by Giles Milton
‘Where will he go?’
Jack shrugged.
‘And what’s his next move? Jack? Surely he won’t last five minutes out there. Surely?’
‘Maybe not. But -’
‘But - ?’
‘Like I said, we’re dealing with an expert.’
‘But Christ, Jack, you’re supposed to be the fucking expert. Why d’you think I got you here in the first place.’
Her voice had an agitated tremor. She was close to breaking point. The sight of Kingston’s corpse, the blood, it was all punching home.
‘One thing -’
She looked up, expectant.
‘He’s not holding too many cards right now. He’s woken into a world that must be totally alien to him. Think about it. He must feel like he’s landed on another planet. Even the lab here -’ he swept his arm around the room – ‘no machines like these in his day. No computers. And the last phone he’d have used would have been a chunk of Bakelite with some German fräulein at the other end. The world’s moved on since he last blinked. He must be very lost.’
Tammy rocked backwards and forwards on her heels. She was listening to what he had to say.
‘He left home in, what, forty-four? It was still the blackout. Photos of Hitler in all the shop windows. Swastikas flying from the lamp-posts. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler. Goose-stepping soldiers marching down the Unter der Linden. And suddenly he wakes up, finds himself wandering along Interstate Fifty with cars, trucks, unlike anything he’s ever seen. The road outside isn’t Hermann Göringstrasse, Tammy. There’s no banners telling him how marvelous the Führer is. Instead, there’s adverts for Hollister and grilled flame-burgers and the latest four-by-four.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘But Jack, shit.’
She clenched her fist, banged it so hard on the shelf next to her that a dish of syringes clattered to the floor. ‘We need to catch him now, before he kills anyone else.’
‘Yes.’
Jack dropped his voice.
‘Fact is, we’ve no idea what’s been brought back to life. All we know is it’s not Ferris Clark.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘D’you think Tom and Hunter knew?’
‘Dunno, but possibly. You know they visited the Vegas archives before they even got on the plane to Greenland. I reckon they were looking for an identity to go with the corpse.’
Tammy threw a puzzled look.
‘They left ZAKRON knowing only that a mystery body had been found in Greenland. A mystery body in an unusually perfect state. And that was on the afternoon of June twenty-seventh.’
‘So - ?’
‘But by the time they’ve boarded that plane to Greenland, they’ve visited the archives, done some research, and decided it’d be extremely useful if the corpse belonged to Ferris Clark of Nevada.’
‘Cos he’s got no family?’
‘No family, no ties, no one to cause problems. Tom’s desperate to test out his dioximyde. A huge amount’s riding on it, both for Tom personally and for Plaxon. And suddenly he finds himself with an unidentified corpse. He needs an identity if he’s to persuade the board, Sergeant Perez, and everyone else involved that it’s a body without complications.
‘You saw the stuff in the archives. You couldn’t get a more perfect candidate than Ferris Clark. Childless, parentless. He’s got no siblings. Christ, they could send him into outer space and no one would give a shit. It’s identity theft, pure and simple. Happens all the time. Fake credit cards. Stolen bank accounts. The only difference here is that they’ve stolen the identity of someone who’s dead.’
‘But what about the ID bracelet. F.C.?’
Jack scoffed.
‘Did you see it? Are there photos of it? Does it even exist? Yes, ID bracelets were issued by the US army. I checked that one out right away. But only medical ones. And only for soldiers with diabetes. You saw the blood tests. The corpse, the ex-corpse, did not have diabetes.’
There was a low rumble of thunder from outside, the last vestige of the previous night’s storm.
Tammy walked over to one of the sinks and turned on the cold tap. The water spurted in a freezing gush. She let it run over her hands then splashed it onto her face and hair.
‘Feel like I’ve been up a week.’
She kicked at one of the tubes that had fallen under the sink, still thinking through what Jack had just said. It suddenly made sense. So much sense that it made her wonder why she hadn’t seen through it earlier. And then she realised that she had seen it earlier. She’d seen it right from the beginning. And that’s why she’d emailed Jack.
*
Jack made his way to the room that adjoined the lab and helped himself to a sterile gown. Then he unwrapped a pair of surgical gloves and pulled them onto his fingers one by one, allowing the latex to snap itself firmly around his wrists.
‘Need to examine Kingston’s body. I want to do it before the others get here. There’s certain to be clues.’
He pointed to a CCTV, high in the corner of the room close to the ceiling.
‘This thing recording?’
‘Yeah. Always on at night. Works on a constant roll.’
‘In Kingston’s office as well?’
‘Should be.’
He thought for a moment.
‘Then half our work’s done for us. It’ll all be on the loop-tape. The ice man’s made his first mistake. Caught out by technology.’
‘You mean Kingston’s murder will be on film?’
He nodded then made his way out of the lab, heading down the corridor towards the entrance area.
‘I’m guessing you don’t want to watch me examining him?’
Tammy shook her head.
‘I’ll wait here.’
She shuffled her feet.
‘You’re sure he’s not still here?’
Jack nodded. ‘There’s bloodstains on the door. He’ll have got the hell out of here just as soon as he’d got into Kingston’s clothes.’
He pushed his body against the door to Kingston’s office in order to shift the leg that was jamming it closed. Then he squeezed himself through the gap.
Tammy put her foot against the door for a moment, holding it ajar, then relinquished the pressure and allowed Kingston’s leg to push it closed again.
Jack swung his eyes downwards to the body. It was an extraordinarily precise killing. The carotid artery had been opened with a single cut.
He knelt down, avoiding the pool of congealed blood on the floor. Kingston lay twisted half sideways, as if he’d been trying to turn his head. His eyes were open but glassy and so far from life they looked like marbles. The tongue hung out of his mouth at a weird angle, like it was trapped between his teeth. It was a dull pink-grey. The pose in which he lay, contorted, made Jack think that he’d been caught off guard. The ice man had managed to enter the room in silence, not easy to do with a door that was on squeaking hinges.
He felt the muscles of the neck then positioned his fingers either side of the slash. The cut was so clean he could hardly feel it through the latex gloves. He pushed his second finger inside the wound. It just slotted. There was still a faint hint of warmth. He felt the depth of the cut. The flesh-tear was sloping, angled deeper at the front of the neck where the blade had initially been plunged in. It had then been jerked through the artery, like cutting soft cheese, and swiftly pulled out. Left–handed. And Kingston had been attacked from behind.
Why hadn’t he turned? He must have heard the door open. Or perhaps he was watching his computer screen, listening to music, lost in another world.
The scalpel cut had been devastating. The walls, computer screen, paperwork, everything had been showered in a fountain of warm red blood. It had sprayed the floor, even reached the ceiling. Jack looked at the pattern of the blood, trying to calculate how Kingston had fallen. It splattered downwards towards the computer, suggesting that he’d slumped forwards, slid from his chair then lan
ded with his face twisted upwards. And then, within seconds of his death, the ice man had stripped him of his clothes and dropped him back into his death pose.
Jack cupped his hands underneath Kingston’s right shoulder and lifted the stiffened body slightly. He was always surprised how much a corpse weighed. Dead weight. How true were those words.
He twisted Kingston’s torso upwards, towards him, flipping him onto his back. Winced. That was something he hadn’t expected. A human skull had been crudely gouged into his chest. The ice man had found time to leave his signature.
He had a sudden thought and looked round the room for Kingston’s holster and gun.
It was gone.
*
Jack pushed his way out through the door and into the entrance area. He removed his surgical gloves and dropped them into a bin. Tammy was about to ask a question when she was interrupted by a noise outside. Both of them looked up. Tom Lawyer’s dark blue Buick was drawing up outside. The tyres coughed at the gravel and two doors opened and slammed. Tammy met them at the main door, pointing at the smear of blood on the glass.
‘What’s goin’ on?’
Tom pushed his way into the entrance area, unshaven, disheveled, his shirt not ironed. The same one he’d been wearing the previous day.
Hunter pointed towards Kingston’s door. ‘You serious?’
Jack looked at them both.
‘It’s not pretty.’
He escorted them across the entrance area, like he was showing round new tenants. Then he pushed his weight heavily against the door to Kingston’s office. It was still partially jammed by his left leg. Tom was the first to peer through the gap.
‘Holy shit.’
He reeled backwards. As he did so, the door was pushed shut again by Kingston’s leg.
Hunter was the next to look.
‘Jeez -’
Jack watched the blood drain from his face. He was fumbling with his neck-tie.
Tom cleared his throat noisily.
‘And the lab?’
He set off down the corridor, brushing passed the trash and knocking it over. Hunter picked it up then followed. The two of them entered the laboratory with Jack and Tammy close behind. Tom scanned the room. His eyes flicked from the gurney to the computer and then to the detritus on the floor.
‘Shit.’
He turned to Tammy. Glared.
‘My cell phone never rang. Why the hell didn’t ALP - ?’
Tammy threw up her hands.
‘The storm. Must have interfered with the signal. Must have short-circuited something. Caused it to overheat.’
‘But there’s back-up. What happened to back-up?’ Tom paced around the lab, thinking hard. He kicked at the tubes and wires on the floor. Then he laid his hands on the gurney. It was still pumping heat, far hotter than it should have been.
‘Turn this off.’
It was as if he needed to do something, take a decision. Turning off the gurney seemed the first step in solving the crisis.
‘ALP predicted no earlier than four o’clock. The projected time for Operation Pump was late afternoon. How in hell could he get it so wrong?’
Jack filled the silence that followed. ‘You realise it’s not Ferris Clark?’
Tom glanced at Hunter but said nothing.
‘Tammy and I came here at six last night,’ said Jack. ‘He was warming faster than expected. But nothing alarming. Tammy’s right. The storm short-circuited something.’
He told them he’d examined Kingston’s body.
‘I’d put the time of death at between one and two in the morning, judging by the blood. And that means – ’
He paused to look at his watch.
‘And that means the ice man’s already had five hours to get himself into hiding.’
SEVENTEEN
The picture was grainy and scratched. Slightly pixelated. It had the greenish tinge of CCTV footage. The camera was positioned close to the ceiling and covered a wide perspective of the lab. The gurney formed the centre of the picture, slightly distorted and skewed by the angle. The still-frozen corpse could be seen lying flat, stiff and immobile, its feet closest to the camera, toes curled inwards.
ALP was to the left of the shot. Nearby there was a low cupboard and the dialysis machine. A long tube linked the machine to the corpse. On the right side of the picture you could see the other equipment. Ventilator, defibrillator, the sequential compression device and three intravenous drips. Along the bottom of the screen a band of letters and numerals that recorded the location, date, time: LAB 2. 11.47:07.
Five of them were watching the footage. Jack, Tammy, Tom, Hunter and Jon Perez. Perez had arrived in Hanford late on the previous evening, having caught the last flight from Washington. He’d not intended to visit ZAKRON till the afternoon, when the rest of the board were also due to arrive. But Tom’s phone message had abruptly changed his plans.
Perez was just as Jack had imagined him. Hispanic, dark-skinned, receding hair-line. A thin black moustache traced the contour of his upper lip. It could have been applied with a felt tip. Oval face, businesslike eyes. His handshake tightened into a vice.
‘Heard about you. Hope we can do business.’
Do business. He made death sound like a transaction.
Jack flexed the muscles in his hand and felt Perez relax his grip.
Hunter had been busy trying to link the CCTV to his laptop. He’d finally been successful and now all five of them turned to face the picture in front of them. It was momentarily held on pause.
Tom swiveled his chair towards Hunter. ‘Can you fast-forward this thing?’
‘Yeah. Give me a minute.’
Hunter played with the keyboard, adjusting the speed of the fast-forward.
‘Okay. Shout when you want to pause.’
The picture puckered and distorted as the image shot forwards. But the lab remained unchanged and the position of the corpse didn’t move. Without the flashing dots and numerals at the bottom of the screen, it would have been impossible to know it was on fast-forward.
‘Stop. Stop there.’
Tom shot his eyes towards Hunter.
‘Can you rewind a bit?’
‘What is it?’
Hunter hit the keyboard.
‘Rewind sixty seconds or so.’
‘Yeah?’
‘And now play.’
They all stared at the screen.
‘There -’
‘What?’ Hunter looked puzzled. ‘What is it?’
Jack had also seen it.
‘It’s ALP. Rewind again.’
At exactly 11.56:22 ALP’s warning lights flashed three times.
Perez turned to Tom. ‘Why did it do that?’
Tammy supplied the answer. ‘It’s running a check on the equipment. Does it routinely on the half hour. And if anything’s wrong it alerts Tom’s cell phone. Strange thing is, it shouldn’t have done it at eleven-fifty-six. It’s too early.’
‘Now move it forwards slowly,’ said Tom. ‘Frame by frame.’
At 11.57:07 one of the lights on the control panel flashed and switched itself off. It was replaced by what looked like a different coloured light just above.
‘Another warning light,’ said Tammy. ‘Look there. At the screen.’
She pointed to ALP’s left hand monitor.
‘Move it frame by frame again.’
It could be seen flashing a warning. 101. 102. 103. The numbers were coming faster now and the gap between each new one was shortening with every flash. 104. 105.
‘No volume on this thing?’ Tom smacked his hand on the table-top. ‘Thought our CCTV had volume.’
‘It does. But it’s CCTV. Quality sucks.’
Hunter adjusted the volume control, turning it to maximum. The sound remained muffled. They could just make out a faint blip and a message flashing across ALP’s left hand monitor. Signal failure. Unknown recipient. Undelivered mail. Attachment failed.
‘Stop.’
Jack looked at the time on the screen. 00.03:44.
‘ALP tried to send you an email, Tom,’ said Tammy. ‘Look. He’s trying to tell you something’s wrong.’
‘Just after midnight.’ Jack was trying to remember when he’d first been woken by the storm. ‘Exactly when it was at its worst.’
ALP’s system programme could be heard switching to the next stage of alert, transferring to voice mode and speaking to the room. Alert, system malfunction. Alert, system malfunction. Alert, system malfunction. Six warning lights were now flashing and the mainframe continued to issue verbal warnings to the room. The blank computer-generated voice gave no hint of panic, but the constant repetition revealed that something was urgently wrong. The lab looked like the control panel of a plane whose engines have just shut down. There were more than a dozen flashing lights.
‘See that?’
Jack pointed a finger towards the pulsing and fading of the electric strip lights. You could see them clearly on the screen.
‘Something seriously wrong with the current. Don’t you have back-up power?’
00.04:06. The thin green line of the defibrillator could be seen starting to move. The dialysis machine gave a low clunk as it switched itself to standby. They watched frame by frame as the automated oximeter arm squeaked slightly and gave a mechanical shudder as it ratcheted through ninety degrees. Everything seemed to be taking place in slow motion.
‘Shit.’
Jack saw alarm on Tom’s face.
‘Whole lab’s swinging into action.’
The mechanized frame supporting the dioximyde grip dropped a fraction and let out a low hiss. It, too, had switched itself to standby.
Alert, system malfunction. Alert, system malfunction.
No one spoke. All five were watching intently, focused entirely on the laptop screen in front of them.
‘It’s happening.’ Tom was talking to the room. ‘Any moment. Keep it moving, frame by frame.’
00.04:12
00.04:15
00.04:17
Alert, system malfunction. Alert, system malfunction. Surface body temperature - malfunction. Inner core reading - malfunction. Inner brain reading - malfunction. Deflective heat source - malfunction. System override. All systems to manual.