of millions of tiny blood spots that had come to the surface. Rupture of the capillaries. Doctor Burwell knew that this could occur in cases of untreated diabetes. He noted the symptom.
Even through his gloves, he could feel that the skin was warm. They had taken the body from the refrigerator. Five hours later, and still warm? The other tech must have left it sitting out of the fridge and then, noticing his mistake, slipped it in right before he and Sarah showed up. Gross incompetence... The kind of incompetence that deserved termination. That guy was getting more and more careless. Just last week he had—
“What the heck,” Doctor Burwell said, distracted from his thoughts. As he raised the body to look at the backside, something very strange became apparent. Although the time of death was over five hours ago, rigor mortis had not yet set in: the appendages were loose. He made a note of this and then, turning the body back over with Sarah's assistance, proceeded to make an incision on the front, down from each shoulder, to the sternum.
Next to no blood seeped from the tissue because there was no blood pressure: the heart wasn't pumping. From the sternum, he cut all the way down to the pubic bone. All the organs had the same red spotting that he had seen on the skin.
He used a special blade to saw off some of the ribs and began the methodical process of extracting the organs. As always, he would have to remove the throat and tongue by going up from the chest: families at the funeral didn't like to see their loved ones with stitched chins.
As he began the procedure, he noticed a major problem. The thyroid gland was missing. A butterfly-shaped organ that wrapped around the throat, it produced the hormones that regulated everything from metabolism to growth and development. But it simply wasn't there.
Perhaps she had been born without one. Congenital hypothyroidism occurred in one in 4,000 babies. If so, she would have been taking thyroid medication since birth.
However, when he further inspected her throat, it appeared to him as if damage had been done. No, this was not congenital. Her thyroid gland had been removed, and recently; because there was no blood, he surmised it happened after she died. Had the nincompoop who attempted the cricothyrotomy mutilated her thyroid gland in the process and then removed it to cover his tracks? Doctor Burwell shook his head. This was the most bizarre autopsy he had ever performed, without a doubt.
The real kicker came when he removed the heart. As he sliced off the large arteries so he could extract it, a gush of blood spewed out. He jerked his hands back. “Ouch!”
“Cut yourself?” Sarah asked, concerned.
“No, it's... It's hot ,” he replied with disbelief.
The blood had felt so hot it seemed to burn him, even through the latex gloves. And now, as they peered down into the chest cavity, a bit of vapor was rising from the sliced-open arteries and the aorta.
Doctor Burwell turned to Sarah, “I know I'm supposed to be the one with the experience here, but have you seen anything like this before?”
She shook her head an emphatic “no.”
He continued extracting the other organs. And as he did so, it became more and more apparent that, aside from the heat and the missing thyroid, something was very, very wrong.
The note had said “Miscarried.” But Doctor Burwell was puzzled. Normally after a miscarriage, the cervix would have been open to allow the tissues to pass, but the uterus was empty, and the cervix was closed. There was no remnant of amniotic fluid, no sac, certainly no fetus...no nothing. In fact, with the exception of Montgomery's tubercles around her nipples, there was no obvious evidence that this woman had been pregnant at all, and certainly not that she had miscarried.
United Nations Security Council
The Australian representative said, “May you state your