knocked off.’
Tyler Hardin heard the throb of the Merlin’s rotors as it swept over Kandira on its way back to the
The Brit was a puzzle. Hardin knew very little about the British Medical Research Council, but what he did know didn’t fit at all with what Richter had been saying. The MRC was certainly involved in research – that was, after all, what the letter ‘R’ stood for – but not at all the kind of research that Richter had referred to. Hardin had never heard of the MRC sending out field investigators to the site of a medical emergency and, if they had done, he was certain that they would be qualified doctors. Sending a lay person to investigate a complex medical crisis would be completely pointless.
No, he was quite satisfied that Richter was nothing whatever to do with the MRC, but was obviously some kind of investigator of considerable importance, otherwise they would not be ferrying him about the Mediterranean on board a British warship. No doubt, Hardin mused, he would find out the truth eventually.
Mark Evans stood on the opposite side of their makeshift mortuary table. The two men, wearing Tyvek biological space suits and Racal hoods for safety, had set up a trestle table in the smaller, spare bedroom of Aristides’s house, simply because Hardin didn’t yet want to risk moving the corpse out of the building. Downstairs, Fisher and Kane were beginning an exhaustive search of the property, looking for any remaining trace of the infective agent.
Once Hardin’s instrument boxes had been brought upstairs, they’d picked up Aristides’s body and carried it carefully from the room in which he had died, laid it flat on its back, and prepared to go to work.
In broad terms, a hot autopsy – meaning the dissection of a potentially biohazardous corpse – is performed in very similar fashion to a normal post-mortem, but a range of additional precautions are put in place to protect the personnel involved. In a hospital or morgue, the body is placed on a specially designed mortuary trolley called a pan, incorporating a trough underneath to catch any fluid or other debris that might drop from the corpse and contaminate the floor. Additionally, the body is encased in at least two biohazard bags, both of which remain completely sealed until the autopsy itself is about to commence.
The procedure will be carried out on a stainless-steel autopsy table, its upper surface made of either mesh or perforated steel. Above the table, below banks of high-wattage fluorescent lights, several microphones will be suspended to enable the pathologist to provide a running commentary.
Unless the body is considered to be dangerously contaminated, full biohazard suits will not usually be worn. Although they provide the ultimate protection, they are cumbersome and uncomfortable, making it difficult to carry out the delicate procedures required. The tendency of the face masks to mist up doesn’t help either.
Instead it is usual for the mortuary staff to wear three layers of lighter protection: over the normal scrub suits worn in operating theatres they wear surgical gowns, and over the gowns plastic waterproof aprons. Their hair is then covered with surgical caps, and their theatre shoes have plastic or paper covers fitted.
The delicate areas most vulnerable to infection are the eyes, nose and mouth, so plastic safety goggles will be worn, and a surgeon’s mask made of biofilter material designed to trap biological particles. The hands are arguably the most likely parts of the body to become infected, due to the sharp instruments used, so at least one and usually two pairs of surgical gloves will be worn, with an additional pair of heavier rubber kitchen gloves over them.
The prosector or pathologist who physically performs the post-mortem examination also wears a stainless- steel chain-mail glove over his non-dominant hand. This is essential, because most accidental injuries are to the hand that isn’t holding the surgical saw or scalpel. Over this, a rubber kitchen glove will be worn to provide a better grip.
Tyler Hardin looked around the spare bedroom and shrugged. The contrast between the gleaming and totally equipped mortuary suites in the States where he normally conducted his autopsies and this small and scruffy bedroom could hardly have been greater.
Mike Murphy opened his eyes to look at the travelling alarm clock sitting on the small bedside table. For a few moments he had absolutely no idea where he was. Then recollection and awareness returned. It was late afternoon, the room was bright with the sun slanting through the windows, and he found he’d slept for well over twelve hours.
For a few minutes he just lay there, listening to the noises of the hotel and the sound of the traffic on the road outside, then he swung his legs off the bed, walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. While he waited for the water temperature to rise to a level he considered acceptable, he opened his small case and pulled out his washing kit, then stripped off, tested the temperature and stepped into the cubicle.
Once he’d dressed, he unconsciously mirrored the actions Roger Krywald had taken late the previous evening, switching on his laptop computer and using his mobile phone to log on to a classified and unlisted service provider in America to check for any messages from Nicholson.
There was only one: a confirmation that phase one of the operation had been completed, and that the other group – named the First Team by Nicholson – had already located and recovered the case. Murphy had no idea what was in the case, and he had no interest in finding out. His orders had been extraordinarily simple: he was to retrieve the case from the First Team, and then eliminate all members of that team.
Nicholson had included two other pieces of information. The first was a note of the real names, aliases and descriptions of the three members of the First Team, and details of the hotel they had been booked into. The second was a reminder to Murphy to expect a delivery at his own hotel imminently.
Fifteen minutes later Murphy descended the stairs to the lobby and crossed to the desk clerk. ‘My name’s White,’ he said, producing a genuine American passport bearing that name, but which had never been anywhere near the US State Department. ‘I’m expecting a couple of packages to be delivered here. Some camera equipment, a tripod and so on.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the clerk replied, in heavily accented English. ‘They arrived earlier this afternoon.’ He reached down behind the desk and lifted up two heavy boxes. ‘Here you are.’
‘Thanks,’ Murphy said. ‘Do I need to sign for them?’ The clerk shook his head. ‘No, sir, they were delivered personally by your friend.’
Murphy had no idea who his ‘friend’ might be, nor again had the slightest interest in finding out. He remained one of the least curious people one could ever encounter, concerned only with the essentials necessary to get a job done. He nodded his thanks, picked up the two packages and returned to his room.
‘How many autopsies have you performed since med school, Mark?’ Hardin asked.
Evans lifted his eyes from Aristides’s corpse and met Hardin’s questioning gaze.
‘Exactly or approximately?’
‘Exactly.’
‘None at all,’ Evans said, and Hardin could see a smile forming on the younger man’s face.
‘OK,’ Hardin reached out to switch on the portable tape recorder. ‘I’m the prosector here and you’re my assistant, so if there’s anything you don’t understand I’ll talk you through it. Now, normally a body would arrive at the dissection table on a gurney and contained inside a couple of biohazard bags. After weighing the cadaver we’d unzip those, lift the body onto the table and have the bags themselves destroyed. We’ll consider that stage to have already been reached – so, what’s next?’
‘Observation?’ Evans replied. ‘The external exam.’
‘Exactly,’ Hardin nodded. ‘Never forget, a pathologist spends most of his time just looking and examining, and that’s particularly important once you’re doing investigations out in the field. There may well be indicators on a body, on its clothing or in the surroundings, that you’d never get to see in a morgue, simply because in a normal autopsy absolutely all you’ve got to work with is the body itself. So tell me, what do you see?’
Evans looked down at the table. ‘We have a white Caucasian male,’ he said, ‘aged about sixty-five to
