Burial Ground (3 page)

Leo had built his empire from his own sweat
and blood, from his adventurous spirit and refusal to be cowed by
fear. What had begun as a simple salvage operation on the Gulf
coast had blossomed into a forward-thinking, diverse corporation
with varied interests from exploration and artifact discovery and
recovery to management of high-risk extraction sites and
implementation of high-tech mining solutions. He had raised entire
battalions of sunken warships thousands of feet from oceanic
trenches, discovered indigenous ruins on every continent, mined ore
and shale from the steepest slopes, and found and named more
extinct animals and dinosaurs through fossilized evidence than any
other single individual.

The way Leo saw it, he had conquered the
world.

And now here he stood amid the trappings of
wealth, and all of it was for naught. In just under twenty-four
hours, his son's remains would arrive at George Bush
Intercontinental Airport, sealed in plastic wrap and boxed in a
crate, where the body would be immediately sequestered by the
Division of Global Migration and Quarantine under the watchful eye
of the CDC. The Consul-general in Lima had been aghast at his
insistence that his son's body not be embalmed, that he'd rather
delay interment by potentially several days to weeks. There was no
way he was going to let some foreign doctor with marginal medical
training butcher what was left of his only child. Hunter
Gearhardt's body would be autopsied by a real medical examiner and
then prepared by a mortician, regardless of the cost.

The image of his son's features pressed
beneath cellophane rose unbidden and he slammed his fists down on
his desk. Ashes flew and the cigar rolled onto the lacquered wood.
He watched the clear coating melt away from the glowing cherry
before snubbing it in the ashtray.

Never in his life had he felt so helpless.
There was no problem to solve or challenge to overcome. He couldn't
step back and brainstorm solutions. His Hunter was dead, and what
were his first words? Not an outpouring of remorse or a curse upon
the gods who would rob him of the only thing in his life that
should have mattered, but "What did he have in his possession?"

He removed a bottle of Macallan 1939 from
the bottom desk drawer, poured two-fingers into a glass, and hurled
the bottle across the room. A rich amber river ran down the wall to
join the shards of forty year-old glass, assailing him with the
scents of vanilla toffee, peat and wood smoke, and time.

This small man with his big title, this
Eldon Monahan, had listed off his son's belongings like he'd been
checking off a grocery list. One Black Diamond Sphynx rucksack; one
four-liter MSR Dromedary hydration bladder; one Garmin eTrex Summit
HC handheld GPS unit; various items of no appreciable value:
possibly collected samples of vegetation, and three four- to
six-inch feathers; and, most interestingly of all, two black- and
gray-streaked rocks weighing eighteen and twenty-six ounces
respectively, and a native headdress of indeterminate origin, cast
in pure gold. The Consulate had confiscated the headdress as
Peruvian law frowned upon the unlicensed plunder of its heritage,
however, Monahan had promised to include multiple photographs with
the rest of Hunter's belongings. There had been no mention of the
Les Baer 1911 Premium II pistol or the machete Hunter would have
been carrying, nor mosquito netting, change of clothes, or food
reserves. Hunter hadn't even packed any of his testing supplies,
his various rock hammers, satellite phone, or geologic field
spectrometer. All indications pointed to a hurried abandonment of
camp. His son had taken only what he could quickly pack and what
would be of importance when he escaped the jungle and reached
civilization.

Hunter was a world-class geologist with the
best academic pedigree that money could buy, though he had proudly
earned it on scholarships alone. A B.S. in Geology from Texas
A&M, and a Ph.D. in Mineral Exploration and Mining Geosciences
from the Colorado School of Mines. Throw in the fact that he had
spent the last five years reconnoitering some of the harshest
unexplored terrain on the planet, and more questions were raised
than answers. Something had happened to his son, and he'd move
heaven and earth to find out what.

During their final communication via
satellite uplink, Hunter had intimated that his party was close to
reaching its destination, quite possibly within the next couple of
days. Leo had heard the smile in his son's voice, the faint tremble
of excitement. He had felt it, too. In that moment, he had been as
proud of his son as any father could be, but he had also been his
boss. So instead of heaping praise and adoration on Hunter, he had
demanded daily reports and detailed his expectations in
businesslike fashion.

That had been twelve days ago now, and the
last time he would ever speak to his son.

Two black- and gray-streaked rocks.

A native headdress of indeterminate origin,
cast in pure gold.

Although it was subtle, he heard his son's
posthumous message loud and clear. It was almost as if Hunter had
known there was a good chance he might not return to Pomacochas
alive, and had brought items only his father would understand.
Clues that would stymie a layman, but purvey important information
at the same time. The headdress was simultaneously a location
marker and a red herring meant to distract whoever found the
backpack like a starling with a bit of foil. The real message was
in the rocks, the seemingly mundane black and gray chunks of earth.
They were stratified layers of volcanic magnetite and quartz,
placers
, streaks that pointed like arrows to their ultimate
quarry.

Hunter had found it.

For a heartbreaking moment, Leo's pride
eclipsed his sorrow and guilt.

Harris County Medical Examiner's Office

Houston, Texas

October 18
^th

4:32 p.m. CDT

Despite their indignation that the body had
not arrived embalmed, the CDC had cleared Hunter's remains of
potentially contagious viral and bacterial agents, infestation, and
acute pathological processes in record time, thanks in large
measure to Leo's government connections. After taking possession of
his son's cleaned and sterilized belongings, he had followed the
Medical Examiner's van from the airport, cell phone glued to his
ear, calling in every favor he possibly could. By the time he
arrived at the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office near the
Astrodome, the Chief Medical Examiner had already been informed
that he would be observing his son's autopsy. It had cost him a
fortune---how quickly the mayor and the good Senator had forgotten
how much he'd contributed to their last campaigns---but he had gotten
exactly what he wanted, as he had known he would. Now, he stood
back toward the rear of the room, staring at his son's lifeless
carcass on the cold autopsy table.

He couldn't take his eyes off the body.
Whatever had once been his Hunter had long since abandoned that
broken vessel, which now only vaguely resembled the child he had
known for the past thirty-two years. He couldn't bear the sight of
where Hunter's flesh had been chewed away by animals that had had
no right to violate its integrity. He wanted to throw himself onto
the body, to wrap his arms around the boy he had loved
unconditionally and breathe his own life into the young man who
still had so much living left to do. A surge of rage rippled
through him. Heat suffused his face and his fists curled so tightly
that his fingernails bit into his palms.

"Christ. They could have at least rinsed it
off for us," the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. James Prentice, said.
His glasses perched almost miraculously on the tip of his bulbous
nose, framing brown eyes that didn't appear to blink. The overhead
recorder started and stopped with his voice, providing a whirring
undertone to his words. "All right. Let's get this show on the
road, shall we?"

He took a pair of scissors from the sterile
tray beside him and cut twin lines up each pant leg and through
Hunter's underwear. His shirt hadn't made the return trip to the
States with him. Prentice dropped the tattered fabric in the
biohazard waste container for incineration and pulled the
retractable hose nozzle out from under the table. With a squeeze of
the handle, he sprayed Hunter's face and chest with scalding water.
Smears of mud broke apart and dissolved. The runoff traced the
contours of his musculature in streams that rolled down the lines
of his ribs and into the side gutters of the table. Swirls of brown
water turned around the drains. The flesh beneath the grime was a
sickly gray and marbled with blue veins and black bruises. There
were dozens of insect bite marks.

"Bird mites," Prentice said.

Superficial lacerations bisected Hunter's
clavicles and pectorals. Leo could see exposed sections of the
lumbar spine through the gaping hole in the abdomen where it
appeared that piranhas, or some other small-mouthed, toothy
critters, had absolved him of a large measure of his viscera.
Apparently they had also feasted upon his manhood. Once Prentice
had cleaned his legs, he carefully rolled Hunter's body over. His
back, buttocks, thighs, and calves were all livid with blood,
cellular fluid, and retained river water.

A quick spray through Hunter's hair and the
ME was about to roll him over again when he abruptly paused. Leo
noticed several sections where the fluid was beginning to drain in
foul, sappy ribbons. Prentice leaned closer and inspected the
wounds. There were two large punctures over the lower aspect of the
rib cage. He sprayed directly into the holes and clumps of clotted
blood and mud washed out.

"Twin dorsal stab wounds, one to either side
of the spine," Prentice said. "On the right: entrance between the
tenth and eleventh posterior ribs. Visible comminuted fracture of
the tenth rib. Inferior displacement of a triangular fragment.
Approximate penetration: three inches. On the left: entrance
between the seventh and eighth posterior ribs. Oblique fractures of
both the superior and inferior ribs without significant
displacement. Again, approximate penetration of three inches."

Leo eased forward to better see between the
isolation-gowned men. In addition to the Chief ME, there were three
other men. He'd only been introduced to one, another medical
examiner who had apparently bathed in aftershave before entering
the room. Leo had already forgotten his name.

"Both wounds were inflicted by the same
weapon as evidenced by the external characteristics of the soft
tissue. No telltale indications of a sharpened edge. No "V" pattern
from a blade being twisted or widening of the laceration consistent
with rapid retraction. Clean incisions through the
latissimus
dorsi
and
erector spinae
muscles. The epidermal layer is
curled inward with no sign of attempted healing. Superior and
lateral sides of the wounds are smooth, the inferior ragged,
indicating downward force. No bruising to suggest impact from a
hilt or handle. Obviously a rounded implement. Not a knife.
Definitely antemortem." He stuck his finger into the wound. "Angled
entrance with inferior curvature of roughly thirty degrees.
Possibly some kind of hook with a shallow arch."

Leo closed his eyes and struggled to keep
from imagining the look on his son's face as someone repeatedly
stabbed him in the back with a hook. The doctor's monotonous voice
and vivid play-by-play description of his son's injuries faded. He
thought about how much pain Hunter must have endured, and it made
him sick to his stomach.

The whine of a Stryker saw roused him from
his thoughts. Dr. Prentice had finished performing his external
inspection and rolled the body onto its back. He had created the
Y-incision and reflected the skin from Hunter's chest to expose his
sternum and ribs. Prentice used the saw to cut through the lateral
sections of the rib cage, and removed the front half as a single
unit like the dome of a serving tray to expose the contents of the
thoracic cavity.

"The mediastinum is shifted to the right,
compressing the right lung against the ribs." The recorder whirred
as Prentice poked and prodded with a dull steel implement. "Both
lobes of the contralateral lung are contracted and shrunken, a
consequence of the tension pneumothorax created by the left dorsal
puncture wound."

"Excuse me, Dr. Prentice," the younger man
at the head of the table asked. Leo suspected he was a medical
student as he hardly looked like he was out of his teens. "If the
collapse of the lung was caused by the stab wound, shouldn't it
have caused an open pneumothorax, and thus only a mild lateral
shift of the esophagus, trachea, and blood vessels?"

"Remember to begin with observation, not
speculation. Stick to the known facts. This man's thoracic anatomy
reflects a tension pneumothorax, meaning that
no
air
entered the pleural space."

"You're suggesting the water provided the
necessary seal to hold the wound closed?"

"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm stating
the facts as I can clearly see them. We know from the conjunctival
petechiae, the fluid in the sinuses, and the water obviously
retained in the tissues in the right lung, that his death was due
to asphyxiation, specifically by drowning. He had to
breathe
the water for it to reach his sinuses and lungs. Look here."
Prentice indicated the left lung. "Note the difference in the color
and consistency of the lung tissue. The left lung did not retain
water like the right, which indicates it was non-functional prior
to the fatal aspiration."

"Then he couldn't have been stabbed more
than a few seconds before immersion in the river."

"Correct. Otherwise air would have entered
the pleural space and created an open pneumothorax."