by A J Jameson
“Roger,” Marek said, rubbing his temples.
Over the radio Ivan could be heard arguing with the coroner, criticizing his loose practices of skipping over bodily-violation samples, the coroner in turn demanding to speak with Ivan’s extremely-thorough boss. The plan was falling apart, just like the meeting in the subway. Zyta had a bad hunch the moment she first saw the coroner. He was dressed for the job, but clearly frustrated. Something during his work day had already gone wrong, and now his duty was being threatened by some random doctor. His authority undermined. His feelings disrespected.
Zyta checked the rest of the coroner’s uploaded chart and gave Marek the good news. “Nothing here to connect us to the body.”
Marek simply nodded. “All right. Let’s go over there and get it. He’s not going to argue with two police officers.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Zyta said. Then it hit her. Connect us to the body. “Yolanda, I’m patching you into the IP of this computer. Can you alter the examiner’s warrant to give permission to displace the body?”
Marek left his mid-stride pose and came to Zyta’s side, resting a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah, I got your IP,” Yolanda said. “It’ll take some time, though.”
“Not a problem,” Marek said. “Just make sure you send it directly to the doctor’s personal email.” He motioned for Zyta to follow him, his eyes glistening like that of a tiger on the prowl.
Brother and sister bashed open the door of the examination room. “What the hell is going on in here?” Marek demanded.
“He’s wasting my time,” Ivan said, yawning.
The coroner threw his hands up, giving into Ivan’s bait. “This inconsiderate person,” he screamed defensively, sweat dripping from his hairline, “thinks he’s going to steal my body.”
Marek turned on Ivan and wrapped one hand around his throat. “You’re threatening to kidnap this man?”
“No not my body,” the coroner said, rushing over to aid Ivan. “The deceased body, the body we’re examining.”
Marek released Ivan’s throat, the rookie’s lips quivering in fear. Sorry, Marek mouthed, and then shrugged when he turned to see Zyta’s wide eyes.
“Marek, the officers are two minutes out,” Eduardo radioed.
“I’m leaving to cool off a bit,” Marek said to nobody in particular. “Please explain everything to my partner, starting with the beginning of your disagreement. And don’t leave anything out.”
The coroner nodded, having let go of his negative feelings toward Ivan.
Outside the examination room, Marek checked the status of the revised warrant.
“Less than a minute,” Yolanda came back.
It was too close. The officers would be back before Yolanda could upload the warrant. Right now, Bravo squad had a three-against-one advantage. Even if the coroner denied them the body after receiving the warrant, Marek could utilize intimidation tactics to appropriate it. They could feign disciplinary action for a hot-tempered rookie officer and it would fly under the media’s radar. But Law always taught to use intimidation as a last resort. And knowing how inclined Sadie was on using muscle tactics…well, that was enough to convince Marek to make the call.
“Eduardo, create a diversion. We’re not quite finished here.”
Eduardo approached the intersection of Artifact and 18th street when Marek gave the order. The targeted police cruiser was located three cars ahead, one lane over. The street was a total of four lanes wide, but it was rush hour, and that played in Eduardo’s favor.
The street light at the intersection changed to yellow, the police cruiser slowing down. There was one vehicle in front of it that would allow…never mind, they blew the light. Not the most ideal situation. Eduardo wanted at least a car between him and the police cruiser to cause a little turbulence as he fled the scene. But hey, it wasn’t a perfect world. It was a challenging one, and Eduardo loved challenges.
He shifted into the next gear and revved the engine. Switched lanes to blow past a few cars, and lost track of the cop car. Did it make a right turn at the light? No. Inching his bike between lanes, he spotted the roof lights of the cruiser. It was just two blocks away from the morgue.
Eduardo swerved onto the sidewalk, entering an asteroid field of pedestrians. Most of them heard or saw the motorcycle coming and hastily moved out of the way. But then there were some talking or staring at their phones, completely oblivious to the world swirling around them. One poorly planned evasive maneuver and they’d be on the ground, bones broken. Eduardo, too. Or worse, he’d be detained by the authorities and his profile “deleted” from C3U’s database.
He eased off the accelerator until he reached the intersection, gunned it through the crosswalk, and made a right down a side street. Back on a sidewalk with fewer pedestrians, Eduardo cleared the block in under five seconds, and the block after that in under three. He made a left at the next intersection onto Artifact street.
The police cruiser was sitting at a red light. Eduardo’s light had turned yellow and there was a car in front of him. Soon the cops would get their green and Eduardo would be back at square one, tailing them and waiting for a red light to give his opportunity.
Pulling down his visor, he made a sharp left. The police cruiser’s passenger-side window was rolling down before Eduardo reached it.
“Wrong side of the road, bud,” said an officer with distinctively blushed cheeks. “Hey, you hear me?”
Eduardo heard him, but he wasn’t listening. He was eyeing the coffee cup resting center-console; the coffee Eduardo had planned on splashing all over the officer. It was now out of reach. A car honked. The light had turned green.
Eduardo shook his head no, trying to convince himself of a better way.
“Are you deaf or just plain stupid?” the cop said. The passenger door opened and that’s when Eduardo made his move. He vised the cop’s nose between thumb and forefinger and twisted. Upon letting go, he flicked it for additional assurance, and zipped his bike onto the sidewalk.
Sirens screamed at his back. Pedestrians eagerly made way for him.
“Good job, Eduardo,” Marek radioed. “Now lose them, and whatever happens, do not bring them back to this morgue.”
“Working on it,” Eduardo said, the sounds of engines revving, sirens wailing, and people yelling in the background.
In the room over, Ivan was arguing with the coroner. Well, maybe arguing wasn’t the right word for it, seeing that their decibel levels had dropped significantly since Marek’s outburst. Holding a discussion, perhaps?
Marek breathed in his nose, out his mouth. Counted to ten. “I’m calm now. Everything is just fine,” he told himself. He could feel his heartrate slowing, and his head no longer beat like a battle drum.
“Warrant revised,” Yolanda spoke through Marek’s MET. “You now have complete control over the location of the body.”
“Good job,” Marek said.
He reentered the examination room, all eyes drawn to his presence. Zyta broke the silence. “Check your messaging system,” she told the examiner. “Our superiors afforded us total discretion to perform the autopsy. We assumed that included moving the body, if necessary.”
The coroner shot Marek a weary glance before conceding. “I’ll look.”
The body prepped for relocation, Marek, Zyta, Ivan, and the coroner made their way through the brightly lit corridor without conversation.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Zyta offered when they were outside. The coroner forced a nod and let the front door slam.
Marek turned on Ivan. “Take both bodies? When did that option figure into the plan?”
Ivan side-stepped him, unable to make eye contact. “I panicked. He kept calling me on misinformation. It made me feel stupid.”
“You did a good job proving that theory. On three. One, two…” they heaved the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.
“The mission was to get the original body out, and he suc
ceeded in doing that,” Zyta said, leaning close to Marek, her tone hushed. “Now we improvise.”
Eduardo radioed the team. “I have two on me, could use some help.”
Zyta motioned for Ivan to get in the back of the ambulance. She followed and closed the door behind her. Marek hurried to the driver’s seat. Yolanda was in the passenger’s, typing on her laptop. “I have a live feed on Eduardo’s location,” she said. “He’s approaching 12th street. I’m thinking underground.”
“Do it,” Marek said.
“Eduardo, I’m going to lead you underground into the subway system. I need to bring up the train schedule first, though, so for now we’re going to cut through some alleyways. Make a right in two lights, then watch for a side street about 25 meters later, on your right.”
“How’s the body?” Marek asked his sister. “Can we replicate?”
“Not sure yet,” she said, slipping on a pair of gloves and exchanging her patrol cap for a plastic face shield. She handed a pair of gloves to Ivan, who looked paler than paper. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, gulped, and put on his gloves. “I’m ready to do this.”
Zyta unzipped the body bag. She recognized the radical’s neatly trimmed beard, and the indentations at the man’s temples. Dotting his cheek was a small puncture hole, similar to the one on his neck. Easily replicable with a syringe.
Moving downward, most of the man’s right arm was missing, severed where the bicep met the shoulder. And further down, his right thigh terminated prematurely. His femur bone protruded out of the skin as if a predator had snapped its jaws around the man’s leg and peeled free the ligaments, muscles, and fat. The leg would take more time.
“Hand me the anatomy scanner,” Zyta said, giving Ivan a plastic face shield in exchange. Zyta initiated the small X-Ray and recorded the exact internal structure of the severed arm. Next, she prepped the cutting tool. “Don’t make any sharp turns, Mar,” she said, and then gently clamped the cutter onto the replacement’s shoulder. A high-powered laser and multi-angled saw worked in unison to chew through the arm in the meticulous manner of a 3D printer. Despite the device’s elegance, flesh and bone particles misted the operation area. The job wasn’t halfway finished when Ivan filled the inside of his face shield with vomit.
“Negative, Eduardo,” Marek said up front. “We don’t have room for the bike yet.”
“Keep following the tracks,” Yolanda said. “I’ll let you know if a train’s coming to change sides.”
Ivan recovered, his face shield removed and his complexion less like a ghost’s. “Why are we replicating the injuries?” he asked, apparently finished with the task at hand. “I mean, I thought we would’ve just taken the body, performed the autopsy, and then upload our findings to the coroner’s computer.”
“Hang on,” Marek warned, the ambulance leaning to the right as he made a turn. “Yolanda, get me a route that triangulates the three closest medical centers.”
“On it.”
“We could drop the body after performing an autopsy,” Zyta said, recording the location of the missing limbs in her examination report. “But then what happens if investigators decide to revisit the case?”
“I guess that’s possible, but what are the chances? This guy’s a terrorist. I don’t think…” Ivan covered his mouth with a clenched fist as the replacement’s forearm fell into the plastic bag. “I don’t think anybody’s going to dig too far into this guy’s true cause of death.”
“There’s the likely chance that nobody will ever consider this case again,” Zyta said. She was now scanning the anatomy of the fractured femur. “But C3U trains us not to deal in chance. And if we do leave a trail, say, by relocating a body currently under investigation, we prefer to end at the same point we started. That way the trail is one big circle.”
Zyta clamped the cutting device onto the replacement’s leg. “No hard turns, Mar.”
“Did you get the toxicology?” her brother asked.
“I’m about to analyze the blood sample.” Zyta pointed at the pathogen reader. “Will you hand me that?”
Ivan did, his gaze averted from both bodies on either side of Zyta. She pressed the tip of the reader to the radical’s neck, just below the pin prick left by Marek’s tranquilizer round. It began analyzing the sample, searching only for traces of the sedative.
“And after we upload the autopsy, we just, drop the body back off? Like nothing?” Ivan asked.
“Right after we upload our findings directly to the coroner’s computer. It’s the least we can do after inconveniencing him. I’m betting he won’t so much as unzip the body bag after we return it.”
“Isn’t betting the same thing as chance?” Ivan asked.
“It is, but if I’m wrong, he’ll at least have the body to perform his own examination.” The pathogen reader beeped. “Positive.”
“And there’s the loose end,” Marek said.
“Sadie’s loose end,” Yolanda added.
Zyta finished jotting her notes and handed the clipboard to Yolanda. “Can you rework the report to include these findings?”
“We don’t know for certain if Sadie played a role in this,” Marek said. “And Bravo squad isn’t going to be known for starting rumors.”
“Roger that,” Yolanda said. “And sure thing, Zyta.”
“Roger,” Ivan echoed. To Zyta he said, “So if the coroner found traces of a sedative during his autopsy, that would what? Indicate that there was an internal conflict within the terrorist group, right? It could even attribute to what caused the accidental explosion.”
Zyta opened a new plastic bag to catch the replacement’s leg. It was nearly lopped off when Ivan offered to hold it. “Thanks,” she said.
She was about to answer his question when he tried answering himself. “Oh wait…they could trace the sedative back to its manufacturer, tap into our purchases, and then C3U would be compromised.”
His elated expression deflated when Zyta shook her head. “The sedative is impossible to trace, as well as the bullet casings. You were more on track with your first assessment, that there was an internal dispute within the radical group. That could be the cause of the explosions, but it could also mean that they had trouble with outsiders. A deal gone wrong, and a reason to keep the case open.”
The replacement’s detached leg fell into the plastic bag, and Zyta sealed it. Ivan’s complexion turned pale.
“Sharp right,” Marek said from upfront, the ambulance leaning left. The vehicle slowed as they approached a red light.
Zyta closed the blinds of the rear windows. Up front, Yolanda’s fingers ticked away at her keyboard. And outside, police sirens were nowhere to be heard. “Have the cops stopped chasing Eduardo?” Zyta asked.
“Yeah,” Yolanda said. “He took a service exit out of the subway and is standing-by for us to give the okay. I’m just about, there…the report is filed. We can head back to the morgue.”
“Open the warrant,” Marek said. “You know what, create a new order number addressed to the coroner.” He paused, thinking. Then gave Ivan a glance through the rearview mirror and nodded. “He’s right, betting on the coroner not performing his own autopsy is leaving it to chance. For the new order, inform our friend that he has been relieved of this case, but that the investigating unit needs the body to be stored at his facility for now. No loose ends.”
Yolanda processed the order. They unloaded the replica an hour later. The coroner was pleased to be taken off the job, and Zyta was correct in her prediction that he wouldn’t so much as unzip the body bag before placing it in storage.
The sun was readying to set by the time Eduardo rejoined the team, his position halfway across the city. When Ivan asked what he did to create such a hectic diversion, he didn’t answer. “Details are to be kept to ourselves,” Eduardo said. “Even Law won’t ask for specifics. It’s in the unlikely case one of us gets caught and questioned, so we can’t give anything up no matter how fierce the interrogation.”
Ivan swallowed hard at Eduardo’s words and touched the back of his neck, feeling the pea-size tracker. Every recruit gets one, in case any of us gets abducted, or lost,” Marek had explained. “C3U can locate you anywhere in the country.”
The team donned oxygen masks and opened all windows. Zyta injected the original body with Eduardo’s famous flesh and bone-eater, and they drove around for half an hour as it deteriorated into a 3-inch by 3-inch pile of ash.
Chapter 6
For the fifth time in the past two hours Axel listened to a news reporter elaborate on the discoveries of a terrorist scheme that had decimated a major city intersection one week prior. “Thirteen police precincts were the suspected targets of this militant group,” the woman said. A picture beside her displayed a pile of black briefcases stacked next to the subway tracks.
The camera cut to a police lieutenant that had addressed the media earlier that morning. His head was a block of white hair and he possessed the demeanor of a person who could single-handedly count the amount of times he smiled in the past decade. He stood tall, his chest puffed, and spoke into several microphones mounted on a podium. “After an extensive investigation into the events leading up to last week’s horrific travesty, I am grateful to say that the evidence gathered indicates no further harm coming from this group of terrorists.”
Recorded footage of a bomb-response unit, sweeping the underground subway system, eclipsed the press conference. “Plans to set explosive charges beneath the buildings of thirteen police stations, located throughout the city, were recovered,” the unseen news reporter said. “Hundreds of lives saved by the hardened diligence of the men and women who protect the great citizens of this country.”
Axel muted the video feed and turned his attention to a news article discussing the same incident. It used the same words to cover the same details: thirteen precincts, hundreds of lives saved, two lives lost, over one hundred explosives recovered, militant terrorist group, diligent officers, grateful citizens. One in a dozen articles mentioned the lives lost outside of the two civilian casualties. Killed by a deadly explosion orchestrated by their own hands. Killed because of Axel’s failed efforts.
