Brood XIX (13 page)

"That's all I know. You're supposed to be
the man with the answers. Shouldn't your embassy have told you all
of this?"

Eldon flushed with resentment.

"Where are his possessions?" Eldon
asked.

"What you see is what you get."

Par for the course
.

"Let's just get on with this then, shall
we?"

With a curt nod, the attendant pulled back
the sheet to expose the head and torso of the corpse.

Eldon had to turn away to compose himself,
but he couldn't chase the image from his mind. The man's face was
frosted from the freezer, his skin tinged blue. Chunks of flesh had
been stolen from his cheeks, earlobes, and the tip of his nose.
There were still crescents of mud in his ear canals and along his
gum-line. He was dramatically swollen from the uptake of water,
which caused his epidermis to crack as the deeper tissues
froze.

"You don't want to see the parts I left
covered," the attendant said. He smirked and clapped Eldon on the
shoulder, eliciting a flinch. "Do what you need to do quickly. We
don't want him to start to thaw."

Eldon removed the digital camera from the
inner pocket of his suit jacket and leaned over the body. Three
hurried flashes and he was out the door without another word. He
needed fresh air, humid and oppressive though it may be. He
ascended the stairs and crossed the lobby through a churning sea of
the sick and injured, oblivious to their curses as he shouldered
his way toward the front doors. As soon as he was outside, he
ducked to his left, cast aside the handkerchief, and vomited into
an acacia shrub.

Sometimes he absolutely hated his life.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand
and headed to where his car idled in the emergency bay. The driver
waited outside the open rear door of the black Mercedes-Benz
E-Class sedan, and ushered him inside. They drove in silence, save
the whoosh of the wind through the open driver's side window. The
chauffer repeatedly raised his hand to cover his nose as discreetly
as he could.

Wonderful, Eldon thought. He'd obviously
brought more than pictures of the corpse with him.

The Mercedes turned through the black,
wrought-iron gates of the Consulate. Armed Marines saluted as the
car passed and rounded the circular island of rainbow flowers, from
which twin poles bearing the American and Peruvian flags rose.

Eldon didn't wait for the driver to come
around to open the door. He just wanted to get this over with. As
he ascended the concrete stairs beneath the gray marble portico, he
focused on the task at hand: upload the digital images into the
program that would compare them to the passport photos of all
Americans still in Peru, starting with those who had registered
their travel plans with the Embassy. Once he had positive
identification, he could make his calls, get the body embalmed and
on a plane back to the States, and wash his hands of the whole
mess.

"Mr. Monahan," the receptionist called in a
thick Spanish accent as he strode into the lobby. She pronounced it
Meester
Monahan.

He pretended not to hear her and started up
the staircase beside her desk. The middle-aged Peruvian national
climbed out from behind her post with the clatter of high
heels.

"Mr. Monahan!"

With a frustrated sigh, he turned to face
the frumpy woman and raised the question with his eyebrows.

"There's a man waiting for you outside your
office."

"I assume he's been properly cleared?"

"Yes, Mr. Monahan."

"Thank you, Mrs. Arguedas."

He ascended to the top floor and headed
toward his office at the end of the corridor. A man with shaggy
chestnut hair and pale blue eyes sat in one of the chairs outside
his office, a filthy backpack clutched to his chest. The armed
soldier beside him snapped to attention when he saw Eldon, while
the other man rose almost casually from his seat. His discomfort
was apparent, yet he seemed less than intimidated by his
surroundings. He had broad shoulders and a solid build that
suggested he had been shaped more by physical exertion in the real
world than by countless hours in the gym.

Eldon extended his hand and introduced
himself as he approached. "Consulate-general Monahan."

"Wes Merritt," the man said. He offered his
own hand, but retracted it when he noticed how dirty it was.

Eldon was silently grateful. He lowered his
hand, gave a polite smile, and gestured for the man to follow him
into his inner sanctum. The soldier fell in behind them and took
his place beside the closing door.

"How can I be of assistance, Mr. Merritt?"
Eldon seated himself in the high-backed leather chair behind his
mahogany and brass Royal Louis XV Boulle desk, and made a show of
checking his watch.

"Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Monahan.
Especially with no notice."

Eldon waved him off, but he would definitely
have to discuss such improprieties with Mrs. Arguedas.

Merritt opened the flap of the rucksack and
set it on the edge of the pristine desk.

"I wanted to give this to you in person. You
know how the authorities are down here..."

Eldon nodded and fought the urge to shove
the vile bag off of his eighteenth century antique desk.

"I found this with the body you just visited
at the morgue. I need to make sure it reaches the right people back
home." Merritt shrugged and rose as if to leave. "You'll make sure
it does, Mr. Monahan?"

"Of course. Thank you, Mr. Merritt. I'm sure
the decedent's family appreciates your integrity."

Merritt gave a single nod in parting and
exited through the polished oak door.

His curiosity piqued, Eldon plucked a
handful of tissues from the box on the corner of the desk and
walked around to inspect the bag. He gingerly moved aside a tangled
nest of dried vines and appraised the contents. His eyes widened in
surprise.

He leaned across the desk and pressed the
"Speaker" button on his phone.

"Yes, Mr. Monahan?" Mrs. Arguedas
answered.

"Please hold my calls."

"Yes, sir."

He disconnected and returned his attention
to the rucksack.

Now he really needed to figure out to whom
the body in the morgue belonged.

BLOODLETTING

The butchered remains of twelve year-old
Jasmine Rivers are discovered in the cellar of an abandoned
farmhouse on the desolate eastern plains of Colorado, the fourth
mutilated body found in the last two months. The FBI is still
searching for the missing parts of the previous three.
Hundreds of miles away in Arizona, eleven corpses are exhumed from
the Sonoran Desert. They've been mummified and bundled in the
traditional Inca style. But the Inca lived in South America, and
these bodies aren't centuries old.
Seemingly unrelated victims that share a common cause of death:
exsanguination.
Special Agent Paxton Carver follows the trail of blood, which leads
him to the continuation of genetic experimentation that began
during World War II and a designer retrovirus capable of altering
human chromosomes. Can he track down the virus and prevent further
exposure before the real bloodletting begins?

El Mirador
Ruins

North of El
Petén, Guatemala

30 Years Ago

Torrential rain laid siege to the jungle,
beating a discordant melody on the broad leaves of the sacred ceiba
trees and tropical cedars. No celestial light penetrated the
smothering black storm clouds, beneath which a damp mist rolled
across the muddy ground. Somewhere in the darkness a parrot cawed
from an enclave in a mahogany tree and the hooting of howler
monkeys echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Until abruptly the world fell silent.

Four shadows peeled from the night at a
crouch and emerged from the undergrowth into a small clearing at
the base of the steep hillside that had grown over the ancient Maya
temple La Danta, converging upon a rickety aluminum shack
surrounded by drilling and earthmoving equipment sinking into the
detritus. One of the shadows reached the door of the flimsy
building, and after a few seconds, a padlock dropped into the mud.
Another shadow drew the door wide and all four disappeared inside.
Wooden crates and packing material lined the wall to the left,
while middle Preclassic Era artifacts from narrow-mouthed tecomate
jars to jade and obsidian figurines were displayed in a staged
jumble on a table to the right as though someone had merely stepped
away from their task of boxing and shipping. It was all for show.
As were the baskets brimming with small picks and brushes, the
dirty jackets hanging from nails, and the row of hardhats mounted
with halogen lamps.

The rear of the shack abutting the slope had
been retrofitted with a door to match the front, beaten and dirty,
hinges rusted, yet it was secured by more than a simple padlock.
Two of the shadows isolated the external detonators rigged to
bricks of C4 and deactivated the remote triggers, while a third
removed the cover of a breaker box on the wall, revealing a small
black screen. The shadow produced what looked like a lollipop from
an invisible pocket and held it up to the scanner. A red light
projected from the screen, spotlighting an excised brown eye at the
end of a short metal post.

They removed the aluminum door as the
reinforced steel door behind slid back into the recessed wall,
revealing a stone tunnel reaching back into the black heart of the
pyramid. Merging with the darkness, they inched deeper, Steyr AUG
5.56 mm assault rifles sweeping the rocky passageway illuminated
only by the pale green glare provided by the unwieldy night vision
apparatuses strapped over their eyes. They advanced in silence,
infiltrating what had once been a temple to a long dead god, but
now led to the altar of technology, modernized to feature track
lighting on the rock roof, the circulated air blowing in their
faces, and the humidity controls that held the jungle at bay.

As one, the shadows flattened against the
wall where the tunnel opened into a vast square chamber from which
several dark passages branched. A row of gas-powered generators
rumbled to the right beneath a hood that vented the fumes to the
surface.

"We're too late," the first shadow said.
"They knew we were coming."

"No," another said, shoving through the
others into the room. "They have to be here somewhere."

Though none could see the man's eyes,
glistening green tracks of tears streaked the mud he'd rubbed on
his face. He headed straight for the widest branch, passing between
walls composed of great cubes of stone, decorated with seventh
century hieroglyphics barely visible through layers of dust and
spider webs, until he reached the terminus, from which twin tunnels
forked to either side.

The man turned left and nearly barreled into
a stainless steel door. Beside it was another retina scanner that
granted him access thanks to the eye in his pocket. The
impenetrable slab hissed back into the wall and he stepped into a
small tiled room with lockers to either side and clean suits
hanging by another door directly ahead. He blew through and the
door opened for him into a small chamber with a pull-cord chemical
bath. As soon as the door closed behind him he was buffeted by
scalding hot steam from the vents surrounding him, but he didn't
care. All that mattered now was finding them.

After a blistering moment, the door in front
of him slid back to expose a sterile laboratory more than thirty
feet long, a recent addition with shiny steel walls that reflected
his distorted black image. A series of metal drums dominated the
center of the room, vaguely reminiscent of round horse troughs with
domed lids upon which were mounted circular pressure, temperature,
and humidity gauges. Racks lined the wall to the left, brimming
with chemicals, glassware, pipettes, and Petri dishes. To his right
was a long counter with several work stations demarcated by
powerful electron microscopes, centrifuges, and other equipment
beyond his comprehension.

The caustic scent of disinfecting agents was
overwhelming, but beneath it lurked a more organic stench similar
to stagnant marsh water that he recognized immediately.

"God, no," he whispered, running to the back
of the room where a half dozen surgical lamps were mounted to the
ceiling, directed toward the same point beneath. "No, no, no."

An agonized moan wrenched loose from his
chest.

A body was draped across a steel table. The
gutters to either side were sloppy with congealed blood and bone
chips. Its abdomen had been opened and all the viscera removed,
revealing the exposed spine framed by ribs that had been cracked
open and drawn apart like a clamshell. The legs and arms were
untouched, though a marbled shade of gray, the digits dark from
necrosis. But her face...her beautiful face...

He leaned forward and gently caressed her
waxy cheek, glancing only briefly into the hollow sockets where her
blue eyes had once been. Sobbing, he wrapped his arm around her
shoulders and pulled her to him. He lowered his chin to her
forehead and stroked her tangled blonde hair, now crusted with
blood.

Bellowing his sorrow, he had to look away,
finally catching sight of the message they'd left for him, smeared
in blood on the wall.

She died slowly.

The man roared, grief and rage forcing aside
rational thought. He whirled and punched the nearest metal drum.
The hatch of the dome opened and a gust of what looked like steam
billowed out. Within was a liquid nitrogen-cooled system filled
with organs in numbered containers. Before he could turn away, he
saw a liver, kidneys, a heart, and two long, coiled ropes that he
wished had been intestines. Deep down, he knew exactly what they
were and collapsed to his knees.