Donna retrieved a handful of brochures, press releases, and other propaganda from a long table and handed them out to us. The tri-fold brochures had titles such as "Hog Cholera," "African Swine Fever," "African Horse Sickness," and something called "Lumpy Skin Disease," which, judging from the scary photos in the brochure, I think one of my old girlfriends had. I couldn't wait to get home and read this stuff, and in fact I said to Donna, "Can I have two more rinderpest brochures, please?"

"Two more…? Sure…" She retrieved them for me. She was really nice. She then got us each a copy of the monthly magazine called Agricultural Research, whose cover featured a hot story titled "Sex Pheromone to Foil Cranberry Fruitworm." I asked Donna, "Can I have a brown wrapper to cover this?"

"Uh… oh, you're kidding. Right?"

George Foster said to her, "Try not to take him too seriously."

Au contraire, Mr. Foster-you should take me very seriously. But if you confuse my doltish sense of humor with carelessness or inattention, so much the better.

So, we continued the fifty-cent tour, Part Two. We saw the auditorium, then came to the second-floor cafeteria, a nice, clean modern room with big windows from which you could see the lighthouse, the Gut, and Orient Point. Donna offered us coffee, and we all sat at a round table in the nearly empty dining, area.

We chatted a minute, then Donna said, "The researchers in biocontainment fax their lunch orders to the kitchen. It's not worth showering out-that's what we call it-showering out. Someone delivers all the orders into Zone Two, then whoever delivers has to shower out. The scientists are very dedicated, working in biocontainment eight or ten hours a day. I don't know how they do it."

I asked Donna, "Do they order hamburgers?"

"Excuse me?"

"The scientists. Do they order beef and ham and lamb and stuff like that from the kitchen?"

"I guess… I date one of the researchers. He likes his steak."

"And he does dissections on diseased and putrid cows?"

"Yes. I guess you get used to it."

I nodded. The Gordons did dissections, too, and they loved their steaks. Weird. I mean, I just can't get used to stinking human corpses. Anyway, I guess it's different with animals. Different species and all that.

I knew this might be the only time I'd be able to get away from the herd so I glanced at Max and stood, announcing, "Men's room."

"Over there," Donna said, pointing to an opening in the wall. "Please don't leave the cafeteria."

I put my hand on Beth's shoulder and pressed down, indicating she should stay with the Feds. I said to her, "Make sure Stevens doesn't come back and slip anthrax in my coffee."

I went to the passage where the two rest rooms were located. Max joined me, and we stood in the dead-end corridor. Rest rooms are much more likely to be bugged than corridors. I said, "They can say they fully cooperated, showed us the whole island, and the entire facility except for Zone Five. In fact, it would take a few days to cover this whole building, including the basement, and it would take a week to interrogate the staff."

Max nodded. He said, "We have to assume the people here are as anxious as we are to figure out what, if anything, is missing." He added, "Let's trust them on that."

I replied, "Even if they find out or already know what the Gordons stole, they're not going to tell us. They'll tell Foster and Nash."

"So what? We're investigating a murder."

"When I know what and why, I'm close to who," I said.

"In normal cases-with cases of national security and all that stuff, you're lucky if they tell you anything. There's nothing on this island for us. They control the island, the workplace of the victims. We control the murder scene, the home of the victims. Maybe we can horse-trade some information with Foster and Nash. But I don't think they care who killed the Gordons. They want to make sure the Gordons didn't kill the rest of the country. You know?"

"Yeah, Max, I know. But my cop instincts tell me-"

"Hey, what if we catch the killer, and we can't put him on trial because there aren't twelve people left alive in the state of New York to form a jury?"

"Cut the melodrama." I considered a moment, then said to him, "This may not have anything to do with bugs. Think drugs."

He nodded. "Thought about it. I like that one."

"Yeah. Really. What do you think of Stevens?"

Max looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see a blue-uniformed guard come into the passage. He said, "Gentlemen, can I help you find something?"

Max declined the offer, and we went back to the table. When they send someone to interrupt a private conversation, it means that they weren't able to eavesdrop.

After a few minutes of coffee and chitchat, Ms. Alba checked her watch again and announced, "We can see the rest of the wing now, then go to Dr. Zollner's office."

"You said that half an hour ago, Donna," I reminded her gently.

"He's very busy this morning," she replied. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing. Washington, newspeople from all over the country." She seemed amazed and incredulous. She said, "I don't believe what they're saying about the Gordons. Not for one minute. No way."

We all left the cafeteria and wandered around dull gray corridors awhile. Finally, while viewing the computer room, I'd had enough, and I said to Donna, "I'd like to see the laboratory where the Gordons worked."

"That's in biocontainment. You can probably see that later."

"Okay. How about Tom and Judy's office here in the admin area?"

She hesitated, then said, "You can ask Dr. Zollner. He didn't tell me to take you to the Gordons' office."

I didn't want to get rough with Donna, so I glanced at Max in a way cops understand-Max, you're now the bad cop.

Max said to Ms. Alba, "As the chief of police of Southold Township, of which this island is a part, I require you now to take us to the office of Tom and Judy Gordon whose murders I am investigating."

Not bad, Max, despite the shaky syntax and grammar.

Poor Donna Alba looked like she was going to faint.

Beth said to her, "It's all right. Do what Chief Maxwell asks."

Now it was the turn of Messrs. Foster and Nash, and I already knew what they were going to say. George Foster turned out to be the designated dickhead. He said, "Because of the nature of the Gordons' work and the probability that their office contains papers or documents-"

"Relating to national security," I interjected helpfully, "and so forth, and blah, blah, blah."

Teddy Boy thought he should go on record and said, "The Gordons had a secret clearance, and therefore their papers are classified secret."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me, Detective Corey-I'm speaking." He fixed me with a really nasty glare, then said, "However, in the interests of harmony and to avoid jurisdictional disputes, I will make a phone call, which I'm confident will get us access to the Gordons' office." He looked at me, Max, and Beth and asked, "All right?"

They nodded.

Of course the Gordons' office had already been completely searched and sanitized last night or early this morning. As Beth had said, we were only going to see what they wanted us to see. But I gave George and Ted credit for thinking to make a big stink over this, as though we were going to find some really interesting stuff in the Gordons' office.

Donna Alba seemed relieved and said to Nash, "I'll call Dr. Zollner." She picked up a telephone and hit the intercom button. Meanwhile, Ted Nash whipped out a flip phone and walked some distance away with his back to us and talked, or made believe he was talking, to the gods of National Security in the Great Capital of the Confused Empire.

Charade over, he returned to us mortals at the same time Donna finished with Dr. Zollner. Donna nodded that it was okay, and Nash also nodded.