Part 17 (1/2)

”Hey, do you guys have a phone here? I need to call my mom to come and get me,” Sam said.

The guard tensed but did not raise the weapon slung over his shoulder. Rain dripped from the brim of his cap. ”You need to get out of here. I don't have a phone you can use.” He looked past Sam's shoulder and stepped back, raising his rifle.

Ping and Mara ran toward them.

”You don't need to worry about my friends. You should let us into the hangar,” Sam prompted.

The guard lowered the gun and turned toward the hangar. ”Right this way.”

Sam and the guard arrived at the door thirty seconds before Ping and Mara. After keying a code into a pad mounted on the wall, the guard pushed open the door for them. All three walked into the dimly lit building. Sam turned back to the guard.

”You want to stay here until the other guard shows up. Ask him for a cigarette, then the two of you take a ten-minute break out here.”

Mara shook the rain off her coat and looked at Ping. ”Why is that guard being so cooperative? Is he someone you know?”

”Later,” Ping said. ”We have less than thirty minutes to get out of here. Come on.” He took Mara by the wrist and walked toward the airplane.

”What about Sam?” she said.

”I'm staying here to keep an eye on the guards. I'll meet you guys at the side door in twenty minutes,” he said. Turning to Ping, he added, ”Remember, prompting doesn't last very long. Don't take all night.”

”Okay, we'll be there,” he said, pulling Mara into the shadows.

She turned her attention in the direction Ping led her and noticed for the first time that the airplane was a wreck. Though she had been aware of the large jet when she had first walked through the door, she had not given it much thought. A plane in a hangar was not exactly unexpected.

”Whoa. What happened to...” Then it dawned on her, and her pace slowed as she looked at the gaping hole in the rear fuselage.

”Our plane,” Ping said. ”We don't have time for a tour. This is not what we came to see. Come on.” He motioned her toward the tail of the plane, veering around it.

Mara allowed Ping to guide her while she stared back at the airliner, not noticing the series of tents beyond as they cleared the wreckage.

”Mara, I need you to step it up a bit.”

She s.h.i.+fted her gaze forward, noticed the tents. Their trajectory pointed them to a plastic door.

”Did you bring some gloves like I suggested?” Ping asked.

”Yes, but, like I said, it's not that cold.” She pulled the gloves from her pocket.

”Put them on.” He took a flashlight from his pocket and opened the door.

Once the door closed behind them, Ping turned on the flashlight. He walked straight for the clipboard hanging on a nail directly inside the door. s.h.i.+ning the light on the clipboard, he said, ”I forgot my gla.s.ses. Come here and look at this list for me.”

He handed it to Mara.

”What am I looking for?”

”My name.”

”Okay, Ping comma Aristotle. Found it. Aristotle? That's your first name? What were your parents thinking?”

”Long story. I will tell you sometime. What's the number beside my name?”

”Thirty-three.”

”Let's go.”

Ping pointed the light to the left and pulled Mara in that direction.

”It's freezing in here,” Mara said, blowing clouds of vapor. ”What is this place, a meat locker?”

As they walked past table after table, Ping occasionally stopped to lift a sheet, revealing each had a numbered label, which he examined with the light. The first table was fifteen. The next, nineteen. On the third one, number twenty-two, he lifted the sheet a little too high and it failed to fall back over the edge of the table. He leaned into the darkness to straighten it out and the flashlight illuminated a human foot.

Mara gasped.

”These are people. Dead people.”

”Stay with me, Mara. This is important.”

Ping covered the foot and kept going, reading numbered labels as he went. After a few minutes, he stopped at a table and pointed the light at the label. Number thirty-three. He looked at Mara in the ambient light.

”I need you to stand over there,” he said, pointing to the head of the table.

”What for?”

”We're going to look at this person's face to see who it is.”

”No, no way.”

”Mara, I need you to do this. We're running out of time.”

”I'm freezing. Let's get out of here. I don't want to do this.”

”We'll go once we do this.”

Mara moved to the head of the table. Ping walked up on the other side.

”Lift the sheet,” Ping said.

”You lift the sheet,” Mara said, defiant.

”I think it might be a problem if I do it.”

She stood staring at him, with a pleading look. He pointed his jaw at the body below them and nodded.

Vapor stopped clouding around her head. She held her breath and leaned forward over the body, tried to pinch the sheet on the corner opposite from where she stood but her glove was too slick. She pulled back her hand, removed the glove, reached out to the corner again, pinched and lifted the sheet with her bare fingers. She drew it back.