“Then drop me off and be on your way,” I said. “Don’t even think about whining to me right now. Not when the entire world’s going to hell.”

“How’s Wingo?” he asked in a more conciliatory tone.

“I’m frankly scared to death for him,” I replied.

We drove through MCV, turning into a helipad behind a fence where patients and organs arrived when they were medflighted to the hospital. USAMRIID had not arrived yet, but in moments we could hear the powerful Blackhawk, and people in cars and walking along sidewalks stopped and stared. Several drivers pulled off the road to watch the magnificent machine darken the sky as it hammered in, blasting grass and debris as it landed.

The door slid open and Marino and I climbed inside, where crew seats were already occupied by scientists from USAMRIID. We were surrounded by rescue gear, and another portable isolator that was collapsed like an accordion. I was handed a helmet with a microphone, and I put this on and fastened my five-point harness. Then I helped Marino with his as he perched primly on a fold-down seat not built for people his size.

“God knows I hope reporters don’t get wind of this,” someone said as the heavy door shut.

I plugged the cord of my microphone into a port in the ceiling. “They will. Probably already have.”

Deadoc liked attention. I could not believe he would leave this world silently, or without his presidential apology. No, there was something else in store for us, and I did not want to imagine what that might be. The trip to Janes Island State Park was less than an hour, but complicated by the fact that the campground was densely wooded with pines. There was nowhere to land.

Our pilots set us down at the Coast Guard station in Crisfield, in a marina called Somer’s Cove, where sailboats and yachts battened down for winter bobbed on the dark blue ruffled water of the Little Annemessex River. We went inside the tidy brick station long enough to put on exposure suits and life vests while Chief Martinez briefed us.

“We got a lot of problems going at the same time,” he was saying as he paced the carpet inside the communication room, where all of us were gathered. “For one thing, Tangier folk have kin here, and we’ve had to station armed guards at roads leading out of town because now CDC is concerned about Crisfield people going anywhere.”

“No one’s gotten sick here,” Marino said, as he struggled to get cuffs over his boots.

“No, but I’m worried that at the very start of this thing, some people snuck through the cracks, got out of Tangier and came here. Point being, don’t expect much friendliness in these parts.”

“Who’s at the campground?” someone else asked.

“Right now, the FBI agents that found the body.”

“What about other campers?” Marino said.

“Here’s what I’ve been told,” Martinez said. “When the agents went in, they found maybe half a dozen campers and only one with a phone hookup. That was campsite sixteen, and they banged on the door. Nothing, so they look in a window and see the body on the floor.”