Not until Merrihew entered the warehouse, where the six corpses lay, did he realize he hadn't smelled anything since he arrived in Antarctica.
Rotting flesh. He sneezed, a frozen white puff.
Captain Duffy wiped a big hand at his pulpy nose, lips curled. "Jesus Christ." He looked green around his bearded, puffy jowls.
"You warmed up the place," Merrihew muttered, pulling off fur-lined gloves.
"I didn't." Captain Duffy raised bushy eyebrows, looked indignant. He slapped at a large red switch by the door and a low rattling whine emanating from the far end of the hollow metal building ceased. The air immediately chilled. "I specifically gave orders to--"
"You can chew out some poor grunt later. Right now, I want to see your--find."
Both men unbuttoned their parkas and removed their gloves, blowing on stiff, reddened fingers. Merrihew tucked the briefcase between his knees as he did so. The army man pulled back the first thick black plastic sheet.
"This one," Duffy pointed a stubby finger. "Caucasian male, twenty-five years old. All chest and abdominal cavity organs removed. Genitals too. No wounds. It's as if the organs got sucked out his ass by a vacuum cleaner."
He went to another table, pulled back another plastic sheet. "Female, race and age unknown. Skinned. Every inch of her." Another table. "Asian child, female, about six years old. Genitalia removed. Neat job, like the white male." Another. "Caucasian male, adult, about sixty years old. Brain and nerves removed."
"How the hell do you remove somebody's nerves?"
"Good question. With no wounds yet. Here. Black female, about twenty years old. Heart and blood vessels removed."
"How the hell--"
"And this one." He lifted the last sheet, face pinched in a grimace. The body looked like a deflated balloon. "Caucasian male, twenty-five. The skeletal structure removed."
"Impossible."
Duffy shrugged round shoulders, neatly pressed tan shirt stretched over his belly. "Sure. Whatever you say." He lay the plastic back over the wrinkled, desiccated body.
"I don't doubt your people." Merrihew rebuttoned his parka with one hand, briefcase in the other. "But I know you don't have the best equipment to work with."
"That's not it, Mister Merrihew." Duffy forced a cheeky smile. Merrihew recalled a gorilla he'd seen in a zoo once. "And you damn well know it."
"Look, Captain, I--"
"I send up a coded priority saying we got ourselves an unusual find here, something pretty weird, and suddenly, I get told--real subtle-like, mind, the Army Way--that I don't know how to wipe my ass let alone command a dozen Army regulars and university types with little more to do than play cards, watch porno videos and jack off.
"I'm Mister Cooperative, Merrihew. Army through and through. A twenty-year man just killing time to draw my pension. I don't want to make waves. But I know the score. Been there, done that. How the hell do you think I got this cushy gig at the South Fucking Pole? I know, goddamit. Sooner or later, this, this--find is going to need a fallguy, a scapegoat. It's my command, so guess who gets to be in the barrel when it comes finger-pointing time?" Again, the feral smile. "I think my pension might be in jeopardy, don't you agree, mister CIA or whoever the hell you really are?"
Exhaustion pressed against Merrihew's grainy eyes. He eased his tall frame onto an Army issue metal folding chair, put the briefcase on his knees and rested his elbows on the polished imitation leather surface. He pushed back his parka hood and scratched his bald head.
Cold from the chair penetrated to his thin butt cheeks, even through the arctic garb he'd put on in the helicopter flight down. His lungs felt chapped and he felt old.
)
