“Don’t be naive, David,” added Swigart, staring a hole through him.
Even Dr. Entebbe jumped in with, “We can’t jeopardize the expedition, young man, not even for a fallen friend. I don’t know who did this to Dimitri, or what sort of acid was used to disfigure him, or why his body was hidden, or even where the other man might be—the missing man who likely killed Alandale, but I have to agree with your dive partner and your dive captain, Mr. Ingles. We’re too close to our goal now to risk having it taken away.”
David translated their combined concerns into money. A bottom line mentality; they had all signed on to make a fortune with the plunder of
It’d been Swigart who ordered the body be routed through the ship to the bio-lab freezer, to essentially put it on ice. Forbes had been more subtle and had shown deep hurt and emotion, but could that be counted on? Entebbe was quick to agree with Swigart, perhaps too quick, and as for Will? He was just being Will, he imagined—an anxious salvage diver looking at the most historic dive of his career who didn’t want anything to stand in his way. He’d most likely already signed a book contract with Random House and had a TV reality show in the works for after the mission.
Mendenhall had earlier left the compartment looking white as a sheet and ill from what he’d discovered along with Will, yet Will Bowman hadn’t seemed at all affected by either the sulfuric odor or the sight. What if anything did that indicate?
David quickly decided he was in the midst of a nightmare; any quirk or small gesture, any comment might be fitted into the box of suspicion. No one was above suspicion, and yet how was he to know which man deserved his suspicion? Kelly had made up her mind that it was Forbes, but David was not so sure—not anymore.
“Yes, we stow the body, and that’s an order!” shouted Swigart as a knock came at the cabin door and Lena Gambio peeked in to hand Swigart a box of surgical gloves.
“I found ’em in the med supply just like you said.”
Swigart snatched out a handful of rubber gloves and ordered David and Will to “Carry on, gentlemen!”
“I dunno, Captain Swigart,” said Bowman, not so anxious to touch Alandale even with gloves. “Didn’t sign on for this kinda… well, shit, sir.”
“You signed on to take orders from me, Bowman.”
“Sir-yes-sir!”
“Just do it. Take hold! You too, Ingles.”
Reluctantly, knowing what he knew, David moved toward the head and shoulders, readying to lift and carry Alandale’s fragile remains out. A cloud of dust rose from him as if he were brittle, ancient parchment.
Swigart said, “Heft ’im outta here and up to the mainsail and across the deck to the bio-lab. The specimen freezer. I’m talking about is there.”
Ingles exchanged a look with Bowman—now at the ankles—and in tandem they lifted the surprisingly light, stiff body; it felt like carrying a mannequin, and the light weight recalled to David’s mind Declan’s vivid description of the discovery of the shriveled, dehydrated remains the young doctors had autopsied in 1912.
These thoughts bounced about David’s mind when suddenly a TV cameraman materialized at the compartment entry with a camera on his shoulder, and Swigart shoved the man and camera back. Taking the two newsmen aside in the hallway, he fast-talked them into a deal—complete access and footage if they withheld sending any of it back to port until the expedition to
Again they hefted Alandale’s remains and started out, cameras rolling; for David it all felt surreal in the most extreme sense. The stiffness of the body made getting it out of his cabin and into the corridor no easy task, and hitting the dead man’s fingers on the hatchway literally broke some digits off.
Lena had by this time pulled on gloves, and she bagged the errant fingers, following just behind Swigart and the two transporting the remains. They cursed on seeing the loss of a couple of extremities, but in the long run, the lightness of the body made it seem no harder a chore than moving a slab of balsa wood from one place to another. The stiffness made getting Alandale’s body through the tight entryway to elevator difficult, especially on turns, reminding David of moving a sofa up a flight of stairs—until they accidentally hit a bulkhead, shearing off the hard, stiff left leg at the knee. This and the irking noise and oozing brown goop from the severed limb conspired in an instant to pull a cry from Will Bowman’s gut. Will held on, but he’d dropped the left calf and foot to grab onto the single right ankle now in his two hands to avoid dropping the bottom end of the body altogether.
Cursing their carelessness with the body, a gloved Swigart slipped on spilled brown ooze from the leg, quickly salvaged his footing, and then recovered the runaway leg to carry it up behind them, shouting, “Damn it, Bowman, take better care!”
“I’m not a damn undertaker, boss!” Even as he said this, David wondered if there could be egg sacs laid inside the corpse he carried.
It could not be soon enough for the men to rid themselves of the body, and soon it was in Navy parlance a ‘managed task’. “We should’ve used the service elevator at mid-ships,” complained Bowman who was looking ill since Alandale’s leg had sheared off, increasing the unpleasant odor rising from the discolored corpse.
“If Cookie got wind of us using his service elevator, he’d be as mad as Ahab’s whale,” Swigart tried joking when he again saw the brackish liquid seeping out of the wound where the leg had come off at the knee.
“Yeah, I can hear him now, said David, mimicking the cook—“Damnit, the elevator’s for two things only— supplies in, slop out.”
They laughed together at this even as they hefted Alandale’s inert form across the deck and into a hatchway leading them into the bio lab, past the lab itself and to a wall unit—the freezer compartment on board for the collection of biological specimens. Kelly had led the way, and now she held the door wide for them.
Lena Gambio passed along her baggie of fingers in alongside Alandale corpse laid along the floor of the walk- in freezer. Swigart added the errant leg and foot even as the cameras rolled.
“Wait till Woods Hole asks you for biological specimens now, Dr. Irvin,” Lena said, trying to make light of this awful moment.
Craig Powers and his cameraman continued shooting, Powers creating a running narrative that he would edit together later.
David felt a wave of surreal emotions engulf him. Alandale not yet cold in his icy coffin, his severed leg and fingers a mocking sight; still, it was either laugh or cry at such moments, and the laughter escaping others, he knew vented a truckload of pent up emotions. However, Lou Swigart was like stone, not joining in on the ‘merriment’ although he’d opened it earlier with his remarks about Cookie’s elevator.
Kelly commented, “Thank God you clowns didn’t begin your comedy routine in front of Forbes.”
Bowman said, “Always wanted to do stand up, and with these cameras in my face, I think it’s my chance.”
The camera caught the odd juxtaposition of the petrified body, now technically in three pieces, as the door to the specimen freezer closed on Alandale’s remains.
David snatched off the surgical gloves and unceremoniously tossed them into the nearby medical waste bin. He then waited as the others filed out, until only he and Kelly remained in the bio lab. “You know,” he said, “Alandale’s body could be riddled with those eggs you were talking about.”
“No—I don’t think so. The brackish ooze, remember? From Declan’s journal, I’ve learned this is the remnant of egg sacs gone bad—dead, aborted if you will.”
“Ahh… no need to worry then.”
David’s sarcasm made Kelly wince, a look of utter sadness coming over her. “He was such a wonderful old gentleman, Alandale. What’s happened to him, and I fear this man Ford, David… it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Brace yourself; it will only get worse.”
“My God… my God, Declan, what’re you trying to do?” asked Thomas Coogan as his best friend, Declan Irvin,
