seventy, deeply suntanned over his whole body apart from the groin, where the skin is noticeably lighter. There are no apparent indications of external injury to the anterior surface of the body, but large quantities of blood are evident. The subject appears to have bled from eyes, ears, nose and mouth… and possibly from the penis.’
‘To save us turning the body over right now, Mark, Dr Gravas has already confirmed that he’s bled from the anus as well. OK, let’s get a couple of snaps. We’ll take pictures at each stage of the procedure: meaning right now; then after the external examination is complete; after the chest cavity has been opened, and a couple of shots of each organ as it’s removed.’
Evans stepped around to the end of the trestle table, raised a Polaroid camera to take one picture of Aristides’s body from the feet up, then another from the head down, and finally one from each side, the camera whirring as each print was ejected. He put the prints and the camera back on a small chest of drawers and returned to the table.
‘Right,’ Hardin said. ‘We’ll clean him up now and then do a full external.’
Evans picked up a plastic bucket half-full of water, which contained a couple of cloths that Hardin had found in Aristides’s kitchen. Wringing out one of them, Evans started to remove the heavily encrusted blood from the Greek’s body, the water in the bucket turning deep red almost immediately. Once the front of the corpse was clean, they turned it over and washed the back as well. Then they started the external.
Working together, the two men carried out a minute examination, starting at the top of the Greek’s head and working down to the soles of his feet. They were looking for cuts, bruises, punctures, needle marks, abrasions or any other external injuries, in fact anything unusual, such as a swelling, discoloured skin or evidence of broken bones. Once they’d finished the anterior surface, they turned the body over and repeated the process on the posterior.
‘OK,’ Hardin said aloud, for the benefit of the tape recorder. ‘We can find no evidence of any recent external injury or trauma. There are several old scars, one badly healed, but none appears to have any bearing on the cause of death.
‘The unusual features are the signs of bleeding from all orifices. An initial inspection shows that bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth has been caused by seepage of blood from the smaller vessels. The eyes in particular are very red, and most of the veins in the eyeballs appear to have ruptured.’ He paused as Evans took three more pictures. ‘Right, I’ll open him up now.’
Hardin took a scalpel firmly in his right hand, first checked that Evans was standing well clear of the table, then slid the blade into the tanned brown skin at Aristides’s right shoulder. He ran the blade diagonally across and down the chest until he reached the sternum, then shifted his stance slightly and continued to cut all the way down to the top of the pubic hair, skirting around the navel. Then he extracted the scalpel, inserted it in Aristides’s left shoulder and completed his initial Y-shaped incision.
The scalpel had cut deep, slicing through the skin and subcutaneous fat, but had not penetrated far enough to reach the ribs, so Hardin bent forward and began deepening the incisions and cutting under the skin until he was able to reflect – or lay back – the three sections of skin and flesh and expose the ribcage. The upper section covered most of Aristides’s face.
Evans took more pictures, then Hardin picked up his pair of lopping shears and severed all the ribs on both sides of the body until he was able to lift out the chest plate and the central part of the ribcage, exposing the contents of the abdomen. He passed the chest plate to Evans, who placed it on the floor beside him on a rubberized sheet Hardin had laid out for that purpose. Evans used the camera to take two more shots, and then Hardin began dictating his report again.
‘Initial incision completed, chest walls reflected, ribs cut and chest plate lifted away.’
Only then did he and Evans lean forward and peer cautiously into the open red maw exposed before them.
‘Goddamnit, Tyler,’ Evans muttered. ‘What the hell is that?’
In his hotel room, Murphy locked the door and jammed a chair underneath the handle as an added precaution, then opened the two packages in turn. He’d told Nicholson he’d need a rifle and a personal weapon, and he’d suggested using non-US manufactured arms, just in case he was forced to abandon them at the scene. As soon as Murphy opened the bigger package he realized that Nicholson had taken him precisely at his word.
It contained a
Murphy hefted the weapon in his hands. It felt solid and familiar, which was unsurprising as he had used one of these twice in the past. He switched on the laser sight and, after checking that he was unobserved, aimed the rifle through the window at the building opposite. Clearly visible in the absolute centre of the sight was the tiny red spot, which showed where the laser marker was being projected. Whoever had sighted-in this rifle knew their trade.
He laid the Dragunov aside, careful not to damage the box it had arrived in. He was going to have to transfer the weapon down to his car, and he could hardly walk through the hotel lobby carrying a four-foot sniper rifle in his hand.
The second box contained a spare pistol magazine, twenty rounds of 7.62mm Soviet ammunition for the Dragunov, a box of fifty rounds of 9mm Parabellum bullets, and a pistol that Murphy at first didn’t recognize. It looked like a Ruger P85 but the hammer design was completely different, so it took Murphy a few moments to place it. It was a most unusual choice: a Daewoo DP51, manufactured in South Korea since 1993, and a good, reliable weapon.
Murphy pressed the release on the left side of the butt and extracted the magazine, opened the box of ammunition and loaded thirteen rounds, then picked the spare magazine out of the box and loaded that as well. There was also a screw-on silencer for the pistol, which he slipped into his jacket pocket.
With his personal weapon now loaded, Murphy smiled slightly. It would certainly be difficult to attribute the forthcoming assassinations of three CIA agents to any one nation, not if a Russian sniper rifle and a South Korean pistol were the weapons used. And probably the last nation that anyone might consider responsible would be America.
Despite his confident assertions to Inspector Lavat, Richter hadn’t underestimated the magnitude of the task facing him. Trying to locate exactly where the Greek had been diving was going to take luck as well as determination, but he did have both a plan and a secret weapon – the Agusta Westland Merlin HM Mk 1 ASW helicopters carried by the
The Merlin landed on three spot and the noise of the three jet engines diminished slightly as the pilot dropped the collective lever all the way down and the aircraft’s weight settled onto its landing gear. Flight Deck personnel walked forward as soon as directed by the FDO and lashed the helicopter to the deck. Only then was the rear door of the Merlin slid open and the sole passenger – Richter – allowed to climb out.
He walked across the Flight Deck, opened the door into the island and climbed the stairs up to Flyco. As he had expected, Roger Black was in the chair and controlling the deck, but Wings was standing behind him, gazing down as maintainers swarmed around the Merlin which now sat on the deck below, engines silent, rotors stationary and folded back into the parked position.
‘That was quick, Paul,’ said Commander (Air). ‘Is there anything you should be telling us?’
‘Possibly, sir,’ Richter replied. ‘But first could I have a word in private?’
Wings looked somewhat startled, but nodded. ‘There’s nobody in the Bridge Mess at the moment. Would that do?’
‘Fine.’ Richter turned and led the way down the stairs. The Bridge Mess is a small dining room located
