Fires of Midnight Read Online Free Page B

times. Nothing, though, could prepare her for the autopsies she opted to perform personally upon returning to Atlanta from Cambridge early Monday. Five bodies had been shipped in a refrigerated hold of the CDC jet that was now effectively hers. Normally a pathology specialist would handle this chore and Firewatch had a team that would take over after she had done the preliminary work. But something territorial had taken over Susan. She had trained so long and often in preparation for a crisis event that she was reluctant to delegate any responsibility, especially anything as sensitive as this. Beyond that, there was the danger factor to consider. Both of Firewatch’s pathologists were family men, which in Susan’s mind made the risk of exposure to the Cambridgeside corpses unacceptable for them.
    This event had already made her no stranger to risk. The creature that had flown at her and smashed her faceplate back at the mall was a dog: frantic, terrified and somehow very much alive. The panic she’d felt when the potentially contaminated air rushed in through the shattered plastic had forced the breath to bottleneck in her throat.
    It’s happening. My God, it’s happening to me!
    The dog’s tongue sweeping across her face told her she was okay. She recovered enough of her senses to quiet the animal down and remain
inside the mall for another hour until a decontamination unit arrived from one of the CDC’s six regional crisis management centers in Connecticut. She moved about, continuing her laborious trek with an almost maddening calm. Facing death had left her with the feeling she had gotten the upper hand on whatever Biosafety Level 4 hot agent had penetrated the Galleria. It was hiding, it was afraid. The first round had gone to her.
    The autopsies formed the second. Accessing the isolation wing where the bodies were waiting meant first passing through several preparatory stages required to insure maximum protection. She was showered with both water and chemicals, air dried, wind blasted, powdered and dressed in several layers of protective clothing that would all be burned at the conclusion of her work.
    Susan thought she’d be ready when the time came to enter the wing, but the tension she felt made her heavy gloves bulkier and turned her space suit into an oven. Instead of being outfitted with a portable air supply, this suit took its air from a hose snaking from the wall to a slot custom-tailored for its nozzle. The hose followed her like a chain wherever she went. Every breath quickly became an effort and her faceplate kept misting up until she calmed herself down.
    The sights she recorded through that faceplate as she began the first of the autopsies were clear enough, though. Her scalpel cut the flesh down the center of the torso like crinkled cardboard. In years past, the use of scalpels or any sharp cutting instrument was strictly forbidden in the presence of a suspected Level 4 agent, since slicing through a glove or sleeve meant possible infection and even death. But the space suits used by the Firewatch team had been outfitted with gloves and sleeves reinforced with a thinner weave of the same Kevlar material used for bulletproof vests.
    As had been the case in the mall, Susan’s helmet was outfitted with a microphone to record her observations. All she had to do was speak.
    “This body is a male thirty-one years of age. Weight according to recovered identification eighty-one kilograms. Weight upon arrival at lab thirty-five kilograms. Height according to recovered identification one hundred sixty-two centimeters. Height upon arrival one hundred twenty-nine centimeters.”
    She touched the rib cage and found the bones had taken on a puttylike consistency. Parting the ribs was as simple as pulling them back with her hands and affixing a clamp on either side, revealing the vital organs.
    “Vital organs all intact but in the same dehydrated condition as the skin. Proceeding with inspection …”
    Susan