Exiting the terminal at McGhee Tyson Airport the next morning — after spending what felt like an eternity shoehorned in the last row of seats to Detroit and then again to Knoxville, directly in front of lavatories that seemed not to have been cleaned in weeks — I was stunned when I stepped into the swelter of Tennessee’s summer. On the sauna-dry slopes of Otay Mountain, my sweat had evaporated almost instantly; here, it was as if I had swum into a steam bath. Or a sweat bath. How soon we forget, I thought, hunching a shoulder to mop my brow. But how fast we’re reminded.
Heading toward the parking deck, I suddenly stopped, muttering, “Well, crap.” My truck wasn’t in the parking deck, I’d just remembered; it was parked a half mile away, at Cherokee Aviation, the charter air terminal where the FBI’s Gulfstream had swooped down to fetch me. Looking to my left, across a long ribbon of hot asphalt, I could just make out the truck, shimmering in the distance like a mirage. Slinging the strap of my boxy bag over my sleep-deprived shoulder, I began the trudge.
Ten sweaty minutes later, my sodden shirt plastered to my skin, I unlocked and opened my truck — the rubber weather stripping made a ripping sound as it pulled away from the hot metal of the door frame — and tucked the bag behind the front seat, then cranked the engine and put the air-conditioning on high. Leaving the truck idling, I stepped inside Cherokee to mop off and use the courtesy phone to call Kathleen, as my cell phone’s battery had died somewhere between California and Tennessee. But the courtesy phone appeared to be surgically grafted to the ear of a commercial pilot, a glossy-haired, pretty-boy Casanova type in a pseudomilitary uniform. I tried hovering, hoping he’d take the hint and finish his conversation; instead, he turned his back and cupped a hand around the mouthpiece. Judging by his quiet murmuring and occasional chuckles, the pilot wasn’t filing a flight plan; he appeared to be cooing to a woman he had just bedded or, more likely, hoped to bed, as soon as his next flight was over. Too weary to wait, I returned to my truck and headed toward campus. I would check in at my office, then go surprise Kathleen at hers.
I passed the medical center and crossed the Tennessee River, flowing green and welcoming beneath the high span of the Buck Karnes Bridge. Looking to my right — upstream, between the hospital and a condominium complex — I saw the three-acre patch of woods housing the Body Farm. Across the river, a bit farther upstream, loomed the towering oval of Neyland Stadium, which housed the dingy offices and classrooms and labs of the Anthropology Department.
The river separating these two odd offices of mine was, for reasons I didn’t entirely fathom, a powerful touchstone for me. As I crossed the channel on the high span of concrete, I filled my lungs and exhaled loudly — the sound somewhere between a sigh and a hum — feeling myself only now to have truly landed. Home, I thought. Smiling, I turned onto Neyland Drive and headed upriver, as reflexively and instinctively as some four-wheeled salmon. Making my way to the stadium, I threaded along the one-lane service road at the base of the grandstands and stopped beside the service tunnel that led to the field’s north end zone.
Reaching behind the seat, I unzipped my bag and removed the bin of teeth and bones, then entered the dim, echoing concrete stairwell and headed up one flight of steps: up to my private office, my sanctuary, my hideaway; the place where I holed up when I needed to focus on science and forensics, not bureaucracy. I set the bin on the hallway floor and turned the key in the lock of my door, tugging gently as I twisted, to loosen the deadbolt from the grip of the warped door frame. When the bolt rasped and thunked free, I turned the knob and hipped the door open, then bent down, picked up the bin, and set it on my desk. Then I dialed Peggy, my secretary, who kept watch over the Anthropology Department’s main office, a hundred yards away — all the way at the opposite end of the stadium, beneath the south end zone’s grandstands. Peggy answered halfway through the first ring. “Anthropology,” she said, her voice sounding strange and strained.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I joked, hoping to ease the tension I heard in her voice.
“Good God, where have you been?” Over the past dozen years, I’d heard Peggy sound testy many times. But this was beyond testy — miles beyond it; light-years beyond it.
“San Diego, remember?” I was starting to feel some anxiety myself. “You don’t sound too happy to hear from me.”
“Three hours ago I would have been happy to hear from you,” she snapped. “Yesterday you told me you’d be in first thing this morning. I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “There was a problem with my flight. And my phone died. I just got in. What’s wrong? Should I come up?”
“You mean to tell me you’re on campus?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Well, I am now,” I hedged. “My flight landed twenty minutes ago. I drove straight here. Came in the back door. Just now. Literally this minute. I’m down in my other office.”
“Would you please come to this office instead? Quickly?” The sarcasm would have dripped from her voice if the iciness of her tone hadn’t flash-frozen it first.
“You’ve got me feeling kinda gun-shy,” I said. “Want to tell me what this is about?”
“There is a television news crew here from Channel Four in Nashville. They have been camped in my office for the past three hours. Please come immediately. If not sooner.”
Chapter 18
As I walked in the door of the departmental office, Peggy glowered at me from behind her desk as an attractive young woman—of Italian ancestry? no, Greek, I guessed — stood up and turned toward me. I put on what I hoped would pass for a courteous smile. “Hello, I’m Dr. Bill Brockton,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
She held out her hand. “Dr. Brockton, I’m Athena Demopoulos, Eyewitness Four News.” Her handshake was firm — aggressively firm, as if she were trying to prove something. She nodded slightly toward a pale young man behind her; his frumpy clothes were a stark contrast to her chic, tailored suit. “This is Rick Walters, my cameraman.” His handshake, like his clothes, was much more relaxed than hers.
“Ms. Demopoulos, I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting,” I said. “My flight was delayed, and my phone was dead.” Pulling out my pocket calendar, I flipped it open and scanned the current day’s empty page. “Did we have an appointment that I failed to write down?”
“No, we didn’t. We’re investigating a news story that’s breaking now. It has come to our attention that you’re conducting experiments with human bodies.”
“We are indeed,” I said cheerily. “I’m not sure I’d call that ‘breaking news’—we’ve been doing it for more than a decade. I guess news travels slowly from here in the hinterlands.” I smiled again. “You might have gotten wind of my research a little sooner if the prevailing winds blew from east to west instead of west to east.” I winked to make sure she got the joke.
She frowned; I couldn’t tell whether she was confused or upset. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the story,” she said. “If you’ll let me finish, I can make it clear to you. It has come to our attention that you’re conducting experiments on the bodies of military veterans. Men who put their lives on the line to defend our American way of life. Do you deny that?”
Her question took me totally off guard. “No, I don’t deny it, but I can’t confirm it, either,” I said.