The Calm Before The Swarm

by Michael McBride

  Merritt groaned and knelt above the man's head. He really wished he'd brought his gloves. Cupping his hands, he scooped the mud from the forehead, out of the eye sockets, and from around the nose and mouth. The skin beneath was so bloated it felt like rubber.

  Even with the brown smears and discolored flesh, Merritt recognized the man immediately. He had flown him and his entire group into Pomacochas from Chiclayo roughly three weeks ago. So where were the rest of them?

  His gaze fell upon the rucksack. If it was still here when the policía arrived, nothing inside would ever be seen again. Corruption was a way of life down here.

  Merritt unhooked the man's claw from the fabric, pulled it away from the bag, and set it on the ground. He unlatched the clasp and drew back the flap. At first all he saw was a clump of soggy plants. He moved them aside and blinked in astonishment.

  "Son of a bitch."

  II

  Hospital Nacional Docente Madre Niño San Bartolomé

  Lima, Peru

  October 15th

  9:03 a.m. PET

  Eldon Monahan, Consul-general of the United States Consulate in Peru, waited in the small gray chamber, handkerchief over his mouth and nose in preparation for what was to come. At least this time he'd had the foresight to dab it in Vicks VapoRub before leaving the office. He wore a crisp charcoal Turnbull & Asser suit with a navy blue silk tie, and had slicked back his ebon hair with the sweat that beaded his forehead and welled against his furry eyebrows. His piercing hazel eyes absorbed his surroundings. It took all of his concentration to suppress the expression of contempt. Slate gray walls lined with ribbons of rust from the leaky pipes in the ceiling surrounded him on three sides. The fourth was a sheet of dimpled aluminum that featured a single door with a wide horizontal handle, the kind of freezer unit they installed in restaurants. Twin overhead sodium halide fixtures were mounted to the ceiling on retractable armatures. The diffuse beams spotlighted the scuffed, vinyl-tiled floor in front of him.

  God, how he hated this part of his job.

  A baccalaureate degree in Political Science from Stanford and a doctorate in Politics and International Relations from Oxford, and here he was in the basement of what could only loosely be considered a hospital by American standards, in a backward country half a world away from where he really wanted to be. Paying his dues. Mastering the intricacies of foreign diplomacy. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was still about as far as a man could get from a seat on the Senate floor. Here he was, thirty-six years old and not even an actual ambassador.

  The screech of his grinding teeth reminded him of his hypertension, and he tried to focus on something else. Anything else.

  The door in the aluminum wall opened outward with a pop and a hiss. Eldon took an involuntary step in reverse. The morgue attendant acknowledged him with a nod as he wheeled the cart into the room and centered it under the lights. A sheet, stained with a Rorschach pattern of mud and bodily dissolution, covered the human form beneath.

  "What can you tell me about the body?" Eldon asked in Spanish through the handkerchief.

  "The policía dropped it off last night," the attendant said, visibly amused by the Consul-general's squeamishness. He wore a yellow surgical gown and cap, finger-painted with brown bloodstains. "Found him way up north in the Amazonas. Textbook case of drowning, you ask me."

  "How do we know he's an American citizen?"

  "The pilot who flew him into Pomacochas recognized him."

  "But he couldn't identify him?"

  "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.

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  One

  Pueblo Bonito

  Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

  June 17th

  7:36 p.m. MDT

  Twelve Years Ago

  Dr. Graham Bradley waited for the rooster tail of dust that had followed them for the last twenty miles to pass over the forest-green Cherokee before he finally opened the door and stepped down onto the sun-baked earth. His chief of security, Roland Pike, remained rigid behind the wheel, staring fixedly through the dirty windshield. The setting sun bled the sandstone escarpments crimson and cast long shadows from the sparse pockets of sage and creosote that spotted the sandy valley. A faint breeze ruffled Bradley's ebon hair and returned the dust, forcing him to shield his azure eyes. His custom-tailored Caraceni slacks and calfskin shoes were already gray with accumulation. At least he'd had enough foresight to shed his jacket in the car, just not enough to have packed a change of clothes in his hurry to reach the site. When the call came from Dr. Brendan Reaves eight hours ago, Bradley had been in the middle of a board meeting. The anthropologist had refused to divulge the nature of his discovery over the phone and had insisted that Bradley needed to see what he had found in person. Considering the scope of Reaves's research, Bradley couldn't imagine why he would be summoned in such a fashion, which only served to heighten his curiosity. The corporate jet had been fueled and waiting at Sea-Tac when he arrived. Four hours in the air and three more wending through the New Mexico desert in the rental Jeep, and here he was, parched and irritated, and tingling with anticipation.

  "This had better be good," he said, and struck off toward the cluster of khaki tents at the edge of the Pueblo Bonito ruins.

  The rubble formed a D-shape, straight in front and rounded where it abutted the sheer cliff. Walls composed of stacked layers of flat rocks climbed three stories up the sandstone face to where petroglyphs had been carved by long-dead hands nearly a thousand years prior. Where once more than six hundred rooms and thirty-nine ceremonial kivas had surrounded a broad central courtyard, now only the framework remained. Some walls still stood thirty feet high, while others had crumbled to the ground. A large portion was buried under tons of sandstone where "Threatening Rock" had broken away from the embankment.

  For nearly two hundred years, this had been the capital of the thriving Anasazi culture and could have housed as many as five thousand people. Until, abruptly, they abandoned the entire canyon and embarked upon a northwestward migration that would prove to be the end of this once flourishing society.

  And no one knew why.

  A ring of halogen lights blossomed to life just beyond the tents, turning half a dozen men and women to silhouettes. One of them raised an arm to hail him and broke away from the group. Dr. Brendan Reaves, Regent's Professor of Cultural and Evolutionary Anthropology at Washington State University, strode directly toward him. He wore a dusty ball cap over his unkempt, sun-bleached hair. The bill hid his face in shadows. He extended a dirty hand, then thought better of it and swiped it on his filthy shorts. Instead, he tipped up his chin and offered a beaming smile, which made his sharp hazel eyes positively sparkle. He barely looked out of his teens.

  "Thank you for getting down here so quickly," Reaves said. "I honestly didn't think you'd be willing to make the trip in person."

  Bradley gave his best boardroom smile to hide his annoyance. GeNext Biosystems was his baby and he was intimately involved on every level from research and development through marketing and distribution. He wasn't the kind of COO who pandered to shareholders or spent his days swilling martinis on tropical shores. His vision was of a forward-thinking, revolutionary company that remained on the cutting edge of biotechnology through a non-traditional approach to research all over the globe, which meant that even he needed to roll up his sleeves from time to time.

  "So, Dr. Reaves. Right to business. What could possibly be important enough to drag me across the country on a moment's notice?"

  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Reaves turned and guided Bradley toward an old pickup painted tan by the desert. "Like I said, you have to see it with your own eyes."

  Pike eased out of the Cherokee and stood at attention, but Bradley dismissed him with a subtle wave. He climbed up into the passenger seat of the professor's truck and kicked aside a pile of garbage to make room for his feet. The truck reeked of body odor and dust, and shook when Reaves started the engine.

  "Where are we going?" Bradley asked.

  He watched the ill-defined dirt road in the bouncing headlights.

  "Not far. Just across the wash to Casa Rinconada. It's the largest, and only freestanding kiva in the Pueblo Bonito complex."

  "You found more remains?"

  "You could say that."

  Reaves glanced over and gave a cryptic smile.

  Bradley was in no mood for games. He was tired and famished, and had reached the end of his patience. Reaves must have recognized as much from his expression and started talking to fill the tense silence.

  "Okay. Let me set the stage. In case you don't remember, I'm an evolutionary anthropologist. I study the changes---both cultural and physiological---in a society over time. My primary focus is the tribes of the American Southwest, specifically the Anasazi, who inhabited this amazing primitive mecca here in Chaco Canyon from about 800 to 1150 C.E.. We're talking about more than four hundred separate villages clustered around a dozen or so major pueblos like Bonito back there, all within a twenty-five thousand square-mile territory, the majority between these very canyon walls. They mastered agriculture, even in this hostile terrain, and set up a system of commerce that was beyond advanced for the time. And then, one day, they just up and abandon this community that took hundreds of years to build, by hand, stone by stone."

  The tires grumbled over a bridge that shuddered under the truck's weight. The creek bed below them didn't appear as though it had ever held water. Ahead, a low mesa crowned by a tall stone ring resolved from the cliffs behind it.

  "Next thing we know," Reaves said, "the Anasazi reappear in the Four Corners area, only their entire architectural style has changed. Instead of building at the bottom of valleys like this one, they're erecting fortresses hundreds of feet up on the cliffs. We're talking about the kinds of places that someone can only enter if a ladder is lowere
d down from the village or if they can scale the sandstone like Spider-Man. Places like Mesa Verde in Colorado and the White House in Arizona. We speculated that the mass exodus was caused by a prolonged period of drought in the middle of the twelfth century, which killed all of their crops and drove the wild game from the area, but that didn't explain the necessity for the fortified villages carved into niches that only birds could reach. It was almost as though they feared something, as though they were preparing to defend themselves against some kind of invading force."

  "I know all of this, Dr. Reaves. I'm the one underwriting your research. Tell me how all of this pertains to the project I'm funding."

  The plateau rose above them to their right as the road wound around it. From their vantage point, the circular walls of the kiva appeared remarkably well preserved.

  "Right. We know that the Anasazi had an absurdly high incidence of anemia. Nearly forty percent of the remains exhumed here in Chaco exhibit porotic hyperostosis, which is a destructive pathological condition caused by iron-deficiency anemia that erodes the bones of the skull and orbits, and the ends of long bones. We assume that this was caused by a shift in diet over time as the Anasazi came to rely almost exclusively on plants and grains rather than the increasingly rare native game animals. They essentially cut out the iron that the human body needs to function, which it extracts from meat. That's why it made reasonable sense when we found evidence of cannibalism. The body always knows what it needs to survive, and instinctively determines how to get it. It's the same reason that pregnant women have cravings. Their bodies are telling them exactly what they need, both for themselves and their unborn fetuses, from fundamental nutrition to vitamins and trace minerals."