“In forward battery bay. Subject Number Three lying atop lower battery rack, supine, facing center of compartment. No visible damage to trunk or limbs. Face distorted by major blunt trauma centered on nasal cavity.” I took a breath and turned to the other body. “Subject Number Four lying forward of Number Three. No visible damage to trunk or limbs. Tongue is protruding from mouth… no measurement possible, but about four centimeters appear to be visible.”
“Ecchymoses evident on, uh, right side of subject’s neck, continuing to other side,” I said, noting the bruises. “Manipulation of body impossible.”
I faced the other side of the room.
“Subject Number Five lying supine on opposite side… port side of submarine. Trunk, limbs appear undamaged. Dark stain evident on bulkhead. Deceased is facing stain.” The corpses on the deck deserved a few observations as well. “Four subjects on floor of compartment. Bodies had been moved before photographs or observations recorded. No wounds visible on any of deceased. Extreme cyanosis visible in lips, nail beds. Tongues protruding from mouths several centimeters. Eyes exhibit extreme exophthalmos.”
Standing, I held the camera over my head and used it to scan the top rack to my left. The other body Campbell had mentioned was wedged way back there, facing the wall. I photographed it.
“Subject Number Ten inaccessible at this time. No wounds visible.”
“Hey, are you talking to us?” A male voice snapped my attention to the aft hatch. The head of the SEAL who had been examining the oven in the other compartment was thrust through the opening.
“Oh. No, I’m just recording some observations. Taking notes.”
He glanced around the room and whistled. “Wow, looks like the party wasn’t just in the galley.” Refocusing on me, he continued. “Well, we’re done in here. Feel free to do whatever.”
“Thanks,” I said. But he already had pulled himself back into the next compartment.
The evidence I most wanted to inspect was just a few feet away: bodies mutilated in a way I hadn’t seen elsewhere on the submarine lying undisturbed where they had fallen.
But the threat of electrocution may as well have been a steel wall between me and the corpses.
I thought about the dead crewmen in the galley. Leaning over, I could see through the hatch into the other compartment. The SEALs had cleared out, leaving most of the bodies piled like refuse near the center of the room. The haphazard patterns of blood on the walls reminded me that some of the sailors in the galley had obvious wounds. There also were two officers still unaccounted for.
OK. I’d sift through the human debris in there, then make my way to the control room. I needed to sit down and evaluate everything I had collected so far.
I stepped toward the hatch, but stopped as a thought tugged at me. Turning, I saw again that the forward door was closed. I couldn’t recall seeing another sealed hatch as I had made my way through the ship.
The latch mechanism seemed simple: a red wheel set in the middle. Two arrows the same color were painted above it, accompanied by some Korean characters. Well, it was righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, right?
I grabbed the wheel with both hands and twisted counterclockwise. It moved perhaps a quarter-inch, then stopped. Bracing my feet against the rack on one side and the biohazard locker on the other, I tried harder, throwing my back muscles into the effort. Nothing. Attempts to turn it clockwise met with the same result.
I’d have to get one of the SEALs to give it a shot later.
I picked up my bag and ducked back into the galley area. Glancing around the compartment, I didn’t see any khaki, the color I had begun to associate with the submarine’s officers. But then… there. Near the bottom of a stack of bodies to my right, next to one of the tables.
To get to this man, I’d have to pull four or five corpses off him. I didn’t want to risk dropping one and causing postmortem damage that could hamstring a later examination. So a photograph of his face would have to do. I crouched next to the lifeless mass and tried to frame a shot.
It was surreal. The SEALs had laid the corpses so they were all oriented in the same direction, head upon head, feet upon feet. The result was a precarious pillar of contorted, tortured expressions six deep.
The officer was the second from the bottom. Zooming in with the camera, I captured his countenance. One eye was screwed shut as though he had just tasted something foul; the other was open, its brown pupil rolled up several degrees. His mouth was sealed by bluish lips.
His face was round and fleshy. The expression frozen on it seemed even more horrific in such a soft, baby-like countenance.
I stood. One more officer should be in here someplace. It took me a few moments to pick him out of the remaining corpses. His attire had thrown me off.
He was lying by himself near the room’s aft hatch. The man wore the same uniform pants as the other officers, but a T-shirt replaced the matching top. Its white fabric was polluted by reddish-brown splashes around the neck.
Even from across the room, I could see where the blood had come from. The left side of the man’s face was savaged, crumpled inward right where the bone structure was strongest. Another pool of dried blood had spread from beneath the officer’s head.
Beneath his head? That meant the SEALs hadn’t moved this one.
“Subject Number Eleven found to starboard side of aft hatch, galley area. Severe blunt trauma evident.” I tucked the tape recorder between my elbow and body, snapping a picture of the scene. “Impact occurred just below deceased’s right orbital socket. Zygomatic process collapsed. Some dentition visible.”
Crouching down next to the man, I studied the back of his head and continued talking.
“Slight deformation of posterior cranial vault evident. Blood pooling evident on deck around deceased’s head.”
I measured the area covered with blood on the deck and the wound on the man’s face, then stood and zoomed in for a shot of his features.
His hair was black and cut a tiny bit longer than that of the other bodies I had examined. A bushy unibrow stretched across his forehead, and his undamaged eye was closed. Extrapolating from the left side of his face, I could imagine high, angular cheekbones framing a beak-like nose.
Standing, I looked around the room. They said they had found two pistols and a knife. The butt of a pistol could do damage like this if someone swung it like a roundhouse, barroom punch. A quick check of the compartment showed no other weapons. The bunks also were empty. I’d have to ask the SEALs what they did with the guns.
I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and turned my back on the room, slipping through the hatch into the aft battery bay. It was empty except for the two crewmen on the floor, who had been stacked on top of each other on the starboard side of the aisle that ran through the middle of the compartment.
Martin and Miller both were on the top level of the engine room now; I could hear them swearing as they worked. Miller noticed me climb up the ladder and gestured at me with his chin, keeping his hands inside the guts of the port-side engine. Several streaks of grease now sliced across his face, camouflaging his soft features.
“Hey, uh, we’re about to start ’em up. You probably want to head forward to the control room or whatever. It’s gonna get real fucking loud.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling myself to a sitting position on the catwalk, then standing. “That’s where I’m heading now.”
Miller grunted and turned away.