Luke was curious to see if they could actually do it, but these men were both young, healthy, and had obviously spent too much time in foolish competitions. They both juggled quite well, and the nurse tried to get them to stop after a minute, but they insisted on continuing to see who could outlast the other. Given their health and vigor, it was obvious these two would be selected for the study. If Luke could keep pace with them, surely he’d be among the men chosen too.
The brothers continued their frantic juggling, laughing as they tossed the beanbags in ever-faster motions to impress the nurse. Big Rollins won by twenty seconds and surrendered his two beanbags.
“That’s nothing,” Luke said. “I can do it withmy feet.”
That got everyone’s attention, earning catcalls and howls of disbelief, but these people didn’t know him. When a man spent fifteen months trapped in a prison cell with little to do... yes, he had learned to juggle with his feet.
He was out of practice, so he only took one beanbag. He still had his shoes off, and he lay on the floor, propping himself up on his elbows and holding his knees in the air. After balancing the beanbag on top of a foot, he tossed it in the air, then caught it on top of his other foot. The nurse started the timer, and Luke continued batting the beanbag from foot to foot. The other men began applauding as he crossed the sixty-second mark. He could have gone the full two minutes if he hadn’t been laughing so hard, but eventually the beanbag went glancing off his foot too far for him to capture, and he sprang back to his feet, accepting congratulations from some of the men and even the doctor.
But not the brothers. “We’re going to have to kill him,” Little Rollins said.
Luke grinned and offered his hand. “You can’t kill me. After today we’re all teammates on the Poison Squad.”
Ten minutes later his assertion was proven correct as he, the two brothers, St. Louis, and eight other men were given the paperwork to become the inaugural members of the Poison Squad.
When Luke joined the experiment, he hadn’t realized the strain it would put on both Gray and his wife. After all, it was his body and his mission, but if he put himself in danger’s way, it affected others. Annabelle was tormenting herself for telling him about the study, and it was obvious Gray wanted him to have nothing to do with it. Today they were both helping him move into the boardinghouse where he’d live for the next four months. It was a slim three-story building only blocks from the Department of Agriculture.
Gray did his best to talk Luke out of going inside. “You haven’t signed any contract committing you to this study. You are free to walk away at any time. I say you walk away now. Before it even begins.”
Luke headed up the steps to the front porch. “I have to do it.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve already given enough of yourself.”
It hurt to see the expression on Gray’s face as he stood on the sidewalk with Luke’s trunk slung over his shoulder. Gray had been his lifeline over the past year, visiting him repeatedly in that Cuban jail and then tending him while he recovered his health. He didn’t want to repay that generosity by thumbing his nose at Gray’s concerns, but he felt called to this assignment.
“Here, I’ll take the trunk. You don’t need to stay.”
When he reached for the strap, Gray twisted past him and headed into the boardinghouse. A clerk in the foyer directed Luke to a third-floor bedroom he would be sharing with three other men.
It was going to be a tight fit. There were two bunk beds, a single desk, a single chest of drawers, and a slim window overlooking an alley. Luke was the first of the test subjects to arrive and chose the lower bunk closest to the window. Gray hoisted his trunk onto the mattress.
“Oh, Luke.” Annabelle sighed as she scanned the room with worried eyes. “Are you sure? No one will think badly of you if you back out.”
“I would,” he said instinctively.
Annabelle and Gray didn’t understand. He waselatedby this chance to prove himself. Adventure and danger had always been carved onto his heart. In his younger years it ran wild, leading him into foolhardy exploits and trouble with the law, but he was learning to funnel it toward the good. He needed to test his physical strength against a challenge. He needed to match wits with a worthy opponent and win. Five days out of the week he sat at a desk and did paperwork, but his soul craved more. There was a wildness inside that needed a mission to both challenge and frighten him.
This need was so deeply embedded that he had no doubt God instilled it in him. Luke had never done his finest praying in a church pew. He did it out in the real world. He had proven himself in the sweltering battlefields of Cuba and in exposing corruption on the pages ofModern Century.
Now it was time to test his mettle with the Poison Squad.
Six
Marianne headed toward her supervisor’s office, her footsteps echoing in the marble hallway of the Interior building. Willard Schmidt oversaw the photographers, and each week he provided her with a list of the buildings and subjects he wanted photographed. He was a thickset middle-aged man with a shiny bald head.
“Here you go, Miss Magruder,” he said as he pushed her assignment toward her. Most of the subjects were familiar to her, but two were odd.
“The District of Columbia Jail?” she asked.
Mr. Schmidt nodded. “It falls under our purview. Lately there have been complaints that the facility is inadequate. It was built in 1872 but has never been photographed. We need to prove it is a safe and well-maintained facility. I trust you can make sure that happens,” he said with a critical look over the top of his spectacles.
One of the nice things about coming from a wealthy family was that the roof over Marianne’s head was not dependent upon Mr. Schmidt. If the prison was dreadful, her photographs would capture its true condition. She wouldn’t use her camera to lie and show it in a positive light.
“I’ll do a good job,” she said, still studying her list of assignments. “What are the hygienic table trials?”
“A new initiative at the Department of Agriculture. They’re taking volunteers who agree to be test subjects for food preservatives. The doctor wants every man photographed before the testing begins. Poor fools. Lord only knows what they’ll look like in a few months.”
“What do you mean by ‘food preservatives’?” she asked. Most of the food sold in markets today had preservatives in it. It was safer than eating meat that had been sweltering in hot railway cars without preservatives. Her father was an expert at ensuring that meat, milk, and canned food were safe, and chemical preservatives were a blessing of modern science.
