Cantrell laughed. “If you were white, I’d call you racist. It was an academic full ride.”
“Oh.” Clarence actually did feel a little racist, which was a strange sensation. “What did you do to get the academic full ride?”
“Perfect score on the SAT.”
Clarence hadn’t even known that was possible. He’d taken the SAT once upon a time. His score was less than perfect, to say the least.
“You had college for free, but couldn’t keep your nose clean. Book smart, but no common sense?”
Cantrell nodded. “No concept of perspective, actually. But close enough.”
“So you enlisted?”
“I did,” Cantrell said. “I was out of options. Thought I’d do the GI Bill and save up enough to actually pay for college on my own, but I wound up in diving school and fell in love with it. I’m sure you’re surprised to hear this, Agent Otto, but in the navy there is no such thing as a dummy diver. You have to be smart just to get in, and smarter to stay alive. In our job, one mistake can get you killed.” He tilted his head toward Clark’s cell. “Or get you infected, apparently.”
Clarence knew that Cantrell might also be infected, might be just one of Tim’s little pricks away from getting a death sentence of his own.
“I read your report,” Clarence said. “I didn’t see any opportunity for Clark to get infected, but it would help if you walked me through what happened when you guys picked up the bodies.”
Cantrell thought for a moment, scratched absently at his throat.
“Okay, sure,” he said. “When the shit hit the fan, Clarkie and I were ordered to suit up and search for bodies from the Los Angeles. We knew that meant a chance of handling infection victims. Our suits are aquatic BSL-4 arrays — positive pressure, completely internalized air, solid seals, similar to what you’re wearing now, only more streamlined for movement. A modified Seahawk flew us out to the target areas.”
“Modified? How?”
“Special lift cage,” Cantrell said. “Same thing we used to retrieve material of interest from the Los Angeles. ROVs from the LA bring up these sealed, decontaminated containers, we collect the containers, get in the lift cage, the Seahawk drops the lift cage near the Brashear’s port side.”
Cantrell pointed behind him, through his clear cell, across the prep area with its stainless steel instruments, to the wide, horizontal airlock door.
“The Brashear’s cargo crane picks up the cage and puts it right there,” he said. “In we go, divers, cage, ROV, even the cable the crane uses to connect to the cage. Anything that could possibly touch the sample container, or touch something that touches the container, gets fully deconned. The airlock seals up, completely fills with bleach, destroying any biocontaminants. When the bleach drains, the inner airlock door opens and we take the container to the prep area. Then we go back into the airlock, get another dose of bleach, then the crane brings us up on deck.”
The decon procedures seemed thorough. And yet, something had still gone wrong.
“So on the night of the attack, the Seahawk takes you and Clark out,” Clarence said. “What was different?”
“You mean other than the screaming, the blood and the fires?”
Clarence paused, nodded. “Other than that.”
“The ’Hawk’s pilot spotted a flasher on Walker’s SEIE suit,” Cantrell said. “Into the drink we went. She was alive when we found her, mumbling about the people she’d killed and how she’d sabotaged the LA.”
“So you touched her?”
The diver rolled his eyes. “No, Agent Otto, we sat back and told her she had nice titties. She was still alive. We were trying to save her.”
“Do you remember what she said?”
Cantrell stared back. “You’ve got my report right in front of you. Read it for yourself.”
The man didn’t want to repeat the words. Why not?
“But do you remember? Can you tell me?”
Cantrell sighed.
“Yeah. She said, I took out the reactor. Then she said, They bit me. I killed them. I shot two of those bastards.”
Clarence read from the statement. Cantrell had it word for word.
“Okay, so what happened then?”
“The ’Hawk dropped the collection cage,” Cantrell said. “Clark and I put Walker inside, then got in with her. We were just about to return to the Brashear when the pilot spotted a second body. Clark and I went back into the drink. Petrovsky was eviscerated, among other significant damage. We loaded him into the cage.”
A cage normally meant for two divers and a container had four people in it, two of them infected. Clarence wondered if there was something to that.
“Did you continue to search for bodies?”
Cantrell shook his head. “Command wanted the Seahawk to return and look for survivors from the Forrest Sherman. No part of the helicopter had touched us or the bodies, if that’s what you’re wondering. The ’Hawk dropped our cage into the water, Brashear’s crane took us up, we got in the airlock just like normal. This time, however, there were two man-size, airtight containers waiting for us. We loaded the bodies into the containers. Feely was talking to us at that point. We went through the bleach bath, then carried the body containers to the morgue trailer.”
Clarence called up Feely’s report. Cantrell’s recall matched the report exactly, as if he were reading directly from it. All except for one thing.
“It says here that when you entered with the bodies and went through the decon bath, you smelled bleach.”
Cantrell paused. “Of course I smelled it,” he said. “They bathe us in it. The suits smell like it when we’re done.”
“I’m not talking about when you’re done. You’re quoted in the report as saying, I smelled bleach during decon step. Maybe a seal leaked.”
Cantrell’s eyes narrowed. Was that a look of… anger?
“That is not accurate,” he said. “Maybe I typed it wrong.”
“So you didn’t smell bleach when you and Clark were submerged in the decon tank?”
Cantrell shook his head. “Not that I recall.”
Clarence reached out into air, called up Clark’s report on his HUD.
“Clark also reported smelling bleach,” Clarence said. “He was worried the suit would fill up with it.”
Cantrell clapped his hands together once, spread them out. “There you go, Agent Otto. Clark told me that right after we finished. I was exhausted. I must have put his words down as mine.”
Clarence studied the man. That explanation sounded perfectly logical. A battle, a high-risk recovery of infected bodies… that kind of stress could lead to significant fatigue, the blurring of memories. But Cantrell seemed to have a near-photographic memory of the event, all except for that one detail.
Had the vector somehow got inside Clark’s suit through a broken seal or a tiny tear that also allowed in a small amount of bleach? If Cantrell was now lying about smelling bleach, he was doing so because he knew evidence of a tear would lengthen his time in the cell. Or could he actually be infected and trying to protect himself? So far, though, Cantrell had tested negative.
Clarence felt he was missing something… but what?
“Let’s go over the entire day again,” he said. “You don’t mind, do you? Like you said, it’s not like you’re going anywhere.”