Doug swerved to miss a large police van with BOMB SQUAD on the side. What the dickens. It stuck half way out in the lane. He pulled into his space. 

"Mr. Carpenter." Bill Hanes, the safety officer, came running and huffing up the ramp, his fat face and bald head pointing like a warhead. "I had you paged. We've got a problem in the labs." 

"Got anything to do with that bomb squad truck parked by Emergency?" 

"Yes sir. The bomb squad is here." He took short side-steps, dancing toward the hospital as though to pull Doug with him.

"What for?" Doug moved with him and Bill walked faster. 

"Well, I..." his voice trailed away, "called them."

Doug ran beside the big man. "Why?" With everything else, what now? "Was there a bomb threat?" 

"No sir. Maybe. Yes sir. Dr. Snowden has stuff on the fourth floor that could blow up any minute and take the hospital with it. I mean the whole hospital." He gestured with his arms, making a large circle, and Doug nearly ran into him. 

"What stuff?" He ran to keep up with him across the lawn. 

"Picric acid, and it's been there a long time and you know what happens to that stuff when it gets old."

"No. I don't know. What happens?"

"It crystallizes, and that's when it's ready to explode. Anything will set it off and he's got big jars of it sitting in the hallway." 

Bill Hanes gestured and jabbered, and Doug felt like an idiot chasing after him. He followed him through the side door of the main building, through the clinging hospital smells. He clanged up the metal-stripped steps after him, not waiting for the elevator. 

"How did you discover it?" He strained to catch his breath. "And what does Snowden use it for if it's an explosive?" 

"I don't know what he uses it for, but I picked up one of the bottles to tell him he couldn't store stuff on the hall floor when I saw the name on the label. I started to unscrew the cap, but then I saw the crystals. And you know what that stuff can do."

He watched the big round man straining up the steps ahead of him and wondered if this were a wild goose chase. Sometimes he thought the guy's brain a wad of waste. But sometimes the man was right. But Snowden had been a pathologist forever. Certainly, he would know. He had been chairman of the labs for over twenty years without blowing up himself or the hospital. 

Three more flights of clattering stairs. Gasping for breath, they burst out of the stairwell into the hallway to find Cliff Toliver, the Chief of Security (all five foot four of him), talking to Dr. Snowden. A police sergeant and two other officers were covered with body padding, like play figures in a game where everyone pounded each other with clubs. 

Doug and Hanes stopped for a moment, perspiring and panting. Ben Snowden bent down, scooped a half gallon glass container from the floor, tossed it in the air, then caught it with one hand. 

One of the officers threw himself flat on the floor. The other officer and the sergeant backed against the wall. 

Snowden tossed the container to the surprised sergeant who managed to clutch it to his chest. He stood, mouth open. 

"I was using this stuff when you were in diapers." 

The sergeant's eyes were like stones. He carefully turned and handed the container to the officer standing next to him. The officer squatted and placed the container in a padded steel box.  The other officer rose from the floor, and stared at Snowden. 

The sergeant turned to Snowden. "No disrespect intended, sir. You may be a doctor, sir, but you're a complete fool, sir." He turned to Bill Hanes. "Any more of this stuff? We've got five full latch boxes." 

"No sir. I've checked everywhere. That's all there is." 

"You're sure? If there's more hidden away, I'll have the building evacuated." 

"Sergeant, I'm Doug Carpenter, the administrator. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"There's not much to tell. We received a phone call from Mr. Hanes at six-thirty-five. We proceeded here, arriving at six-forty and found eighteen half-gallon containers of what used to be picric acid and what is now a highly explosive salt called lyddite. If all of this blew," he waved his hand at the steel boxes, "none of us would live to tell about it."  He glared contempt at Snowden. 

The other two officers latched the lid of the bomb container.

"Doug, all these idiots have to do is add water to restore it. This is stupid." Snowden laughed, but he didn't look happy. 

Doug turned to the sergeant. "What are you going to do with it?" 

"We're going to take it out into the north rock quarry and detonate it." 

Ben Snowden planted his fists on his hips, his mouth twisted to one side, white eyebrows raised in disbelief. 

The sergeant kept his eyes off Snowden as though he didn't exist.  "The point is, in its crystallized form it's an explosive. If you'd like to come along and see what could have happened in this building, you'd be welcome." 

Doug nodded. "No, thanks, but Bill, I think you should." 

"I'm going, too," interjected Dr. Snowden. "I want to see these toy soldiers blow up this harmless material. It might be enough to pop corn." 

"Okay." Doug turned to Bill. "I'd like a complete report as soon as you return. Maybe you ought to go, too, Cliff." 

Toliver was already moving to a hall phone to have a car brought around.

"Ben, give me a call later." But the old man just distorted his face in disgust. Doug felt like apologizing for being in a hurry.

                             [Break]

Doug settled behind his desk ....He heard the police siren as the bomb squad headed toward the old rock quarry, north of the city. He could imagine Snowden in his white lab coat, his arms folded, lips twitching. 

                             [Break]

The bomb squad had reached the rock quarry by now. He focused his attention on the correspondence. Another day was beginning. 

                             [Break]

The call from Bill Hanes came when Doug was at lunch. Ann had the call transferred. He had to strain to hear Hanes's nasal voice over the clattering of dishes and talking.

"Mr. Carpenter, they blew a hole mustabeen seven feet wide and three feet deep at the quarry. Dust everywhere. It nearly blasted my ears out. They're still ringing. Must've been a twenty on the Richter scale." He laughed and then went into a coughing fit.

Doug said nothing for a moment. "And Snowden was there?"

"Yessir, he sure was. Bet he won't store no picric acid in the hall no more." 

"What did he say?" 

"He didn't say nothing. Not one word the whole way back."

Snowden would have to be embarrassed and mad as all get out at Hanes. Doug liked Snowden, but this was not excusable. A pathologist should know his chemistry, and this had to be basic chemistry. Picric acid crystallizes and becomes an explosive. 

It could have made a mess of the labs and the building. No telling how many people might have been killed. Doug left the cafeteria. He took the elevator up to the labs but couldn't find Snowden so he went back to his office.

"Ann, see if you can find Dr. Snowden. Try every place you can think of until you find him." He told her what had happened. 

"What a shame. He's such a nice guy. What's going to happen now?"

"I'm still processing that one." But things wouldn't be the same for Snowden. "He's got to be going through some trauma. When you get him, tell him I want to buy him a cup of coffee and ask him to come down here."

"If you're talking about me, no need to call," said Ben Snowden, coming through the doorway. "I'll take it black." 

"How are you, Ben?" asked Doug.

Snowden managed a thin smile. "I'll complain if it'll help. On the other hand, let's skip the coffee. I've had enough excitement for one day."

Doug ushered him into the office. Snowden crossed the room and stood looking out the window. He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. He held his hands up as though to gesture to God, and then dropped them, slapping his legs. He turned and faced Doug, shaking his head. 

"When that...that...that stuff blew, I didn't believe it." His hands were gesturing to the sky again. "I thought those cops had planted a stick of dynamite in there. I couldn't believe they would do such a thing." His voice rose. "And then," his voice became quieter, "as I watched all that..." he gestured, again, "that...blasted dirt in the...the...whole sky," he shouted. "It was everywhere." 

He sank into a chair. "I knew they hadn't planted it. I could've made a shambles of the laboratory, maybe the whole hospital." He gazed across the room as though seeing the hospital falling apart. "I could've..." he shook his head. "I could have killed dozens of people." He pushed up from the chair and turned to the window.

Doug didn't know what to say, but sensed it was best to say nothing.

"I've been here a long time, Doug."

Doug was surprised by the calm statement, the quietness of his voice. Where had the feisty old man gone?

"I didn't want to go like this," he said, as though talking to himself. "But I've seen it coming." He turned and faced Doug. "Five will get you ten, you have, too." For just a moment, he looked both angry and hurt. 

Doug shifted, uneasily. "I guess you had a pretty bad moment."

"A bad moment." Snowden laughed, but his eyes welled up like blue ink. "A bad moment." He put his hands to his face and turned to the window. He put his head back and dropped his hands. He took a deep breath and managed to squeeze out the words, "I'm tired, Doug, and I'm old." His voice cracked. "We all get old, eventually, all of us." His shoulders shook, and he sobbed openly. 

Doug moved to him, but the old man turned and held up his hand. 

"I remember when I came here in my forties." He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. "Still young, still anxious."  He shouted, "In my prime." He sank into the chair, propped his face in his hands and cried, "In my prime, and it's gone."

Doug pulled a chair over and sat facing him. 

After a while, Snowden leaned back and wiped his eyes. "You'll have to excuse an old has-been." Some of his natural humor showed through. "It was good, Doug. It was so good." He smiled. "It was so good, I never thought it would end." He took a deep breath and so did Doug. 

"Ben, you've given a lot to this place."

"Yeah, I know," said Ben, "picric acid and all."

Again, Doug didn't know what to say. 

"I think I'll go home for the rest of the day, and then, tomorrow, I'll come in and maybe we can talk, and maybe I can put a few mementos in some boxes for the pasture."

"Tell you what, Ben. Why don't you take a month's vacation, and then let's talk. You know you've earned it."

Ben thought for a moment. "No, let's make it a clean break. Everyone knows I'm past time to retire. But thanks for the thought." He left quickly.

Doug remained seated, still surprised, feeling drained. He looked at the empty chair and imagined thirty years of dedication, thirty years of one contribution after another, of helping an institution grow, of merging mind and body into its works, and then passing on into obsolescence, the forgotten past, a faint echo in a long, dark hallway.