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We’d been in the apartment for exactly a half hour when we got a call from Julie saying Pooka was on his way home.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We couldn’t keep him here any longer. He wanted Gobbles to go home with him, and when Gobbles refused he got angry and stomped off.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Ranger and I took the back door out, crossed into the neighboring yard, and returned to the Macan.
“Next stop the Zeta house,” Ranger said.
“Take the loop road through the campus and turn when you see Windward Dorm. Zeta is a couple buildings down from Windward.” I buckled myself in. “Did you find anything interesting in all those stacks of papers?”
“Some of them looked like student term papers. Most of them were copies of professional articles. I don’t know enough biology to understand the content. His doctoral thesis was bound and on his desk. There were a couple professional journals on his desk. He had pages that mentioned him earmarked.”
Ranger turned onto the loop road, found Zeta, and parked in the small lot at the side of the building.
“I’ve never seen the campus this quiet,” I said. “No one’s picketing Zeta. No one’s playing Frisbee. No music blasting out. No one’s on the porch yelling sexist slurs at the women passing by. No women passing by.”
“Saturday morning,” Ranger said.
The inside of Zeta was just as quiet. No music. No television. A couple brothers stumbled past us on the way to the kitchen.
“We’re invisible,” I said to Ranger, leading him to the cellar door. “Probably everyone is still blind drunk from last night.”
Ranger looked at the two locks that had been installed on the door. “No problem here.”
Moments later the door was open and we stepped inside. Ranger locked us in and flipped the lights on. The Zeta basement was one large room that had been finished at a basic utilitarian level. Cement floor, raw drywall ceiling and walls. No-frills fluorescent lighting. Mechanicals were at the far end of the room. Cases of soda and water were stacked back by the mechanicals. There were several empty kegs by the cases of soda.
Two large folding tables had been set up in the middle of the room directly under one of the lights, and paper tubes were lined up on the tables. A box of firecrackers had been set to the side on the floor. A bunch of empty red and silver tins had been tossed into a big box. Another box held tins that hadn’t been opened.
“Fireworks,” I said.
“I know something about fireworks and these aren’t typical. Besides the usual components these are designed to hold a containment package.”
“A stink bomb?”
“Not likely. The odor would disperse too quickly.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything unusual here that he might want to put inside the shell.”
“Was there anything in his apartment?”
“Fleas,” Ranger said.
“What would he do with the fleas?”
“How crazy is this professor? Is he terrorist crazy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve had limited contact. He’s angry. Doesn’t seem to like the school. I know from Monica Linken that he was turned down for tenure and his research was defunded.”
“When I was going through the papers I found several articles on Unit 731 and aerial dispersion of pathogens.”
“What’s Unit 731?”
“It was a unit of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. It was engaged in covert biological and chemical warfare research and development. I’m mentioning this because the articles were on Pooka’s desk, and not warehoused in a stack in a corner. I didn’t read through the articles, so I don’t know if they’re relevant, but I know that one of the Unit 731 projects involved bubonic plague and fleas. The Japanese army infected fleas with the plague and dropped them from planes on the Chinese countryside. Supposedly they killed thousands of people. Maybe hundreds of thousands.”
“Omigod. Pooka’s fleas. Do you think he’s planning on dropping plague-infected fleas at homecoming?”
