lot harder for us to tell how these poor folk died.’
‘Hey listen, folks,’ Steve said. ‘Jurisdiction’s a big word, right? I always had trouble with big words. That’s why I got a Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. But since I don’t happen to have it on me — it won’t exactly fit in my coat pocket — why don’t we agree to put our interpretation on hold until we have a chance to consult it. I mean, how can we worry about whose jurisdiction it is when we don’t even know what it means?’ Margaret and Fuller looked at him as though he were insane. He grinned. ‘That way we just pool our resources and get on with the job.’ He raised his eyebrows, still smiling. ‘What do you say?’
Margaret realised Steve was offering a compromise — a way out of the impasse that saved face on both sides. Mianzi . How very Chinese of him, she thought. She glanced at Fuller and could see that he was still undecided.
Steve said, ‘Sam, you wheel in your fingerprint go-team. I’ll fly down a couple of investigators and some of my pathologists and put them at Margaret’s disposal — you don’t mind if I call you Margaret, do you?’ Margaret thought, how could she mind? But he didn’t give her the chance to respond. ‘Now, you can’t tell me you haven’t been having problems getting enough knife-jockeys for the job?’
She couldn’t resist his smile. ‘I’ll be happy to accept your offer of help, Major.’
‘Steve.’ He beamed, and turned to Fuller. ‘Sam?’
Fuller nodded reluctantly.
‘Good.’ Steve pulled on his hat, then pulled it off again quickly. ‘Aw, shit, sorry. Not supposed to put it on till I get outside.’ He waggled his eyebrows again. ‘Regulations. Always forget. You got a phone I can use?’
Chapter Two
I
Ellington Field was a vast expanse of grass and tarmac south-east of Houston, on the road to Galveston. It was where Air Force One would land the President when he came to the city, and where the governor would fly in and out on official trips to Washington. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also maintained a substantial presence on the base with a huge white hangar near one of the main runways. It had three enormous air-conditioning units supported on scaffolding along either side, and vast doors that slid shut, making it an ideal staging area for handling mass casualties and multiple autopsies. It was 8 a.m., and a dozen pathologists were about to start post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the ninety-eight Chinese immigrants just over twenty-four hours after Deputy J. J. Jackson had found them on Highway 45.
Six refrigerated semitrailer rentals stood in a row on the tarmac outside the hangar doors. Four of them had sixteen bodies stacked inside on a double tier of makeshift plywood staging. The other two contained seventeen. Two teams of two from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner had worked late into the night removing the bodies from the container that had been brought down from Huntsville. Each body had been assigned a number, marked in black on a six-inch yellow plastic placard placed next to it, then individually and collectively photographed. They had been examined for gross injuries or blood and assessed for rigor mortis. Core body temperatures had been taken by making tiny incisions in the upper right abdomen and inserting a chef’s type thermometer into the livers. Finally, each foot had been tagged with the same number as the yellow placard, then zippered into a white body bag, with the corresponding number tied on to the zipper’s pull tag. Stacked in rows in the refrigerated semitrailers, they now awaited the full process of US autopsy procedure. It was not the America these Chinese migrants had dreamed of.
Margaret walked briskly through the hangar, blinking in the fierce glare of the 500-watt halogen floodlamps that illuminated the nearly twenty stations that had been set up along one side. Plastic sheeting stretched across
‘Hey listen, folks,’ Steve said. ‘Jurisdiction’s a big word, right? I always had trouble with big words. That’s why I got a Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. But since I don’t happen to have it on me — it won’t exactly fit in my coat pocket — why don’t we agree to put our interpretation on hold until we have a chance to consult it. I mean, how can we worry about whose jurisdiction it is when we don’t even know what it means?’ Margaret and Fuller looked at him as though he were insane. He grinned. ‘That way we just pool our resources and get on with the job.’ He raised his eyebrows, still smiling. ‘What do you say?’
Margaret realised Steve was offering a compromise — a way out of the impasse that saved face on both sides. Mianzi . How very Chinese of him, she thought. She glanced at Fuller and could see that he was still undecided.
Steve said, ‘Sam, you wheel in your fingerprint go-team. I’ll fly down a couple of investigators and some of my pathologists and put them at Margaret’s disposal — you don’t mind if I call you Margaret, do you?’ Margaret thought, how could she mind? But he didn’t give her the chance to respond. ‘Now, you can’t tell me you haven’t been having problems getting enough knife-jockeys for the job?’
She couldn’t resist his smile. ‘I’ll be happy to accept your offer of help, Major.’
‘Steve.’ He beamed, and turned to Fuller. ‘Sam?’
Fuller nodded reluctantly.
‘Good.’ Steve pulled on his hat, then pulled it off again quickly. ‘Aw, shit, sorry. Not supposed to put it on till I get outside.’ He waggled his eyebrows again. ‘Regulations. Always forget. You got a phone I can use?’
Chapter Two
I
Ellington Field was a vast expanse of grass and tarmac south-east of Houston, on the road to Galveston. It was where Air Force One would land the President when he came to the city, and where the governor would fly in and out on official trips to Washington. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also maintained a substantial presence on the base with a huge white hangar near one of the main runways. It had three enormous air-conditioning units supported on scaffolding along either side, and vast doors that slid shut, making it an ideal staging area for handling mass casualties and multiple autopsies. It was 8 a.m., and a dozen pathologists were about to start post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the ninety-eight Chinese immigrants just over twenty-four hours after Deputy J. J. Jackson had found them on Highway 45.
Six refrigerated semitrailer rentals stood in a row on the tarmac outside the hangar doors. Four of them had sixteen bodies stacked inside on a double tier of makeshift plywood staging. The other two contained seventeen. Two teams of two from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner had worked late into the night removing the bodies from the container that had been brought down from Huntsville. Each body had been assigned a number, marked in black on a six-inch yellow plastic placard placed next to it, then individually and collectively photographed. They had been examined for gross injuries or blood and assessed for rigor mortis. Core body temperatures had been taken by making tiny incisions in the upper right abdomen and inserting a chef’s type thermometer into the livers. Finally, each foot had been tagged with the same number as the yellow placard, then zippered into a white body bag, with the corresponding number tied on to the zipper’s pull tag. Stacked in rows in the refrigerated semitrailers, they now awaited the full process of US autopsy procedure. It was not the America these Chinese migrants had dreamed of.
Margaret walked briskly through the hangar, blinking in the fierce glare of the 500-watt halogen floodlamps that illuminated the nearly twenty stations that had been set up along one side. Plastic sheeting stretched across
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