The Perfect Corpse

by Giles Milton

  He loosened his tie and smiled, as if he’d just won at poker. ‘Hope that’s the last bright idea you’re going to inflict on us all. Stick to playing nurse from now on. You’re not bad at that. You might even earn yourself a drink when this whole thing’s over.’

  *

  Ferris Clark was winched from the vitrification box at just after eleven. The surgical pulley eased him gently upwards until he was almost a foot above the glass container. It then swung him slowly through ninety degrees and transferred him to the moveable gurney. This was attached to a wheeled trolley that was rolled carefully into the theatre lab next door. Tammy knew they were fast reaching the moment of no return. There could be no going back.

  Everyone on the team was present but no one spoke. It was as if the gravity of what they were attempting to do had suddenly struck home. The only noise came from ALP, the mainframe computer. Its glossy brushed steel box was linked wirelessly to the various components in the lab.

  Owen went over to the keyboard and typed in a command. ALP responded immediately, ordering manual checks to be run on each individual item of equipment before they were connected to the operating system.

  Defibrillator? A computer-generated voice without intonation or inflexion.

  ‘On timer and set,’ said Tom.

  Dialysis?

  ‘On timer and set.’

  Biospectral index monitor. Electro-encephalograph. External cranial pressure monitor?

  Tom checked the latter piece of equipment and adjusted its setting before tapping in a code that linked it wirelessly to ALP.

  Oximeter. External Brain Tissue Oxygen Monitor. Renal Dialysis Pump.

  ALP ran through each item in the room before speaking again.

  Tom Lawyer - ?

  Tom looked up at the machine. He hated ALP addressing him by name.

  Remember, Tom Lawyer, dioximyde pump must link to left carotid, femoral artery, pulmonary vein.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Zero-point-eight fluid ounces in each instance, first dose.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Back up systems as agreed.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Remember, Tom Lawyer, continued ALP, links to cell phone must be connected and secured.

  ‘Yeah, ALP, just wait for fuck’s sake.’

  No, Tom Lawyer. ALP responded in the same blank tone. Links to cell phone must be connected and secured now. Request check on links to cell phone. Cell phone must be connected and secured. Connect and secure now.

  All six of them performed their allotted tasks in silence. Ferris Clark lay outstretched on the gurney, still deeply chilled. But he wouldn’t be ice-frigid for much longer. ALP would soon switch the thermal wrap from ‘standby’ to ‘on’, and the warming process would begin. And that would mark the beginning of a whole new phase.

  ‘Get a print-out of the thermal readings,’ said Tom, turning to Tammy.

  ALP answered immediately. Thermal readings printing.

  ‘And, Tammy, make sure the thermal wrap’s linked to the correct computer file. Don’t want to be hunting for fucking information when it starts coming in.’

  ALP blinked and responded. Thermal-wrap now being linked to correct computer file: file AD-six-three-two-Z.

  ‘Good,’ said Tammy, addressing ALP. She turned back to Tom. ‘Just re-checking all the drip attachment files.’

  All checked and correct.

  It took ninety minutes to get Ferris Clark wired to all the machines, pumps and drips and then another thirty to ensure that all the equipment was ‘talking’ to ALP. The only machine that stood redundant was the EMO unit, used to pump blood through an oxygenator. If the dioximyde failed, it could be used as an emergency standby.

  Tammy stood back for a moment and looked at Ferris Clark. It was strange. Being linked to all the equipment had somehow transformed him. Although the thermal wrap had yet to be activated he already looked more like an intensive care patient than a deep frozen corpse. Deadly cold, deadly white, deadly stiff, yet someone who might yet be kick-started back to life.

  When all the equipment had been checked and connected there was a tangible sense of relief in the lab.

  ‘So,’ said Hunter, breaking the silence. ‘He wakes up, sees all these computers, what’s he going to say?’

  ‘Where the fuck am I?’ offered Jennifer.

  Hunter scoffed. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘My alarm didn’t go off,’ added Owen.

  ‘Okay, shut up all of you,’ said Tom. ‘Not the time for comedy. And no wisecracks once Governor Jackson’s here. He doesn’t do humour.’

  He looked at his watch then turned to face the room.

  ‘Right. Everything’s ready. It’s checked and re-checked. All good to go. Everyone happy?’

  ALP blinked and answered.

  Happy is a value judgment. It is not recognized by my lexicon.

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ Tom rephrased the question. ‘Are all links live and running?’

  Correct.

  ‘Then the thermal wrap can be switched on.’

  Correct.

  Doctor Gonzales stared at ALP in silence. It was the moment he’d feared for weeks. There was a low click and one of the lights flicked from red to green

  Thermal wrap activated.

  ‘Good.’ Tom rubbed his hands. He then turned to look at one of the monitors linked to ALP, studying it closely. ‘Okay, it’s giving us a predictive wake-up time of fifteen-thirty-seven tomorrow afternoon. That’s just after three-thirty. Which means it reckons he’s going to take around twenty-seven hours to reach the point where all this stuff -’ he pointed to the banks of machines - ‘will kick into action. Longer than we expected.’

  He turned to Tammy. ‘I’m expecting you to run hourly checks. Luke, you’ll monitor the thermal? Everyone clear on their jobs?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘Good. Then we’ll leave him to ALP for the time being.’

  FOURTEEN

  Jack spent the afternoon at the Hanford Comfort Inn, a roadside motel with even less charm than Logan’s Corner. Tammy had said it was anonymous. She was right. You could stick Al-Qaeda inside and no one would ever ask any questions.

  Several times Jack called the National Archives in Washington to find out more about the USMOD records. There was never any answer. In the end he sent an email instead. He got an instant rely. ‘We aim to respond to all email enquiries within 3 to 5 working days.’ So that was that, for the time being.

  He turned back to his iPad and started making a resumé of everything he had discovered. Ferris Clark had been conscripted in January, 1944. He was 37 years of age. Compulsory conscription of American males had begun on 5 December 1942, when Roosevelt signed an executive order ending voluntary registration. From that date onwards, anyone between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight years was legally obliged to join the army. Fifty million males at the stroke of a pen.

  Ferris Clark fell within the age range: 35 years old in December 1942. But there was good reason why he’d escaped the draft. He had specialist meteorological training, training that was invaluable to the US army, navy and air force. His services were required in Greenland, and never more so than in 1944 when the Atlantic convoys were the lifeline between North America and Europe.

  He was sent to Eastern Greenland in March with five comrades, Mike Davison, Sam Hucknell, Jon B. McGuire, Rob Towler and Dick Waller. According to the records in Las Vegas, all these men had families. Some probably had descendants who were still alive. And it was possible that at least one of them might have kept a record of what happened to their old friend Ferris Clark, from Green Diamond, Nevada.

  Jack was confident he could trace these descendants, given time. There would be census returns, the electoral roll and probably other records as well. But time was the one thing he didn’t have. And tracking a family forwards in time is far more complicated than tracking it backwards.

  As to the cause of Ferris Clark’s death, Jack was increasingly sure he hadn’t
committed suicide. Throwing yourself into a crevasse leaves signs on the body. Nor had he drowned. There was no water in his lungs.

  An accident was also unlikely. Meteorologists don’t drop dead from the cold. Ferris Clark would have known the risks of being outside, of exposure, of hypothermia. Besides, if it was an accident then why was he naked?

  That left murder. He’d been stripped and killed, possibly by exposure to the cold. And then he’d been dumped in a glacial crevasse. He was dead by the time he hit the water. Murder was by far the most plausible scenario, except that it didn’t explain the pristine state of his internal organs and blood cells.

  The phone rang, cutting through his thoughts. It was Tammy.

  ‘It’s all started,’ she said, the despondency sounding in her voice. ‘And I’ve got to check on him again at six-thirty. Want to join me?’

  ‘Sure? It’s your quickest route to getting fired.’

  ‘Tom and Hunter won’t be there,’ she said. ‘Tom’s linked wirelessly to the lab. Monitors everything from his house. And anyway, we’ll know if they’re there because their cars will be outside.’

  Half an hour later she picked him up from the Comfort Inn and drove directly to ZAKRON. There was only one car outside. It was Kingston’s.

  ‘You haven’t met him yet,’ said Tammy. ‘He’s ZAKRON’s gentle giant. Only decent guy here. And he’ll never breathe a word about anything. He’s got a big soft spot for me.’

  ‘What’s he do?’

  ‘Officially he’s the night watch. But he’s far more than that. He keeps an eye on everything. He knows the equipment here like it’s his babies. Ferris Clark couldn’t be in safer hands.’

  She opened the main entrance door with her swipe card and motioned to Jack to follow her into Kingston’s ground floor office.

  ‘Why Miss Tammy!’ said Kingston, smiling broadly when he saw her. ‘And you must be Mister Jack Raven. So you haven’t left us after all.’

  Tammy gave a brief explanation, telling him that he was staying on in secret for a few more days. ‘Some new lines on Ferris Clark. Needs to follow them up.’

  ‘That’ll please the boss,’ said Kingston, turning toward Jack. ‘Heard him the other day saying he wanted to give you a special send off.’

  ‘Who to?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘He was talking with Mister Hunter. Talking about it in his office. Heard them laughin’ about it.’

  He paused for a second.

  ‘Anyway, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell you came here. Mister Tom’s hard at times. Hard on me, too. And not always fair, neither.’

  They left Kingston and changed into surgical gowns. They then made their way into the lab-theatre. The emergency strip lights were already on, but the overhead spots also flicked into action as they entered the room. The lab was silent, apart from a low hum.

  ‘I feel sorry for him,’ said Tammy when the door had closed behind them. ‘Kingston, I mean. They pay him a pittance. And yet he’s always the first one to see when things go wrong. If he left this place, Tom’d be in deep shit.’

  She flicked her eyes towards the mainframe computer. ‘Eighteen hundred hours update report on Ferris Clark,’ she said. ALP’s voice activation light blinked.

  Situation normal. All data in conformity with expected norms. No anomalies to report. Stage two de-thaw reached at eighteen hundred hours and fourteen minutes.

  Ferris Clark was lying stiffly on the gurney, outstretched on the reflective thermal mat. He had blue suction caps attached to his scalp. They would detect the first signs of electrical energy coming from the brain. Specially adapted ventilation tubes were clamped into each nostril and an inter-cranial pressure monitor was externally attached to the back of his head.

  Jack studied each item of equipment with care. Five intravenous infusion pumps had been inserted into his neck and arms. They would allow the swift infusion of dioximyde at the appointed time. A saturation pulse oximeter was strapped to his finger.

  ‘For oxygen levels?’

  ‘Yeah. The readings are fed straight into ALP. He makes instant calculations. He’ll be the one instructing the intravenous infusion pump. He’s the one taking decisions, not us.’

  They turned to look more closely at Ferris Clark. He seemed to have changed since the morning. The thawing process had moved from stage one to stage two somewhat faster than anticipated. ALP had originally given a predictive time of seven hours before the onset of stage two. Only five had passed yet changes were already taking place. Ferris Clark’s skin was no longer frosted. In places it was glistening with moisture, like cold sweat, and the suction cushions beneath him were drawing the accumulated water from the heat mat into a small drain-hole below.

  They both stood in silence, staring at his face. That, too, had undergone a change. He still looked very far from life but he didn’t have the marble pallor that comes with clinical death. His skin was grey rather than white and Jack noticed that his fingernails had a purplish tinge above the cuticle. He pointed it out to Tammy.

  ‘One of the first things you get with patients in intensive care.’

  Ferris Clark’s left eye had not moved. It was still stuck in the same position, slightly ajar. But tiny droplets of condensation had formed on his eyelashes, like miniature tears. Jack felt the heat mat. Warm to the touch, even through his surgical gloves. It was reflecting heat deep inside the body.

  ‘Jack,’ said Tammy, turning to face him. She was speaking in a low voice. ‘Listen, I’ve got to tell you now, before it’s too late. I’m not happy with this. I’m not happy at all.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘I’ve got this feeling, right here. Don’t know what it is. I can’t explain it. I just feel uneasy. I’ve had it for days, right here in my stomach. Like you get when something’s about to go wrong.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to go wrong.’

  ‘How can you be so sure? You talk away in this confident tone, like the whole world’s under Jack Raven’s personal control. How can you be so sure?’

  ‘How can I be so sure? Open your eyes, Tammy. Look at him. And look at all the equipment. He’s linked to some of the most sophisticated medical machinery in the world.’

  ‘But Jack -’

  She was more insistent.

  ‘Really, I don’t like it. And, you know, it’s not too late to stop it. Not too late to cut the link to Tom’s phone, pull the plug. I could stop the warm-up right here and now. And then it’d all be over.’

  Jack looked at her like she was mad.

  ‘But you’d ruin his body. You’d be destroying his organs. You’d be killing him. Forever.’

  ‘Precisely. And then he’d get the lasting sleep he wanted.’

  ‘How d’you know that’s what he wanted?’ he snapped back at her. ‘And besides, who are you to decide? For all you know, this might be the moment he’s been desperate for, craving for, ever since he died. And anyway, it’s too late now. There’s no way back, Tammy. It’s too far down the line.’

  ‘But Jack – ’

  He held up his hand, silencing her before she could say anything more.

  ‘Look, I agree with you on one thing. Yes, they should have found out more about him. Yes, they should have found out what was going on in Greenland. But it’s too late for that now. And it might not even be necessary. You keep saying he won’t remember who he is. But there’s also a chance he’ll remember exactly who he is.’

  ‘Well I want you to know one thing,’ she said in a cold voice. He could see real anger in her eyes. ‘If you weren’t here, I’d have switched off the equipment.’

  ‘You’re completely mad. And lose your job, salary, everything. And on top of everything else, you’d have landed Ferris Clark in a coffin. Your problem, Tammy, is that you don’t understand death. And I can tell you this, if you’d unplugged the equipment, I’d have plugged it straight back in again.’

  ‘Then it falls on your shoulders.’

  He nodded. ‘I don’t have a
problem with that. I’m a scientist. This is science. It’s what I do.’

  She went back to checking all the various leads and wires that fed the dialysis, defibrillator and oximeters. She also checked the wireless connections with ALP. Then she made a check on ALP himself, ensuring all the systems were connected to Tom’s phone. ALP gave an indignant blink. System checked. All systems functioning normally.

  Any change in Ferris Clark’s status, any problems or irregularities, would be flashed to Tom.

  ‘ALP, I need an update on the brief data report.’

  Data processing underway. Information will be sent to monitor in less than three seconds.

  She switched her gaze to the principal monitor. It flashed the required information instantaneously.

  ‘17.47hrs. Patient constant. All readings normal. Surface body temperature, 76F. Inner core reading (heart), 71F. Inner core (brain), 70F. Heat mat (surface), 102F. Deflective heat source, optimized. Scan layers, all normal.’

  ‘Tom’ll access all this tonight,’ said Tammy with a sigh. ‘He’ll check the new stats and readings once ALP’s calibrated it. And Kingston will be doing the same thing, only he’ll be doing it from here of course.’

  Jack moved round to the far side of Ferris Clark’s body. He wanted to see if the birthmark was any clearer. The surface frost had melted slightly and the skin was now almost translucent but it remained frustratingly folded into itself.

  He reached for the magnifying glass that stood in a rack next to one of the monitors. A Buxton triplet 30X. Best magnifying glass ever made. And British too. He shifted the surgical spotlight a fraction in order to shine a beam directly onto the armpit. Then he held the glass close to the skin so that he could study the mark more closely.

  ‘Still too cold. Another two hours and it’ll be visible.’

  He turned to face Tammy, asked if ALP could estimate the time at which his core temperature would reach the point at which everything would switch from standby to action.

  ‘He can do that in seconds,’ said Tammy. ‘ALP, what’s the current projection for Operation Pump?’

  Current estimation was 15.24 on the following day. Jack glanced at the time now, 18.52, and did a quick calculation. If all went according to plan, the process of kick-starting Ferris Clark’s heart, organs, blood circulation and brain would begin in twenty-one hours.