“Let’s check the other guy quickly.”

Maureen was glad to have something to do. She fetched Yamamoto’s specimens. They looked for all intents and purposes the same as Rothman’s, mirror images in fact. But whether they were radioactive they had no idea. Pia had taken her Geiger counter with her.

“Should we call DeVries to find out how we can determine what the radioisotope we’re dealing with is?” Jack asked, referring to the OCME head toxicologist.

Suddenly Laurie remembered a disaster kit that the OCME had put together after the agency had recovered from 9/11, the events of which had caught them, and most of the city agencies, completely unprepared. The concern was that if 9/11 had been a nuclear terrorist event, OCME would have been completely unable to cope. So as not to be caught unawares, the disaster kit had been put together. “I think there’s an instrument in the disaster kit that detects radiation,” Laurie said. “And it should be able to identify the radioisotopes involved. You remember? Bingham insisted on getting it.”

Jack didn’t recall, but he trusted Laurie’s memory. When she left to see if she could find the device, Jack called John DeVries, the toxicologist, and asked him how they could identify the radioactive material.

“I honestly have no idea, Jack. My whole career I’ve never had to, thank goodness. The only radioactive cases to come through the OCME in my experience were patients being treated by nuclear medicine so we already knew the identity of the radioisotope. I guess you’ll use atomic absorption somehow but I’ll have to get back to you. It’s Friday night, you know, Jack.”

“I know it is, John. Many thanks.”

That was a dead end for now. Then Laurie returned. She’d found the disaster kit and in it a Berkeley Nucleonics Corp. handheld Model 935 Surveillance and Measurement System, capable of identifying individual isotopes. Together Jack and Laurie read the directions and then used the machine to measure Rothman’s intestine’s emissions. After about five minutes, the result was available. Although mostly alpha particles were being emitted, there was also a low level of gamma radiation. It was the gamma radiation that yielded the result. It was polonium-210!

“The death certificates are wrong, both of them,” Jack said. “Damn it, I missed this completely. This was no accident.”

“Obviously. Do you know much about polonium?”

“I happen to know a little bit about it. First of all, there are no medical uses for it. In fact, you know what it’s mainly used for? It’s mixed with beryllium such that the alpha particles from the polonium cause the beryllium to release neutrons to act as a trigger for nuclear weapons.”

“Good God!” Laurie exclaimed. “How do you know that?”