The Hummer’s interior flatbed was lined with plastic, no doubt Fleming’s plan to contain the blood and fluids. Using her arms to lift herself out of the driver’s seat and into a chair, she met me in the back. For a moment, she said nothing, just stared down at the body I’d loaded inside, then I saw the shine in her eyes.
At least she didn’t have to look at Clancy’s face, since it was no longer there.” Did you know her?”
Fleming shook her head. “Not personally.”
“But you knew you had sisters.”
“Only you. Until today.” She glanced up at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister. I never imagined I would have six…and that five of them would want to kill me. That sort of weakens the sisterly bond.”
Fleming gave me a dry smile. “Well, I’m glad to finally meet you.”
My throat tightened, and all I could manage was a nod.
She returned the gesture and pulled a plastic package from a duffel of equipment she’d brought with her. “Do you want me to do it?”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Rock scissors paper?”
Her eyes crinkled. “Are you serious?”
“We could flip a coin. Got a coin?”
“I don’t. OK, we’ll go on three. One…two…three.”
I made my hand into scissors. So did Fleming. Since her hand looked exactly the same as mine, it was a pretty surreal moment.
“Once more,” I said. “One…two…three.”
This time we both made a rock.
“This is weirding me out,” I said. “Just give me the gloves and the scalpel.”
Fleming handed me a pair of latex gloves, and I snapped them on while she tore open the disposable scalpel wrapper. Grasping the ghillie suit, I stretched it away from Clancy’s body and, dodging bits of stick and weeds, slit it down the middle. Underneath the camouflage, Clancy wore combat fatigues. I patted her down.
“Got a cell phone,” I said, handing it over.
Fleming played with the buttons. “Password protected. I can crack it back at my place, but it’ll take a few minutes.”
“Later, if we need to.”
She nodded. “Right. We already know where Hammett is.”
A few more cuts and I exposed Clancy’s belly.
“Would you look at that?” Fleming leaned forward. “Is that what I think it is?”
Her skin appeared as if it was coated with peanut butter, brownish and somewhat lumpy. Not an attractive look, but one I’d seen before.
“Liquid body armor.” I scraped some off with the flat of the blade. “Forsyth was wearing it, too.”
“I thought this stuff only existed in theory.” Fleming pinched some between her fingers. “It’s a sheer thickening paste. Semisolid now, but watch.” She flicked her fingernail at it, and it made a clicking sound as the paste became rock hard. “Add energy, it becomes a solid. I also feel some iron filings in the mixture, so it could be magnetorheological as well. Amazing.”
“Yeah. Well, she should have smeared some on her face.”
Fleming glanced at me, and we shared a small laugh, one that was surprisingly comfortable. Then I turned my attention back to the task at hand. Once I’d finished scraping off the body armor, I positioned the blade above Clancy’s belly button. I tried not to think about how her belly looked like mine, and how I also had a tracker in me, and then I made my first cut.
Dead hearts no longer pumped blood, and so dead bodies didn’t exactly bleed. Instead they oozed. Blood reddened my fingers and seeped out onto the plastic as I widened the incision, past the layers of skin and fat and muscle, until her insides were exposed.
“Check the duodenum,” Fleming said. “I see a scar there. And try not to nick the intestines. This smell is bad enough.”
“You can jump in at any time,” I said, breathing through my mouth.
The odor of blood and death and digestive tract was nearly overwhelming. I palpated the tissue, finally feeling a very small but hard nub beneath the slick scar tissue. I sliced carefully and finally freed the tracking device.
The thing was a small, round chip of clear plastic, the size of a penny, but several times as thick. I brushed off some blood and saw the circuit panel inside. Fleming pried it from my fingers, even though she wasn’t wearing gloves.
“The weight is lopsided. I think it has a rotor in it, like a self-winding watch. That keeps the battery charged.”
“Fascinating,” I said, pulling the ghillie suit closed. Then I wiped my hands with some paper towels and fished in the duffel for what I needed next.
I chose a hand clipper, the kind used to prune rose bushes. A branch nipper would have been easier, with its extra leverage, but for all the tools Fleming had in her bunker, she was woefully short on garden implements.
Ironic, since she lived in the middle of a forest.
It didn’t take long for me to snip off the ends of Clancy’s fingers and plop them into a jar filled with hydrochloric acid. Then I cleaned up the mess and encased my dead sister in a body bag.
I was grateful that part was done, but the first step in our plan was far from over.
“Were you able to get the paperwork?”
“I have everything we’ll need.” Fleming handed me a pile of clothing and then climbed back behind the wheel. Instead of using a foot pedal for brake and gas, she maneuvered the vehicle with hand controls, and soon we were cruising down the lonely road.
Time for me to get dressed.
By the time we reached the city, rush hour was long since over and traffic was heavy but flowing well. We made it into the city in good time. Fleming drove like she was pissed off at the entire world, and maybe she was. But being in a Humvee, with a horn stolen straight off a freight train, motorists gave her a wide berth. A good thing, too, because I could easily have pictured her driving over some of the slower, smaller cars in her way.
Fleming pulled into the hospital’s rear parking lot and up to the double doors. After offering to help my sister into her wheelchair—which apparently was akin to spitting in her face—we headed toward the morgue entrance. This chair was manual, not electric, and had angled wheels and a lower profile.
“Does this model also have the guns in the armrests?” I asked.
“Among other modifications. I don’t like being unarmed.”
We both signed in with the attendant, a sleepy-eyed dough-boy with greasy hair. The morgue was off-limits to the public, but cops, doctors, and morticians were granted entrance. Our fake credentials said we were doctors, and we were dressed appropriately in white lab coats.
I kept my head down so the attendant didn’t notice we were twins, but it didn’t matter because his eyes were glued to a television showing, of all things, an Animal Planet special on otters.
I let Fleming deal with the paperwork—a bogus autopsy order—while I used one of the morgue’s stainless steel gurneys to fetch Clancy and wheel her inside. When I returned, Fleming was waiting for me at the entrance to the cooler. She went in first, and I followed.
There are not many smells worse than the stench of the morgue. Underneath the bleach and antiseptic was a sickly-sweet odor akin to rotting carnations. It coated the insides of my nostrils and clung to my skin, and I knew from experience it would stick with me long after I had left the building.
In the massive walk-in cooler, the dead were stacked four high on wire racks, many of them leaking fluids onto the sticky floor. They were naked, bluish-colored regardless of race, and many were still stuck in the odd positions they’d died in: on their sides, arms and legs akimbo, curled up as if in sleep. Cook County morgue was one of the biggest in the nation, and it was operating at full capacity, which meant over three hundred bodies. We were the only two live ones in the place.
Fleming picked up a stray bottle of bleach and began spritzing down Clancy’s body bag, dest
roying our prints. I ducked into the autopsy room—which was devoid of any medical examiners as Jack Daniels had promised—and found two of my sisters on the cutting tables. Follett, whom I’d putted the grenade at, was missing a good portion of her legs. The other, whose head wound indicated she was Ludlam from Stretchers, already had the standard Y incision on her chest. Luckily, she hadn’t been opened up yet. I swallowed the bad taste in my mouth and took the hand clippers out of my lab coat.
“Forsyth is missing,” I called over my shoulder to Fleming, “so check the racks. She’ll have on liquid body armor.”
“I’m on it. You know, this may sound stupid, but it feels good to be in the field again. Nice to get out of the bunker and stretch my legs. Figuratively speaking.”
I might have enjoyed the small talk with my sister more if I hadn’t been snipping off my other sister’s fingertips. We needed to get rid of all fingerprint evidence, or both Fleming and I were in deep shit.
Well, deeper shit. Things were pretty dire already.
I finished up with Ludlam, then got to work on Follett. She only had seven fingers, the explosion apparently having taken care of the other three.
“Found her,” Fleming called out. Less than a minute later it was followed by, “Someone’s coming.”
I snipped off the last digit and placed it in a plastic baggie. Then I scanned the nearby table, looking for paperwork. Jack had said one of my sisters had been printed. I needed to find the card and—
“Well…look at what we have here.”
I spun, looking at the cop who had just walked into the autopsy suite. He was midforties, unshaven, his uniform a bit too tight around his belly and badly in need of ironing. He wore a leer normally reserved for striptease venues.
“Can I help you, Officer?” I asked, using my polite voice.
“You’ve got to be one of the cutest doctors I’ve ever seen. I may have to call heaven, see if Jesus filled an MAR.” He winked. “A Missing Angel Report.”
Normally I didn’t tolerate the loud, obnoxious type. But seeing as how I was impersonating a doctor, it wasn’t in my best interest to piss off a cop.
“Looks like we’re both working late,” I said. “You here for take-out or delivery?”
He smiled wide. “Neither. Just needed to check up on a case.”
“Don’t let me keep you.” I gave him a quick, saccharine grin, then stuck a scalpel into Ludlam’s Y incision with more verve than I felt.
Horny Cop didn’t take the hint. “Say, that’s some hottie you got there on the table. You know who she looks like?”
I tensed, waiting for the obvious, thinking of my next move.
“That chick who played in Tomb Raider,” he continued. “Smaller tits, though. And paler. And not nearly as active. You don’t mind if I observe, do you?”
“Be my guest.” I offered a crocodile smile and yanked out Ludlam’s stomach by the esophagus.
“Hey, lookie here, another cutie. Nice wheels, Doc.”
I glanced up and noticed Fleming had her hands on her armrests, right on top of the rifle barrels. I gave her a discreet head shake, imploring her not to shoot him.
“You guys related? You look kinda alike. Except for the wheelchair thing.”
“We’re sisters,” I said, palpating Ludlum’s duodenum.
“Sisters. That’s hot. So would it be out of line if I asked you guys out?”
Is he serious?
“Are you serious?” Fleming asked.
“Yeah. It would be like a double date, but just me and you two. I’ve always wanted to date sisters. It’s on my checklist of things to do before I die.”
“I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to check that one off,” Fleming said, eyes mean and hands squeezing her rails.
I needed to defuse this fast, before we had to dispose of another body.
“You’re ten kinds of sexy,” the cop said to Fleming. “I like a woman who can’t run away.”
Then again, a morgue was a pretty good place for body disposal.
“You are the biggest, rudest—”
“Let’s cut the crap here, ladies,” the cop said, interrupting her. “I know you two aren’t doctors. You, Wheels, were snipping off someone’s fingers when I came in. And you, Dr. Incompetent, you’re apparently practicing for the movie World’s Worst Autopsies. You hold that scalpel like it’s some guy’s johnson. Which, I admit, is arousing, but not very effective.”
Shit. Now we probably had to kill him.
“But all that is none of my business,” he went on, “and I certainly wouldn’t use my authority to force you both to go out with me. On Thursday night, say eightish. I have tickets to the game. Box seats. That means I give you the seat, you show me the box.”
“Look, Officer…” I squinted at the name on his shirt, “McGlade. We really have a lot of work to do here and—”
“Your badge is plastic,” Fleming said.
McGlade nodded. “Yeah. They took my real one when they kicked me off the force. The uniform still fits, though. Mostly. I’m in the private sector now.” He gave me what he probably thought was his serious face. In reality, he looked constipated. “I’m here to check on a teenager. Suicide. Parents suspect foul play. I snuck in to take a look. So what’s your story? Some sort of creepy, sister-on-sister necrophilia stuff? Because that’s hot.”
I glanced at Fleming, who mouthed, Let me shoot him.
“Here’s the thing, McGlade…”
“Call me Harry.”
“…I know I speak for both me and my sister when I say we don’t find you attractive.”
“I’m also rich. They made a TV series about me.”
“And we’re so very happy for you. But we’ve got some shit that needs to get done, you’ve got that suicide thing to work on, and the chances of us ever hooking up are less than zero.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “So how about I pay you each two hundred bucks to French kiss?”
“You can leave now, McGlade.”
He threw a salute. “Message received. And if you change your mind, just Google me. Reference this morgue thing, though, so I remember. I ask a lot of women out.”
He shot me with his index finger, did the same to Fleming, and then strutted out of there like a delusional peacock.
“I almost killed him about four different times,” Fleming said. “You know, I actually saw his TV show. Fatal Autonomy. I don’t even know what that title means.”
“Did you get the chip from Forsyth?” I asked, getting us back on track.
“Not yet.”
“I’ll do Follett and meet you there.”
When I was finished, I tucked both trackers in the plastic bag, then helped Fleming remove the third from Forsyth. We dodged a winking Harry McGlade and got the hell out of the morgue.
Our next stop was the Hancock building, to retrieve my phone.
But…
I checked my PC and saw two blips. Me, Fleming, and my dead sisters constituted one of them. The other, Hammett, was a mile distant and heading this way. If she was still after me, it was a good indicator she hadn’t found the transceiver yet. I guessed she was with Victor and who knew how many of his men.
Fortunately, I had a plan to throw them off our trail.
“Have you ever been to Buckingham Fountain?” I asked Fleming.
“When defeating the enemy isn’t possible,” The Instructor said, “confusing the enemy is the next best thing.”
Hammett stares at the screen of her tablet PC, unsure of what is happening. Normally, depending on how closely she zooms into the map, there are anywhere from five to seven blips, each representing one of the sisters.
But now there are only two. Hers, and another.
Hammett has no idea what this means. But she’s about to find out. Driving in a cargo van with Victor and his thugs, she’s closing in on the mysterious second blip. “Turn here,” she orders.
When she gets within ten blocks, the blip begins to move east. Th
ey fall into pursuit.
So far, this op has been a catastrophe. One fuck-up after another. It was all so eloquently planned, too. Thought out down to the smallest detail. The only wild card was Chandler.
And what a wild card that turned out to be.
Hammett hasn’t heard from Clancy and can only assume she’s the latest casualty.
It’s a shame. The Hydra Project was a wonderful idea, and might have still had a few good years left. Hammett easily imagined controlling a crime syndicate with her sisters. Or staging a coup and running a small country. But their deaths put an end to any future plans.
Fortunately those plans paled in comparison to acquiring the transceiver.
Victor believes his people will have access to the phone. He even has a team of scientists lined up to reverse engineer it. They care less about its nuclear capabilities and more about its encryption, which is supposedly unbreakable. At least that’s his story. Hammett assumes Victor will kill her as soon as the transceiver’s delivery is assured.
She assumes this because she plans to do the same to him. Him and his tiny prick.
Hammett allows herself a smile. For now she and Victor are the best of allies, joining forces to reach a mutually beneficial end.
Victor takes the PC from her. He is so keyed up he’s nearly vibrating.
“It appears they’ve stopped,” he says. “At the Buckingham Fountain.”
“Let me see.”
He tilts the screen toward her, offering a glimpse. She grabs the PC from his hands, eyes on the now stationary blip.
Victor orders his man to turn onto Columbus Avenue, the street flanking Grant Park. The night is cool and only a couple dozen people mill around the fountain to watch its nightly light show. Classical music jangles through the air, accompanying the dance of water lit from all sides, turning the fountain into a rainbow of color. Vapor rises into the cold night, giving the Chicago landmark a dreamlike quality.
“What’s happening?” Victor asks, leaning close to Hammett and eyeing the tablet PC.
In front of their eyes, the single blip becomes four distinct blips, separating in different directions.
Victor gestures to the driver. “Pull over.”
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 18