smoky kiss. Could that kill the lone survivor?
W ould the paramedics shake their heads as they hauled his body away? Like the emergency crew who found him in Stenness, would they say, “God, what horror!”
A moan consumed him.
Rain pounded his face.
He gritted his teeth. A monster of crystallized emotion was imprisoned deep within him. Stress had weakened the bars of its cage. Self-control was simply mind over matter—the matter being nothing more than chemical responses, motor neurons firing in his brain. He could control this. He could feel nothing.
Chapter 14
SUNDAY 9:48 p.m.
Stenness, Orkney Island, Scotland
Florescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a bluish hue over Darwin. Thatcher snapped on rubber gloves and adjusted her goggles. She bit her lip and made the initial Y-incision, cutting carefully across the shoulders to the mid-chest and then down the abdominal region. The scalpel sliced easily through the chilled skin, making a clean cut. She placed the tool on the medical tray and reached for the rib cutters, noticing Hummer outside the Plexiglas partition with Lee.
Brilliant, an audience .
She severed the cartilage be tween the ribs and breastbone. Exerting too much pressure, she accidentally sliced through to the chest cavity. “Sorry,” she whispered to the dog. She was hoping to cause as little damage as possible so David could get her back for burial.
Outside the room, Hummer folded his arms. His stoicism in the face of all this devastation was unnerving. He was certain this was their fault. Yet he seemed impervious to any guilt. In her gut, she knew better. After spending most of her teen years with him, she learned the only way he expressed emotion was by severe acid reflux. Judging by his subtle grimace, the Stenness situation was causing the worst heartburn known to mankind.
Thatcher steadie d her hand and removed the rib section to examine the chest organs. Thousands of tiny hemorrhages plagued the tissue.
“ There are microlesions on the lungs and heart,” she spoke into the voice recorder. Bending over Darwin’s head, she examined her ears with an otoscope. Dried blood obstructed her view of the tiny, fragile inner organs. Thatcher removed the coagulation with tweezers and looked back inside the ear. “Severe perforation of the tympanic membrane and blood drainage throughout the auditory canal.”
The shattered remains of the middle-ear bones hung loosely out of place behind the ruptured tissue. “Mid-ear bones are fractured. The cochlea is a battered mess.”
Organ microlesions, traumatized ear bones. That was two for three. The possibility of vindicating her team and making sense out of one man surviving looked grim. She c ut an incision across the head and then opened the skull vault with a vibrating saw. She removed the cartilage, unveiling the brain.
Taking a tiny cross-section of the tissue, she placed the sample on a glass slide, clipped it under the microscope, and looked through the ocular piece.
It looked exactly like the birds.
“The brain cross section shows cavitation bubbles, severe inflammation, nerve irritation, and necrosis within the neuralgia cells.”
She slumped in a chair and rubbed her stinging eyes.
“Let’s be sure,” she whispered to herself.
Taking in a deep breath, she looked back into the microscope eyepiece and removed all doubt.
“I can’t explain why a d og would die from subsonic noise in the same location where her owner survived,” she recorded, “but one thing is certain, cause of death is subsonic sound.”
Hummer faced her through the glass and raised his CB radio to his mouth. There was no need to hea r her diagnosis, he had read the answer on her face.
Chapter 15
SUNDAY 10:43 p.m.
St. John’s Cathedral
Bathwick, England
Ian lifted the pewter candle snuff and dowsed another flame, darkening the library. The storm had caused a localized power outage, so St. John’s corridors and stairwells were lit with oil lamps
W ould the paramedics shake their heads as they hauled his body away? Like the emergency crew who found him in Stenness, would they say, “God, what horror!”
A moan consumed him.
Rain pounded his face.
He gritted his teeth. A monster of crystallized emotion was imprisoned deep within him. Stress had weakened the bars of its cage. Self-control was simply mind over matter—the matter being nothing more than chemical responses, motor neurons firing in his brain. He could control this. He could feel nothing.
Chapter 14
SUNDAY 9:48 p.m.
Stenness, Orkney Island, Scotland
Florescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a bluish hue over Darwin. Thatcher snapped on rubber gloves and adjusted her goggles. She bit her lip and made the initial Y-incision, cutting carefully across the shoulders to the mid-chest and then down the abdominal region. The scalpel sliced easily through the chilled skin, making a clean cut. She placed the tool on the medical tray and reached for the rib cutters, noticing Hummer outside the Plexiglas partition with Lee.
Brilliant, an audience .
She severed the cartilage be tween the ribs and breastbone. Exerting too much pressure, she accidentally sliced through to the chest cavity. “Sorry,” she whispered to the dog. She was hoping to cause as little damage as possible so David could get her back for burial.
Outside the room, Hummer folded his arms. His stoicism in the face of all this devastation was unnerving. He was certain this was their fault. Yet he seemed impervious to any guilt. In her gut, she knew better. After spending most of her teen years with him, she learned the only way he expressed emotion was by severe acid reflux. Judging by his subtle grimace, the Stenness situation was causing the worst heartburn known to mankind.
Thatcher steadie d her hand and removed the rib section to examine the chest organs. Thousands of tiny hemorrhages plagued the tissue.
“ There are microlesions on the lungs and heart,” she spoke into the voice recorder. Bending over Darwin’s head, she examined her ears with an otoscope. Dried blood obstructed her view of the tiny, fragile inner organs. Thatcher removed the coagulation with tweezers and looked back inside the ear. “Severe perforation of the tympanic membrane and blood drainage throughout the auditory canal.”
The shattered remains of the middle-ear bones hung loosely out of place behind the ruptured tissue. “Mid-ear bones are fractured. The cochlea is a battered mess.”
Organ microlesions, traumatized ear bones. That was two for three. The possibility of vindicating her team and making sense out of one man surviving looked grim. She c ut an incision across the head and then opened the skull vault with a vibrating saw. She removed the cartilage, unveiling the brain.
Taking a tiny cross-section of the tissue, she placed the sample on a glass slide, clipped it under the microscope, and looked through the ocular piece.
It looked exactly like the birds.
“The brain cross section shows cavitation bubbles, severe inflammation, nerve irritation, and necrosis within the neuralgia cells.”
She slumped in a chair and rubbed her stinging eyes.
“Let’s be sure,” she whispered to herself.
Taking in a deep breath, she looked back into the microscope eyepiece and removed all doubt.
“I can’t explain why a d og would die from subsonic noise in the same location where her owner survived,” she recorded, “but one thing is certain, cause of death is subsonic sound.”
Hummer faced her through the glass and raised his CB radio to his mouth. There was no need to hea r her diagnosis, he had read the answer on her face.
Chapter 15
SUNDAY 10:43 p.m.
St. John’s Cathedral
Bathwick, England
Ian lifted the pewter candle snuff and dowsed another flame, darkening the library. The storm had caused a localized power outage, so St. John’s corridors and stairwells were lit with oil lamps
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