Juris pulled away from Swigart, dropped to his knees again over his long-time friend and hugged Alandale’s body against his own. “My god, he’s as hard as rock, Lou. What the hell can be behind this?” Forbes tore away the buttons on Alandale’s shirt to reveal that his entire body was discolored and hardened like fibrous wood.
Was it the gesture of a longtime friend or a controlled hand and mind at work here? David wondered if Forbes was really showing concern for his long time friend, or if he was surreptitiously taking back the invisible being from Alandale to his own body. Had Forbes been the man who’d stowed Alandale’s lifeless form behind the wall panel—or had it been the other missing man, Crewman Houston Ford?
“We don’t know if he’s contagious, Captain.” Swigart again pulled Forbes away from the remains. “We need to put the body on ice… keep it away from the men, and on our return to Woods Hole, call in the authorities, and let the authorities handle it with their criminal investigation team… CSI, all that.”
“What of the other missing man—Ford, Houston Ford?” asked Forbes in a barely audible voice.
“No sign of him yet, but now… seeing this, we have to search more thoroughly, every bulkhead, every pipe, every wall panel—and assume him armed and dangerous; if anyone has gone loco aboard this ship, it’s most likely Ford. I’m told he’d had several quarrels with other crewmen and Dr. Alandale.”
The ship’s doctor, Chinua Entebbe, a man of Nigerian descent, had rushed to the scene with a medical bag in hand; obviously no one had told him the patient was dead. Entebbe stood over Alandale’s remains, shaken. “My god, I just played chess with Dr. Alandale last evening. What-Whatever could cause such discoloration and stiffness in the man’s body?”
Swigart ordered everyone out except for Dr. Entebbe, Will, and David. “I want you two to don gloves and heave the body to the aft section of the ship; there’s a specimen freezer.”
“For biological specimens,” said Daive.
“It’ll have to do; w e lay Dr. Alandale’s remains, such as they are, in state until we arrive back in port after the completion of our expedition. There’s no other way.”
“I am trying to conduct an examination here,” complained Entebbe, raising his hands over his head. A thin, bony man, he crouched near the body but remained too apprehensive to touch it. “On second thought, Commander Swigart, let’s go ahead with your plan.”
“Good call, Doctor.”
David took Swigart aside, slowing things down, wondering if he ought not to tell Lou all that he knew of this awful disease and how it was spread by a single organism taking up residence in the human body, then draining it of every ounce of fluid. Instead, he heeded Kelly’s earlier warnings and said, “What about that helicopter you said you could call up on a dime?” David’s question stopped Swigart in his tracks. “I mean shouldn’t we inform the authorities now and send the body back by air immediately to learn what we can from an autopsy?”
Will Bowman nodded thoughtfully as if he believed David was onto something. “Yeah, good idea; get the authorities involved now, David,” and with a sharp turn of voice and a snicker, he added, “and blow our chance at Titanic? Are you nuts, man! Once this gets out, it’s bye-bye Mission Titanic! And damn it, I’m here to dive her!”
“Don’t be naïve, David,” added Swigart, staring a hole through him.
Even Dr. Entebbe jumped in with, “We can’t jeopardize the expedition, young man, not even for a fallen friend. I don’t know who did this to Dimitri, or what sort of acid was used to disfigure him, or why his body was hidden, or even where the other man might be—the missing man who likely killed Alandale, but I have to agree with your dive partner and your dive captain, Mr. Ingles. We’re too close to our goal now to risk having it taken away.”
David translated their combined concerns into money. A bottom line mentality; they had all signed on to make a fortune with the plunder of Titanic—and even Entebbe meant to get his share at whatever cost. “So we just stow the body like it’s some… some mannequin?” asked David, incredulous, shaking his head, but watching each man closely for any slight sign of being too anxious to rid himself of the body.
It’d been Swigart who ordered the body be routed through the ship to the bio-lab freezer, to essentially put it on ice. Forbes had been more subtle and had shown deep hurt and emotion, but could that be counted on? Entebbe was quick to agree with Swigart, perhaps too quick, and as for Will? He was just being Will, he imagined—an anxious salvage diver looking at the most historic dive of his career who didn’t want anything to stand in his way. He’d most likely already signed a book contract with Random House and had a TV reality show in the works for after the mission.
Mendenhall had earlier left the compartment looking white as a sheet and ill from what he’d discovered along with Will, yet Will Bowman hadn’t seemed at all affected by either the sulfuric odor or the sight. What if anything did that indicate?
David quickly decided he was in the midst of a nightmare; any quirk or small gesture, any comment might be fitted into the box of suspicion. No one was above suspicion, and yet how was he to know which man deserved his suspicion? Kelly had made up her mind that it was Forbes, but David was not so sure—not anymore.
“Yes, we stow the body, and that’s an order!” shouted Swigart as a knock came at the cabin door and Lena Gambio peeked in to hand Swigart a box of surgical gloves.
“I found ’em in the med supply just like you said.”
Swigart snatched out a handful of rubber gloves and ordered David and Will to “Carry on, gentlemen!”
“I dunno, Captain Swigart,” said Bowman, not so anxious to touch Alandale even with gloves. “Didn’t sign on for this kinda… well, shit, sir.”
“You signed on to take orders from me, Bowman.”
“Sir-yes-sir!”
“Just do it. Take hold! You too, Ingles.”
Reluctantly, knowing what he knew, David moved toward the head and shoulders, readying to lift and carry Alandale’s fragile remains out. A cloud of dust rose from him as if he were brittle, ancient parchment.
Swigart said, “Heft ’im outta here and up to the mainsail and across the deck to the bio-lab. The specimen freezer. I’m talking about is there.”
Ingles exchanged a look with Bowman—now at the ankles—and in tandem they lifted the surprisingly light, stiff body; it felt like carrying a mannequin, and the light weight recalled to David’s mind Declan’s vivid description of the discovery of the shriveled, dehydrated remains the young doctors had autopsied in 1912.
These thoughts bounced about David’s mind when suddenly a TV cameraman materialized at the compartment entry with a camera on his shoulder, and Swigart shoved the man and camera back. Taking the two newsmen aside in the hallway, he fast-talked them into a deal—complete access and footage if they withheld sending any of it back to port until the expedition to Titanic was over. He actually got Craig Powers to agree with promises David suspected Lou could never deliver on.
Again they hefted Alandale’s remains and started out, cameras rolling; for David it all felt surreal in the most extreme sense. The stiffness of the body made getting it out of his cabin and into the corridor no easy task, and hitting the dead man’s fingers on the hatchway literally broke some digits off.
Lena had by this time pulled on gloves, and she bagged the errant fingers, following just behind Swigart and the two transporting the remains. They cursed on seeing the loss of a couple of extremities, but in the long run, the lightness of the body made it seem no harder a chore than moving a slab of balsa wood from one place to another. The stiffness made getting Alandale’s body through the tight entryway to elevator difficult, especially on turns, reminding David of moving a sofa up a flight of stairs—until they accidentally hit a bulkhead, shearing off the hard, stiff left leg at the knee. This and the irking noise and oozing brown goop from the severed limb conspired in an instant to pull a cry from Will Bowman’s gut. Will held on, but he’d dropped the left calf and foot to grab onto the single right ankle now in his two hands to avoid dropping the bottom end of the body altogether.