“He’s the hospital’s radiological protection officer,” said Garcia. “A medical physicist, I think he’s called, on the School of Medicine faculty. He trains interns and residents in the Nuclear Medicine Department. He keeps track of all the hospital’s medical radioisotopes, and he trains ER teams how to respond if there’s a nuclear accident or terrorist act. His office is up on the ground floor, practically right over our heads, and he’s got all sorts of instruments and safety gear.”
Thirty seconds later Garcia was on the phone with Johnson, describing the tiny metallic pellet he’d found and the trail of shredded GI tissue leading up to it. Three minutes after the phone call, we heard a clatter at the far end of the hallway and Johnson appeared, wheeling a cart. The cart measured two or three feet square by six feet tall; one side was fitted with a corrugated blue door that resembled the flexible shutter on a big-city storefront or an antique rolltop desk. “Your receptionist didn’t want to let me in,” he said to Garcia. “I had to explain pretty bluntly that it was in her best interests and yours to unlock the door so I could figure out what’s going on in here.” He slid the plastic door up, revealing shelves laden with disposable clothing, cleaning solutions, plastic bags, and electronic instruments.
Rummaging around in a bin at the bottom of the cart, Johnson removed a tan Geiger counter, identical to the one Hank had used at the DMORT training, and switched it on. I heard the slow, buzzing clicks I had come to recognize as the baseline sound of normal, background radiation, like a clock ticking or a diesel engine idling. He extended the wand toward Garcia. “Hold out your hands,” he said, and when Garcia did, Hank passed the wand over them, front and back. The instrument continued to buzz at the same slow, reassuring rate. Next he waved the wand over Garcia’s body from head to foot, with the same quiet results, and then over Miranda, and then over me and Emert. I felt myself starting to relax, and I relaxed a lot more when Duane said, “Well, there’s no contamination on any of you.”
Then he stepped around a corner and opened the door of the autopsy suite, and suddenly all hell broke loose. The Geiger counter ratcheted up to a harsh, continuous buzz, and a small, pager-looking gadget at Duane’s waist began shrieking. “Son of a bitch,” said Duane, backpedaling fast. Both instruments quieted down once he was away from the door, but my heart and my nerves—which had zoomed up in sync with the gadgets—continued to rev. “Something in there is hot as a pistol,” he said. He looked shaken, and that didn’t do a lot to calm me back down.
I was feeling some fear for my own safety, but more concern for Garcia’s and Emert’s, and—especially—for Miranda’s. She was a young woman of childbearing age, and if there was risk from radiation, she was potentially the most vulnerable. She was also my student, and I felt responsible for her safety. “Duane,” I said, “do we need to get out of here? And do we need to evacuate the hospital, or part of it?”