Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

“Get out of my way.”

There was a brief standoff, then Glinn said, “Manuel, let him go.”

Garza stepped aside with insolent slowness.

“When you go out on the street,” said Glinn, “do me one favor: look at the faces of the people around you and think about how their lives are going to change. Forever.”

Gideon didn’t even wait to hear the rest. He rushed out the door, crushed his finger against the elevator button, and took it down to the first floor, cursing its slowness. When the doors opened he ran across the vast workroom, through the sets of doors, and down the hall; the front door opened electronically as he approached.

Once outside, he jogged down the street to a boutique hotel, where a line of cabs were standing. Screw his luggage. He would go to the airport, get back to New Mexico, hole up in his cabin until this whole thing was over. He had done enough damage. He grasped the handle of the cab and opened the door, hesitating a moment as he looked at the crowds of trendy people going in and out of the hotel. He recalled Glinn’s advice. He found the people he saw repulsive. He didn’t care how their lives might change. Let them all die. He might well be living with death; why not them, too?

That was his answer to Glinn.

Suddenly he felt himself shoved aside and a drunk man in a tuxedo barged past him, stealing his cab. The man slammed the door, leaned out the window with a grin of triumph, exhaling martini fumes. “Sorry, pal, he who hesitates… Have a nice trip back to Des Moines.”

With a raucous laugh from its passenger, the cab pulled away and Gideon stood there, shocked.

How their lives are going to change. Glinn’s words echoed again in his mind. Was this world, those people, that man, worth saving? Somehow, the very loutishness of the man hit home in a way no random kindness from a stranger would have. The man would wake up the next morning and no doubt regale his friends on the trading floor about the out-of-town dickhead who didn’t know how to commandeer a New York City cab. Good. Fuck him. More proof they were not worth saving. Gideon would retreat to his cabin in the Jemez Mountains and let these assholes fend for themselves…

But as this thought ran through his mind, he faltered. Who was he to judge? The world was made up of all kinds of people. If he fled to his cabin and New York was taken out by a nuke, where would that leave him? Was it his responsibility? No. But by running away, he would have still put himself lower than that tuxedoed scumbag by orders of magnitude.

Whether he had eleven months or fifty years, it would be a long and lonely space of time in which he would never, ever forgive himself.

For a long, furious moment he hesitated. And then, boiling with rage and frustration, he turned and retraced his steps down Little West 12th Street to the anonymous door of Effective Engineering Solutions, Inc. It opened as he approached, as if Glinn were expecting him.

Chalker’s body lay on a porcelain gurney encased in a large glass cube, like an offering to some high-tech god. The corpse had been autopsied and was splayed open, a riot of red among gray steel, glass, and chrome, various organs arrayed around it—the heart, liver, stomach, and other body parts Gideon did not recognize and didn’t want to recognize. There was something uniquely unsettling about seeing the guts of someone you’d known personally—it wasn’t just another image on the evening news.

Chalker’s personal effects were arranged on a table next to the body: his clothes, wallet, keys, belt, credit cards, papers, change, ticket stubs, Kleenex, and various other items—all tagged. All, evidently, radioactive.

At a console, medical personnel and technicians were operating a set of eight robotic arms inside the glass cube, each one of which terminated in a different set of grisly-looking dissecting instruments—bone chisels, shears, mallets, forceps, knives, skullbreakers, spreaders, and other tools of cadaveritude. Despite the highly dissected condition of the body, the work was still progressing.

“Lucky thing,” said Fordyce, removing his notebook. “We didn’t miss the autopsy completely.”

“Funny, I was thinking just the opposite,” said Gideon.

Fordyce glanced at him and rolled his eyes.

Gideon heard a whirring sound. One of the robotic arms, which terminated in a circular saw, began to move, the blade spinning up to a high-pitched whine. As the technicians murmured into headsets, the blade lowered toward Chalker’s skull. “Torquemada would have loved this stuff,” Gideon said.

“Looks like we’re just in time for the removal of the brain,” Fordyce said, licking his finger and turning the pages of his notebook to find a blank one.

The whine became muffled as the saw sank into Chalker’s forehead. A dark liquid began running into the drain along the edge of the gurney. Gideon turned away, pretending to examine some papers in his briefcase. At least, he thought, there was no smell.

“Agent Fordyce? Dr. Crew?”

Gideon glanced over to see a technician with big glasses, a ponytail, and a clipboard, standing beside them expectantly.

“Dr. Dart will see you in his office now.”

With a feeling of relief, Gideon followed the technician toward a cubicle at the far end of the high-tech area. Fordyce went along, grumbling about being taken away from the autopsy. They entered a spartan space no more than nine by twelve feet. Dart himself was sitting behind a small desk covered with heavy, squared stacks of folders. He rose and offered his hand, first to Fordyce, then to Gideon.

“Please sit down.”

They took seats in folding chairs set up in front of the desk. Dart spent a moment organizing some already-organized papers. He had a face that did little to conceal the bones of the skull underneath; his eyes, full of vitality, were so deeply set that they gleamed out of two pools of darkness. At Los Alamos he had been a bit of a legend, a rather humorless geek physicist with a doctorate from CalTech who was unexpectedly a decorated soldier—a most unusual combination—having won two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart in action in Desert Storm.

Dart finished organizing the papers and looked up. “This is a pretty unusual portfolio they’ve given you two.”

Fordyce nodded.

“As commander of NEST,” Dart went on, “I’ve already thoroughly briefed the FBI. But I see they want you to have a little extra.”

Gideon said nothing. He had no intention of taking the lead. That’s what Fordyce was there for: to run interference, take the heat, and, if necessary, present his ass for kicking. Gideon intended to lie low.

“We’re an independent team,” said Fordyce. “We appreciate you giving us this private briefing, sir.” His voice was mild, nonconfrontational. Here was a man who knew how the game was played.

Dart’s eyes swiveled to Gideon. “And I’ve been told you’ve been hired by a private contractor whose identity is classified.”

Gideon nodded.

“I thought I recognized you. We worked together at Los Alamos. How did you happen to get from there to here?”

“It’s a long story. I’m on an extended vacation from the lab.”

“You were on the Stockpile Stewardship Team, as I recollect. Same as Chalker.” This little fact hung in the air. It was hard for Gideon to gauge how much Dart knew or what he thought about it.

“You were in on the incident,” Dart continued.

“They brought me in to try to talk him down…but it didn’t work out.” Gideon felt his face flush.

Dart seemed to sense the awkwardness. He waved his hand. “I’m sorry about that. It must have been tough. They tell me you saved the two kids.”

Gideon didn’t answer. He felt the flush deepen.