Arachnosaur. Richard Jeffries
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operate where they hope no one will find them.”
Like this armpit, Key thought. It made sense. Whatever value Thumrait had in the glory days of the frankincense caravan routes was now totally usurped by the capital city of Muscat, which was practically on the opposite end of the country.
“How do you know about this?” Key asked, wincing when Daniels punched him in the shoulder again.
“I got a friend,” Gonzales said so low that Key nearly didn’t catch it. “He rents the Study Committee some space at his place. He told me they left something freaky-deaky with him.”
Daniels perked up. “Freaky-deaky how?”
“That’s what you’re going to find out,” Gonzales answered.
“That’s where you’re taking us?” Key pressed.
“That’s where I’m taking you.” Daniels’s fist appeared between the two men. Gonzales craned around and tapped it with his own fist.
“No hay bronca. Hoy porti, manana pormi,” the driver said.
This time Daniels did the translating for Key. “No problem, bro. Today for you, tomorrow for me.”
Tumrait had two main thoroughfares—Route 31 and Route 45. Gonzales stayed on 31 until it crossed 45, then took a hard left off road. A residential community sat off to the east, but they were heading southwest into brown, patchy wasteland.
Gonzales kept going until Key started picking out bumps in the landscape that didn’t seem quite natural. As he peered closer he realized they could’ve been Quonset huts painted to look like hills of sand. But soon even those disappeared, until Gonzales seemed to target a rectangular shelter that looked like a cross between a bomb blast bunker and a wild west outpost. It was sitting on the very edge of the habited area, like a lone mole some dermatologist hadn’t removed yet.
By the time Gonzales stopped the Desert Demon, the wind had diminished from a steady roar to the occasional spit. Without comment, Gonzales exited the cab, then waited for his passengers to do the same.
Daniels stood, stretched, and squinted in every direction. “What a dump. Where’s the town they called the second-best city to visit in the world?”
Gonzales laughed. “You’re thinking of Muscat, the capital. And that was back in 2012.”
“In a book probably published by the Oman Tourist Agency,” Daniels added. “And even those lying sacks couldn’t make it number one.”
“Where are we?” Key interrupted, studying the structure. Low, but surprisingly long and deceptively ramshackle. As near as Key could tell, it was airtight, soundproof, and made of steel-beam-wire-rope-reinforced concrete. He looked for an industrial air-conditioning unit, but could only spot some sort of recessed, anthill-shaped, skylight on the sloping roof.
“Thumrait Morgue,” Gonzales answered. “Or, as we call it, Ayman’s Emporium.”
Key looked at Gonzales, who was still wearing his shrouded turban. They all were. “That your friend’s name? The one who rents space to the OSC?”
“Cool,” Daniels said. “Ayman! Hey man! Nice name.”
Now Gonzales ignored him as they started slogging through the sandy dirt toward the tallest section of the structure. “It means ‘Lucky,’” he revealed. “And he has been, till now. Follow my lead. Ayman’s easily spooked.”
Daniels followed, looking around at the desolate area. “Wonder why.” Gonzales gave him a look, and Daniels put up his hands. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll be as gentle as a fly on a feather duster.”
Gonzales and Key shared a look, wondering where Daniels had come up with that, then stopped by the far wall. Key could just make out hair-thin lines in the concrete that created the shape of a door. Gonzales put his hand in a pocket and started pressing buttons on his smartphone without exposing it to the blowing sand.
When nothing happened for a few seconds, Gonzales looked at the others, his eyebrows pinched.
“Siesta time?” Daniels suggested mildly.
Gonzales shrugged, then pressed sharply on the wall where the hair-thin door shape was. There was a click, and a door-shaped section popped open.
“Don’t let too much sand in,” Gonzales suggested, then slid into an opening only big enough for him. The others followed, stepping into a sauna.
Key looked quickly around. The area consisted of two central rooms—a small one behind them, and a large one in front of them—both illuminated only by a shaft of bright, almost blinding, light coming from the lone circular skylight. But the structure was a large rectangular around a smaller rectangular. All the way across the large room was a freezer door, and lining the walls on either side were small, corpse-size, square, freezer doors. Dotting the floor space was three medical examining tables.
“Hey,” said Daniels, looking into the smaller room behind them. “There’s Lucky.”
Key turned to see what was obviously, and a bit laughingly, the break room. There was a refrigerator, cooler, sink, bathroom, television, video game console, book shelf, sofa, table and chairs. A tall, lanky man in a dishdasha—the long-sleeve, floor-length robe that served as the Omani traditional dress—and braided, knotted, shrouded headgear sat, his head resting on his folded arms on the table top. The spotlight from the skylight was near the back of his head covering, causing more shadow than light.
Daniels took a step toward him, but Gonzales put a hand on his arm. “Let our host. The less he knows, the better he likes it.”
“OSC rental space in the freezer?” Key asked, nodding in that direction.
“That’s what he told me,” Gonzales confirmed, already walking in that direction.
“Love me a morgue.” Daniels sighed as they went, scanning the square, latched, doors lining the side walls. “But I’m never completely at ease unless I know all the guys who fill the shelves.”
“You’re never completely happy unless you filled them,” Key muttered as Gonzales reached the door.
“Sure, then I know that they’re dead.”
Gonzales opened it without comment or ceremony, scrutinizing the metal shelves for telltale markings. “There,” he said, pointing, then reaching, for a plastic, lidded, oblong box that couldn’t have been more than three feet long and two feet wide.
“That’s it?” Daniels asked. “That’s what we came forty-five hundred miles for?”
“Just wait,” Key suggested as he followed Gonzales to the nearest medical examining table. They all faced the freezer, not wanting to have whatever was inside the container thaw too quickly in the morgue’s steam bath temperatures. “Any notes on the exterior?”
Gonzales examined the container. “None that I can see. Just a label.” Gonzales studied the small sticker, which was on the narrow front side of the container. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Key snapped, asking almost before Gonzales finished the comment.
“The labels reads Pawan Sha Bhut sahi bola.”
“Shabhut?” Daniels interposed. “Ebola?”
“No,” Gonzales replied. “Sha bhut,” he enunciated carefully. “Sahi bola.” He looked at Key with an expression that mixed confusion and concern. “It translates as ‘wind power is very right.’” He shook his head in wonder. “I think it’s a song lyric.”
“I’m not surprised,” Key said. “If the Study Committee has gotten as careful as you say, it would make sense that they’d use a code. Crude as it is.”
“Oh, just take it and let’s go,” Daniels complained.
“Can’t take it,” Key snapped at