reading on the monitor attached to his belt, Revell confirmed its negative reaction with Hyde aboard the Marder before turning over the nearest of the corpses with his foot.
It moved easily, felt so light it seemed it could have no substance at all, only its filled-out shape betraying that there were the remains of a man inside it.
From deep within dark sockets shrivelled eyes glared at him through the clouded lenses of a disintegrating respirator. As though it had waited for precisely that moment the perished rubberized fabric broke apart and an unnatural idiot grin, caused by the dehydrated flesh pulling drum-skin tight over the skull, was fully exposed.
‘No indication of the cause of death.’ Revell kept the transmit switch down on his radio. ‘Until it fell apart it looked like the suit was okay. Nothing suspicious in that, I think it’d just been out in the weather too long.’ He hadn’t really been expecting to be able to determine the exact cause of death; at best he hoped to eliminate some possibilities and ascribe it to a general category. As he went to move away, to inspect another of the bodies he saw something he hadn’t anticipated, something he hadn’t even been looking for. Suddenly he realized why their instruments had failed to detect even a trace of residual contamination.
Reaching for the straps securing his respirator he began to pull it off. There was no point in wearing it any longer, it made no difference. No respirator would ever save him from what had killed these men.
FIVE
Gross had pestered and bullied Father Venables into changing places with him and now lounged forward to hang on the back of the front passenger seat. He let the tips of his pudgy fingers rest on the woman’s shoulders, and occasionally deliberately stray from the quilted surface of her anorak to the bare nape of her neck.
‘Will you get your wet paws off me, you fat slug.’ ‘Oh, so sorry.’ Gross withdrew and slumped back into the rear seat. ‘I didn’t realize you had such an abhorrence of physical contact. Those horny cheap porno films you made must have given me the wrong impression, mustn’t they, Sherry. Sherry ... Sherry Kane, that has to be a stage name, doesn’t it. Did you change it to try and get away from your old clients, from when you were a ten dollar call-out model?’
It was Edwards who made the protest, getting in before the woman or the elderly priest, but he complained to the same person they would have, their driver.
Webb caught a glance of the old man in the rear view mirror, saw spittle fly from his misshapen mouth as he appealed for an authoritative voice that would curb the ex-union leader. Already he was tired of them all. They were not the travelling companions he would have chosen, but his KGB control in London had been adamant in guiding his choice. On a train he would have stood in the corridor rather than share a compartment with any of them. Kane with her tarty looks and shallow intellect, Venables with his pious innocence, Edwards with his overbearing air of superiority: and Gross, a physically repulsive man with a matching mind.
In an attempt to fill his thoughts with other things, he paid full attention to the road. Subtle but distinct changes were coming over the countryside through which they were driving. Autumn had not yet set in, but already many of the trees and hedgerows were losing their leaves. Even the needles of the evergreens had a life- leached and discoloured appearance. The grass too had a prematurely win-tery look, with the exception of few hardy weeds that maintained a healthy dark green hue, the turf of gardens and clearings being a sickly yellow shade, like it had been covered and kept from the sun overlong.
Webb noted, but wasn’t alarmed by the unnatural transformation of the flora. This was the second time he’d tried to make this journey and in his previous, lone, attempt he had seen more violent, more ugly changes in the landscape.
Then he
It moved easily, felt so light it seemed it could have no substance at all, only its filled-out shape betraying that there were the remains of a man inside it.
From deep within dark sockets shrivelled eyes glared at him through the clouded lenses of a disintegrating respirator. As though it had waited for precisely that moment the perished rubberized fabric broke apart and an unnatural idiot grin, caused by the dehydrated flesh pulling drum-skin tight over the skull, was fully exposed.
‘No indication of the cause of death.’ Revell kept the transmit switch down on his radio. ‘Until it fell apart it looked like the suit was okay. Nothing suspicious in that, I think it’d just been out in the weather too long.’ He hadn’t really been expecting to be able to determine the exact cause of death; at best he hoped to eliminate some possibilities and ascribe it to a general category. As he went to move away, to inspect another of the bodies he saw something he hadn’t anticipated, something he hadn’t even been looking for. Suddenly he realized why their instruments had failed to detect even a trace of residual contamination.
Reaching for the straps securing his respirator he began to pull it off. There was no point in wearing it any longer, it made no difference. No respirator would ever save him from what had killed these men.
FIVE
Gross had pestered and bullied Father Venables into changing places with him and now lounged forward to hang on the back of the front passenger seat. He let the tips of his pudgy fingers rest on the woman’s shoulders, and occasionally deliberately stray from the quilted surface of her anorak to the bare nape of her neck.
‘Will you get your wet paws off me, you fat slug.’ ‘Oh, so sorry.’ Gross withdrew and slumped back into the rear seat. ‘I didn’t realize you had such an abhorrence of physical contact. Those horny cheap porno films you made must have given me the wrong impression, mustn’t they, Sherry. Sherry ... Sherry Kane, that has to be a stage name, doesn’t it. Did you change it to try and get away from your old clients, from when you were a ten dollar call-out model?’
It was Edwards who made the protest, getting in before the woman or the elderly priest, but he complained to the same person they would have, their driver.
Webb caught a glance of the old man in the rear view mirror, saw spittle fly from his misshapen mouth as he appealed for an authoritative voice that would curb the ex-union leader. Already he was tired of them all. They were not the travelling companions he would have chosen, but his KGB control in London had been adamant in guiding his choice. On a train he would have stood in the corridor rather than share a compartment with any of them. Kane with her tarty looks and shallow intellect, Venables with his pious innocence, Edwards with his overbearing air of superiority: and Gross, a physically repulsive man with a matching mind.
In an attempt to fill his thoughts with other things, he paid full attention to the road. Subtle but distinct changes were coming over the countryside through which they were driving. Autumn had not yet set in, but already many of the trees and hedgerows were losing their leaves. Even the needles of the evergreens had a life- leached and discoloured appearance. The grass too had a prematurely win-tery look, with the exception of few hardy weeds that maintained a healthy dark green hue, the turf of gardens and clearings being a sickly yellow shade, like it had been covered and kept from the sun overlong.
Webb noted, but wasn’t alarmed by the unnatural transformation of the flora. This was the second time he’d tried to make this journey and in his previous, lone, attempt he had seen more violent, more ugly changes in the landscape.
Then he
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