“In self-defense.”
“I know that. You know that. But I certainly don’t have the time to waste explaining that to the police.”
He took the large scalpel and drew it down Redfern’s chest, making the Y incision from the left and right collarbones down on two diagonals to the top of the sternum, then straight down the center line of the trunk, over the abdomen to the pubis bone. He then peeled back the skin and underlying muscles, exposing the rib cage and the abdominal apron. He didn’t have time to perform a full medical autopsy. But he did need to confirm some things that had shown up on Redfern’s incomplete MRI.
He used a soft rubber hose to wash away the white, bloodlike leakage and viewed the major organs beneath the rib cage. The chest cavity was a mess, cluttered with gross black masses fed by spindly feeders, veinlike offshoots attached to the pilot’s shriveled organs.
“Good God,” said Nora.
Eph studied the growths through the ribs. “It’s taken him over. Look at the heart.”
It was misshapen, shrunken. The arterial structure had been altered also, the circulatory system grown more simplified, the arteries themselves covered over with a dark, cancerous blight.
Nora said, “Impossible. We’re only thirty-six hours out from the plane landing.”
Eph flayed Redfern’s neck then, exposing his throat. The new construct was rooted in the midneck, grown out of the vestibular folds. The protuberance that apparently acted as a stinger lay in its retracted state. It connected straight into the trachea, in fact fusing with it, much like a cancerous growth. Eph elected not to anatomize further just yet, hoping instead to remove the muscle or organ or whatever it was in its entirety at a later time, to study it whole and determine its function.
Eph’s phone rang then. He turned so that Nora could pull it from his pocket with her clean gloves. “It’s the chief medical examiner’s office,” she said, reading the display. She answered it for him, and after listening for a few moments, told the caller, “We’ll be right there.”
Director Barnes arrived at the OCME at Thirtieth and First at the same time as Eph and Nora. He stepped from his car, unmistakable in his goatee and navy-style uniform. The intersection was jammed with police cars and TV news crews set up outside the turquoise front of the morgue building.
Their credentials got them inside, all the way to Dr. Julius Mirnstein, the chief medical examiner for New York. Mirnstein was bald but for tufts of brown hair on the sides and back of his head, long faced, dour by nature, wearing the requisite white doctor’s coat over gray slacks.
“We think we were broken into overnight — we don’t know.” Dr. Mirnstein looked at an overturned computer monitor and pencils spilled from a cup. “We can’t get any of the overnight staff on the phone.” He double-checked that with an assistant who had a telephone to her ear, and who shook her head in confirmation. “Follow me.”
Down in the basement morgue, everything appeared to be in order, from the clean autopsy tables to the countertops, scales, and measuring devices. No vandalism here. Dr. Mirnstein led the way to the walk-in refrigerator and waited for Eph, Nora, and Director Barnes to join him.
The body cooler was empty. The stretchers were all still there, and a few discarded sheets, as well as some articles of clothing. A handful of dead bodies remained along the left wall. All the airplane casualties were gone.
“Where are they?” said Eph.
“That’s just it,” said Dr. Mirnstein. “We don’t know.”
Director Barnes stared at him for a moment. “Are you telling me that you believe someone broke in here overnight and
“Your guess is as good as mine, Dr. Barnes. I was hoping your people could enlighten me.”
“Well,” said Barnes, “they didn’t just walk away.”
Nora said, “What about Brooklyn? Queens?”
Dr. Mirnstein said, “I have not heard from Queens yet. But Brooklyn is reporting the same thing.”
“The same thing?” said Nora. “The airline passengers’ corpses are
“Precisely,” said Dr. Mirnstein. “I called you here in the hopes that perhaps your agency had claimed these cadavers without our knowledge.”
Barnes looked at Eph and Nora. They shook their heads.
Barnes said, “Christ. I have to get on the phone with the FAA.”
Eph and Nora caught him before he did, away from Dr. Mirnstein. “We need to talk,” said Eph.
The director looked from face to face. “How is Jim Kent?”
“He looks fine. He says he feels fine.”
“Okay,” said Barnes. “What?”
“He has a perforation wound in his neck, through the throat. The same as we found on the Flight 753 victims.”
Barnes scowled. “How can that be?”
Eph briefed him on Redfern’s escape from imaging and the subsequent attack. He pulled an MRI scan from an oversize X-ray envelope and stuck it up on a wall reader, switching on the backlight. “This is the pilot’s ‘before’ picture.”
The major organs were in view, everything looked sound. “Yes?” said Barnes.
Eph said, “This is the ‘after’ picture.” He put up a scan showing Redfern’s torso clouded with shadows.
Barnes put on his half-glasses. “Tumors?”
Eph said, “It’s — uh — hard to explain, but it is new tissue, feeding off organs that were completely healthy just twenty-four hours ago.”
Director Barnes pulled down his glasses and scowled again. “New tissue? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean this.” Eph went to a third scan, showing the interior of Redfern’s neck. The new growth below the tongue was evident.
“What is it?” asked Barnes.
“A stinger,” answered Nora. “Of some sort. Muscular in construction. Retractable, fleshy.”
Barnes looked at her as if she was crazy. “A stinger?”
“Yes, sir,” said Eph, quick to back her up. “We believe it’s responsible for the cut in Jim’s neck.”
Barnes looked back and forth between them. “You’re telling me that one of the survivors of the airplane catastrophe grew a stinger and attacked Jim Kent with it?”
Eph nodded and referred to the scans again as proof. “Everett, we need to quarantine the remaining survivors.”
Barnes checked Nora, who nodded rigorously, with Eph on this all the way.
Director Barnes said, “The inference is that you believe this…this tumorous growth, this biological transformation…is somehow transmissible?”
“That is our supposition and our fear,” said Eph. “Jim may well be infected. We need to determine the progression of this syndrome, whatever it is, if we want to have any chance at all of arresting it and curing him.”
“Are you telling me you saw this…this retractable stinger, as you call it?”
“We both did.”
“And where is Captain Redfern now?”
“At the hospital.”
“His prognosis?”
Eph answered before Nora could. “Uncertain.”
Barnes looked at Eph, now starting to sense that something wasn’t kosher.
Eph said, “All we are requesting is an order to compel the others to receive medical treatment—”
“Quarantining three people means potentially panicking three hundred million others.” Barnes checked their faces again, as though for final confirmation. “Do you think this relates in any way to the disappearance of these bodies?”
“I don’t know,” said Eph. What he almost said was,
“Fine,” said Barnes. “I will start the process.”
