Page 35 of The Shadow Friends

“Am I a threat?”

“Not according to this test,” said the first man. “You’re clean.”

“And I’m not going to get sick?”

“Not from polonium, anyway. It’s dangerous only when inhaled or ingested.” He closed his equipment case, then he and his partner turned toward the door.

“What happens next?” said Maggie. “Does this mean I can leave the hospital?”

“We’re here just to test for radiation. That decision rests with a different agency.”

“Which one?” she asked.

But they were already walking out the door.

They had assured her she was radiation-free, but she headed straight to the shower anyway and scrubbed every inch of her skin with soap and water. Instruments could be wrong, labs could make mistakes, and she did not want a single molecule of polonium to linger on her skin. Barely an hour ago, she’d been worried about dying of Ebola, but polonium was a different matter entirely. This was not an infection, not a virus passed inadvertently from patient to patient. No, a fatal poisoning with polonium was definitely murder. She knew that small amounts of polonium existed naturally in the earth, and in cigarette smoke, but there was only one country in the world where lethal quantities of it were manufactured: Russia.

She shut off the shower and watched the water trickle down the drain, imagining traces of radioactive waste washing into the sewer system. When she’d first arrived at the hospital, all her clothing had been confiscated because they thought it might carry dangerous viral particles. Instead, her clothes had been contaminated by something completely different, and now it would all have to be destroyed.

Goodbye, favorite shoes.

Her cell phone rang.

She wrapped a towel around her body and left the bathroom to retrieve her phone from the nightstand. It was Declan calling.

“A new development,” he said.

“I think I already know what it is. But you go first.”

“That chopper was from the Radiological Assistance Program, Region One. Their team’s based in the Brookhaven National Lab, and they’re now checking Maslov’s hotel room for radioactive contamination. It seems he might have been poisoned with—”

“Polonium-210.”

A pause. “So you know.”

“Don’t sound so defeated.”

“That’s not the sound of defeat. I’m worried. You were in his room. You gave him mouth to mouth.”

“I’m fine. Brookhaven also sent a team to the hospital, and they just checked me for gamma radiation. I got the all clear. I’m just waiting to hear from my doctors when I can leave.”

Declan gave a sigh. “Thank God.”

“But now we have a problem, don’t we? The Russians just assassinated a man on US soil.”

“Not our problem, Maggie. We’re retired, remember?”

“As if we can resist digging into this. I know Ingrid won’t be able to.”

“Which brings up a bigger problem.”

“Bigger than a political assassination in our little town?”

“Ingrid’s missing.”

Maggie paused. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Sagging bath towel, wet hair, shocked face. “What do you mean, missing?”

“She’s still not answering her phone. Needless to say, Lloyd’s frantic. We need you out here, Mags. It’s all hands on deck.”