Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

The big man looked at him for a moment, then nodded. He got to his feet, and yelled over his shoulder. “Carter, got a body in here.”

“Wait a minute.” Amos frowned and turned. “Tortured?” He pointed at the partial corpse. “Agnes Silberman, seventy-seven, with arthritis in both hips and chronic diabetes. She’s on the freakin’ pension and lives by herself. Why the fuck would someone want to torture her? What the hell has this old lady got that someone would do that to her for?”

Heisen, still crouching, looked at the dry scabbing on the wounds. “What has she got? Maybe not money, maybe nothing… or maybe she had information.”

Another agent, Heisen assumed it was Carter, entered with a box case and immediately set to work sampling the air, examining the body, and even slicing away some of her skin at her arm’s cauterization line. He pulled out a probe, and lifted an edge of her dress. He let it drop, and then examined the ground beside her, leaning in close to a small outline pressed into one of the ash pipes that used to be a leg. He turned to Monroe. “Got something.” He reached into his bag, pulled out a small can, shook it, and then sprayed something that foamed up onto the small indentation. After a second it changed color and settled flat. He carefully lifted it out, and dusted off the excess ash. Carter stood and showed it to Monroe. Amos and Heisen tried to see around him. Monroe looked at it, his eyes narrowing. He waved it away. “Bag it.”

Amos squinted at the object as Carter placed it into a small clear envelope. “Is that a footprint?”

Heisen nodded. “Looks like one… if you’re about three feet tall.”

“Kid maybe?” Amos responded, eyes following the bag as Carter took it back to the case he’s brought in with him.

Heisen shrugged. “Sure it is, and why not. Some kid with a laser. You can get all kinda shit on eBay these days.”

Monroe glared at them both.

“Boss.”

Monroe’s head whipped around at the sound of the voice. “Yo.” He turned back briefly to Carter. “Finish up.” Monroe left the room.

Carter was down low, waving a small box around. He pointed it at Mrs. Silberman’s ruined corpse. Heisen knelt beside him.

“Weird shit, huh?” Heisen said.

Carter grunted, keeping his eyes on the small box. Heisen looked over his shoulder, and decided to try his luck. He nodded towards the small box. “Pretty unusual readings.”

Carter grunted again, staying focused on the small illuminated screen. “Got that right. At least we identified it — xenon.”

“Xenon? That’s the weird stuff used in flash lamps isn’t it?” Heisen looked back at Mrs. Silberman.

Carter shook his head. “Not this type. This is 135. Normally Xenon is a gas that occurs in the Earth’s atmosphere. Consists of about eight stable isotopes, and five times that many unstable ones — pretty normal stuff. But 135 is different; it’s not naturally occurring. Used as the propellant for ion thrusters in spacecraft, it’s a neutron absorber in nuclear reactors, and is usually the result of nuclear fission. Nope, Xenon-135 should not be here at all.”

Heisen stood. “Like I said; weird shit.”

Heisen turned to Amos, grabbed him by the arm and led him out of the room. “Hey, have you looked in the other apartments yet?”

Amos shook his head. “Next thing on the list.”

“Good.” Heisen let him go. “One more thing; anything else weird in here?”

Amos frowned.

“Burn marks in odd places maybe?” Heisen asked.

Amos’ frown unlocked. “Oh yeah, in the bathroom. Looks like the old bat set fire to something — big black oval on the wall.”

Monroe stood with Felzig in the bathroom. There was a three-foot black scorch mark on the wall under the sink. Felzig turned and raised her eyebrows, holding out the small reader in her hands. Monroe exhaled. “Let me guess, gamma off the scale, and more traces of Xenon 135.” She nodded. Carter and Benson joined them, and Monroe turned to Carter. “What could have done that?”

Carter shook his head. “We’ve got HEL tech mounted on our destroyers. Those High Energy Lasers work at around a hundred kilowatts — that’d do it. Also some industrial lasers, but they’re not portable.” He shrugged. “Bottom line; nothing we’ve got.”

Monroe stared back out into the hallway. “Well, someone or something is coming in and out, with some pretty high tech… and given what they did to the old woman, seems they’re here to play hardball.” Monroe turned away. “We can do that too.”

In the apartment down the hall, Heisen went quickly from room to room, stopping at one littered with packing tape and brown paper. On the debris strewn table sat an unsent package. He spun it around and read the label — Professor Matt Kearns. He ripped it open.

“Alas poor Yorick.” He lifted out the skull, holding the brown relic up in his hands. He smiled. “Nice to finally meet you the elusive, Mr. Klaus.”

Heisen put the skull down and dug deeper into the package, finding an envelope addressed to the professor. He tore it open and quickly scanned it. There was a brief introduction from Klaus, and then description of his find — a complete Neanderthal skeleton, plus one other item. Heisen frowned remembering the picture of Doris Sömmer holding the small metallic device. “One other item, hmm?”

He turned slowly in the small room. There was a dark scar on the far wall. The curtains hanging beside it had been seared away in a perfect facsimile of the oval burn. Heisen looked back at the letter in his hands. It was signed ‘K’ and had a single mobile phone number at the bottom.

He pulled out his phone and dialed. It answered after the first ring.

“Hello Klaus.”

It took Heisen most of the day and a dozen calls to convince the young man he was who he said he was. But eventually Klaus relented, and… spoke. The kid sounded at near mad panic stage, and after hearing about his girlfriend, he was close to disappearing for good.

Heisen wanted to meet with Klaus. He sat on a park bench, waiting for his phone to ring. He looked up at the sky, watching the clouds lengthen and fragment, and he turned his focus inward, sorting through what he knew in his mind. Klaus and Doris had found something in Germany — a Neanderthal skeleton and something else, as yet undetermined. The kid wouldn’t give him any details over the phone, but confirmed they found something strange entombed with the fossil — something that didn’t belong there.

Now, the girl was dead, many of the scientists that Klaus had sent bits of the skeleton to were dead, and his landlady was dead… and added to that, she died horribly. It was a trail a mile wide, and leading straight to Mr. Klaus Hoffman.

If the group had just been hit over the head, or stabbed or shot, Heisen might conclude they were only after the skeleton. A find that one museum expert suggested could be worth half a million. Big money, especially considering you could get someone whacked for a measly fifty bucks these days.

But the way the murders were executed defied belief. Forensic analysis and the subsequent Coroner’s report said that the incineration reached temperatures in excess of two thousand three hundred degrees. And the concentration meant that it was consistent with some sort of high intensity laser. But one that left no burn residue, just a nice neat cauterization.

Nobody had any idea what type of device or weapon was used — even one from the military’s research and development arsenals. And the kicker was the throwaway comment by the Coroner — out of this world, she said, as she closed the book on the Sömmer girl’s inquest.