behind a desk with a nameplate that proclaimed it as Principal Barbara Stratton’s. Ms. Stratton, most likely, was the woman in a navy suit with long silver hair tied back. Platt wasn’t surprised to see the third person, Special Agent R. J. Tully.

The tall, lanky FBI agent had been leaning against a corner but stood straight when Platt entered. He offered his hand while Bix only nodded and continued to make demands to some poor soul on the other end of the phone line.

Platt had met Agent Tully on the same case that Bix had referred to last night. It was the same investigation where Platt had met Maggie O’Dell. Almost a year ago a madman had stuffed envelopes with the Ebola virus and sent them to what appeared to be random victims.

Maggie had been exposed and ended up in a USAMRIID isolation ward at Fort Detrick under the care of Platt. The case had taken a personal toll on Tully as well, resulting in his suspension during an internal investigation that eventually cleared and reinstated him. When Platt recommended Agent Tully to Bix last night, he did so knowing that Tully was one of only a handful of people Maggie trusted. For Platt that was justification that he met Bix’s criteria.

Platt exchanged greetings with Ms. Stratton then asked her to fill him in. She glanced at Bix as if looking for permission but only momentarily.

“At first I thought it might be some kind of prank. In my thirty-two years I’ve never seen so many children ill at the same time. It was awful. Absolutely awful. And it happened so suddenly. My secretary noticed a line to the nurse’s office and not fifteen minutes later the line had doubled. Then I heard children vomiting in the hallway. Some of them using the trash receptacles. Others holding their bellies and not able to get to the restrooms, which, by this time, were also backed up.”

“Did you notice any odd smell prior to the students getting sick?”

“What kind of smell?”

“Anything out of the ordinary.”

“We have a school full of children. There’s no such thing as ordinary smells.”

Platt smiled until he realized she wasn’t joking.

“I think Colonel Platt means something like natural gas.” Agent Tully stepped in. “Rotten-egg gas, perhaps, or any strong chemical smell.”

“Oh, heavens no. Nothing like that. You think a chemical could have caused this?”

Bix snapped his cell phone shut with enough of a clap to draw everyone’s attention. He stood up, sending Ms. Stratton’s desk chair smashing into the back wall. He ignored the scowl from the principal as he unleashed his outrage at her.

“You didn’t tell me one of your cafeteria workers was sick when she reported in this morning.”

“What? This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“She’s at the front entrance babbling to the police officers that this is all her fault.”

“That’s not possible! We abide by the highest standards.”

“Right. Well, she came back after the evacuation. Appears she has a guilty conscience. Admitted she wasn’t wearing gloves today.”

“We require gloves on all our kitchen servers.”

“Well, it sounds like her gloves were a bother. She got tired of taking them off to blow her nose.”

Maggie O'Dell #09 - Hotwire
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