Chapter 2: Chicken Little Was Right

Colonel John B. Selby, M.D., USAR, was not just a country doctor. The children knew this; so did his wife. His scholarly interests were as diverse as his medical board certifications. His fascination with the arts was equaled only by his obsession with tennis. While not a Renaissance man, Dr. Selby was at the very least a brilliant physician whose peers wondered how he could be content in the limited practice of a Veterans Hospital with only 100 medical beds. The fact that an additional 900 beds were for psychiatric cases helped all to agree that he cultivated absentmindedness as tenderly as Jefferson attended his rose garden.

It was not surprising that the family knew little of the plans for their summer vacation this year. They never did. John Selby neither whimsically revealed a fantasy of travel for his family at the last moment for its happy effect, nor did he withhold the itinerary for any other known reason. It was simply his style.

It also allowed for sudden detours, thousands of miles from home, much to the delight of the children but to the chagrin of their mother. Often these detours occurred while children and wife were with cousins at the summer place on the Severn River near Annapolis and the colonel was at summer camp with the Army.

Only once in fifteen years of marriage had Jane Selby wondered why her husband's obligatory summer camp was always near Washington. Her family, landed gentry with thoroughbreds and summer homes on the Chesapeake, was from Maryland. It was convenient and practical to visit her family, alone at first, later with children, while her husband played soldier for two weeks each year. Once only had he mentioned a route leading to McLean, Virginia, instead of Camp Pickett or Fort Meade. She wondered, but never asked about that billet. Why he slipped that one time even John did not know. He loved her deeply, and felt more than occasional pangs of guilt over that which he was sworn to keep secret. Perhaps he wanted her to ask, to know, to share fully all of his life. None of that mattered now. Now she would know. Now she would know everything.

The children looked out of the back window of the station wagon and saw their parents still standing in the driveway. No longer talking, they were locked in a tight embrace, both with eyes closed.

The phone call had not come from a functionary in Washington this time, but directly from Oak Ridge only a week earlier. A secure line to Dr. Selby's office at the hospital had immediately been established by engineers from the nearby Avon Signal Depot, a small pork barrel army post that to the rest of the world was inconsequential. That Avon held enough nerve gas stored under the bunkers of its nine hole golf course to paralyze every citizen east of the Mississippi was unknown to all but a few. That secret, too, was about to emerge.

- "Colonel Selby?"

- "Yes"

- "State your code for voice authorization, Delta Eight, Delta Nine."

- "Madame Curie makes her own penicillin, Delta Nine, Delta Eight."

- "Vocal phonemes are a match. Please hold."

A new voice came on the line.

- "John, it's worse than we thought in 'Ceiba. The Limp has gone to hell and the French are pulling out quicker than in 'Nam. I want you there yesterday. How are Jane and the kids?"

- "Nice to hear your voice too, Bill. The family's fine, but they're all looking forward to this family vacation. After that business with Fidel you said ---"

- "Look, I know what I said. Castro's an asshole but his brother is worse. Can you get Jane to do the nurse thing again? There's a frog clinic down there called Hospital D'Antoni. You'll probably be bush doctoring some machete wounds so take your bag to make it look good."

-"Always the humanitarian. Why am I still amazed? Ok, what about papers?"

- "Your family's passports will be on your desk first thing in the morning. We've written the note to the kids' principal to get them out of school. Just sign it. You might want them to have shots, too. There are some nasty worms down there that dig in through the feet. God! Honduras is such a hole."

John stopped listening. He was in a field hospital in Korea, treating another case of shisto. The voice continued until John's unpleasant reverie subsided.

- "Look, Bill, I've got one on the gurney for barium. The thorazine isn't going to last forever. Remember who I treat here."